Family Tree Repair: Hyser and Preston

While working on a branch of my Hyser family, I noticed that online family trees had a different year and place of death for Adelaide Hyser, wife of Sherwood Preston.  Adelaide was a sister of my father's 3rd great grandfather, Louman Hyser (1826-1895).

In the 1855 New York State census, Adelaide and husband lived in Catskill, Greene County, with two children.  In the 1860 federal census, Adelaide was living with her father and three children, minus the husband, in Catskill.  Adelaide relocated to Jersey City after the 1870 census.

My source for Adelaide's death was from a compiled genealogy of the Rockefeller family.  In this work, Adelaide died in Jersey City, [Hudson County], New Jersey on February 6, 1907.

Online trees had the year of death as 1908.  Places included Jersey City, Union Hill in Morris County, and Union Hill in Hudson County.

The source for this date and these places of death was from an application by Irving Sherwood Preston (a great grandson of Adelaide) to join the Sons of the American Revolution under the patriot Simon Rockefeller.  In viewing the actual application [database at Ancestry.com], you can see that the date given for Adelaide's death was February 6, 1908, but no place of death was given.

The compiled genealogy and the SAR application are both derivative sources with questionable reliability.  I needed the actual death certificate.  Fortunately, I copied many years of Preston deaths because I am a Preston descendant on my mother's side of the family.  The last Preston in my line was Anna Preston (1890-1921).  I have not found a relation between my great grandmother Anna Preston and Adelaide Hyser's husband Sherwood Preston.

According to the death certificate, Adelaide M Preston, daughter of Peter Hyzer and Ella [Fritz], died in Jersey City on February 6, 1908.

Her obituary appeared in the newspaper Jersey Journal, viewable at GenealogyBank.com (pay site).  A textual search for "Preston" did not yield this result.  I searched by date.

Burial was in Catskill.  Adelaide's father, brother, and other family members were buried at Catskill Village Cemetery.  I don't see a grave listing for Adelaide online.

Shared Ancestor Hints for AncestryDNA

One of the alluring features of Ancestry's DNA testing is the Shared Ancestor Hints derived from family tree comparisons.  (The other feature is finding missing close relatives.)  My test produced over 15,000 matches.  (Can that be?  306 pages of 50 matches per page.)

With my test attached to my mother's tree, only one DNA cousin produced a shared ancestor hint.  This is my mother's second cousin in the Preston/Sheehey branch.  We had already made contact before the tests results were in.

Attaching my father's tree to my test profile produced five people with shared ancestor hints.  (When my father's results are ready, these five people should also match him.  If not, then the shared DNA likely is from my mother and these family tree hints are misleading.)  One of the DNA cousins has a private tree, so I could not review the hint.

Of the remaining four shared ancestor hints, two were for the same set of 5th great grandparents:  Jacob vander Hoof (1772-1847) and Ann Hopler (1772-1841) of Morris County, New Jersey.  These folks are buried in the deMouth Family Burial Ground in Boonton.  I have also met other descendants in my DNA travels.  Based on our family trees, one DNA match is a fourth cousin, twice removed and the other is a sixth cousin.

The other two matches are from the New York Hyser branch of my tree.

Common ancestors are Simon Rockefeller and Anna Bahr, based on our family trees.
We also share some identical DNA.  Is it from these shared ancestors?  We do not know.

Note that this Shared Ancestry Hint only reported Elizabeth Burke as the common ancestor.
In both of our trees, we have John as the husband.
Perhaps the alternate spelling of Lehman/Layman threw off the calculation.

Although on paper I am a cousin to these matches, the shared DNA could easily come from another ancestral line that is not documented in at least one of our family trees.  That is how I have over 15,000 matches but only 6 matching family trees.  Someone has not documented back far enough, or someone has a non-parental event.  I could have easily found any of these DNA matches by comparing trees- no DNA testing required.

When my father's results are available, I expect him to have far fewer matches.  I am trying to use the AncestryDNA Chrome Extension to reveal which segments of DNA are shared by the matches in order to triangulate.  AncestryDNA provides no chromosome browser function to do this directly, unlike 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA.  The high number of my matches is causing the Chrome Extension to freeze.