Good things do occasionally come to those who wait

The last couple weeks have been such a roller coaster ride. I took a short trip to Utah for the annual company retreat, which was amazing; turned in some projects for work where we were able to find quite a bit of info for a few clients; spent some time as a family doing service for others; and biggest of all, today was the third birthday of my son Levi, who left us two months after he was born. I can't begin to describe the range of emotion that goes along with all of those activities, but it honestly was a little exhausting. So to have some time to just sit back and explore my own family history for a bit is, for me, the ultimate in relaxation.

And I've got some great discoveries to share! At the retreat last week, we had some free time on Friday morning, and management asked us what we'd like to do. Some folks said they wanted to collaborate on a work project, as those are fun to do - you really get to see your coworkers in action, watch brainstorms happen on the spot. Someone said they wanted to do their own family history, which I totally agreed with - seems I have so little time for it anymore, between trying to fit in two jobs, two church callings, family responsibilities, and everything else. But then I thought - what if we did both? What if we collaborated on each other's family history brick walls? The idea of having these awesome minds I work with helping me tackle my family history problems was exciting, so I suggested it, and the response was really positive, so we did just that. Three other coworkers and me brought genealogy problems to be solved, and the company split into four teams. The problem my team and I tackled was the origins of my fourth-great-grandparents, George Donald McDonald and Jane Dobson. Both were born in England, though they apparently immigrated separately (Jane around 1830 as a five-year-old, George I don't know when) and raised their family in Ontario. I had no siblings, no parents, no extended family for either of them, and with a name like McDonald, I hadn't ever tried to find them amongst all the other McDonalds out there.

My awesome team helped me in several ways - scoured church records for evidence of them (didn't find anything), traced the lines of my ancestors' other kids and tracked down living McDonalds who could be invited to do a Y-DNA test; and helped me identify genetic matches on my Dobson side with some big clues as to Jane's parents, siblings, and point of origin in England!! Needless to say, I was over the moon about all of this! I still need to go in and verify the paper trail for my apparent Dobson relatives to make sure everything checks out on their end, but if it does, then I can finally link that side of my tree to its Old World origins. That was on my bucket list of genealogy problems to solve, so I am super stoked on that.

The other breakthrough came just today. A little over 2 1/2 years ago, I upgraded my paternal grandfather's mitochondrial DNA test to a full sequence test - I really wanted to see what it said about grandpa's mother's mother's mother's line. FTDNA had trouble processing it, and at one point they even asked for another DNA sample (which we provided). They tried and tried again and again, but for some reason they said it just wasn't working. Eventually, after months and months of unsuccessful tests, they said they had one last option - a last ditch, all or nothing final effort. There was no guarantee of success, and if it failed to read his DNA, there would be no refund, and no timeline for when or if it would succeed. On the other hand, I could take the refund, but get no results, and I would not be able to resubmit another test (because they said they'd already lost money on this one from having re-run it so much). I weighed the options, and figured I had nothing to lose by trying the rescue program, as they called it, because it was the only option that offered me what I wanted most - the full haplogroup of my grandfather's mtDNA, and the opportunity to find matches on that line. So I opted for the rescue.

I checked in on the progress every six months or so, but the answer was always the same - we don't know if it will work, and we don't know when we'll know the results. Then today a little before dinner, I got a few emails from FTDNA - the results were in!!! I now know that my great-grandma's mtDNA haplogroup is U5b2a1a1. The cool thing is, he has seven perfect matches that show their mtDNA line's origins - one is in the US, one in Poland, and four in Germany. That fits perfectly for where his mother's line is from - they were Germans living in what is now Ukraine. Grandpa's mom was Augusta Joseph, who was born Uljanowka. Her mom was Pauline Rosenke, born in Zhitomir, in the Volhynia region of what is now Ukraine. Pauline's mom was Marie Siebert, though that's all I know about her. So whatever connection my grandpa has to these matches is through Marie. But even just knowing her line was apparently German for at least a ways back is really cool - drives home just how German his mom's side really was. That's information that was worth waiting 2 1/2 years for.

Pauline Rosenke's birth record

So now I've got some new answers to old problems, new tools to work with, and more answers to find. Which is exactly why I love genealogy - you get the satisfaction of solving difficult puzzles, only to realize you just expanded the size of the original puzzle, and there's still work to do. It never ends, and that's a great thing!

Persistence Pays Off Again!

One of my brick walls for the last decade or so has been finding the maiden name of Margaret, my 4th-great-grandmother on my paternal grandmother's side. She was the wife of George Waechter, and was an immigrant from Germany, Prussia, or France (depending on the record you're looking at).

Just under three years ago, while researching my Beilstein side (the family George and Margaret's daughter Amelia married into), I found that George and Margaret had a daughter named Annie Clara Waechter who did a very remarkable thing - despite being born just 10 years after the end of the Civil War, she lived until 1967. In addition to having lived from the age of the telegraph and steam engine until the days of the space race and color television, she also did something that makes her one of my genealogical heroines - she filled out a Form SS-5 and applied for a Social Security Number. This is a fantastic thing because, unlike death certificates, which are usually completed by surviving spouses or children, the SS-5 was filled out by the applicant themselves. This means that the information on her parents' names, including the mother's maiden name, came directly from her. While this still leaves room for error (as it's not coming from her mother herself), this is about as close to the original source as I've been able find. So I filled out my FOIA request and included the requisite check of $27 (thank you SSA), and waited for a response.

And waited.

And waited.

After only six months, my check was finally cashed. So I waited a bit longer.

And waited.

And waited.

I went in and out of remembering that this request was still out there somewhere, and hoped against hope that the record might someday come. I tried looking up numbers to call or addresses to write to, but each time I made contact I was told to wait for them to get back to me. Which they never did.

