WikiTree Challenge 11: Rob Warthen [closed]

+19 votes
1.2k views

Hi WikiTreers! 

The eleventh week of the WikiTree Challenge has begun. It features Rob Warthen; the founder of mitoYDNA.org and DNAAdoption.org. Our challenge is to make his ancestry on WikiTree more accurate and complete than it is anywhere else. 

It's too late to formally register for a March challenge team, but we need every WikiTreer's help to make this a success, so please join in. You can also register now for an April team.

This week will officially end at 8pm EDT (GMT -4) on Wednesday, March 24.

How to Participate

If you are registered, your name appears on this Google Docs spreadsheet. Please add the profile you are working on next to your name. When done, or taking a break, remove it and add Research Notes to the profile if you have any notes for the next person.

You can add also notes or comments below the answer for the appropriate great-grandparent below.

For live chat we are using Discord. Contact your captain if you need access.

Points and Scoring

Here are the current scores.

If you have bounty points to claim, post a comment below the answer for the appropriate great-grandparent below.

WikiTree profile: Rob Warthen
closed with the note: Thanks for your awesome work! Check out the Week 11 Highlights!
in The Tree House by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
closed by Mindy Silva

Here's the link to the March 17th live cast on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/GgnCnc4Gz7Y?t=1900

Rob's interview starts at the 31 minute and 40 second mark.

The WikiTree Challenge Week 11 Highlights

8 Answers

+8 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall, find mistakes in the tree of Rob Warthen's great-grandfather Thomas Eugene Warthen, or have questions or research notes on this line.

Rob's current tree for Thomas is this one on Ancestry. (Ancestry Image 1), (Image 2), (Image 3), (Image 4), (Image 5), (Image 6)

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
HI Mindy,

Shirley is the surname in two marriage records linked to the profile. Added to the profile I created along with a census and FAG references.
I believe I've located the parents of Henrietta, listed as Spurling, but FamilySearch has listed as Henrietta Augusta Shirley/Shirly. Still looking for marriage sources.
Thanks for adding those sources, Janet!
Thanks for working on those, Amy!!
I've gone back one generation from Catherine King https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/King-44316 and created her father John King with a source.
I hope we continue to find ancestors to connect. Great work everyone!

Added ancestor Mary Bond (1736 - 1815) still working on her ? Bounty points

I think I still need Bounty Points for correcting Henrietta Spalding to Henrietta Shirley (Shirley-3543) and creating her father, Ignatius Shirly? Thx, getting points is still clear as mud to me.
Hi Amy - I made sure you were linked to the correction. As Henrietta was wrong, she was the brick wall (not her father). Don't feel bad -  the points system is crystal clear to me, but tracking some of the changes during this challenging week has not been lol.
Now you are confusing me

I added Henrietta Shirley on day one, she was not the brick wall she was the best through the wall. With sources to prove her

So was there a duplicate if Amy amended a profile as far as I could tell Amy added Ignatius I added Mary Bond as his wife.

I appear to have lost the bonus points I had for Henrietta!

It is all so unclear about the bounty points
+8 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall, find mistakes in the tree of Rob Warthen's great-grandmother Louisa (O'Toole) Warthen, or have questions or research notes on this line.

Rob's current tree for Louisa is this one on Ancestry. (Ancestry Image)

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva

O'Tooles married into the Catholic Shorb family that were in Frederick county (originally from Penna) the "Goshenhoppen Catholics", I think.  There is an archives that has a lot of information on them. Anyone know how to get these papers? 

Basil Crapster Papers > http://www.hsccmd.org/Documents/BasilCrapsterPapersPt1.pdf

1) "Genealogical information for Johannes Shorb and his family from 1761 to 1827. There is a deed record for John Shorb in 1814 and a pedigree chart listing descendants' birth dates"

2) Also the DevilBliss Families are in Rob's tree. 

"DEVILBISS In the file is a family genealogy taken from a journal which includes Devilbiss marriage records from 1768-1848. There is information here on the following members of the Devilbiss family: Casper (born before 1777) and his family Casper, Jr., son of Casper, Sr., Barbara, daughter of Casper, Sr., Christian, son of Casper, Sr. Dr. Crapster prepared a chronological summary of landholdings for Casper, 1769-1773; George, 1765-1786; John, 1778-1797; and Adam, 1785."

I don't, Maggie, but you can try looking in this book:
Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia

https://UNKNOWN-147691

I think I am running out of time to search Finks and Shorbs further but I still was not able to find this lady's maiden. I just found a Will that may bear her maiden name. Please take a look. Problem is her death date.

Identity of Conrad Fink's wife, her maiden name still unknown although given many different ones in trees: Forney and Eckert, the most popular. 

