Location, Location, Location! And the Name.

I made a connection at 23andMe, the genetic testing site that provides you with oodles of people who are related to you- somehow.  The irony is that this person is not related to me.

We found each other through a common surname, Puterbaugh.  She is a Puterbaugh descendant and I am not.  I listed the name as a collateral line.  William Puterbaugh married a distant cousin of mine, Mary Duryea Cornell, in the 1860s in Illinois.  I had high hopes for this branch because Mary's father, James S Cornell, was instrumental in the founding of Yorkville in Kendall County, Illinois.  His story is portrayed in history books and the ancestral angle is portrayed by genealogists.  A win-win situation.

This Puterbaugh descendant provided me with a listing of her Puterbaugh line, complete with names, variant spellings, and most importantly- locations.  Darke County, Ohio stood out for its name alone.  No Puterbaugh-Cornell marriage appeared in her direct ancestral line, though.  I realized that I had little about Mary's husband, William Puterbaugh, so I looked at Find A Grave to see if a descendant or kind soul had featured the man.  I knew I had the right guy when I saw the specifics of his birth:  1840 in "Dark Co., OH."

So we now had Puterbaughs in the same location at the same time.

A few family trees and researchers later, I was able to decide that William Puterbaugh was a second cousin to my contact's great grandfather.  Her cousin had married my cousin.  This does not make us related, but it is funny that we connected through a genetic genealogy website.

Geographical Genealogy: Germany

I have a few German lines that are quite short in my trees- only a few generations- because tracing ancestors back in Europe can be difficult.

I have been playing with a website, GeoGen, that offers surname searches in a geographical genealogical context.  You type in a surname of interest and the website generates a map showing areas of Germany where the surname is concentrated today.  This can help guide you on where to look for records, but is not proof that any of your ancestors lived in any particular place.

Let's take Clara Patschke.  She first appears in the 1870 United States Federal Census in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, age 29, born in Prussia.  Prussia does not exist anymore.  As Clara was leaving Prussia to come to the United States, it encompassed a large area of land along the North and Baltic Seas.  In the 1880 Federal Census, Clara provides a bit more detail about her origin:  Saxony.

1880 United States Federal Census
Newark, Essex County, New Jersey

Someone kindly sent me an 1877 baptismal record for a daughter of Clara, listing Clara's origin as Zeitz, Saxony.  There is a town called Zeitz in the Burgenlandkreis district of Saxony-Anhalt, which is next to Saxony, about 100 miles north of the modern border between Germany and Czech.

So we can plug in the surname Patschke at GeoGen to see where the geographic distribution of today's Patschkes.

GeoGen
Geographical distribution of surname Patschke

If we look at the area where Zeitz is located in Saxony-Anhalt, we see a concentration of Patschkes.  This is where we would hope to find a lot of people with the surname.

Next we can look for variants of the last name using the Name Graph feature.  Patschke was spelled differently on every record I have found so far.  Seeing additional alternate spellings can help me uncover more records.

GeoGen
Name Graph for Patschke

Amanuensis Monday: Doolittle, Johnson, and Bishop of Connecticut

Part two of transcribing notes found in the Bishop family file at the New York State Library in Albany.

John Doolittle born Sept 3, 1794.  Died July 22, 1873.

Ruth Melissa Doolittle born Jan 27, 1822- Wallingford.  Died Oct 8, 1900 N. Haven.

Married in Wallingford Dec 8, 1844 to Henry H Johnson.  Born May 9, 1825 Wallingford.  Died Aug 21, 1878 N. Branford.

Lyman Humiston Johnson born Oct 10, 1845 Wallingford.  Died Sept 26, 1912.

Henry Herman born Mar 22, 1847 Wallingford.  Died April 17, 1922.

Mary Matilda born May 3, 1849 Wallingford.  Died June 22, 1921.

Charles Hobart born Jan 22, 1851 Cheshire.  Died June 12, 1912.

Susan Adella born Nov 19, 1853 Hamden.  Died Feb 16, 1909.

L. H. J. married Mary Lucinda Bishop, born Mar 21, 1849.  Died July 12, 1913.

Nellie Augusta, Nov 16, 1869.

Harry Bishop, June 16, 1876.

Lyman Henry Jr, Aug 27, 1883.