A Pennsylvania Dutch Genealogy
the genealogy & family research site of Kris Hocker
Here are my shared matches with one of my presumed Snyder cousins. I’ve erased names and replaced them with the names of ancestors I shared with each—where I’ve been able to identify them.
Shared matches to a presumed Snyder cousin
I think I’m on the right track, linking Catharina (___) Schneider to Conrad Nuss and Anna Margaretha Roeder’s daughter Catharina.
Anna, Bonnie, Betty Jean, and Will Jr. on a sled in the side year, circa 1926-1929.
In honor of the winter cold outside…
Wishing you and yours a happy, healthy and successful (however you define it) year!
Photo Credit: Quentin Rey
Can you believe it? It’s that time of year again. A new Year begins less than 24 hours from now. Time to look back at the previous 364 days and assess. So how did I do?
My goals for the blog in 2017 were to: “increase the number of posts I write and to share more.”
Here’s what my monthly post count actually looked like in 2017 as compared to 2016 (2017/2016).
Based on these numbers, I started off great in 2017, easily outdoing 2016 for the first five months of the year. However, I quickly lost momentum after than and did not regain it in the following months. Last year I wrote 50 posts, this year only 45. Not terrible, I know. But I had planned to write 60. So, not great either.
What content was most popular this year? Here are the year’s top 10 most visited posts. I’ve placed each post’s place on last year’s list in parentheses after the post title.
This year’s six most popular posts were also last year’s top six; number eight and nine appeared on the 2016 list, too. I was glad to see two new posts appear on the list this year. One—My Ahnentafel List—is basically my pedigree as I know it back as far as I can go. The other post, #10, was my attempt to research a memory that my paternal grandfather shared with me of his father.
However, like last year, not one of these posts were written in 2017. However, just out of the running at number eleven was Ethnicity Estimate Comparisons, a post about my ethnicity estimates at AncestryDNA and Family Tree DNA as compared to my own estimate based on my pedigree. It has received 181 visits since it was posted in February. With the increasing popularity of DNA testing, maybe it will crack the top ten next year.
If I only include those posts written this past year, what does the list look like? (# of visits in parentheses)
Five—50%—of these posts reflect this year’s focus on my AncestryDNA results. I spent a great deal of time when I should have been writing chasing down connections to my DNA cousins and building out family trees. Much of this has been fairly random, simply trying to figure out how I’m related to the people on my match list.
However, now that I’ve got smart about it and focused on specific research objectives, I feel like I’m making some headway. I’ve been using these DNA results to identify and/or verify some of my ancestors. For instance, my work on Jacob and Catharina (Nuss?) Schneider. Using the DNA results in conjunction with my research is giving me more confidence in both.
To a large extent, I’ve been struggling with a lack of motivation in my writing. I often feel that in order to be worthy of a blog post, I need to have a revelation to discuss or fully done research report to write up. Otherwise the idea just isn’t worthy enough.
But the majority of my most popular posts don’t bear this out. The most viewed post on my blog is about the Pennsylvania Genealogical County Map. It describes a tool that I’ve found useful in understanding settlement dates and changing jurisdictions while doing Pennsylvania genealogy. The top ten is made up of such posts. They detail a research tool or explain how I use an available resource.
Greater popularity is the result of topics that appeal to broader audiences. Since this is a personal research blog, counting total views is not necessarily the most appropriate metric of success. But it might be a good guide for how I write my posts.
Hopefully, this is a lesson I can take to heart in the coming year. My goal for the coming year is to simply share information that is helpful to my fellow family researchers and other genealogists—regardless of how complete or thorough it is.
Focusing on not just the what I know/learned but also on the how I know/learned it might help me to make my writing of more use to more people. And I think that’s a good goal to have.
This is a needlework sampler by Amanda Deischer. The image was sent to me by Amy Finkel of Samplings, an antique sampler and needlework dealer, of Philadelphia (thanks, Amy!).
This is what she had to say about the sampler:
It’s a classic Pennsylvania German motif sampler and the handsome red and blue silk on crisp white linen was used by 19th century samplermakers in this community as well. After it’s framed it will be added to our Current Selections in January.
