Crucianize

Tag: Genealogy

  • Ancestry Pro Tools

    Ancestry Pro Tools

    Ancestry has really been on my last nerves for a while now. They did an update a while back where you can’t view your DNA relatives in common with someone or view their tree unless you have an active subscription, and I find that move left a sour taste in my mouth. Even without a subscription, I could separate my DNA relatives into groups to figure out how they are related to me. But it gets even worse – groups, even my custom groups that I had created over many years, are now paywalled. I swore that I wouldn’t pay for Pro Tools, swore that I would not pay for another subscription, but Ancestry kept enticing me with $1 subscriptions, and I cave every single time.

    In June, I decided that I would take the bullet and pay for Pro Tools. I parted with my €11.25 very reluctantly. Oh, I was punching the air and saying if it wasn’t worth it, I would be so mad. I’m even more pissed off that it has proved very useful. The one feature that I bought this subscription for was the Advanced matching. Basically, it does what 23andme and MyHeritage both do; it shows you the cM your DNA match shares with your matches in common and how they are possibly related to those matches. Angry, I am so angry because it immediately proved that my theory about a half-second cousin was correct. I had guessed at the connection to our shared DNA matches, but I really did not know how much DNA she would share with our shared matches, and now I know.

    I actually wrote a post about this match and how I went about proving that she was a half-second cousin. I just have the information about how much DNA she shares with my known half-second cousin 2x removed.

    Here’s the post if you haven’t read it: Detective Lynnette and the Case of the Mysterious DNA Relative

    I want to say I don’t know if I will renew, but I am still undecided because I have not done everything I wished I could do with this new tool, and I will no doubt continue to get more DNA relatives and I’ll need to figure out how they are related to my other matches. I will probably stagger my subscription because I cannot pay for this every single month.

  • Finding Sarah Holm

    Finding Sarah Holm

    If there is one ancestor who has evaded all my research skills it is my 2x great grandmother Sarah Holm, the amount of evidence !i have that Sarah did exist is very minimal, five pieces of primary records, I have tried to look forward but couldn’t find her in any record after 1920, I have tried going backwards but hit a brick wall in 1908.

    She is truly one of the most elusive people I have had to research and I can’t help but ponder, just  who are you Sarah? Were you hiding from someone or just didn’t know your correct age?

    Let’s go over everything I currently have, starting with the 1908 baptism record of my great uncle Harold Olanzo Smith. Harold was born on November 14, 1908 to Michael Smith of Tortola, British Virgin Islands and Sarah Holm of St. Thomas, Danish West Indies. Michael was 38 while Sarah was 33 at the time of Harold’s birth.

    Harold Smith’s baptism line 286

    1911 Census

    In 1911, Sarah lived in Mandenberg which was located in New Quarter on St. Thomas, she was 35 years old and worked as a Coal Worker and had two children, Harold 2 years old and another child identified as a boy with no age given.

    Sarah and children located on the bottom

    In 1914, Sarah gave birth to my great grandfather Alfredo Alexander Boyles also known as Alfredo Pedrito Boynes. Alfredo was born on May 26, 1914 to Joseph Alexander Boyles and Sarah Holm, Joseph was 45 years old and Sarah was 35, here is where the age discrepancies begin, in 1911 Sarah was 35, there is no way she was still 35 a whole 3 years later.

    Alfredo Boyles’ baptism line 46

    Sarah gave birth to my last great aunt in 1916. On November 12, 19166, Sarah and Joseph had another child, the baptism record lists the child as being male and named Arthur but on the left hand side there is a remark about the child actually being female. Joseph was 42 years old and Sarah was till 35 years old. Even more interesting Agatha later on gave her birth date as January 14, 1917 which was the date she was baptized.

    Agatha Boyles’ baptism line 2

    The last piece of primary source I could find, the 1920 Census, fun fact the 1920 Census was actually taken in 1917 up to 1918 so the dates are almost always wrong, sometimes I come across people with the right birth year but it’s mostly off by two years. In 1920, Sarah was living in Altona, which was located on the Southern East section of the island. She was 40 years old and living with three children, Mary J Griffith 11 years old, Agatha Boyles 1 years old, and Alfredo Boyles 3 years old. I’m not sure where Harold was at this time.

    Sarah and children located on the bottom

    An interesting piece of information I came across recently gave me some more clue to who Sarah might have been, this piece of information was an interview Mary Jane did when she was 99 years old. On October 9, 2004, In an interview with the St. Thomas Source, Mary Jane spoke about her life, how she met her husband and what she remembered of the day the islands were sold to the United States. She spoke about how her father was a carpenter, her mother grew vegetables to sell, Mary Jane states that she was the oldest of four children and was born on May 10, 1905 in Park Yard. I have not been able to find any baptism records to confirm this date nor do I have any clue as to where Park Yard might have been on St. Thomas.

    I’m afraid the only way I will get any answers is through DNA but Mary Jane had no children, I’m uncertain if Agatha had children, none of my known cousins on my grandmother’s side of the family has tested and none show any signs of being interested. I have one grandchild of Harold’s but there are very few connections, it did lead me to the grandchild of my grandmother’s half sister which also lead me to the NPE I discovered and posted about before Detective Lynnette and the Case of the Mysterious DNA Relative, this mystery cousin has a few relatives in common but I have not been able to make any connections between her tree and the other matches, if I could find a match betwen thm then I can find the connection to me as well.

    I guess I will be back to looking through my DNA relatives, those of my brother and those of my father as well.

  • My 2022 Recap

    My 2022 Recap

    As I was writing this post I realized that I’ve had a very busy year! I tested so many new products, had some nice breakthroughs in my genealogy journey, and had some new life experiences.

    Like every year I contemplate whether or not I should continue this blog, the cost of hosting my own blog has been weighing heavily on my mind, if I go back to a blog that’s hosted by a company I risk losing all the freedom of creating my own space but I won’t have to worry about the cost but then again I also won’t have my own domain name.

    Why am I blogging though? Why do I stress myself about writing posts that many people won’t even find interesting? For those that will, I guess, do I abandon those who do enjoy hearing my thoughts and following my blog? I think maybe not, at least not at this point.

    I have added all the posts I did this year in Chronological order with links to them so it will be easier to find if any of them pique your interest.

    January :

    New VitaMalt Coconut & Hibiscus

    February :

    Getting Started with Genealogy

    Cadeau de Noël pour moi- E.L.F. Cosmetics

    Glossybox – J’ai tenté ma chance

    23andMe – New African Groups Added to Ancestry Composition

    March :

    Breaking a 16-year brick wall – George Petersen

    April :

    Creme of Nature Butter Blend & Flaxseed line

    My Ancestry DNA Results

    MiYé Gel Intime – Mon expérience

    Family Hidden in Plain View

    New Ancestry DNA Update plus SideView

    May :

    New Expert Nutri-frizz by Franck Provost

    New Hydralin Voxbox

    Influenster – Comment utiliseur ce site

    Ma routine avec L’Oréal Professional Curl Expression

    June :

    The time I bought myself a Kindle and immediately lost it

    Is knowing your Maternal Haplogroup helpful?

    July :

    Cultiv Cosmetique : Gummies Beauté Bio

    L’Oréal Paris Elseve Dream Long Curls

    Nivea Sun

    ETC Beauty – Soin Bonne Mine et mon avis

    September :

    Nana Courb V Serviettes

    Back to School 2022 – 2023

    Maybelline Green Edition Balmy Lip Blush

    L’Oréal Color Rich Matte Rouge à Levres

    October :

    My Garden Baby – Chat A Fonctions

    Disney Junior – Fabulous Fashion Collection

    Masque Réparation 4en1 N.A.E

    Sprout World – Kit d’eyeliner et de browliner végétalisables

    Trousse La Provençale Bio – Rituel Belle Mine de Provence

    Agnes Ancita Bastian

    Valentino Rosso Refillable rouge à levres

    Carrefour Beauté – Nectar of Bio

    November :

