Matherne or Thilly

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Louisiana, United States
Surname/tag: Mader, Matherne, Matern, Thilly

NOTE: The document is a PDF and loses the formatting of the DNA results/analysis tables in Glen's article. If you are interested in this article, please contact Girouard-4019 15:23, 25 February 2022 (UTC) and she will forward the original article to you which would have the tables properly formatted.

To Whom It May Concern:

I hereby grant permission for Jacqueline Girouard to post the contents of the article "Marie Materne DNA Final" on a WikiTree free space page.

Glen R. Saucier 19 January 2022

Marie Materne or Marie Thily? (An amateur's exercise in genetic genealogy) On 14 May 2020, Cathy Lemoine Sturgell posted on the Avoyelles Parish Genealogy Research Facebook group, an excellent work of interest to all descendants of Daniel Gaspard I, entitled "Mader Materne Lineage Document May 2020. pdf Version 1." The full contents of the article are left to the reader to access; but, one paragraph was of particular interest in respect to the lineage of Daniel's wife, Marie Françoise Mader and her mother, Marie Materne: "Baptized as Marie Françoise Mader on 29 June 1755 at Natchitoches Post, she was the daughter of Jean Mader (Madere, Madert) dit Jean des Jean and Marie Materne (Thily). The surname of her mother was erroneously spelled as Maderne – essentially a combination of the surnames of both of her parents – in Marie Françoise’s baptismal record although it was overwritten with the name ‘Thily’. To date, I have not identified the origins of the name ‘Thily’. " The apparent insistence by Marie Materne in using "Thily" as her surname occurred in several other Natchitoches sacramental records, and certainly begs the question "WHY?" Some researchers had become aware of a Gaspard Thily who had arrived in Louisiana in 1721, married twice after arriving, and perished, along with his wife, children and brother, in the Natchez Massacre of 1729. It was proposed that Marie Materne was actually a child of Gaspard Thily, and one of the few who had managed to escape the massacre, ultimately landing at the German Coast, where the now orphaned child was taken in by the Materne family (a not uncommon practice among the early Germans).

Unfortunately, this theory could not be corroborated with any existing documentary evidence. It became clear that the only remaining means to prove or disprove the theory would be genetic genealogy.

This case certainly appeared to be an ideal situation for using mtDNA to possibly determine if Marie shared her genetics with her sisters, previously identified as Catherine and Marguerite Materne. The plan was to trace the lineage of the three girls, if possible, identify any living female direct descendants, contact as many of them as possible, convince them to take a mtDNA test and to share the results, and finally, compare their mitochondrial genomes. In practice, not quite as simple as it looked on paper.

Beginning with the line of Marie Materne, several living candidates were identified (that lineage was independantly verified and is available upon request), and ultimately, one was tested. Unfortunately, the female lineage of Catherine and Marguerite seemed to die out during the 1800s. That's not to say that no female direct descendants existed after that time, only that the researcher couldn't find any. Who else might have been related to Marie's mother, Regine König, and left descendants?

There was a woman in the early LA colony, named Anne Eve König. She was thought to have been one of the two sisters-in-law of Johann Adam Materne, enumerated, but unnamed, in the 1724 census of the German Coast. A considerable number of documents suggested that she was one of those sisters of Regine König, and maternal aunt to Marie Materne. Albert Robichaux, Jr. in his "German Coast Families", presented some of those documents. Anne Eve would have to be used as a proxy for the sisters of Marie Materne. Fortunately, a few of her living descendants were located, and one was contacted and agreed to the testing (that lineage also independently verified and is also available upon request).

