Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Most Recent No-Name Ancestor

I'm not going to write about the ancestor most people might expect for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver.

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

1.  Sometimes an ancestor or relative has no name at all — not even a given name (for males, we usually can surmise a surname, but . . .).  We all have millions of them.

2.  Tell us about one (or more) of your ancestors that have no given name and no birth surname who has perhaps married an ancestor with a given name and surname from whom you are descended.  (Don't worry, we'll do unknown parents some time soon.)

3.  When was the last time you looked for this no-name ancestor?

4.  Share information about your no-name ancestor(s) in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook comment.

Okay, here's mine.

I'm sure many people would expect me to write about my paternal grandfather's father, whom I usually discuss when it comes to recent ancestors I haven't identified.  But in June I posted that I have decided his last name must be Mundy (or a spelling variant thereof), and I was already pretty sure his given name included "bert" in it.  So he really isn't a no-name ancestor anymore.

I'm going further afield.

The first person who next came to my mind is the father of my great-great-grandmother Beila, who married Simcha Dovid Mekler, possibly in Kamenets Litovsk (now Kamyanyets, Belarus).  I wrote about her in August for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, "Five Questions for an Ancestor."  I know her given name, and I have estimated her year of death to be before 1924.  That's all I know about her.

So it stands to reason that I don't know anything about her father, who I am calling my "no-name ancestor" for the purpose of this post.

I admit I have never looked for him.  To be honest, I have barely looked for Beila.  I'm pretty sure both were born in the Russian Empire.  I think Beila was probably born in what was Grodno gubernia and is now part of Belarus.  Her father might have been born there, or possibly in what is now Lithuania.

If I could find a marriage record for Beila, it might include her father's name on it.  But because of the dearth of records for Jews in the former Grodno gubernia (most having been deliberately destroyed during World War II, to eradicate the history of the Jews in the area), it is unlikely I will ever find that marriage record.

If I could find a tombstone for Beila, it might have her father's name on it in Hebrew.  But the Jewish cemeteries in that area were also pretty thoroughly destroyed during World War II, and it is unlikely I will find that tombstone.

If I could find the family in a Russian revision list, perhaps the 1897 list, it would probably list her father's name and maybe even a maiden name.  Even a Russified version would be helpful.  I actually have tried searching for her, Simcha Dovid Mekler, and the two children I know of in the revision lists as transcribed on JewishGen.org, but I have not found them.  I know that many of the revision lists did not survive.  Perhaps one day a page with my family on it will be found in an attic or tucked inside the wall of a house.

Looking for Mr. Mundy (or a variant thereof)

Mount Munday (north aspect)*.  Maybe I'll discover I'm related to these Mundays!

Yesterday, to celebrate Father's Day on Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver asked us to write about four generations of our fathers, going back to our great-great-grandfathers.  I still have two men missing in that list:  my paternal grandfather's biological father and his father.  I've been searching for them since I determined through Y-DNA testing that Mr. Sellers was not my grandfather's biological father.  And until yesterday, I had been calling that great-grandfather Mr. X.

But I have made progress!  Just a day or two earlier, I was reviewing my father's DNA matches on Family Tree DNA, and I noticed something significant:  Instead of only one match at 111 markers, there are now four.  All four are named Mundy or a variant.  When you add the man on GEDmatch who matched my father, that makes five named Mundy/Munday/etc.  I call that a trend.

And so I decided to start calling my great-grandfather Mr. Mundy.

He has a name!

Today I spent some additional time looking around to see what else has happened since I had time to work on this particular problem.

One of the matches on Family Tree DNA has posted a family tree going back a few generations.  I used that information to search FamilyTree on FamilySearch.  FamilyTree is the big collaborative tree that everyone can contribute to and argue about.  It's FamilySearch's attempt to create the family tree of the human race.

I realize that not all of the information on FamilyTree is reliable.  Much of it has no sources, or the sources are a little sketchy.  But I figured it couldn't hurt to see where it would take me.

It took me several generations back, eventually to a Nicholas Mundy said to be born about 1645, although no one seems to know where.

Coincidentally, one of the pieces of information on Family Tree DNA led me to a Munday surname study.  And on that site, my father has been linked to the very same Nicholas Mundy based on my father's Y haplogroup and the research people have been doing.

There is a note on the site that my father's grandfather is still unknown and the connection of my father to the Nicholas Munday line is still a guess.

But that's still progress!

One of the tasks I had set for myself in researching the best possibility I have found so far for my grandfather's biological father is to order that man's divorce file, just to see if there is any information in it that can help.  I guess I better get going on that!