~Amy
According to the National Museum of American History, samplers were the method by which young women, not only learned basic needlework skills, but also showed off these skills to prospective mates. As such, they are an artifact that provides insight into the education of girls in American society during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
“The emergence of large numbers of these samplers has resulted in much research in diaries, account books, letters, newspaper ads, local histories, and published commentary that is helping to illuminate the lives of women in early America.”1
It appears that Amanda stitched this sampler in 1852. The year appears at the end of the second row of needlework. She would have been approximately 18 or 19 years old, depending on the exact date of the work.2 I recognize the images as classic Pennsylvania Dutch motifs. German was spoken at home in my mother’s family into the 1940s. I’ve seen evidence in some of my family lines that it was the primary language more than 100 years after those families had settled in Pennsylvania. It would not surprise me at all to learn that Amanda’s family was the same.
Amanda Deischer was the daughter of Peter Deischer (1793-1861) and Anna Maria Trump (1792-1874) of Hereford Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania. She was born 17 June 1833 and died at the young age of 23 on 17 October 1856. She was buried at Zion’s Evangelical Lutheran Church cemetery in Zionsville, Upper Milford Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania.
Amanda’s older sister Judith married Joseph Snyder, son of Henry and Sarah (Wißler) Schneider, about 1852 or so. They were my 4x great grandparents.
A funny thing happened as I researched the pedigrees of the AncestryDNA matches I shared with my presumed Snyder cousins. A specific surname kept showing up. And it wasn’t Snyder.
I’ve been trying to prove that my four times great grandfather, Henry, was the son of Jacob Schneider and his wife Catharine of Upper Hanover Township, Montgomery County. Part of that effort has involved working with my AncestryDNA matches to find potential Snyder matches and determine how we match. I believe I’ve identified three Snyder cousins—one possible descendant of Henry’s brother Samuel, and two descendants of a potential sibling Jacob Snyder.
To help organize my research, I entered these three individuals (in orange, below) into their own version of the spreadsheet I’ve been using to track my DNA cousins. One column includes a list of our Shared Matches from AncestryDNA.
I used this to identify individuals who turned up over and over again and entered them into the spreadsheet with their Shared Match list. This gave me a list of top candidates for additional research.
DNA match spreadsheet
Some of them had family trees; most did not. Still, I was able to start building family trees on Ancestry for some of these individuals using searches on Google, Ancestry, FamilySearch, and—where possible—Facebook. A lot of it was “pinging” names to see what I could find online, especially possible associates or family members. If I was able to get to parents or grandparents, I was sometimes able to locate obituaries which helped fill in the tree to the point which I could use census and other records on Ancestry and FamilySearch.
All told I was able to locate ancestors who resided in the Upper Hanover Township/East Greenville area and/or were members of the New Goshenhoppen Reformed Church for four of the Shared Matches (marked blue in the Shared Matches column). They all could be traced back to one of two families. A fifth included one of the surnames, but I haven’t been able to tie it to the same couple, yet.
Who were these people? Conrad Nuss and his wife Maria Margaretha Roeder.
Conrad Nuss, son of Jacob and Anna Maria (Reiher) Nuss, was born 17 March 1743, Upper Salford Township, Montgomery County, and died 18 March 1808 in Upper Hanover Township.1 He married Maria Margaretha Roeder, daughter of Johann Michael and Maria Susanna (Zimmerman) Roeder, at New Goshenhoppen on 22 August 1769.2 She was born 27 June 1745.
They had the following children (italics indicates descendant matches):
It turns out that I had already researched the Conrad Nuss family. Why? Remember Jacob Schneider’s FAN Club? There were connections between Jacob and members of the Nuss family, but I didn’t realize their importance.
Jacob Snyder’s FAN Club
On 2 April 1810, Jacob Schneider purchased 85 acres of land in Upper Hanover Township from Henry and Margaretha Roeder.19 This land adjoined that of John George Brey, John Griesemer, Andreas Gräber, Conrad Brey and Conrad Marks. Henry Roeder was the half-brother of Conrad Nuss’ wife Anna Margaretha Roeder.
If Catharina was Conrad’s daughter, then Jacob bought his land from her uncle.
Michael Gery was named as the guardian of Jonas Schneider in the 1829 Orphans Court records for Jacob’s estate.20 This Michael was one of two men: Michael Gery, son of Jacob and Gertraut (Griesemer) Gery, or his nephew Michael Treichler Gery, son of Jacob and Elizabeth (Treichler) Gery Jr. The elder Michael married Anna Maria Nuss and the younger Michael married Sarah Nuss, both women Conrad’s daughters.
Regardless of which Michael Gery the document refers to, if Catharina was a Nuss, Jonas’ guardian was his uncle.
