DNA results #1 are in!

I am super stoked! Just yesterday, I was on the Ancestry.com website checking the DNA page and saying to myself, "Why are you being a glutton for punishment? You *know* the results won't be in yet!" And then I got the e-mail!! Apparently my brother has super speedy DNA. I was supposed to have to wait four weeks and I only had to wait a week for his. If his DNA was a girl, some people would not be calling it a lady...but I don't care, because it knew I was impatient and it came through for me to tide me over till the other results come in!

I guess y-chromosome DNA tests are easier to read than mtDNA tests. That's probably the real answer.

So, the y-chromosome test was for the Gorry line (father's father's father's line, etc.) and the Gorrys, like 70 percent of people from Western Europe and 90 percent from England and Ireland, belong to the group R1b. The page shows a readout of the results, a map of the group coming out of Mesopotamia and traveling through Eastern to Western Europe, a description of that particular group of people, all of which I have to read more closely to get a better idea of what it all means. But the coolest factor I think is you can also find paternal matches of other people who have uploaded their DNA results to Ancestry. Depending on how many markers you have in common, you can find people you are closely related to and how many generations back you have to go to find a common ancestor. Like, at 70 generations back, my brother matched with more than 250 people. Big whoop. Everyone in the world is related 70 generations back. But there's one woman in England that has a 50 percent chance of being related to us only 13 generations, or 325 years, back. That would be around the year 1683. My Raynor ancestors had already been in America for 50 years at that point, so for me as a genealogist, a connection from that time period does not feel that far back. And on the Gorry side...I can't trace them farther than 1800 so far!

Anyway, it's all just as exciting as I thought it would be. And as more people do this and add their info to the database, more possible familial links will turn up and more "long-lost" relatives could be found. Definitely have to start finding out more about my bro's results, then...jeez, I feel like such a dork. But I'm so excited, I don't even care!

DNA analysis in progress!

Just checked the Ancestry website and finally got the news I've been looking for...the labs have received my DNA samples. They got mine and my brother's yesterday, my father's on Wednesday. Apparently his DNA was so super excited to be analyzed that even though I mailed all the packets at the same time, his searched for and found a short cut in order to get to Utah a day earlier than the other two...and he couldn't share his time-saving tip with his comrades? I don't know how I feel about my dad's DNA anymore...

Anyhow, uppity and unfriendly DNA aside, all three samples are accounted for and the analysis can begin. They say it takes an average of 4 weeks to get results. With my Irish luck, it'll take longer, but in any case, let the countdown begin!

The genetics journey begins

Well, the cheeks have been swabbed, vigorously, and the swabs have been mailed. My dad, my brother, and I all took our DNA tests and submitted them to Ancestry.com for testing. I'm very excited. We each took a different test (well, my dad and I took the same one, but they'll be tracing different lines), so I should be getting results that trace my paternal Gorry line, my maternal line, and my father's maternal line - those lines are impossible to name as it follows the female so each generation has a new name...

I'm very curious about the results, which I probably won't be getting for another four weeks at the earliest (even when I'm hitting brick walls, genealogy still teaches me things, like patience!). My sample should come back showing the T haplogroup, which is what my NatGeo DNA results told me, but I'd like to see if there's any more info on T than there was 4 years ago. I don't know anything about tracing the y-chromosome, so I have no idea what to expect result-wise for the Gorry line, so that'll be something new to learn when I get those results back, and then there's my father's maternal line. Like I said in another post, 40-60 percent of people of European descent belong to the H haplogroup according to their mtDNA, so that's the result I'm expecting to find there. And I don't think my father quite understands why we did this or what we'll learn from it, so I'm excited to share those results with him once they come in - hopefully there'll be a map and some info more specific to the haplogroup we fall into, which will clear some things up.

So thanks to my dad and my brother for helping out, especially my brother, who gave me his DNA even though I couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't be used at some point in the future to frame him for a crime he never committed. Thanks, family! :)

The Genographic Project

I've actually taken a genealogical DNA test before, in June 2005, as part of National Geographic's The Genographic Project. They were studying isolated, indigenous populations but asked for as many participants as possible to send in their DNA to create a map of the human journey. I thought it sounded so interesting - how could I not be a part of it?

The results of the test put you into a haplogroup - depending on what mutations they find in your DNA, they can group you with others with that same mutation back to a common ancestor/group of people. The tree starts with a common ancestor in Africa, and from their branches out, and those branches branch out, and again, and it's on those various branches that your DNA will place you. The National Geographic website explains it much better than I do, so if you want to know more, I highly recommend visiting the site: www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic.

Anyway, I learned that I had four mutations that put me in haplogroup T. 40-60 percent of Western Europeans belong to haplogroup H, and as someone who seems to constantly strive to be different, I was happy to find I didn't fall into that group. T, though the second most popular Western European haplogroup, is only found in 20 percent of the population. Anyway, T is considered one of the main genetic signatures of the Neolithic expansion, which is basically when, around 10,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers became farmers. A lot of Ts can be found in the Ukraine/Russia/Georgia region, which I found interesting, because I was following an Irish line. Obviously, 10,000 years ago there were no Irish people. They all had to come from somewhere. But it was interesting to learn that where many of my branch ended up beside Ireland.

The next geneological frontier: DNA

Yep, I'm jumping on the bandwagon. With all the increase in interest in genealogy, it was only a matter of time before DNA entered the picture. Not only can it, in some cases, pinpoint your relation to someone in Australia (or fill-in-the-blank random spot here) in terms of how many generations back you could have a common ancestor, but it can rule out people you think you might be related to, and for those of us who are constantly trying to see the bigger picture, who are always in pursuit of information to fill in the never ending gaps in our trees and our trees in history, DNA can paint you a somewhat interesting picture (using broad strokes, for sure, but the pictures still there) of your ancient ancestors' journey over the years - out of Africa, through the Fertile Crescent, and to wherever your ancestors might have traveled beyond that.

