Surname Sunday - it's raining Gibsons!

The last few weeks have seen some really exciting developments in my Gibson family research. Given that it's my surname line, I feel like I should know the most about them of all my ancestral lines, but actually it's the opposite - I feel like I know them the least. But now, with all the info I've found, I've come to know many more of them much better. Here's what happened.

A couple weeks ago, I was contacted by a close match of my grandpa Fred Gibson. This match was estimated to be a 2nd-3rd cousin, so the match would go back to Fred's great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents. What's more, the match shared DNA with all of his paternal cousins I've identified so far. This was huge in and of itself, as I've identified matches going back to his Gibson grandparents, and my brick wall stops at his great-grandparents, so the opportunity to help extend those lines was thrilling!

I started corresponding with this match (actually, with his daughter, as she's the one doing the research) began comparing notes. As expected, the match had ancestry from Saint John, New Brunswick, which is where my Gibsons lived for 50 years before moving to Montana. But as we began talking, we realized that I didn't have his family surnames in my tree, nor did he have my names in his. We confirmed that the match is on his paternal side, as his mom's side is all from Nova Scotia and he has a paternal 1C1R (first cousin once removed) that also matches my grandpa and his three paternal cousins (no triangulated segments, but to match four descendants of the same ancestral couple for the right amounts and not be related on that side would be pretty hard to do).

Then we discovered something - one of the matches ancestors, Jessie Odell, was born out of wedlock, and there was no indication on who the father was. Her mother, Rebecca Odell, married Thomas Grant after Jessie was born, and they had a number of kids, who all used the Grant surname, but Jessie never did. All of the match's other lines can be traced back to at least 1850, close to when my Gibsons first arrived in Canada. What if Jessie's father was one of my Gibsons?

I went back over what I knew of John Gibson, Fred's grandfather, and his siblings. It wasn't much - I had more info on John than anyone - most of my data on his siblings came from a couple census records, and that's it. John was one of five sons of Henry and Ann Gibson. The youngest, George, was born about 1862, and would have been about 15 when Jessie Odell was born, making him unlikely to be the father. That left the other four boys - William, Thomas, John, and James.

John was single until 1879, when he married my ancestor Catherine Cain. John's brother James was single until at least 1881, when he was enumerated in the census a few doors away from John. Both of them were in Saint John, which is where Jessie lived in 1881. I haven't really gotten to researching William yet, so I don't know what happened to William after 1851. Thomas I have in the 1871 census with his parents and siblings, but I don't know what happened to him after that. Theoretically, either of them could have been the father of Jessie as well. This is all speculation at this point, but it's all that I have to explain the DNA connection.

At this point, I decided I needed more info on John Gibson's siblings, so I went digging. I decided to focus on the younger children of Henry and Ann, as they would likely live longest and make the most and best records. Over the next few days, I found records for three of John's siblings, Sarah, James, and George. Using the information in these records, I was able to identify descendants for the three of them. I was even able to trace some of Sarah's descendants down to the 1980s. Here's a simplified descendancy chart showing who I found. My grandfather is in bold print on the right side of the chart.

 

You may have noticed Ann's name at the top of the list. That was my favorite gold nugget in these discoveries - the maiden name of my 3rd-great-grandmother!!! I can now say I'm the descendant of Henry Gibson and Ann Stephenson. Feels so GOOD to know that, after all these years of wondering.

 

These are just the names of some of the people I found. However, there are some incredible stories for these people. Some of them are tragic, but all of them are worth sharing. My next few posts will be covering these stories. 

Genes Day Friday - Testing out Ancestry DNA's results

After several years, I've finally gotten around to starting to work with my wife Lisa's DNA results. She's the only one I've tested through AncestryDNA, so I'm not as familiar with their system as I am with 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA. I logged into her account, and saw that she has three matches listed as "2nd cousin". One has no tree, one is "tree unavailable", and one has a tree of nine people. Nine people isn't a very deep tree, but it's better than zero or unavailable, so I went with that one.

The match's tree only lists her parents (mom is presumably still alive, as the name is "private") and grandparents. My first thought was "I hope she really is a 2nd cousin, or this isn't going to go very well." As I looked over the names, the name of her maternal grandmother stuck out - Anna Rebecca Hudson. Hudson is a surname I know is in Lisa's tree. I checked, and her maternal great-grandmother was Bertha Hudson, wife of Raymond Red Corn. This was looking promising!

I went through Bertha's siblings, and there was indeed an Anna Hudson in my tree, the youngest of Bertha's 10(!) siblings. The information I had on Anna showed her marrying a guy named Edward Rogers, with whom she had two sons. Lisa's match had Anna marrying Lewis Edward Rogers, and their daughter being the mother of Lisa's match. Since I didn't show them as having a daughter, I went digging, and soon found the 1940 census for Anna's family. It showed Anna living with her husband, Lewis E. Rogers, and their three children, two boys and a girl! Further digging pulled up church records of this daughter and her husband, the father of Lisa's match. Other records even showed their daughter, Lisa's actual match! Not very often you search a genealogy website and find not-too-distant records of living people, but it does happen sometimes.

