Book of Eckler

Congratulations and thank you to Paul E Eckler for publishing a family history book, Eckler-Eiklor-Eaklor-Akler Family of Hudson Valley, New York and Bradford County, Pennsylvania.  This is a labor of love.  The original immigrant Christian Eigler was born about 1680 in the Rhine Valley region of what is now Germany and came to New York around 1711 with his wife, Maria Neff, and other Palatines.

You may reach the author, Paul E Eckler, at paul.eckler@att.net

 

 

Page 42: details of my Eckler becoming Hyser

The most recent Eckler in my ancestry was Catharine Eckler, born in 1830 in Catskill, Greene County, New York.  Her mother was Maria Layman.  The Layman family, also spelled Lehman, had many intermarriages with the Ecklers.  Catharine's parents were cousins to each other.  Her mother's great grandfather was her father's grandfather, Adrew Eckler, born in 1732.  This is an especially interesting line to me because it represents my father's direct maternal line.  Ten generations back from my father, all on his direct maternal line, are in this book, to Anna Maria Kieffer, born about 1700.

Great job, Paul!

DNA: Matches in Common, part 1

One of my father's closer relations in the genetic pool at 23andMe also matches his paternal first cousin, once removed.  Here is what the graph looks like:

23andMe
J. H. compared to D. W. and Jody's Dad

J. H. matches D. W. on the same area of Chromosome 2 that he also shares with my father.  D. W. is in the generation older than my father and shares a slightly larger segment with J. H.  The relation is still distant, beyond third cousins.  The chances of inheriting the same intact segment is random, but here it is.

This match in common was surprising because it seems that J. H. shares an ancestral line on my father's mother's side as well.  If you travel back to Massachusetts in the 1630s, you will find the couple John Strong and Abigail Ford.  My preliminary research indicates that J. H. is descended through their son Jedediah while my paternal grandmother was descended from another son, Jerijah.  400 years later, it is not likely (dare we say improbable?) that such a large segment of DNA would still be intact from John Strong or Abigail Ford.

The new results demonstrate that there are more recent common ancestors, not in my father's mother's tree, but in my father's paternal grandmother's tree.  See how adding a cousin for comparison helps?  You still need to research records as we have been all these years to figure out where J. H.'s tree merges with mine.  It's like getting the answer first and figuring out the arithmetic later.

DNA: Comparing the Closest Matches

Remember my 5% mystery match from a year ago at 23andMe?  From the new parental sorting feature, I discovered that he is a match through my mother.  This person has not responded to my requests to communicate.

To put into perspective how close a relation this mystery 5% man is to me, look at my closest genetic relations in the database.

23andMe
The P stands for Paternal Match and the M stands for Maternal Match.

D. W. is my known first cousin, twice removed.  The displayed relation of 2nd cousin is a prediction.  Second cousins (children of first cousins) should share about 3.125% DNA.  D. W. is my grandfather's first cousin, so the same spacing exists between us as second cousins.  [For DNA purposes, D. W. is better than a second cousin because he represents the DNA from two generations ago at my grandfather's generation.]

This mystery 5% cousin shares slightly more DNA with me than D. W. does!  That is how close a relation he is to my mother's family and why I really wish he would come forward.