It's not the same Conrad Fink family! There's another one in same time and region.
I found a source for John A. Shorb marrying Maydalene (Magdalene?) Reichert (not Kreider) in 1822. Correction for Bounty? I'm continuing to look for actual date. I'll need to decide if Maria Magdalena Kreider married another Shorb man, or if the record for her should be revised to Reichert.

That's so intriguing, Amy cool Hope it's good!

Let us know what you find Amy!
+8 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall, find mistakes in the tree of Rob Warthen's great-grandfather Joseph H. Welty, or have questions or research notes on this line.

Rob's current tree for Joseph is this one on Ancestry. (Ancestry Image)

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva

I've connected Eleanor Hobbs to her parents John Hobbs and Eleanor Devilbiss, who already had profiles created.

I've also connected her husband's father Jacob Welty, to his parents Bernard Welty and Mary Eichelberger, who again, already had profiles created. Rob's Ancestry tree shows Bernard's wife as Eichelberg, but I'm sure they are the correct parents. This connection to the Eichelberger family takes Rob's line back 2 generations to Philipp Eichelberger, born 1693 in Baden Baden. (obviously no bounty to claim as they were all already here on WikiTree, just waiting to be connected up).

I've raised a merge between Barnabas Welty and Bernard Welty.

They have the same date of death, and the bio of Barnabas mentions his wife Mary Eichelberger, who is married to Bernard. The source cited seems to suggest that the families were in Pennsylvania, but they were in Maryland by 1840.

Awesome, Carol  I merged them for you.
Thank you Maggie. The Welty line on WikiTree is now as far back as Rob's Ancestry tree, which is what I was trying to achieve. It's amazing how many of these family members were on WikiTree already and not connected up.

Going up the Shorb line, I need to mention that I am not certain if she is the wife of of John A. Shorb who was in the 1812 War > https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Kreitzer-8

Although she is in the trees, but so is 

Maria Magdalena Reichert

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/9N7R-PN6

I welcome any help solving who his wife is 

Carol, you got bounty points for the Eichelberger connections. Let me know if I missed other points. Nice work!!

Wrong parents removed from William Henry Tyson (1804-1880) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree  Bounty points should go to Maddy (Hardman-1532). She spotted the mistake.

Thanks for the in-depth research !!
I added parents of Johannes Welty, Andreae Welde and his wife Annae Mariae from the baptism source on family search, which should be another generation here on Wikitree

Thanks Donna! Hopefully we can find the surname for Anna Maria laugh

+7 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall, find mistakes in the tree of Rob Warthen's great-grandmother Mary Estelle (Lansinger) Welty, or have questions or research notes on this line.

Rob's current tree for Mary is this one on Ancestry. (Ancestry Image)

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva
Corrected father's name to Francis William.  Cleaned up and added seven of Mary's siblings.  The eight has only a Find-a-Grave source with no headstone.  Documentation is limited on all these, but adding what is available and drafting stub bio for each.
Thanks Kathy!!
Mary Estelle's brother William Tyson married (Anna) Rose Bernadette Welty, sister of Estelle's husband.

Also of note is that many of the Lansingers were professional musicians:  sisters Grace and Theresa both church organists, William Tyson led the town band.
This line extends back to Hannah Amoss [Amoss-35] and Peter Perine/Prynne [Perine-7], who married in Maryland in 1760.  They are brickwalls in Wikitree and Rob's Ancestry tree.  I've added sources to their profiles, but am at the limits of my known sources.  They are commonly linked to parents who exist on Wikitree, so the brickwall could be broken.  However the birth dates/locations assumed for this linkage are suspect and I think are probably for different persons.  These dates are also listed on Rob's Ancestry tree, without sources.  So there is either some date errors in his Ancestry tree that can be fixed, or brickwalls that can be broken.  I'd welcome another set of eyes to look at this.

You should add that to the Space page Kathy! What an interesting find laugh

@Paul - I've put that question in Discord to see if someone can look

I'm looking at it, Paul, and I see your issues.   Maybe take more than a week or more brain power than I can give...The will https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9TBG-BN4?from=lynx1UIV8&treeref=LXQN-R9H&i=166  attached to William Amos lists children Luke, william, and Ann Shepherd, but no children easily matching these on either wikitree or familysearch.  I'm going to put this one down.

One mistake on Rob’s ancestry tree is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Buchanan-7676 is the wife of https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hughes-5685 , not Lucy (Lucy married Joseph’s brother James as her third husband)

Also broke a brickwall...

added Joseph Hughes’ parents who were Patrick Hughes and Tamer

Congrats on the discoveries, Maddy! Any luck on finding Tamer's maiden name?
some trees have Tamer’s Maiden Name as Heartly but I cannot find a source. Still working on it though :-)
Unfortunately, it looks like there is no source for Tamer’s wife’s maiden name being Heartly except for a rumour that it originated in a DAR application.
Thanks for looking, Maddy!!
+7 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall, find mistakes in the tree of Rob Warthen's great-grandfather Francis Jacob Funk, or have questions or research notes on this line.

