Friday, April 27, 2012

Genes Day Friday - The results are in! Now what?

The results of my grandfather's autosomal DNA test are in! So far, I've had my hands full with life in general, so I haven't had all the time I've wanted to look at what 23andMe.com has to say about my grandfather's DNA, but I have learned quite a bit:

My Y-DNA haplogroup is R1b1b2a1a1d1* - or more easily written as L47 (the genetic marker that differentiates it from the rest of the world). R1b, as I understand it, is the most common haplogroup in Europe, but the descendant branch of R1b I'm related to, with the L47 marker, means I'm from a different branch of that R1b tree that they haven't fully connected yet. Sounds just like the rest of my genealogy research. But my haplogroup is found mostly in western Europe, which is where my Gibsons are from, so that makes perfect sense.

My grandfather's mtDNA haplogroup is U5b2a1. This would be his maternal line, through his mother Augusta Joseph, her mother Pauline Rosen, and so on. This is the line on my grandfather's side I know the least about. But according to the maps on 23andMe.com, this haplogroup is most common in northern Scandinavia! So does that mean Pauline has Scandinavian roots? It'd be fascinating if she did. If you've read The Seven Daughters of Eve, this puts me in the Ursula clan, the oldest of the seven major European clans.

One thing that didn't surprise me, but was still very gratifying to see, was my grandfather's Ancestry Painting - basically a breakdown of his percentages of European, Asian, and African ancestry. Given that he is the son of full-blooded Irish father and German mother, I expected him to be 100% European, which in fact, he is. To me, that says the paper trial I've found on his ancestors is accurate - very good news indeed!
With 23andMe.com's Relative Finder, they can tell you who matches your DNA haplotype, what your percentage of common DNA is (outside of the 99.9% we all share with every other human being), and what your predicted relationship is to that person. One thing that kinda surprised me was the fact that you have to click to accept being able to view close matches. It had a little blurb about some people being interested to see close matches, but some people finding it uncomfortable or upsetting. My first thought was "I'm hoping to find close matches, bring them on!" But then I thought, for someone was may not be expecting close relatives to pop up on here, finding someone very closely related might be more upsetting than not - finding a sibling or aunt you never knew about, for example, could lead to lots of uncomfortable (and perhaps unanswerable) questions. But I clicked "view" and no one closer than the group I was already seeing appeared.

I was very surprised, however, to see that at the top of the list of matches was someone with a predicted relationship of 2nd cousin. If this is correct, that means one of his parents was a first cousin to one my grandfather's parents! I quickly sent an introduction to this mystery man (23andMe.com keeps all details private until you connect with that person and they connect to you). So far, no response. But I'm hoping that he'll log on and see he has a 2nd cousin (twice removed) waiting to talk to him. I mean, why go through the cost and trouble of taking a test, if you're not going to talk to the people you match up with?

I've also signed up with GedMatch.com, which can take your DNA results from companies like 23andMe and compare them, helping you find other matches. So far, I haven't been able to go through the 99 pages of results - they give you charts and graphs and lists like nobody's business, and I'm still trying to make sense of them all.

That's where I'm at with my grandfather's autosomal results. Lots to take in, huh? The autosomal tests for both my grandmothers are in process right now, so I'm about to triple the amount of DNA-related data I have in front of me! Not only that, I've got a Y-STR test (67 markers) and mtDNA test for my grandfather in the works as well. I'm just waiting for the mtDNA tests for my grandmothers to come in the mail. Thank you for the DNA Day sale, FTDNA! I wouldn't have been able to afford all those mtDNA tests, but FTDNA made them completely irresistible at $59. I'll eventually upgrade them to full-sequence mtDNA tests, but for now, a basic test should be enough to whet my appetite.

A lot has happened since last week, and it's only going to get more nuts - more tests, more results, and hopefully, more relatives to compare notes with. But I love it!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Nearly Wordless Wednesday - Thomas W. Harris

Thomas W. Harris - b. 20 Aug 1827 in Woodford County, Kentucky
Married Lisette Rainier, 7 Jan 1958 in Fort Owen, Ravalli County, Montana
Died 19 Mar 1897 in Stevensville, Ravalli County, Montana

Thomas was my 3rd-great-grandfather. I'm posting his picture in honor of finally getting to my Harris family records in my never-ending quest to document the files I've collected over the last 12 years.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Genes Day Friday - Testing, testing...