Using this information, I was able to determine that Lisa's "2nd cousin" match is actually a 2nd cousin once removed. 2nd cousins share an average of 3.125% of their DNA. 2nd cousins once removed share half that, so about 1.56%. 3rd cousins are half that again, or around 0.78%. I'd have to look up the percentage range charts, but it's interesting that the match would show up on the 2nd cousin rather than the 3rd cousin level, since it seems closer to 3rd than 2nd, in terms of percentages.

I know, both from experience and from reading the experiences of others, that most DNA matches are not resolved so easily. But I was very happy that is one seems to be just what Ancestry reported it to be. There are a lot more features on AncestryDNA that I need to explore further, especially the DNA Circles feature that so many others have written about. One of the circles given for Lisa and this match is called "Thomas Berry Hudson DNA Circle", which sounds very intriguing as Thomas Berry Hudson was the father of Bertha and Anna Hudson. I really wish AncestryDNA would give us a chromosome browser so we could see the actual matching segments that came from Thomas and/or his wife Anna Johnson, but since they won't for whatever reason, I have to hope this match has uploaded her data to gedmatch.com. I'll have to come back and look at these circles, and see who else matches Lisa and her match, and is also descended from Thomas and Anna. Very exciting stuff!!

Military Monday - A different kind of summer soldier

While trying to find details of and explanation for the connection between my ancestor Amanda (Belknap) Garlinghouse and George Prescott, whose home she passed away in, I came across some very interesting information on two individuals - her sons Lacey (yes, his name was Lacey) and Mitchell Garlinghouse. I've had their names in my database for years, but haven't tried to dig up any dirt on them. That's one of the downsides of genealogy research - you only have so much time, and there are way more people in your tree than you could ever have time to research thoroughly. But now that I had a reason to research them, I'm glad I did.

Let's start with Lacey. As I mentioned previously, he married Elizabeth McCormick in 1856 in Wapello county, Iowa. They had at least four kids together - Henry, Edward, Viola, Josiah, and (possibly) Ida (see below). Henry was born in 1862, the same year Lacey enlisted in Company B of the 36 Regiment of Iowa Volunteer Infantry to fight in the Civil War. From what I can tell, he spent the next three years in the military, transferring to the Veterans Reserve Corps in 1864, and serving there until he was mustered out in September, 1865 (a full five months after the Civil War officially ended). His next child was born in 1866, so I'm guessing after his discharge, Lacey and Elizabeth resumed their relationship right where it left off in 1862. Having already found a few other relatives who participated in the Civil War, this was really interesting because he didn't stay with the same unit the entire time like Alexander Shute did. Nor did he die early on in his service like Norton Johnson and George Craddock did. There really wasn't one universal set of experiences in this war (and I'd imagine that's the case for any war), but that idea never really hit home till I was reading about Lacey's service.

After reading about Lacey Garlinghouse's military experience, I started researching his younger brother, Mitchell Garlinghouse. Like Lacey, Mitchell also enlisted to serve in the Union army during the Civil War, but his enlistment occurred in February, 1864. I'm curious as to why he waited so long to enlist, but that's probably unknowable now. Regardless of the reason for his timing, he entered the service of his country on 25 February 1864, and was mustered into Company I of the 8th Regiment of Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. Unlike his brother, however, his service ended five months and one day later at Fort Ripley, Minnesota. His enlistment record gives this little tidbit about the reason:

It looked to me like it said 'Dischd for disob. (while ab form Co.)'. I took that to mean he was discharged for disobedience while absent from company. Discharged for disobedience? What kind of disobedience gets you discharged? I've heard of being court-martialed or even executed for rulebreaking, depending on the severity of the infraction, but discharged? That was new. I kept digging around, searching on Fold3 and Google, until I found something in a book titled "Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars":

Now his discharge made much more sense; he wasn't released from service because of disobedience, it was because of disability. He got sick and stayed sick long enough to be let go. Sickness was rampant during the Civil War. Norton Johnson (also from Minnesota) and George Craddock (who served in Missouri) were both killed by sickness rather than bullets or cannonballs. At least Mitchell survived the war and was able to return home. Thus his stint at soldiery was limited to the spring and early summer of 1864.

Sadly, for Mitchell and Lacey, both of their stories ended just a few short years after their military service ended. Lacey's widow Elizabeth applied for a Civil War pension in 1901, and stated that Lacey had passed away 16 Feb 1871. I'm hoping that she misremembered the year, because the 1875 Minnesota census shows Elizabeth living with three children, Viola (6), Josiah (4) and Ida (1). If Lacey died in 1871, then there's no way he could have fathered Ida in 1874, and there's another mystery to solve.  Mitchell fared little better, having passed away before August 24, 1874, when his mother Amanda applied for a Civil War pension in his name. It's sad to think that whatever illness or other disability ended his military service in 1864 may have caused or contributed to his death within the next 10 years.

One thing is certain though - the military events that occurred during Amanda (Belknap) Garlinghouse's life had quite an impact on her family. Two of her three sons served in the Civil War. At least one son-in-law, Paul Groff, served in the Mexican-American War, having enlisted twice during that conflict. I wonder what she thought of the men of her children's generation having to go off to war again and again. It likely wasn't too different from what mothers, wives, and children feel today as we see our loved ones called to risk life and limb in the service of their country. It makes me proud and grateful to live in a country where men and women from all these generations have stood up time and time again to protect our country and our way of life, whether they served for one summer or many summers.

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.