*webswings in and nails the superhero landing*
Hey, everyone!
It was another amazing genealogical adventure this week! It all started when I wrote this blog about cousins: https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2019/09/52-ancestors-week-38-cousins.html
Yes, that's me with my cousins in 1997 with my grandmother, Natalie and yes I am holding a glass of coke like a wine glass. And in the pic at the end is me with the same people in 2007. A lot can happen in ten years. I miss my grandma. =(
Anyway, the blog was about my 4th cousin "Jenna" and how we discovered our connection. I showed her the blog and it brought her to tears. She then asked for my help again. She needed help identifying her maternal grandfather and that side of the family.
Naturally, I accepted. It didn't take long to figure it out because her birth mother shared 900 cMs with someone listed in the 1st cousin bracket. I sent a private message, checked out the tree and it turns out the lady is her birth mother's first cousin.
The first cousin had a decent tree and I did some old fashioned genealogical detective work to see what I could find. I built a tree and "Jenna" and I had to figure out who the father was.
It clearly wasn't the 900 cMs lady's father. The count would be MUCH higher. We narrowed it down to three choices. One guy was killed in action in World War 2. He couldn't have been the father as her birth mother was born in the 1960s. One guy had a large family in Florida, far away from where her birth mother was born. He was living there around the time of her birth.
Wasn't hard to figure out. The only thing is that the guy had a criminal record. I don't really want to go into details. Sufficed it to say. "Jenna" was happy. She has a new first cousin once removed. I also helped to set up the Thrulines on Ancestry for her and her birth mother by linking the DNA tests and lo and behold more identifiable matches!
What's weird is that we couldn't find out for certain if the guy was alive or not. He was born in 1921. If he IS alive, he'd be 98. It's hard to say. We can't find much information on him. But, it's okay. One more branch for "Jenna" has been discovered! I am glad I was able to help her out.
On a personal note, my own genealogical adventure continues as a descendant of MariaRosa Stella e-mailed me and is going to send me a tree which could potentially knock down some brick walls.
Not much going on on the non genealogical front. My mom made pesto sauce. I'll be using it tonight on some tortellini. Summer is trying to hang on for dear life here in NH. Good luck with that one.....
Overall a good week on the genealogy front. Now to work on my 450th comic!