I've been keen to hop on board this train for awhile, but the limitations for me in my genealogical pursuit are always the same: lack of information and lack of money. In this case, it was the money issue. DNA tests are expensive! (That's why it's good to make sure you know who the father of your children is. That, and it's makes it easier to trace his side of their family tree for them!)

Anyway, Ancestry.com, which now has a DNA section up to explain your results to you, put you in touch with people with similar DNA backgrounds, and provide a place to chat and share information, is having a sale on DNA testing - 50 percent off until September 30. It's still not inexpensive, but it's half as expensive as it normally is, which is perfect for me, as why in the world would I be content to buy just one DNA kit?

Here's the deal - y-chromosome DNA traces the paternal line: son to father to father to father to father and so on. Mitochondrial, or MtDNA testing traces the maternal line: son/daughter to mother to mother to mother and so on. As you can see, males can get both tests done. Females are stuck with just the MtDNA option, in which case you have to recruit a brother or father to trace your paternal lineage.

So, wanting to get as much information as possible (there's a reason that everything I do - genealogy, reading, being a journalist - revolves around gathering information...I'm just going to pretend that you didn't just say, "Yeah, it's because she's crazy!"), I ordered one y-chromosome and 2 MtDNA tests. I will be taking one of the MtDNA tests - all that's involved is swabbing the inside of your cheek (pretty hard, though, I might add) and mailing it back to the lab, after which it takes a few weeks to get results. As far back as I can go maternally (seven generations, about the year 1800) I am Irish.

I am asking either my brother or my father to get me my paternal DNA results with the y-chromosome test. That line is also Irish. Then, I'm asking my father to take an MtDNA test, which would follow my paternal grandmother's line, which goes seven or eight generations back that I know of, and is a German line. When I get my next paycheck, I'm considering ordering another y-chromosome test and asking one of my maternal uncles or cousins to take it, which would follow my English Raynor line.

I ordered the tests yesterday and they were shipped today. I already feel impatient, because I know these things can take forever (not to get to me, but to be tested in the lab) and I just want to know already, but it's fun getting that genealogical itch again and knowing that to some extent, even if it's in a couple of weeks, I'm going to get to scratch it. In a field that I know (and dread) has to ultimately end on all branches with an impassable dead end, DNA genealogy gives us a tool to go beyond those dead ends - you won't get names, you won't get pictures, you won't get occupations, but something is better than nothing.

Tying seemingly unrelated branches together

So, I'm working on a theory that, in the not too distant past - let's say, early 1800s to late 1700s - I can connect my father's side of the family to my mother's.

Because of the insular situation of the early English families in Nassau County, even up to the 1800s, there was a lot of intermarrying going on among the Old Guard families. That goes without saying in any community with roots and a bit of isolation. See my post on my Canada cousins. Or read James Michener's "Hawaii."

Sometimes there are unrelated branches that intertwine - unrelated to each other, that is, but with the (unbeknownst to them) same connection to you. One case on my tree is my great great grand uncle, Peter Hansen Berg, who married my first cousin 3 times removed, Harriet Dauch. Harriet's grandparents, Thomas and Barbara Dauch, are my 3rd great grandparents. Peter's parents, Peter and Sophia Berg, are also my 3rd great grandparents. Harriet and Peter weren't related to each other, but Peter's niece through his brother Theodore, Millie Berg, was also Harriet's cousin through her aunt Delia. And Millie Berg is my great-grandmother.

Confused yet?

My great-great grandmother on my father's side was Meta Ricklefs Haase. Her sister, Margaret, married a man named Oscar Hudson Cornelius, who was born in Amityville on Long Island and who, it turns out, is part of the Old Guard Long Island family, the Corneliuses (the Corneliui?) As we all know, I am connected to most of the Old Guard Long Island families by blood or by marriage, but on my mother's side. And I have somewhat close cousins (second cousins several times removed) of the same time period as Oscar, with the last name of Cornelius. Oscar's father's name was William, whose father seemed to be Carman. One of my cousins, Powell Cornelius, had a father, also named William, but a different William, whose father seemed to be Richard. I know there's a connection - there's always a connection, you sometimes just have to keep going back to find it - but I guess I haven't gone far enough back to find it yet. But that would be an interesting interfamily connection for me - cousins on my dad's city, German, new immigrant by the Raynor's standard (1840s) side related to cousins on my mother's OG LI side.

Gorry, Gorry, Gorry, oi, oi, oi: the Australian connection

So, I was recently in Sydney, Australia for business, which didn't leave me with a lot of free time on my hands. If I had had more time, I would have liked to have done a bit of investigation into the Australian Gorry connection.

I don't have much to go on. Part of the problem is that of all my ancestral branches, the one whose name I have is one of my least researched one because there's very little information to be found (or if it's there, it's very well hidden!) But one thing that always pops up is the name Gorry, spelled Gorry, in Australia.

A Google search finds that Jane Gorry was the first Australian postulant for the Sisters of Mercy.

An Ancestry.com search finds that 77 Gorrys sailed to Australia in the early to mid 1800s. For the period between 1861-1933, an Ancestry search also pulls up a directory of 184 Gorrys in Sydney and New South Wales.

User-posted family trees on the Ancestry World Tree Project also list more than a few Gorrys originating in Australia.

So that could've been an intriguing search. Am a curious that most early European settlers of Australia were criminals? Absolutely. Does rebellion run in the family? Or maybe it's just a downright disregard for the law. Anyway, I don't have anything to work with right now from home, but it definitely would be interesting to see if there's some kind of familial connection I could make to cousins Down Under - that would definitely give me a reason to go back...

