The Key To Identifying My Great Grandfather

I wanted to share the 1900 Census record which led to identifying my grandfather's paternity. I had already identified my great grandmother, Pearl Etta Gordon, in the 1900 census, living with her grandmother in Lake County, IN. When I did a search on Ancestry.com for Pearl, I found a second 1900 census with her on it. This duplicate census, shown above, lists her as a servant in the Benjamin household. Right above her is Presley Evans Lawrence. Because of the timing of her pregnancy with my grandfather, Presley struck me as someone who could possibly be my grandpa's father. If Pearl and Presley were not listed together on this census, even with DNA testing, we may have never been able to positively identify Presley as my grandfather's father.

Identifying Papa's Father: The Final Chapter

Waiting for the YDNA results was like that tickle you get in your sinuses that makes you want to sneeze.  You can’t sneeze and you can’t itch it so you live with it until the tickle decides to do what it wants to do. The email from FTDNA said there wouldn’t be any test results until the 3^rd week of March. OK. Wait. Twiddle thumbs. Re-memorize every name of each young man who was Pearl’s age in town. Check email. Log into FTDNA account. Twiddle thumbs.  Do it all again.  You get the picture.

The night of February 23^rd was a tough one. I had recently had surgery for a torn left meniscus and my knee was giving me fits. After hours of lying in bed with no relief from ice packs, a painkiller and a thousand different leg positions, sleeping was not on the agenda, no matter how tired I was.  About 1 am, I grabbed my cell phone as a pain diversion.  Why I thought anyone would email me that late at night is beyond me but for some reason, I looked at my email.  Lo and behold, a message from FTDNA saying you have new DNA matches!

I flew out of bed, right leg almost running, left leg dragging behind. When I got to the living room, I think I scared my hubby and son who were up late, engrossed in an old movie. “Where’s my computer”? “I’ve got DNA matches”! “Maybe we’ll learn who Papa’s father was”!

Nervously logging into the account, I quickly learned I had 782 matches.  These were 12 marker matches.  The results were so broad I could probably learn my mailman was my cousin somewhere in there. It didn’t matter that I probably would not learn my great grandfather’s identity from this.  I was still excited.  Quickly, I began to scan the surnames and locations of my matches.  It didn’t take long to see a pattern. What was most surprising was where all my new “cousins” lived.  Many lived in England or Ireland. It gave me clues that my grandpa’s family came from the British Isles long ago. Most interesting of all? The rest of my matches were from the South: a few from Mississippi, Virginia and Alabama.  The majority seemed to live in North and South Carolina. Papa’s dad must have been a Southerner. With a few exceptions of some ancestors living in Virginia then heading to Canada, Ohio and Indiana, I was pure Yankee. Well, this Yankee girl had some deep Southern roots and I was pretty sure I knew why.

Several surnames repeated in those results. One of those repetitious surnames leaped out at me. It was about 2:30 am. My family had gone to bed. I couldn’t call my mom to tell her what I was finding. I sat alone in the living room absorbing it all. Proving Papa’s paternity through a DNA test was never guaranteed. It was a crap shoot. We could come up empty handed. Here I was on the verge of getting an answer to the biggest question in my life but for some reason, the feeling was almost one of sadness. Why? The tears started to flow.  I knew in my heart the identity of Papa’s father.

One week later, the 37 marker test results came in. There were 24 close matches on it.  The top 6 surname matches were just as I had imagined: the surname was Lawrence.  Presley Evans Lawrence, the young man who was working as a servant/laborer with Pearl Gordon in that duplicate 1900 census and soon after returned to his home state of Virginia, was Papa’s father. After all of these years, we had our answer. We were Lawrences. My grandfather was Walter Henry Lawrence.

(As a footnote, I want to address the concerns I previously wrote about contacting the family if Papa’s father was identified. We never wanted to reach out to them or cause them any pain. The Lawrence matches on my FTDNA were mostly private. Foolishly, I joined the Lawrence DNA Project, hoping to remain private. The project leader sent an email to me and cc’d the woman who was the closest Lawrence DNA match in my report because she does all the research on that line. I was sick with worry. After much thought, I sent a detailed email to her with our story, my concerns and telling her I would leave the project to prevent hurting anyone. My new cousin wrote back joking that as I researched the family, I’d learn we weren’t the only illegitimate branches on the tree and welcomed me to my new Lawrence family with open arms. I’m happy I made that foolish mistake).

Grandma Baris-WHAT?

A few of my ancestors were drawn to Terre Haute, Indiana in the 1800’s by the lure of their glassblowing profession.  Others came to take advantage of the wide open spaces for farming nearby.  The Vigo County Public has done a marvelous job of documenting the area’s genealogical and local history. One of their databases is The Vigo County Marriage Record Database which documents marriages from 1818 to 1958. Not only can you search this database but you can view the original county marriage certificates and save them as PDF’s to your computer.

