52 Ancestors: Document - The Lesson of Oertha

So many of these prompts have been too open-ended for me, and only by trying to consign myself to one family branch a week of my tree have I been able to come up with ideas for these posts. This is definitely one of those posts. I have so many fabulous records I could talk about, but in the end, I've settled on one that's not so much a record, but a hand written tree I had a copy of almost from the beginning.

My great-grandfather Holger's family stayed well connected through my childhood. Even to the point where my great-aunt held a yearly family gathering in her town of Idylwild in California. So I met many of my grandmother's close and distant cousins as well as other relations over the years. So their father's father's line is very well connected, even back in Denmark where they came from. Their father's mother's line, on the other hand, petered out after a few generations when I first received it, ending in a woman whose name I always had recorded as Oertha. I'd always thought it a bit odd, but as I searched, I found Oerthas here and there, so I figured it was a Scandinavian name, and chalked it up to that. But I never managed to get past that part of my tree. My third-great grandfather, Jørgen Larsen, was her son, which is an unfortunately common name in Denmark, so I despaired of ever getting further back.

Then, in the early 2000s, I made friends with several people online who were from Denmark, and still living there. I was pleased to tell them about my family, and how my grandmother was Danish, like them, even though she was born in the US. From time to time, they would help me out with that branch of the family, and with translations of the documents I found. Then, one day, I was nudging at Oertha again, and asked one of them if they'd ever heard the name before. We talked for a bit, and ended up focusing on Jørgan instead--which is what led to the breakthrough. We found the church book where his birth was recorded. And listed his parents' names as Lars Andersen and Birthe Marie Sørensdatter. 

It's not uncommon to get a name transcribed wrong when it comes to genealogy and family history, so I went back to my documents to see where the info had come from. I looked through several versions of the family tree to see how it was originally written, only to discover that "Oertha" had been handwritten at the very top of the page, so the top of the B in Birthe had been cut off, and with the handwriting had quickly turned into an O.

Because of this find, I have now gotten several more generations back on this line. So the lesson here? Just because it's always been listed that way on your family tree, don't take it for granted. Always question everything, because you never know where that info came from until you look into it. Especially when you're stuck there. Usually brick walls in your family tree come about because something was written down wrong somewhere. Come at it from a different angle to see if new information comes up. You never know what you might find.

52 Ancestors: Negatives - Hans Henrik Bordwig

While I'm sure most who do this prompt will talk about film found, or special prints, for me, this brought to mind one particular story once I thought about it, and I couldn't resist the chance to tell it because I don't think I have before here on this blog. It's the story of the beginning of the Bordewick line as far as we know, and what happened to that founder.

Hans Henrik Bordwig is my 4th great grandfather. According to family lore, he was born in or near Bardowick, Germany, but as a young man, he traveled north to become a sea captain in Norway. It was there he met and married his wife, Anna Magdalena Tiller, and became a citizen of that country. The couple had three sons: Ole, Johan, and Hans. Ole died within a year of birth, but Johan and Hans grew and married, though Hans died quite young, still in his thirties. So my 3rd great-grandfather was the only surviving son of that line, and its from him that the little we know about his father survives.

In Norway, Hans Henrik became the captain of a ship called De Tvende Venner, or The Twenty Friends in English. He carried cargo between Norway and England and the continent, but in 1812, Hans was in a shipwreck in Veilholmen, near the islands of Smolen and Hittern. The crew and their captain managed to reach shore, but froze to death before reaching the inhabitants. They were buried near Hittern Church. Johan was only ten years old.