Samples from the donors were submitted to FamilyTreeDNA and mtFullSequence tests performed on both. Results follow. mtDNA - Mutations Marie Materne Your Results rCRS Values Extra Mutations e Missing Mutations 8 309.1C 315.1C 522.1A 522.2C T16092C G16145R IA16183c .... . . . . ; A16051G T16092C I A16129c I G16145RII A16183c I T16187C T16223C I G16230A T16278C I C16311T I T16362C Your Results RSRS Values 16051G I 16092C 16189C I 16362C rCRS Values 16129C 16145R I 16183C I 16519C C146T 315.1C 73G 315.1C

Revised Cambridge Reference Sequence C195T T217C A247G 309.1C A508G 522.1A 522.2C 152C 217C 263G 309.1C 508G

HVR1 REFERENCE SEQUENCE HVR2 REFERENCE SEQUENCE Show All Positions Show All Positions Position O CRS8 Your Result O Position O CRS8 Your Result O 16051 A G 73 A G 16092 T C 152 T C 16129 G C 217 T C 16145 G R 263 A G 16183 A C 309.1 C 16189 T C 315.1 C 16362 T C 508 A G 16519 T C @ Help

CODING REGION DIFFERENCES FROM RSRS 8 A769G A825t A1018G A1811G A2758G C2885T T3594C A3720G G3849A G4104A T4312C T4553C T4736C A5390G T5426C C6045T T6152C G7146A T7256C A7521G T8468C T8473C T8655C G8701A C9540T G10398A T10664C A10688G C10810T C10873T A10876G C10915T A11467G A11914G A12308G G12372A C12557T T12705C T13020C G13105A G13276A T13506C T13650C T13734C A15907G CODING REGION DIFFERENCES FROM rCRS 8 750G 1438G 1811G 2706G 3720G 3849A 4553C 4736C 4769G 5390G 5426C 6045T 6152C 7028T 8473C 8860G 10876G 11467G 11719A 12308G 12372A 12557T 13020C 13734C 14766T 15326G 15907G

CR REFERENCE SEQUENCE Show All Positions Position O CRS8 Your Result O 750 A G 1438 A G 1811 A G 2706 A G 3720 A G 3849 G A 4553 T C 4736 T C 4769 A G 5390 A G 5426 T C 6045 C T 12557 C T 13020 T C 13734 T C 14766 C T 15326 A G 15907 A G 11719 G A 12308 A G 12372 G A 12557 C T 13020 T C 13734 T C 14766 C T 15326 A G 15907 A G

A simple explanation of the results is an exact mtDNA match between the living descendants of Marie Materne and Anne Eve Konig, with the exception of the RSRS results where Marie ostensibly had an extra "extra mutation" at the 16145 position (boxed in red), which is not present in Anne Eve's results. These "extra mutations" are those that are in addition to those mutations that define a haplogroup, or in other words, mutations that they have that most people in their haplogroup don't have. They allow genealogically meaningful matches. Deciphering the coding for Marie at that position, there would normally be a guanine nucleotide occupying it as indicated by the "G" preceding the numeric position value; however, the "R" following the numeric indicates that a specific heteroplasmy has been detected.

Heteroplasmies A heteroplasmy is quite interesting because it’s really a mutation in progress. What this means is that there are two versions of the DNA sequence showing in the mitochondrial DNA at that location. At a specific location, Marie shows both of two separate nucleotides, indicating the ongoing mutation (perhaps due to her donor being two additional generations removed from a common ancestor); within a few generations, the mutation will resolve in one direction or the other. The letter after the location means, in this case, that both a "G" and an "A" were found, per the chart below.

Heteroplasmy Matching Technically, where R tells us that both G and A was found, this location should match against anyone carrying the following values: • G (original value) • A (mutated value) • R (letter indicating a heteroplasmy)

However, currently at Family Tree DNA, the heteroplasmy only counts as a match to the R (specific heteroplasmy indicator) and the CRS value of G, but not the mutated value of A (for more on this, refer to https://dna-explained.com/2019/05/23/mitochondrial-dna-part-2-what-do-those-numbers-mean/).

This seems not to be entirely true for the mtDNA matches provided by FamilyTree, where the Marie Materne donor is indicated as being one mutation different from Anne Eve's donor, although Marie's ongoing mutation appears to fit the above criteria for a match. Someone with more expertise in the field of genetic genealogy may disagree with this assessment of the results, and any correction is welcome.

