Jon Bergstad, Joseph Bergstad, and Jon Johanesson

I'm still working my way through my Bergstad files, though I've made a lot of progress the last week or so. As I was wrapping up my review of the non-census documents I've collected, I was looking at the marriage record for Selma Bergstad and B B Hendrixson, when something caught my eye. Her father was listed as Joseph Bergstad. I've had her dad listed as Jon Bergstad for years, and now I started wondering - do I have his name wrong? Have I confused two unrelated families? I decided I had to go back and review all my records on him, and see what I could make of the situation. This is what my review turned up:

Family Bible page from Delores Olson lists Jon Johanesson, born 10 November 1864
1880 US census lists Johan J. Bergstad, age 15 (born about 1865)
1885 Iowa state census lists Joe Bergstad, age 19 (born about 1866)
1894 marriage record, to Gjertina Nesheim, lists G. or Jon Bergstad, age 29 (born about 1865)
1915 marriage record, Tilda Bergstad to Sivert Fadness, lists her father as Joe Bergstad
1920 US census lists Joseph Bergstad, age 55 (born about 1865). Gjertina's father, Knut O. Nesheim was living with them at this time.
1932 marriage record, Clara Bergstad to Edwin Yonker, lists her father as Joe Bergstad
1942 marriage record, Selma Bergstad to B B Hendrixson, lists her father as Joseph Bergstad

That's eight records total. I wasn't able to find Jon/Joe or Gjertina in the 1895 Iowa census, or the federal 1900 and 1910 censuses. I tried tracing Gjertina's family back in time, to see if I could find Jon/Joe living nearby, but alas, no luck there. I don't like that there's a 20 year gap in Jon's life I can't fill yet, but that's what I have at this point.

As far as the records go, Jon/Joe's age is consistent in the records that list an age, always born around 1865. His place of birth is always listed as Wisconsin. The 1894 marriage record has Jon Bergstad married to Gjertina Nesheim, and the 1920 census has Gjertina married to Joseph Bergstad. The 1920 census also says Gjertina was born in Norway and naturalized in 1894, the same year that Gjertina married Jon Bergstad. The marriage records for all three daughters name Gjertina Nesheim as the mother, and Joseph Bergstad as the father. Aside from his first name, all the facts of Jon/Joe's life seem to match each other in the various records.

Conclusion - it seems to me that, putting all the facts from the various records together, it seems to me that Jon Johanesson, Johan J. Bergstad, and Joseph/Joe Bergstad are, in fact, the same person.

Wordless Wednesday - Andrew and Ingeborg (Fadness) Olson family photo

 Andrew Olson in the front row is my 3rd-great-grandfather, and Ingeborg next to him is his wife, my 3rd-great-grandmother. The other eight people are all of their children, with Betsy Bergstad on the bottom right being my 2nd-great-grandmother. Their son Clarence was not in the picture. According to my cousin Delores Olson who sent this to me, this photo is from 1922. Thanks to Delores for this photo.

Wordless Wednesday - Blossom (Wagner) Gibson

 

Love you, Grandma!!

 

A brief catch-up

I know I haven't been blogging nearly as much as I should have been. Work has been crazy busy, we moved into a new house, I got really sick with the flu, and I've been working like mad trying to get through the last two folders in my "document everything I've ever collected" project. Are those good enough excuses? Probably not, since it takes about 30 seconds to at least do a Wordless Wednesday post. Oh well.

But to update you all on where I'm at with all the things I've been working on, here goes:

DNA - took a fantastic workshop from Diane Harman-Hoog on how to use your Family Finder and Relative Finder matches to look for particular surnames. Got a few tips on how to do the same with Gedmatch matches, but I wasn't able to get that part of it to work so well. But I learned a lot, and I hope to be able to really put those tips and tricks into practice when I get done with my huge project here in a couple weeks (hopefully).

Also, my grandma Blossom's 1st cousin once removed (on grandma's father's side) took a DNA test, and I found her on Gedmatch! Now I have all kinds of Wagner DNA identified, so any matches to both my grandma and her cousin will be Wagner cousins, and not Zitzmann cousins. Yet another set of matches to go through!