Rob's current tree for Francis is this one on Ancestry. (Ancestry Image 1), (Image 2), (Image 3), (Image 4), (Image 5)

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva
Rob alluded to this fact in his comments on the Free Space page, Francis father, Peter had the wrong 1870 Census record on Wikitree. I deleted it. In 1900, he had 9 children at home and 2 that were married and out of the house. His death certificate likely had wrong birthdate based on Peter's own entries for 1880 and 1900 census. Likewise, Death certificate has Peter's father as Peter Funk in Prussia but since the birthdate may be wrong so this might be wrong too.

Peter was no longer able to speak english when he died and he was living with his daughter and son in law.  We suspect they just made up stuff at this point.  There was also another "Peter Funk" in the neighboring county that sometimes gets confused from what I can tell with researchers.

I just found a link to the church associated with Peter and Sarah Funk's family, where 13 of his family are buried. Sacred Heart in Hanover. Just this week, they took down a painting that had been there since 1887 to have it restored. Behind the painting was a mural that was painted there in 1850. It was an unexpected surprise.

https://www.facebook.com/sacredheartconewago
That video was amazing! I had been looking at that church as well for an ancestor. I've asked Elaine to sketch it.
Not a brick wall but was able to add headstone for Peter Joseph Funk and his wife Sarah A Lawrence Funk. Found an Obituary on Find a Grave for Peter too.
The church (Sacred Heart Basilica) is actually in Conewago Township in Adams County (not the borough of Hanover in York County). Conewago Township is adjacent to Hanover (west of the county line). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conewago_Township,_Adams_County,_Pennsylvania for geographic clarification. (I have found the geography  confusing....)
I made a free space page for this church.

Space:Basilica_of_the_Sacred_Heart_of_Jesus

There is a link on the page to a video about the history and art work of the church.
Oh, those silly post office addresses will confuse me every time.
Thanks for the Space page, Nancy! I've linked it to the Space page of the week. Hopefully we can highlight it during the wrap-up presentation.

I added more categories to Space:Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but I could not add it to a category for Roman Catholic churches (much less basilicas) because no such categories exist indecision and I do not know enough about Catholicism and the Catholicism categories to dare to add a new structure there.

I also edited the tags on that page.  The tags in WikiTree are not very useful on Free-Space pages except in those cases where there is a strong unique relationship between a particular page and a specific surname or project (such a as a one-name study for an unusual surname). This is largely because each page is limited to only 3 tags and because only the 3 most recent pages created with a particular surname show up on the Genealogy page for that surname. Regardless of that, a tag on those pages has no benefit unless some member or some page follows the tag, and because nobody follows "Lawrence, Funk, Catholic" as a single tag, that tag did no good.

I added the facebook page for Sacred Heart church as a reference to on the Free space page.
Peter Funk's  parentage is not the only mystery in this family. Peter married Sarah Lawrence, whose parents apparently moved to Iowa without her. They had 13 children, one was Rob's Grandfather, Francis Jacob Funk. He is pretty well documented. His other children were interesting in their own right. In 1900, the children that were old enough were all cigar makers. Wonder if they did it it home? There was a Cigar Factory in the town they lived in that only closed in 2017.

Mary Funk lived to be 100 years old.

Lewis worked as a cigar maker most of his life and  never married. Catherine was married a cigar maker. Rosa made cigars before she was married.  John was a cigar maker. Felix made cigars. In 1900, even 15 year old Edward was recorded as a cigar maker.

Christina became a nun and was head nurse at a hospital in Tacoma Washington.

Another mystery is that Clara supposedly married a James Lightfoot, moved to Colorado and came back to Pennsylvania after her husband died. She lived with her brother-in-law, the husband of her late sister and his children. Can't find any record of her marriage or life in Colorado.

This is a synopsis of what i did and didn't find out about Rob's interesting Great Grandparent's family.
That's very intriguing Nancy! Thanks for adding that to interesting finds
+7 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall, find mistakes in the tree of Rob Warthen's great-grandmother Elizabeth (Hockensmith) Funk, or have questions or research notes on this line.

Rob's current tree for Elizabeth is this one on Ancestry. (Ancestry Image)

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva

There is a dark story regarding the murder of the immigrant ancestor of the Staub line.

Long before this challenge started, Lucy Selvaggio-Diaz heartcreated Space:The Murder of Adam Staub for the text of a published account of the incident.

Brick wall broken: The wife of Jacob Hockensmith (and father of David Hockensmith) was Elizabeth Smith, daughter of George Smith. I created a profile for her and I connected her to the existing profiles for her parents. These are direct ancestors of Rob's great-grandmother Ida Cecilia (Hockensmith) Funk (the woman who is named in the answer that begins this sub-thread, where she is called Elizabeth (Hockensmith) Funk).