Connections

So, I am currently amusing myself by trying to find familial connections. That's another thing I do when I'm unsuccessfully chipping away at a brick wall for an ancestor, is try to figure out which of my friends or what celebrities might be my "cousins."

I use the term "cousin" loosely. Technically, it's correct, but after awhile (like your third or fourth cousins) it kind of loses its meaning. Every now and then MSNBC or CNN.com will do a puff piece on how Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and George Bush and Madonna and Brad Pitt are all related to each other. Related is a strong word. Yes, they probably all belong to the same tree. In fact, I theoretically belong to that tree as well - my colonial English ancestry is the gateway to royal European ancestry (none of those links of which I've verified, but at least one or two that have been researched enough by others to make me believe there is some truth in those connections). In many cases, a colonial family connection is enough to be able to claim a lot of these celebrities as "cousins," but find anyone who can trace their Western European ancestry back far enough and your "cousins" will be endless. I can't find the exact page I read it, but it's something like everybody of European descent today is a descendent of Charlemagne. But at what point does it become silly to claim that familial connection?

On my own tree, I have Brad Pitt listed as a 20th cousin; George W. Bush as a 15th cousin; Princes William and Harry as 15th cousins; that goes back to the late 1300s. The late Christopher Reeve looks to be an 11th cousin through my colonial Pearsall ancestors, but even those common "grandparents" are from the mid-1500s. If I actually claim Brad Pitt as a cousin, then I pretty much have to claim everybody and their mother (and grandmother and great-grandmother) as a cousin. Go far enough back and we're all family. It's kind of humbling and strange and exciting, these family connections, isn't it? It kind of gives new meaning to the idea of the human family, that we're all brothers and sisters.

Anyway, we'll leave the philosophizing to another day. For me, if I start looking for famous cousins, I can connect myself to most of them, which is why I've set a limit on how far back that connection can be before I decide not to include them on my family tree (this is my personal, "for fun" family tree, by the way, not the one I share with others as a serious researcher)...I think I've set that limit at about somewhere between 1400-1500. I made an exception for Brad. If you can claim him as a relation, no matter how far back that connection, it's just silly not to. :)

Founding families love only each other

That is, of course, an exaggeration. In the beginning, when starting new communities and new lives, they had only each other to intermarry with, and if the next generations stay local enough, everybody has some kind of connection to each other.

As a lifelong Long Islander with several connections to the Long Island founding families, I've always noticed it locally - when I read a name in the newspaper, when I look at the street names in my town and the towns around me. But it's not a local phenomenon.

For lack of any other genealogical avenues to currently explore, I've been focusing on a branch of my family, the Spragues, who ended up in Canada, concentrated mostly in southern Ontario, though spreading to Manitoba and British Columbia (and Minnesota, Washington, and California from there, as well). Anyway, up Canada's way, they seem to have become one of the founding families of many of the early communities there and in tracing those lines, the same names keep reappearing - Morden, Roblin, Wrightmeyer, German. They're all part of the same big happy Ontario family.

On Long Island, you had Raynors marrying Smiths marrying Carmans marrying Seamans marrying Pearsalls in all sorts of wacky permutations till you get to the fun part when it becomes quite obvious that someone has a connection to several founding families because every single one of their names is a founding family name. If you randomly pick just two or three of those names to link together in any order, I can guarantee you'd find there was at least one person (but probably more) with that name.

You had local celebrity Raynor Rock Smith, whose mother's last name was Raynor and who spawned about 4 generations of namesakes. You had Bedell Raynor, Jed Rocksmith Raynor, Judson Fowler Raynor, Carman Pearsall Smith, George Duryea Smith, Irving Seaman Smith, James Sprague Smith, Julian Denton Smith, Lila Carman Denton, Bergen Benjamin Carman, Hiram Bedell Pearsall, Richard Smith Bedell, etc. The list is probably endless, but these are just a few examples from the branches of my own Long Island family tree.

In genealogy searches, if you have a feel for some of the names associated with the early settlement of an area, then you'll know that if you find someone with one or two or three of those names, you've found someone who is probably connected to multiple early families.

Finding famous folk in historical records, part tres

Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, his wife Olivia, and two daughters Susan and Clara are living in Hartford, Connecticut in 1880, where he is listed in the census as "author," just 4 years after the publication of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and five years before the publication of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." 20 years later, he and his wife are still living there with Clara and their third daughter, Jean.

In 1900, George H. Ruth was a little 5 year old living with his parents in his native Baltimore, Maryland. By 1930, he was living in New York as a baseball player going by the nickname "Babe."

In 1920, 5 year old Joe DiMaggio was living with his parents, grandparents, and 8 siblings in San Francisco, California. You can also find old newspaper clippings on Ancestry about DiMaggio temporarily quitting baseball to fight in World War II.

Albert Einstein can be found on 3 passenger lists sailing into New York: in April 1921, listed as a professor of Hebrew ethnicity; in December 1930; and in October 1933, listed as a scientist.

Thomas Edison, as Alvah Edison, can be found living as a 13 year old in Port Huron, Michigan in the 1860 census. In 1900, Edison and his family are living in West Orange, New Jersey, where he is supporting them as a "general inventor."

The lists, of course, go on and on, depending on who you find interesting and who you want to find out more about. For added fun and a way to keep doing genealogy that interests you when your own family tree search has stalled, I like to trace the trees of these famous folk to see if their tree and mine intersect anywhere close at all (so far for me? Not really...not anywhere before the 1700s, anyway...) Pick figures who share the same ethnic history as you, and you can even do current figures (Brad Pitt? Madonna? Princes William and Harry?Brett Favre?)...if you can find their parents and/or grandparents on record, that's all you need to get started...

