My Living DNA Has Been Updated!

Yesterday I received an email from Living DNA announcing that a free update was available for my 2017 ancestry results.* So I followed the link, requested my update and was told that it was in process and would be complete in less than 48 hours. The confirming email arrived early this morning.

And here it is:**

[Living DNA Recent Ancestry]

According to their data, my recent DNA heritage is 100% European--5.7% from my 2X great grandmother Delilah Grove (1845-1925) and the remaining 94.3% Great Britain and Ireland from everyone else.

[Living DNA Recent Ancestry]

Of the more exotic traces claimed by my previous results only Orkney remains (with the addition of the Shetland Islands). My alleged connections to the Iberian Peninsula, Scandinavia, and the Kurds and Pashtuns have disappeared.



*See my previous results here.
**Sadly the company has chosen to show everything in a low contrast format so you may find it hard to read.. And I've emailed them about that.


© 2020 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find! Beyond 2022: Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury

The fire that destroyed the Public Records Office in Dublin in June of 1922 with the resulting loss of centuries of Irish records has made researching our Irish ancestors difficult.

[Source: Trinity College, Dublin]

But now, five institutions* have joined together to search out duplicates of the original records in other collections to"recreate virtually as much of the archive as possible in a digital format that can be accessible to everybody" in time for the centenary of the fire.**

The project is called Beyond 2022: Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury and its director Peter Crooks*** explains:

“We are committed to producing 50 million words of searchable material by 2022 and that is possible with the artificial intelligence we are using,” he said. 

“Tens of thousands of papers will be digitised, but they will also be searchable, which is a change. We will be able to mine this information for individual names.”

I strongly suggest you visit Trinity College Dublin's website about the project, especially the Gallery which has a number of images and videos, including a 1922 newsreel that shows the Public Records Office on fire.

I learned about Beyond 2022 through a link to the this article in the Irish Times.

*They are: the National Archives, the UK national archives, the public records office in Northern Ireland, the Irish Manuscripts Collection and the library at Trinity College Dublin (TCD).
**Which happened on June 30, 1922, two days after the start of the Irish Civil War.
**You can watch a video with Peter Crooks here.

© 2019 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

New Ethnicity Breakdowns at 23andMe: Some New Leads for My Dad

Varmland, Sweden, and County Wexford, Ireland.  Possible leads for Gustav Andersson and Hester Patterson?

Two of my dad's recent ancestors (Dad's great grandfather Gustav Andersson, c. 1850 - ?, and also Dad's 2nd great grandmother Hester Patterson, abt 1800 - 1856) have been brickwalls for me for a long time.

Gustav Andersson (as Andersson Bergstrom) and Hester Patterson in situ on my father's tree.

Gustav Andersson Bergstrom

According to Dad's grandmother Mette Karine "Mary's" birth record, her father was railworker/roadworker Gustav Andersson Bergstrom (Andersson Bergstrom in the image above) from Lidkoping, Sweden.

Counties to focus on for Dad's great grandfather Gustav Andersson Bergstrom.  I have already been following some promising leads in Varmland and Vastra Gotaland counties in DNA matches.

Hester (Patterson) Rittgers

As for Hester Patterson, I've only been able to determine that she had a few Patterson siblings who had descedants that Dad matches to on Ancestry.  There was a Samuel Patterson in 1820 in the Fairfield County, Ohio area where Hester married and was living in 1830, and her first son with Jake Rittgers was Samuel Rittgers (oldest brother of Esther Loretta Rittgers, who was my grandfather George Hartley's grandmother).  Maybe Samuel Patterson was her father??

Hester Patterson's children who lived to the 1880 US Census and beyond put the following as mother's place of birth (note that her husband Jake Rittgers (the "father" in the following list) was definitely born in Virginia):


Daughter Esther Loretta:

1880: Father--PA, Mother--Virginia


Son Samuel G. S. Rittgers:

1880: Father--PA, Mother--England
1900: Father--VA, Mother--Ireland


Son John A. Rittgers:

1880: Father--PA, Mother--Ohio


Son Israel Patterson Rittgers:

1880: Father--PA, Mother--Ohio


Daughter Margaret Rittgers:

1880: Both parents from Ohio
1900: Father--Ohio, Mother--Ireland
1910: Both parents from Ohio


Son Jacob R. Rittgers:

1880: Father--PA, Mother--VA
1910: Both parents from Germany
1920: Father--PA, Mother from Ireland


Son Eli D. Rittgers:

1880: Both parents from VA
1900: Father--PA, Mother from England


Son Perry C. Rittgers:

1880: Both parents from Pennsylvania
1900: Father--PA, Mother--Scotland


Daughter Sarah Rittgers:

1880: Father--VA, Mother--PA
1900: Father--Ohio, Mother--PA
1910: Both parents from Virginia


Son Peter M. Rittgers:

1880: Father--PA, Mother--??
1900: Father--PA, Mother--Ireland
1910: Father--PA, Mother--Ireland
1920: Father--PA, Mother--Ireland


Son Henry Charles Rittgers:

1880: Father--PA, Mother--Ohio
1900: Father--VA, Mother--Ohio
1905: Father--Germany, Mother--Ireland
1920: Father--Germany, Mother--Ireland
1930: Both parents from VA


On the 1850 Census Hester (Patterson) Rittgers was listed as born in Maryland lol

From all this I gather that Hester was likely at least somewhat Irish, and may have been born in the East (Maryland or Pennsylvania) or was born in Ireland (or possibly England).

23andMe estimated that Dad has ancestry in the past 200 years from only one county in Ireland (County Wexford).  Dad has only one known suspected Irish ancestor in the past 200 years, Hester Patterson.  Could this be a big clue for Hester's origin??  I hope so.

© 2019 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Irish "DNA Atlas"

A year ago The Irish Times published an article about "a new Irish DNA atlas" derived using "DNA samples collected from 196 Irish people whose eight great-grandparents were born within 50 km of each other in Ireland." Here's the project's map as published in the newspaper:

[Thirty genetic clusters have been identified from 2,103 Irish and British individuals. The map shows the geographic origin of 192 Atlas Irish individuals and 1,611 British individuals from the Peoples of the British Isles project, labelled according to the geographic origin of their DNA. Source: The Irish Times]

The study has discovered that "before the mass migration of people in recent decades, there were at least 10 distinct genetic clusters across the country, roughly aligned with the ancient provinces or kingdoms of Ireland." And for the first time genetic evidence of Viking settlement in Ireland was confirmed.

It is hoped that data from the project will improve the diagnosis of genetic diseases, "particularly for illnesses that are prevalent among people with Irish ancestry, including multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis and celiac disease."

The article included a link to the original study which was published by the journal Scientific Reports.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: The Irish DNA Registry on Facebook

If you have Irish roots, have done DNA testing for your genealogy and uploaded the results to GEDMatch, this closed Facebook group could be very helpful.

[From their Facebook page]

Here's how they describe themselves:

We are a group to assist you with researching those links with DNA matches who share Irish Ancestry. We have a comparison tool called Matchbox which allows you to compare our database of member against your GEDMatch one to many match data.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

RePost from 2015: Catholic Parish Registers at the National Library of Ireland

A post this morning by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) brought this to my attention. The National Library of Ireland (NLI) has just put its microfilm collection of Catholic parish registers recording baptisms and marriage from most of Ireland's parishes in Ireland and Northern Ireland up to 1880 online for research and download. Starting dates for these records vary from region to region and parish to parish.*

[National Library of Ireland on The Commons, photostream on flickr]

Read what the NLI says about its mammoth project:

Church registers of marriage and baptism are considered to be the single most important source for family history researchers prior to the 1901 census. In many cases, the registers contain the only surviving record of particular individuals and families. With growing numbers of people engaged in family history research and limited on-site facilities at the NLI in Dublin, the decision was taken in 2010 to digitise the parish register microfilms. Following a tender process, the contract for digitisation was awarded to AEL Data who converted 550 microfilm reels, containing over 3500 registers into approximately 373,000 digital images. These images correspond to a page or two-page opening within a register volume. 

Of course since these records are organized by parish within each county, searching for your Irish ancestors will be easiest for those who know where to start. The NLI has a useful section on its Help page on finding the right parish with links.**

[St Saviour's Church and the Tait Memorial Clock in Limerick. National Library of Ireland on The Commons, photostream on flickr]

The NLI site is well-designed and easy to use. Best of all, it's FREE!

*The several counties (Meath, Armaugh and Galway) didn't have anything earlier than the very late 18th century.
**For more information about Irish genealogy in general, this link is a very good place to start.

© 2015 Copyright, Pat Hartley, All Rights Reserved.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Hugh Kennedy (1725 - 1814): Another Quaker Ancestor?

When did this Irish-born fifth great grandfather* arrive in Pennsylvania? The usual answer of 1741 from Grange in Ireland seems to be based on this quote from Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750 : with their early history in Ireland:

[Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750 : with their early history in Ireland (1902) by Myers, Albert Cook, 1874-1960.

Online source: the Internet Archive.]