After Jacob’s death, Catharina and Henry, his administrators, sold his land on 21 November 1829.21 To whom? Michael Gery of Hereford Township. Both uncle and nephew of this name were living in Hereford Township. I have not done enough research to determine which one made the purchase.
However, in either case, if Catharina was a Nuss, then they sold the land to her brother-in-law.
Conrad Nuss and family were members of the New Goshenhoppen Church. Baptisms for most of his children—including including his eldest daughter Catharine—can be found in the church records. My four times great grandfather Henry and presumably several of his siblings—Jacob, Elizabeth, and Catharina—were confirmed and/or took communion at the church.22 Henry and sister Catharine were both buried in the church’s graveyard. It’s not uncommon for children to be baptized in their mother’s church.
If Catharina was Conrad’s daughter, then finding her children in New Goshenhoppen Church records—even though I don’t find their father Jacob—makes a lot of sense.
Daniel Nuss sponsored Carl Schneider’s baptism at New Goshenhoppen Reformed Church on 21 February 1836.23 Carl was the son of Daniel and Sara Schneider. Jacob and Catharina had a son named Daniel.
If this is their son—and I think it possible—and Catharina was a Nuss, then her youngest brother sponsored her grandson.
Lastly, I guesstimated Catharina’s birth year at being between 1770 to 1775, based on Henry’s 1792 date of birth. I lean toward 1770 in the estimate. Conrad Nuss’ daughter Catharina was born in May 1770. This fits the family timeline and the picture that’s emerging from all the various pieces of evidence.
I was able to trace the ancestry of several DNA matches I share with presumed Snyder cousins back to Conrad and Maria Margaretha (Roeder) Nuss of Upper Hanover Township. My relationship to each—mostly 5th cousins—fits nicely into the 4th-6th cousin range, as estimated, with 20+ centimorgans of shared DNA.
Because Conrad’s son Johannes married Esther Schultz, daughter of Andrew Schultz and Charlotte Yeakel, my 5x great grandparents, two of these matches can not be used to prove a relationship to the Nuss family without using a chromosome browser. Which Ancestry does not have.
Fortunately, I’m also related to descendants of Elizabeth (Nuss) Hertzel, Michael Nuss, and Daniel Nuss, three of Conrad and Margaretha’s other children. This supports the idea of a familial connection between Henry Schneider and his potential grandparents Conrad and Margaretha.
Without the DNA evidence, the facts found in the paper trail did not connect for me. I knew they were meaningful, but I did not know exactly how. Knowing the connection could be through the Nuss—not Gery, Brey or Griesemer—family and their associations helps to explain the evidence found in the documentation.
Based on this research, I’m hypothesizing that Henry’s mother, Catharina, was the eldest daughter of Conrad Nuss and Maria Margaretha Roeder.
When I mentioned this research and the conclusions to my Mom, she said, “Oh, yes. Nuss is very common up around East Greenville. My dad told me we’re related to them.” Thanks, Mom.
Catharina Schneider, 1793-1877, gravestone at New Goshenhoppen Church cemetery
Catharina Schneider, daughter of Jacob and Catharina Schneider, was born 24 January 1793 and died 24 August 1877. She was buried in the cemetery at New Goshenhoppen Church UCC (formerly Reformed) Church in East Greenville, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. She was 84 years 7 months old.
This stone was found lying in the grass in the same area of several other Schneider family members. Directly to the right was the stone of Sophia Snyder (1832-1907), daughter of Henry and Sarah (Wißler) Schneider. Behind these stones were the markers for Lucy Anna (Schneider) Mack and her husband Peter. She was Sophia’s sister.
Why is this important? Cemetery plots are often shared by family members. Thus her sharing a plot with Henry’s daughters, and her gravestone naming her parents as Jacob and Catharina, is one more piece of evidence suggesting that Henry was the son of Jacob and Catharina (___) Schneider of Upper Hanover.
I’ve been using AncestryDNA for more than a year now. Like most anything, there are good points and bad points, things I like and things I don’t like. Here are my five top tips to help you turn my top frustrations into your opportunities to get the most out of your AncestryDNA test results.
What’s the number one thing you can do to maximize the benefit of taking an AncestryDNA test? Add or build a family tree on Ancestry. If you want to make connections to your DNA matches, they’ll need something to connect to.
You don’t need to be able to trace your ancestors back to the original immigrant. Add yourself, your parents, your grandparents and so on as far back as you can. If you can only get a couple of generations, that’s okay. If you can get back to those born before 1940, that’s even better. (See tip #3 for why this is important.)
