Commentary – A Pennsylvania Dutch Genealogy

Wishlist for DNA Match Lists

Kris Hocker on 7 Aug 2022

Have you ever been working your AncestryDNA matches and thought, “Gee, I wish I could do…”? I bet you have; I know I do quite frequently. What would you wish for to make your workflow easier or better?

Here are five things I would like to be able to do:

1. Search the notes

I add relevant information—such as the most recent common ancestor or a shared surname—in the notes field for each match I’m working on. The existing search doesn’t find information in the notes. If I’m looking for a surname, it has to either be the match name or a surname in their tree.

Sometimes, however, I find a common surname when the match does not have it in their tree and put that information in the notes. I’d like to be able to somehow search for this and currently, I can’t.

It would also be great to not have to click down to an individual match’s page, but to be able to enter the information while viewing a list. [Note: This feature has been added since I wrote this post.]

2. See Shared Matches Less Than 20 cMs

Ancestry only shows matches greater than or equal to 20 centimorgans in the Shared Matches lists. Since most of the time I’ve been working with ancestors five or more generations back, I’m often looking at matches smaller than that. Being able to quickly identify those smaller matches that match to my 3rd, 4th, or even 5th cousins might help me to identify unknown 4th, 5th or 6th great grandparents—or at the very least families and surnames I need to research in more depth.

While there are workarounds and 3rd party tools to find those shared matches, they are very time consuming—not only in compiling the information, but also in filtering it to get at the specific data I need. As a result, my research trail gets interrupted. It can be difficult to remember where I left off and what trail I was trying to follow once I’ve found the information I wanted.

3. DNA Circles for Shared Matches

Ancestry used to have a feature called DNA Circles. These circles were clusters of people who connected back to a set of MRCAs (most recent common ancestors). These were really useful! Unlike ThruLines, the circles included not just the people in the group who match me, but also those who matched my shared matches and connected back to the MRCAs. Building these kind of networks could be invaluable for those matches I can’t identify.

4. Identify MRCA between Shared Matches

If possible, Ancestry will show me the common ancestor between me and my DNA match, even if they don’t have a complete tree back to that ancestor. Wouldn’t it be great if you could select two (or more) shared matches and see who (if anyone) the algorithm could find as a common ancestor? Even if it wasn’t done in realtime, being able to run a set of matches and come back later would be enormously helpful! Even if it could only identify common surnames or locations, it would aid the research.

5. Triangulation

Ancestry has long held that they will not provide segment data due to privacy concerns. I hate it, but can understand—and even agree to an extent with—their reasoning. But the shared match list includes both matches who share a common ancestor with you and the selected match and matches who share different ancestors with you and the match you’re viewing. This can make it incredibly frustrating and difficult to identify an unknown shared ancestor.

For example, I’ve been researching my Force ancestry. I’ve identified DNA matches who descend from my 3rd great grandfather Jefferson Force and his wife Susan Mulhollan and several individuals who I’ve long theorized were his siblings and they share matches among them. This means they likely share common ancestors. In looking at the DNA matches I share with the descendants of these people, I’ve been seeing Walker family descendants.

Based on what I know of the Force family tree, there should be no DNA connection to the Walker family. My Walker ancestry is thru other family lines. However, the ancestors behind Jefferson’s parents are unknown.

So the question is: where does that connection come into the family tree? Before our MRCA or after? Did one of their more recent relations marry a descendant of the Walker family, making that particular DNA connection one of chance? Or was one of the unknown ancestors of our MRCA actually related to the Walker family or their ancestors?

Based on the information Ancestry provides, I can’t know the answer. I can create family trees for all the matching individuals to find any points of intersection, but I may not find the answer. It would be incredibly helpful to know whether any two shared matches match me in the same way. At least then I would know that the Walker connection was shared through our Force MRCA and could research accordingly.

What do you wish for?

Genealogy: A New Perspective from A Discovery of Witches

Kris Hocker on 12 Feb 2021

Next to genealogy, my favorite pastime is reading. I enjoy a variety of genres of fiction, as well as non-fiction on occasion. Recently, intrigued by the ads for the second television season of A Discovery of Witches, starring Teresa Palmer as Diana Bishop and Matthew Goode as Matthew Clairmont, I read the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness (A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night, and The Book of Life).

