Wordless Wednesday : Tiny Dancer

Michelle LeMaster, Alexandria, Indiana, 1978

Found this picture of my little sister from 1978 in her dance costume.

Sugar Grove Cemetery, Wayne County, Indiana : Pierce Family

Francis S. Pierce (1806-1881) my 4th-great grandfather

Rebecca (Page) Pierce (1806-1893), my 4th-great grandmother

Stone sans aluminum foil

Albert O. Pierce and wife Sarah.  Albert was son of Francis & Rebecca (Page) Pierce

View looking back towards the church

These photos were taken earlier this year on a visit to the Sugar Grove Cemetery in Wayne County, Indiana.  My mom, dad & I headed there and into the courthouse in Richmond while working on documentation for mom's application for the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The cemetery was found relatively easily, and is located in a rural area next to the church, which appears to still be in use.  The church was a United Brethren in Christ church.

I have not been able to determine that Francis or Rebecca ever attended this church, but it is possible.  More likely they were living with their son, Albert, at the time of their death and this was the nearest community cemetery.  From what I have found, there are no surviving records of the early church.  

For more on the cemetery, read here.

In order to get a better picture of the tombstones, we used aluminum foil to help bring out the inscriptions.  I feel that this didn't work out too badly.

DNA : First Cousin Match at AncestryDNA

I haven't written about my AncestryDNA matches, other than a quick post about my ethnicity results.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had a predicted first cousin match, as I knew of no one who was interested in DNA research.

Right away, I recognized which cousin this was because of who the administrator was.  This match is my paternal first cousin on the LeMaster side.

Unfortunately, AncestryDNA doesn't offer a chromosome browser to show me exactly where we match and use that to compare against other matches.

My cousin's husband and I have been corresponding, they did they DNA test for the ethnicity results, and have a tree at the site.  My cousin's results were updated to GEDMATCH, and below are the results.

GEDMatch predicts the estimated number of generations to a MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) to be 2 generations - which is correct, we share common grandparents.

We share DNA on 24 matching segments as detailed in the chart.  I will use this data to begin mapping other matches against me and my cousin.  I can check my other known paternal line matches and see where we all match and segment out the various lines to determine if the additional matches are through the LeMaster side or the Haley side.

Now I have DNA results from my paternal side at AncestryDNA and my maternal side at FamilyTreeDNA and both are uploaded to GEDMatch.