And, please, add dates and places. Sometimes, when surnames don’t click, places can point a match to the appropriate line in your respective trees to research further.
If you don’t connect your tree to your test, your matches will see the “No family tree” image beside your information, even if you have a tree. They won’t know you have a tree unless they click to view the match. And if it says “no family tree” they may not think they have any reason to view your match. So, please link your DNA test to your tree.
Update: Ancestry has changed this up a bit. They now provide multiple status designations for tree: # People to show there is a tree, Unlinked Tree for trees not linked to the DNA test, a lock icon to show the tree is private, a leaf to show there’s a common ancestor, No Trees, and Tree Unavailable.
Attach the DNA test to you. If you manage another test, attach that test to the correct person in your tree—or their tree if you’ve set up a separate one for them. Don’t make your matches guess whether or not the testee matches the home person in the tree.
I can’t tell you how many matches I’ve looked at where the test belongs to a male and the person shown in the tree is female, or vice versa. My reaction is always the same. Next match.
Since the point of taking a DNA test is to connect with cousins (aka matches), building out your collateral lines—aunts, uncles, etc.—as far as possible makes it easier for Ancestry (in the form of Shared Ancestry Hints, aka shaky leaves) and your matches to find your most recent common ancestor. I’ve found it not only increases the number of Shared Ancestry Hints, but I can also recognize names more easily in a match’s tree, even if their tree doesn’t go back far enough to connect to our common ancestor.
In most cases I can build out collateral lines down to those born before the 1940 census. I can often take them further, especially in Pennsylvanian lines, if I luck out and find military compensation files, pre-1964 death certificates, obituaries, and/or Find A Grave entries. If I can datamine online directories and Facebook, I can often flesh out a tree to the present.
A lot of people make their trees private. I can understand that; I have a private tree that I use for my most of my research. I also have a public tree that’s tied to my DNA test. If you want to get DNA Circles, your tree will need to be public.
What’s the benefit of DNA circles? Besides easily finding testers who descend from a specific ancestor, you will also find testers who you do not match, but who match other descendants of that ancestor. For instance, there are six members of the Philip Hoover and Hannah (Thomas) Hoover DNA circles. I only match three of the members. One of these matches shares DNA with all the other Circle members. I can “View Relationship” with each member to see how we’re related. Even if we do not share DNA.
The largest Circle of which I’m a member is the George M. Walker DNA Circle. It has 28 members. Considering he had 26 children with two wives, this is hardly a surprise. These matches—and non-matches—can help me build out the descendants in his family tree.
You can also get “New Ancestor Discoveries” if your tree is public. If two or more of your matches share a common ancestor in their tree and share DNA with you and each other, you’ll see their common ancestor as a New Ancestor Discovery. You may or may not actually be related to them, however. Several of my matches are descended from Jeremiah Rupert (1852-1924) and Abby Ann Heasley (1857-1908). I’ve traced a couple of these matches back to Philip Hoover and Hannah Thomas. The rest I’m unsure about. So far, I’ve found no direct connection between the Rupert family and any of my direct ancestors.
And the final tip, download your DNA results. Why? So you can upload it to1 :
Each of these sites will provide you will additional DNA matches—for free!2 Granted AncestryDNA has the largest database, but it’s not everyone’s first choice. By uploading to these sites, you’ll be able to include those potential cousins in your research, too. You never know when you might find the cousin who has the family Bible or photos.
On GEDmatch and FTDNA (for a small fee) you’ll also get access to additional tools. Both of these sites will not only list your DNA matches, but will show you where you match on the chromosome(s). This allows you to use more sophisticated techniques—like triangulation—to determine which segments of your chromosomes map to which ancestors.
This creates a more definitive identification of a shared ancestor between you and specific matches than Ancestry’s Shared Ancestor Hints—which is based more on the matches in your respective trees than DNA shared between you.
So, these are my top five tips. I’m sure there are others. What do you do to get the most out of your AncestryDNA results?
Ever since I discovered that Heinrich Schneider (aka Henry Snyder) of Upper Hanover Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania was the father of my 3x great grandfather Joseph Snyder, I’ve been on a mission to trace the family back further.
