Gathering Loose Leaves of Trees

My great great grandparents, Patrick O'Donnell and Delia Joyce, were married in 1887 at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey.  While reviewing an online transcription of this church's records, I noted that Patrick and Delia were sponsors for the baptism of Mary Ellen "Otterbury," daughter of John Otterbury and Mary Campbell.  Delia Joyce's mother was Mary Campbell.  Mary was killed in 1870 by a train in Dutchess County, New York.  To date, I have been unable to connect Mary Campbell to her family of origin.

Otterbury is a name of interest to me because my mother shares DNA with R. S., who is also my father's third cousin.  R. S. has Ottenberg ancestors from Germany and then Jersey City.  By testing cousins in my mother's family, I was able to isolate R. S.'s match to the O'Donnell/Joyce branch of my mother's family tree.  An intersection between Delia Joyce, daughter of Mary Campbell, and "Otterbury" in Bayonne is a good lead to follow.

R. S. shares an amount of DNA with my father that is within a third cousin range, which is their documented relation.
R. S. also shares a small segment of DNA with my mother, her maternal first cousin, and two cousins of my mother's mother.
The connection between my mother and R. S. will be in my O'Donnell/Joyce branch.

John "Ottber" was baptized at St. Mary's one year earlier in 1886, likely to allow him to marry Mary Campbell in a Catholic church.  I have not found a marriage record for this couple in New Jersey, either through a church or filed with the State.

Mary Ellen Otterbury's birth in 1887 is shown in an index at Ancestry.com.

Remembering that these indexes are not records, I searched for Mary Ellen's birth certificate.  Mary Ellen Otterbury's birth does not appear in the New Jersey State index of births at Trenton.

The New Jersey Birth and Christenings index at FamilySearch.org presents a different spelling of Mary Ellen's last name- Aughtberry instead of Otterbury.

Mary Ellen Aughtberry shows up in the birth index in Trenton.

And here is Mary Ellen Aughtberry's birth certificate from the State- September 5, 1887 in Bayonne.
Her father is listed as John Aughtberry, age 33, of Sweden.  Her mother is listed as Mary Campbell, age 38, of Ireland.

These pieces of information are pieces of a puzzle, but I need more pieces to determine:
--- Does Mary Campbell, wife of John Aughtberry or Ottbury, have a relationship to Mary Campbell, wife of Patrick Joyce and mother of Delia?
--- Does John Otterbury/Aughtberry have a relationship to the Ottenberg in cousin R. S.'s family tree?

Revisiting a Grave

This picture of a gravestone was among the photographs I received from my aunt.  The inscription reads, "Nichols.  Emerson L.  1913-1935."  Naturally, I wondered who Emerson L Nichols was and how he relates, if at all, to my family.

I obtained the death certificate at the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton.

From the death certificate, we learn that Emerson Lambert Nichols died June 15, 1935 from a motorcycle accident.  He was 21 years old, born in Waterbury, Connecticut.  His parents were George E Nichols of Lowell, Massachusetts and Mabel G Lambert of New Hampshire.  He died on "Pompton Pike" (now called Pompton Avenue or State Route 23) in Cedar Grove, Essex County, New Jersey.  His residence was 103 Broadway in Newark.

The doctor did not "attend" Emerson.  He "saw" Emerson.

The cause of death was "highway accident motorcycle with driver and one passenger ran into side of 10 ton mack truck, fractured skull, cerebral laceration, hemorrhage and edema; ruptured lungs, ruptured spleen."  Emerson was the driver of the motorcycle.  This accident sounds horrific.

Next I set out to find the gravestone.  The place of burial is listed as East Ridgelawn Cemetery in Delawanna, New Jersey.  Delawanna is a section in the City of Clifton in Passaic County.  FindAGrave had no entry for Emerson.  (Ridgelawn Cemetery in Delawanna is listed as a separate cemetery on FindAGrave.  This should be combined with East Ridgelawn Cemetery in Clifton.)

Here is what the stone looks like today.

From the gravestone, Emerson's father, George, died in 1954 and his mother, Mabel, died in 1957.

I visited the same spot in Ridgelawn Cemetery that my grandfather stood to take this photograph almost eighty years earlier.

In the older photograph, the gravestone in the background on the right with the letters L and Y is blocked in the recent picture by the Soule gravestone.  The surname is Lay.

To the left in the old picture is a textured gravestone with two tiny shrubs in the row ahead.  Their view is completely blocked in the recent picture by large bushes and more stones.

East Ridgelawn Cemetery, Clifton, Passaic County, New Jersey

The Campbell gravestone is the textured stone behind the small bushes in the older photo.  In the eighty years since the picture was taken, the bushes grew and were chopped down.  A gravestone was placed in between the bushes for Pucillo.

I don't know how Emerson Lambert Nichols relates to my family.  He was the same age as my grandfather, so maybe they were friends.  Maybe someone will read this and let us know.

Ancestry.com discontinues original DNA tests

Ancestry.com will no longer offer or maintain its oldest DNA services, the Y-DNA and mtDNA tests.  I was notified in an email.  I am not surprised by this announcement.  I have three such tests done at Ancestry.  The results have not been updated in years and are overshadowed by FamilyTreeDNA's offerings.  I uploaded the data file from the Y-DNA test to ySearch.org, which is free.  Although the tests and the results will disappear from Ancestry, you can download the data for use elsewhere.

