Genealogy Archives - Page 5 of 8

The Mystery of Emma K. Hobson part 1—CoronaLife Day 313

January 21, 2021 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

If you’ve been here any length of time, you know I am a genealogy geek. It has been a wonderful way to escape the pressure and stress of the pandemic. I’ve been researching for some 30 years. One of the easiest ways to track an ancestor after 1850 is by using the censuses. Every ten years, the family would be enumerated.

Well, that’s the idea. It’s not uncommon for a family to be “lost” for a census. Maybe they were moving, maybe they weren’t home when the enumerators knocked, maybe the enumerators skipped their house or farm for some reason. But recently I had a family that was lost over many censuses—one woman, two children, and four husbands. All of them ghosts.

The woman is Emma Kite Hobson. She was the daughter of Benjamin Hobson and Margaret Seward. Emma was born 25 Feb 1837 in Pennsylvania, likely in Philadelphia since that is where Benjamin and Margaret lived. Emma then proceeded to marry four times and have two children with different husbands—and I can’t find any of them.

I’m going to start with Emma’s children. Her first child was William F. Brickman, born April 1854 in Pennsylvania, according to census records and his death certificate. Now, the census takes place every ten years on the 10s, so he should appear on the 1860 census—except that he doesn’t. His mother Emma is living with HER mother, and listed as single. William’s father, Jacob Charles Brickman, also has vanished. William then shows up in 1870 at age 16, living with his grandmother (Emma’s mom) Margaret Seward Hobson in Philadelphia. William then again vanishes, pops up in Adams County, Illinois in 1884 where he marries a widow (Mrs. Mary Irvin), who then dies in 1898 in Brown County, Illinois. He is still in Brown County, Illinois in 1900, but then dies in a poor house in Collier, Blair County, Pennsylvania on 4 September 1907. No one claims him and he is buried in the Allegheny County Home’s cemetery.

Emma’s daughter Nannetta Lillian was born in Burlington County, New Jersey or Pennsylvania, depending on where you look. On her marriage license, which she likely filled out herself, she states Burlington County. Presumably she knew where she was born on 17 March 1863.

The question then becomes who was she born TO. An article in 1900 says she was the daughter of Emma’s second husband, George Singleton Pettibone. On her marriage license she said her father was William C. Sloan, Emma’s third husband.

On her marriage license, Nannetta says her last name is Felix. She also says she was married before and her first husband died in 1883, so Felix was likely his last name. I cannot find any record of her first marriage. Here’s where things get stranger still.

On her daughter’s baptismal records, Nannetta lists her maiden name as Hemick. Her daughter who filled out Nannetta’s death certificate had clearly heard this name, because she put that her grandfather was William Hemick. This is also the maiden name used in Nannetta’s obituary, which the children would have written. Where did Hemick come from? No clue.

So, Nannetta was born in 1863, to either husband number 2 or 3. However, I cannot locate her on the 1870 census. I cannot locate her mother or either suspected father, either. Same with the 1880 census. I even checked the 1880 census under the surname Felix, as she might have been married by then. No joy. She married Andrew Curtain Hull in 1886 in Blair County, and that is the first record I have for her. The rest of her life after is easy to trace.

Where were Emma’s children in their youth? Where was Emma for 20 years between 1860 and 1880? I’ll look for clues to her whereabouts next week. Any genealogists out there that want to tackle this with me, I would love to hear what you find!

Before and After – CoronaLife Day 110

July 2, 2020 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

We’ve experienced an abrupt before-and-after this year: life before COVID-19, and life after it. For those of us in New Jersey, the before-and-after delineation date came on March 14th, the date the schools were closed and life in quarantine began.

Many of us have adjusted to a new normal, this coronalife we are living for the foreseeable future. We are holding on to the knowledge that this, too, shall pass, for nothing lasts forever, no matter how it feels, and that someday there will be an “after” to this present “before.”