I discovered a couple who may be Henry’s parents—Jacob Schneider, who died in 1829, and his wife Catharina. Montgomery County Orphans Court records list Jacob’s children as:
Henry served as one of the administrator’s of Jacob’s estate.1 Sarah and Jonas were both underage as of 19 October 1829. Sarah, however, was over 14 years-old, so she was born between 19 October 1808 and 19 October 1815.2 Jonas was under 14 years-old; he was born after 19 October 1815 and before 19 October 1829.3
In September, I located a gravestone for a Catharine Snyder, born 24 January 1793 and died 24 August 1877, in the New Goshenhoppen Church cemetery in East Greenville. She was buried in the same plot as Henry’s daughters and son-in-law, indicating she was family. I believe her to be Henry’s sister and my 4x great aunt.
I traced one of my AncestryDNA matches’ family back to Samuel and Judith (Wolf) Snyder. I was able to determine that Judith was a daughter of Jacob and Magdalena (Brey) Wolf, and, therefore, sister to my 3x great grandfather Joel Wolf.4 But since Samuel had a brother named Jonas,5 he may have been a son of Jacob and Catharina, and thus my blood relative, too, making “E” doubly related to me.
Recently, I found two matches who trace their ancestry back to Jacob Snyder (1796-1882) and Anna Maria Fluck (1800-1870). To the best of my determination, Snyder is our only common surname. Jacob and Maria resided in Springfield Township, Bucks County, not far from Upper Hanover Township where my presumed ancestor Jacob (Sr.) owned land.6 This Jacob was born 9 January 1796,7 making him only four years younger than Henry.
Jacob Sr.’s household had 3 males born after 1790 as enumerated in the 1800 census8 and one male aged 10-15 in 18109, making it possible that this Jacob was Henry’s younger brother. Jacob Schneider, presumably Henry’s brother, was confirmed at New Goshenhoppen Evangelical Lutheran Church on 1 April 1815, aged 17 years.10 It’s not an exact match, but I’m keeping it as a definite possibility given the DNA matches.
Both of these matches descend through Jacob and Maria’s son Joseph, through children of both of his wives. Both appear in my Shared Matches list for the other. One of them also matches “E,” the descendant of Samuel and Judith (Wolf) Snyder, but does not have the surname Wolf in her family tree.
Assuming that we all match through children of Jacob and Catharina (___) Schneider, this is what our tree would look like.
I match each of them a little over 20cMs on 2 segments, according to AncestryDNA. These numbers are consistent with the proposed relationships fifth cousin (T), fourth cousin once removed (T2 and E). Unfortunately, they’re also consistent with a range of other cousin relationships, too.
Unfortunately, I can’t pinpoint the relationship to these matches with certainty. I believe that the Snyder family is likely the connection—Jacob fits given his dates and locations. So, my working hypothesis is that Jacob was the son of Jacob and Catharina (___) Schneider. I’m going to continue to work through our shared matches to see if I can identify additional points of connection.
Who knows? I might even determine Catharina’s maiden name.
During a recent cleaning jag, I found a stash of photos. Among those photos were some old (circa 1970-1980s) photos from the Greulich family, featuring the farm. These photos are the first I’ve seen of the farmhouse and barn up at the farm where they’re actually still standing. These photos show the farmhouse and barn, but there were several other buildings, including a summer kitchen and additional sheds.
Greulich farm house (porch)
In the photo below you can see the stone walls of the house where the external plaster has fallen off. Mom tells me the walls were nearly a foot thick. Access to the root cellar was through the doors shown here.
Greulich farm house (back)
The barn appears massive in this photo—larger even than the house. From what I’ve read this is not at all unusual for German-style farms in Pennsylvania. The section on the left looks to me like a newer addition.
Barn
I’m not sure where this photo was taken from. You couldn’t see the farm buildings from Third Street because of trees, nor could you see them from Schoolhouse road (see next photo). Perhaps this was taken from a road on the Perkiomen School grounds?
Barn and house
This is the view from Schoolhouse Road. You can see the buildings of East Greenville in the background along the horizon.
Greulich farm from Schoolhouse Road
I’m not entirely sure when these building were erected. Given the style and use of stone, I wouldn’t be surprised if they dated back to Gottfried Wißler’s ownership, starting in the 1790s.
Heinrich Schneider purchased the farm from his father-in-law’s estate in the 1830s and sold it to his son Joseph in 1861. Joseph sold it to pay off the mortgage, but had purchased it back in 1877. His son Henry got it from the estate in 1899 and passed it to his daughter Lillian (Snyder) Greulich in 1928. It was finally sold to the Perkiomen School after Russell Greulich’s death.