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| Vincent van Gogh. Poppy Field. 1890. |
We've reached the end of the month, and tomorrow we'll watch our senior reach a milestone and graduate from high school. Family is in town, and we're looking forward to celebrating with family, friends and fellow parents as our kids take their next steps on their grand journey.
As the calendar flips to June, we have the start of summer, a return to some travel, and possibly, maybe, some DNA progress toward identifying mystery family lines.
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| Painting by S. Jones. Top of the grad cap. |
As high school graduation is a couple days away, above is the top of our daughter's graduation cap. S painted a Bob Ross-inspired scene on her cap over the weekend. Super cool & well done. We are excited for the upcoming festivities.
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| Winslow Homer. 1878. National Gallery of Art. |
Yesterday S & I took in a quick visit to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, prior to a special lunch at Oyamel. The painting above is on display at the National Gallery.
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| AncestryDNA Shared Matches extract |
Using the same dot method as yesterday, I tried to isolate the matches to my Dad's branch for Asa Putnam Smith. From the screenshot above, I've run into a complication, as there are matches related to both my Dad's maternal and paternal lines that are connected to the Smith/McIntosh branch. Uh-oh. This is going to add some wrinkles to my research. My Smith connections also have a few matches on the O'Brien/Bridget side as well, which was unexpected.
I am going to try the same dot method on my Mom's Read/Cain line to see if I can isolate these matches and potentially verify whether the Cain/Mainard link is real or if there's another mystery 3rd-great-grandfather possibility.
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| AncestryDNA Matches. |
Working from my Dad's AncestryDNA results, I am using the dot method outlined during various Rootstech presentations by Diahan Southard of YourDNAGuide. Above is a snapshot from narrowing down the 23,311 matches on my Dad's maternal side of the tree to 84 matches who likely belong to the O'Brien/Bridget branch of the tree.
I used the dots to separate out the shared matches until I had settled on those who were likely shared matches of the O'Brien/Bridget branch (at the second-great-grandparent level of my Dad's results). I still have quite a bit of work to do, but it is cool to see how this approach can target the specific matches who also share DNA on the O'Brien side or Bridget's side from Roscommon & Longford.
It will be really helpful once AncestryDNA rolls out the update for DNA communities by parent to sort those matches to specific regions.
I'll be repeating this approach to some of the other gaps I've covered here previously. I plan to try this same approach using Allison's grandmother's shared matches to verify the connections I highlighted back in November 2023.
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| Tree-in-progress on DNAPainter. |
I'm in the process of trying some new-to-me tools on DNA Painter to visualize my side of the tree and set up some uses for later involving DNA matches and What are the Odds (WATO) Plus. I am hoping some of these tools will help resolve some of the mysteries in my research and ultimately resolve some of the unanswered questions involving the unconfirmed 3rd-great-grandparents on both sides of my parent's part of the tree, from the father of my 2nd-great-grandmother Mary Alice Cain and the family line of my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget from Ireland.
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| Photo by K.D. Jones. Indy 500 viewing? |
In honor of tomorrow's Carb Day festivities ahead of the Indy 500 this weekend, above is a throwback photo taken by my Gumpy, possibly sometime in the 1930s or early 1940s given the age of other photos in the set where this was taken. The fans in the infield of the track can be seen perched on top of their cars, sitting on rugs and blankets. There's a lot of great detail in the shot.
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| AncestryDNA Regions map. |
After catching up on Rootstech 2024 sessions, YouTube recommended some other videos on genealogy and DNA. On 2 April 2024, Ancestry's Crista Cowan delivered a webinar for the National Genealogical Society titled the Power of AncestryDNA. This webinar contained some previews on new features expected to be released in the near future for users of AncestryDNA. In addition to new communities and regions that are added on a regular basis (see the map above), Ancestry will be rolling out a new look & feel for Shared Matches, and will be adding the ability to sort by those matches who match your DNA communities.
I'm really excited about these changes, as this should be a huge help to identifying connections on branches of my tree where I have gaps. For example, in the screenshot below from my Mom's results, the matches from communities only shows the first three matches, and all of these are people in my immediate family (including myself and my sister). As described by Crista in the webinar, the update will allow you to sort through the matches in your DNA communities, and create smaller groups.
This is also a good reminder to check regularly for updates to DNA communities. The screenshot below shows the DNA communities by parent map for my Aunt Patty's results. I am incredibly grateful that both my Dad and my Mom, along with her two sisters tested their DNA on Ancestry and I have access to their results. The updates for these tools will be super useful once released on the Ancestry site.
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| AncestryDNA communities map for my Aunt Patty. |
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| Associated Press. Pacers v Knicks, 19 May 2024. |
It's been a long time for Pacers fans to have something to celebrate in the Playoffs. While this season has had some promising and exciting games including a run to the first In-Season Tournament championship, there's nothing like a Game 7 victory over the New York Knicks in the Garden. Twenty-nine years ago, Reggie Miller scored his famous eight points in nine seconds to overcome the Knicks (see YouTube from 7 May 1995). Back then I was nearing my summer break at the end of my junior year at college, enjoying the extended playoff run and games in the city.
I've been a Pacers fan for a very long time. I had season tickets in the season when they made the run to the 2000 NBA Finals. I've seen them play games way back at Market Square Arena, and in the current stadium Gainbridge Fieldhouse. I've said "hey" to Larry Bird while he (and I) were having lunch at the historic Indianapolis City Market across the street from the stadium (and my former work at a bank in downtown Indy back in the day). I'm a little biased but it is one of the best basketball venues in the country.
This years team has been incredibly fun to watch. I hope they have a long and exciting run in the tank, as I think this year's team is worthy of a championship run. So congrats to the Pacers, setting some history in the Garden and hopefully another long run in the Playoffs to the NBA Championship.
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| 1850 US Census. La Salle County, Illinois. |
In the 1850 US Census, my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget was living in La Salle County, Illinois with her infant son, Michael J. Dooner. I have looked at this entry several times, posting in March about the proximity of Salisbury Township (later named Peru) to Dimmick Township. In the record above, Bridget is living next door to a widower, Timothy Hanley, his two daughters Mary and Ann, and Timothy's brother Thomas. I had not paid much attention to them in previous viewings of this entry.
Timothy and Thomas apparently were originally from Roscommon and Longford, Ireland, very close to the neighborhood where the Dooner family was from. It is a little too early to tell if or how these two may have been connected to Bridget, but I'm exploring the DNA results to see if there is a connection.
Timothy had a large family of six daughters and one son. His children had extensive families of their own, so there should be a number of potential connections to compare with the DNA results on my Dad's side of the tree, using the methods I've followed recently from Rootstech.
If Bridget is related to these Hanleys, we'll have some very cool stories to share on the blog very soon. Before coming to America, Timothy served in the British Army and was sent to the East Indies. He was discharged in 1838 and started a family, resulting in daughters Mary and Ann being born in Ireland, before he and the family immigrated to the United States. More to follow soon if there is a real connection, or if Bridget just happened to be living next door to two brothers from the same region where she was born.
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| AncestryDNA. |
While catching up on DNA sessions from Rootstech that I missed in early March, I was reminded of an updated AncestryDNA feature. If you're on your ethnicity results page, on the right hand side, scroll toward the bottom of the page. Below Ethnicity Inheritance is a tile called "Community Inheritance". If you click into that page, it shows a map like the one above from my Dad's results. This map will display communities associated with a maternal side, paternal, both, or "unassigned".
On my Dad's results for his maternal side of the tree, are two communities for Central Ireland, which I wrote about previously in March in posts related to new AI tools and on my Irish roots. Looking again at the page above, if you scroll down, you'll see a section titled "Meet your Matches", showing the closest matches in each community. For my Dad's results on my grandmother's O'Brien side of the tree, this gives some interesting close connections I had not seen before.
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| AncestryDNA Communities matches. |
When I dig a little further into the match "HD", I see in his tree he has an ancestor named Edward Gannon, born in Roscommon, Ireland in 1849. A quick search on Ancestry pulls up several Gannons in Termonbarry, Roscommon, which is the same neighborhood the Dooner family was living in before they departed for the United States in the 1840s. This is a stretch, and I have not confirmed this yet, but there are a few Bridget Gannons who were baptized in Roscommon in 1825. There is also a Bridget Hanley, daughter of Bernard Hanley and Anna Gannon, who was born around the same time.
