Week 11: Lucky (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 2023 Version)

Were any of your ancestors lucky? Maybe someone won the Georgia Land Lottery? Do you consider yourself lucky to have discovered a particular ancestor or document? Write about it this week! Click here to check out all the themes for 2023.

This past week I considered myself lucky. I was contacted by a DNA match that let me see my shared matches in a different light.

For several months, I have been working on identifying the descendants of my 3rd great grandparents, Thomas Goodwin and his wife Jane. I believe Jane’s maiden name is Burns, however, this was given to me by a distant cousin via an email back in 2009.

Anyway, I decided to select this branch of my family, because I don’t know who either of their parents are, they are both born in Ireland and are my immigrant ancestors. Thomas Goodwin was born about 1796 in Ireland and died Dec 1, 1967. He is buried in a little cemetery known as Annunciation Cemetery however was formerly known as St Mary’s Cemetery.  This cemetery is located in a little community called Lost Lake located in Dodge County, Wisconsin. Jane Goodwin was born about 1811 in Ireland and died Jan 15, 1888 in Dodge County, Wisconsin and is also buried in Annunciation Cemetery. 

Thomas and Jane have five known children, who were born in Ireland and who came to Wisconsin. It appears they stopped off briefly in New York State, since their eldest son John was married in New York City May 16, 1854. 

I descend through their third child, Mary Goodwin born Jan 1, 1839 in Mayo, Ireland and died Mar 18, 1910 in Lost Lake, Dodge, Wisconsin. She married Myron O’Brion who was born in 1835 in New York State and died Nov 1883 in Lost Lake, Dodge, Wisconsin. They were married around 1859 in Fox Lake, Dodge, Wisconsin, USA.

Now back to my DNA match, lets called her KB. She was looking for distant cousins on her Ellen Scott and Bartholomew Kernan line. She is trying to find the parents of Ellen Scott. I do have Scott’s in my tree, on my maternal line.

I proceeded to go to her DNA profile page. It displays her tree and I don’t recognize any names. Next, I select “Shared Matches”. We have a total of 12 matches. The first one is my sister, then my 1st cousin’s son. This tells me that the match isn’t on my maternal line, since this is my paternal 1st cousin’s son.

The next match is labeled “Extended Family” by AncestryDNA and it’s my 2nd cousin 1x removed who our Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) is Myron O’Brion and Mary Goodwin. The remaining nine of the matches are for Distant Family of 4th-6th cousin range. Of these nine, only four have public link trees and one has an unlinked tree.

The first distant match, I look at her tree and see the Kernan name. I see Bartholomeus Kiernan and wife Mary. I click into that tree for Bartholomeus and the first thing I see is that he died in Lost Lake, Wisconsin. I also see that his son is Bartholomew who is married to Ellen Scott. 

Therefore, at first glance, it appears I am not related to her via Ellen Scott but through the Kiernan line.

Looking at some of the other trees tied to my matches for the Kiernan / Kernan line, I noticed that Mary’s last name might be Byrne. 

Several of the Goodwin children of Thomas and Jane married siblings from the Biel family. I was lucky to have someone from the Biel family send me a portion of the History of Joseph and Theresa Biel Family compiled by Carol Graff in October 2003. However, I noticed another descendant, a grandchild or great grandchild had married into the Biel family and it wasn’t part of the portion of the book sent to me. I decided to go online and see if I could find that book. I saw it was listed as a holding of the Beaver Dam Public Library located in Dodge County, Wisconsin. It’s only about 47 miles away and happens to be the town I was born in.

The public library had a listing of other family genealogies in it’s holding and I saw one labelled, “Some Goodwin & Kieffe families of New York, Wisconsin & Nebraska” which was complied by William R & Helen (Kral) Houk in July of 1997. It was only 28 pages long, but I knew a road trip was needed. I really feel lucky finding this listing.

Even though it appears to be lacking quite of few of the descendant lines of Thomas and Jane Goodwin, they included a transcription of Jane’s will. In this will she named Edward Kernan as the executor of her will. Her only two sons had proceeded her in death. 

Edward Kernan is the son of Bartholomeus and Mary Kiernan. I found a marriage record for Edward where the witnesses of his wedding are Thomas and Jane Goodwin. 

I found another son of Bart and Mary, Thomas Kernan’s marriage record where he lists his mother’s name as Burn. I wonder if the Irish accent of Byrne sounds like Burn(s). Could Mary and Jane be sisters? There is some biological connection between the Goodwin descendants and the Kernan’s descendants. Plus, many of the Goodwin and Kernan descendants moved from Wisconsin to Hasting, Nebraska. 

Thus, I started another project folder for my Kernan’s DNA Matches, along with the marriage records and trees of my matches. I feel lucky to have had that DNA match reach out to me. I might not have noticed the Kernan family tie.

Even though, this project will have to be put on hold until I finish my current Goodwin descendant project. I feel lucky to know I have a very interesting project in my future. So far on my current project, I have added over 750 descendants to my tree and I am only on Thomas’s second child of five, Edward and his fourth child of six, Anna and her fourth child of thirteen, Frank. So I might be here for a while. I have also noticed that AncestryDNA ThruLines has increased the projected number of DNA matches from 14 to 37 possible matches for Thomas and Jane Goodwin. My goal of doing this project, was to be able to identify more of my DNA matches. 

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!