The Project - I just finished (like just a few minutes ago) entering all the census records I've collected on my Bergstad side - 176 of them! I've still got a couple hundred files to go in my Bergstad folder, including 50 or so files from a Bergstad cousin named Delores that I haven't had the time to go through in much detail yet. Those files are next on my list, and I'm excited to see what's all in them! I know there are pictures of relatives I haven't ever seen photos of, and I'm keen to see if I can find a family resemblance to any of them.

Also, I'm making my first foray into courthouse research. Sort of. I was searching on Google for Bergstads in McKenzie county, North Dakota, when I saw a list of probates from that county up through 2009. I searched the list and found three Bergstads - my great-grandparents John and Katherine (Hammer) Bergstad, and my great-great-grandfather Knute Bergstad. Between the three of them, there's 101 pages! I ordered copies of all three, and am really excited to see what a probate record looks like. Kinda sad that after doing genealogy for 13 years this if my first time getting a probate record. But in my defense, my ancestors haven't lived anywhere close to where I live, and this is the first time I've come across an online listing for probates. If more courthouses and counties would list their holdings online, I'd be happy to order more records.

That about sums up the last month or two of my genealogical activity. Hopefully I'll be able to get back on a regular blogging schedule. And once The Project is done, I'll have to decide how to spend my time between DNA research and paper genealogy. But one thing at a time here. I'll keep posting interesting things I find during my documentation, and some of these new family photos as well. Keep checking back, and thanks for reading! Be sure to leave a comment if you have a question or something you want to discuss. I'm always happy to talk about genealogy.

Another interesting connection

I'm still going through my Craddock files (moving and being briefly hospitalized have set me back a little), but I found this interesting connection today that I had to share. While going through the newspaper articles that mention Edward and Grace (Craddock) Cote (and I have 52 of them!) I found one from the Montana Standard for 10 November 1957 that mentioned a party given for a lady retiring after working for the telephone company in Montana (no company name was given, so I'm guessing there was just one). Ed Cote presented the retiree an award on behalf of the company, and then everyone stayed after for a "social hour". Among those who attended the party were Mrs. Martha Basolo, and Mr. and Mrs. B.J. Basolo. B.J. Basolo was Batista J. Basolo, the son of Martha Basolo (and maybe an employee of the company with his mother?). He was married to Berta Talbott, sister of Lucy Talbott, who married Grace (Craddock) Cote's father Ernest in 1948! So Grace was at the party with the sister and brother-in-law of her father's second wife! Crazy, huh? I wonder if they sat at the same table?

UPDATE: I just found out that the woman honored at the dinner was Margaret (Basolo) Sprague, a sister of Batista Basolo. Curiouser and curiouser!

Wordless Wednesday - Craddocks

This is a photo of my great-great-grandmother, Philena (Beilstein) Craddock and my great-grandmother Edna (Craddock) Moore. Edna would have been less than a year old here. Isn't she cute?

Genes Day update

Had a lot going on in my DNA research this week. I started digging a little deeper into my Y-DNA results, to get a better idea of my haplogroup and subclade. By the by, when I'm talking about "my" Y-DNA results, I'm actually referring to a test taken by my paternal grandfather. But, since he and I have identical Y-DNA results (I compared my results from SMGF to his and they were a perfect match) for the rest of this post I'll be referring to "my"results, since they are the exact same as my grandpa's.

23andMe defined my Y-DNA haplogroup as R1b1b2a1a1d1*, a rather long name that didn't tell me much of anything. It also turns out to be an older name, as 23andMe is using an outdated version of the Y-DNA haplogroup tree (someone told me 2008? I don't know for sure, but I have been repeatedly told it's not current). Family Tree DNA defined my Y-DNA haplogroup as R1b1a2, but I was told that they weren't using the most recent version of the Y-DNA tree either. As I was repeatedly referred to the ISOGG website, I hopped over there, pulled up the 2012 Y-DNA SNP tree, and started trying to find my SNPs (23andMe is very helpful on this end, and gives you a list of SNPs you've tested positive for). I didn't know what information to look for exactly, or where my SNPs fit on the tree, so I wrote some of them down and emailed the Newbie DNA mailing list I'm on and asked for some help. I was told by some very helpful people that one of my SNPs, M405 was also known as U106, and was a major branch of the Y-DNA tree. They suggested I check and see what SNPs downstream from there I tested positive for. 