Today, though, I had some fun with Before and After. MyHeritage, a genealogy site, had a free trial of their photo enhancing software, which both enhances and colorizes photos. This in no way changes the originals, so the past is preserved. The original photos—dings, creases, and all—hold the weight of history, and I cherish them for the truth that they hold. But I also appreciate the colorized versions as a bit of fun and a chance to imagine more fully people I have never known.

First up I did my 4 grandparents. All but one had died before I was 5 years old, and of course I would not have remembered them as the young people they are in these photos.

Next I did my great-grandparents. I never knew my great-grandfather, but my great-grandmother lived to be 96, when I was 16. My only memories of her are as an old lady in a nursing home, certainly not the elegant woman in the photo.

I went back in time, to my 2nd-great-grandparents, who were a shepherd and his wife in northern Scotland (note the sheepdog in the photo), and my 3rd-great-grandparents. My 3rd-great-grandfather came over from Ireland in 1842, settled in Delaware, and married my 3rd-great-grandmother, a descendant of Colonial settlers.

I think my favorite photo was my grandmother and her 2 sisters. It’s a sweet picture to start with, but the colorization brought an angelic innocence to it that I find endearing.

So that was my before and after adventure for today. I maxed out my free trial, but I may do more later, depending on the price to do so.

What do you do to relieve the stress and monotony of coronalife? Stay safe, and let’s all work together to get through this “before” and into the “after” as soon as possible.

Mary Hobson Warren (1821-1904)

April 4, 2019 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

People often ask why I love genealogy so much. I think it is because of the stories. So many of my ancestors struggled and worked to give their children better lives. The stories themselves are compelling, but also I realize that without their work and sacrifice, I would not be who I am or where I am today. Their story is also mine.

Here is the story of my 3rd great-grandmother Mary Sellers Hobson Warren (1821-1904)

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In 1852 Philadelphia, Mary Hobson Warren’s life was good. Her family had been in Philly for generations, well established and fairly comfortable. Her father Benjamin was a tailor, and her mother worked as a layer out of the dead, so Mary and her five siblings were secure growing up. On 18 September 1839, at age 18, Mary married James William Warren (age 28), an immigrant from Nova Scotia, Canada.

Now, 13 years later, they were well set. James had begun his career in men’s apparel, but now was a conductor on the railway. They had 5 children: Clara (age 11), Thomas (8), Benjamin (7), James Jr. (4), and Henry (2). And another growing in her belly. Life was going to plan.

Then, on 5 October 1852, came the knock on the door. Men from the railroad told her that James would not be coming home ever again. He’d been killed by a train. They spared her the details, but they were in the paper the next day. He’d fallen from the roof of a rail car, and been crushed by the wheels. He had died instantly. A small mercy.

But here she was at age 32, with 5 children, and her two months pregnant. As an immigrant, James had no family to step in and help. Her family could only do so much. They buried James in a grave in Monument Cemetery owned by Mary’s sister-in-law, Margaret Seward Hobson.

Mary took up washing and sewing, some of the only jobs open to honest women. She worked her hands raw…but her troubles were not over. James, Jr. died of typhoid fever just shy of 4 months after his namesake father. For the second time, Mary stood at the Monument Cemetery gravesite, mourning the loss of her 4-year-old son.

James William Warren (1853-1920)

But Mary didn’t give up. She kept washing and sewing, putting food on her table and a roof over her family’s head. 22 May 1853 saw the birth of her son, whom she named James William Warren after his father and brother. The family got along as best they could.

Then on 31 March 1857, she married Daniel Leinau. He was a businessman from Tennessee, a veteran of the war of 1812, and 25 years older than Mary. Clara was aged 16, Thomas 13, Benjamin 12, Henry 7, and James 4. Daniel and Mary had no children together, but Daniel was the only father young Henry and James ever knew.