Conclusions: Had the tests resulted in two completely different haplogroups, such as "H" and "U", there would be no need to go any further. We could then conclude with some certainty that Anne Eve König and Marie Materne were not descended from a common female ancestor, and that Marie probably was not a legitimate child of Regine König (although there would have been a chance that Anne Eve was NOT a sister of Regine, or she could've been a half-sister with a different mother).

In this case, an apparent exact mtDNA match has been found, which could be less specific than desired if it was in a commonly occurring haplogroup. For instance, if they had both been in the "H" haplogroup, which occurs in about 40% of the population in Germany and France, then the results might be less significant. It may be fortuitous that the matched "U2" haplogroup is rather uncommon, but, since both the König and Thily families were residents of the Alsace-Lorraine region, perhaps we should entertain the possibility that the haplogroup was more prevalent in that area. Disregarding that unlikelihood for lack of evidence, the following points were also considered in drawing the final conclusion: Haplogroup U2 is a widespread, but numerically uncommon mtDNA haplogroup occurring at a rate of 1-2 % in France and Germany, with U2e2a1 "often" found in Germany. For a more thorough discussion and distribution map (updated 2020), see: https://eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_U2_mtDNA.shtml According to FamilyTreeDNA: "FMS stands for FamilyTreeDNA's mtFull Sequence test. The mitochondrial DNA Full Sequence test examines all locations in the HVR1, HVR2, and Coding Region. Matching exactly on the Mitochondrial DNA Full Sequence (FMS) test brings your matches into more recent times. It means that you have a 50% chance of sharing a common maternal ancestor within the last 5-16 generations or about 125-400 years."

Statistically speaking (opinion derived after conferring with someone who understands statistics), the odds of two unrelated individuals, each with a 1 in 100 chance of being in a particular haplogroup, having an exact match, would be 1 in 10,000. Any correction, clarification or expansion of that opinion is certainly welcome.

With the results that we have in hand, it should be safe to say with some confidence that Marie Materne and Anne Eve König, as well as the two mtDNA test donors, were/are descended from a common female ancestor, the most recent being Anna Zanger(in), wife of Johann Adam König; mother of Regine and Anne Eve König; and grandmother of Marie Materne. It then follows that Anne Eve was undoubtedly a sister of Regine, a maternal aunt to Marie Materne, and that Marie was a legitimate daughter of Regine König and Johann Adam Materne. The reason for Marie's "Thily" sobriquet remains unknown. Perhaps she should henceforth be referred to as Marie Materne "dite" Thily.

The above-referenced document obtained online no copyright Explaining the confusion surrounding the family/ancestry of Marie Françoise Mader, wife of Daniel Normand dit Gaspard, and proof of the family connection to the Materne family of the German Coast

Cathy (Lemoine) Sturgell, May 2020

There is a lot of conflicting info on-line (especially Ancestry) regarding the parentage of Marie Françoise Mader, wife of Daniel Normand dit Gaspard I, and the family connection to the Materne family of the German Coast. I hope this limited-scope document will provide some basic facts and clear up a bit of the confusion.

As many of you may be aware, it has often been speculated that Jean Mader dit Jean des Jean, father of Marie Françoise Mader , was a son of Jean Adam Materne and Regine Konig of the German Coast.

However, this is not true. It may come as a surprise to some, however, to find out that the mother of Marie Françoise Mader, Marie Materne called Thily, was actually the child of Jean Materne and Regine Konig.

This revelation may seem obvious to many based on the surnames of Marie Françoise’s parents as listed in the paragraph above. However, these two surnames were often written erroneously in original records and are often misinterpreted or misrepresented in more recently published works. Although some of the primary source books such as Elizabeth Shown Mill's excellent book entitled "Natchitoches: Abstracts of the Catholic Church Registers of the French and Spanish Post of St. Jean Baptiste des Natchitoches in Louisiana: 1729-1803" correctly identify the surnames of Marie Françoise's parents (Mader and Materne), I think the confusion in other instances has come from the fact that the two surnames of her parents are very similar to each other.Baptized as Marie Françoise Mader on 29 June 1755 at Natchitoches Post, she was the daughter of Jean Mader (Madere, Madert) dit Jean des Jean and Marie Materne (Thily). The surname of her mother was erroneously spelled as Maderne – essentially a combination of the surnames of both of her parents – in Marie Françoise’s baptismal record although it was overwritten with the name ‘Thily’. To date, I have not identified the origins of the name ‘Thily’.