    Gucci Flora Gorgeous Jasmine parfum

    Ma première campagne de cashback sur Influenster : Ferrero Rocher chocolat

    Detective Lynnette and the Case of the Mysterious DNA Relative

    Gallia Calisma Croissance 3 : Voxbox Influenster

    Love + Be Loved – We Can Be Heroes

    Crashtest Kairly Paris Naturalong Gel Perfect Curl & Mousse Sublim’Curl

    New Nivea Derma Skin Clear Soin Exfoliant

    Klorane Crème Sublimatrice Après-Soleil au Monoï et Tamu BIO

    December :

    Oyanie’s 1st day at Crèche

    Euphytose Nuit Sommeil Réparateur sachets Voxbox

    Bepanthen Derma Crème Nutritive Corps Voxbox

    Coffret Noël Vernis à Ongles Essie

    Looking back at all my posts, October and November were my busiest months both coming in with 8 posts, August was my least productive with no posts, and January and March are tied with both months only having one post.

    I already know next January will be more productive as I have a few products due to arrive either this week or early January, I can’t wait to share with you the new products and adventures I will have.

  • Agnes Ancita Bastian

    Recently I was able to fit a missing piece into my puzzle thanks to a stranger on FamilySearch.

    For so many years I’ve been searching for proof that my great aunt Agnes Bastian was the daughter of Casper and the full sister of Ann Loratia Bastian but that pesky baptism record eluded me for so many years, no matter what combination of names or dates I put in I just could not find that baptism record. That is until I went onto FamilySearch after a little break and saw that someone attached a document to my great aunt, I was intrigued, usually, I am the one finding records and connecting them to other people’s relatives. I wasn’t convinced even if the names sounded similar, I had never heard the middle name Ancita before so I took a closer look at the record, and there it was.

    “Virgin Islands US, Church Records, 1765-2010”, database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6ZF3-9558 : 29 December 2021), Agnes Ancita Bastian, 1918.

    Agnes Ancita Bastian was born on October 21, 1917, and baptized on January 15, 1918, the daughter of Caspar Bastian and Maud Hinds.

    Before this record popped up all I had to go by was the1930, 1940, and some travel records which unfortunately did not give her birthdate just her age and an estimated birth year which said around 1917.

    So now I have confirmed that Agnes and Ann Loratia Bastian; Ann was born on December 24, 1914, and baptized on February 6, 1915, were both the daughters of Casper Bastian.

    St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Slave and Free People Records, 1779-1921, Ancestry.com

    There is an older sister, Esmeralda Bastian who was born on October 29, 1911, according to her baptism record but no father is recorded, given that Ann and Agnes followed after I assumed that Casper was also her father but I have no proof.

    I guess I will just have to continue searching and hope that maybe another kind soul will stumble across it and link it for me again.

  • Is knowing your Maternal Haplogroup helpful?

    It depends.

    In my father’s case, because he was adopted and we don’t know much about his family, matches on the X are pretty helpful for me.

    In my case they aren’t very useful because I have two Xs and any match on my X will need thorough research to figure out which side of the family this match comes from. I inherited an intact X from my father which is a recombination of his mother’s mother and her father. I also got a recombined X from my mother. Let’s take a little look into what this will look like in terms of DNA relatives.

    Matching with my father.

    As you can see, I share 50% DNA with my father including the X.

    We have different Maternal Haplogroups.

    Even though we share an X we don’t have the same Maternal Haplogroups because it is inherited strictly from the mother. My Maternal Haplogroup is L1b which came from my mother, her mother, her mother, and so forth. My father’s Maternal Haplogroup came from his mother.

    Matching with my maternal aunt.

    This match is my maternal aunt and as you can see I share 25% DNA with her including an X, in case you didn’t notice it’s not an intact X because I inherited DNA that my aunt didn’t.

    Sharing the same Maternal Haplogroup.

    Because this is my maternal aunt, the fact that we share the same Maternal Haplogroup tells me that she shares the same mother as my mother. I can also look at the number of cMs we share and 25% indicates a full aunt meaning she shares both parents with my mother.

    Matching with my mother’s first cousin.

    Here’s my match with my mother’s first cousin, we don’t share an X because he inherited his X from his mother and I’m not related to his mother. This tells me that I’m related through his father who was the brother of my grandmother.

    We don’t share the same Maternal Haplogroup.

    The interesting thing about this cousin is the amount of DNA we share. I thought I had just inherited more DNA from my grandmother than I thought but I recently learned that my grandparents were possibly related. I have not found any actual evidence that this is true but like most Islands Dominica is small and it shouldn’t surprise me that there could be some endogamy going on.

    I hope this was helpful in understanding how Maternal Haplogroups can help you in your genealogy research.

  • New Ancestry DNA update plus SideView

    I literally just received my Ancestry results and already they have been updated. If you hadn’t read my post talking about my Ancestry DNA results you can find them here My Ancestry DNA Results!

    Now let’s get into my new percentages and whatnot, but first what is Ancestry SideView?

    Ancestry SideView is simply Ancestry trying to tell you what DNA you inherited and which parent it came from, contrary to what people may have you think it is not the first of its kind, 23andme has done something for quite a while, you can find it in you Parental Inheritance Report and I’ve shared mine in a post before which you can read here Phasing My 23andme With My Father. As far as I can see the only difference is that with SideView you don’t need any parents to test but to me, it seems that might lead to some inaccuracies because I can’t fathom how they can pinpoint from which parent you inherited which gene if neither parent tested. I know this might seem to be biased because I have said again and again that I prefer 23andme to Ancestry but it just doesn’t seem logical to me, I am open to the fact that I might be wrong though.

    Here’s my Ancestry SideView, it really doesn’t seem all that accurate to me, just going off of what I got on 23andme where I am phased with my father, according to 23andme I inherited no French from my mother but Ancestry says I inherited 2%. Someone must be wrong and I’m leaning towards Ancestry being wrong just because my father is there to compare my results with.

    Now here’s my 23andme Parental Inheritance Report. The number here makes perfect sense when compared to my paper trail, I don’t really see how Ancestry arrived at the percentages they did.

    Before I forget here’s my update results from Ancestry. A bit of a shakeup, Nigeria decreased while Benin & Togo increased, Spain is completely gone or they changed it to Basque, Mali decreased, Ivory Coast & Ghane is increased, France increased, England & Northwestern Europe has decreased, I gained Senegal and most of the other changes are minor.

    Here are my results in comparison to my brother’s results, his France is still pretty tiny but it might just boil down to him not inheriting those specific genes.

    Ancestry has a lot of work to do if it wants to impress me, maybe including a chromosome browser or showing me how my DNA relatives are related to each other? 23andme has truly spoiled other tests for me.

  • Family Hidden in Plain View

    Have I just found Christina Chamberlain’s mother?

    That is the question that I am currently asking myself, have I in fact discovered the mother and sibling of Christina Chamberlain right there in a Census document that I have looked at several times before?

    The document in question is the 1870 Danish West Indies Census, here you can see Christina with Ancilla living next to her “father” Ludwick Chamberlain, and in the house above is Catherine “Caty” Simmons. I’ve seen the name Simmons before, in the trees of people who seem to have the same relatives as I do but they haven’t tested or maybe they have and we don’t match? Whatever it is I never ran across them in my brother’s DNA relatives and I have not seen them in mine.

    U.S. Virgin Islands Census, 1835-1911 (Danish Period)

    This record alone isn’t enough to say Hey! That’s her Mama, it was the other records that I found that made this even more compelling, here is Caty and Christina in the 1860 Danish West Indies Census, it lists Christina as her daughter.

    Danish West Indies, Denmark, Census, 1835-1911

    And here in the 1857 Census is Caty with Judy Powlis also known as Judith her other daughter and Judy’s son Carl.

    Danish West Indies Census, 1841-1901

    In the 1850 Census, I found Catherine, Judith, and Christina in the same place. I have not identified the other people yet, possible relatives? Maybe.

    Danish West Indies, Denmark, Census, 1835-1911

  • My Ancestry DNA Results!

    On March 5 I finally sent in my Ancestry DNA kit and anxiously waited on the results. So many things went through my head, but my biggest concern was “what if it failed?”.

    A valid concern since my 23andme test failed the first time, my fears were unfounded this time as my DNA Results were finalized on the 30th.

    It was weird looking at it because I was so used to my 23andme results and looking at my brother’s ancestry results, my own made zero sense to me.

    Lyly’s Ancestry DNA Results

    As a refresher here are my 23andme Results. After going through this process I still prefer 23andme over Ancestry. The only thing Ancestry really has going for it is the family tree attached to it but I’ve gone through all of this before in my post The Reasons why I prefer 23andme over Ancestry DNA.

    Lyly’s 23andme Results

    It’s really interesting watching my results compared to my brother, the differences in the genes we inherited are not only fascinating but it has helped me to verify some lines in our family tree. I have a few DNA relatives that he doesn’t have and they were the links I needed.

    Comparing my results to my brother’s results.

    The first line that I was able to confirm was my Grandfather’s paternal line, my brother had 0 matches from that line and it made me very curious, was it that nobody tested, or were there more nefarious reasons? Were we not actually LaPlace’s? I was going through the Thrulines and saw that I had two matches when I was expecting one. My brother is the match I was expecting and the second match was the Great-grandson of my Great-grandaunt, this person is my 3rd cousin and I have never heard of them, I knew that my Great-grandaunt had married into the Olive family and my Grandfather traveled to the US Virgin Islands to stay with her but my 3rd cousin’s last name I’ve never seen mentioned anywhere before.

    The second line I had confirmed was my Grandmother’s paternal line, same as above I was questioning why there were 0 relatives in my brother’s DNA relatives but it turns out he just didn’t inherit those genes while I did. I matched with the granddaughter of my Great-grandfather’s half-brother which makes her my Half 2nd cousin 1x removed, the DNA we share is also on the small side with only a 14% chance of being a Half 2nd cousin 1x removed but given the fickle nature of DNA inheritance, I’m just lucky to have even inherited any DNA from my 2nd Great-grandmother Sarah.

    Right now my focus is to see if hidden within my DNA relatives or even in my brother’s relatives there is a clue to who the father of our 2nd Great-grandmother Maud is. I am almost certain that it will be linked to the three relatives with the surname Hynes.

  • Breaking a 16-year brick wall – George Petersen

    My Great Grandmother on my father’s maternal side was Valderia Eugenie Petersen, she was the daughter of Maud Hines and George Petersen.

    I know a lot about Val’s mother and her mother’s maternal family but her father was a mystery because all I had was his name.

    The only reason I even knew his name was because of the index for Valderia’s Social Security Application.

    It has taken me 16 years to finally find his family, with the help of DNA relatives on Ancestry and knowing more about genealogy now than I did when I was 19, I was able to build a family tree of only men with the name George Petersen born between 1870 and 1905. I choose those dates because I knew Valderia was born in 1920 and her father could have been anywhere between the ages of 50 and 15. I have seen very young parents in my searches so 15 is not common but not unheard of.

    I’m getting a little ahead of myself so let me backtrack a bit, before I even began my George Petersen tree I identified DNA relatives from my father’s maternal side of the family and those who were not related to Val’s mother’s side I separated and focused on building branches for them in my own tree with the hopes that I would find the connection but the higher I got on their trees the more I didn’t recognize the names. It was also more difficult because some of them didn’t have any shared connections! They were puzzles that intrigued me. I could see that they were related to each other somehow but my brother just didn’t have the same shared DNA with each of them.

    This is when I got the idea to look for all the George Petersens, and there were so many of them that I just started labeling them I, II, all the way up to XIII. George Petersen XIII (13) was the one!