Looking for famous folk in historical records, part deux

I didn't realize there were so many people I had looked up in my spare time, so now that I've shared some of the historical figures I find intriguing enough to "genealogically stalk," here are some of the Hollywood actors I also looked for and found:

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart are on a passenger list flying into New York from London on April 8, 1954 (it's still kinda weird for me when passenger manifests cross over from ships to planes, but oh well...)

5 year old Marlon Brando is living with his parents and siblings in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska in the 1930 census.

In the 1910 census, 2 year old Marion R. Morrison is living with his parents in Madison, Iowa. In 1920, he is Marion M. Morrison (his parents changed his middle name from Robert to Michael when they decided to name their second son Robert), and his parents have moved with him and his brother to Glendale, California. Why do you care about little Marion? Because one day he'll grow up to be John Wayne...

7 year old Frances Gumm, born in Minnesota, is living with her family in Antelope, California in 1930. She will one day go by the stage name Judy Garland.

In the 1930 census, Victor and Lillian Crawford of Indianapolis, Indiana, have taken in their daughter, Julian, and her 2 month old son, Terrence "Steve" McQueen...

In the 1891 England Census, 2 year old Charles "Charlie" Chaplin is living with his mother, Hannah, a music professional, his brother, and his maternal grandmother, Mary Hill, a wardrobe dealer, in London.

In 1930, Charlie Chaplin, the "motion picture actor," is living in Beverly Hills. On the same census page is listed Douglas Fairbanks and his wife, Mary (Pickford), both also "motion picture actors."

A break from your own genealogy: looking for famous folk in historical records

Yes, it is something I consider a fun pasttime - I greet all your shouts of "genealogy dork!" and "history nerd!" with three little words: you're not wrong...

Sometimes the genealogical search becomes overwhelming. Sometimes the brick walls become frustrating. That's when I make a list of celebrities and historical figures to search for on Ancestry.com. Most of them are dead now. Many of them were dead before I was even born. Some of them are preserved forever as either actors or characters in Hollywood films, but there's just something about seeing their names on a worn census form as a child, or with their families, or just eking out a living, way back before anyone ever knew they'd be someone history would one day remember, that makes them feel extremely real and extremely human. (Let the name calling continuing...please, try to be creative with your barbs!)


I guess it started after I watched Tombstone, the Kurt Russell-Val Kilmer movie about Wyatt Earp. Earp was born in Illinois in 1848, and died in 1929, which means in theory he should be able to be found on every census from 1850 to 1920 - there he is as a 2 year old in Lake Prairie, Illinois with his siblings and parents, N.P. (Nicholas Porter) and Virginia; in 1870, he was living in Missouri near his brother and he was married; by 1880, he was living in Tombstone, Arizona with his brothers Virgil and James, which is where the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral would take place just a year later...in 1910, he's now in California with his third wife, Josephine...

Recommendations: Do a bit of research ahead of time. Wikipedia is a good place to start, but like anything on the Internet, don't assume it's all fact. Still, Wiki can be helpful to tell you when and where a person was born, who their parents were, and where they might have lived at a certain time, profession, all helpful for people (not Wyatt Earp, of course, who had a fairly unique name) who might have had a somewhat common name. Oh, and also to look up what their real name is...there are a lot of Hollywood celebrities you won't be able to find because they're known by a stage name...

Wyatt Earp is definitely one of my favorites...some of the other people I've looked up:

Doc Holliday, of course! Real name John Henry, born in Georgia, originally a dentist by trade. In 1870 he's living in Valdosta, Georgia with his father and stepmother as an 18 year old student...by 1880 he's in Prescott, Arizona as "J. H. Holliday" as a dentist (Ancestry does a fairly good job of identifying famous people in their census indexes)

Abraham Lincoln...in 1850, "Abram Lincoln" is a 40 year old attorney living in Springfield, Illinois with his wife and young son...still there 10 years later...

In 1930, the "Hon. Franklin Roosevelt" is living in Albany, New York as the governor...

In the 1900 census, Governor Theodore Roosevelt is living in Oyster Bay, New York with his wife and their gaggle of children and servants...in 1910, he's still there, but now he's a magazine editor...

John F. Kennedy can be found in the 1920 census in Brookline, Massachusetts as a 3 year old with his banker father, Joseph, his mother, Rose, and his siblings Joseph and Rosemary...

Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the "Little House on the Prairie" series, another one of my all-time favorites!!! (for some reason I enjoy searching for historical figures like Laura and Wyatt Earp who lived all over the place)...in 1870, 3 year old "Laura Ingles," born in Wisconsin, is living in Rutland, Kansas, with her parents and her two sisters...by 1880, the family is living in De Smet, Dakota Territory...in 1900, Laura is living in Pleasant Valley, Missouri, with her husband Almanzo (A.J.) and daughter, Rose...

In 1900, Amelia Earhart is just a 2 year old girl living with her parents and sister in Kansas City, Kansas...in 1930, Amelia, a "flyer and writer" by occupation, is living in New York City...Seven years later she would disappear while attempting to fly solo around the world...

(Laura Ingalls Wilder and Amelia Earhart are two of my childhood female heroes, rounded out by Annie Oakley, who I am now determined to find in a census - real name Phoebe Ann "Annie" Mosey/Mozee/Moses, born 1860, married to Frank Butler)...another mystery to solve!

Like a kid in a candy store...

