Genea-Musings: Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

Saturday, July 6, 2019

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Ellen's Questions Part 2

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) Ellen Thompson-Jennings posted 20 questions on her blog last week - see Even More Questions About Your Ancestors and Maybe A Few About You (posted 27 June).

2) We will do these five at a time - Questions 6 to 10 tonight (we did 1 through 5 last week)

3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.

Here's mine:

6)  How many DNA companies have you tested with or transferred to? Have you tested at all the 5 major companies?

I have tested with AncestryDNA (spit), 23andMe (swab), FamilyTreeDNA (swab), MyHeritage (transfer) and LivingDNA (transfer) and DNA.Land (transfer).

I have also tested my Y-DNA at GeneBase and my mitochondrial DNA at FamilyTreeDNA.

7) Do you have an ancestor that had a successful business? Is it still in business?

I think the closest ancestor who had a business was my 2nd great-grandfather, Devier J. Smith (1839-1894), who had a livery business in McCook, Nebraska in the 1885 time frame. He handed it to his son David D. Smith and it was sold when David moved to San Diego before 1900.

My 2nd great-grandfather David Auble (1817-1894) had a "boot and shoe business" in Newton, New Jersey, Newark, New Jersey, and Terre Haute, Indiana from the 1840s until about 1892.

My 4th great-grandfather, Philip Jacob Konig (1764-1829) owned a grist mill in York, Pennsylvania, and passed it to his heirs.

8) How long ago was your last “genealogy/DNA happy dance?”

I call them "genea-gasms" but whatever. It's been awhile, I'm afraid. Perhaps the last one was discovering the parentage of 4th great-grandmother Catherine Ruth (1770-1813) last year.

9) Did you ever discover that a friend was also a distant cousin?

Because of my extensive New England ancestry, I have discovered that many genealogy friends, some of whom I've met, are my distant cousins. I know that I am a distant cousin of Pat Richley-Erickson, David Rencher, Dave Robison, Bill West, Heather Wilkinson Rojo, Jen Baldwin, Midge Frazel, and many more! I chose the people who immediately came to mind, and I know I missed hundreds of others. If I am your cousin, please tell me and i'll add your name to my list above (I really need to start a list in a chart, I think).

10) Do you have a genealogy brick wall? Do you think you will be able to use DNA to work past it?

My genea-cave is lined with brick walls! I have hundreds of them. Many of them are too far back in time (5th great-grandparents or earlier) for DNA to provide conclusive evidence.

I think I have solved one of them with DNA - the grandparents of my 2nd great-grandfather Devier J. Smith (1839-1894) who was adopted. I have a 4th cousin Lanfear DNA match at MyHeritageDNA who is a descendant from Isaac and Rosannah (Laun) Lanfear of Lorraine, New York. However, I don't know which child of Isaac and Rosina is the parent of Devier!

I hope to find a Newton or Brigham DNA match in Massachusetts that might lead me to the father of my 2nd great-grandmother, Sophia (Newton) Hildreth (1834-1923). I have had no luck yet with that one.

I hope to find a Knapp DNA match in Connecticut or New York that might lead me to the father of my 3rd great-grandfather William Knapp (1775-1856) of Dutchess County, New York, but have had no luck there to date.

I have several DNA matches in Wiltshire for my Richman and Marshman lines that do not have my 3rd great-grandparents John Richman (1788-1867) and Ann Marshman (1784-1856) in the directl ine, so I hope to identify their parents sometime soon.

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