However, according to another quote from the same source the Hugh Kenedy in this record is an much older man with grown children and therefore can't be my ancestor who was only about 16 at the time:

[Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750 : with their early history in Ireland (1902) by Myers, Albert Cook, 1874-1960.

Online source: the Internet Archive.]

Since traditionally Hugh's father is believed to be William Kennedy who mentioned a son with that name in his 1787 will, my ancestor can't be connected to this Quaker family.

Was he a Quaker? I don't know but since DAR records show him enlisting in the local militia in 1746 (and later serving in the Revolution) he doesn't appear to have subscribed to the pacifist tenets of that denomination.

Here's how I'm related to him.

[Ancestry.com]

*His surname is spelled variously as Kenedy, Kennedy and Canady.


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Finding a Hole in One of Bonnie's Brick Walls

Information Mary Agnes Lynch, one of Bonnie's maternal great great grandmothers, has been in short supply. The family story is that she was born in Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland, but nothing further was known about her parents.

Fortunately her obituary confirmed the date and place of her death but her name didn't appear on the death index or a death certificate. State-level registration began in 1900, six years before her death so where could the records be?

[The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, 1 July 1906, page 6. Source: NewsPapers.com]

Using her date of death I was able to locate her death certificate indexed as Mrs. Mary E. O. Conner.
Now that we know her parents' names maybe we can find out more about her heritage.

[Ancestry.com. Indiana, Death Certificates, 1899-2011 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.

Original data: Indiana State Board of Health. Death Certificates, 1900–2011.

Microfilm. Indiana Archives and Records Administration, Indianapolis, Indiana.]

This branch of Bonnie's family was Protestant which may make it harder to find out more about them.



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: John Grenham - Irish Roots

Mr. Grenham's website is a great resource for those of you researching your Irish ancestors. Check out his blog Irish Roots. For instance, his most recent post (dated 24 April 2017) is titled "We have grave concerns..." and it's chock full of links to an impressive number of sources for Irish cemetery records.

The post begins:

I was once told by an American psychotherapist that the Irish have serious problems with bereavement. Apparently we find it very hard to let go. Maybe that’s the reason we have such a thing about graveyards. Because we certainly do have a thing about graveyards.

[City cemetery, Belfast, Ireland, October 1918. American National Red Cross Collection in the 

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.]

You can read a short biography of John Grenham at Legacy Family Tree's website but, sadly, you've a month late to hear his webinar "Why are Irish records so weird?" for free.


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Saturday Night Free Webinar: John Grenham presents "Why are Irish records so weird?"

Seriously, why are they so weird?  Let's find out why in John Grenham's "Why are Irish records so weird?":

Not all Irish records were destroyed in 1922, but the burning of the Public Record Office in that year did leave an immense gap. As a result, Irish genealogical research has to deal with idiosyncratic, fragmentary and sometimes marginally relevant records in ways that can seem very strange to those used to British, US or Australian sources. In addition, Ireland came late to digitization and has done it unsystematically. To be polite. This talk unravels the ways in which marginal records have become essential for Irish research, and the peculiarities in using them online.

Available to non-subscribers at Legacy Family Tree Webinars through March 23, 2017.  1 hour 28 minutes.



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Irish Genealogical Research Society's Early Irish Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes

Via the New England Historic Genealogical Society's Weekly Genealogist link to an article in the Irish Post we learn that the online databases maintained by the Irish Genealogical Research Society (IGRS) now contain over a quarter of a million names.

[Record relating to James Carey, born in 1844. (c) Society of Genealogists]

Access to the full database is restricted to IGRS members but here's what's available to the general public:

However, as an initial aid, a restricted but free Surname-Only Search of the database can be made by non-members. A search will tell you how many entries in the database match your search criteria. It will not provide all the details of those matched records.  We recommend you read the Introduction to the Index by Rosalind McCutcheon.  When searching the Surname-Only index, please allow for vagaries of spelling; try searching just using the first 3 letters of the name. Look also at alternatives, such as: Nolan/Nowlan, Reilly/Riely/Riley, Crowley/Croly. A good guide for alternative spellings can be found at www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/.*

Here'a a full list of the IGRS collections freely available on their website.

*This website qualifies as a fantastic find all by itself! For example this is what happened when I entered the surname Trainer (my friend Bonnie's mother's name) in Irish Ancestors.

In case you haven't seen it, here's a link to an earlier Fantastic Find: The National Library of Ireland's online collection of Catholic parish registers recording baptisms and marriage.


© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday - Genea-Envy Edition: Leonard/Fitzgerald/O'Brien

This page from the family scrapbook created by Aunt Janette traces the lineage of my best friend Bonnie's maternal great grandmother Jane Fitzgerald (O'Brien) back to Irish roots. Direct ancestors have been underlined in green and a portrait of Bonnie's great great grandmother Mary Leonard (Fitzgerald) was included. 