Yay!! After just a little more than 2 weeks, the Municipal Archives comes through, and yes, to be fair to whoever put together the index, the names on the marriage certificate do look like John Riekleffs and Neta Tiedermann. Of course, all you have to do is flip it over to the other side and look at their signatures and their names are clearly John Ricklefs and Meta Tiedemann. Frustrating, yes. But there are thousands of certificates indexed there and I don't blame whoever put that index together if they didn't feel like creating twice as much work for themselves. I complain about the often shoddy interpretation of handwriting on these records (that goes for Ancestry.com's census index as well), but I thank from the bottom of my heart those people who put in the time and effort of putting that index together in the first place, making my life and genealogical searches so, so much easier.

Anyway, what a find. On the back, we have every line of information filled out, including both sets of parents (yay! That's huge!) - John Ricklefs, living at 222 First Avenue in NYC, almost 23, an oyster dealer born at Bremerhaven, Germany to Friedrich Ricklefs and Sophie Dozen (?) - Familysearch.org lists her name as Sophie Dozen and so far, that is what it looks like to me...we'll see if I change my mind upon further inspection. He's marrying Meta Tiederman, living at 222 First Ave., almost 25 years old, born in...not only is her place of birth listed as Hanover, Germany, but there's a town, too! This could be invaluable in finding birth records or records on her parents...if only I could make out that illegible handwriting! Will keep trying, though, of course...to John Henry Tiedermann and Meta Buckmann. It's the first marriage for both. Witnesses, Leopold Ropper and Gertrude Andriano. Married by Morris W. Leibert, pastor of the German-Moravian Church.

This kind of stuff gets my heart pumping...so exciting! And it came on Saturday and I didn't know till Sunday night...I'm shocked my father didn't open it the minute it arrived. This record though should further some research and speculation for a bit, whether or not it turns up anything else more conclusive. At the least, though, I've gotten that branch back one generation further...I'm like a kid in a candy store with this thing!

Genealogical mystery: Cronins, Donohues, and Cullinanes

So, like I've said before, siblings are key. Along that same vein, cousins can also be key to going further back on family lines. If you can make the connections.

My grandmother, Mary Cronin Raynor, was the main genealogist for years in my family. Just the other day I was marveling over how much she accomplished, how much she discovered without ever using a computer. Her research has been invaluable to me.

In her research, she talks about Cronin cousins, the Donohues and the Cullinanes. The Donohues intrigue me because my grandmother's grandmother, Nora Donohue Cronin, born in Ireland in the late 1830s, is the farthest back I can go on that line. John, Dennis, Timothy, and Katherine Donohue (married name Shea) are cousins living in Brooklyn at the turn of the century, contemporaries of my great-grandfather, Timothy Cronin. I found them listed in a census with parents named Cornelius and Hannah Donohue (born late 1830s, early 1840s in Ireland), which means Cornelius could be a brother or a cousin of my Nora. If I can find someone tracing Cornelius as a direct line, or further information about that line, it could prove helpful to my Nora Donohue search...

More confusing, however, are the Cullinanes, John and Julia, and their kids John, Denis, Ellen, Mary, Timothy, and Nora, who came over from Ireland and settled in the Dobbs Ferry area of Westchester. My grandmother believed the Cullinanes were also cousins on the Donohue line, but research done by descendents of John Jr. through his daughter Julia show that Julia Sr.'s maiden name was...Cronin. So are the Cullinane's cousins of Nora Donohue's husband Denis Cronin? Could Julia be a cousin or sister of his?

The mystery deepens, however.

Timothy Cronin, son of Denis and Nora, married Ellen Casey. In my research on the Casey line, specifically the line of Ellen's mother, Mary Agnes Enright, I found the following information. Mary's parents were John Enright and Bridget Collins (born in Ireland in late 1830s), and according to Bridget's death certificate, her parents were Thomas Collins and...Ann Cullinane. So it's possible the Cullinanes are cousins on the Casey-Enright side (my grandmother's mother's branch, as opposed to her father's branch).

So the search for information continues...

Fun with names

I'm a name person. I love names. I can't really explain why. A person's name is an important part of who they are. Whether or not they like their name tells you something about them. How they use their name tells you something about them - nickname, first and middle name, initials? You can tell a lot about someone by the names they choose for others - their pets, their kids. When I was younger, I read a lot but I went through a phase where the books I would buy were baby name books. I wanted to know what names were out there and what they meant. I wanted to know baby naming trends, and I kept my own list of top ten boys and girls names for several years in a row. A lot of the names came and went. A few stayed the same. Half the fun of writing is figuring out what your characters' names are.

My name is very old-fashioned and very Irish: Mary Ellen. I remember not liking my name at some point when I was younger, but I don't know when that changed. All I know now is that I love my name. I think that because of my name I tend to identify strongly with my Irish heritage over my other ancestry a lot. And even as someone who enjoys being different and being independent, I like that I am the latest in a long line of Mary Ellen Gorrys - it makes me feel connected to them.

So that's the sincere fun with names. Now comes the part where by "fun" I mean "frustration, amusement, and annoyance."

My 4th great-grandmother, Eva Justina Christina Herner Dauch, is listed in a 1845 ship passenger manifest as Eva Dauch. In the 1870 census, she's Christiana Dowe. In her 1877 death listing in the Queens County Sentinel, she's again Eva J. Dauch, but I believe the copy of her death certificate in my grandmother's possession lists her as Mary Eva Dauch.

The Dauch name itself is lots of fun. Apparently, the correct pronunciation, at least on our line, of the name is "Dow," rhymes with "cow." And so, besides being found under Dauch in the census records, I have also found the family under Dowe, Dow, and for some reason, Tow.

A lot of the inconsistencies, like Gorry being spelled Gorey, Gory, Garry, and Gaurry among others, is because of illiteracy and just people's preference for one spelling over another. A lot comes from how a recorder (like a census taker) not part of the family hears the name when spelling it. At the genealogy conference I went to, one of the presenters showed a marriage certificate where someone's mother was supposed to be "Mary Enright," but where it was recorded as "Mary N. Wright."

