Jill's Genealogy Journey

Stories, Discoveries & Tips

Discoveries

AncestryDNA Results

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AncestryDNA has improved and I have finally taken the plunge! I also did this AncestryDNA Tour and learned some things.

First, it made me really think about the ranges. At first, I thought it was just an estimate of confidence, but it is actually the range of answers they got for me running the data through the system 1000 times. Wow. (Read more here.)

And it varies a lot. Here are my top four according to them:

  • 25% Finland (19-26%) – range is 7 and what they assigned me is at the high end
  • 18% Norway (0-19%) – range is 19 and what they assigned me is at the high end
  • 16% England & NW Europe (0-42%) – range is 42! and what they assigned me is at the low end
  • 14% Germanic Europe (0-26%) – range is 26 and what they assigned me is in the middle

It is interesting to look at how this compares to what I would expect from my paper research:

  • 25% Finland – right on
  • 12.5% Norway – AncestryDNA is a little higher
  • 12.5% Germanic Europe – close (this is really half Dutch and half German, but DNA results are not quite that detailed yet)
  • 12.5% French – AncestryDNA is low (they assigned 4% with the range 0-16)

I am very interested to see if that changes as things develop with the technology and reference populations. Or maybe I really did not inherit much French DNA. It is random after all.

Second, I also saw my great-grandparents differently. This became clear to me in a way it had not before:

  • William Laitala was fully Finnish
  • Katri Kemppainen was fully Finnish
  • Pete Fjerstad was fully Norwegian
  • Renie Middendorp was fully Germanic
  • Melena LaBlanc was fully French Canadian

The other three great-grandparents are a mixture of British, which is slowly becoming a bit more clear. I used to think that was all English. However, it is looking like the Holman line came from Wales and the Atchinson line came from Scotland. And now I see that Mabel Vipond’s mother’s line is the one I know the least about, so that it is on my list to tackle soon.

Cousins in nearly every state!

Next fun thing . . . I have cousins in nearly every state! Of course, many of these people are 4th cousins and I do not know them, but it is great to feel connected to people all over.

Most importantly, I do have many matches in here where I can see how we are related, including 1st cousins once removed, 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins and there is even a half third cousin! Hopefully, I will connect with someone who has information I am missing and share information they are missing.

Solomon Holman and Y-DNA

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It looks like Solomon Holman is our ancestor and my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. The evidence is not ideal, but here is where we are . . .

We have been able to document back to Charles Holman for a long time: https://jillholman.com/genealogy/holman-timeline-for-four-generations/

But then we had a brick wall for decades.

Then a few years ago, I noticed that cousins were starting to claim Solomon Holman, born in 1671, as our ancestor, but they didn’t seem to have much evidence.

In the Holmans in America book, we can trace down from Solomon Holman to Abel Holman. (Also, be sure to check out the pictures of the Holman farm in West Newbury MA on page 2 and the pictures of the gravestones on page 4.)

The tricky bit is connecting Charles to Abel. We cannot find a birth record for Charles, nor his brother James, and the census only named head of household back then. To make matters worse, Abel died young, at 40.

One clue is his wife Louise, who married Silas Baldwin after Abel died. Then a Baldwin ends up with Charles’ brother James in Kossuth, Iowa in the 1870 census. Technically, it says a male, aged 75, who was born in Vermont. Was this Louise and they made a mistake in the census or another Baldwin? Silas did have a brother named Lewis, though the dates don’t quite match up there either.

Next, note that the Abel linked to Charles at Findagrave appears to be wrong: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/66277843/charles-thomas-holman

Yes, to to make this even more complicated, there were two Abel Holmans born in 1791!

  • One Abel was born to Samuel and Sarah in VT. He married Nancy and then later Electa. He lived for many years in New York and died in 1861. He did not have a son named Charles, nor James. Learn about him over here.
  • Our Abel is the one born to Francis and Sarah in MA. He ended up in VT. There is a probate record for him in 1832.

One more thing you might notice if you trace through the Holmans in America book: Francis Holman married Sarah Holman. Yes, her name was Holman before she married a Holman and they were first cousins. I could not get the software to cooperate, but in this chart, there should be a line from Sarah to her parents, Solomon and Sarah, and then there should be a line from Solomon to John and Judith:

Paternal Ancestors

One last bit of evidence – recently, I connected with a distant cousin where we were the only Y-DNA match at the 111 marker level . She feels confident she can trace back to Solomon Holman with many generations in the Holmans in America book.

Combining the DNA results with the clues from paper research, it seems likely that Solomon Holman is our ancestor.

P.S. Check out two versions of Solomon’s origin story:

1 – The Holman family migrated from Wales to the Bermuda Islands between 1670 and 1690. It included three sons, born in Wales. Two of the sons, Solomon and John, were seized by a press-gang and brought to Newburyport. There they succeeded in escaping from the British ship.

John, the younger, settled in North Carolina. Solomon settled in Newbury ; married a Miss Mary Barton of Old York. (Benedict)

2 – Solomon Holman, was one of the early settlers in the west parish of Newbury. He was born in England, served seven years on board of a man of war, ran away in Bermuda, when sent after milk, secreted himself in the barn till the vessel sailed, and lived by milking the cows. He was discovered by the owner of the barn, who befriended him, and gave him employment. He afterward married his employer’s daughter Mary, came to Newbury, built him a barn, and then a log house, on land of which he bought thirteen acres for a fat heifer. The land is now owned by Mr. Jonathan Ilsley, from whom I obtained this account. Mr. Holman died May seventh, 1753, in his eighty-second year. (Coffin)

Resources

Ethnicity Percentages

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Have you been attracted to those glossy ads to find out who you are by doing a genealogy DNA test?

Roberta Estes wrote this interesting article where she figured out her estimated ethnicity percentages from her traditional genealogy research and then compared them to results from several genetic genealogy vendors: Concepts – Calculating Ethnicity Percentages.

I was inspired to play with this idea myself, though I simplified things a bit. For example, I have only used one testing company. I took my 16 great-great grandparents and what I know about where they were born and their heritage (based on decades of traditional genealogy research) and estimated ethnicity percentages. I tallied my parents separately to make a clean comparison since I tested them separately and put them on the left side of the table. Then I put the ethnicity percentages from the Family Finder test from FamilyTreeDNA in to my table on the right side.
Compares percentages from research and dna test

Discussion of Results

What Came Through as Expected (or close to expected)

  • Mom is 50% Finnish through both methods.
  • Family Finder reports 44% West & Central Europe compared to my estimate of 50% when I combine French, German and Dutch for Mom.
  • For Dad, we see Family Finder’s 75% British Isles matching with my 75% for English.

What was Unexpected

  1. Family Finder’s Scandinavian at 8% seems very low. (And is funny since Estes had a strangely high Scandinavian percentage.) Relatedly, the Eastern European at 16% seems too high. My 25% Norwegian estimate is pretty solid. I have connected with a cousin in Norway who has done research. The ancestors seem quite Norwegian at least back to my great-great-great-great-great grandparents. And 16% would be roughly 1 great-grandparent or two great-great-grandparents who were half East European or a bunch of ancestors further back. There are no family stories about someone coming from East Europe.
  2. Family Finder reports 3% Southeast Europe, which is news to me, but Estes talks about how Germans tend to be 30% Mediterranean, so the 3% Southeast Europe here is plausible.
  3. The trace amounts could be noise or something from very far back. We may never know.

As Estes says:

“The science just isn’t there yet for answers at the level most people seek.”
“Ethnicity estimates are not a short cut to or a replacement for discovering who you are based on sound genealogical research.”

I agree with Estes. Most people want more detail than “West and Central Europe” or “British Isles” or “Scandinavia.” Traditional genealogy research is still important in order to understand our heritage.

Marie Marguerie and mtDNA

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This discovery is a great example of how genetic genealogy can help with our research. I had done traditional paper research on my maternal line back to Marie Louise Desmarais, born in 1716, using birth certificates, parish registers and the Loiselle and Drouin marriage indexes. The maternal line is your mother’s mother’s mother’s line and can be difficult to research because of all those name changes.

A dna test can help you get in touch with cousins who have information you don’t have and that is what happened here. Taking the mtDNA test, I found others with the W3a2 haplogroup and they had done the research between Marie Marguerie and Marie Louise’s daughter, so we overlapped two generations. I love it when the paper research and dna results sync up!

Matrilineal Ancestors

In addition, Marie Marguerie is very interesting. She is my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. She immigrated to Quebec in about 1640 and it was tough going in those early days in New France. Her brother, first husband and son were legends – key figures in the fur trade and in relations between the early settlers and the first nations tribes. Marie Marguerie has hundreds of thousands of descendants in the United States and Canada. Mark Wade has gathered a lot of information about her descendants and her life. Also, she lived to be 80, which is impressive. Back then, the average life expectancy was about 35 years.

I am also intrigued that Marie’s daughter was named Gertrude, which is also my grandmother’s name. I think this is a coincidence. I don’t believe my great-grandparents knew about our family history. I still like it though! Gertrude, back in early Quebec, lived to be 78. Her husband also knew several languages of the first nations tribes and was a fur trader.

Genetic genealogy, especially mtDNA, can also give you an idea about your ancient ancestors . . .

Have you heard of the book The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes?

First, the bad news . . . if you find you are a member of the W haplogroup and you were excited to learn which of Eve’s seven daughters is your ancestor, prepare for disappointment. There is a low percent of Haplogroup W in the world and it is not one of the seven daughters of Eve.
However, there is some information available for the W line and here is a rough sketch of the key points from Mark Wade’s current hypothesis for the W timeline:

  • 151,600-233,600 years ago – Mitochondrial Eve in Africa
  • 130,000-200,000 – L haplogroups in Africa
  • 56,000-87,000 – N haplogroups in the Near East
  • 17,000-29,000 years ago – First W in India/Pakistan
  • 14,000 years ago – First W3 in India
  • 13,000 years ago – First W3a in India
  • 6000-12,000 years ago – First W3a2 between Caspian and Aral Seas
  • One branch ends up in Rouen, France
  • About 1640 – Marie Marguerie migrates to Quebec and all of the W3a2 “French W” descendants in North America seem to trace their ancestry back to her.

