Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Are Your Major Genealogy Research Challenges?

Randy Seaver is back with this week's challenge (a key word this week) for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun!

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  What are your major genealogy challenges — the family mysteries that you haven't been able to crack to date?

2.  Tell us about five of your real genealogy challenges with a short paragraph, and links to blog posts if you have written about them.

3.  Share your challenges in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, BlueSky, or other social media post.  Leave a link to your post on this blog post to help us find your post.

Okay, here's my list.

• Who was the biological father of my paternal grandfather, Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr. (1903–1995)?  He was informally adopted by his mother's husband when he was seven months old and used the name Sellers his entire life.  See "I'm Apparently a Sellers via Informal Adoption" and "Looking for Mr. Mundy (or a variant thereof)."

• What happened to my cousin Raymond Lawrence Sellers (1945–?) after his mother put him up for adoption?  I was unable to find anything about Raymond before my aunt passed away, but her other children would still like to know.  See "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:  Your 2024 'Dear Genea-Santa' Letter."

• All of my Jewish research is a challenge, but the especially difficult lines are those who were living in what was Grodno gubernia in Russia, now mostly in Belarus.  The Nazis were particularly thorough in destroying archival records about the Jews in the area.  So my Meckler (Mekler), Novitsky (Nowicki), and Yelsky lines I'm really, really stuck on.  See "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:  Your Best Genealogy Research Find in May 2018."

• And speaking of the Jewish part of my family, I had a few cousins who ended up in Cuba when they fled Eastern Europe.  I have managed to acquire only four records from their time there (which ranged from the late 1920's to the early 1960's).  I don't know if going back to Cuba will help with my research on the Szochermans.  See "A Declaration of Intention — from Cuba."

• My ex's father (and therefore the grandfather of my stepsons), Karm Singh, was from Punjab, India, born when it was still controlled by the British.  The British barely bothered with records for their own people in India; they didn't really care about the Indians.  So I've gotten absolutely nowhere so far on finding any records for the family.  I have been told I would have better luck if I could travel there and talk to people in person.  See "'Finding Your Roots' – Margaret Cho, Sanjay Gupta, and Martha Stewart."

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Best Find of 2018, and Research Challenge for 2019

It's Saturday, and that means it's time for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music), is:

(1) What was your best research achievement in 2018?  Tell us — show us a document, tell us a story, or display a photograph.  Brag a bit!  You've earned it!

(2) We all have elusive ancestors.  What research problem do you want to work on in 2019?  Tell us where you want to research and what you hope to find.

(3) Put the answers in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook post.

1.  I wasn't able to concentrate on research very much in 2018 due to ongoing health problems, so I had no huge achievements.  There were two significant finds, however, one positive and one not so much.

The positive discovery came when I was on the East Coast to give genealogy presentations in May and June.  I visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum library and learned from librarian Megan Lewis that the library had microfilmed and then digitized records from the former Grodno gubernia region of the Russian Empire, now the Hrodna area of Belarus.  Among the records are many, many documents relating to Jews in the area during World War II.  The digital records are all freely downloadable if you visit the library.  I loaded everything I could fit onto one flash drive, and a friend has volunteered to copy more for me when I send her a list.  I'm hoping to find information about family members who are said to have died during the Holocaust in this area.

The sad discovery, coincidentally also related to the Holocaust, was of another family related to me where almost all individuals were killed.  I have had the Goldsztern family names in my database for a while but only recently realized that they were Holocaust victims.  I added their names to my annual Yom HaShoah post so that they will always be remembered.

2.  I looked at last year's post on this subject, and my research challenges for 2019 haven't changed.  I am still trying to determine who my paternal grandfather's biological father was.  I have an excellent candidate, Bertram Mundy, who was a salesman from northern New Jersey.  He apparently was a philanderer whose first wife divorced him shortly after my grandfather was born.  My father has two excellent Y-DNA matches with men named Mundy, but they're roughly 6th cousins, so I have a lot more work to do on tracing back the two men's family trees and then bringing them forward to look for living relatives with whom I can try to talk.

The second challenge is looking for the son my 93-year-old aunt gave up for adoption in 1945.  This occurred in New Jersey, where adoptions after 1940 are tightly locked up and no information is given out.  Between my aunt and two of her children, I have every major consumer DNA database covered, but still no hits.  I don't know if Raymond Lawrence Sellers (his birth name) is alive or dead.  I don't know if he married or ever had children.  I just know that the only close matches showing up for my aunt and cousins are people we already know.  I think the most challenging part about this research quest is that I can't think of anything else I can do to help find Raymond.  I have to sit and wait, and I'm so bad at doing that.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: My 2018 Dear Genea-Santa Letter

Randy Seaver is getting into the Christmas spirit for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun tonight.