So, I went back to the ISOGG tree, found U106, and started checking downward from there. In addition to the most current Y-DNA tree, ISOGG also has a SNP index, which gives all the names for each SNP (like how U106 and M405 are the same SNP), and sometimes its "address" on the Y-DNA chromosome. It's a good thing they post the address, because that's how 23andMe lets you look up SNPs they test for; you can't search by the shorthand name (like U106). So I started pulling up all the SNPs I could that were listed under U106, and eventually narrowed down my positives to just two more - L48 and L47. So I now knew my most recent Y-DNA SNP was L47. Cool! I went back to the mailing list and told my new friend what I'd discovered. He gave me the numbers for four more SNPs that were downstream of L47 - L44, L45, L46, and Z159. The first three were all tested by 23andMe, and they all came up negative on my test. The last one was not tested by 23andMe, so I don't know if I tested positive for it or not. My mailing list buddy said there was a mailing list specifically for U106, and that I should check with them to see if testing specifically for Z159 would be a good idea. 

I joined the U106 mailing list and told them what my plan was - since I had tested positive for L48 and L47 and negative for all other SNPs under U106, I was going to test for Z159 and see if that's where my branch on the Y-DNA tree terminated. They said it was a good plan, and that I should go for it. I also found there is a U106 DNA project at FTDNA and joined it. The admin for the project also agreed that I should test for Z159, as all of their project members who tested L47+ and negative for all other SNPs (with the exception of one guy) had tested positive for Z159. I figured since the test was only $30, and that there were no other SNPs to test for under Z159 (at least at this point), and I really wanted to know exactly where on the Y-DNA tree my line fit, I'd go for it. I ordered the test on Tuesday, and was all excited to see how long it would be before the results came back. I was thinking somewhere between a few hours and Friday. Imagine how I felt when the test finally hit my "pending lab results" screen and the estimated completion date was in December! Well, since I can't go any further on that research right now, time to move on...

I spent a little time going back through Lisa's matches on AncestryDNA, to see if there were any other connections that suggested a common ancestor. Sadly, there weren't. I still need to do more with the two matches it already gave me though. Most of the surname matches are with common names like Johnson, Smith, etc. so I haven't followed up too closely with them. I did write to all of those who have locked/private trees to ask if we could put our heads together to try and find the matches. So far, no one has responded yet. 

Also regarding my wife's DNA, my friend CeCe Moore posted a link in the DNA Newbie mailing list to this very interesting article by Roberta Estes, another genetic genealogist. Basically, she calls AncestryDNA's bluff on the massive amounts of Scandinavian DNA, saying that it's not a new discovery that everyone should ooh and ah about, it's an error and Ancestry needs to go back to the drawing board with their ethnic analysis. Harsh words, but perhaps necessary. I mean, I know my wife does not have 73% Scandinavian ancestry. I need to write them and ask them to reanalyze it. People speaking out caused them to announce the release of the raw DNA data sometime in early 2013. If enough people demand they redo their ethnicity tool, they'll have to do something about it. 

And last but certainly not least, through the generous funding of a relative, I ordered a Relative Finder test for a possible Harris connection. I did some research on the ancestry of this possible relative and was able to go back pretty far, even to the the late 1700s on line. I'm really excited for this one, and hoping that the test will give me some answers on who and where my Harris relatives are. The lab received the test on the 23rd, so the results will hopefully be in sometime around election day. Boy, imagine if they came in that day! I'd be up all night both waiting for election results, and delving into DNA test results. Might have to pull an all-nighter on that one! 

That's all the DNA news for now. Since I'm  back to waiting for results, I'll try contacting those two matches of Lisa's, and probably get back to my documentation project. Just a few more folders to go, but they're big ones - Beilstein, Bergstad, Berry, Crawford, and Craddock. If memory serves, Beilstein, Bergstad and Berry should all be done, but I'll need to double check them to make sure. I know I didn't get through Craddock, and that's a big one. Crawford, don't have too much on them, so that one should be pretty short. And then I'll be done!! I will finally know where I stand on all my lines, with every discovery so far documented as best I can at this point. That will be a happy day. It would be great to start 2013 fresh, to pick a line to research and just research, without worrying whether I've entered everything on that person or family yet. That's my goal for the rest of 2012 - to get my documentation done. Wish me luck!