Not too much to say for this Genes Day yet. I'm still waiting for the results from my paternal grandpa's autosomal DNA test. My maternal grandma also just submitted her autosomal DNA test, so that's underway as well. The Y-DNA test for my grandpa just came in the mail, and my grandparents are coming down this weekend, so hopefully I can get that one sent off soon. I just need to receive my last autosomal test (for my paternal grandma) in the mail so I can get that one completed and sent off as well. That will give me three autosomal tests and one Y-DNA test to look at. Hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew with all these tests!

If I can manage it in the next couple months, I'd also like to have all three grandparents do mtDNA tests. These tests, together with those mentioned above, will give me the Y-DNA data on my Gibson line, mtDNA on my Sitzman/Zitzmann, Joseph/Rosen, and Harris/Craddock/Beilstein/Waechter lines, as well as assorted autosomal DNA for all the above and my Wagner line as well. Eventually I'd like to get a male Wagner relative, a male Joseph relative, and a male Bergstad relative to take a Y-DNA test, so I can get the Y-DNA data on those lines. That would cover the mtDNA and Y-DNA of three of my four grandparents' surnames. I need to find a Bergstad descendant of my grandfather's generation, or a child of one of his sisters for the fourth mtDNA test, and possibly a sibling of my grandfather to take an autosomal DNA test. My grandma still has some Bergstad connections, maybe we'll get lucky and find one of them willing to test?

Finding a Harris relative for the fourth Y-DNA sample will be a little trickier. My grandma from my Harris line had only one brother, and he passed away several years ago, and had only had one daughter, no sons. My great-grandfather, James Harris, had five brothers, and according to my records, three of them had sons. Those sons might be gone by now (my grandma was the daughter of the 6th and last son) but maybe, if I'm lucky, those cousins of my grandma might have had some sons, among whom at least one would be willing to take a Y-DNA test for me. Looks like I might have to work on my cousin contacting skills - or rather, start building some from scratch. Wish me luck!

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Nearly Wordless Wednesday - Joseph family photos identified

dated about 1910
Back row: Amanda Joseph (Gottlieb’s daughter), Rudolph Joseph (Gottlieb’s son), Gottlieb Joseph, Emilie Joseph (Henry’s wife), Justine (Foth) Joseph, Henry Joseph, unknown, Sam Joseph, Seraphine Joseph, Ludwig Joseph Jr.
Front row: Edward Joseph (Henry’s son), Martha Siegel (Minne’s daughter), Ludwig Joseph Sr, Justine (Witt) Joseph, Edith Joseph (Gottlieb’s daughter), Elsie Joseph (Gottlieb’s daughter), Walter Joseph (Gottlieb’s son)
dated about 1922
Back row: Philipp Oswald, Karl Siegel, Emilie Joseph (Henry’s wife), Amanda (Joseph) Siebert (Gottlieb’s daughter), Joseph Sieber (Amanda’s husband), Alma (Kittner) Joseph (Albert’s wife) holding Anna Joseph (Alma’s daughter), Albert Joseph (Gottlieb’s son), Edith Joseph (Gottlieb’s daughter), George Siegel (Minnie’s son), Vera  [Veronia] (Kusek) Joseph (Rudolph’s wife), Edward Joseph (Henry’s son)
Middle row: Olga (Joseph) Oswald (Gottlieb’s daughter) holding Richard Joseph (Olga’s son), Minnie (Joseph) Siegel, Henry Joseph, Ludwig Joseph Sr, Gottlieb Joseph, Justine (Foth) Joseph, Ludwig Joseph Jr, Seraphine (Lorenz) Joseph holding Adeline Joseph (Ludwig and Seraphine’s daughter)
Front Row: Edward Oswald (son of Philipp and Olga), Fred Oswald (son of Philipp and Olga), Ida Oswald (daughter of Philipp and Olga), Leona Siegel (daughter of Karl and Minnie), Ruth Oswald (daughter of Philipp and Olga), Elsie Joseph (daughter of Gottlieb), Freda Joseph (daughter of Albert and Alma), Bill Joseph (son of Albert and Alma), Walter Joseph (son of Gottlieb), Tina Oswald (daughter of Philipp and Olga), Ernie Meyer (unrelated – pastor’s son)

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Surname Saturday - Lorenz

As promised, here's my post on the Lorenz family. It will be interesting to see how long this goes, because I don't know a ton about the Lorenz's, but I have discovered some interesting things lately.

