Hannah, an earlier child of Nathaniel Dunn and Sarah Adams

Another child of Nathaniel Dunn (1790-1840s) and Sarah Adams (1796-1882) was discovered, thanks to Ancestry's DNA matches.

Nathaniel and Sarah were paternal 4th great grandparents. They lived in Nottingham, Burlington County, New Jersey. This area later became part of Mercer County. I descend from their son, Ezra (1821-1898). The date of death and the parents of Nathaniel are not determined yet. Sarah's parents were Ezra Adams (1768-1824) and Hannah Haines (1771-1824).

This map from 1834 shows the New Jersey counties at the time Nathaniel Dunn and Sarah were raising their family. The area of Burlington County where Nathaniel lived now lies in Mercer County. It was near the borders of Hunterdon, Middlesex, and Monmouth Counties, as well as another state, Pennsylvania. Because of changing borders and close proximity to other county and state lines, records for Nathaniel may be spread across many repositories.

Among the DNA matches at Ancestry are other descendants of Ezra Dunn, along with descendants of Ezra's sister, Lucy, and brother, David. 

The "Shared Matches" function produces dozens of other matches. These people do not necessarily share ancestors of Nathaniel or Sarah. If the match were on the same segment of DNA, then we would suspect a connection to Dunn or Adams. Ancestry will not reveal which segments of DNA are shared, so this is a drawback to this feature.

Someone matched in the fourth cousin range and provided a limited family tree. I honed in on the Burlington County, New Jersey branch and a great-grandmother named Hannah Dunn, wife of William Leatherbury (1805-1883). They had children from the late 1830s through the early 1850s.

1850 United States Federal census
Mansfield, Burlington County, New Jersey
William Leatherbury, coppersmith
Hannah, Zillah, William, Ezra, Mary, Sarah

Hannah died October 23, 1889 in Fieldsboro (Bordentown), Burlington County, New Jersey. I traveled to the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton to view her death certificate. Her parents were listed as Nathaniel Dunn and Sarah Dunn! She is tentatively placed as the oldest child of Nathaniel and Sarah According to her death certificate, she was 70 years old in 1889. This places her birth around 1829. In the 1850 census, her birth year would be attributed as 1819. The earlier record is usually more accurate for age.

1889 death certificate of Hannah Leatherbury
Her place of birth is listed as Mercer County, which was actually
Burlington County at the time of Hannah's birth.

I also copied the death certificate of Hannah's husband, William Leatherbury. He died September 20, 1883 in Bordentown, Burlington County. He was born in Maryland to William Leatherbury and Mary Dunn. More documents are needed to determine if this really was his mother's name.

Hannah and her husband William were buried in Bordentown Cemetery. I added them to Find A Grave. One of their children, William (1840-1909), was also buried in this cemetery.

The children discovered (so far) of Nathaniel Dunn and Sarah Adams:

1. Hannah Dunn, born about 1819, married William Leatherbury.

2. Ezra Dunn, born about 1821, died 1898, married Hermion Dunlop.

3. Lucy Ann Dunn, born about 1822, died 1910, married George Sweet and John Seal.

4. Catharine Dunn, born about 1825, died 1865, married John Holcombe Butterfoss.

5. Sarah Dunn, born about 1833, died 1916, married James Burroughs Keller.

6. David Dunn, born about 1836, died 1925, married Lucy Smith.

Another Lutter found through DNA Testing

Another DNA connection for Lutter.

My ancestral Lutter line is the shortest of my family tree. The will of my great great grandfather, Herman Lutter, (1860-1924) named two deceased siblings, Otto and Ottillia. DNA testing revealed connections to descendants of Alexander Lutter and Charles Lutter, possible additional siblings.

Herman probably had another close relative living near him in Newark, New Jersey: Emilie Lutter.

Emilie was a great great great grandmother of a DNA match to my uncle. I did not have to research the entire family tree because the match has only one great grandparent of German origin.

Emilie's first record so far discovered in the United States is the 1870 federal census for Newark. In this snapshot of her life, Emilie was 31 years old and born in Türingen- same place as my ancestor Herman. She was married to Franz Jäger/Yäger and had two children, Emilie J and Charle, both born in New Jersey.

The index is wrong for most of the German families I've sought.
Franz Jäger shifted the spelling from J to Y, but this is not a T in the 1870 census.
Compare the first letter of Franz's surname to his occupation, Taylor. Not a T.

I have not located a marriage record for Emilie and Franz.

In the 1880 census, the couple had two more children, Caroline and Frank.

Emilie died July 29, 1892 in Newark from heat stroke. She was buried at Woodland Cemetery. Her death certificate and obituary did not provide the names of her parents. The obituary mentioned that she had siblings, but did not name them.

"Unknown" are the most disappointing names of parents on the death certificate.

Franz Jager- husband.
Children: Emilie, Charles, Carrie, and Franz.
Otto Unglaub, son-in-law (husband of Emilie).
In addition to siblings and relatives.

In 1904, the plot at Woodland Cemetery was reopened to bury Emilie's granddaughter, Clara Yaeger.


The source of Emilie's name of Lutter is from the marriage records of three of her children in Newark:
Emilie Jäger married Otto Unglaub in 1886.
Caroline Jaeger married Frederick Teufel in 1894.
Frank Jäger married Anna Seyfarth in 1899. (They moved to Rhode Island, where most of their children were born and where daughter Clara died. They returned to Newark by 1910.)

Charles used the spelling Yaeger. He wife was Clara Augusta Seyfarth (1881-1943), but I have not found their marriage record yet.

This brings us up to the following siblings of Herman Lutter (1860-1924):
Otto Lutter, born about 1845 in Germany, died in 1909 in Harrison, New Jersey.
Ottillia Lutter, date of birth unknown, died before Herman died in 1924, maybe in Scheibe (renamed Neuhaus, Thuringia).

And relatives of Herman:
Emilie Lutter, born about 1838 in Thuringia, died 1892 in Newark, New Jersey.
Charles Lutter, born about 1863 in Germany, died in 1919 in Newark, New Jersey.
Alexander Lutter, born about 1864 in Germany, died in 1897 in Chicago, Illinois.

Expanding the Lutter Branch

I have more information on the first direct line Lutter DNA match found at Ancestry.com last month among my father's results.

This DNA match descends from Charles Lutter, born about 1862 in Germany.  Charles may have been a brother to my great great grandfather, Herman Lutter (1860-1924).  If not brothers, they were close cousins.  The amount of shared DNA skews beyond the parent-child relationship, so the amount of shared DNA alone will not tell us how current descendants are precisely related.

The family tree below illustrates the possible relationship.

Explanation of the Relations

- The father of Otto and Herman Lutter is given as William or Wilhelm on their records; their mother's name differed every time.
- Ottillia's age is unknown; Otto was born in the 1840s.  Herman and the other possible siblings were born in the 1860s.  They might not share the same mother.
- Herman Lutter's will named Otto as his brother and Ottillia as his deceased sister.  No other siblings were mentioned.
- Ottillia had three children according to Herman's will.  They were Paul, Edeline, and Anna Michel and they lived in Neuhaus, Theuringen, Germany.  I do not know what became of them.
- Otto had children, but only one, Augusta, lived to adulthood.  She had one child, James Michael Kittson (1919-2003), who had no known issue.


Explanation of the DNA

The amount of shared DNA is from Ancestry.com.  One of the matches would have to share results with my account in order for me to see how much DNA they share with each other.  Ideally, they would both upload to GedMatch.com so that I could see the shared segments on my father's genome and attribute those areas to Lutter inheritance.

Charles' descendant and my father are second cousins, once removed if they above diagram is correct.  They share 150 cM of DNA, which is on the high end, but still within range, of the expected amount of DNA shared between people of this relation.

Alexander's descendant and my father are third cousins, once removed.  They share only 23 cM of DNA.  Once we reach the third cousin level, we might see no shared DNA.  So this amount is within the range of expected DNA.


The Paper Trail

The only clue that Herman was related to a Charles Lutter is in the Newark, New Jersey city directory for 1884.  Herman, a wheelwright, and Carl Luther, a cabinet maker, both resided at 40 Rankin.

The other DNA match at Ancestry.com is descended from Alexander Lutter (1864-1897), the same Alexander Lutter who I tracked in Chicago because someone by this name was a witness to Herman Lutter's marriage to Clara Uhl in Newark, New Jersey in 1888.  The DNA match showed that I picked the correct Alexander Lutter.  But how was Alexander Lutter related?

In Chicago, Charles and Alexander Lutter lived together for several years.  This shows a relationship between them.

In 1887 in Chicago, Charles Lutter married Theresa Doanow (spelled many ways, even with a T).  I ordered this record, but do not expect to see the names of parents because Alexander's marriage record from 1890 did not ask the names of parents.

Charles and Theresa had four children in Chicago.  Charles' last entry in the Chicago city directories was 1897, when Alexander died.  The 1898 directory listed Ottelia as Alexander's widow.

Charles had moved to Wisconsin sometime between the birth of Martha in August of 1895 and Emma in February of 1900.

Charles and family remained in Wisconsin for the 1905 state census.


Charles' last child was Otto Herman Lutter, born in Wisconsin in 1907.  The index is online; Charles' birthplace is given as Saxony.  I ordered the record to see if a town is provided.

Charles moved again, this time to Brooklyn, New York.  He and his family appeared in Brooklyn in the federal 1910 census and the 1915 state census.

In 1917, Charles' wife, Theresa, remarried to Fredrick Brink in Brooklyn.  They eventually moved to Connecticut.

I don't see an entry in the New York City death index that matches Charles Lutter.  His death certificate might provide the names of his parents.


Questions and Further Research

So what became of Charles Lutter?  He probably died between 1915 and 1917, but where?

Alexander Lutter's wife, Ottilia Dalke, died in 1904, orphaning their three children, who went to the custody of Gustav and Herman Schwabe.  Were these men related?  Why didn't Charles take in Alexander's children?

Alexander's children kept accounts of their spending.  I purchased these records years ago through eBay.  One of the children, Emma, listed names and addresses, but no Lutter was among the entries.  Why?

Why didn't Herman Lutter mention Alexander and Charles in his will?  They predeceased him, but they had living children.  Were they cousins and not brothers?

First Direct Line Lutter DNA Match

My father tested his DNA at Ancestry.com.  He spit July 12th and the results appeared today- a quick turn-around time.

I am already tested at Ancestry.com.  I cannot test my mother because she has passed.  (Ancestry does not accept file transfers from other testing companies.)

To my delight, someone with the Luther surname appeared among the matches.  This is a first.  The amount of shared DNA places him in the second to third cousin range.

No family tree.

Ancestry has a function to check for close cousins in common.  This Luther cousin matches a woman who appeared among my DNA matches two years ago.  This woman is a descendant of Alexander Lutter of Chicago.  A man named Alex Lutter witnessed the marriage of my great great great grandparents, Herman Lutter and Clara Uhl, in 1888 in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey.

Herman Lutter's father was Wilhelm Lutter, based on the marriage records of Herman and his brother, Otto (who used the surname Luther).  That is the end of the Lutter line traced to date- the shortest in my family tree.  Herman was from Scheibe (renamed Neuhaus) in Thuringia (Germany).  (Herman and Otto's mother's name varies.)

This DNA connection could break down that brick wall.

Let's hope he answers my message.

Preston DNA Double Match

A new DNA cousin appeared among my matches at Ancestry.com.

He also matched two known Preston cousins at this site.  He displayed his name, which is unusual, so I was able to identify him as a descendant of Hannah Preston (1888-1935), a sister of my great grandmother, Anna Preston (1890-1921).

Ancestry enables people to link their DNA profile to a person in a family tree.  This DNA match did not do this, but his non-DNA Ancestry profile page offered a link to a small tree.

I started with the one person in the family tree who had a name.  I quickly uncovered that the mother of the only identified person was Jane Pearl (or Pearl Jane) Preston, born around 1903 in Kentucky.  This is not where I expected the match to be.  I followed this line over many generations through Virginia to Philip Preston (1711-1774), who came from Staffordshire, England, according to his Find A Grave page.

I saw no intersection with my Preston line from (County Wicklow?) Ireland to New York and New Jersey.

The family tree of this DNA match can be extended to include Prestons on two separate branches.

We need more research and more DNA comparisons to decide where the shared segment of DNA came from and if these two Preston lines arose from the same ancestor.

Extending the Correct DNA Circle

The day after I wrote about an AncestryDNA Circle for the wrong ancestor, Mary Evenshirer, another descendant of hers appeared in my matches.

To see the shared segments, this person will need to upload her DNA file to GedMatch.com.
Ancestry.com still does not provide a chromosome browser, thereby limiting the use of these DNA tests.

This person is my father's third cousin.  The common ancestors are Stephen C Duryea (1814-1887) and Mary Evenshirer (1842-1916).


This person will not appear in the DNA Circle because her family tree does not extend back to this couple.  (Unless she adds them to her family tree.)

Ancestry DNA Circle for the Wrong Ancestor

Finally I am placed in an Ancestry.com DNA Circle.

The common ancestor surprised me:  Mary Evenshirer.  Nobody else has this surname, except maybe Mary's father, John Evenshirer, who likely died in New York City in the 1840s.


Ancestry offered this explanation of a DNA Circle.  I crossed out the part where the evidence went astray:  Mary Evenshirer had no children with Alfred Eyre.

Mary Evenshirer was my 3rd great grandmother.  Mary was born around 1842 in New York City and was probably the only surviving child of Rene Brewer (1824-1904) from Rene's marriage to John Evenshirer.  Rene remarried to George W Duryea (1823-1864) and in 1848 their first child was born, Letty Jane (died 1889).

From there, more chances for a mis-step.  Mary Evenshirer married Stephen C Duryea (1814-1887), a brother of George Duryea, and 28 years her senior.  He was a step-uncle, if such a relation exists.

Letty Jane Duryea, the half-sister of Mary Evenshirer, married Alfred DeCiplet Eyre (1848-1912) in New York City in 1868.  Letty died in Jersey City in 1889.  In 1890, Mary Evenshirer, then widowed, remarried to Alfred Eyre, her half-sister's widower.

Previously a cousin was found via DNA testing on Ancesty.  She is in the DNA Circle.

The DNA Circle links Fanny Duryea's descendant, "C J," to me.

She descends from Stephen Duryea and Mary Evenshirer's daughter, Fanny Duryea (1875-1943), who married Judson Cooke Drake (1877-1938).  My line descends from Stephen and Mary's son, Abraham Brewer Duryea (1878-1944), who married Nellie Cummins (1879-1965).  [Disposition of Nellie's ashes is unknown.]



Another cousin was also located via AncestryDNA.  He descends from Stephen and Mary's daughter, Jeanette Lent Duryea (1868-1939), who married Charles Hughes Quackenbush (1862-1947).  The family tree of this cousin is only three generations, with no mention of any of the surnames I discuss here; predictably, he was missed from this Ancestry DNA Circle.



The DNA Circle formed because a  cluster of three people surfaced at Ancestry with Mary Eyre or Mary Duryea in their trees.  Their trees did not extend back into the Brewer and Duryea lines, hence no shaky leaf designation that we share a common ancestor.  But somehow the threshold was met for a DNA Circle.

The common ancestor with this group of three people would not be Mary Evenshirer.  They descend from Mary's half-sister, Letty Jane Duryea, wife of Alfred DeCiplet Eyre.  The common ancestors would be Mary and Letty's mother, Rene Brewer AND from the other line, Garrett S Duryea (1777-1834) and Ann Cornell (1789-1871), the parents of Stephen C Duryea and George W Duryea.

Ancestry picked up on a common relation among the five of us, but chose the wrong common ancestor.  The actual family tree is tricky, as I outlined above.  Ancestry DNA Circles does not replace researching the family tree.

Genetic Communities by AncestryDNA

Genetic Communities is Ancestry.com's newest feature for DNA testers.

This is not the same as an ethnicity estimate.  Please see The DNA Geek's more elaborate explanation and discussion of Genetic Communities.

Ancestry.com's DNA test estimates my ethnicity as 56% Irish with no further breakdown.  [Living DNA provided a regional breakdown within England, but not Ireland.]

The Genetic Communities tool detects a heavy link among my DNA matches to people with roots in northern Ireland, or Ulster Irish.  The Irish is from my mother's side.  I have not determined a place of origin for most of her ancestors, but her great grandfather, Patrick Francis ODonnell (1856-1931) was from County Donegal, which is part of the region encompassed by Ulster on Ancestry's map.