With an historian, who happens to be a non-practicing witch, researching Alchemical ancient manuscripts and a vampire geneticist, it hit a couple of my reading and genealogy sweet spots. I gobbled up all three volumes as fast as I could. Then I binged the first season of the show so I could be all caught up before the new season started.

In season two, Diana and Matthew travel back in time to England in 1590 in search of a witch to teach Diana how to use her magic. Drama and adventure ensues.

While I’m enjoying the show, I was not prepared for the sense of connection I feel. Knowing that I had an ancestor who I can identify by name who was living in London the very year the show is portraying added an unexpected dimension and gave me a new perspective on his life.

Richard Dungan

My 13th great grandfather Richard Dungan died in St. Martin-in-the-Fields in 1609 and was buried as a gentleman with “a hand-carved coat of arms on his coffin.”¹ He was most likely born in Ireland either in Dublin or Dunganstown in County Wicklow.

AGAS map of London, circa 1560s, showing St. Martin-in-the-Fields, St. Paul's Cathedral, Somerset House and more — AGAS Map of London, circa 1560s

When he died, he was living at a house referred to as the Horseshoe in St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Prior to that, however, he lived and owned properties on Little Britain street in St. Botolph’s parish in Aldergate, just outside the London city walls.² [see image above] There were also associations between family members and St. James Clerkenwell, St. Sepulchre, and Christ’s Church. In Shadow of Night, the basis of season two of A Discovery of Witches, Diana and Matthew spend time in the Black Friars section of London. But I imagine that Richard’s environs were not that much different.

In 1590, Richard was granted “the place of Master Plasterer to the Queen” after the death of John Symmonds, in place of Symmonds’ partner who had recently died.³ When Symmonds died in 1597, Richard was elevated to the position of Queen’s Master Plasterer on July 4th.⁴ He served as master of the Plasterers Company in 1601/2, 1604/5 and 1606/7.⁵

As such, Richard worked on a number of Crown projects at Whitehall, the Royal Palace at Greenwich, St. James Palace, and Somerset House, among others.⁶ He also did private work, including for Robert Cecil, son of William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer to Elizabeth I, who appears as a character in the show for whom Matthew was working as a spy. It’s a second-hand connection, I know, but if Richard did work for the crown, then I imagine he might have had some contact with agents of the Lord High Treasurer, too.

Dungan coat of arms — Dungan Coat of Arms
1598

In 1609, Richard did work at “Brittains Burse” also known as the New Exchange for Robert Cecil’s agent.⁷ The New Exchange was a center for the purchase of luxury goods, including perfumes. This is important because it—along with Richard’s residence at the Horseshoe, helps to tie Richard to his grandson William Dungan (c1600-1636) of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, a perfumer, who rented space in the Burse for two shops and a small residence⁸ from at least 1628 through 1637.

After William’s death, his widow, Frances (Latham) Dungan, and their children left England with her new husband, Capt. Jeremy Clarke, and settled in Rhode Island. My 10th great grandfather, William and Frances’ son, Rev. Thomas Dungan (1635-1688), started the first Baptist church in Pennsylvania at Cold Springs, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. His descendant Rachel Jones’ pedigree is—to the best of my knowledge—the only line on my mother’s side of the family which is not of German heritage.

Watching this TV show has unexpectedly given me a deeper feeling of connection to my little explored English roots and especially to my London ancestor, Richard Dungan.

Update: 5 Tips to Get the Most Out of Your AncestryDNA Results

Kris Hocker on 19 Jan 2020

Waaay back in December 2017, I wrote a post entitled “5 Tips to Help You Get the Most Out of Your AncestryDNA Results.” Given that a lot has changed since then would I make the same suggestions today?

Let me first remind you of those 5 tips:

Add a family tree
Connect your family tree to your DNA test
Trace collateral lines
Make your tree public
Download your DNA results

For the most part, I’d make those same recommendations today. However, I don’t know that they would all be in my top five. Given the changes Ancestry has made and the tools they’ve added, I would tweak some of them or replace them with new tips altogether.

So, here’s my updated top five tips.

1. Add a family tree

This is absolutely still my top tip—and my number one frustration with new DNA matches. It’s absolutely impossible to identify our common ancestry if I don’t know who any of your ancestors were. I mean, I’m good. But nobody is that good unless they already know you personally.

Ancestry family tree example shown in pedigree layout — Ancestry Family Tree (pedigree)

So, build a tree. Even if the first few generations are private—as they should be for living people—I can work with your deceased ancestors to build a tree to knit our respective branches together. It’s more work than if it’s already complete, but it can be done.

And this ties into the next tip.

2. Connect your family tree to your DNA test

This is not absolutely necessary. I’ve worked successfully with unlinked trees. But it’s always easier when you know how the DNA test taker fits into the family tree. That’s not always clear with unlinked trees.

So, go ahead and tie the test to your entry in the family tree. It will help immensely with my ability and that of Ancestry’s ThruLines™ to locate our shared ancestry.

3. Make your tree searchable

When Ancestry switched from DNA Circles to their ThruLines, they changed the way in which family trees were used to make the connections. First, they changed which trees were used. With Circles only public trees were used. Now with ThruLines, Ancestry will use both public and private trees, but will only use a private tree if it is searchable. (Here’s how.)

They now also use multiple trees. It doesn’t just match between the public trees of two DNA matches. Their algorithm builds connections between the individuals in multiple trees—some may not even be related—back to the common ancestor. So, it might match your Grandpa Joe to someone else’s cousin Joe, then connect his great grandpa Thomas to someone else’s ancestor, and so on until it makes a connection to Henry in my tree. Giving us both a common ancestor.

Pro tip? Follow up each common ancestor with your own review. I’ve sometimes found that a match and I do indeed share the provided common ancestor, but the DNA we share comes through another ancestor. How did I determine this? Our Shared Matches were related through someone else—who I found with a little research we both also shared.

4. Create custom groups

While the first three tips will help both you and your DNA cousins to make connections, this tip benefits primarily you.

How to create an AncestryDNA custom group — Ancestry Custom Group

Ancestry added custom groups at the beginning of last year. Many users, including myself, have been using them to assign DNA matches to an ancestral group following the Leeds Method by Dana Leeds. It’s a useful method of identifying which branch of your family tree a DNA match belongs to and can help identify a common ancestor or couple.

One column on your Shared Match list contains the group (and the ability to add/edit it) and your notes for each match included. Once you’ve started using a method to group and color tag your matches, you can use your Shared Match list to identify and group the match you’re reviewing.

On the main match page, you can filter your match results based on the custom group and use additional search parameters to narrow the list even further if you wish. This allows you to easily work with a subset of your matches.

5. Make use of Ancestry’s ThruLines

Use Ancestry’s ThruLines for tips and hints. As I mentioned in tip #3, a ThruLines match can be valid and still be incorrect as a common ancestor between you and a specific DNA match (or match group).

Ancestry ThruLines showing my ancestors and number of DNA matches

You can use the information it provides as a suggestion for additional research. Evaluate what you find. Does it corroborate the information or contradict it? How reliable it that piece of evidence? Does it suggest other avenues for research.

You may find that your existing or new research proves ThruLines correct, semi-correct, or not at all correct. But evaluate it before making a decision.

Conclusion

These are my top five tips, as of the beginning of 2020. Depending on new developments they will likely change in the future. I’ll let you know.

2019: Blog in Review

Kris Hocker on 31 Dec 2019

By just about any measure—including the goals I identified last December—I was an abject failure. I wrote a total of six posts in 2019, including this one. Four of them were written in the first three months of the year and the fifth in August. The rest of the year? Nothing.

I’m not even sure what happened to be totally honest. It felt like I looked up and several months had passed and I hadn’t written anything. I made a note to do better. Then I looked up again, and the year was almost over. Yikes!

It’s not that I haven’t been researching or writing. I just haven’t been posting any of it here on the website. And if I’m honest with myself I don’t know if that will change in 2020. Although I’ve had several ideas for articles, it’s been hard to focus long enough to write them up. I’m hoping that will change, but no promises.

What’s Up for 2020?

My goal for 2020 is simple: Write.

That’s it. Regardless of whether I share it here or not, I need to start putting what I’ve found into something other than my Reunion file and stored source image folders.

So, that’s what I’m going to do. Feel free to ask me about it in the coming year.

Ancestry’s ThruLines™

Kris Hocker on 1 Mar 2019

Ancestry is replacing their DNA Circles with a new feature: ThruLines. What is it? How does it work? Will it help you break through your brick walls? Let’s take a look.

Ancestry’s ThruLines will show you how your DNA matches that of another person through an ancestor you both share. The tool uses Ancestry’s family trees—public and private—to build a path—or ThruLine—from your match to a common ancestor. Private individuals are represented but not named in the path.

How is this different from DNA Circles? The main differences are 1) it uses both public and private trees (as long as they’re searchable) and 2) it doesn’t just use your tree and your match’s tree, it uses all of Ancestry’s searchable trees. So, it will work for any of your matches that have ancestors in their trees who can be found in another tree.

Does this mean that your shared DNA is from this common ancestor? Maybe.

What Ancestry is doing is creating a quick and dirty tree for your match. It’s just taking the human out of the process. The ThruLine that it creates is only as good as the information in family trees available at Ancestry. And we’ve all seen how reliable some of those trees are.

How To Use It

Access to ThruLines can be found in three locations. It replaces the DNA Circles box on the DNA Summary page (or you can choose to continue to use Circles for now). Clicking on “Common Ancestor” for a match on the match list page (see below). And it is also found on the new match detail page for applicable matches.

ThruLines Page

Clicking on the “Explore ThruLines” button takes me to a page that looks a lot like the DNA Circles page.

Speculative Ancestry ThruLines ancestor display with image, name, relationship, birth and death years, and dashed outline box — Speculative ThruLines ancestor

This page shows all my direct ancestors as entered in my linked family tree (or should) and a few speculative ones, as well. The speculative ancestors are differentiated with a dashed outline and tagged “potential ancestor.”

I can filter these ancestors to show: all the matches, potential ancestors, or ancestors from my linked tree.

Match List

If your match has a tree that is searchable and tree members can be found in other Ancestry tree(s), then the “Common ancestor” tag with leaf will be found in their listing. This indicates a possible connection has been found.

Match Detail

If I click on “Common ancestor” (yes, it’s clickable), then I’m taken to the match detail page which shows me our common ancestor(s). In this case two ancestors are shown—father and son.

Clicking on “View Relationship” for either man will take me to a page that shows me how my match and I are related to that individual.

Accessing ThruLines through the match lists will only show you a possible ancestor for a specific match. Accessing it from the summary page and selecting a specific ancestor will show you all the cousins identified as potentially descended from your ancestor.

Is It Accurate?

I’ve been using this tool, reviewing the individuals in the trees used to try to determine whether or not the path—and common ancestor—is accurate. The results have been mostly “yes, it appears accurate,” but not completely so. And in a couple of cases it isn’t quite working as expected.

I have entered both Jacob Schneider and Catharina Nuss—ancestors I’ve identified using both DNA research and traditional genealogy—and Catharina’s ancestors in my linked family tree. Only Jacob appears on my ThruLines page. Instead of Catharine, a speculative mother for Henry Schneider shows up—Susanna Yeakel (Wagner) Schneider.

Here’s Jacob’s ThruLine expanded to actually show descendants. It shows four DNA matches to me. I’ve identified more, but some of them share DNA with my mother and not me.

Here’s the ThruLine for Susanna Yeakel (Wagner) Schneider.

ThruLines for Susanna Yeakel Wagner (aka Wiegner)

It’s suggesting that descendants of Jacob Schneider also match a descendant of Susanna. If I look at the tree associated with Susanna Yeakel (Wagner) Schneider, there’s no son named Henry Schneider. Susanna Wiegner married George Schneider on 25 April 1784.

Furthermore, I can identify the family as belonging to the Schwenkfelders. Susanna’s mother is my 6G Grandaunt through the Yeakel family—I descend through her brothers Johannes Heinrich and Jeremias—and her father is my 1st cousin 8x removed through his mother, Susanna Seipt. Despite all the Schneiders in my ancestry, I’m not (to my knowledge) related to George at all.

Additionally, I’ve yet to see ThruLine suggest multiple common ancestors for a match like the current shared ancestors does. And quite a few of my matches share multiple lines of descent with me. If your ancestors stayed in one place like most of mine, sooner or later someone married a cousin.

And remember that this tool will not tell for sure from which ancestor you and your match got your shared DNA. It compares family trees.

So, should you use the tool? Yes, but… verify the information. For some of your matches it will shortcut the research process. For others, not so much.

Ancestry’s New & Improved DNA Matches

Kris Hocker on 28 Feb 2019

RootsTech 2019 has started and Ancestry and MyHeritage are announcing new tools that will be accessible to users on their websites. Yesterday, I spent time working with Ancestry’s new tools: the improved DNA match list page, ThruLines and MyTree Tags. Here’s my take on the new match list and match detail pages.

New & Improved Match List Page

Streamlined match page

AncestryDNA's New Matches page — AncestryDNA’s new match page

As you can see, Ancestry’s new and improved match page looks much different. The display is condensed and features infinite scrolling, adding additional matches as you reach the bottom of the page.

Additionally, if Mom and/or Dad have tested, your matches are tagged according to which side (or both) of your family they match. Unfortunately, this feature only works if Mom and/or Dad has tested with Ancestry.

In the past, I’ve used a third-party browser add-on to display my notes on the match list page. That is no longer necessary. Any notes added are now displayed as part of the page. No more hovering over an icon to see what the note says.

Filtering & Groups

They’ve also changed the filtering and added groups. Filtering allows you to see matches that have

common ancestors (previous Ancestor Hints),
new (unviewed) matches,
those you’ve messaged,
with notes,
private trees,
public linked trees, and
unlinked trees.

Filtering based on ancestral communities/regions has been removed.

As you can see in the images, in the past I’ve tried to visually tag my matches according as maternal or paternal lines using the colored, heart emoticons. We now have the ability to tag our matches as part of Ancestry’s interface. We can create up to 24, color-coded groups which we can then use to filter the match view by group.

Ancestry included the star in this tool, in effect giving you a 25th tag for your matches. To see the name of an assigned group on the list page—it can be hard to remember what each color represents, click on the colored dot and the “add to group” menu pops-up.

I’ve already made good use of this tool, creating 12 groups. The colors I’ve used are marked by the white slash, indicating they can’t be selected when creating a new group.

The group list also includes the ability to filter by:

all matches,
new matches,
close matches (4th cousin or closer),
distant matches,
hidden matches, and
matches shared with a parent (if tested).

Switch Kits

One addition I particularly like was the ability to switch between the kits you manage directly from the match list.

Now you don’t have to return to your DNA overview page to see another kit’s match list.

Match Detail Page

The match detail page has also changed dramatically (see below). We got a preview of these changes when Ancestry added the compare button allowing us to compare ethnicities with a match.

The page is divided into information blocks. Below that header images of you and your match (if available), is a summary block that includes the predicted relationship, amount of shared DNA and any notes.

Next, there is a block with information about your match’s tree. To see the tree you need to click on the “preview tree” button to go to the old match detail page. As a designer, I understand the decision not to show it on this page, but as user I think it’s a step in the wrong direction.

However, perhaps Ancestry assumed the “Common Ancestors” on this page would negate the need for the tree. This is their new ThruLines™ as incorporated into the match detail page. I will wrote more about this feature, but in short it suggests a common ancestor between you and your match. If you click on one of the people, you will see the path to this ancestor for you and your match.

The page shows several of your shared matches. Clicking on the “View all shared matches” button will take you to a list of all your shared matches. On this page, you can add each match to a group.

Below this, there is a map display comparing ethnicity estimates for you and your match, as well, as any shared migrations you may have.

Concerns

I’m thrilled that Ancestry has made these changes. They’ve taken some of the techniques we’ve been using to manage our genetic genealogy research and incorporated them directly into the Ancestry experience. It’s not ground-breaking, but it’s a heck of a lot more convenient.

However, there are a couple of changes I would like to see. A couple of things I’d like to be able do on the match detail page:

Edit your notes
See the group to which this match is assigned and/or add the match to a group
See all your common ancestors—so far, I’ve only see one couple displayed
Switch to another kit who also matches this person

Currently, this page is a display page. You can get some information on the match and go elsewhere for more details, but you cannot interact with or manage it on this page. The old page was much more useful.

On the match list page—particularly when viewing a shared match list—it would be great to be able to bulk add matches to a list. Currently, you have to do it one-by-one.

The tool is still in beta so I expect there will be some changes. If you have ideas, please provide your feedback to the Ancestry team.

Opt-In/Out

You can opt-in or opt-out of this feature by selecting Ancestry Lab under the Extras menu.

To opt-in click the Enable link in the “New & Improved DNA Matches” box. Opting out is a simple as clicking the Disable link.

2018: Blog in Review

Kris Hocker on 31 Dec 2018

Where did the year go? I swear I blinked and it was gone. Poof! The coming new year means it’s time to look back and review my performance on the blog over the past twelve months and make plans for 2019.