Elmira Sprague Raynor also becomes Almira. Sophia Stegt Berg is also Soffiah (and sometimes Dorothea, which is her middle name, or the Americanized Dorothy). Nicknames and multiple names also add lots of fun. My great-great grandmother, Maria Eva Justina Dauch Berg, is Christina Dowe in the 1870 census. Luckily I am aware that she didn't like her name, changed it on her own, and eventually had it officially changed, because in every census after that she becomes Delia.

My great-grandmother Amelia Ellen Berg Raynor went by the nickname Millie. So in one census she's Amelia. In another she's Millie. In yet another, someone assumed Millie was a nickname for Mildred, so she's listed as Mildred. Her kids had fun switchable names, whereby Audrey Mildred is also known as Mildred Audrey and Carol Dorothy is sometimes Dorothy Carol. Luckily, Millie's sons are both listed by their real names in the census: Monroe and my grandfather, Clifford, but in real life, Clifford was called Dick and Monroe was called Bob. Go figure.

My great-grandmother Ellen Casey Cronin signed her marriage certificate as Nellie, and in the census her sisters can be found under both Margaret/Maggie and Genevieve/Jennie. Mary Tormey Gorry's sisters can be found as Margaret/Maggie, Anna/Annie, and Winifred (spelled lots of fun ways)/Winnie. Michael Gorry is sometimes Micheal Gorry, and sometimes Mike Gorry. Timothy Tormey is also Temothy/Themothy/Tim.

Despite all that, I still love names. Names provide clues about family connections. If someone names their son Joseph, it's possible his father's name was Joseph. If you think you've found a record for someone's mother being Barbara, see if there are a lot of other Barbara's floating around. That could be a sign you're going in the right direction. And the fluidity of names, even on official records, is just something to be aware of. If you can't find someone under one name, try another spelling. Try a nickname. Or try another name altogether. Be creative. Make educated guesses. Don't give up...and have fun! Laugh your way through the frustration!

Recharging the genealogy battery

Sometimes it takes something simple like coming together with other people who are excited about genealogy to help renew your own excitement and remind you of your own enthusiasm for the subject. So that was something else that came out of the genealogy conference I attended. Doing genealogy the right way can be an exhausting and often frustrating process, so it's nice to feel a kind of renewing of the genealogical spirit, to get your genealogical battery recharged. Meeting like-minded people whose eyes don't glaze over as soon as you start mentioning archives and obituaries and heirlooms recharges the battery. Hearing other people's success stories recharges the battery. Learning new research tools and techniques recharges the battery. Just talking genealogy will do it. These people that you meet aren't just another type of genealogical resource (which, they are); they're a genealogical support system.

So what have I been inspired to return to? Tracking down what should be the easy information, but for whatever reason, continues to be elusive. Or backing up more solidly information I already have. For example, I have names, dates, birthplaces, occupations, and narrative on the parents of my 3rd great-grandfather, Friedrich Stutzmann. Friedrich's son, Rudolph, my great-great grandfather, was a prominent German-American in Brooklyn and Queens in both his role as the owner and operator of Stutzmann and Son's Funeral Home and the first president of the Ridgewood Savings Bank. Because of this, the Stutzmann's are included in the four-volume "Schlegel's American Families of German Ancestry in the United States." The pages on the Stutzmanns were a huge goldmine in fleshing out that branch of my tree. Of course, it also turned out to be incomplete and full of incorrect facts, but a lot was accurate and the rest provided a decent starting point. And yet knowing the inconsistencies in those volumes, I don't think I've ever tried to verify that Friedrich's parents were in fact Peter Stutzmann and Charlotte Schlick (and actually, someone doing research on a family that married into the Stutzmann's has Peter married to Louise Charlotte Schlick, which if true, would mean that even though I might be able to find family records under the name Charlotte, if that's the name she went by, I would never have been able to find any official records if they used the name Louise). Anyway, Friedrich was born in Germany, so I haven't yet tried to get that record. His death certificate lists both his parents as "unknown." So I decided to try his marriage records. On www.italiangen.org, I was unable to find a listing for Friedrich's marriage to my 3rd great-grandmother, Mathilde Rau (who died very young in 1880 of "bilious fever," aka yellow fever), but I was able to find one for his second marriage to Rosalie Goess. So, while his marriage certificate to Mathilde might have yielded important information not only on his parents but her parents as well (so far, they are completely unknown to me), his marriage certificate to Rosalie will hopefully include the names of his parents, which will either back up or dispute what I think I already know. I have sent away to the Municipal Archives for that record, which again, will take 4-6 weeks to arrive.

Other mysteries I'm tackling: trying to find people in the census who should be there but aren't, at least not obviously. For example, John Horgan died in 1908, but I can't find him anywhere in the 1900 census. While being creative as to what last name he's listed under, I may have to stop assuming he was living in New York at the time, or start looking him up under possible nicknames (nicknames always throw me for a loop in the census. Amelia, Millie, and Mildred are all the same person, my great-grandmother Amelia Berg Raynor - thanks for making that easy for me!) My 4th great-grandmother, Eva Herner Dauch, came to the United States in 1845 and died in 1877. She's in the 1870 census (as Christiana Dowe) but nowhere to be found in the 1850 or 1860 census records. So, even as I continue to search for new people to add to my tree, there's still a lot to be done with the names I already have.

A Ricklefs breakthrough thanks to Italiangen.org?

And this is how progress is made, often in a haphazard, seemingly random fashion.

