Genes Day Friday - The biological father of grandma Edna is...

Several years ago, I was discussing my latest genealogy finds on the Craddock side with my wife and parents, going over the many marriages of my 2nd-great-grandmother Lena Beilstein. I told them about how Lena left her second husband Clarence Johnson for her third husband Ernest Craddock right around the time she became pregnant with my great-grandmother, Edna Craddock. My mom asked "Well, how do we know if Edna's father was Ernie or Clarence?" My jaw hit the floor - I'd somehow never considered that Edna's biological father may have been Clarence. I determined then I needed to have a known Craddock cousin take a DNA test, so we could see whether Edna's father was Ernie or Clarence.

The obvious choice for the test was a cousin of my grandmother's, who shared the same grandparents, Ernie Craddock and Lena Beilstein. I am very fortunate to have many of her cousins on that side still living, but unfortunately, my DNA funds had dried up and other projects (like going back to school and finding a new job) took precedence in the budget. Then earlier this year, I got little something extra at work, and I knew exactly what to do with it - buy a DNA test! I contacted one of grandma's cousins, and she readily agreed. Happy dance!!

I'd tested all my grandma's relatives at 23andMe up until just before the big brouhaha with the FDA shut them down temporarily.When they came back with the medical testing, they also upped the price tag by $50. Being the frugal genealogist that I am, I purchased my cousin's test at FTDNA and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Then, just as the expected ready date was approaching, FTDNA notified me that the test results would be delayed, and there was no guarantee that the results would be ready by the projected completion date.

I tried to tell myself that I'd waited years for these results, so a few more weeks wouldn't kill me. But I still checked the website every day at least once or twice, hoping that I'd be able to see the results before the end of April. Turns out, I didn't have to wait for April to even start. They came in last night sometime around 11:30!

So now, without further ado - the results! My grandmother and her cousin share about 9.5% of their DNA. 23andMe says the range for first cousins that share both grandparents on one side is 7.31% - 13.8%. If Edna had not been the daughter of Ernest Craddock, the shared DNA would have been the same as for second cousins, between 2.85% - 5.04%. Therefore, it seems that Edna was, without a doubt, the daughter of Ernest Craddock. Problem solved at very long last!

I'm not done waiting for DNA results, however. The last DNA sample I set out to collect when I started all this madness back in 2012 is still in process - the Y-DNA test for my Wagner line. I had originally intended to test my grandma Blossom's brother Howie, but he was pretty ill at the time and I was advised to not broach the subject with him. Sadly, he passed away before I ever got the chance to really talk to him about it. Fortunately, one of his sons was willing to swab for me, and his DNA test went to the lab right around the same time as the test for my grandma's cousin. My Wagner Y-DNA results should be done around the middle/end of April, so that gives me just enough time to play around with these autosomal results I just got and get familiar with them. Once I have the Y-DNA results I need, my plan is to organize all my DNA tests and really begin working the research and collecting results, analyzing them and plumbing them for info and clues. Sound like fun? You better believe it!!

Treasure Chest Thursday - DNA update and an apology

This has been a remarkable week in terms of family history discoveries. My uncle Bill's DNA results are almost complete (I can compare him to matches I've already connected with, and see his ancestry composition, but not his full list of matches yet). While I haven't delved too deeply into his data yet, I did see that his mtDNA haplogroup is listed as H3 (which is good, because that's what his mother's is), and his Y-DNA haplogroup is I1. This is great, because according to 23andMe, this haplogroup "reaches its highest levels in Denmark and the southern parts of Sweden and Norway." My Bergstad ancestors hailed from southern Norway, so this exactly matches what I've found in my genealogy research. Awesome!

23andMe's map of I1 frequency

 



In addition to my uncle's results coming in, my mother-in-law Peggy McFarland has agreed to take the test my wife so kindly bought for me recently. As she is 1/4 Osage, that will give me a lot of Native American DNA to work with. My wife's earliest known Native American ancestor is Wy-e-gla-in-kah, or Redcorn. That will pretty well cover my wife's side in terms of DNA testing, at least in terms of getting people tested. I'll eventually need to order Y-DNA results for her father and mtDNA results on both her parents, but that will have to wait until I can afford them. At least the atDNA tests are more affordable, so I can get their DNA samples to FTDNA for storage and later testing.

Once her test is in, that just leaves two more people I want to test - a male Wagner descendant (to get the Wagner Y-DNA, and a little atDNA too) and a maternal cousin of my maternal grandmother (to try and filter cousins on my grandmother's maternal side into maternal and paternal matches). After that, I'll just have some mtDNA tests to upgrade (both my dad and paternal grandfather's) and I should have a very robust DNA database to play with for years!

Next up, an apology. A few days ago, I wrote a post about the servicemen in my family, and how lucky I was to not have lost any direct ancestors in war. I neglected to mention a few men in my family who did make the ultimate sacrifice in wartime. First, Tom Nelson, the first husband of my paternal grandmother Blossom and the father of my aunt Eileen, who joined the Army Air Force during World War II. He was the bombardier of a flight crew that flew bombing missions over Germany. He survived being shot down in July 1943, when his plane went down in the North Sea (they did lose one crew member in that crash, but everyone else survived with minor injuries). He was not so fortunate three months later when his plane went down in a combat mission on October 8, 1943. He and the other nine crew members all perished. His only child, my aunt Eileen, was born five months later. He really gave up everything in defense of his country, including the chance to meet and raise his daughter.


