Triangulation

Made a connection with my first good case of triangulation on chromosome 15 today.  Contacted a recent match at 23andMe (Robert) and began looking at the possibilities.  What I discovered was that we matched at the same point as a known relative - and therefore we have triangulation!

Robert matches both me and my mother at the same location on chromosome 15.  23andMe rounds the start and end points to be as follows: for both my mother and me, the shared start point is 81000000, for me the end point is 89000000 and for my mother the end point is 90000000.  Not much of a difference, but Robert shares a slightly longer segment of DNA with my mother (10.4 cM) than with me (9.3 cM).

23andMe Segment matches with Robert, I'm green, mom's is blue

Robert also has his results uploaded at GEDMatch, and I was able to confirm the results, the start and end locations for matches with me are as follows:

Robert's results for the start and end location of the match with mom was nearly the same :

But what really got me excited was Robert's match with a known relative on my mother's side, Mildred.  The results for Robert's match with Mildred :

Mildred is my maternal 1st cousin 3 times removed.  Her grandmother was the half-sister of my 2nd-great grandmother, Ida Davis.  The common ancestor between Mildred and myself is Mary Ellen Swafford (1854-1932).

This is how I match with Mildred (note chromosome 15) :

My mother matches Mildred even more (note chromosome 15) :

Because Robert matches on the exact same chromosome in the exact same location to not only me, my mother and Mildred, we have triangulation on this spot, indicating that the match is Identical by Descent, rather than Identical by Segment.  Anyone that matches all of us at this same chromosome and segment must be related through the same line.  Because the common ancestry between myself and Mildred is Mary Ellen Swafford, so the DNA either came from her or one of her ancestors.

Robert is predicted by 23andMe to be a 3rd to distant cousin.  We share just one segment and 0.13% of our DNA.  GEDMatch predicted that the estimated number of generations to the MRCA is 5.2 generations.

One of the surname's in Robert's ancestry is Thacker, and there is a Thacker-Swafford connection, but in the correspondence so far, the names do not match up.  Robert's tree is just getting started, and I hope that by sending my contact an outline of Swafford ancestry we can find a common name. My thought is that the connection is further up line from Mary Ellen Swafford.  She has several female ancestors with unknown maiden names.


The DNA game is an exciting one to play around in, and I appreciate any suggestions or tips.

Researching Darke County, Ohio

Last Sunday I spent the day in Darke County, Ohio, researching my genealogy and getting a history lesson from my dad.  After our day in Jay County on Saturday, we headed out to Greenville, Ohio on Sunday.  My plan was to visit the Garst Museum and their genealogical library which had been on my "to-do" list for quite some time.

As we crossed over the state line, dad shared a few stories about his high school and college days and 3.2 beer.  Ohio allowed 18 year-olds to drink 3.2 beer, and since Jay County was just a few miles away, it was common for them to come over to Ohio.  When we arrived in Greenville, we drove around a bit and located the Triangle bar, where dad and friends from Ball State came down to dance.  It was closed, being a Sunday, but it was interesting to hear dad open up a little bit about his youth.

The first place we visited in the area was the Webster Cemetery (aka Dutch) in Allen Township.  I had previously visited this cemetery two years ago with Eileen.  We quickly located the graves of Nathaniel Chew (1786-1866), dad's 3rd-great grandfather, and Caroline Bishop (Woolston) Chew (1826-1879), dad's 2nd-great grandmother and the first wife of Ezekiel Cooper Chew.  These tombstones had definitely weathered since my last visit.  Also in the plot was the infant Phillip D. Lemasters (1869-1869), the younger brother of dad's grandfather.

This cemetery lies on the Lightsville-Rossburg Road, and I later found out that the former Methodist Episcopal Church that sat there was torn down in the 1890s.  

Waiting for the museum to open, we had to make a lunch stop at Maid-Rite, a Greenville tradition.  We were the second and third customer of the day, some local beat us in the door to be the first customer of the day.

After a bit to eat, we stopped by a pioneer cemetery that we noticed as we were driving around looking for the Triangle bar.  The grave markers of several War of 1812 veterans and other pioneer citizens are preserved there as well as a small stockade.

Always the history teacher, dad took me down to the site of Fort Jefferson.  After visiting the site of Fort Recovery on Saturday and learning more about St. Clair's Defeat and the history of military operations in Ohio in the early 1790s.

And then, the researching began.  The museum opened at 1 p.m., and after paying the admission fee, which allows you to tour the museum and use the genealogy library, I was ready to dig in.  The nice volunteer pointed me in the direction of the surname files.  With over 5000 surnames in its files, the library has quite an extension collection.  Planning for the trip, I had printed off a list of individuals who resided in Darke County before 1930.  Some of my paternal ancestry was briefly in the county, but even on my maternal side there were some collateral relatives who lived in the county as well.

I had great success in the surname files on my maternal lines - the Groendykes and the Lambertsons, and found some information on the Hummel collateral line of my paternal side.  In addition, I was able to find some records from the atlas regarding where the land my Chew family held, and likely where my LeMaster family resided.  Because my families were only in the county for a short period of time, I didn't find much on them in the more general interest books.   We only spent about two hours there, as we were getting tired, but it was definitely worth it.  It will definitely be on my list of places to return again to research, as they had so many family files to research.

We also took the time to explore the museum, including the Annie Oakley collection, and I must say it is one of the nicer small museums I have been in.  Their collections on local history, examples of pioneer life, farming, racing, etc. is definitely worth stopping by to see.

I will be sharing more about what I've found in future posts.

Death Record : Alfred Haldeman, 1917, Morrow County, Ohio

"Ohio, Deaths, 1908-1953," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XZVN-LZG : accessed 5 September 2015), Alfred Haldeman, 07 Mar 1917; citing Troy Twp., Morrow, Ohio, reference fn 20924; FHL microfilm 1,983,937.

Alfred Haldeman was my paternal 2nd-great granduncle by marriage, married to Susanna Jane Haley (1844-1899), the daughter of George J. and Rachel (Gary) Haley.  Working on updating Ohio death records at FamilySearch for my RootsMagic database, I realized that I didn't have his date of death.

Alfred was born March 15, 1844 in Ohio, according to his death certificate, the son of Christian and Susan (Brinkely) Haldeman.  He died March 7, 1917 in Troy Township, Morrow County, Ohio due to pulmonary tuberculosis.

The informant for the death certificate was his son, Harvey L. Haldeman, and Alfred was buried in the Haldeman Cemetery.  At the time of his death, he was listed as married, but I don't have a second marriage for him.

A search at FindAGrave located his memorial page, where it states that Alfred remarried to Mary Ann Stull on November 13, 1900 in Morrow County, Ohio.  Will have to search for this record as well.

Alfred and Susan (Haley) Haldeman were the parents of seven known children: Vera B., George Allen, Maude, Christian E., Vernon J., Frank J. and Harvey Levi.  I have not traced their descendants but need to do so as they might have photographs, etc. of the Haley side.

If you have any additional information or corrections or are related to this family, I would love to hear from you.