***Ancestry continues selling and servicing their atDNA (autosomal) kits for $99.  This test captures DNA you inherit from all of your ancestral lines.

Last month, during a sale, I purchased two atDNA kits from Ancestry for my father and me.  The results are pending.  Two years ago I purchased a kit for an adopted person.  A close match appeared recently for her, confirming her surname at birth.  (The person has not responded to my inquiries.)

My very first DNA test was Ancestry.com's Y-DNA test for my father, purchased in 2009.  His results are compared against others in the database.  Men who have the same markers on their Y-chromosome share a common ancestor on their direct paternal line.  The more variation in the marker values, the more distant the relation.  Matches were found, but none were predicted to be related closer than twenty generations.  I cannot trace that far back on my father's direct paternal line.

I tested my aunt and myself for mtDNA, also called mitochondrial or maternal.  Similar to Y-DNA testing, this service matches you against people who share mtDNA with you.  Again, no close matches appeared.

In the last few years, FamilyTreeDNA has grown in popularity.  They offer Y-DNA and mtDNA tests, as well as atDNA tests.  Last month I purchased a Y-DNA test through FamilyTreeDNA for my father.  Results are pending.  When the results are available, I will post them and offer my analysis.

Family Tree Art

Stock photo of family tree vinyl wall decal

Inspired by images of family trees on walls, I ordered one from eBay and gave it a try.  Not bad for a minimalist like me.  I have several bare white walls to choose from.

Jody's rendition of the family tree vinyl wall decal.
I have to add pictures.

The stickers are reusable, but delicate.  You do not have to strictly follow the model in the stock photo.

Family
like branches on a tree,
we all grow in different
directions yet our roots remain as one

Stock photo of my next goal for a wall

Recognizing a Great Grandfather

A third picture of my great grandfather may have been identified!

Howard Lutter (1889-1959) was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey.  He relocated to California around 1950.  A talented pianist and musician, he created player piano rolls, from which I acquired my first picture of Howard.

The second discovered picture was from a digitized trade magazine for the player piano industry:  The Music Trade Review, 1923.

My aunt gave me a batch of family photographs to scan and organize.  My grandfather, Clifford Lutter, was a photographer in Newark.  A lot of photographs are not of our family, but rather people he photographed for various reasons.  Most are not labeled with the name of the subjects.  I created a separate page on this blog for people to view the photos and perhaps recognize someone.

One of the photographs struck me as a familiar face.  It was a man, dressed in a suit and tie, with glasses, sitting among various papers.  With no identification on the picture itself, I posted the picture with the rest on the page for Clifford Lutter's photographs.  I kept looking at the face, feeling that this man was not a random subject.  Then I showed the picture to my aunt and uncle and they agreed that this image could very well be Howard Lutter, maybe in the 1940s, when he was in his fifties.

This man is posed in the same direction as the known picture of Howard Lutter, so we can compare them side by side.

What do you think?  Is this the same man?

Photograph of Another Great Great Grandmother

This photo discovery is another great great grandmother- my paternal grandfather's maternal grandmother, Catherine Dunn.  The previous post was about photographs of his paternal grandmother, Clara Uhl.

Catherine Dunn was born around 1865 in Matawan, Monmouth County, New Jersey to Ezra A. Dunn (1820-1898) and Hermoine Dunlop (1827-1900).  In 1886 in Matawan, Catherine Dunn married William Walling Winterton, a son of John R Winterton and Sophia Walling.  I descend from William and Catherine's daughter, Laura Winterton, born in 1891 in Matawan.

The Winterton family was living in Holmdel, Monmouth County, New Jersey in the 1900 federal census.  William Winterton first appeared in the Newark, Essex County, New Jersey city directory in 1906.  In the 1910 federal census, the family lived in Newark.  Also in 1910, Laura Winterton married Howard Lutter of Newark.

The timeline of the family's residence from Monmouth County to Essex County is important for dating this picture because it was taken in Newark by H. J. Thein of 476 Broad Street.

On the back is written "Grandma Winterton."

An online check of Henry J Thein, photographer, provides us with the years he was operating in Newark at this address:  1881-1899, 1911.  Based on the availability of Catherine Dunn in Newark, I don't think this picture was taken before 1900.  If the picture was created in 1911 or even a few years earlier, Catherine would be about 40 to 45 years old.  I think the woman in the picture looks younger.  It is entirely possible that Catherine traveled to Newark to create this picture in the 1880s or 1890s.  The glitch is that I have a "Winterton Family Album" with photographs mostly by photographers in Matawan and Keyport.

A picture of Catherine later in her life was already discovered because it was labeled as such:  "Grandma Winterton (Catherine Dunn)" and with a stamped date:  May 16, 1937.  What luck.

I think that I have some more photographs of Catherine Dunn as an older woman.  They are not marked, but the resemblance is obvious to the labeled picture of the older Catherine.

Unlabeled picture.

Is this the final picture of Catherine Dunn, wife of William Winterton?  She died in 1944.

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.

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