On Familysearch.org, I had found records giving the parents for both my 3rd great grandfather, John Ricklefs and his wife, Meta Tiedemann, as well as a marriage date, 8 Sept 1884 in Manhattan. Familysearch, like Ancestry, has a lot of inaccurate, user-posted information, but it also has a lot of government, official, accurate records. Unfortunately, unlike with Ancestry, there are no links to image copies of the original documents, but if you can find accurate data on Familysearch, at least you know there's an original record out there to be found. But in this case, I could never find that actual record.



Well, now I think I have.



One of the Web sites touted at the genealogy conference I went to on March 15 was www.italiangen.org. It is the Web site for The Italian Genealogical Group, but thanks to the efforts of a large group of volunteers, the site has information posted pertaining to not just Italians but many people looking for information on New York ancestors. Among that information are many of the records in the marriage index kept at the New York Municipal Archives. The Municipal Archives are one of my favorite sources of original documentation in my genealogical search, but the one drawback has always been their index. When requesting a certificate search online, there is no provision for name variations. So if I search for "Ricklefs," it won't search for "Reckleff" or "Rickleff." Variation in spellings is common. But even making a trip down to the Archives can be tedious if the person transcribing the index or putting the index together misinterprets someone's handwriting, and the name ends up in a part of the index you would never to think to look - in one of the census records I have, the family is indexed under "Ricklebs," due to the transcriber mistaking the script "f" as a "b."

What the Italian Genealogical Group has done is allow the user to do a soundex search using the index, and a lot of what I put in yielded no results. But a soundex search of "John Ricklefs" produced several boring and one intriguing result of "John Riekleffs." When I checked the link to his bride's name, what did I find? The name "Neta Tiedermann." In my head, I can see someone's old-fashioned handwriting, loopy or sloppy or with unique flairs to letters being misinterpreted by the person transcribing the index. The "c" in "Rickleffs" gets recorded as an "e". "Meta" becomes "Neta." I'm inclined to believe this is the couple I am looking for. My hunches about genealogical records, when they're this strong, are very rarely wrong, but I will reserve judgment till I receive the marriage record. The index on the italiangen.org Web site included a certificate number, which I used to send away for a copy from the Municipal Archives (it's cheaper to ask for just a specific record as opposed to requesting a search and a copy). Verification of names and a marriage date and place would be important information to add to my tree, but will the record also include the needed verification of the possible parents of both these parties? That would be a somewhat huge breakthrough on the Ricklefs line. I have to wait 4-6 weeks for the record to come. I think I'm going to be antsy beyond belief till then!!

"You don't choose genealogy; it chooses you."

So said Tony Burroughs, the keynote speaker at the genealogy conference I attended Saturday March 15. And when he said it, something just clicked. Because that's exactly how it feels. Genealogy can be a long, hard, frustrating process, but it has fallen onto our shoulders to remember our ancestors and to preserve the knowledge we gain for future generations.

The conference, "Family Roots III: Where to Begin, How to Continue and Share" was sponsored by the Genealogy Federation of Long Island and was an all-day affair at Stony Brook University. My cousin April was the one who heard about it and suggested we go. Besides the keynote address, we were able to attend four lectures, given by various professional genealogists.

We attended one on tracing German ancestry and one on tracing Irish ancestry, both of which were somewhat helpful - learned some quirks about German names, places and records, and several Web sites to check out for Irish ancestry records.

After lunch we attended a lecture, "Odd(ities) and (Dead) Ends: Details and Quirks of New York Vital Records," which was a bit helpful but basically just made April and me lament the sorry state of early record keeping, at least on the state and federal levels. The last lecture of the day was entitled "Prove It! Evidence Analysis for Genealogists" which was interesting from the perspective of someone trying to do genealogy the right way, by gathering as much information and "proof" as possible about the people in my family tree. April and I also commisserated about how much it might cost to hire the presenter to give this same "prove it!" talk to the many people researching our family tree who frustratingly don't go this route.

All in all, I can't say I learned a great deal about genealogy that I didn't already know, but it backed up and supported a lot of what I already do, which was nice. And April and I were the youngest ones there by at least 15 years, so I kept getting mistaken for a student at Stony Brook, which was a nice ego boost.

Other notes from the day:
1. Our ancestors are not just names and dates, they existed in a place and time, and it's important to get as full a picture as we can, and in order to figure out the next step in our search, we have to understand that place and time in which they existed. Genealogy, sociology, history...it all ties together!
2. One of the presenters gave personal examples of people in her family that she has traced and to see how she went from clue to clue to clue was an echo of how I work and it was just nice to see someone else who not only is also working hard to piece together the puzzle but who enjoys the challenge as much as I do.
3. Indirect evidence can be proof!
4. Siblings are key! I become more and more convinced of that as time goes on...if your direct ancestor's records don't give you what you need to get to the next step, always go to the siblings!!
5. The Internet has opened access to so many genealogical records to so many people who otherwise would never be able to use them, but it is not the be all and end all of genealogy research...get offline!!
6. Everyone extolled the virtues of the Family History Centre in Plainview, so I will have to make a stop there at some point, just to see what it's all about.

Brick walls

Anyone who does enough genealogy will inevitably hit a brick wall. All the easy research has been done, even some where you had to dig a little deeper, and suddenly, your family line just disappears and seemingly ends. Obviously, they didn't. Everybody comes from somebody before them, but if there are no records going further back, then your brick wall might as well have just spontaneously come to life. In many cases (at least on my family tree), the brick wall seems to be the immigrant ancestor. You can find them on all the census forms. You can find them on a ship passenger manifest. But now you have to rely on foreign vital records for research, some of which might be in a language you don't understand, some of which might not exist at all. Irish genealogy seems to be the hardest for me, even though it's also the most recent.