Although little is known about the origins of Jean Mader dit Jean des Jean, he likely married Marie Materne (Thily) sometime between 1740 and 1742 although the marriage record has not been located.

Jean Mader (Madere, Madert) dit Jean des Jean and Marie Materne (Thily) had seven known children:

1. Reine Jeanne Mader was born 6 Feb 1743, baptized 7 Feb 1743 and buried 4 April 1743 - all at Natchitoches;
2. Jean Mader was born 6 August 1744, baptized 7 August 1744 and buried 1756 - all at

Natchitoches;

1. Jeanne Mader was baptized 18 Jan 1747 at Natchitoches. She signed a marriage contract there on 23 March 1761 with François Carles and married him there two days later. Jeanne appears to have died some time in 1767 and her husband remarried sometime in the summer of that year;
2. Marie Jeanne Mader was baptized 22 September 1749 at Natchitoches. She signed a marriage contract on 13 November 1764 in St. Charles Parish (First German Coast) with François (Le) Vasseur and married him there the same day. She was buried on 29 December 1783 at Natchitoches;
3. François Daniel Mader was baptized on 6 January 1753 at Natchitoches. He married Marie

Perillou(x) on 21 January 1777 at St-Jean-Baptiste Church in Edgard (St. John the Baptist Parish)(Second German Coast). He then married Magdeleine Kerné there on 25 May 1787;

1. Marie-Françoise Mader’s marriage to Daniel Normand dit Gaspard likely took place in late 1772 or early 1773. She sometimes used the ‘dit’ name of her father, ‘Jean des Jean’ or ‘Des Jean’, as her surname. The couple later moved to Avoyelles Parish.
2. Cécile was baptized on 1 December 1758 and was buried on 5 February 1761 – both at

Natchitoches.

Sadly, Jean Mader dit Jean des Jean was buried on 21 April 1758 at Natchitoches and his wife, Marie, was buried there on 20 March 1761. At the time of Marie’s 1761 death, she left four young children: Jeanne, Marie Jeanne, François-Daniel, and Marie-Françoise. Three days after her death, her 14-year-old daughter, Jeanne, signed a marriage contract with François Carles at Natchitoches. The couple married on 25 March 1761 at Natchitoches – only five days after her mother’s death. Marie’s succession was opened immediately after her death in order to settle her estate and select a tutor for her young children. François Carles was selected as the tutor of the Mader children (including his new wife, Jeanne) and Jacques Lambre, identified as a cousin of the deceased Marie Materne, was selected as sub-tutor although based on a statement in one of the documents, it appears that they were selected as tutors due to lack of nearby family. One of Marie’s succession documents dated 14 December 1761, almost eight months after her death, is particularly important in identifying her family. The document contains a statement which specifically states that the brothers of Marie Materne are Nicolas and Jacques Materne – both of whom were then present at Natchitoches after likely traveling there from the German Coast to oversee Marie’s succession. Nicolas and Jacques were the sons of Jean Adam Materne and Regine Konig of the German Coast. Here is a transcription of the first few lines of that succession document: “Before the undersigned notary and clerk of the post of Natchitoches, appeared in person François Carles, tutor, Jacques Lambre, sub-tutor, and Nicolas and Jacques Maternes, legitimate brothers of the deceased Marie Materne, widow of Jean Madert, called Jean des Jean. They were at this post to complete the business of the succession of the minor children of said deceased Jean des Jean….”