I first came into contact with the Lorenz family last year, when I learned that my great-great-grandfather Samuel Joseph married Juliana (Kublick) Lorenz. I later found out Ludwig Joseph (one of Sam's younger brothers) married Seraphine Lorenz, Juliana's daughter from her first marriage to August Lorenz. Kind of an interesting family circle that must have been, huh? Having your wife be your brother's mother-in-law! Between Juliana and Seraphine, I've found the most information on Seraphine. She and Ludwig had one daughter, Adeline, and moved to St. Joseph, Michigan around 1924. Adeline married Herbert Lietz (son of William and Alvena (Maas) Lietz) in 1940. They had four children - Herbert, George, Dean, and Ralph Lietz. The Josephs and Lietz's all lived in the St. Joseph area until Ludwig and Seraphine died, in 1958 and 1956 respectively.

Aside from Seraphine, I've struggled to find any direct evidence of Lorenz family members. In the 1916 census for Manitoba, Ludwig and Seraphine had a young man named Fred Lawerence living with them. He said he immigrated to Canada in 1907 (two years before Seraphine) and was a German from Russia, just as Seraphine was. I've tried to find him in the 1911 census - no luck. Tried to find him in Manitoba vital records - no luck. Interestingly, there was also an August and Ottilie Lawerence (same spelling as Fred) listed two pages before Ludwig's family, who also immigrated to Canada in 1909, the same year as Seraphine. Coincidence?

Part of the problem is the surname - Lorenz can also be spelled Lawrence, Lawerence, Lorenz, Lornz, Laurence, Lorence...you get the idea. Maybe I've just been lucky so far, but in my research so far, I haven't come across a surname that can be spelled so many ways. It makes it really difficult to just look and find stuff on them (which I've more or less been able to do with my other lines).

So I tried something else - looking for more documents on the Lorenz's I already know. And so far, it's working! For example, I found Seraphine's obituary in the St. Joseph Herald Press just a couple weeks ago, and it names two sisters - Mrs. John Rink of Gladstone, Manitoba, and Mrs. Henry Martin of Govan, Saskatchewan. Sadly, true to the style of the day, it doesn't given the women's first names, but at least I know that two sisters existed, who they married, and where they were living in 1956. That was a huge step forward.

Knowing this, I went back to the Manitoba vital records, and found Henry Martin! He was listed as Heinrich Martin, and he married Auguste Lorenz on 4 June 1910. I sent away for that marriage record a couple weeks ago. It still hasn't come yet, but I fully expect it to say that Auguste's parents were August Lorenz and Juliana Kublick.

But Henry/Heinrich Martin wasn't done paying dividends yet. Some time ago, I'd written to the Lutheran Church of the Cross up in Manitoba, asking them if they had any records on the Lorenz's. They sent me a death register entry for Emilie Kletke (a possible relative of Ottilie (Kletke) Lorenz); a page from the member list (which named an August Lorenz, as well as a Michael Lorenz and a Wm. Lorenz, probably Wilhelm, as he also attended the Christ Lutheran Church); and a baptism record for August and Ottilie's son Gustav. Here's where the payoff was - Heinrich Martin was one of Gustav's godparents! It looks like this August Lorenz may be a relative of Juliana, Auguste, and Seraphine after all.

To sum up - Juliana and August Lorenz (I'm sticking with that spelling for simplicity's sake) had at least three daughters - Seraphine, Auguste, and the one who married John Rink. They may also be the parents of August Lorenz who married Ottilie Kletke, though I'll have to send for that marriage record as well to be sure. I can't help but think that the other Lorenz's who appear in the church records - Fred, Michael, Edward, Adolph, Wilhelm, Mathilde, and Theodor - might be related too. It's taken me a year just to connect Juliana, Seraphine, and Auguste. Hopefully the rest of the clan will start coming together soon.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Treasure Chest Thursday - My first crack at photograph analysis

Good news - I'm almost finished going through my Joseph records! I have some more church records to go through (and found some interesting stuff that I'll post about soon). But while taking a breather after sorting through a bunch of stuff, I started looking at this picture to the left. I found it while going through my grandpa's papers last year, and he said he didn't recognize it, though I didn't have a lot of time to analyze it with him then, and haven't gone back to it since.