Mary’s life got easier with Daniel to provide for her and her family. Slowly their house emptied. Clara married Frederick Valletto McNair in 1862. Clara and Frederick’s eldest son Warren Leinau McNair died in 1865 at age 1 year and 9 months. They buried him in Monument Cemetery with his grandfather and uncle. Thomas married Emma Spooner in 1872. Their first children were stillborn twins, in 1873, and they were buried in the Spooner family plot in Laurel Hill Cemetery. Thomas died young, at age 35, in 1879 and joined his children in the Spooner plot.

Daniel Leinau died 9 March 1883, widowing Mary again. He was buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery, and Mary moved James, James Jr., and baby Warren McNair from Monument Cemetery to the new family plot in Laurel Hill. Mary’s children were now old enough to support her, as she had done for them.

James married Clara Godshall in 1884, Benjamin married Emma Kinsey in 1887, and Henry married Mary Drew in 1888. Mary lived out her life with her youngest son, James William and his family.

Upon her death at age 83 on 23 May 1904, she joined both her husbands, her son, and her grandson in Laurel Hill. Three of her other sons are also resting in nearby plots.

Wishing for a DNA-centric Vacation

March 14, 2019 By Kerry Gans 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago, both Ancestry and MyHeritage unveiled new tools for managing and figuring out your matches on their sites. These include tree matching suggestions, sortable colored dots to mark matches and make it easier to visualize, and auto-clustering of matches with a shared ancestor. I am eager to work with these tools, but as of yet have not. Why not?

My father.

More precisely, his DNA. His Ancestry test came through before the new tools, so I have been working through his many matches using the old interface, because that is how I started the process and the new one is very different. I am giddy with excitement over getting his results in for a few reasons, the first being that it took so long for it to process I was afraid it had failed.

The other reason is because it is an Ancestry test. His DNA is on other websites, but I have had the most luck tracking his matches on Ancestry. It is not unusual for people to have one company that garners more or better matches for them. MyHeritage, for instance, seems to do better with more recent European immigrant lines. It’s all about who tests where.

My mother is not on Ancestry (yet), and until my dad was, I had no way of knowing if matches to me were paternal or maternal. It is not uncommon to have a group of 10 or more matches who all match each other but you have no idea how that group relates to you. If you are lucky and can find one person in the group that you can trace back to an ancestor you share, then you know the rest of that group is also somehow on that family line.

I have been fairly lucky on Ancestry with figuring out matches. I have about 40,000 total matches on Ancestry. About 400 are 4th cousin or closer range. I have figured out how roughly 70 of them connect to me. Which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a much higher number than I have been able to figure out at the other DNA sites. And of course that means any people who match both me and one of 70, I at least know what line they are on. So they are sort of half-figured-out.

Now, with my dad also on Ancestry, Ancestry marks the matches that match him as Paternal. Which means that by default, the unmarked ones are my mother. So now I can mark those with colored dots and then sort my matches by her. This is great because her side of the family is much harder to trace than my dad’s. Now I can know for certain I am working on the correct side of the family!

Also, since my father is a generation above me, he will have stronger matches to people I match to, and he also has a higher number of 4th cousin and closer matches, which is important on Ancestry for Shared Matches. Where I have about 400 4th or closer, he has almost 700. By being able to spread the net wider and find a deeper pool of shared matches, I can hopefully figure out how some of these unknown groups fit into the puzzle.

So I have been fun working through my dad’s matches. Once I finish, I will jump into playing with the great new tools on MyHeritage and Ancestry and see if they smash down any brick walls for me.

Do you ever wish you could take a vacation just to indulge your hobby of choice?

Genetic Genealogy: Visualizing your past

January 24, 2019 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I’ve been doing genealogy for over 20 years now. Genetic genealogy has taken the world by storm only in the last few years. Millions of people have sent in DNA samples to the big companies. By matching with other living descendants of your ancestors, DNA has opened up a whole new era of exploration and collaboration. I may have info on an ancestral line my match doesn’t have or vice versa. When you start matching to an ancestral line where paperwork is sparse, such as Irish lines, DNA may be the only guiding light you have.