Come on, everybody, join in, accept the mission, and execute it with precision.  Here's your chance to sit on Genea-Santa's lap (virtually) and tell him your Christmas genealogy-oriented wish list:

(1) Write your Genea-Santa letter.  Have you been a good genealogy girl or boy?  What genealogy-oriented items are on your Christmas wish list?  They could be family history items, technology items, or things that you want to pursue in your ancestral quest.

(2) Tell us about them in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status post.  Please leave a comment on this post if you write your own post.

Dear Genea-Santa,

I've had some problems this past year, but I still think I generally did good by genealogy.  I worked at my local Family History Center all year, I was involved with three genealogical societies, I volunteered to coordinate a group when the previous person had to step down, and I gave a fair number of talks at conferences and society meetings.  I'm still posting to my blog, and I did get some research done during the year.

I actually did kind of get one of my wishes from last year.  When I traveled to Washington, D.C. to give a presentation to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Washington, I was able to visit the U.S. Holocaust Museum library.  With the help of Megan Lewis, I discovered many digitized documents relating to Jews in Grodno gubernia during World War II.  Not directly related to my family research, but helpful nonetheless.

Unfortunately, I still have not made progress on the most important item on my wish list, and this year it's the only thing I'm asking for:  finding out what happened to Raymond Lawrence Sellers, the son whom my aunt gave up for adoption in 1945.  Aunt Dottie is now 93, and I'm really running out of time on this, Santa.  I need all the help you (and anyone else) can give me.  My aunt's DNA is in Family Tree DNA and GEDMatch; Raymond's half-brother is in Ancestry; and his full sister is now in 23andMe  I have all the major bases covered — and still nothing.  Someone out there must know something.  Throw me a bone, please!

Everything else pales in comparison to getting this one wish.  If there's anything else I can do to help the process, let me know.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Best Genealogy Research Find in May 2018

Randy Seaver appears to have taken last weekend off for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, probably because he was so busy with everything going on at Jamboree.  We do have a new challenge this week, however:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music), is:

(1) What was your best genealogy "research find" in May 2018?  It could be a record, it could be a photograph, etc.  Whatever you judge to be your "best."

(2) Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post.


To explain why this is a great research find, I have to provide a little bit of background information.

Three of my Jewish family lines go back to an area that was formerly called Grodno gubernia in the Russian Empire, which is now the Hrodna region of Belarus.  During World War II, the Nazis and their collaborators were incredibly thorough in destroying almost all archival records relating to the Jews of the area.  There's practically nothing left.  It's entirely possible that the earliest record I may find relating to my great-great-grandfather, who was born about 1858, is a voter list from the early 1900's.

Given that situation, I latch on to any records from this area with glee, just on the off-chance that I might find something about a family member.

While I was on a recent trip to the Washington, D.C. area to give talks to two genealogical societies, I visited the library at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and asked the librarian (hi, Megan!) about records from Grodno.  She told me about a collection of records from 1940–1944 that had been microfilmed by the museum and which were available to look at digitally there in the library.  I could even download the files if I wanted to.  I was practically jumping with joy!

Of course, I didn't have a flash drive with me that day, but I came back a couple of days later and downloaded as many as could fit on my drive (I ran out of room), along with the detailed finding aid for the collection.  And a friend has volunteered to go to the library and download more of the digitized files for me.  So even though I don't know yet what I might find, I'm thrilled to even have these kinds of records available to search.  I'm hoping that I find something about some, even one, of the family members who, as far as we know, perished in this area during the Holocaust.  And just that possibility makes this a great research find.

My 2017 Dear Genea-Santa Letter

This year Randy Seaver didn't have the Genea-Santa letter as part of Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but it's a fun tradition to maintain, so I'm writing one again.

I tried to be a good genealogy girl again this year, but I admit I slipped up later in the year.  I still do a lot of genealogy volunteer work, including editing three publications and sitting on three boards.  I moved from California to Oregon but found a new Family History Center at which to help people.  I attended four genealogy conferences, three one-day seminars, many in-person presentations, and several dozen Webinars, plus I taught twenty-nine classes.  I have not been able to keep up my blogging as well since I moved, as I'm still (!) unpacking boxes, but I do post regularly, at least once a week and usually twice.  And I have managed to continue researching my own family and helping others with their research.

I did receive some very nice genealogy gifts during 2017.  In July I connected with a cousin on my paternal grandmother's side of the family, from a branch on which I had little information.  She provided me with enough info that I was able to add a lot to my family tree, and we'll be working together more in 2018.  In March I was contacted by someone related to one of the families I've been writing about for Treasure Chest Thursday.  The person who wrote to me shared documents, photos, and stories that helped me learn more about the individuals.  And in January a reader was able to help me identify a found photograph and return it to the person who had lost it.