[Courtesy of Bonnie Poppe]

Bonnie and her cousin Lyn traveled to Ireland this past April to see what more could be discovered about their kin and I expect I'll learn more during my annual visit later this summer.


© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

2015: Looking Back

When I agreed to join my daughter's blog on October 1, 2014, I decided on two ground rules: we had to post every day and each post had to have a picture. (I'm a visual person.) Looking back over the past year I'm proud of what we've done here and in the process we've both learned a lot.

[Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "Best wishes for a happy New Year." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1909. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e3-47d9-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99]

Two of the most exciting names added to my paternal family tree in 2015 are Cheney Boyce (1591?-1643?), Ancient Planter of Jamestown, and John Whitney (1592-1673), member of the Company of Merchant Tailors of London before his departure for Massachusetts in 1635. Christine's recent discovery that Olive Baldwin (1778-1843) was the mother of my maternal third great grandmother Mary (Polly) Gates (1805-1883) has opened up new lines of research that will be covered next year.

Another fascinating discovery was that my paternal fifth great grandfather Abraham Heath (1740?-1807?) served with the Virginia line of the Continental Army during the American Revolution and was one of the cold and hungry soldiers at Valley Forge. In case you missed it, you can read about what the records said here: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six. (Parts Three through Five were posted on the 168th anniversary of the events described.)

My two most popular posts in 2015 were Sunday Drive: Train Travel in Victorian England which looked at the ubiquity of mid-19th century British train lines, and Fantastic Find: Catholic Parish Registers at the National Library of Ireland which passed on the news that the National Library had just made their microfilm collection of parish records available online (and for free).

Another fantastic find, The McAdory House, was particularly useful in helping me understand the kind of dwelling my early Alabama ancestors probably lived in. (Spoiler alert: No white pillars or oak allies in sight.) And for those of you who also have ties to Alabama, let me recommend again Letters from Alabama, written by the Englishman Philip Henry Gosse about his experience there in 1838.

Christine and I have been having fun posting photos of Christmases we have known (or have pictures of) for the past ten days as a way of slacking off but still maintaining our goal of daily posts. With the new year we'll be getting back to genealogy.

Have a safe and happy New Year's Eve!

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Catholic Parish Registers at the National Library of Ireland

A post this morning by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) brought this to my attention. The National Library of Ireland (NLI) has just put its microfilm collection of Catholic parish registers recording baptisms and marriage from most of Ireland's parishes in Ireland and Northern Ireland up to 1880 online for research and download. Starting dates for these records vary from region to region and parish to parish.*

[National Library of Ireland on The Commons, photostream on flickr]

Read what the NLI says about its mammoth project:

Church registers of marriage and baptism are considered to be the single most important source for family history researchers prior to the 1901 census. In many cases, the registers contain the only surviving record of particular individuals and families. With growing numbers of people engaged in family history research and limited on-site facilities at the NLI in Dublin, the decision was taken in 2010 to digitise the parish register microfilms. Following a tender process, the contract for digitisation was awarded to AEL Data who converted 550 microfilm reels, containing over 3500 registers into approximately 373,000 digital images. These images correspond to a page or two-page opening within a register volume. 

Of course since these records are organized by parish within each county, searching for your Irish ancestors will be easiest for those who know where to start. The NLI has a useful section on its Help page on finding the right parish with links.**

[St Saviour's Church and the Tait Memorial Clock in Limerick. National Library of Ireland on The Commons, photostream on flickr]

The NLI site is well-designed and easy to use. Best of all, it's FREE!

*The several counties (Meath, Armaugh and Galway) didn't have anything earlier than the very late 18th century.
**For more information about Irish genealogy in general, this link is a very good place to start.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Great News for Irish Ancestry Research!

[Source: Vintage Holiday Crafts at http://vintageholidaycrafts.com/st-patricks-day-vintage-greeting-cards-shamrocks/]

Through a recent post on MassLive.com, we discovered that the National Library of Ireland recently announced that they expect to put 390,000 parish records online by the summer of 2015.

"There will be no charge to access the information, mainly baptismal and marriage records, that dates between the 1740s and the 1880s, and includes some 1,091 parishes throughout Ireland. The Catholic Church allowed the library to make microfilm copies of the information, in the 1950s, and the information is considered vital to any historical research, as census records from this period were destroyed, when the Four Courts building, housing the Public Records Office, was destroyed by fire in 1922, during the Irish Civil War."

The MassLive post also includes other online resources for researching Irish ancestors,

© 2014 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.