    His full name was George Henry Petersen born on June 26, 1879, to George Henry Petersen and Lydia Gasper. Gasper also spelled as Jasper and Yasper is a name I’ve seen in my DNA relatives’ trees and I got that lightbulb feeling that this had to be him, he never showed up in any of their trees but his grandmother on his mother’s side was the half-sibling of my brother’s DNA relatives’ 3rd Great grandfather, 4th Great grandfather, and through another side, his mother was the sister of these relatives Great grandmother.

    St. Croix, Danish West Indies, Denmark, Records of Enslaved and Free People, 1779-1921 for George Henry Petersen

    When I entered his information into my tree and attached him as Valderia’s father, I had to wait the next day to check the Thrulines to see if it would show me anything interesting and it did.

    I found 3 other DNA relatives, one of them was only 7cM which I didn’t really pay any attention to because of how small it was and they literally shared no common matches so I had no idea they belonged on my grandmother’s side but it makes me feel good because this meant that I had found the right person.

    Days like these show me why I love Genealogy and pairing DNA testing with it. Conventional Geneaology can only get you so far it’s the DNA that will help you break those decade-long brick walls.

    My focus now will be to find the father of my 2nd great-grandmother, Maude Hines. I know that he has to be a Hynes from St. Croix because I have DNA relatives with the Hynes last name and they share common relatives from my grandmother’s family but they do not match with my grandmother’s father or her most of her maternal side. There’s some overlap which isn’t surprising with the size of the Island but the connection is there and it’s waiting for me, I just have to find it.

  • 23andMe – New African Groups Added to Ancestry Composition

    I know I am late to talk about this but that’s because I’ve been waiting to see if they were doing staggered updates. It seems that everyone who was going to receive this update already received it.

    If you have no idea what I’m talking about back in January 23andMe added new Ethnolinguistic Groups to their Ancestry Composition, basically they were able to narrow down where in Africa your ancestors might have come from based on the number of Africans you matched with. This is very important to the African diaspora because the majority of us have no idea where our ancestors came from.

    The Groups added include Fula & Wolof, Mandinka, Temne & Limba, Mende, Yoruba, Igbo, and so many more, you can read the full blog post from 23andMe here.

    When I saw someone post their updated results on Reddit I immediately went to 23andMe to check both my father and my accounts. My father’s results were the first I saw, I was hoping to see where in Ghana our family came from but he did not receive a match for there even though it is his largest percentage. Instead, he received a match for the Yoruba people.

    My Father’s Nigerian update

    I clicked over to my account but I didn’t seem to have any matches. I assumed they were rolling out the update to newer accounts first but it’s been a month later and I still have no update. I honestly don’t know how they match the profiles because my father has only one full African DNA relative and he is from Angola, not Nigeria. On the other hand, I have three Nigerian and one Ghanaian DNA relative with direct ancestry from Africa.

    No updates for me

    Interestingly enough, one of my aunts did 23andMe and her results came in just as they released the new groups. She is my maternal aunt and received two groups. Igbo and Yoruba. She’s also mostly African with a small bit of European which further cements the idea that we had Indigenous DNA from my maternal grandmother a tall tale. All my life I’ve been told we had Kalinago ancestry and the fact that there are Kalingao people in Dominica made it seem not unlikely, why would my mother, grandmother lie about such a thing, when I showed my results after phasing with my father my mother told me that one of my aunts said it wasn’t Kalinago but some other Asian, this can’t be true either since it would have shown up in my results, my aunts results, or even my mother and aunt’s first cousin. Both my aunt and their full first cousin show no trace of Indigenous or Asian DNA. So what’s the truth? The truth is more than likely a biracial child they tried to pass off as Asian.

    Aunt Nigerian groups
    Comparing my aunt (left) with her full first cousin (right)

    I honestly thought my mother’s maternal first cousin would help separate the DNA relatives and he has in a way but like all small Islands, there are overlaps so I’m still stuck trying to figure out how some of these people are related. All I can do at this point is hope that someone who knows more than I do is willing to share what they know.