There's more digging to do here to potentially connect "HD" to my Dad's Irish side of the tree, but this seems to be a very promising addition to the toolset on AncestryDNA. This match and my Dad share 44 cM.
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| Portion of my Dad's side of tree. |
One such gap is on the identity of the parents of Thomas Green (my 4th-great-grandfather). I know he was born between 1806-1808 in South Carolina, based his entries in the 1850-1880 US Census in Jefferson County, Tennessee. I am hoping through a combination of land deeds via FamilySearch Labs and new DNA tools, I might be able to figure out his parents.
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| Another portion of the tree on my Dad's side. |
Another gap is on the parents of my 4th-great-grandfather Asa Putnam Smith. He came to the US from Nova Scotia, and possibly served in a New Jersey regiment during the War of 1812. Although I viewed the widow's pension application file for his wife Lucinda at the US National Archives in 2013, I have been hoping additional records might become available to verify his service. Perhaps this same DNA technique might help as well.
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| 3rd portion from my Dad's side of the tree. |
A third gap is on the parents of my 4th-great-grandmother, Susan Ann Martin (wife of Isaac Smith). As with Asa Smith above, I mentioned Susan in my post back in March on using AI tools to overcome brick walls. I'm going to try once again to see what can be uncovered for these lines.
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. Spartanburg, SC. 6 Apr 2024. |
I'm taking the advice of "the best way out is through" at the moment, powering ahead with writing, both here and in day obligations. Although the motivation may be there, sometimes the focus is lacking. Time to put fingers to the keyboard and transfer thoughts to the screen.
Above is a curious cat, spotted over several days at our Airbnb in Spartanburg from early April. Perhaps this cat was saying "Hello kind sir, do you have any treats?"
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. Alexandria, 4 Apr 2024. |
Posting a photo from spring in the neighborhood. We're in the last dash toward graduation for our high school senior, preparing the house for family visits and dealing with some other matters.
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. NYC, 29 Mar 2024. |
The Lego Star Wars poster above was on display on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building during our visit to NYC over Spring Break. The giant display was part of a 25th anniversary exhibition of Lego Star Wars at the Empire State Building.
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. Alexandria, 27 Apr 2024. |
My little blog is now nearly twelve and a half years old, which is a bit surprising, but here we are. If you're fairly new to this space, and I've seen a few new followers in the past month or so, this space is generally for posts on family history. Sometimes I use this blog for photos from my travels, photos taken by others in the family, or historic photos connected to branches of our family or a place they lived. I might post maps, or news clippings mentioning ancestors or those related to them. Occasionally I'll mix in art, travel posters or other items which may, or might not have a thematic connection to the family or the time of the year we are in.
I use this blog to further research on family lines, or provide an obituary for those who did not have one. I certainly use the blog to highlight references to family in land deeds and other records, and often use this space to dig into DNA matches, ethnicity estimate updates, and more. The blog serves as a place for me to share.
I do not have a regular plan for certain posts or branches to follow, although I do try to extend my knowledge on the various lines throughout the growing tree. New records are made available all the time, either from newspapers, pension files, wills and probate, legal cases, archives or other surprising sources, so this involves checking and rechecking regular databases. Sometimes the posts I share here are also referenced on my own Ancestry tree or on FamilySearch. I do try to include sources, as I know when writing about ancestors who are further back along the tree, others are going to be related, and may stumble onto my research when doing their own.
A long time ago I turned off comments on the blog as this was allowing spammers, and I couldn't keep up with taking them down quick enough. A consequence of that is I'm probably missing out on some helpful queries from distant cousins, family or fellow researchers. It hasn't stopped a few of you good readers from seeking me out via other channels, and for that I'm thankful.
If you've read this far, thanks. The photo at the top of the page is a new mural on a home in Alexandria, which I also shared to my Instagram. Happy weekend everyone.
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| Source: Kentucky Historical Society. |
It's Derby Week in Louisville and the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Above is a commemorative stamp honoring the 100th running of the Derby in 1974.
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. Istanbul, 17 Apr 2024. |
The shot above, taken while crossing the Galata Bridge, is similar to another shot taken from a different vantage point on the bridge nine years earlier. The second shot was taken closer to Taksim on my walk down toward the water. I am looking forward to another visit, later in the year.
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. Cat paintings, Istanbul. |