The other Genetic Community was a pleasant surprise because we are out of Europe and exactly where most of my father's ancestors were in the 1700s:  New York and New Jersey.  Early Settlers of New York tended to hail from certain areas of Europe, which is reflected in my father's ethnicity estimates.  Until the Genetic Community tool, there was no DNA-based connection to New York.

When trying to find the most recent common ancestor of a DNA match, you need a geographic connection.  In the match's family tree, the focus falls on branches who lived in the the New York area.  This New York Genetic Community provides support for this approach.

Living DNA Results

The results of my Living DNA test have arrived.

The screenshots are shared with you below, along with comparisons to other DNA companies.

Living DNA places my ancestry as more British than I was expecting.  My mother is about three quarters Irish, yet this test puts me at about ten percent.

Part of the attraction of Living DNA's test is breaking down where in Great Britain one's ancestry may have originated.  To be fair, I have not traced most of my ancestral lines to precise locations in Europe.

B F Lyon visualizations

Above is my father's tree with flags representing discovered places of origin.  Except for the short Lutter/Uhl branches, in the 1600s most of his ancestors left Europe for land that would become the United States.  The port of sailing is not necessarily where they were born and raised, so assigning a country of origin is tricky.


The three main DNA testing companies in the United States also provide ancestry estimates.

Family Tree DNA estimates my ancestry to be about 87% British Isles, which is most similar to Living DNA.

Ancestry.com estimates me to be more than half Irish and only thirteen percent British.

23andMe paints me at almost half British and Irish.

Living DNA estimates the locations of your ancestors throughout time.  The map above shows where my ancestors may have been about 500 years ago, when most people were stuck within a few miles of where they were born because travel was difficult and ocean-worthy ships were not yet developed.

The map above shows where my ancestors may have lived 1200 years ago, before written records to trace this genealogy.

Jumping back 5500 years ago, my ancestors could have been in all over Europe.  It's anyone's guess, but this is Living DNA's try.

In a similar vein, a new feature at 23andMe estimates when your most recent ancestor from a specific population entered your DNA.  Maybe 1950 is my mother's Irish, 1920 is her Ashkenazi grandparent, 1890 is my father's German paternal grandfather, and the rest is the mixture that I am.

I hope that Living DNA offers the matching with cousins feature of the other three DNA companies.  Because it is based in the United Kingdom, Living DNA may attract consumers who will not test with one of the companies marketed primarily in the United States and expose me to new DNA cousins.

Third Cousin Identified at AncestryDNA

A new DNA match appeared for me at Ancestry.com.  I am no fan of Ancestry.com's DNA services because there is no chromosome browser.  This is most unfortunate because Ancestry.com is well-poised to excel in its DNA services with its family tree matching and flagged records.

This person is my third cousin, once removed- if he is who I think he is.

Let's ignore the "Confidence: Very High" description.

This person shares 53 centimorgans over three segments.  Ancestry asks: "What does this mean?"  Nobody knows because Ancestry lacks a chromosome browser.

This match has not linked himself to a family tree.  The work-around is clicking on his name to reach his profile page where he lists a family tree.

This sparse tree contains four people: the DNA cousin, his father, and his paternal grandparents.  No mother.  No records are linked to any of these people.  The surname is the same for all, including the paternal grandmother, and is one of the most common surnames in the United States.  My only clue is the years of birth and death provided for the father.

A search for the father of the DNA tester produced a Find A Grave entry.  (I left virtual flowers on his memorial page in 2015.)

Here is Ancestry.com's advantage:  the record is flagged as already saved to my father's family tree, quickly leading to the connection.  The DNA tester's father was married to a great granddaughter of Stephen C Duryea (1814-1887) and Mary Evenshirer (1842-1916) - my father's great great grandparents.  She is the link, yet the tester omitted her from his tree.  And I still figured it out.

The DNA tester and my father are third cousins.  This is pending the person coming forward and confirming his mother's name.

That was easy.  Why doesn't Ancestry.com offer a chromosome browser like its competitors so we can gather the rest of the cousins who share these segments?