HAPPY DNA DAY

On this DNA day, I sat through a webinar hosted by “Your DNA Guide” and Diahan Southard did warn us that this will have lots of advertising of their products and services. I enjoy her webinars and decided, that was okay I would stay.

She did review her Dot System for sorting matches and how her products/services help along each step of the process. Anyway, she was talking about Best Know Matches (BKM) and how we should identify one BKM for each of our great-grandparents. This is four different people for four different branches. Something just clicked for me.

I decided to look at my matches and see if I can identify a best-known match for each of my great-grandparents. This is a 2^nd Cousin who descends through of the siblings of my grandparents. Since I use the note field on AncestryDNA, I put who my Most Recent Common Ancestor and my actual relationship to this match in that note, it was very easy for me to review if I have such matches.

As I was going through my list, as usual, I became distracted by a match to possibly my 3^rd great grandfather, Johann Wolter. I say possible, because my ancestor, his daughter Dorothea Louise Wolter death certificate listed a Johann Wolter as her father, but I haven’t been able to find anything else about him. Until one of my unknown matches who was matching one of my known Dorothea Wolter descendants, had a male Wolter in his tree.

Dorothea Wolter’s youngest child was born in Beaver Dam, Dodge County, Wisconsin and my matches Wolter was also born in Beaver Dam. I did some old fashion genealogy research to build back my match’s tree. The Wolter in my matches tree, appears to be the nephew of my Dorothea. I say appears to be, because the nephew’s father is a couple years younger than my Dorothea.

When I add the nephew’s father to my tree as the sibling of my Dorothea and then build down the tree to all the twelve matches who are a close relationship to my unknown match; the suggested relationships shown by AncestryDNA matches the actually relationship that my genealogy program says we should be.

Of course, I still need to prove Dorothea’s relationship to this assumed brother.  Some might say that I jumped the gun adding the assumed brother, however, I am hoping that the AncestryDNA system, will help identify more people who are related to this brother and perhaps I will find more siblings.

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!

Week 17: DNA (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 2025 Version)

The theme for Week 17 is "DNA." DNA has helped countless people make discoveries in their family history – some good and some not. Has DNA helped you solve a genealogical question? (To protect the identities of living people I have keep their identities hidden or used abbreviations). See all 2025 prompts here.

I have used DNA to help solve the mystery of my maternal grandfather, which I have wrote about in the past. This time I am going to talk about the ANCESTRYDNA ProTool of Shared Matches.

I have a group of unknown matches that seem to be related to the famous Daniel Boone. It appears I match through one of Daniel’s other siblings, possibly a sister. Anyway, as I come across these matches, I have been placing them into a color group that I labelled “Possible Boone Connection”. The only thing I have confirmed besides that they are from Daniel Boone’s family tree, they are on my maternal line. Most likely my maternal grandmother’s line.

Today, I decided to bring up my color group and I selected one of my closet matches in this group, a Mr. RW who has a public linked tree of 50 people.

Once I select the SharedMatches, I changed the view listing sort to RW’s close to distant matches. I was able to see his close matches and it was a pleasant surprise. His first match was MW – his daughter, then RW his son, CW another daughter and NW his mother. Then TWW his sister, RS his uncle, EJ his aunt and DS another uncle. Thus, I now know that we are related through his mother’s side.

His next matches are a little more distant. I look at ON his 1C2X and her brother, LS has the same surname as his mother’s maiden name. I now see a common ancestor among these matches of George Alfred Slaugh 1868-1945 and Rachel Maria Goodrich 1872-1921.

Next, I decided to select a different match of mine in this Boone Group a GP who has no tree. Looking at his closest matches, his son, MP has a tree. But I also see GP has a half-brother or nephew and his tree goes out farther than MP’s tree. I find a common couple among this subgroup of John Benjmain Roberts 1889-1956 and Ida M Akin 1890-1969.

Did a descendant of Roberts-Akin marry a Slaugh-Goodrich descendant?

Even through I have not solved my genealogical question of “Am I related to Squire Boone, Daniel Boone’s father?” I now have a starting point to try to discover how this group fits together.

My next step will be to create trees for this group. Many of these people have trees, or their close relatives have trees. AncestryDNA ProTool of Shared Matches is making it easier for me to create these trees. Being able to sort my match’s matches by closet to my match, makes the task a little less daunting.

My next step will also mean I have to do genealogy. To be able to accurately place them into the proper place of this new sub tree.

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!

Week 5: Challenge (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 2025 Version)

The theme for Week 5 is “Challenge.” Which ancestor has been challenging to research? What ancestor faced an enormous challenge? Click hereto view all of the 2025 prompts.

I have been researching my family genealogy for over 40 years. Various ancestors over the years have been challenging. Sometimes break throughs come out of the woodwork.