As much as I appreciate those gifts, I didn't get any of things I actually had on my list, so this year's requests are going to sound familiar.  But I've cut down the number of items by almost half.

• My absolute number-one priority is still that I want to help my now 92-year-old aunt find and make contact with Raymond Lawrence Sellers, the son she gave up for adoption 72 years ago, or his descendants, or at least find out what happened to him.  We haven't made any progress since last year.  She did a DNA test through Family Tree DNA, the results of which are also on GEDMatch.  (Unfortunately, AncestryDNA was unsuccessful at processing her test.)  She still doesn't show any close matches besides family members we already knew had tested.  Maybe her son didn't have any descendants, or absolutely none of them has decided to try DNA testing.  It is so very important for her to find him, so I really am hoping for this one.  It's the most important item on my list.

• I've seen more and more stories about surprise discoveries of stored-away documents in Eastern Europe, so I would love for someone to find a treasure trove of previously unknown surviving Jewish records from the former Grodno gubernia.  If some of my relatives were mentioned in them, so much the better.

• It would be really nice if optical character recognition (OCR) scanning of old newspapers could become more accurate and reliable.  I swear I heard that someone had come up with a way for computers to assess poor-quality spots on newspaper pages (torn, ink blobs, type dropped out) and try logical infilling, rather than merely scanning them as is and having something that looks like a bunch of control characters come out as the search text, but I haven't seen anything more about it.  Does anyone else remember reading about that?  Can you point me to a reference somewhere?

So that's my shortened list for this year.  Please, Santa, see what you can do, okay?  I have a really nice Port I'll be happy to share with you.

"Cocktail Party Conversation"

Last year I volunteered at an Ancestry Day event in San Francisco and earned a free AncestryDNA kit.  It took several months for me to receive my kit because of some unexplained glitches on the Ancestry site that prevented me from ordering (I personally think it's because I was using an American Express card).  Eventually, one of the nice people at Ancestry who kept suggesting other ways I could try to enter my information figured out it would be a lot faster and easier if she just input the information, and voilà!  My kit was ordered.

Of course, when I received the kit, I meant to send it back right away . . . yeah, that didn't happen.  I think it took me about a month or so before I finally had time to read the instructions, register the kit, come up with enough saliva to fill to the line, and send it off.  I can't say I was waiting with bated breath to see my results, but I was curious as to what Ancestry would come up with.

A week ago, I got a message in my inbox:  "Your AncestryDNA results are in!"  So I dutifully clicked the link and went to Ancestry.com to learn what discoveries would be revealed.

Well, at least some of it is realistic.  Ancestry says I'm 48% European Jewish — check.  My mother was Jewish and solidly Eastern European as far as I know.  Not as much actual documentation as I'd like (with three family lines in Grodno gubernia, that's pretty much impossible), but very reliable otherwise.

I have much better documentation on my father's side of the family, going back several generations.  He is primarily English Quaker and other English on his mother's side, and German Lutheran on his father's.  Some of the English goes back to Belgium, and some of the German to Switzerland.  The paper trail is very strong, with no evidence of nonpaternity events or undocumented adoptions.  So what does Ancestry say the rest of my background is?

Western Europe 34%
Ireland 12%
Scandinavia 2%
English less than 1%
Caucasus less than 1%
Middle East less than 1%
Italy/Greece less than 1%
Africa, American Indian, Asia, Pacific Islander 0%

The 34% Western European makes sense in context of my father's strong German background, plus the Belgian and Swiss connections.  Some Scandinavian is plausible given our English ancestry, since it is well known that Viking raiders made it to Great Britain.  Anything below 1% can safely be ignored, but even the Caucasus and Middle East could be legitimate with my mother being Jewish.

But less than 1% English?  And 12% Irish??!  Trust me, I've always wanted to be Irish, but it just ain't there.  My mother — remember I said she was Eastern European Jewish? — claimed we were part Irish on her side of the family.  Even though there are Irish Jews, that was wishful thinking on her part.  I have everything on the island of Great Britain from my father's side — English, Scottish (though probably border reivers, otherwise known as horse thieves), Welsh, and even Cornish — but absolutely no Irish.  And Ancestry says I'm 12%?  Just where are they thinking it came from?

I'm actually amused by this, however, not concerned in any way, because I keep in mind what Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist, says over and over:  These results are nothing but cocktail party conversation, because the algorithms are built on extrapolation of data that are insufficient to give reliable information.  The companies may never have adequate data to give accurate information.  It's all smoke and mirrors, guys.

But maybe I'll raise a glass to myself next year on St. Patrick's Day anyway.