*Photo by Andre Charland, April 3, 2005.  Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Tell Us about the Fathers in Your Tree

Tomorrow is Father's Day, so we knew that fathers would be the topic in some way for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver.

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

1.  It's Father's Day on Sunday.  This week, tell us about the fathers in your tree — their names, their birth and death years and locations, their occupations, the number of spouses, the number of children, etc.  Go back at least four generations if possible through your known second-great-grandfathers.

2.  Share your father list information 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.

I can handle this!  Well, except for the chart.  Family Tree Maker and I could not agree on producing that, so I'm omitting it.  I'll try to figure out how to beat FTM into submission at a later date.

• Father:  #2 Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. (1935 New Jersey to 2019 Florida), automobile mechanic, 3 spouses, 4 children (3 girls, 1 boy)

• Grandfather:  #4 Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr. (1903 New Jersey to 1995 Florida), civil engineer, 3 spouses, 5 children (3 girls, 2 boys)

• Grandfather:  #6 Abraham Meckler (1912 New York to 1989 Florida), taxi driver, 1 spouse, 3 children (1 girl, 2 boys)

• Great-grandfather:  #8 Mr. Mundy, unknown everything else except at least 1 child (1 boy)

• Great-grandfather:  #10 Thomas Kirkland Gauntt (1870 New Jersey to 1951 New Jersey), farmer, 1 spouse, 10 children (5 girls, 5 boys)

• Great-grandfather:  #12 Morris Mackler (about 1882 Russian Empire to 1953 New York), carpenter, 1 spouse, 7 children (3 girls, 4 boys)

• Great-grandfather:  #14 Joe Gordon (about 1892 Russian Empire to 1955 New York), furrier, 1 spouse, 4 children (1 girl, 3 boys)

• 2nd-great-grandfather:  #16 Mr. Mundy, unknown everything else except at least 1 child (1 boy)

• 2nd-great-grandfather:  #18 Joel Armstrong (1849 New Jersey to maybe 1921 New Jersey), laborer, 1 confirmed spouse, 3 confirmed children (2 girls, 1 boy)

• 2nd-great-grandfather:  #20 James Gauntt (1831 New Jersey to 1899 New Jersey), wheelwright, 1 spouse, 10 children (4 girls, 6 boys)

• 2nd-great-grandfather:  #22 Frederick Cleworth Dunstan (1840 Lancashire to 1873 Lancashire), file grinder, 1 spouse, 6 children (3 girls, 3 boys)

• 2nd-great-grandfather:  #24 Simcha Dovid Mekler (unknown Russian Empire to before 1903 Russian Empire), unknown occupation but carpenter would be a good guess, 1 known spouse, 2 known children (1 girl, 1 boy)

• 2nd-great-grandfather:  #26 Gershon Itzhak Novitsky (about 1856 Russian Empire to 1948 New York), wood turner, 1 official spouse, 7 known children (3 girls, 4 boys)

• 2nd-great-grandfather:  #28 Victor Gordon (about 1863 Russian Empire to 1925 New York), furrier, 2 spouses, 8 children (4 girls, 4 boys)

• 2nd-great-grandfather:  #30 Morris Brainin (about 1861 Russian Empire to 1930 New York), shoemaker, 1 spouse, 8 children (4 girls, 4 boys)

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Genealogy Goals for 2025

It's the beginning of the year, so it's time to think about what we want to accomplish with our genealogy, thanks to prodding from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

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

1.  What are your genealogy goals for 2025?  Consider genealogy research, education, organizing, service, writing, and whatever else you care to share.

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

My list is never as long as Randy's, but I'm not retired yet.  Most of my goals are the same as or similar to the ones from last year.

• Maintain regular posts on my blog.  I did a lot better in 2024 than the previous two years, so I'm hoping I have a rhythm again.  I have several ideas for posts already scheduled in my calendar.

• Finish going through the scans of the photo bonanza I received from my sister.  I probably made it halfway through last year.

• Work on finding a way to do more research on the man who probably isn't the son my aunt surrendered for adoption in 1945.  Even though I no longer think the mystery man is my missing cousin, he does resemble a known family member, so I want to determine if there is a connection.

• Get back to researching my unidentified biological great-grandfather.  Find more information on Bert Mundy, particularly a photograph, so I can either rule him out or keep him as a contender.

• Work on new genealogy presentations.  I have some ideas I've been batting around for a while that I need to finish.

• Continue my volunteer work with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon, San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, and Genealogical Forum of Oregon African American Special Interest Group.

• Continue researching my own family.  I need to devote more in-depth research time to that and follow up on the many clues and document trails that I've discovered during the past few years.

• Determine a systematic way to go through my family tree databases and look for errors, omissions, and items that need to be updated.

• Continue to encourage my brother to start doing the number crunching that's necessary to really do good DNA analysis.  In particular, I'm hoping that work might help us discover who our mystery great-grandfather is (see above).

• Continue my genealogy education through Webinars.  Maybe try to go to an actual in-person genealogy event this year.

• If I really get caught up on other things, return to going through the documents relating to Emma Schafer and the constellation of people around her.  I used the documents as my Treasure Chest Thursday posts.  I began the series on July 20, 2015.  My last post was August 25, 2017, just before I moved to Portland.  Whenever I do get back to these I'll probably have to read through the entire chronology to refresh my memory adequately.

That's eleven items.  I think that's enough to keep me busy for the year.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Have You Made Progress on Your 2024 Genealogy Goals?

Let's see how well I'm doing on my genealogy plans for this year, since Randy Seaver has made that the challenge for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

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

1.  Marian B. Wood wrote a blog post, Halfway through 2024:  Genealogy Progress and Plans, to assess her progress to date in 2024.  This is an excellent idea for an SNGF challenge.

2.  How are you doing with your genealogy goals for 2024?  If you did not make goals for 2024, what goals do you hope to achieve in the rest of the year?

3.  Tell us about your goals in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

Not going to color-code mine as Randy did.  I think I'll use bold and indentation instead.

I wrote about my 2024 genealogy goals in January (coincidentally, for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post) here, in case you want to read the original post.

I set six goals for myself.

• Get back to posting regularly on my blog. 👍

    • Status:  Definitely improved over last year!  In 2023 I had a grand total of only 33 posts, and I already have 47 posts this year (not counting this one), before the end of June.  I'd say I'm doing quite well on this goal.

• Finish going through scans of the photo bonanza from my sister. 👍

    • Status:  I have done some more labeling of photos, but I have a long way to go.  I know I will need assistance in identifying all the cars my father took photos of, but someone has volunteered to help me with that.  So I'm doing okay on this goal, but I need to make sure I don't let myself slack off.

• Pursue more research on the man who is possibly the child my aunt gave up for adoption (and at least seems to be related to our family). 😟

    • Status:  I haven't done anything with this project yet this year, so I better get a move on.

• Finish posting the rest of the family events from my family tree database.

    • Status:  I'm not behind on this, since I need to pick it up again in November.  It's on my calendar, but it's another thing I need to keep track of and not slip up as I did the past two years.

• Do more research on finding my biological great-grandfather. 😟

    • Status:  I haven't done anything with this yet this year.  I know I need help at this point.  I've determined that trying to find a descendant of my prime candidate isn't going to be particularly helpful.  I did have someone offer to help with looking at the DNA trail, so I need to ask her if she's still willing.  And I still need to pursue trying to find a photograph of Mr. X to see if there's an obvious resemblance, which wouldn't hurt.

• Create some new genealogy presentations I've been thinking about. 👍

    • Status:  I already have accomplished this by creating one new talk about the U.S. census, and I know I'll be making another new presentation soon, because I'm committed to giving a talk about New York newspapers for the New York State Family History Conference in September.  So this goal also is in good shape.

When I posted my goals in January, I was worried that maybe I was being a little too ambitious.  Now that I've put all this down in writing, however, I feel pretty good about how well I'm doing.  Three are good and one hasn't come up yet on the calendar.  I do need to knuckle down on the other two, though.

And I need to thank Marian for having cute little icons I could copy and use in my post!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Most Frustrating Research Challenge

This week's challenge from Randy Seaver is one of those Saturday Night Genealogy Fun questions when I know right away what my answer is.

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

1.  One of the goals of every genealogy researcher is to solve difficult name and relationship problems.  What is one of your most frustrating research challenges that you have not yet solved? 

2.  Share your challenging problem on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please share a link in Comments on this post if you write your own post.

Yup, didn't even have to think twice.

Definitely, my most frustrating research challenge that I have not yet solved is determining who my paternal grandfather's biological father was.

I have been writing since 2016 (is it really eight years already?!), when I showed with Y-DNA testing that my father (and by extension my grandfather) was not biologically a Sellers, about my search for my grandfather's biological father.

"I'm Apparently a Sellers by Informal Adoption" was when I announced the results of the Y-DNA testing, way back on February 6, 2016.  I compared my father's Y-DNA to his male cousin's and easily determined that they did not descend from the same man in a genealogically relevant timeframe and that my family branch are not biologically Sellerses.  And so began the hunt for my grandfather's biological father.