Below is a copy of the 14 December 1761 document: There is also a second succession document dated two days later - 16 December 1761 - which identifies Nicolas and Jacques Materne as the uncles of Jeanne, wife of François Carles. It appears that (at least) several of the orphaned children of Jean Mader dit Jean des Jean and Marie Materne moved to the German Coast area sometime after Marie’s death although the date is unclear. It is possible that François Carles, initially serving as tutor of the Mader children, moved them there to ensure that they were near other Materne family members. The other possibility is that the two uncles of the orphaned children – Nicolas and Jacques Materne – facilitated the move after, possibly, being renamed as the tutor of the children. However, it can be confirmed that Marie Jeanne Mader was at the German Coast by 13 November 1764 when the 15-year-old married François Le Vasseur at St. Charles Borromeo Church. I was unable to confirm that Jeanne Mader and François Carles ever moved to the German Coast although it’s possible that they did for a period of time after their marriage. However, Jeanne appears to have died within a few years of their marriage (although her burial record has not been found) and François Carles married for the second time in the summer of 1767 at Natchitoches. One of the other Mader children, François Daniel, began appearing in civil records of St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes c1773 (he would have been 20 years old at this time) and appears to have lived the remainder of his life in the German Coast area. Finally, Avoyelles ancestor Marie Françoise likely married Daniel Normand dit Gaspard on the German Coast and, eventually, the couple moved the family to Avoyelles. As mentioned above, both Nicolas and Jacques Materne were the brothers of Marie Materne (Thily) and, therefore, children of Jean Adam Materne and Regine Konig. The children of Jean Adam Materne and Regine Koenig were as follows: 1. Marie Materne (Thily); 2. Marguerite Materne married Thomas Leger on 8 January 1743 at Saint Charles Borromeo Catholic Church. She then married Joseph Schwitzer there on 20 January 1750; 3. Jacques Materne married Marianne Mayer. He died before 29 June 1778 – the date of his succession. (Note: Occasionally, he was referred to as Jacob); 4. Jean Materne married Anne Marguerite Huber on 28 May 1748 at Saint Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in St. Charles Parish. Jean was buried at Saint Charles Borromeo on 7 March 1751; 5. Catherine married Nicolas Troxler (Droezeler ) on 28 April 1750. She married for a second time to Thomas Dorvin (Dervaine); 6. Nicolas Materne was born about April 1736 at Edgard (St. John the Baptist Parish). He married Regine Reine Rome there in 1759. He was buried at Cabanocé (St. James Parish) on 13 October 1797;

Jean Adam Materne was buried on 16 November 1739 at Saint Charles Borromeo in St. Charles Parish (First German Coast). His widow, Regine, remarried on 6 June 1741 at the same church to Barthelemy Zifert (Sipher). According to her succession records, she died on 3 December 1764. One of her succession documents stated that she had six heirs at the time of her death. Both Nicolas and Jacques were identified as her children in the succession documents. Once again, this was a limited scope document written to clarify and provide proof of the parentage of Marie Materne (Thily). Please keep in mind when researching this family that the Mader and Materne surnames continued to be misconstrued in German Coast documents in the later-half of the 18th century. Hopefully, this document will provide clarification of the family members in each family and, as a result, will provide guidance as needed to allow accurate research. SOURCES:

"Calendar of Louisiana Colonial Documents, St. Charles Parish 1734-1769" – Elizabeth Becker Gianelloni • "Saint-Jean-Baptiste des Allemands, Abstracts of the Civil Records of St. John the Baptist Parish to 1803"; Glenn R. Conrad • "St. Charles, Abstracts of the Civil Records of St. Charles Parish 1770-1803"; Glenn R. Conrad • “German Coast Families, European Origins and Settlement in Colonial Louisiana"; Albert J. Robichaux, Jr. • "Abstracts of t. John the Baptist Parish Civil Records 1757-1798"; Judy Riffel • "Natchitoches, Abstracts of the Catholic Church Registers of the French and Spanish Post of St. Jean Baptiste des Natchitoches in Louisiana 1729-1803"; Elizabeth Shown Mills • "The Natchitoches Registers 1734-1764, Volume One"; Blaise D'Antoni • Ancestry; Collection: Louisiana, Wills and Probate Records, 1756-1984; St. Charles Parish & Natchitoches Parish; Various • “The Normand Family of Louisiana: The History from Normandy to Avoyelles” (2 volumes); Mark J. Normand • "Archdiocese of New Orleans, Sacramental Records…” (Various volumes); Earl Woods/Charles Nolan