I don't know a lot of how this affected Johan's life, though from what I do know, I can imagine. Johan lived to the age of 76, a good old age, and by that time, he'd married twice, and had a total of sixteen children. I know that from a young age, he went out to work, and I'm sure that was to help his mother after his father's death, as usually children weren't sent out to work until the age of at least thirteen, unless the family needed the money. He worked as a clerk for several years, eventually getting a job in the Lofoten Islands, helping to run a trading post there, which he ended up taking over when the owner had to leave (under mysterious circumstances, according to family lore--the owner was possibly on the run either from the law or from debtors, which meant he left it in Johan's capable hands). He even became the mayor of that town for a time in his later years. He himself never went to sea that I know, but at least one of his sons did, and made quite a good living at it. Johan made a great life for himself and his family, but I think he only worked all the harder because of his father's fate. 

Hans is one of our big family mysteries, because though many have dug into the records around Bardowick, we have yet to find a record of any sort for a Hans Henrik Bordwig or any variation. It likely means he changed his name upon appearing in Norway, and we have no way of tracking down what that may have been. We all keep looking though, in an attempt to break through that wall.

Update to Ancestry DNA

So while the Genealogical community here in the US has been going mad over the 1950 Census, Ancestry made an update to their site that hasn't been getting a whole lot of coverage that I have been able to find. In the middle of this month, they started a new section of the DNA results section of their site. If you have had your DNA done by Ancestry,  you now have a new section called Ethnicity Inheritance. This splits your DNA matches based on whether they think they are your father's relations or your mother's, and in doing so, narrows down your DNA results based on whether they are your mother's or father's. 

I think this is my favorite change to the DNA results since I first got my DNA tested. I have a lot of things in my results that make me curious, and this definitely answered some questions for me. 

These are my results.  As you can see, it splits your results between your parents based on where they presume those results come from. As I said, this is based on the matches you get on Ancestry. 

In this case, I can see that Parent 1 is my dad, because he is the one whose father was Jewish, so even if there were a small section of Jewish on the other side, I'd know that the major Jewish results should come from his father, and therefore should be about a quarter of my results. In this case, I'm happy to see that even though I have more than a 25% result of Jewish in my results, they all come from my dad's side of the tree. Until now, I've had a possibility that perhaps there were some hidden Jews on my mom's side of the tree, but as you can see, I don't have any Jewish coming from her side of the tree at all. At least according to their presumptions. This doesn't preclude some hidden Jews on my dad's mom's side, but one of dad's first cousins on her side of the tree did have her results done, and she has no Jewish results in her DNA, so I'm going to assume that I am right here and all the Jewish results come from my grandfather's side of the tree. I am hoping to convince one or both of my aunts to take a DNA test to confirm this, but for now, I'm happy. For me, this proves that just got more than my share of my grandfather's DNA.

And this is my mom's results, which are fascinating when compared to mine, because you can see that very strong Welsh result in both. Now, I know her mother was Welsh. Both parents were born in Wales, so that's not a surprise. And while I was hoping this might narrow down whether or not we're Huguenot or not, unfortunately, this doesn't prove or disprove it. It just means if we are, it didn't get passed down to us, which is just as likely.

On the other hand, it does prove something about my great-grandmother on my grandfather's side. Granny was born in Philadelphia, but her parents were both immigrants from Ireland. They'd married in Armaugh, Ireland, now Northern Ireland, in 1883 before immigrating to the US. So we've always "known" we were Irish. I have record of them from the time they started having children in the US, but almost nothing before. I have since found out more, but of the four surnames I originally have for their families, the results are very interesting. Park, Dunlop, and Blair, three of my four third-time great grandparents's surnames, are very Scottish surnames. Quite often, you do find overlap between the two groups, especially in Northern Ireland, where a lot of poor Scots ended up after the Nobles in Scotland decided to use their land as pastureland and kicked out their tenants so they could. So I always knew it was possible, or even probable, that we had some roots in Scotland. But looking at my grandfather's half of this, with more than half Scottish ancestry, it appears that we're Scottish, and that that tiny wedge of Irish might not even be related to my great-grandmother, despite where her parents were born.

So two things definitively proven, at least to a very strong extent, but more questions. And that Finnish of my mom's makes me very curious. Given her father's father was at the very least German and Norwegian in descent, the mixed info on his side between the English/northern European, Swedish/Denmark, Norway, and Finland numbers, that looks about right for his side of the family. And having that random Finish section probably comes from some random inheritance over the generations there.

And I'm not the only one who has had a few questions answered. My friend, who had her DNA as well as her parents' and paternal grandparents' done about the same time I got mine done, managed to determine that the small amount of African DNA she has all comes from her mom's dad's side. We're very much looking forward to digging into all her results now that we can. it's all very exciting.

This change is the kind of thing that gives me hope for DNA technology. It's not about what they can initially do, because that stage is about trying to understand the data they're getting and what it means. But now that they've been doing this for years, we're learning more with each year that goes on. I can't wait to see what comes next.

So have you had your DNA done? If so, did this answer any of your questions? If not, does it make you want to try?

52 Ancestors: How do you spell that? Alex Seneft

My great-grandfather had several names in his life. He was born Elias Seneft, but by the time he was married he was known as Alec Hilinger, and when he died, Alex Hillinger. Why the change? Because the Germans didn't recognize his parents' marriage in a religious (Jewish) ceremony. His first name was because the family moved to England when he was young. He and most of his family used Anglicised nicknames to better fit in. I still haven't been able to figure out his younger brother or either of his sisters' Hebrew names at this time, though I keep trying to determine that.

Both Seneft and Hillinger are names that have caused several problems in my genealogy search. 

Hillinger is my maiden name, and for my whole childhood, I remember people mangling it. Missing one of the letters when they tried to pronounce it or spell it was a very common occurrence. Worse, when I first began my search, I assumed that Hillinger was the correct spelling, until I realized that my great-great grandmother spelled her name with one L. Or at least, that is what I have been told. So though there are Hillingers in Austria, it is quite possible that we're in no way related to them. At one point, I looked up the name Hilinger on a name mapping site that showed you where the name was most commonly found. The country that came up when I did was Spain, which I found quite fascinating. If that's true, it's quite possible that we're possibly Sephardic Jewish on that branch somewhere. But I have no way to prove it at this time.

Seneft is even more confusing. Some records show it as Senft, some as Seneft, and one branch in England specifically used Senefft. While most searches on genealogy sites do look for variants on a name, I have found it works better to look for all three variants to check for my family, as it only brings up a selection of possibilities otherwise. I will say it's made finding records proving anything about my great-grandfather's family very complicated. 

For a long time, I wasn't even sure of my great-grandfather's eldest brother's name. I'd narrowed it down to Isaac shortly before a distant cousin from that branch of my family got in touch. His grandfather, my great-grandfather's brother, is the one who used Senefft. And it's because I got in touch with him that I now know for certain his name was Isaac. Unfortunately, he and my great grandfather were the only ones of their siblings that had any kids, so none of the rest passed down their pictures or records to show their truths. I keep digging, but unless I get lucky, I doubt I will be able to find out much more about any of them.

Lessons from this branch include: the fact that names change over time. That names changed when people came to the US, not because the Ellis Island people changed them, but that the families changed them to fit into their new country better. That just because the name isn't spelled the way you expect doesn't mean that it isn't the right record. That Jewish people often have more than one first name they used in records. That names weren't a consistent thing before the turn of the 20th century. And that immigration causes loss of records quite often.

I will say that Jewish genealogy is one of the more difficult types of genealogy to engage in. So many moves, and so many attempts to wipe Jews from the face of Europe. People have done everything they can to make the Jewish people no longer part of our world. It's led to a scattering or actual destruction of the records on my people. And it's made those who still practice more secretive. 

Add to that the Mormon insistence on bringing everyone under their "god's" banner, and I have been very disinclined to help them "baptize" a people who have been struggling to keep their community together despite gentiles' insistence that they need to be done away with. If you are part of that church, I beg you to remember what happened to these people less than a Century ago. And what happened across Europe even before that. I would beg you to remember that yours is not the only belief, and to think of how you would feel if it were your mother, cut down by people who felt the Mormon faith needed to be expunged from the world that someone decided to bring her into their faith to "save" her. Don't do it. I don't care if you were related to these Jews or not. They would not have converted. Don't forcibly "convert" them now.