The original website is gone, but you can see Mark Wade’s work in the Internet Archive:

More Resources

Mayflower Ancestors

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Funny story . . . I discovered I have a Mayflower ancestor last Thanksgiving. Yes, on the holiday where we think about the Pilgrims and the Indians, I discovered I have a Pilgrim ancestor. I sure wish I had known when I visited the Plymouth area years ago! I have to admit I am kind of excited about this discovery. There are lots of descendants of the approximately 217,000 Revolutionary War soldiers, but there were only 102 Mayflower passengers and about half of them died the first winter.

While checking sources, I discovered another Pilgrim ancestor! A married couple, Samuel Washburn and Abigail Leonard each had a Mayflower ancestor. Here is what we know about the ancestors of Samuel Washburn and Abigail Leonard. Some dates are approximate and calculated. Most of this information is from the Mayflower Families through Five Generations volumes 12 and 15.

The Ancestors of Samuel Washburn and Abigail Leonard

I will go into more detail on the Washburns in an upcoming post, but for now let’s talk a bit about the Mayflower passengers, especially Francis Cooke and James Chilton, both signers of the Mayflower Compact.

There is some great description about the ship and the journey here. Over two months on a small ship under bad conditions! They got off course from where they were supposed to settle and there was some disagreement between the Puritans and non-separatist Pilgrims.
They wrote the Mayflower Compact to govern themselves and this was the first written framework of government established in what is now the United States. Many people believe the Mayflower Compact influenced the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

The Mayflower Compact by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863–1930)
The Mayflower Compact by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863–1930)

Francis Cooke

Francis Cooke was my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. He had been a woolcomber in England, then he was in Leiden for a bit and then ended up on the Mayflower in 1620 with son John. He made it through that hard first winter and lived many more years, until 1663. Wife Hester and the other children came on the Anne in 1623.

James Chilton

James Chilton was also my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. He may connect back to Robert Chilton who was a representative from Canterbury to Parliment in 1339 – I would love to find out more about that! James was born around 1556 in Canterbury England. He was a tailor and spent time in Leiden. Rocks were thrown at him and his daughter. He came over on the Mayflower in 1620 with his wife and daughter Mary. He died in Cape Cod during that first infection and his wife died soon after. Poor daughter Mary! Only 13 years old and an orphan in a strange land. Another daughter, Isabella, came to Plymouth 1629 or 1630.

Resources

William Laitala’s Ancestors

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As you may have seen from our earlier Laitala post, we had a mystery about William Laitala. Who were his parents? We had a few bits of information, but nothing that tied everything together:

  • Alina, who we thought might be William’s sister, named her parents in a Social Security record: Johan Laitala and Anna M Wiitanen. Are these William’s parents?
  • There is a fragment left from the very damaged parish book dated 1879 from Haapavesi showing Johan Laitala and Anna Marie Wiitanen and their children: Abel, Johan, Herman, Abraim, Anna Maria and Wilhelm. Is this our William? (By the way, we are so lucky the fragment survived! I had been told that no records were available due to a fire. Yippee! It is also an interesting story how this fragment came to our attention. A nice lady in Finland contacted a cousin and shared it with her and then she shared it with us.)

So my clever and persistent mother spent some quality time with the Finnish parish books, searching for a later record of the family. She looked at all the parishes surrounding Haapavesi too in case the family moved around. Nothing. (She had previously found records in the Hiski database showing Juho and Anna Laitala as godparents several times in the parish of Vihanti, between 1885-1895.)

Then she found the cousin had a notation saying that Sakri Juntilla, Alina’s husband, came to Chisholm to meet William Laitala, brother-in-law. Where did this come from?

It took a bit of looking around and then – Aha! The Ellis Island records!

So now we feel confident that this all ties together. William and Alina were siblings. We know their parents names. William was born in Jan 1878 in Haapavesi, Finland. (There are discrepancies on the exact date, but we’re sure of January.) Of his older siblings, we think only Abel and Abraim came to Minnesota, the others remained in Finland. We also think there were two younger brothers, Matti and Antti, who also came to Minnesota. And, of course, Alina Laitala Juntilla, the youngest sister, came to Chisholm with her daughter to join her husband.

So I couldn’t stop there! Then I stitched together these ancestors for William from the Hiski database and the parish pages. This could have errors, but it is a good start for further research.

The Ancestors of William Laitala
The Ancestors of William Laitala

Look at all the interesting things going on with the Finnish names!:

  • Laitala was likely a farm name because it ends with -la
  • Soininen changed to Witanen (Soininen might be an old style family surname)
  • There is some Swedish and some Finnish
  • We are going back far enough that we see the old fashioned “son of Juho”

More info here: