Unexpected Discovery from AncestryDNA Match Building a Match's Family Tree

According to Ancestry, I have 363 DNA matches who are 4th cousins or closer. That’s a lot of cousins. Parsing through them all to identify where we match is not a small undertaking. As more people test at Ancestry, that task is unlikely to get any easier.

These cousins and I share between 20 cMs (4th cousin) and 615 cMs (2nd cousin). As you might expect, I’m spending time on the matches with either higher amounts of matching DNA or Shared Ancestor Hints (aka shaking leaves)—not on those with either a severely limited online tree or no tree.

However, sometimes it pays to spend the time building out a match’s family tree.

The Snyder Family

I recently had a new match pop up in my list. According to the link to her profile, she didn’t have a family tree, but I viewed the match anyway. Turns out she did have a tree; she just hadn’t associated it with her DNA test.¹

The tree was small, only going back a few generations, none of whom matched my identifiable family members. But it included one Elizabeth Snyder. Since this person also matched my mother and Snyder is one of her family surnames, I did a little research on Elizabeth.

I was able to locate Elizabeth’s death certificate.² She was born to Charles Snyder and Coletta Zellner in Allentown and died in Lehigh County. I recognized the surnames Snyder and Zellner from my research and, of course, Allentown is right up the road from where my Schneider/Snyders lived in Upper Hanover Township, Montgomery County.

So, I dug around a little and traced Elizabeth’s tree.

Using census records, marriage records, death records, and Find A Grave, I was able to trace Elizabeth’s ancestry back to Samuel Snyder and Judith Wolf of Allentown. In 1850, the family was living in the East End of Allentown.³

Samuel was 48 years-old, a laborer, and his son Charles was 7 years-old. Jonas Snyder, identified in later records as Samuel’s brother, was also living in the household.⁴ Just one family away was the household of Absalom Wolf. Judith Snyder’s maiden name was listed as Wolf on her son’s death certificate.⁵ Could they be related?

Absalom Wolf was most likely the son of Jacob and Magdalena (Brey) Wolf of Upper Hanover Township and Allentown, my four times great grandparents.⁶ Indeed, if you look four households before the Snyders (at bottom of the previous page), you’ll find Jacob and Magdalena and their children Charles and Catharine.⁷

Isn’t it possible that Samuel and Judith were living in the same neighborhood in Allentown as her parents and brother?

I found Jacob Wolf living in multiple locations in the Allentown general area. He was living in Allentown in 1860,⁸ 1850, and most likely in 1840.⁹ In 1830, his household can be found in Upper Hanover Township near his wife Magdalena’s father Conrad Brey.¹⁰ In 1820, he was living in Milford Township¹¹ next door to Daniel Brey, son of John Conrad and Elisabeth (Schneider) Brey,¹² and in 1810 in Upper Hanover.¹³

Both the 1820 and 1830 census include an entry for a female in the appropriate age range to be Judith. Furthermore, in looking at the households on the same page as Jacob in 1830 census, I noticed two households in particular. One was his father-in-law Conrad Bry [Brey], as already mentioned. The other was Catharine Snyder.¹⁴

Yes, that Catharine Snyder! Mother of my 4x great grandfather, Henry Snyder.

Seeing Catharine got me thinking about the children she had with Jacob Schneider. I knew that they had a son Jonas—it’s not a common name in my family lines—and that he was young when Jacob died about 1829, but couldn’t remember if they had a son Samuel. Looking them up in Reunion, I found that Jonas was born after 16 November 1815 and before 19 October 1829. An 1820 birth fits into this range. It also fits with the 1820 census¹⁵ and 1830 census records for the family.

Jacob and Catharine also had a son named Samuel. According to my guesstimates, he was likely born between 1795 and 1800. If I or the census ages are off a little, Samuel, too, could fit right into this family. Since I don’t have firm birth dates or even ages from the Orphan’s Court documents, it’s currently impossible to know for sure based on the information at hand. However, if Samuel was the son of Jacob and Catharine, and Judith was the daughter of Jacob and Magdalena, the fact that both families are shown as living in Upper Hanover in 1830 and appear to be living near each other—only seven households apart—puts Samuel and Judith in the right place to meet prior to their marriage about 1833.

Conclusions

So, I have a bunch of circumstantial evidence that points to Samuel and Judith being the children of Jacob and Catharine (___) Schneider and Jacob and Magdalena (Brey) Wolf.

1. A DNA match of 24.5 cMs on 2 segments between myself and a descendant of Elizabeth Snyder, who also matches my mother
2. A family tree that includes Elizabeth Snyder
3. A death certificate naming Elizabeth’s parents as Charles Snyder and Colette Zellner
4. A death certificate for Charles Snyder naming his parents as Samuel and Julian (Wolf) Snyder—Judith/Judy in other records
5. Census records that place Samuel’s household in the same neighborhood in Allentown as Jacob Wolf and his son Absalom Wolf
6. Census records that name Jonas Snyder, born about 1820, as Samuel’s brother
7. An Orphan’s Court document naming the children of Jacob Schneider of Upper Hanover as: Henry, Elizabeth, Jacob, Catharina, Samuel, Daniel, Michael, John, Sarah, and Jonas, and stating Sarah and Jonas were minors (under 21 years-old) as of 19 October 1829
8. Census records that show both families—Snyder and Wolf—living near each other in 1830
9. Burials for members of both Jacob Wolf’s family and Samuel Snyder’s family in Union-West End Cemetery in Allentown

The facts seems to create a compelling story. I’d feel more confident with evidence that was more direct, but I may have to settle for an argument based on circumstantial evidence. I’ll keep digging into both families to see what else I can come up with.

• Category: Research
• Tag: DNA