I am not a DNA expert, by any means, but I am learning a great deal. Ancestry uses a feature called Shared Matches. This means when you look at a match, say to Person A, it will show you matches who match both you and Person A above a certain threshold (20 centimorgans). This is helpful because if you don’t know where Person A fits in your tree, but you see he matches known Cousin 1, then you know he is probably on the same ancestral line as known Cousin 1.

As helpful as Shared Matches are, they are limited. For instance, I have several large groups that match to each other but not related to any known match. I don’t even know if they are on my mother or father’s side. With no family trees or responses from messages, how can I ever place them on my ancestral lines?

Other DNA sites employ a tool called a Chromosome Browser. This not only tells you how many centimorgans (the unit of measurement for DNA) and segments you share with that person, but exactly which segments on which chromosomes. People you match that are all from the same lineage will usually have some overlapping sections.

Here is an example of a chromosome browser:

Which can also be shown in chart form:

Once you have the chromosome information, you can use a tool called DNA Painter and “paint” them so you can see where they fall. As the segments align, you begin to understand which segments represent which ancestral couples. For example, this is a chromosome painted with 5 different matches from the same line overlapping:

Painting known matches, you can then take unknown matches and see if they overlap any of the known ones. If they do, this is an indication that they MIGHT be on that line. Why only “might”? Because each of our chromosomes have 2 sides—one from your dad, one from your mom. See below:

The chromosome browsers tell you which SEGMENTS you share with a match, but not which SIDE of the chromosome you match on. So if it seems to overlap on your dad’s side, it may be true. But it may also be on your mother’s side. However, it gives you a hint of where you might start looking.

Here’s one full profile from DNA Painter. This person’s profile is 28% complete.

Since most of my known matches are on Ancestry, I do not have chromosome information for most of them. I would be a lot further along in my chromosome mapping if I had them! Ancestry so far has insisted they will never provide a chromosome browser, so I am out of luck.

The more I learn about genetic genealogy, the more intrigued I become. The more tools we have, the deeper we can go into our origins.

Perhaps someday genetic genealogy will help me find the so-far-mythological DNA match to my mother’s Irish grandfather that will prove he was human and not an alien, figment, or leprechaun.

The Best of The Goose’s Quill 2018

January 3, 2019 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I always enjoy looking back over the past year and seeing what posts readers enjoyed most. I see an unexpected pattern with the top 4. Enjoy!

10. Genetic Genealogy: Proving the Paper Trail

9. Anxiety Spiral: Idling in “A” Gear

8. Control Your Inner Critic: The Power of a Name

7. Power Outage 2018

6. The Split Brain Phenomenon: On the Outside Looking In

5. On Being a Low-Energy Person in a High-Energy World

4. Spring Book Fair 2018: Snowmaggedon!

3. The Enchanted Book Fair: Fall 2018

2. 48 Years

1. Book Fair Magic: Casting a Reading Spell

Thank you to everyone who has read The Goose’s Quill this year! I hope you all have a safe healthy, happy 2019!

Genetic Genealogy: Proving the paper trail

July 19, 2018 By Kerry Gans 5 Comments

All my readers know genealogy has been a passion of mine for many years now. I’ve even written a book about my father’s side of the family (yes, Mom, your book is coming!). The advent of genetic genealogy has revolutionized the hobby and opened up secrets long kept in some families.

I have been using my DNA genealogy to try and confirm my long-established paper trails. My goal is to connect to all 8 of my great-grandparents. One more great-grandparent and I will have all 8. I also already have DNA matches that support 12 of my 16 great-great-grandparents.

My father’s side turned out to be laughably easy. Matches to him abounded, and in what seemed like no time at all I had matched through all 4 of his grandparents.

Then there was my mother. Her Scottish lines popped up rather quickly, but her Irish side…nothing. This was understandable, but frustrating just the same. You see, in order to really get anything out of DNA genealogy, you also need paper genealogy. You need names, places, dates, so you and the people you match with can figure out where your connection is. Scottish records are abundant. Irish records literally went up in flames, making anything much past the late 1800s almost nonexistent. Yet many of our DNA connections occur past the point where records exist, leaving us wondering how and who we connect to.