For example: Currently I am researching the descendants of my 3^rd great grandparents, Thomas Goodwin and his wife Jane. Jane is my challenging ancestor because as a woman, her maiden name and thus parents are a challenge to find. Even though I have found items that state her surname is possibly Burns, I haven’t been able to figure out who her parents are, or if she even has siblings.

In February of 2023 one of my DNA Matches reached out to me about Ellen Scott and Bartholomew Kernan line. My DNA match, was trying to figure out the parents of Ellen Scott.

Thus, I looked at our shared matches and found that Bartholomew’s parents were most likely Bartholomeus Kernan and Mary Byrne. Suddenly, I was noticing a few more matches whose trees went back to Bart and Mary. I found that Bart was living in a small community in Wisconsin called Lost Lake, Dodge County, Wisconsin. I am very familiar with this small community, because I had lots of relatives who lived and died there. In fact, this is where Jane is buried.

I surmised, that our DNA match wasn’t through Ellen Scott but through her husband Bartholomew Kernan. At the time of this message, I had just started my descendant project and found a family tree that referenced a small booklet titled “Some Goodwin and Kieffe Families of New York, Wisconsin & Nebraska” which was complied by William R and Helen (Kral) Houk in July 1997. In this booklet Jane’s will was referenced. The executor of her will was Edward Kernan since her sons had preceded her in death. I also found a marriage record for Thomas Kernan whose parents are listed as Bartholomew Kernan and Mary Burn. Therefore, I found Mary’s maiden name listed as Burn and Byrne. Finally, I found that Thomas and Jane were witnesses to Bart and Mary’s son Edward Kernan’s wedding, the same Edward who is the executor to Jane’s will.

This led me to making a hypothesis that Mary Burn/Byrne and Jane Burns may be sisters. They are the correct age to be sisters, I have lots of DNA matches to Mary’s descendants and their relationship to me would fit this hypothesis.

Since that original message from my DNA Match, I found several trees with parents for Mary Byrne. So now I have a new challenge to determine if Mary is actually Jane’s sister, are Mary’s parents really her parents, do I have any other DNA matches through another siblings of Jane.

In genealogy, our challenges never end, but it’s these challenges that are the driving force for my genealogy.

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!

Week 4: Overlooked (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 2025 Version)

The theme for Week 4 is “Overlooked.” It’s close to impossible to research everyone equally. Who is someone in your family tree who you haven’t researched very much? You could also consider those ancestors for whom it feels like you are the only person in the world searching for them. Click here to find all of the 2025 prompts here.

Last year for Week 40 Theme of Least, I wrote about the relatives who have the least amount of interest to many researchers. I mentioned that some researchers only are concerned with their direct line. They don’t research the siblings of their ancestors, and thus the children who died young might get researched the least.

However, “overlooked” siblings could be holding the clues to your direct line. When I could not find a marriage record for my 2^nd great grandparents, I turned to their siblings. I found a sibling of both of my 2^nd great-grandparents marriage records, which had the names of the couple’s parents. One marriage record had one of my 2^nd great grandparent’s parents and the other marriage record had the other set of parents for the other 2^nd great-grandparent.  This was helpful in finding out what was the mother’s maiden names. Thus, this took my research back another generation.

Do you lose track of your direct ancestors, perhaps they went to live with another relative. Young boys often worked on their uncles’ farms and went to live with them. Young girls might move in with their aunts to help her with household chores or younger children. Thus, researching these siblings can often open clues for us.

This is why I advocate that if you aren’t researching all your collateral line like me, at least research the siblings of your direct lines. Concentrating only on our direct ancestors could mean that we are overlooking valuable clues.

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy! 

Week 3: Nickname (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 2025 Version)

The theme for Week 3 is “Nickname.” Nicknames can hint to a person’s personality, occupation, or appearance. But be careful to not always take them literally! (Think of all the burly guys nicknamed “Tiny!”) Sometimes they have an “origin story” – like “Coco,” a classmate of mine. She got the nickname because her little brother couldn’t pronounce her real name (Colleen). Which of your ancestors had a nickname? Do you know how they got it? You can find all of the 2025 prompts here.

My grandpa Crinion, my dad and his only brother all had the nickname of “Chick”. I googled to see what might it be a nickname for and it reported Charles. However, none of them are called Charles. My grandpa and uncle have the same first name of John. My uncle also had the nick name of “Jack” too. My dad was Robert, and I found a work name tag with “Chick” Crinion on it along with some of his work jackets often had “Chick” Crinion on them too.

I did try asking my dad many years ago where the nickname came from. Either he told me and I forgot or he avoided giving me the correct answer, which was his normal response. I think he didn’t like us kids knowing all his secrets. 

Below is an ad that has my Uncle Jack “Chick” Crinion listed in his ad.

Just remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!