The YDNA roadblock
Every two years, without fail, The Legal Genealogist takes a deep, deep breath, and takes a look once again.
Not that I don’t look at the YDNA results for my family members in between, mind you, but at least once every two years I take a careful look in the hopes that maybe — just maybe — something will have changed.
The triggering event, each time, is Father’s Day in the United States, when so many people are celebrating their YDNA forebears.
And every two years, without fail, I am doomed to breathe out a deep, deep sigh of disappointment when I see that nothing at all has changed — it remains a sad state of affairs.
I use that term “affair” with deliberation since it clearly was an affair that’s to blame here.
You see, here’s what I know about my own direct paternal line:
On the left my father Hugo Hermann Geissler. Born 5 July 1921, baptized 12 February 1922, Bremen, Germany.1
In the center his father, my grandfather, Hugo Ernst Geissler. Born 24 March 1891, baptized 26 April 1891, Bad Köstritz, in what is now the German state of Thüringen and was then the principality of Reuss jüngere Linie.2
On the right his father, my great grandfather, Hermann Eduard Geissler.
And therein lies the tale — the tale of that affair.
In the Lutheran church records for the little town of Ossig in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, a single line in the entries of baptisms for 1855 tells the story — and it has sure created a roadblock in my efforts to do any deep YDNA research of that direct paternal line.
It tells me that Hermann Eduard Geisler (only one S and no ß, that goofy German letter that’s usually translated as SS) was born 20 April 1855. Baptized 21 April 1855. Four separate godparents. And in the columns for parents… You know what I’m gonna say already, don’t you?
Yup.
Hermann Eduard Geissler was the first-born “uneheliches kind” (illegitimate child) of Friedrike Geisler.3
Whoever Hermann’s father was — the man with whom his mother had that affair — never gave him his name; Hermann used his mother’s maiden name all his life. We have no clues whatsoever to the father’s identity.
And yes, I’ve YDNA-tested my brothers. They match each other — thank heavens! — but their next closest match is a genetic distance of seven at 67 markers. Our statistical odds of having a common ancestor with anyone at that level don’t even reach the 50-50 mark until roughly 13 generations ago. If you figure 25-30 years per generations, we’d be looking somewhere between the early to mid-1600s. In Germany. A country where few people do DNA testing.
Sigh…
Happy Father’s Day.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “And speaking of historical affairs…,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 21 June 2020).
SOURCES
- For the birth, Bremen Standesamt, Geburtskunde Nr. 2888, Hugo Hermann Geissler (5 July 1921); Stadtarchiv Bremen. For the baptism, Bremen Zionskirche, Taufenbuch 1922 nr. 3, Hugo Hermann Geissler; FHL microfilm 953275. ↩
- Evangelische Kirche Bad Köstritz, Kirchenbuch, Taufregister Seite 69 Nr. 21 aus 1891, Baptismal Record of Hugo Ernst Geissler (digital image of record in possession of JG Russell). ↩
- Evangelische Kirche Ossig (Kr. Zeitz), Taufregister 1855 nr. 4, Hermann Eduard Geisler; Kirchenbuchduplikat, 1799-1874 (Staatarchiv Magdeburg); FHL microfilm 1,335,488. ↩
My husband has a 1 match at 37 markers and a 3 match at 111 markers to a line of Phillips who go back to the early 1600s in the US. I have traced Mike’s ag lab Green Family back to the mid 1700s in Oxfordshire but somewhere before then there must have been a name change or perhaps an informal adoption by a relative.
Sigh…
You should seriously consider yDNA SNP testing of your brothers. Shared SNP inheritance is the future of YDNA testing. Either FTDNA’s “Big Y 700” or even the comparably priced WGS testing. Several reputable companies offer the latter. SNP testing will at least tell you down which particular branching of the male Y Tree (@ YFull.com) you should be looking at. It may even give you additional potential matches which STR testing alone hasn’t. Best of luck!
Ah, bit keeping that woman’s surname alive through more generations is, I think, sort of a cool reward for the frustration. My English line in Yorkshire is a cross-daughter surname carryover. I can find no one in Britain, reasonably related, with the surname. But it carries on to the present, here, in a cousin’s family.
And considering that Friedericke’s only brother died at the age of 14, you have a point there…
Well, at least we have the Cottrell Line. Happy Father’s Day to all our Cottrell Y testers.
And after about a decade we finally have a match and correspondent on my maiden Cattell line with a genetic distance of 3 in England. Since 2010 I’ve know my nephew descends from the Rurikid dynasty of Russian princes. (We have had a lot of fun with that at family gatherings.)
We were stunned to hear from the Rurikid group administrator who said, “2010 was the year when almost all of the Rurikid Princes expanded their tests to 67 markers. Prince Rurik, the 1st ruler of Russia, was born (in Sweden ?) ab. 820 A.D. So, your nephew is currently the first one (who is not a prince) in the world to have proved his direct descent from Rurik, and most probably this was one of grandsons of Rurik who presided over a Viking crew which invaded British Isles in 9th/10th century and who was the ancestor of the (later) Cattles/Cattell family.”
To date, most subsequent matches have been with men with princely European titles. Even English peasants can be fun.
.
You forget that in my Cottrell line we roadblock with George (my 2nd great grandfather) — I know he matches the other Cottrell testers, but I still have no clue who his parents were.
I have a roadblock at my great grandmother… we were told she was orphaned, but I have no idea who her parents were. I’ve only done the autosomal DNA (mainly due to cost) and since she was a Jones, I have narrowed it down to two lines, but have come to dead end after dead end. She was born after the 1920 census was taken, and I can find no birth record or anything. I just submitted to try and get her SSA application, so fingers crossed that might have her parents names on it!
Things have become more settled now, but during Fasching on one day the ladies could get frisky and there used to be quite a few “Fasching Babies” born in Germany. I was there for three Fasching years and they do know how to party. Danced to a lot of polkas and the beer was good. I could believe there would be a few DNA branches.
My grandfather’s birth certificate doesn’t list a father’s name, merely “OW” (for “out of wedlock”). My father matches two men at 111 markers at a distance of 4. Both men are named Mundy, but one thinks he’s Irish and the other thinks he English. Even that close they’re approximately 6th cousins. Oh, I’m still working on it!
Have you looked into the results achieved with Y SNP testing recently? More focused results than the older STR tests. Of course, the usual DNA testing cautions apply, but if you haven’t looked into Y DNA testing recently, it might be worthwhile to investigate.
I’m new to testing but I share your despair. My maternal grandfather was raised in the children’s home so only knows names of his parents because someone else told him but we can find no information on them or have proof who they were. My paternal grandfather lived his life being raised by his grandmother and if his father’s name was known it was not told. I’m matching to plenty of people but have no idea who my great grandparents are for them.
How about upgrading to the Big Y ?
I was told by a German cousin that it was relatively common, and very much accepted, for an engaged couple to live together before marriage. Some considered it very important for the couple to know if they could have children. It was really important for farming families to know they could have boys together to carry on with land. I have a 4 great gramma whose son had her maiden name. I also have a 2 great uncle who had his mother’s maiden name, Haselhuhn, on his birth records. Then after his parents were married, his name was changed to Becker, his father’s name.
It was common, but after the marriage the child generally took the father’s name. That didn’t happen here.
So frustrating Judy! Hoping next year you’ll have better results.
In the meantime, have you ever done a blog on capturing DNA outside of the new spit tests? My paternal great grandfather Hall is my block wall. I have not received any matches from my family trees. My grandfather, father, and brother have all passed. My only remaining male (nephew) continues to refuse to test.
However, I have recently found letters sent during World War II by both my grandfather and father and my brother’s letters from the Vietnam era. I’ve heard the saliva on the stamp, touch, or even hair can have viable DNA. Do you have any legal suggestions or a referral for doing that type of testing?
Thank You!
I have and my advice is the same as it was: hold on to those items and DO NOT TEST THEM YET. The technology is being worked on, but it’s not there yet.
Thank you Judy, I’ll do that… Pam
Yes, I have about the same Ymatch success, or worse. No official matches due to GD being too great, but from the haplogroup project concerned, I can see that there are three people with their oldest ancestor in the line along the Atlantic seaboard of western Europe – where other people in my ancestor’s area were supposed to have come from about 750 years ago.
No advances over more than 10 years, but I have just taken the plunge of doing Y700. See what turns up.
I’ve made a lot of progress in my complicated paternal line (name changes every generation!) through a combination of autosomal testing and regular tree research. Y-DNA testing has confirmed the likely father for a paternal cousin of mine, but has done zilch in my progress back beyond my own paternal great-grandfather. Don’t give up but don’t pin much hope on Y-DNA testing, it’s too rare.
Particularly YDNA testers in a rural part of former East Germany! 🙂 🙁