 I know very little about my Terre Haute/Vigo County ancestors. A few, like the Bischoffs, Gross and Ruckenhousers, were amongst the latest of my families to arrive in the United States. They arrived in Philadelphia from Germany in the 1800’s and made their way across states like Ohio and Kentucky to arrive at their final destination of Vigo County. The most allusive of this Vigo County bunch was my 3^rd great grandmother, Barbara “Whatshername”, who married Johann “John” Joseph Bischoff on 4 December 1855. OK, so I don’t mean to be disrespectful but I had seen Barbara’s name spelled a million different ways: Sheck, Shenk, Schink, Sherk, Shirk, Shank…you get what I’m saying. What exactly was it?  There were families with similar surnames in the area but none fit date-wise as parents or siblings.  The Vigo County Marriages Database could be the key to Barbara’s last name.

I excitedly typed in Grandpa John’s name and boom; there was the link to the marriage license of John Bischoff and Barbara Scheck.  Her last name was Scheck! Surname confirmation complete! Then, I opened the marriage license PDF:

 

Barbara’s first name was what? Bariswzork? What? How does one even say that? And her last name was Jacop? But wait, the second time her name is written, it’s listed as Bariswzork Jacop with the Jacop crossed out neatly and Scheck written over the top. But wait! There’s more! By the final time her name is written on the certificate, it’s morphed into plain old Barbara Scheck.

By the time I finished reading the marriage certificate, I had more questions than when I started.  Was her real last name Jacop? Was Jacop a surname acquired by marriage? Was Scheck a surname acquired by marriage? What the heck is a Bariswzork anyhow? Oy! I’ve decided to call her Barbara Scheck for the time being.  With more research, I might get Grandma Bariswzork/Barbara sorted out.  Barbara Scheck is a step up from Barbara Whatshername.  I think.

Cousin Harvey Strikes Again!

Not long ago, I posted a photo of handsome Harvey E. Hoak, my first cousin 3x's removed. While browsing through "Favorite Quotations" by the Cromwell Ladies Aid Society, I noticed Harvey had made a nice contribution himself.

Finding the Identity of Papa's Father, Part III

My genealogical journey continued.  I collected ancestors much like shells collect on the beach.  Sometimes my waves of research would come up sparse. Other times, those same waves of research would bring me bountiful information on my family, their whereabouts and how they lived their lives.  Try as I might, nothing new ever floated my way in those waves of looking for Papa’s father’s identity. I sensed that it was the end.  I had exhausted every resource known to man. It seemed ironic that Papa’s mother’s line could be traced to Charlemange, King of the Franks, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Papa’s paternal family history? It ended at Papa.

While reading up on the latest genealogical news a few years back, a new topic kept popping up: DNA research.  I attempted to read up on it.  Quite honestly, most of it was confusing to me.  All I knew is that, at the time, DNA testing was expensive and the male Y-DNA appeared to be the winner in tracing your family.  Last I looked, I was female.  DNA testing was not going to help me. Wait. Y-DNA tested the paternal line? A son could be tested and it could show the DNA for his father and his father’s father and his father’s father’s father? It was like a bolt of lightning. Maybe I could ask my uncle to take the Y-DNA test for me.  He was Papa’s son! His DNA could open the door which I could never open.

When this past December rolled around, my husband asked what I wanted for Christmas. “I want a DNA test for Uncle Larry”, I said.  He looked at me like I had grown a third eyeball.  “What else do you want”, he says, “that’s not a gift. I can’t put that under the tree. You can’t unwrap that”.  “That’s it”, I say.  Discounting a DNA test as a proper Christmas gift, my hubby looked a little annoyed.  I begin to pontificate my reasons for wanting one. I tell him by having Uncle Larry’s Y-DNA tested, it might prove who Papa’s father really was and you won’t have listen to me moan any longer that it’s making me crazy that I can never find out.  And, I tell him, the detailed test I want is not cheap. It would be a very generous gift.  He relents and says, “What do I have to do to get it”?

I’m so excited! I grab my phone to call my uncle.  “May I borrow a little bit of your spit”, I ask him? He laughs and I begin to tell him why.  I proceeded to explain what the test was, what it traced and what it could tell us.  It could give us the clues to learn who his father’s real father was.  Uncle Larry said yes.  I was over the moon.

Before I ordered the test, I made a phone call to my mother. I was worried. My uncle loved me to pieces.  He would stand on his head and spit nickels if I asked him to do it. I wanted my mom to talk to him, make sure that he knew that the information derived from the DNA test could show some unpleasantness in our family history, that the surname they had used all of their lives would always remain their surname but a new surname may show up which would be their real surname and these results could be life altering.  She spoke with him.  He really wanted to take it.

Before long, my uncle got the DNA test, swabbed his mouth and returned the kit to Family Tree DNA.  I created the FTDNA profile online.  And, waited.

 

Coming soon.......The Results!

More Quotations from the Cromwell Ladies Aid Society 1909

A sweet quote from my great grandmother, Lucile Unith Thomas, at the tender age of 8 years old.

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