I wrote about the initial research on December 3, 2016, coincidentally for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:  "Who Is Your MRUA?" (MRUA means "most recent unknown ancestor.")  My MRUA is my great-grandfather.  My father matched two men named Mundy at 111 – 4 markers, so I focused my search for a viable Mundy.  Suzanne McClendon, one of my readers, went to town on finding newspaper articles, and we identified a likely candidate as a man named Bertram Mundy.

Another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic encouraged me to write about my continuing research.  I posted "Research Grief" on September 9, 2017 (a mere eight days after having moved to Gresham, Oregon).  At that time I had researched back two generations of the Mundy family and found no living descendants after following them forward in time.  I was planning to go back another generation in my search.

About a year and a half after my December 2016 post, Randy used the same topic for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  For the May 26, 2018 version of "Who Is Your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor (MRUA)?", I wrote an update of where I was on my research.  I had not researched further back on Bertram Mundy's family tree, but I had come up with some other things I could do, such as get a copy of Mundy's divorce file and try to find anyone who was related to him to inquire about family stories.

Since that post, I have done some additional research.  After researching back four generations and finding no living descendants, I have abandoned the idea of tracking a Mundy cousin down and paying for an autosomal test.  Anyone I could find at this point will be so distantly related that the likelihood of sharing enough DNA to be relevant is very small.

My new goal is trying to find a photograph of good old Bert Mundy and comparing that to my grandfather and father's looks.  Not as scientific, but yes, I am grasping at straws.  I also still need to obtain Bert's divorce file to see if anything is mentioned about philandering.  Finding my great-grandmother's name in the file would be a smoking gun, but I'm not holding my breath on that.  And there is still the off-chance I might find some documentation of Bert having traveled to the Philadelphia area around July or August 1902.

One other thing I have done is ask a couple of friends who do search angel work for adoptees if they can help.  One said yes but then had a baby shortly afterward and is kind of busy with other things still.  It's possible that someone with more experience with DNA might be able to gain more information from what I have, which is not only my father's DNA but also that of two of his half-sisters, all of them children of my grandfather and each from a different mother.  So that's still on my list.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Genealogy Goals for 2024

I'm going to be guardedly optimistic about accomplishing what I write about tonight for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, because I'm going to be cautious.

1.  What are your genealogy goals for 2024?  Consider genealogy research, education, organizing, service, writing, and whatever else you care to share.

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

Okay, here are mine.

• Get back to posting regularly on my blog.  In 2023 I had 33 posts, and in 2022 only 25.  I'm going to shoot for at least 100 posts in 2024.  I should be able to do that with Wordless Wednesday and Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, plus I do have more I want to write about.

• Finish going through the scans of the photo bonanza that I received from my sister and make at least preliminary identifications of all of them.

• Figure out a way to pursue more research on the man who could be the son my aunt gave up for adoption in 1945, without alienating anyone.

• Finally finish posting to my blog about the family events (births, marriages, and deaths) that I was extracting from my family tree database.  I think I need to pick up again in mid-November.

• Get back to work on finding Mr. X, the biological father of my paternal grandfather.  I want to find a photograph of Bertram Mundy to see if he resembles my grandfather.

• Finish putting together a few new presentations that I've had ideas for.

Eek!  That doesn't look like as cautious of a list as I had intended.  But I think I'll stick with it.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Who Is a Mysterious Person in Your Family Tree?

Time for this week's Saturday Night Geneaogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver!

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

1.  Who is a mysterious person in the family tree you'd like to learn more about? [Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting topics!]

2.  Write your own blog post, or add your response as a comment to this blog post, in a Facebook Status post or note.

The most mysterious person in my family tree is still my paternal grandfather's biological father, about whom I know nothing, although I suspect his given name was Bertram.

My grandfather's birth was registered under his mother's maiden name of Armstrong because she was not married at the time he was born.  When he was 7 months old his mother married Cornelius Elmer Sellers, and from that point on he apparently used the last name of Sellers.  When he was 37 years old his mother filed an amended birth record for him, changing his name legally from Armstrong to Sellers and stating that his father was Elmer Sellers.

I proved through Y-DNA that he was not biologically a Sellers.  My cousin, the grandson of my grandfather's brother through a straight male line, and my father had totally different Y-DNA results, indicating they did not descend from the same man (certainly not within a genealogically relevant period of time).  (And there is no question that my father was my grandfather's son; they looked too much alike.)  My cousin matched several other Sellers men whose ancestor was the same German man, Hans Georg Soller.  My father has no matches to anyone with the last name of Sellers.