Last year I disappointed myself by not meeting my writing goals for this website. As a result, I set different goals, focused not solely on how much I wrote, but on how I wrote.

Since the most popular posts seem to be those that describe a research tool or explain how to use a genealogy resource, I decided to focus more on these type of posts and those that explained how I’ve addressed a research problem.

I also gave myself permission to write about research subjects that were in progress, rather than waiting until I could share a complete genealogical sketch and biography. This is a particular issue for me—whether I’m writing for the blog or working on my other family writing projects.

The Results

Although I didn’t want to focus on the number of posts written, it’s still a quantitative measure of how involved I was with the blog this year. Here’s what my monthly post count actually looked like in 2018 as compared to 2017 (2018/2017).

Jan: 8/12
Feb: 5/7
Mar: 5/6
Apr: 4/3
May: 6/6
Jun: 5/0
Jul: 2/1
Aug: 5/0
Sep: 2/2
Oct: 6/2
Nov: 7/0
Dec: 8/6
Total: 63

Or expressed another way…

Monthly posts (2017 vs. 2018)

The chart shows that while I had months where I wrote more in 2017 (blue), I was a somewhat more consistent poster in 2018 (red), averaging a little more than 5 posts/month.

What’s Up for 2019 ?

My goals for 2019 can be boiled down to: keep writing. I didn’t always feel inspired to write this year, nor did I always feel like I had something particularly interesting to report. But I met my writing goals anyway and a number of posts that I wrote this year were relatively well-received—or at least viewed repeatedly.

One reader’s comment on “Slow Down, Don’t Move Too Fast” was illuminating and I hope to use it to guide my writing in 2019. She wrote, “It is useful to actually see an example and evaluate it rather than simply [be] told.” This has always been true for me as a reader, too.

Yet, in my own writing I’ll make only oblique references to things that were wrong or not particularly helpful. I don’t delve into them to show why that it is when I’m trying to untangle a research problem, like distinguishing between two Ludwig Shotts or three Michael Benders for instance.

Maybe I need to think about not just writing up my findings, but instead writing a step-by-step on how I reached them. Since part of this exercise is about me becoming a better researcher and the other is sharing with people who want to learn, that might be useful on both counts.

Happy Hanukkah

Kris Hocker on 2 Dec 2018

dreidel and flame

Happy Hanukkah to those of you celebrating the festival of lights!

Credit: Photo by Robert Zunikoff on Unsplash

I Am My Own Cousin

Kris Hocker on 28 Nov 2018

One thing you can almost count on if your ancestors lived in the same place for 100s of years. Sooner or later their families started to intertwine through cousin marriages.

Before 1850, marrying in the family was common – on average, fourth cousins married each other, compared to seventh cousins today. ¹

My father’s paternal ancestors lived in Lancaster and Dauphin counties, his maternal ancestors in Centre and Clearfield counties. My mother’s ancestors settled in eastern Pennsylvania in Bucks, Berks, Lehigh and Montgomery counties. The earliest immigrants settled in their pieces of Pennsylvania and for the most part stayed there.

And yet, after a lot of research, I’ve determined my parents are distantly related.

They are eighth cousins twice removed, descendants of two sons of Johann Adam and Anna Katharina (Tauber) Roeder. Johann Adam Roeder Jr. married Anna Barbara Bender and settled in Rockingham County, Virginia. His great granddaughter Barbara Rader married Michael Houdeshell. Their great grandson James Benjamin Houdeshell moved from Hardy County, West Virginia to Centre County, Pennsylvania during the Civil War and married Phoebe Mayes. They became the great grandparents of my paternal grandmother.

Johann Michael Roeder, Adam Jr.’s younger brother, married Maria Susanna Zimmerman and settled in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. His granddaughter Catharina Nuss married Jacob Schneider. Their 2x great granddaughter Lillian Snyder was my maternal great grandmother.

This makes my maternal grandfather Russ and paternal grandmother Ruth 7th cousins twice removed and my parents 8th cousins twice removed based on the Roeder family from Mutterstadt, Germany, previously of Canton Bern, Switzerland.

This isn’t the only way they’re related. Both families can be traced back to the Landis family. I don’t know the exact relationship, but have read that Jacob Landis, my maternal Landis ancestor, was the older brother of Felix Landis, my paternal Landis ancestor. If this is true, my parents are also 8th cousins through the Landis family of Canton Zurich, Switzerland.

It is, indeed, a small world.

Category: Commentary