Photograph of Great Great Grandmother

I acquired some more family photos (thank you Aunt Marion!) and was overjoyed to find a labeled photograph of Clara Uhl, a great great grandmother.  "Grandma Lutter (Clara Uhl)" was written on the back, along with a signature in pencil, perhaps conveying that Clara confirmed that this was indeed her picture.  Clara was briefly married to Hermann Lutter.  You can read about their divorce here.

This is a cabinet card, made by Helmuth Schumacher of Newark, New Jersey.  It measures a little over six inches high by four inches wide and is fairly sturdy.  (Perhaps the clipped corners indicate that this photograph was kept in an album?  Where is the rest of the album?)

To date the image, I look at a few things.  Clara's age appears to be in her 20s, maybe 30s in the picture.  She was born in 1865 in Newark and died in 1955.  By her age guesstimate alone, this picture was made in the 1880s or 1890s.  Next I look to see when the photographer was in business.  Helmuth Schumacher used the West street address in Newark from 1892 onward.  By 1892, Clara had been married, separated, and had one child.

You can also date the photograph based on the style of dress and hair.  The little triangle that appears to be sticking out of the back of Clara's head is a hair comb to hold her hair in place.  The bodice of her dress is tightly cinched at her natural waste, producing an hourglass appearance.  The shoulders are pronounced, protruding above and beyond the natural shoulders.  I think that this dress dates from the 1890s.

In perusing the rest of the photographs, I came across a tintype measuring approximately 3 inches by 2 inches.

I'm thinking that this tintype could be Clara Uhl as a teenager, late 1870s or early 1880s.  The shoulders are natural and the sleeves sit above the wrists with ruffles.

By tilting the tintype, you can better see the resin coating reflecting in the light.

Is this the same person?

Next I compared Clara Uhl to a picture of her son, Howard Lutter.  I don't see much of a resemblance, especially with the eyes.  I do not have a picture of Howard's father to check for resemblance to him.  (Though I did find a picture of his second wife!)

MyOrigins Ethnic Makeup by Family Tree DNA

Family Tree DNA has reworked its Population Finder into a new service called MyOrigins.  Some people test their DNA in order to find out their ethnic makeup, so this would be a feature of interest to such people.  Please note that you need to take an autosomal DNA test (called Family Finder at FamilyTreeDNA) in order to obtain such results.

As you view ethnic origins, remember that the DNA you inherit from your ancestors is passed down to you in an unequal ratio- you carry more DNA of some ancestors to the detriment of others.  Plus, MyOrigins and any of the other available tools (such as 23andMe's Ancestry Composition) that estimate your ethnic makeup are based on the program's unique formula and estimates.

 My father's results paint him as 100% European.

The European designation can be further broken down into areas.  The result is that his ancestry hails from all of Europe, with half from the Coastal Islands- Britain and Ireland.

My mother's results paint her as three quarters Coastal Islands and one quarter "Jewish Diaspora," centralized in Poland.

 I expected that my ethnic makeup would be an average of my parents.  Not so with MyOrigins.  My father's inheritance from all of Europe is not reflected in my MyOrigins analysis.  I inherited half of my mother's Jewish Diaspora and the rest of me is Coastal Islands.

Looks like some refinement is necessary to capture the missing heritage.

Ancestral Home pinpointed by DNA?

I noticed a link on Facebook via Family Tree Magazine's page:  "DNA sequences can trace your ancestors to within 30 miles."

Intrigued, I watched videos and read pages about Prosapia Genetics.  The DNA tool is called GPS:  Geographic Population Structure.  Some people have tried the service.

The site promised to pinpoint an ancestral hometown using data files from a DNA testing company.  I have already tested at 23andMe, so I uploaded my file to Prosapia for the result.  The cost was $29.99.  More expensive packages are available with a wider scope of possible populations.  I figured that I am mostly of European ancestry and these groups are fairly well-covered, so I opted for the lowest-priced package with fewer (200) possible groups.

There is no security certificate for this site, so that will dissuade some (and rightfully so).

Within minutes, my ancestral hometown was ready.  Well, the latitude and longitude coordinates were reported with a link to a labeled map on Google.

Prosapia Genetics

Google Maps
Hemmingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

According to Prosapia Genetics, my ancestral hometown is located on a farm in Hemmingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, to the southwest of Schwieberdingen.

I have not come across this town in my family history research.  My research does not go back one thousand years on any ancestral line, so it is entirely possible that I do have ancestors from this particular area.

This leads to another problem/question:  which ancestral line was from this area?  Which part of my DNA determined my connection to this specific area of the world?

I think that this GPS tool is an amazing idea and demonstrates how far DNA testing for genealogy has come in just a few years, but also demonstrates that more information and techniques are needed to draw accurate conclusions.