52 Ancestors: Check It Out - Daniel Jones

This one was a hard one for me, but eventually I turned the prompt on its ear. Instead of something I want to show off, I decided to go with something I wanted to see myself. And that is one of the places I've most wanted to see: Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.

I've actually been there once before, when I was still young. My family went to England and Germany when I was just starting fifth grade in school. I do have fond memories of the trip, but they are faint, and I really don't recall everything we did. So when mom found her journal and I was reminded that we visited the town her grandfather Daniel was born in, I was sad I really remembered almost nothing. All I can think is just how much time I'd want to spend there, see where my great-grandfather grew up, finding records about him and his parents. Maybe even meet relatives I've not met before. I believe some of his siblings' descendants still live there or in the area today.

My great-grandfather Daniel was born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1882. His parents ran the local post office, from what I have been told. I know he had several siblings, though I know almost nothing about any of them aside from a few stories here and there. I know that he lost one to pneumonia when he was still a young man, and that he had two younger sisters, including one who had a son about the same age as Daniel's own son who was born in the early 1920s.

Daniel also went out of his way to name one of his children for his hometown. When my great-grandmother sent him to go to register my grandmother's birth, they'd decided on a name, but when he returned, she learned that he had named her Merle Tydfil for his home. 

So you can see why I feel so attached and curious about this place my family has an origin in. I'd love to see the post office (or where it used to be). I'd love to look into the local stories, see where my great grandfather lived before he came to Canada.

So there you go, of all the places I'd like to Check Out, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales is definitely at the top of the list.

Howells Placeline

So I think this is the last post of this series, because as you can see, these are getting fainter in knowledge as I go back in time. I have thoughts as to what I might do next, but for now I think I'll go back to one post a week for a bit until I work up some new posts. I hope everyone's enjoyed these, even if just a little.

The Howells line, as I said a few weeks ago, is one I believe is of Huguenot origin, but as of yet, the Howells and Gabriels online have not yet managed to get far enough back to prove or disprove this link.

As always, Bold are Birth, Marriage, and Death locations, and Italics are other locations.

1. Eliza Anne aka Bessie Howells

A. New Westminster, BC, Canada. New Westminster is basically a suburb of Vancouver, and it was here where Bessie lived until her death at the age of 94. I'm so lucky I got to know her for as long as I got--ten years. I still miss my Nain.

B. Vancouver, BC, Canada. I'm not sure exactly when she moved to Vancouver, but it was here she met her husband, and here she made her life with him. All four of their children were born in Vancouver, and she lived here for more than half of her life.

C. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. When the Howell family first came to Canada, they lived for a time with Bessie's uncle Louis, who had a farm in Saskatchewan, but soon moved to Winnipeg, where they lived for several years until the family slowly migrated one by one east because of the milder winters available in Vancouver.

D. Pontypridd, Wales. Pronounced Pant-ee-prith. This is where the family lived before Bessie's father finally decided it would be better for the family to move to Canada. Bessie's two younger siblings were born here.

E. Penrhiwceiber, Wales. Pronounced Pen-ruh-ky-ber. This is a small mining town in southern Wales where the family was living when Bessie was born.

2. Gabriel Howells

A. Vancouver, BC, Canada. In his later years, Gabriel and his wife Selina moved to Vancouver to be close to their children. They celebrated their 50th anniversary here, and lived here together until her death in 1933, and his in 1934, ten years after that anniversary.

B. Winnipeg, Manitoba, BC. After a short time in Canada, remembering why he didn't like farming, Gabriel moved the family to Winnipeg, where Gabriel was able to use his masonry skills to make a good living.

