This isn’t a direct ancestor of mine, but I’ve always like the photo. Maybe it’s her eyes. They seem to pop out compared to the rest of the photo. I don’t have any proof on this, but the photo seems to be of Margaret DeBroux, who according to my guess is my great-grandaunt (or my great-grandfather’s sister) on my mother’s side.
When we were last visiting my in-laws up in central Wisconsin, we decided to take a trip a few miles east to the Plover, Wisconsin area. It turns out that a few of my wife’s ancestors settled in that area and were supposed to be buried nearby. We took a drive out there one morning and happened to find a cemetery in Whiting, Wisconsin where our info said they were buried. It turned out to be the correct one, fortunately. We were looking specifically for Nathaniel & Rosina (ARNOLD) SHANNON, my wife’s maternal great-great-grandparents. There were a lot of SHANNONs in the cemetery and we did find Rosina’s headstone. Unfortunately, due to the position of the sun, it is very hard to make anything out on the stone. I’m pretty sure it says, “Rosina – wife of N Shannon – Dec 18 1824 – Dec 20 1899.” There was an Nathaniel SHANNON buried next to her, but since it was a Civil War stone I don’t think it was her husband since he would’ve been in his 50s when that war was fought. More than likely that is their son, Nathaniel. We didn’t find her husband’s burial spot, but we may have missed it on the side of her’s or another’s.
Weekly History for my family tree. As always, you can find this on the Dates & Anniversaries page and now even with a cool calendar.
June 13th
1774 - Died – Josephte CHEVREFILS-BELISLE – Josephte is my 7th-great-grandmother on my mother’s side. She was born 11 Nov 1719 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She married Antoine LAFOND in 1750. She passed away in Baie-du-Febvre, Yamaska, Quebec, Canada.
June 14th
1757 – Born – Antoine QUINET – Antoine is my 6th-great-grandfather on my father’s side. He was born in Contréglise, Haute-Saône, France. In 1781, he married Monique MARIZOT and had 5 children. He passed away sometime after 1811.
June 16th
1897 – Died – Robert MORAN – Robert is my wife’s 3rd-great-grandfather on her father’s side. He was born about 1820 somewhere in Ireland. In 1845. he married Dorothea COOK in either Canada or Ireland and together they had 9 children and then finally settling in Wisconsin. He passed away in Tarver, Wisconsin, located in the southwestern section.
June 19th
1807 – Died – Pieter JUNIS – Pieter is my 6th-great-grandfather on my mother’s side. He was born about 1753 and married Jacoba KNUDDE. They had 5 children including my ancestor, Anna Threzia JUNIS. He passed away at Hoofdplaat, Zeeland, Netherlands.
I thought I’d do a general post about recent updates to family tree research and the site itself.
I just updated the Family Tree section of the website to the latest release of The Next Generation of Genealogy Site Building (TNG) to version 8.0. I have yet to see all of the new features and changes, but if previous versions are any indication, it should be pretty nice. So far, there is now a Calendar on the Dates & Anniversaries area, a nice photo viewer and slideshow (example), and many other “under-the-hood” tweaks. I also changed the background image/color of the family tree site to be a bit lighter. I noticed, even for my young 30-year-old eyes, that some of the smaller text was hard to read. It seems better. As always, please let me know if anything is hard to read or broken on the site. More than likely I just didn’t notice it yet.
On the family tree research front, I’m still going back through every census record for our families and inserting much more detailed source information, including house and family numbers and exact pages, etc. My previous sourcing wasn’t too good and I had accidentally deleted a lot of the details when I merged sources in my software. Anyway, it’s good to go back through. I’ve noticed some small details that I missed.
I haven’t broken down any major brick walls on my family recently, but I have added more people to my wife’s family tree. They are temporarily inserted as I find more credible sources. For example, some info was only found in Ancestry.com’s family trees area and I don’t exactly trust it due to many problems/wrong info in the past. But, it’s good to at least get the data in there so I can research it more in-depth. Again, her family history is much more “exciting” than mine. I say that with much humor, because all family breakthroughs are exciting. Her’s just has a lot more history with it, especially early American history. This latest line ties back into the ROGERS family of Connecticut, which seems to be pretty well-researched and rumored to be both possibly connected to the Mayflower and John the Martyr, but more research is obviously pending on those. We’ll just add that to the list with her connection to English royalty. *sarcastic eye roll* All kidding aside, doing Colonial American research is fun for me since my family is basically all European straight from Wisconsin (and some Canadian.)