I had a specific group of matches who all matched each other—called Shared Matches. There were 6 of them: JW, BN, ME, FR, SC, and KN. I sent messages to all of them, and waited. I finally got an answer from JW—and we were able to find our link! Not only that, but it turns out JW was the first known connection to my mom’s Irish Hayden side. Yay!

So now I knew the other 5 must be on the same line, since we all matched each other. But none of them had trees posted, so once again I was stumped. I sent another message saying I believed they were on the Hayden-Bergin branch of my tree. And I waited. Just a few days ago, BN messaged me back! Not only did she know how WE were related, but she had personally known JW when they were kids, AND she knew how the remaining 4 testers were related to us. Whew! A ton of information in one fell swoop.

So now I know for certain that my mother’s mom was not an alien from outer space. Well, I know that at least half of her is human, LOL. I am still searching for that elusive Irish Sutton-Gorman line.

Perseverance and patience will bring answers, I am sure. Meanwhile, I will keep on with my paper genealogy as well, to expand my tree and make future connections easier to find.

What passion do you pursue when you step away from writing?

Genealogy, Character, and Worldbuilding

March 18, 2018 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

It’s no secret that I love genealogy. I often say if I wasn’t a writer, I would have been a professional genealogist. The excitement of the chase and the thrill of finally finding that piece of evidence that proves a relationship would enthrall any mystery lover.

And it’s not just my family I enjoy researching. I will jump in and help anyone trying to solve a brick wall. Most genealogy buffs seem to share this insatiable urge to research, as evidenced by how willing people are to help others in many online groups.

Tonight I get to share some of the passion I have for genealogy with the South Jersey Writers Group. I’ll be talking about how my family history habit has crept into my writing, in the areas of character development and worldbuilding.

I’m a bit nervous about presenting, but I am eager to share with this group. I’ve met some of these writers in other venues, and they are always warm and fun. I’m looking forward to a good discussion with them.

Do you have a hobby that invades your writing?

DNA & Genealogy: Finding cousins, connecting family

December 7, 2017 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

I recently have been getting involved on the DNA side of genealogy. It is a science, so there’s a lot to learn. Fortunately, I have always liked science. I am new to this, so I have barely scratched the surface of what there is to know.

So far, I have found about 20 “cousins” and how we connect in our family trees. That’s always exciting! They have ranged from 2nd Cousin 1x Removed to 8th Cousin 1x Removed. One of my new connections is actually a branch of the family that my mother’s family lost touch with some 55 years ago! The older members of our family who remember each other are still alive, and are happy to be back in touch.

The other exciting thing about DNA is that it can confirm your paper research. Finding matches with these other cousins has enabled me to confirm many of the lines I have been researching for years. The red parts of the fan chart below are ones that I have found DNA matches for. In case you’re wondering, most of the unproven lines are Irish. Either my relatives haven’t tested, or there aren’t many left to test. For instance, I know that my Sutton family largely died out several generations ago, so any remaining Suttons will be quite distant from me.

I was hoping to solve a mystery 185 years in the making. In 1839, the Bergin family emigrated from Ireland to Australia, but left their 7-year-old daughter Johanna behind. I have a Johanna Bergin that would have been the right age, from the right area in Ireland. Research suggests strongly that she is the left behind girl. I have been working with an Australian descendant of her brother, and we had hoped that DNA might prove the tale. However, he and I didn’t match—which doesn’t prove anything, because we are just on the line where as cousins we might not share DNA even if we are related. I am trying to have him move his DNA to another website where my mother’s is, in hopes that a closer generational distance will unearth some DNA connection.

Many people do DNA testing for the fun of finding out their ethnicity. It can be fun to see, but keep in mind that the ethnicity estimates are just that—estimates. They will vary from company to company, as the algorithms are different, although they will be mostly similar. I got a good laugh over 2 tests showing me having <1% Oceania/Melanesia ethnicity when my parents don’t show any DNA from there.

