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Friday, March 31, 2017

Photos - Borchers, Jackel, Fett and More

I recently inherited seven binders and many photos (most are labeled) of my Borchers, Jackel, Fett, and a few more lines.  This is my mom's German ancestry line.  She is half German and many of her ancestor line ended up in Missouri, Minnesota, onto Dakyin, NE and North Dakota, and finally to Napa, CA.  Many of our immigrant ancestors arrived in Baltimore, MD.

As for photos, I have many now.  I love photos.  They are so telling and truly worth a thousand words.

Frederick Jackel circa 1890

Fred Jackel, Henrietta Fett Jackel, and Augusta Jackel 

Frederick Jackel (pronounced Yak-el) was my great great grandmothers adoptive father.  Anna Maria Jackel (Borchers married name, biological surname was Kern) was adopted by Fred Jackel and his wife, Barbara Rausch, sometime in the 1860s.  We do not know what happened to Anna's biological parents but she indicated her birth surname was Kern.  All of her own children knew she was adopted.  This is a good thing since her son William Borchers married Augusta Jackel.

In the second photo, you see Fred, Henrietta and Augusta Jackel.  Fred married Henrietta Fett after his wife, Barbara, passed away and after Henrietta's first husband, Conrad Fett, passed away.  They each had older children by this time in their lives.  Their union produced a child together, Augusta Jackel.  She is pictured with her parents.  It is not known at this time what Henrietta Fett Jackel's maiden name actually was.  I've tried to find that but it is not to be located in records that I have access too.

Photos are pretty amazing.  Putting the name and their story to a face makes working on your family tree that much more interesting.  These people were a huge part in the lives of my great grandfather and his parents plus Augusta moved to California and was the aunt of my grandma.  They were not strangers but part of a community and one that moved west, at that!

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Ancestry DNA

Back in November 2015, I had my Ancestry.com DNA test done.  I found it very interesting for about 5 minutes.  At the time, there weren't many matches.  Now, I am overwhelmed with 134 pages (about 50 people per page) of DNA matches with many distant 5th cousins or more.  The results are a mixed bag for sure.

First and foremost my ethnicity estimate is interesting and yet rather mundane at the same time.  I can't say that I did not know what to expect since we'd had my husband's completed the prior year.  His was enlightening in that it eliminated the family lore that they were Native American in there somewhere.  My husband is not.  Nor is he related to Betsy Ross.  Lots of made up family lore passed down on his line.  But, there is still a potential that some proof could be out there to show different.  Even his line could have surprises to the contrary but someone would need to pay for the research at this point and hunt down the truth to prove it!

My Ancestry.com ethnicity estimate is as follows:

58% Ireland
28% Great Britain
5% Scandinavia
4% Europe West
4% Europe East
1% Finland/East Russia
100% - European

Being only 58% ethnically Irish was a little surprising.  I would have thought it would have been closer to 70%.  DNA ethnicity is not an exact science nor do the genes pass down the line in exact proportions.

What I do glean from this breakdown is that 28% of my ethnicity is Great Britain.  Does this confirm that my Maxwell's were from Scotland?  It might.  Does this confirm that my Irish ancestors living in the "Pale" married those from Britain?  There again, it might.

The 28% Great Britain is a bit of a mystery to me.  Does that include my McGuire's who were from County Fermanagh which is part of Northern Ireland and is considered Great Britain?  Well, I would hope McGuire's of Ireland would not be considered in that British ethnicity but who can really tell here.

Overall, I consider the ethnicity estimate nice to know.  In some cases, it is anecdotal at best but certainly tells you where not to look for your ancestors.

As for DNA matches, that is pretty distant.  I have three people who are 2nd-3rd cousins, only one was a surprise.  Once we figured it out, we pretty much have noted it and moved on.  I have four people in the 3rd-4th cousin range.  Again, no real surprises but there is one person who has not responded to me.  I guess that's the way it goes.

I have had contact from one match who was adopted so is searching for his real parents.  That's interesting.  I come up as a 4th to 6th cousin.  We seem to be distant relations.  The person has figured out what line he is related too though.  I wish him luck in discovering is biological parents.

Many people don't have their family tree connected to their DNA.  Without that information, who knows how we might be related.  Also, those people who choose to just put initials like "J.R." truly aren't looking for their ancestors if you ask me.  That person has no tree attached to their DNA.

The Ancestry.com DNA section also has a Beta out there called DNA Circles.  Again, this is kind of nice to know but in some cases in duplicates information even within the DNA Circles.  It also does not really tell me anything that I didn't already know about my ancestors from the Irish Settlement in upstate New York.

Ancestry DNA is interesting.  I do think people should participate in this database.  Until the database has a good collection of people's DNA, it will continue to have "emerging" results.  I'm waiting for more.





  

Monday, March 27, 2017

MYOG Blog Post

Over a year ago, I decided to suspend and save, for private viewing only, all of my blog posts pertaining to my direct line ancestors.  I was tired of spam comments to the posts while receiving only a few comments at a time where there was a real connection to my family tree.  Now, after a year or so, I have re-posted all my blog posts, except Flanagan posts, with the original post dates.

The index is mostly updated too with the exception of some broken links and posts that were never indexed.  I will be working to get broken hyperlinks fixed and complete the index in the near future.  In the meantime, I hope that readers find some of my posts interesting and that relatives near and distant find what they might be looking for.  Give me a shout out in comments if you enjoyed any posts or found a connection.

Cheers!

Monday, March 20, 2017

Some Posts Back Up!


Today I worked a bit on getting some of my blog posts back up.  I have more to go but a lot of posts up to March 2011 are now back online.  The following will be again soon: