Tag: Ancestry.com

It’s a Really Small World

Kris Hocker on 8 Jul 2016

Ethnicity Map

I’ve recently joined the genetic genealogy club. Mom and I both had our DNA tested through Ancestry DNA. My results just came in. You know how the television commercials show someone making a surprise discovery through their DNA? Surprise, you’re not German, you’re Scottish.

Yeah, my results weren’t anything like that.

Ethnicity Chart

Instead, I found out I’m pretty much who I thought I was—genetically speaking—an American of Western European descent. In fact, according to Ancestry, I’m even more Western European than the typical native Western European! I’m 63% Western European, compared to an average of 48%. I’m also 16% Irish, 5% Scandinavian, 11% trace European regions (Iberian Peninsula, Great Britain, Italy/Greece, and European Jewish), 5% West Asian (Caucasus), and 1% South Asian (India). So, 95% European mutt with a little Asian blood thrown in way back.

None of this surprises me. Most of my relatives are of German-descent, including those from Alsace-Lorraine and Switzerland. The rest are from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales—regions reflected in my DNA as Irish and Scandinavian.

Cousins

The surprise came through examining my cousin matches. It seems like there were an awful lot of them! Some of them I even know how we’re related. I had five third cousin matches, including matches from the Hockers, Wieders, and Houdeshells. The rest were fourth-sixth cousins, meaning a common ancestor five or more generations back.

The surprise came in finding out that I match two of my third cousins (siblings) through three of my grandparents! Our match is closest through the Hockers—Albert Curtin and Lillian (Leedy) Hocker. This couple are our great great grandparents. So, we’re third cousins. Our grandfathers knew each other and spent summers visiting their grandparents on the farm in Cumberland County.

But these cousins also match me on the other side of the family! If I go back through my Wieder ancestors through the female line to Abraham and Anna Sibilla (Fuchs) Herb. We descend from their daughters Anna Margaretha (Herb) Bobb and Catharine (Herb) Fronheiser.

And we’re likely related through my ancestor George Heilig whose daughter Eva Elisabetha married Johann Jacob Kline. I’m not sure of the connection, but we both have Heiligs who lived in proximity to one another in our trees.

Furthermore, we match going back through my Hoover family, through Walker, Eckley and Mayes ancestors to the Dotterer family. Catharine Margaret Fetzer, daughter of Andrew and Magdalena (Dotterer) Fetzer, married Andrew Walker about 1791. They settled in Boggs Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania. I descend through their son, John who married Mary Lucas and had a daughter Catharine who married John Eckley, and two of their daughters: Catharine, who married George M. Walker, and Mary Ann who married John Mayes Jr.

It’s a really, really small world.

Shaking Those Little Leafs What I've Learned Using Ancestry's Family Trees

Kris Hocker on 2 Jul 2016

I recently decided to have my DNA tested at Ancestry. Since you really can’t get anything worthwhile out of it without being able to compare family trees with your match, I decided to go ahead build a tree at Ancestry.

While testing my DNA was the main driver, I was also hoping to get help finding records for some of those ancestors that I haven’t done much research on. By the time you get more than a couple of generations back, there are so many ancestors to research, it’s hard to keep up. A little assistance would be appreciated.

Ancestry HintsAnd for some ancestors, this is what has happened. Ancestry’s shaking leafs have shown me records that I don’t have. And helped me learn more about them. For the most part, however, it’s shown me records that I already have or would have easily located by doing a basic search for that ancestor.

It’s also mostly showing me records after I’ve entered information about my ancestor. Dates, places, relatives. The point when you really need help, however, is when you really don’t know that stuff.

For instance, I’ve seen no hints for baptismal records appear for an ancestor until after I’ve entered the parents names. When you don’t know the parents’ names, that’s when you need the most help, right? So, the shaky leaves are good at finding records mostly for what I already know? Where’s the help in that?

The second thing I’ve learned is that it is so easy to be overwhelmed by hints. Some are good matches, but a lot aren’t. German clues are kinda useless when I only have the US plan. And do I really need to go through the ten copies of the same gravestone image that other people have attached to this ancestor? Especially, if the image was originally from this site! (Yeah, that’s happened.)

Perhaps I’d be more enamored with the shaking leafs if I were just beginning. If I were just starting my tree with only knowledge of my parents and grandparents, I think it would be much more useful. Recent census records alone would help to identify prior generations. But my holes are in the early 1800s and 1700s. Records for those periods are 1) less likely to be online and 2) harder to find due to spelling inconsistencies for almost any given surname.

Maybe I should’ve known better. I’ve been at this long enough to know it’s not as easy as the Ancestry commercials make it look.

Wish list

If I could create a wishlist for Ancestry’s hints, I’d really like the ability to specify the types of hints I’d like to see. I can limit my search to only historical records. Why can’t I set preferences for my tree to do the same with hints? After all, it’s performing the same function and I can already filter the hints after the fact. Why can’t I do it before the search is performed?

It would also be kinda cool to be able to limit the hints to family lines, only direct ancestors, etc. I understand the value of researching collateral lines; I do it all the time myself.  But do I really want to see hints for my first cousin 4x removed’s husband’s parents? When what I really want to know is who are the parents of my 4x great grandfather? Not so much.

Tuesday Tip: Beware Indexing Errors Ancestry's Index of Early Emanuel Lutheran Baptismal Records

Kris Hocker on 28 Jun 2016

I’ve been using the Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Church and Town Records, 1708-1985 to locate records for my ancestors. I keep running into the same error in the index for some of these records—specifically the early baptismal records for Emanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, also known as the Warwick Congregation in the 18th century.

Here’s an example from my Hacker family:

Adam Hacker family baptisms

 

At the top of the page, you have “Joann Adam Hacker,” the name of the head of the family. Beneath his name is a list of his children that were baptized at the Warwick congregation, their birthdates, and for two of the children, their baptismal dates, as well.

The problem with these entries is found in the way they are indexed. Each of these children were indexed on Ancestry using the surname of their sponsor. For instance, Fridrich was indexed as “Fridrich Weidman” with “Wendel Wiedman” listed as his father. This is incorrect. I’ve added the correct surnames to the entries, but their baptisms do not show up in search results using the correct surname.

Fridrich Hacker index entry

I don’t know if other records in the collection have this issue; it depends, I would guess, on the format used in the original source. Early records from the Warwick congregation listed baptisms with the children grouped and listed under their father’s name. For some reason the indexers did not understand this format—or that a sponsor, as listed, was not the parent.

This problem is not just limited to my family, but to all baptisms at Emanuel Lutheran through about 1772. The last entry that used this format was that of Susannah, daughter of Henrich Dieterich and his wife Christina. She is listed in the index as “Susannah Süss.”

This is another example of why it’s so important to not stop at the index. If a record should be there, make sure you page through the images before you give up. You might be thrilled by what you find.