Tom Nelson (right) and Air Force buddy



Another relative who gave his life in a time of war was Stephen Norton Johnson, the first husband of my 3rd-great-grandmother Mariah Janette Beardsley, who I've written about before. He enlisted just six months after the outbreak of the Civil War and was assigned to the company band. He got sick while practicing and marching in inclement weather, and died just two months after joining up. Like Tom Nelson, Norton (as he went by) left behind a pregnant wife when he went to war, but unlike Tom, he also left four older children, ages 12, 10, 9, and 3. His last child, a son named Norton after him, was born five months after he died. Five years later Mariah married my ancestor, Zachariah Scribner, with whom she had four more children, including Charlotte Scribner, my 2nd-great-grandmother.

I didn't meant to downplay or ignore the sacrifices these men made in the defense of this country, its freedoms, and its people. I was so focused on my direct line and living relatives that they simply slipped my mind. I am grateful for the sacrifice of those who gave their lives, as well as those who were willing to do the same, so that I can live the nice, cushy, easy life that I do today.

My grandparents' DNA trails, Part II - Bergstad Y-DNA

Next up on my DNA trails is the Y-DNA of my maternal grandfather, Roland John "Tom" Bergstad. He was the one grandparent I never got to meet, having died two years before I was born. He was the sixth of nine children of Jack Bergstad and Katherine Jane (Hammer) Bergstad (though Jack's first two children were from his first marriage to Mamie Wells). I haven't had much contact with the Bergstads, and online sources for North Dakota (where my Bergstads lived for a long time) are far and few between, so I don't know all the descendants of my grandfather's siblings. Thus I can't say for sure how many Bergstad men are out there from those lines. But I do know my grandfather's descendants pretty well.

Tom and Sally Bergstad had three children, two girls and a boy. They later divorced and remarried, but never had kids with any of their subsequent spouses, so that limits the Y-DNA carriers in my grandpa's line to his only son, my uncle.

My uncle has lived a very eventful life (at least what I know of it seems eventful). He is married with four kids, three sons and a daughter. None of  his sons have married and had kids yet, so at this point, that's where things stand. With three sons, I'd say there stands a pretty good chance of the Bergstad Y-DNA carrying forward to future generations.

Just out of curiosity, I looked my grandfather's siblings, to see what I do know of their male descendants. Again, my knowledge is spotty at best on some of these lines, so if anyone out there reading this knows these folks, by all means speak up! Here are the results, as I have them:

Clayton Bergstad - one son, who had one or two sons
Virgil Bergstad - two sons, one of which had a son
James Bergstad - no known descendants

So even if my uncle's boys for some reason didn't have any sons, there would be some second and third cousins out there who could carry the name forward. The Bergstads have been in this country since 1847, and it looks like they'll be here a while longer yet.

My grandparents' DNA trails, Part I - Gibson Y-DNA

This is something I've been wanting to explore for a while, and now that I'm finally less busy, I can do it! I wanted to track the Y-DNA of my grandfathers, and the mt-DNA of my grandmothers, and see what the odds are that they will continue to be passed to future generations, or whether that torch will fall to more distant relatives. Of course, as this discussion necessarily involves living people, I won't be using names or ages outside of my grandparents, just genders.

First up - my Gibson line's Y-DNA. This is the only one of the four in my little study that I can actually play a role in passing on, which is why I'm starting here. My grandpa, Fred Gibson, was the only child of his parents, Frederick John Gibson and Augusta L. (Joseph) (Staffen) Gibson. Both of his parents had other spouses, but neither had any children with those spouses. Fred married Rosemary Blossom (Wagner) Nelson (aka Blossom) in 1947, and had four children, two sons and two daughters (in addition to Blossom's daughter from a previous marriage). One of those sons was my dad, the other was my uncle. So he had two candidates to pass on the Y-DNA he received from his father.

My uncle had four children, all girls, two of whom died in infancy. Because girls don't carry the Y  chromosome, my uncle won't have anyone to pass on his Y chromosome. But he does have two awesome grandkids, so that branch of the Gibson line doesn't end with my cousins, fortunately.

My dad had two sons, my younger brother and me. My brother and his wife have one child, a son. My wife and I have three kids, two boys and a girl. Between my brother and me, we have three Gibson males, the most seen in one generation since my great-grandfather and his brothers. With three males (so far) to carry on the Gibson name, I think the odds are good that we'll get at least a few boys in the next generation. That's the hope, anyways.

When my wife and I were first married, my grandpa kept telling us in his funny, teasing way that we needed to have boys to keep the Gibson name going. When our second son was born, my wife told him "There, I've had two boys. I've done my job!" I'm proud of the Gibson name I bear, and I do hope that there will be more Gibson boys (and girls!) to keep the family name alive for generations to come.