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Saturday, June 23, 2018

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Who is Your Second Most Recent Unknown Ancestor?

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 
time for some more Genealogy Fun!!



Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1) Who is Your SMRUA - your Second Most Recent Unknown Ancestor?  The one that you don't have a name for, or any information.  The one completely unknown to you.  


2)  Have you looked at your research files for this unknown person recently? Why don't you scan it again just to see if there's something you have missed? 

3) What online or offline resources might you search that might help identify your SMRUA?  What about DNA matches?

4) Tell us about him or her, and your answers to 2) and 3) above, in a blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a comment on Facebook or Google Plus. 

NOTE:  We've done Most Recent Unknown Ancestors before - feel free to work down your list to someone you haven't written about before.

Here's mine:

My most recent unknown unknown ancestor is the biological father of my second great-grandfather, Devier James Lamphier Smith.  My second most recent unknown ancestor is the biological mother of Devier.

What I now know is that one of Devier's parents was a Lanfear (or Lamphier, etc.) in Jefferson County, New York.  The Lanfear may be a male Lanfear (perhaps if he was a father who gave up Devier after losing his wife) or a female Lanfear (perhaps if she had Devier out of wedlock).  If it is the male Lanfear, then I have no clue who the biological mother is.  If it's the female Lanfear, then I know that the maiden surname is Lanfear, but which one, and the biological father is a mystery.

I wrote about an autosomal DNA match that I have with a probable 5th cousin descended from Nancy Lanfear (1816-1898) iFinding Devier J. Lamphear Smith's Parents - Part I: DNA Trails.   Nancy, and one of the parents of my Devier, are siblings, childten of Isaac Lanfear (1777-1851) and Rosina (Laun) Lanfear (1781-1881) of Lorraine, Jefferson County, New York.

So I have a DNA mystery on my hands with this one.  I have identified several more DNA matches descended from Isaac and Rosina (Laun) Lanfear, but I haven't contacted any of them yet.  

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The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2018/06/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-who-is.html


Copyright (c) 2018, Randall J. Seaver

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2 comments:

  1. The longer that I genealogize, the more I appreciate your advice, Randy. Review every scrap of documentation and marginal note, and then see what new collections have "come online" for that time and place. The "US Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1970," collection on Ancestry has yielded some names and dates from remote places that I didn't expect to find after "working" the civil records without luck. Now what about the Methodists?

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