So eventually I got busy with other things like having a third child, going back to school, and job hunting, and my quest for Margaret's maiden name got pushed aside. Until this past January when a blog post from The Legal Genealogist Judy Russell came along. She went over what you can expect to find in the SS-5 and gave some tips on how to obtain it.

I decided to ask Judy on Google+ if there wasn't something I could do to finally get my hands on that SS-5 without forking over another $27. She recommended I contact the public affairs office of my area's representative (senators are over too big an area, and the request might get lost) and have them lean on the SSA a little, which might get my request fulfilled. So I looked him up and did so. Within a couple hours I got a privacy release form, basically saying "tell us who you are, what you're looking for, and give us permission to go look for it for you". I was told that his office would be in touch with me in 30 days or less. So I set my calendar and started watching the mailbox.

Then yesterday, a miracle happened - the SS-5 arrived! I was almost too excited to open it, afraid that somehow that maiden name wouldn't be there. But it was!

I now have a document giving me the maiden name of my ancestor - Margaret Robitzer! Margaret is a special ancestor for me, as she is the source of my very own mitochondrial DNA, and that of my siblings and cousins from my mom's sister. One of my cousins on that side is pregnant with a baby girl right now, and that baby girl is the only person among my branch of Margaret's descendants who will receive that DNA and be capable of passing it on (no pressure, kiddo!). It's awesome to me - literally awe-some - to be able to trace that DNA from its most recent recipient in 2016 back to its earliest known source in 1830 to somewhere between France and Germany in the Robitzer family.

The moral of the story: never give up hope. Keep pushing for that record that you know is out there, and eventually it will find its way to you. No matter how thick that brick wall seems, a way through may just show up in your mailbox years after you'd given up on ever finding 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 IV - "Harris" mtDNA

Now we come to the last of my four grandparents' DNA trails, the mtDNA of my grandma Sally (Harris) Crawford. In case it wasn't clear last time, I put the surname for the mtDNA lines I trace in quotation marks because the last name changes with each generation. So, let's see where this DNA line leads us.


This line of DNA goes back to a lady named Margaret (last name unknown), born about 1830 or 1832 in Germany or France (she listed both in the census records, which makes me think it may have been Alsace-Lorraine, but at this point I don't know). She married John Georg Waechter in Ohio around 1853. Margaret's mtDNA came down to me through her granddaughter Philena Emily "Lena" Beilstein, Sally's grandmother, who I've written about many times before.


My grandma Sally has three kids, two girls and a boy (a nice inversion of the typical pattern of two boys and a girl). My aunt has four children, one girl and three boys. The boys can't pass on the mtDNA, but their sister can. So far, she has one child, a boy. So at this point, the mtDNA on that branch stops with my cousin.


My mom has three kids, with (you guessed it) two boys and a girl (I swear that pattern is engraved in our DNA, because that's exactly what I have too!). My brother and I can't pass on the mtDNA we carry, but my sister can. At this point, she doesn't have any kids. So like with my aunt's line, the mtDNA on my mom's line ends with my sister. So at this point, we don't have anyone among my grandma's descendants who can pass on her mtDNA.


I don't want to leave it at that though. So let's see if there's anyone else who can pass that mtDNA on. My grandma did have one sister, who had three kids (anyone want to guess the pattern? Kudos if you guessed two boys and a girl). The girl, my mom's cousin, has one child, a daughter. So far, she doesn't have any kids, so the mtDNA line on that branch ends with my 2nd cousin.


Ok, that didn't pan out either. My great-grandma, Sally's mom Edna Craddock, had three sisters. I have identified a couple of their grandchildren, but don't have any info on great- or great-great-grandchildren. Maybe I can pick the brains of a couple of Grandma Sally's cousins and try to fill in the gaps. I don't want to see my own line die out, but even if it does, odds are there are others out there of my more distant relatives carrying the torch for Margaret Waechter's line.

My grandparents' DNA trails, Part III - "Wagner" mtDNA

The next DNA trail I'm tracing is the path of my paternal grandmother, Blossom (Wagner) Gibson's mtDNA. I've traced this DNA back to Anna Kreutzer, my 6th-great-grandmother, who married my 6th-great-grandfather Georg Adam Salfer in Rosshaupt in the Bohemia region of the Austrian Empire in 1756. My grandma inherited it from her mother, Rosie Sitzman [Zitzmann], who married Charles Frederick Wagner.


Blossom had three daughters, one from her first marriage and two from her second. I know mtDNA is also passed on to male children, but as they can't pass it on to their kids, they are left out of this analysis. Her first daughter had three kids, one girl and two boys. The daughter, my cousin, had two children but both are boys, so they can't pass on the mtDNA. As it looks like they aren't having any more kids, the mtDNA on that branch ends with my cousin.


Blossom's second daughter had two kids, both daughters. The older daughter has three kids, one daughter and two boys. The younger daughter has one child, a daughter. So both of my cousins on that branch each have a daughter that can pass the mtDNA from my grandma on down to another generation.


Blossom's youngest daughter had three kids, one girl and two boys (noticing a pattern here?). The daughter, my cousin, has two kids, a boy and a girl, with a third on the way (so far gender is unknown). But my cousin's daughter gives us another candidate for passing on grandma's mtDNA to a new generation.


So between my two aunts that have girl grandchildren, there are three girls of the latest generation that could pass on grandma's mtDNA. Given that there are currently 18 kids of that generation, I'd say that having a full 1/6 of them be girls in the direct maternal line is pretty good. Hopefully they'll be able to keep Anna Kreutzer's DNA going to a new generation of descendants.