I plan on doing an export and updating the info on the online family tree soon.
Click for larger
This is a photo from July 1940 of my great-great-grandmother, Emma Jane FIRMENICH, on the left with her 3rd husband, George Cook. On the right is my great-great-aunt, Sadie CORRIGAN.
Weekly history from our family tress. As always, you can find any of this information on the Dates & Anniversaries page.
June 7th
Today is my mom’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom!
1669 – Born – Maria Catherina STOLTZENHABER – Maria is my wife’s 8th-great-grandmother on her father’s side. She was born in Stettin, Baden, Germany and married Ernest Ludwig FABER in 1691. They had 4 children. She passed away on 10 Jan 1726 in Neipperg, Baden, Germany.
1796 – Died – Marie MATTOT – Marie is my wife’s 6th-great-grandmother on her mother’s side. She was born about 1733 in Dhuy, Namur, Belgium. She married Hubart ETIENNE in 1756 and had 6 children. She passed away in Dhuy, Namur, Belgium.
June 8th
Todays is my maternal grandmother’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Grandma!
1770 – Died – Marie BOURGEOIS – Marie is my 7th-great-grandmother on my mother’s side. She was born 22 Dec 1704 in Port Royal, Acadia, Canada. She married Pierre ROBICHAUD in 1724. She passed away in Quebec, Canada.
June 11th
1757 – Born – Anna Catherina CROX – Anna is my 6th-great-grandmother on my mother’s side. She was born inGenk, Limburg, Belgium. She married Wilhelmus van CRAYBECK in 1778 and had 4 children. She passed away on 8 Mar 1787 at Genk, Limburg, Belgium.
June 12th
Today is my older brother’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Eric!
My maternal results
On National DNA Day, April 23rd, there was news that 23andMe was selling the “Complete Edition” of their genetic test for $99. The usual price for this test is $499, so a savings of 80%. I couldn’t pass up this deal since a) I am always curious about data and information b) I wanted to go deeper into my ancestry with DNA as I’ve only done basic tests. I also planned on getting it for my wife, also, but by the time we checked the site later in the evening the price was back to normal even though it was only about 8PM here.
Well, I sent in my sample and it says it will take 6-8 weeks for results. I got my results about 4 weeks later, so that was a surprise. The Complete Edition also includes the “Health” information, which is interesting. As they mention many times, I take all of that information with a grain of salt, even though there isn’t anything major to worry about in my results.
But, this site is less interested in what type of earwax I have or my Alcohol Flush Reaction and more interested in my Maternal and Paternal DNA information. I had previous known that my maternal line was H and my paternal line was R1a1. This gave me some insight into my genetic history, but it was a basic overview. I now know more details.
My maternal line has been traced in more detail to the H11a group. Their site describes it:
H originated in the Near East and then expanded after the peak of the Ice Age into Europe, where it is the most prevalent haplogroup today. It is present in about half of the Scandinavian population and is also common along the continent’s Atlantic coast.
My maternal line is basically all German, as I wrote about in a recent SNGF post.
My paternal line (or my Zalewski line) has been traced in more detail to the R1a1a subgroup.
R1a1a is the primary haplogroup of Eastern Europe, where it spread after the end of the Ice Age about 12,000 years ago. The haplogroup is most common in a swath from Ukraine and the Balkans north and west into Scandinavia, along the path of the men who followed the receding glaciers into Europe. It is also common near its presumed point of origin in south-central Asia. R1a1 is one of the two most common Y-haplogroups in Slavic-speaking populations.
That makes sense, since the Zalewski line traces back to Poland/Prussia, which is in the area mentioned.
The site also has a nice “Relative Finder” that will show you people who are more than likely closely-related to you based on your genetics. You can then send an introduction to them and if they accept, you can compare your basic results. I’ve sent a few intros to people who it predicts are somewhere between 3rd and 7th cousins to me. I have yet to receive a response, but it’s only been a few days.
All of the other info it gives like my “Health Traits” and my “Disease Risk” are interesting to browse. While they have useful info, such as certain risks, it shouldn’t (and doesn’t) affect my daily life due to the new nature of this field, but it’s nice to know.
Anyone else in either of these haplogroups?
I’m almost positive that this is my grandfather, Richard Zalewski. It was with my grandparent’s photos and it looks like a younger version of him. I’m assuming it was taken sometime in the mid-to-late 1920s since Richard was born in 1921.
GYR of SE Wisconsin