Now, my Raynor side has been in America for so long that on some branches I hit brick walls way before the immigrant ancestor. One that is particularly frustrating is Jacob Raynor, my 5th great-grandfather. Jacob is the common ancestor that brought cousin April E. into my life, as she is probably even more frustrated than I am by this common brick wall of ours (and so I'm hoping her diligence in researching him will be very helpful!)

Various Raynor genealogists have listed this Jacob, husband of Rebecca Raynor, as one of two people - Jacob, son of Daniel, born 1771 or Jacob, son of Joseph, born 1754. Daniel Raynor moved upstate, and based on her research, April is convinced that Jacob, son of Daniel, is not our guy.

So does that make Jacob, son of Joseph, our Jacob? I have yet to find any proof linking a Jacob and Joseph together. April is intent on researching wills and estate listings, though the lack of organization of those records at Hofstra University make that task an enormous undertaking. Families often repeated names - Jacob and Rebecca had a son, Joseph, so Jacob's father could be a Joseph, although Rebecca's father's name seems to have been Joseph as well. Prior to 1850, census records only list heads of household and other vital records become harder to come by. We know Jacob was dead by 1850 (as Rebecca is listed as a widow in the census), but we don't know where he's buried. Jacob, son of Joseph, came from somewhere, but I don't know who it came from or the reliability of where that person got that information. Sometimes, it can get so frustrating that all you want to do is bang your head repeatedly against said brick wall.

When that happens, I put that branch aside. I focus on another branch, or on adding cousins or rounding out information on those I already have. And then I go back, hopefully with fresh eyes and a renewed spirit of enthusiasm - after all, half the fun of genealogy is the challenge in figuring out the puzzle, right? Sometimes you just need a new idea, approach the wall from a different avenue, and if you're lucky, you'll start to find chinks. Many brick walls can crumble and even be broken down.

I had successfully researched my Dauch family line back to a ship passenger manifest from 1845: parents Nicolas and Eva, and children Andreas, Marie and Thomas, my 3rd great-grandfather. I had come back to this family recently to try and trace my Dauch cousins, not go back further than Nicolas and Eva, but inputting a name into Ancestry brought up a family tree posted by a man in Germany, tracing Nicolas and Eva back three or four more generations. Are those names sourced? No. Are they reliable? I have no idea. But this new information puts a chink into the brick wall that was Nicolas and Eva, a place to go from and try and bring this wall down.

Inevitably, we'll all hit the ultimate brick wall, the one that will stand the test of time. But new information, reliable or not, can be found every day. People just starting to become interested in genealogy will share what they know. Sometimes you need luck, sometimes creativity and ingenuity, and sometimes you'll find that the thing you were banging your head against wasn't a brick wall after all.

Ancestor profile: Hulda Lindemann and the General Slocum disaster

Hulda Lindemann is not a direct ancestor of mine. She is the sister of my 2nd great grandmother, Augusta Lindemann Stutzmann, but her story, what I can discern of it, is an interesting though tragic one.

Hulda, like her parents and siblings, was born in Germany. She was born about July 1876 and emigrated to the United States about 1891. The family settled in Queens and Brooklyn, New York.

Her sister and my 2nd great-grandmother, Augusta, married very well, marrying Rudolph Stutzmann, a successful funeral home director and later founder and president of Ridgewood Savings Bank, and it's possible that prior to her marriage she worked as a servant but she married in 1899, so there are no records of her prior to her married life. There are records, though, that her sisters, including Hulda, found work as servants in other people's homes.

In 1900, Hulda was working as a serving for the Feldhusen family: patriarch George, a saloon manager; his wife Maria; and their son, Nicholas. They lived a couple blocks north of Washington Square Park in Manhattan.

On June 15, 1904, St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Little Germany chartered the General Slocum, a passenger ship, for an annual trip that included sailing up the East River before heading to Long Island for a picnic. They had been doing this for 17 years. From maps, it seems the Feldhusens lived just outside Little Germany, but being German immigrants, perhaps they were parishioners at St. Mark's, or had family and friends who were members. Whatever the case, Maria and Nicholas Feldhusen were among the more than 1,300 passengers (most of whom were women and children) who boarded the General Slocum that day, accompanied by the family servant, Hulda Lindemann.

Now, in June of 1904, Hulda was almost 28 years old. All three of her sisters and both her brothers were married (3 of those siblings being younger than her). Not judging, since I am 28 and unmarried, but in 1904, when all her siblings had managed to be married off, I have to wonder why Hulda was not. Her sisters had stopped serving others and started families of their own, but Hulda remained in the Feldhusen house. What was it that kept her there? Whatever it was, it killed her.

The General Slocum caught fire by 10 a.m. that day. Most of the lifevests and lifeboats on board were useless. Instead of running the ship aground (and possibly spreading the fire on shore), the captain of the General Slocum stayed on course. Most of the passengers were unable to swim. Besides those that succumbed to the flames, many drowned, and some were crushed when the upper levels of the ship collapsed. In all, an estimated 1,021 people died, with 321 survivors. Prior to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the General Slocum disaster was the worst loss-of-life disaster in New York City.

I've read Brooklyn newspaper accounts of the disaster in the days that followed it, and they are devastating - a child who watched his whole family die, a mother who can't find any of her children, countless fathers who spent a last normal day at work only to come home and hear what had happened to their wives and children. There's a list of victims' names, identified from their remains, and the names Maria and Nicholas Feldhusen (age 12) are on it. In the 1910 census, George Feldhusen is a widower and living alone.

There's no Hulda Lindemann on the list. Like with 9/11, a lot of the victims just weren't able to be identified. But her family knows that after that day, she never came home. Her parents, Casper and Eva, are buried in Lutheran Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, and though Hulda has no resting place, Lutheran Cemetery is where many of the General Slocum victims were buried, and where a monument was erected in 1905 to honor the unidentified dead.