Great Video on DNA from Ancestry.com

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Today, I invested 26 minutes in watching a video presentation by Crista Cowan from Ancestry.com on using DNA to hunt for family connections. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loR7dN1Qm9g&t=6s

The title of the video, which was published two weeks ago, is “AncestryDNA: You Won’t Match Everyone You Are Related To“. The title caught my eye because it represented exactly what I needed to understand when we share DNA with cousins and when we don’t. The upshot is that you may have to look at a lot of tests to find the DNA connections you are seeking, especially when that sought-after connection is several generations back. Finding cousins with shared DNA is the key to finding such connections.

AncestryDNA holds out the strongest possibility of doing just that because the service has the largest database of DNA test results in the world (8 million tests and counting).

After watching the video, I posted this comment for Crista, which outlines my main project and a secondary one:

Thanks, Crista, for this presentation. I understand much better what I need to do to possibly break down the brick wall of my wife’s paternal 3 great grandfather’s unknown parents. We both have tested with AncestryDNA.

Also, I am going to dig deeper into our shared DNA results because the paper trail shows that we are sixth cousins 1 removed. It may be a stretch to expect to prove this with DNA, but I will be looking. Wally Huskonen

Newspaper Find from 50 Years Ago

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Today I was searching in NewspaperArchive.com for any “hits” on Huskonen. I found plenty of them starting in about 1995. I was trying to go back to earlier times, specifically to see if I could find any newspaper articles about my father Walfrid H. Huskonen.

What I did find though was an interesting “hit” in a 2004 edition of the Ashtabula Star Beacon. It detailed how Walfrid Huskonen won a Superior Rating for his performance in a solo competition on clarinet representing Andover High School. The event was held at Warren Howland High School. The article further identified his instructor as being Urho Seppelin.

How could this be reported in an edition of the newspaper dated Sunday, May 9, 2004? Walfrid Einar Huskonen is my younger brother but he graduated from high school many decades ago.

Silly me! I took a closer look at the top of the page with this report and found the subhead “50 Years Ago …” The newspaper was presenting a collection of news items from 1954. Now it all made sense.

My brother obviously was better at performing with the clarinet than I was because I never even considered entering a solo competition. I must admit that I was unaware that he was so accomplished. Let me point out that I was away at college at the time of his achievement.

One other interesting fact was the identity of Walfrid’s band leader: Urho Seppelin. He was a distant cousin, a fact that I only learned in recent years while researching an uncle by marriage, Waino Seppelin. I do remember that Urho did play the clarinet very well indeed.

I’ll close by wishing my brother belated congratulations!

Dick Eastman Offers Price Reductions on MyHeritage.com and MyHeritageDNA

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Bright and early this morning, Dick Eastman sent out an email with two amazing offers involving MyHeritage.com and MyHeritageDNA. He did not post this to his Eastman Online Genealogy Newsletter blog.

To find out how you can order a reduced price for a subscription to MyHeritage.com and to test your DNA with MyHeritageDNA, go here.

The reduced price for MyHeritage.com is offered only by Dick Eastman, and the offer expires on November 6, so if you are interested, don’t delay.

You have more time to consider the reduced price for testing your DNA with MyHeritageDNA. Apparently, the price of $59 has been rolled out for a Thanksgiving promotion. Maybe you want to have other family members tested too.

Details of both offerings are available at the same clickable link above.

If you would like to sign up for your own free subscription to Dick’s blog, go here and scroll to find the signup form. You also have the option of signing up for his plus newsletter in which he provides premium content.

The Mystery of Hiram Oliver Dingman

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What happened to Hiram Oliver Dingman, my great uncle born in Sandy Creek Township, Mercer County, Pennsylvania? Using Ancestry.com (which I used for most the the research described herein), he is easy to track through 1860 when he was 12 years old, living in the household of his father, Nelson Dingman, in Salem Township, Mercer County, along with his mother, Jane, and siblings Mary Ann, Andrew S (my great grandfather), Emily, and Sanford W.

After that, there is no evidence of Hiram Oliver in census or other records until 1930.

Nancy L Machcinski sent me an email in 199? stating that she believed that we were related. Her great- great grandfather went by the name of Benjamin Franklin Keller, but he named all his kids with the middle initial D. Also, in biographical history book history, he was quoted as saying he and his relatives were from Mercer County, Pennsylvania.

One example of this naming convention was his daughter Amy Viola D Keller.

Here is how Nancy described the discovering of a probable name change for Hiram Oliver Dingman:

Benjamin F. Keller turned out to be an alias name. He was in the Oklahoma Land Rush and an article was written about him in a book published in 1901 by the Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, with the title Portrait and Biographical Record of Oklahoma. My brother, Edward F. Blick, a retired professor from the University of Oklahoma, who lives in Norman, OK found the article in the college library. Benjamin F. Keller was really Hiram Oliver Dingman, born Jan. 1848 in Mercer Co. Pa. and is buried at Highland Cemetery, Ft. Mitchell, Ky.–Nancy L. Blick Machcinski

The following is what I have found for Hiram/Benjamin:

Hiram Oliver Dingman, as Benjamin Franklin Keller, married Phianna Condo Hunter in Lawrence, Kansas, on 5 Jun 1884. He was 36 years of age and Phianna was 30.

The 1860 census shows that Phianna was living in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania and that she was born in that state. Her father Joseph Hunter died of consumption in June 1860, according to the mortality schedule for that year. Apparently, her mother, Jane, moved right away to Kansas City with Phianna and another daughter Clara, for they are enumerated in the 1860 census for Kansas City. The census suggests that Jane was married to Silas Case. Phianna was enumerated in Lawrence, Kansas, in the 1870 and 1880 censuses.

Benjamin and Phianna are living in Florida in 1885 according to a state census for that year. The census shows them living in Orange County and lists his occupation as “carpenter.” There were no children in the household.

By 1890, the couple was living in Township 16, Logan County, Oklahoma. A list of homesteaders in Logan County in 1892 has him living on property designated as N E 13 16 3 W. In 1898, at age 50, Benjamin Keller (aka Hiram) was living on the same property further identified as being served by the Guthrie Post Office

The 1900 Federal Census lists Benjamin Keller (aka Hiram) as living in Iron Mound Township, Oklahoma, in 1900.

Benjamin (aka Hiram) and Phianna C Hunter were divorced in 1902 after 18 years of marriage. He was 54 years old.

Phianna was married two more times before her death in Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma on 21 Nov 1921.

In the 1910 census, at age 62, Benjamin Keller (aka Hiram) is living with his son Clarence, age 15, in Iron Mound Township, Oklahoma. Benjamin is listed as a farmer, and Clarence is a farm laborer.

Sometime before 1930, he apparently resumed using his birth name of Hiram Oliver Dingman. In the 1930 Census, he was living in the Kenton County Infirmary in Covington, Kentucky at age 83. According to a 1931 directory, was a resident there.

Hiram’s Kentucky death certificate states that H. O. Dingman died at the infirmary on 18 Feb 1934 at age 86. It further states that he was born in Greenville, Mercer County, Pennsylvania and that his father was Nelson Dingman. He was buried on 21 Feb 1934 in Highland Cemetery in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, which is near Covington. There is no marker on his grave (see Find A Grave entry), and the informant listed on his death certificate does not appear to be a relative.

How sad.

Have You Had Your Flu Shot?

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If you attend genealogical conferences, you will often hear presenters urge their audiences to study social history to learn about the life and times of their ancestors and collateral relatives.

As we enter the 2017 “flu season” we are being deluged by television ads for quick and easy ways to get our flu shots.

Smithsonian, the monthly magazine of the Smithsonian Institution, features on the cover of its November issue the following headline: 1918-2018, The Next Pandemic. Inside the devastating influenza outbreak 100 years ago–and how scientists are trying to stop it from happening again.

The lead article in a package of three on the 1918 pandemic is “Journal of the Plague Year. 1918 Outbreak,” by John M. Berry. According to Wikipedia, His 2004 book The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Greatest Plague in History was a New York Times Best Seller, and won the 2005 Keck Communication Award from the United States National Academies of Science for the year’s outstanding book on science or medicine.

In that book, Berry posits that the 1918 pandemic began in Haskell County, Kansas, and quickly spread to Camp Funston, a U.S. Army training base in central Kansas. From there, it spread to other Army bases to the extent that 24 out of 36 bases at the time has serious–and deadly–outbreaks of influenza.

Some statistics from the article: Number of infected in the U.S.: 25.8 million; number of deaths: 670,000; percent of flu deaths age 6 or under: 20; life expectancy decrease: 12 years; and (shockingly to me) percent of U.S. military deaths in WWI caused by flu: 50.

Barry’s 10-page article gives a lot more detail about why the pandemic spread as it did among military personnel and the civilian population.

Two more articles are included in the “flu package”: “Animal Vector, The Birth of a Killer” and “The New Counterattack: How to Stop a Lethal Virus.”

If you read all three articles, you will have a good dose of social history, both for 1918 and going into 2018.

I have studied and blogged about the WWI history of two relatives; one being fortunate enough to escape any illness from flu while the other succumbed. Frank Morley Green came through his Army training unscathed but Albert C. “Bert” Butcher did not. You can click on the links to read those posts. I also blogged about the Flu Pandemic in an even earlier post.

One final point: Yes, I have had my 2017 flu shot. I have have been diligent in getting them each year for the last half dozen or so, and they have helped me stave off any flu illness.

Ohio Veterans Grave Registration Database Now on Ancestry.com

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Ancestry.com recently added the collection Ohio, Soldier Grave Registrations, 1804-1958. The original data comes from the Graves Registration Cards Collection, Ohio History Connection, Columbus, Ohio. Ohio History Connection is the current name for what used to be known as the Ohio Historical Society.

This database contains grave registration cards for soldiers from Ohio who served in the armed forces, mainly from the time of the War of 1812 up through the 1950s. Information that may be found on the original records includes:

Soldier’s Name
Residence
Death Date
Cause of Death
Date of Burial
Name and Location of Cemetery
Date of Birth
Place of Birth
Next of Kin

Records could also contain military service information, which may include:
Branch of Service
Wars Served in
Enlistment Date
Discharge Date
Rank
Company

After checking this database for veterans among my ancestors and collateral relatives who I know were buried in Ohio, I would say that this new online collection is far from complete. It certainly is not up to the scope of a similar database,  Pennsylvania, Veterans Burial Cards, 1777-2012, which is also available on Ancestry.com.

Also, what you see on Ancestry.com is only the index. If you want to see the card referenced in an index entry, you have to have a subscription to Fold3.com.

Why We Need to Include a Country Name with Genealogical Locations

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One of the effects of using online genealogical databases in our research is that we need to enter a country name to completely identify each family history location.

Back in the day before online databases, American researchers just assumed that readers of their research reports about American ancestors would know that a location reference was to a place in America if there was no other country mentioned. Writing down the community (city, village, township, or populated place—if known), county, and state was considered to be adequate to identify a location.

This became clear to me today when I went to enter the death location to search on Ancestry.com for a record for my first cousin once removed: Frank Morley Green. He died in Andover in Ashtabula County in Ohio. As I entered Andover in the Death search field, Ancestry provided me with a drop-down selection of Andovers in its databases.

It included Andover, Anoka, Minnesota; Andover, Tolland, Connecticut; Andover, Windsor, Vermont; and Andover, Wise, Virginia, all followed by the country designation USA. Following that were two other suggested locations: Andover, Hempshire, England, and Andover, Tasmania, Australia. The last two entries obviously indicate the breadth and depth of Ancestry.com’s database coverage.

But, boo hoo, no Andover, Ashtabula, Ohio, USA, so I had to continue my typing to complete Frank’s Death location.

Incidentally, Ancestry.com does accept USA as appropriate to designate the United States of America. Some other database providers seem to prefer spelling out United States of America, which I believe is unnecessary.

Brother of Detective Was Named Evert

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I just finished reading The Dying Detective, by Swedish crime writer Leif G.W. Persson  (translated by Neil Smith into British English).

This novel is a police procedural without much dramatic action–a subset of crime fiction that I actually prefer. The story required 454 pages from start to finish, but I found that it went quickly.

It is set in Sweden in and around the capital city of Stockholm. There also are many place names farther afield–and I recognized some of them from two business trips to Sweden during my trade magazine editing days decades ago.

There was another thing that stood out: The detective’s brother was named Evert. That was the name of my grandfather who emigrated from Finland to America in 1902. It was quite a surprise when I first encountered the brother’s name, as it is not very common.

Another surprising thing: The main character, Lars Martin Johansson, asks for help from a friend who has taken up the hobby of genealogy. Can you believe that? The friend tracks down some relevant family history connections that help enable Lars to finally deduce who perpetrated the murder in the cold case that he was investigating.

One final thing: Finnish surnames popped up from time to time in the book for minor characters living and working in Sweden. The one I can recall most clearly was Niemi, which is a popular surname in Finland. FYI, it translates into “peninsula” in English according to Google Translate.

Persson even manages to work in a mention of Lisbeth Salander, a key character in the crime novels by Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson (1954-2004). Her most famous role was as the main character in the book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the movie of the same name.

 

Small World Dept: Meeting Up with a Cousin

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Last evening, I presented a program, “Some Experiences with Finnish Genealogy,” at the Geneva (Ohio) Public Library. Among the attendees were James Siekkinen and his wife Nancy. Jim is my first cousin once removed and they live in Ashtabula, Ohio.

In reminiscing after my presentation, he said he remembered visiting our house in Andover, Ohio, as a child, traveling with his father from Ashtabula. He remembered a man in a wheelchair. That, of course, would have been my father, Walfrid, who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis.

I, in turn, remarked about how our family was impressed with how his mother, my Aunt Mary, kept her house spotlessly clean with everything in its place. And she always had lots of flowers.

Jim then mentioned that his mother or his Aunt Edith (he couldn’t recall which) gave him some old records that looked like passports. They were in Russian, he thought, and nobody could read them, so he passed them on to a representative of the Finnish American Heritage Association, which has a museum in Ashtabula.

Needless to say, I am going to ask if I can see those records to try to understand what they are and who they are about. They might represent some more information to our family story.

Stay tuned.

Why I Joined NYG&B Society

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While attending the Federation of Genealogical Societies annual conference in Pittsburgh just before Labor Day, I joined the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. I have many ancestors who lived in New York state and I aim to bear down on learning more about their lives and times.

Here are some of the benefits of belonging to NYG&B for anyone having ancestors who lived in New York:

  • The New York Knowledge Base containing hundreds of articles and in-depth research aids covering a variety of topics related to New York research. Items within the Knowledge Base are also linked to other parts of the NYG&B’s website, allowing you to easily find blog posts, online records, and other articles related to any topic.
  • Live webinars and onsite events featuring renowned New York genealogists. Visit the complete calendar of events or register for an upcoming webinar.
  • A growing library of recorded webinars and other tools ensures you are just a few clicks away from learning from New York’s experts on a variety of topics – including New York’s canal system, immigration, and tracing families overseas.
  • The NYG&B blog which discussed the latest New York family history news and insightful articles.
  • The NYG&B store which offers a variety of helpful products and other services to assist you in your research.
  • Social networking at nyfamilyhistory on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram
  • Connecting with a community of fellow members with the NYG&B Members Forum, to share questions and advice with other researchers.