But as I looked at the people in it, I recognized the lady in the bottom right. She also appears in a photo of my great-great-grandfather Samuel Joseph and his kids (the photo on the right).  I pasted both faces in Paint.net (a fantastic and free photo manipulation program) and compared them - to me, they were a perfect match. When I first saw her in the group shot of Sam and his kids, I guessed that she was Lydia (Joseph) Reitnauer, the one child of Sam's my grandpa never knew personally. Now, seeing her in another photo in my grandpa's possession, I am fairly convinced of it.

Then I started looking at the woman seated next to Lydia in the mystery photo. The more I looked, the more I thought I recognized the face of my great-grandmother Augusta (Joseph) Gibson. I compared her with the photos I already had of her - the big family photo taken at Tina Leistiko's wedding to John Levick (the big photo at the top of my blog), and the group shot of Sam and the kids. When I put the photos side by side, it seemed clear to me that this was indeed my great-grandmother.  

Which leads me to the men in the picture. Offhand, neither I nor my grandparents recognized either of them. But given the fact that the women were my great-grandmother and her sister, it stood to reason that these might be their husbands, especially since one of them had his hand on the shoulder of my great-grandmother. I dug into my digital photo albums and pulled out some of the photos of my great-grandfather, Frederick John Gibson, and compared them to the mystery man on the right.
I noticed some similarities between these photos and the mystery man, especially around the mouth and nose. While doing the comparisons, one picture really stood out - the top left photo of my little collage there. 

I looked at the shape of his chin, and especially the right ear. The hairline seemed pretty consistent too. The eyes were a bit different, but given that there's a difference of about 40 years between the two pictures, there's bound to be some changes in a man's appearance. It's not a 100% clear-cut resemblance, but there are enough similarities that I feel pretty confident that this is my great-grandfather as a young(er) man (he was 39 when he married Augusta).

The only problem I know of in identifying this as my great-grandfather is timing of the photo. My great-grandparents married in 1923, and my great-grandmother died in 1931, so the photo would have to date sometime between then. But Lydia and Jacob Reitnauer moved from Montana to South Dakota in 1913. Not that either couple couldn't have come over to visit the other and posed for a picture while there. They appear to be in a studio of some kind - nice rug on the ground, completely dark background. But there's no studio name printed on the photo, and no identifying info was written on the back. Plus Augusta's first husband, Charles Steffan (or Steffan), and Jacob Reitnauer were probably friends, as Jacob was Charles' best man at his wedding to Augusta. So I admit it could be Charles in the photo. However, aside from the resemblances to my great-grandfather and possible timing issues, this does look like a wedding photo. That's an event out of town family would come to visit for, and pose for pictures for. Also, Jacob and Lydia didn't marry until August 1911, over a year after Augusta and Charles. It wouldn't really make sense for them to be together with Charles and Augusta in a photo like this, unless maybe they were engaged already (did people stay engaged for over a year in 1910 before marrying?). Beyond all that though, something instinctive just tells me it's my great-grandfather, not Charles. So I'm gonna go with that.

As for the other gentleman, I'm going to say that he's Jacob Reitnauer. Since Augusta and Lydia are both in there, and Augusta's husband is behind Lydia, it makes sense that Lydia's husband would be behind Augusta. If this is the case, this is the first time I've seen a picture of him.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Wedding Wednesday - Consider your source!

I attended a great lecture last week on Pennsylvania research at the Heritage Quest Research Library. I have three families (incidentally, all German) that lived in Pennsylvania between 1850-1950 - the Zitzmann/Sitzman family from Bohemia; the Waechter/Wachter family from Alsace-Lorraine; and the Beilstein family from Hessen-Darmstadt. One of the resources the speaker mentioned was US GenWeb, a resource I admit to using far less often than I should (though it's been a long time since I've been in a real research mode). I thought I'd try putting it to the test, and went looking for anything I could find on these three families.

Marriage index for Allegheny County

I didn't find anything for the Zitzmanns or the Beilsteins, but I did find one thing for the Waechters - an announcement for a marriage license for my third-great-granduncle, George Waechter and his wife, Mary Owens. According to the Allegheny County marriage index, George and Mary's wedding license was announced on 30 June 1889 in the Pittsburgh Dispatch. The old me would have taken that info, entered and sourced it into my database, and moved on. But I decided to go one step further, and see if I couldn't find the original newspaper article.

I first went to Newspaper Archive (which I have free access to, thanks to my King County Library System membership) to see if they had the Pittsburgh Dispatch. Sadly, they did not. So I trucked on over to the Chronicling America website and looked there. Bingo! I sifted through the pages until, on page 5, I found the article. The title of the article stood out right away - Marriage Licenses Granted Yesterday. The actual date of the license was 29 June 1889, a difference of a whole day. You may be thinking, ok, so one day off, not a big deal, right? Well, imagine if the article had been reporting marriage licenses from the last week or two, or in another area. These are details I would never have found had I not gone beyond the index.

I'm not saying indexes are bad - far from it, I would never have found this article if not for the index. What I am saying is something I've been hearing for years, and now know from firsthand experience - don't stop with the index! Use it as a springboard to the original document. You never know what you'll find, or what you might miss otherwise.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Church Record Sunday - The Joseph Family at Church

Register for 10 Apr 1906
I've spent some time over the last couple days going through the communion registers of Christ Lutheran Church of Winnipeg, Manitoba, as copied for me by an exceedingly friendly and helpful employee of the church. All told, I have 29 registers spanning the years 1905-1916. Many of the registers were taken on special church holy days - Good Friday, Christmas, Easter, Harvest Festival, and Pentecost. It's been very interesting to me to learn what holy days my German Lutheran ancestors celebrated, and what the days were called in German.

Maybe it's because of the jobs I've held over the last several years, but my first thought in figuring out a way to analyze these records was to compile a spreadsheet. I ended up doing two - one that listed the records by date, and the names of all pertinent Joseph family relatives and connections listed for each date; and the other that listed all people I was tracking in the records, and the dates they attended. The information is the same, just organized two different ways. That way I can see what days were best attended by my family, and which family members attended church most often. (By the way, the award for best church attendance goes to my 3rd-great-grandfather, Ludwig Joseph, for appearing 19 of the 29 registers!)

I learned quite a few interesting things by doing this. My great-great-grandfather, Samuel Joseph, is recorded as having attended church six times between June 1906 and April 1914. The register for 3 June 1906, the first one he appears in, also records the only appearance of his first wife and my great-great-grandmother, Pauline Joseph, who died in 1909. However, half of Sam's attendance dates are after 1910, when I originally thought he'd moved to Montana. He is recorded attending once each year in 1912, 1913, and 1914. That reinforces the theory I had about him moving back to Canada after entering the States in 1910 with four of his five kids (Olga and Gustav Hoeft stayed in Canada for a while). Sam's last attendance date was Charfreitag (Good Friday - today, incidentally!) 1914, with his wife Juliana.

Augusta and Lydia both attended church in Canada before moving to the US, three and four times respectively, between 1906 and 1909. Neither of them appears on the registers again after 1909, though Augusta was named godmother to her cousin, Wilhelmina Siegel, in Wilhelmina's baptism record from 1912. Augusta Joseph (my great-grandmother) and Lydia Joseph (her sister) married their respective spouses in 1910 and 1911 (both Germans, both Lutheran). Two of Augusta's siblings, Elmer and Helena Patricia (aka Pat) never appeared in the registers. As I understand it (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the registers only record members who were confirmed. Hence Lydia's first appearance in the registers is 24 March 1907, the day she was confirmed (though Augusta's first appearance in the registers is 3 June 1906, a week before she was confirmed, so I may be wrong on this assumption). Either way, Elmer and Helena are never seen in the registers. Helena may have been too young - she was only 2 or 3 when the family arrived in Canada, and around 7 when they moved to Montana. But Elmer was a teenager during the time Sam's family lived in Manitoba, and he should have appeared in the records if he went. Interestingly, Helena and Elmer both married Catholics later on (though Augusta's second husband, my great-grandfather Frederick John Gibson, was of no particular faith, though he joined many of the churches in Butte, Montana at one time or another, including the church I now belong to).

One other thing I discovered in these registers is there was a whole host of Lorenz's in the area! There was Seraphine Lorenz, who married my Sam's younger brother Ludwig; Juliana Lorenz (listed in October 1913 as Mutter Lorenz next to Ludwig Jr and his wife, and as Sam's "Frau" in 1914). However, the same date in October 1913 that Juliana attended with her daughter and son-in-law, there was an August Lorenz listed as well. That's also the name of Juliana's first husband. Coincidence? Not only that - there was an August Lorenz in the area who married an Ottilie Kletke in 1907, the same Ottilie Lorenz who attended this church on Good Friday 1914, when Juliana was there. I'm thinking there has to be a connection there. In addition to August and Ottilie, other Lorenz's listed were Wilhelm, Mathilde, Theodor, Adolf, and Edward. Curiously, none of those Lorenz's are listed after 1908.

The last thing that stood out to me in these records - no Ackermanns. None. Sam is absent from the registers in 1909-1911, when he would have been married to Elizabeth (assuming they stayed married, that is). Once again, the sudden appearance of Elizabeth Ackermann at her wedding to my great-great-grandfather, and her apparent disappearance after the marriage completely puzzle me. How do you just blip in and out of existence like that, leaving no other trace you were ever there?

All in all, I am very grateful to Christ Lutheran Church for providing me with these records, and for all the fascinating things they have taught me about my family. It's also very cool to see that religion played such an important role in many of their lives, much as it does in my own.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Genes Day Friday

I'm hoping to start a new meme here - Genes Day Friday! (It's inspired by my company's policy of Jeans Day Friday.) My Genes Day Friday posts will be about my adventures into the world of genetic genealogy. I'm literally starting from scratch in this field - I know next to nothing about DNA, genetics, tests and tests results, so hopefully my posts will get more informative and useful as I go.

I started getting into genetic genealogy a couple weeks ago. I just felt this strong desire to start looking into my family's genetic history, both to complement and corroborate its paper history, and to learn what the paper trail can't tell me. I started out by talking to CeCe Moore, a well-known genetic genealogist. She recommended I join the DNA-Newbie mailing list as a way to get exposure to what beginning (and not-so-beginning) genetic genealogists are talking about. It's been a real education for me so far! They cover a lot of topics, from testing company experiences, to sharing and interpreting test results, to asking and answering basic genetic genealogy questions. They've all been super helpful to me, answering my questions quickly and really helping me learn this stuff.

I've also started reading some books on the subject. I've read Brian Sykes' The Seven Daughters of Eve, and I'm making my way through Trace Your Roots With DNA by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak and Ann Turner (who might possibly be one of the regular posters on the Newbie mailing list). I've also picked up DNA and Genealogy by Colleen Fitzpatrick, DNA and Social Networking: A Guide to Genealogy in the Twenty-First Century by Debbie Kennett, and Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project by Spencer Wells. Needless to say, I'm going to busy reading for the next few weeks!

But the part I'm most excited about is doing the actual tests. I purchased my first two Relative Finder kits from 23andme.com this week! I'm hoping they get here before Sunday, when my grandparents will be in town. CeCe says the test results are coming back as quickly as two weeks, so I'm really eager to get these tests submitted and start seeing what they can tell me. I'll have more tests to submit in the future, as time and circumstances allow, and I kind of want to pace myself so I don't get overloaded in trying to absorb too much too fast. But I also know that time works against genealogists in a lot of ways, and I don't want to delay this any longer than absolutely necessary.

So, that's where I'm at for now. Hopefully in a couple weeks, I can start posting about haplotypes and SNPs and whatever else there is to know!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Wordless Wednesday - Four Generations of Gibson Boys


Fred Gibson



David Gibson



















Brandt Gibson
Asher Gibson

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Sunday's Obituary - Sarah (O'Donnell) McKeown

In going through my Joseph files this week (yes, I'm still going through them!), I came across the census records for Olga (Joseph) Haft's second husband, Mike McKeown. He was an Irish immigrant, who first married Sarah O'Donnell, an American-born daughter of Irish immigrants Dennis and Bridget (Cammel) O'Donnell. Mike and Sarah married on 1 Jan 1908 in Butte, Montana, and had three children - Clayton, June, and Helen.When I saw that Sarah died in 1930, I realized that she would have been fairly young, only 44, and wondered if there was an obituary for her. I went to Newspaper Archive and did a quick search. Within a couple minutes, I had it!

Mt. Carmel cemetery, Anaconda, MT
Photo taken by me
There was also a funeral notice a couple days later. According to that notice, Sarah was also involved in something called the Maccabees, Silver Bow Hive no. 569. I'm guessing it was yet another social club (there seems to have been about a billion of those back in the day), and all the members were told to be at St. Patrick's church in Butte to attend Sarah's funeral. What a nice tribute to her.

Sarah's death was another one of those "hinge moments" as I call them, where your family's history turns on a single event. Without Sarah's passing, Mike would never have married Olga, and I would have never heard of him, or Sarah.