Duryea Cousin

A Duryea cousin has been found through DNA testing!  "C J" and I are fourth cousins.  Our common ancestors were our third great grandparents, Stephen C Duryea (1814-1887) and Mary Evenshirer (1842-1916).  I descend from their son, Abraham Brewer Duryea (1878-1944), who married Nellie Cummins (1879-1965).  C J descends from their daughter, Fannie Duryea (1875-1943), who married Judson Cooke Drake (1877-1938).

This was as far as we can go with our DNA tests at Ancestry because Ancestry does not let us see where the shared DNA is.  C J kindly uploaded Ancestry's DNA file to GedMatch so that we can utilize our DNA tests.

My father and his siblings are on GedMatch, as well as two cousins from the prior generation from this Duryea line.  Below is the table showing the amount of shared DNA with this cousin cluster.

Notice that the person in orange (my aunt), shares only one segment above 7 cM with C J.  A lot of people prefer to not work with small, single segment matches, as the most recent common ancestor could be very far back in time, or otherwise not discoverable.  The shared DNA of the other matches demonstrates the variability in the amount of shared DNA and that this is a workable match.

Dropping the threshold of the size of the shared segment to 3 cM, a visual graph of the shared DNA on the chromosomes was created thanks to Kitty Cooper's Overlapping Segment Mapping Tool.

Note:  Chromosome 11 is altered to reflect that all six cousins match C J here.
The Mapping Tool accommodates only four.

Some of the segments shared with C J were not previously attributed to Duryea/Evenshirer.  As seen in the current family tree, the parentage of John Evenshirer remains a mystery.  Some of his DNA may be represented in the shared segments with C J.

Everyone in my group matches C J on a segment on Chromosome 11.  Three other people also match on this segment with a size of 15 - 30 cMs.  We explored that the common ancestor was Abraham Riker, also known as Abraham Rycken Van Lent, who in 1654 built a house that still stands, with the family graveyard in the back, in what is now East Elmhurst, Queens County, New York.

The last Lent in my line was Mary Ann Lent (1796-1875), wife of James Brewer (1798-1849).  Her parents were Abraham Lent (1772-1851) and Margaret Mann (1773-1844).  Could a segment of DNA from the original Lent immigrant still be in descendants 350 years later?  He was my 11th great grandfather.

Last census for Abraham Lent.  He died in 1851.
He was neighbors with the author, Washington Irving.
They are also buried near each other in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Revisiting Graves

My aunt gave me some pictures taken in a cemetery, probably in the late 1960s.  I recognized the setting as Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, Westchester County, New York.  My grandmother, Beulah, was buried in this cemetery in 2003.  The Brewer lot (504 and 505) is the subject of the older pictures, particularly George W Duryea (1823-1864) and Rene Brewer (1824-1904).  Beulah descends from Rene's first marriage to John Evenshirer; and from George's brother, Stephen C Duryea.  George Duryea was a policeman killed in New York City.

Brewer lot (504 and 505) at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
The rails and chains connecting the posts are disappearing.
Years from now, visitors may not be able to see that all of these stones were once in the same lot.

I tried to capture the scenes in new pictures.  The sun cast deep shadows on the stones, making them even more unreadable.  Most of the trees and bushes have been removed.

The large stone on the left is for David Mann Lent (1811-1892) and Jennet Conklin (1814-1902).

My grandmother has several ancestors buried at Sleepy Hollow, making this a great stop for exploring this branch of my family's history.

Mother:  Rene Marion Duryea (1900-1943)

Maternal grandfather:  Abraham Brewer Duryea (1878-1944)

Great grandfather:  Stephen C Duryea (1814-1887)

Great great grandparents:  Ann S Cornell (1784-1871)
Rene Brewer (1824-1904)

Great great great grandparents:  James Brewer (1798-1849)
Mary Ann Lent (1796-1875)

4X great grandparents:  Solomon Brewer (1746-1824)
Rene Benton (1764-1841)
Abraham Lent (1772-1851)
Margaret Mann (1773-1844)

Elusive Surname: Evenshirer

Mary Evenshirer was my 3x great grandmother.  She was born in New York City around 1842.  She died in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey in 1916.  Her surname and her father are a tail end in my family tree.

Mary's mother was Rene Brewer, a daughter of James Brewer and Mary Ann Lent from Westchester County, New York.  From the newspaper The New York Sun, we have the marriage announcement in 1842 in New York City of Miss Rene Brewer to John Evenshirer, "both of this city."

By 1848, John Evenshirer was dead or otherwise out of the picture when Rene had another daughter, Letty Jane, with George W Duryea.

The 1850 United States Federal Census as well as the 1855 New York State Census list Mary Evenshirer with the surname of Rene's husband, George W Duryea.

Ancestry.com

Note the servants in your households!!!
Mary Walpole married Jacob Duryea, a brother of George.

Mary married Stephen C Duryea, a brother of George W Duryea, so she retained the surname Duryea for future records.  The age difference must have been confusing to some.  In the 1880 census, Mary's mother, Rene, was residing with Mary and Stephen in Pound Ridge.  Stephen's age was 65, Mary was 38, and "mother" Rene was 64- no, make that 84 to try to make sense of this.

Mary's half-sister, Letty Jane Duryea, married Alfred Deciplet Eyre in 1868.  Letty died in 1889 from complications of a pregnancy.  (She was originally buried in Hoboken Cemetery in North Bergen, Hudson County, New Jersey, but was relocated to Fairview Cemetery.)  Mary had been widowed in 1887.  Mary and Alfred married in 1890, combining their children into an Eyre/Duryea household.  They were not just step-siblings; they were related by blood.

Ancestry.com

When Mary died in 1916, the informant, "Mr Eyre (son)," knew of her surname at birth and attempted to include it on the death certificate.

Your author at Fairview Cemetery (Fairview, Bergen County, New Jersey, United States)
Picture by Rob Berner