C. Pontypridd, Wales. Gabriel was working with the mines here, using his masonry to help shore up the mines before he realized that not actively doing the mining was no less unhealthy, and thus he decided it was time to find a less unhealthy job. He soon decided that it would be better to move to Canada and start a whole new life.

D. Penrhiwceiber, Wales. This is where the family moved to for a time before moving to Pontypridd, working with the mines to help with masonry there.

E. Dolgelly, Wales. Pronounced Dol-geh-lay. Also spelled Dolgellu, depending on when and where the record is written up. This is where the family lived while Gabriel was young, and it was here he met and married his wife, Selina. They started their family here, losing two children in an influenza epidemic and having four more children before moving south so that Gabriel could make money with his masonry skills, leaving the family farm to his younger brother to run.

F. Tywyn, Wales. This is the place I have always had as my great-great grandfather's birthplace. It is very close to Dolgelly, so it's possible he never lived here, but was just born her for some reason, as the ancestors I have listed for him only have Dolgelly as their place of residence from birth to death.

3. Howell Gabriel

A. Dolgelly, Wales.  This is the only location I have for Howell or the ancestors I have for him, I believe they lived and died here for many generations.

4. Gabriel Howel

A. Dolgelly, Wales. See Howel above. 

5. Howell Gabral

A. Dolgelly, Wales. See Howel above. 

6. Howel Gabriel

A. Dolgelly, Wales. See Howel above. If I am right, I believe this is the place my Huguenot ancestor settled after leaving France, but as of yet, I have no proof of that.

* 

And that's all the locations for this branch of the family, which gives me another 7 locations.

It's been very interesting looking into where my family lived, and I highly recommend going through your family's locations from time to time. It definitely helps you find things you may have missed before, or correct issues in your tree.

52 Ancestors - Sisters: Bessie and Catherine Howells

I have a few sister pairs in my family tree, but I couldn't resist the chance to talk about my Nain and her younger sister for this one. I have been told that my great-grandmother was very close to her younger sister, Catherine. They were born three years apart, and were two of the three youngest children of their family. Truly, I do not know much about their life or their friendship, only that Nain was very close to her sister.

I do know of a trip I believe they took together down to Seattle to the Alaskan Yukon Gold Rush Exposition. We have lots of shots of that trip, which was a long way to come in those days. We even have a few pictures of my great grandmother here in Seattle, which I have always been fond of once I found them.

As married women, they both lived in Vancouver, BC, and I imagine they likely spent a good deal of time together with their young children, though I imagine that got more difficult as they grew older. Nain had three girls before her sister had her first child, and her sister had only boys, though when my great uncle was born in the early 20s, I'm sure their children had fun playing together.

I wish I knew more about Catherine's life, because the records I find show that by the end of it, she was likely a very unhappy woman. I found a record of a daughter who died in infancy, and she had a series of at least five quick pregnancies in a row. It's a hard thing on a woman's body, just having one child. And to lose a child, and continue to have more so quickly, I'm sure had a detrimental effect on her mental health. The only reason I think this is because in 1937, she was sent to Essondale. In Vancouver, saying the name Essondale is equivalent to saying Bellevue in the US. It was an asylum. And not the good kind. I won't go into details here, but it was finally closed down in 1983, after a long history of some of the worst kinds of offences against mental patients. 

Catherine was not there long. Apparently she had a major depressive episode. She was there less than a month. The death certificate I have doesn't give details, only a statement that she died of "Exhaustion of Manic-Depressive Psychosis." I can only imagine what was truly wrong. Possibly the effects of untreated postpartum depression. Women's issues simply weren't given the right attention in those days. I try not to be angry at her husband for the fact that she ended up there. I don't know enough of their marriage to know if they were happy or not. All I know is that my great-great aunt was only 45 when she died, leaving behind at least two living sons, possibly as many as four, according to the records I have found.

It makes me sad, knowing that my Nain lost her sister this way, given how close she felt to her. I wish I'd known about her, and gotten to talk to Nain about her. I would have loved to hear her stories about her little sister, and their happy times together.