There is a danger in DNA testing, though. In forums online, an amazing number of people who test have found they are not who they thought they were. Many find out that their father wasn’t their father, or their full sibling is only half. It can also shake out family secrets from farther back, when you don’t match anyone from, say, a grandparent’s line, but do match a whole bunch of names that aren’t on your tree. While the ethnicity is only an estimate, the actual DNA doesn’t lie.

I am enjoying exploring my DNA, and expanding the family as I do so. Hopefully, it will help me break down some “brick wall” ancestors at some point—although it hasn’t yet. I look forward to learning more about this science and my family!

When Surnames Die

September 7, 2017 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

Over this long weekend, I dove back into genealogy with a frenzy. I expanded my tree in several horizontal directions, I cleaned up some of my files (but many more to go!), and I sent emails to potential “cousins” to see if we could find our common ancestor. Much of my work this weekend has pushed the surnames Campbell and McFarlin, and has springboarded off of DNA results suggesting possible matches.

DNA can be amazing, when you figure out the connection. One of the reasons I have done the DNA is to try and connect with other family members who may have information on my “brick walls” where I am stuck. One of the DNA tests you can do (if you are male) is a Y-DNA test. This test looks at the Y chromosome, passed from father to son in a direct line, and therefore allows you to trace back your surname. While it is handy for confirming surnames, it is not always helpful if you don’t know what surname you are looking for (such as if you are an adoptee).

Obviously, to do this test, you have to be a male descendant of the surname in question. Which leaves me out, but I have done Y-DNA tests on Campbell, Gans, and Douglas surnames from relatives. If I wanted to trace any other family surnames, I would have to find living male descendants. This can prove problematic, as surnames died out more often than I would have thought. I have found this twice in my recent research, once in the McFarlin lineage, once in the Sutton lineage.

First, we have the McFarlins, who may not be totally gone, but are very rare if they still exist. Keep in mind that I am only speaking of my particular “line”—the McFarland Clan is still going strong. My McFarlins started with Edward and Jane. After Edward died in Ireland, ALL of the children and Jane came to America. I wanted to see if I could find a living McFarlin, so I traced down.

Edward of Ireland had 3 sons: Robert, Edward A., and John. A promising start. Robert had no children, Edward A. had 3 sons, and John had 2 sons. So now we’ve got 5 carriers of that Y. Edward A.’s 3 sons broke the chain—William had no children, Edward A. Jr. had 3 girls, and John H. had one daughter. So that leaves the elder John’s 2 boys to carry the torch: John Robert and Henry Francis. John Robert had no children. Henry Francis had 2 sons who are possibly still living, and at least 3 grandchildren of unknown gender. If there are any McFarlin males out there, they are a literal rare breed.

The Suttons are completely gone in my line. Once again, the entire family came over to America and from there lost the surname. James Sutton had 4 sons in Ireland, one dying as a child. The remaining 3—Nicholas, John, and Patrick—all came to America. Nicholas had 2 sons, but one died in infancy. John had no children, although he raised Nicholas’ children after Nicholas died. Patrick had 2 sons. So in that generation, we have 3 Y-carriers. Nicholas’ son Gilbert had no children. Of Patrick’s 2 sons, James had 1 girl, and Nicholas had no children. In my Sutton line, the name went extinct in my grandmother’s generation.

While this dying of surnames stinks for Y-DNA purposes, it got me thinking about how this could play out in fiction. There is some pathos in the idea of a character being the last of a name (not necessarily the last of a lineage, as the women’s lines may have continued). If this was the last of a royal name or a founding father lineage, it could be sad—the end of an era. Perhaps this character would fight to pass the name on. Or perhaps, in a twist, he wants the name to die with him, because of some curse or evil deed in the past. It’s an interesting concept to play with.

Do family names play a role in your story?

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