WikiTree did not have a father for David Hockensmith and Rob's Ancestry tree did not extend that far back -- it stops with David's grandson  James Hockensmith.

The LNAB for Marie Elisabeth Boret was wrong. She was a widow Boret and her first husband was Jacob Boret. She was a born Keller.

Marie Elisabetha Keller and Jacob Boret had profiles on WikiTree; both profiles were without manager and not linked to anybody else. I added Jacob Boret to Marie Elisabeth Keller and merged the both Marie Elisabeth Keller.

In the marriage record is also mentioned her father Paul Keller. I added a profile for him
I added the birth date with source for Conrad Hackenschmidt and his Johann Georg Hackenschmidt.

The link to the birth record came from Jelena.

We should have heard another brick wall collapse when Dieter created Johann Georg Hackenschmidt as father for Conrad Hackenschmidt. yes Thanks to Dieter and Jelena for the birth record and the profile.

Way to go on those brick walls, Ellen! I heard them come crashing down earlier.
Thanks Jelena and Dieter for your work today!!
Ellen, it is not uncommon in for someone like Ida Cecelia to adopt their confirmation names.  Thus, Ida (given) Cecelia (baptismal) Elizabeth (confirmation) may use any of these names and confuse the rest of us.  This happened in several branches in my own family and in Rob's.

Thanks for that explanation, Kathy. Since we do not have records [yet] for her birth, baptism, or confirmation, all of this has been a bit mysterious.

I imagine that something similar explains why Elizabeth (Staub) Hockensmith appears as Isabella on two records.

This is good background to have for the next time I deal with someone's Catholic ancestors! cool

I have a second first name also, Kathy - my Catholic devotional baptism name. I don't use it though. My father could have followed his customs and used up to four surnames but they followed mom's instead. I use two right now.
+7 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall, find mistakes in the tree of Rob Warthen's great-grandfather Francis Sebastian Bisker, or have questions or research notes on this line.

Rob's current tree for Francis is this one on Ancestry. (Ancestry Image)

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva
Added parents of Meinard MĂĽller; Johann MĂĽller and Magdalena Mustmann. Both are mentioned in Meinards marriage record.
Nice work on that brick wall, Dieter!!
I corrected some locations in the Fridag family
Thanks Jelena! There will most likely be a few more for you before the week is up.
+7 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall, find mistakes in the tree of Rob Warthen's great-grandmother Margaret (Schuchart) Bisker, or have questions or research notes on this line.

Rob's current tree for Margaret is this one on Ancestry. (Ancestry Image)

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva

I did some clean up and added sources for Albert Schuchart.  He married two different women named Mary Hoofnagel. The first one appears to be Mary Catherine Hoofnagel, d 1892, and the second is Mary Eva or Elizabeth Hoofnagel.  The first is Rob's line.  I removed the parents that were attached in WikiTree.  There are a couple of census records and names in FamilySearch for parents, but I couldn't find a definitive source, but they look right.  William Huffnagel b 1834 Hesse or Hesse Cassel and Margretha Schneider b 1834 Oberkodach, Kulmbacher Landkreis, Bavaria. (Catholic)

I found parents of Anna Maria Florien; their marriage record and fathers death record. I add them now. Brickwall down.
I found birth record of Joan Henric Fridag with both parents mentioned in the record. That is the next brick wall.
Found wife of Wilhelm Hufnagel and added her.
The Fridag parents (grandparents of Anton Fridag) were not the brick wall. Congrats on the rest!!! You rock, Dieter!
Found paternal granparents of Anna Maria Florien and added them.
Added Michael Dienst and Anna Maria Mayer
Mindy Silva got me started on that section, so give her half the points.
Also added Joseph Dienst, Anna Maria Mueller, Michael Mayer and Ursula Hildebrand to this line.
Added Georgius Mayer and Anna Baumerin. There are a bunch more sources for them, but I'm fading fast.
@M Cole. The marriage on Mary Catherine (Hufnagle) Schuchart is for Albert's other wife. Do you have the sources for Mary-Catherine so I can mark the correction as complete? Thank you for working so hard researching this family!
I really appreciate your work on the Dienst line, Anne!!
@Mindy, she is named as Mary Catherine in her first sons obituary. Her death date is on the marriage record for Alberts second marriage. I was hoping to find a source for the actual marriage, but no luck. I won’t be on a computer until tomorrow evening. I can properly format the sourcing then. (Too difficult in my phone)
@Mindy.  I've sourced and noted the profile.  I also reached out to a couple of people from FamilySearch who seem to have information from church records not available online.  Fingers crossed they'll get back to me.
Thanks M!!

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