I was fortunate to meet my grandaunt, my grandfather's youngest sister, before she passed away.  She provided quite a bit of information about the family, including that my grandfather, whose given names were Bertram Lynn, was supposed to have been named after a close family friend.

Three years after Elmer Sellers died, my great-grandmother had another child (with no husband), whom she named Bertolet.  This is a little too much of a coincidence for me, particularly because the name Bertolet is pretty unusual (I'm not sure if it's unique).  Whether the same man was the father of my grandfather and of Bertolet is a separate question (my great-grandmother did not list Bertolet's father's name on the child's birth or death certificate), but I'm pretty sure that Grandpa's father was named Bertram or something similar, because the name "Bert" certainly seemed to be meaningful to my great-grandmother.

My father has two Y-DNA matches at 111 markers (the most available for commercial consumer testing), both of whom have the last name of Mundy.  So my theory (still) is that my biological great-grandfather was probably a Mundy with the given name of Bertram or something similar.

With the help of one of my readers, I have a really good candidate, a Bertram Mundy who lived in northern New Jersey but who was some sort of traveling salesman.  It is quite plausible (to me, at least) that he might have traveled to the Philadelphia area, somehow met my great-grandmother (who lived in nearby Burlington County, New Jersey), and had a tryst of some type with her.  I'm still working on researching that theory and trying to prove or disprove it.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Great-grandparents' Locations

Looking for family member!  Looking for family members!  This week Randy Seaver has us hunting down information about some of our relatives for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music):

(1) We all have eight biological great-grandparents.  Where and when were they born, where and when did they marry, and where and when did they die?

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

Well, we may all have eight great-grandparents biologically, but that doesn't mean we know who all eight of those people are.

Paternal Great-grandparents

• Someone, probably a man named Mundy.  No idea when or where he was born or died.  He did not marry my great-grandmother.

She was Laura May Armstrong, who was born May 7, 1882 in Bustleton, Florence Township, Burlington County, New Jersey.  She was married at least once, November 7, 1903, to Cornelius Elmer Sellers (the only father my grandfather knew), in Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey.  She died October 23, 1970 in Niceville, Okaloosa County, Florida.

• Thomas Kirkland Gauntt was born May 23, 1870 in Fairview, Medford Township, Burlington County, New Jersey.  He died January 21, 1951 in Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey.

He married Jane Dunstan on September 2, 1891 in Greenland, Camden County (I think), New Jersey.  She was born April 28, 1871 in Manchester, Lancashire, England and died August 1, 1954 in Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey.

Maternal Great-grandparents

• Morris Mackler (originally Moishe Meckler) was born about 1882, probably in Kamenets Litovsk, Grodno gubernia, Russian Empire (now Kamyanyets, Belarus).  He died July 27, 1953 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.

He married Minnie Zelda Nowicki (originally Mushe Zelda[?] Nowicki) about 1903, possibly in Porozowo, Grodno gubernia, Russian Empire (now Porazava, Belarus).  She was born about 1880, probably in Porozowo.  She died August 4, 1936 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.

• Joe Gordon (originally Joine Gorodetsky) was born about 1892, probably in Kamenets Podolsky, Podolia, Russian Empire (now Kamianets Podilskyi, Ukraine).  He died May 2, 1955 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.

He married Sarah Libby Brainin (originally Sore Leiba Brainin) on April 4, 1914 in Manhattan, New York County, New York.  She was born about 1890, possibly in Kreuzburg, Courland, Russian Empire (now Krustpils, Latvia).  She died July 23, 1963 in Miami, Dade County, Florida.

 

Five of my great-grandparents were immigrants to the United States, four from the Russian Empire and one from England.  Two of my great-grandparents were Jerseyites through and through.  And I still don't know the name of my paternal grandfather's biological father.  His adoptive father was born in Philadelphia but lived most of his life in New Jersey.

On my father's side, the three great-grandparents about whom I have information all died in New Jersey.  On my mother's side, three of them died in Brooklyn, while the one who died most recently moved to Miami after she was widowed and died there.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Are Your 2021 Plans/Goals/Resolutions for Your Genealogy Research?

It's the first Saturday of the new year and time for the first Saturday Night Genealogy Fun of 2021!  Let's see what Randy Seaver has in store for us tonight:

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission:  Impossible! music!):

(1) It's the New Year, and many readers and bloggers have already made resolutions, or goals, or plans for one or more tasks or projects.  Or they haven't yet, but could or should.

(2) For this SNGF, please tell us what plans you've made, or what goals you've stated, or what resolutions you've averred for 2021.  Writing them down may help you achieve them.  Do one or more, as you wish.

(3) Put it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link in a comment to this post so readers can find your resolutions/goals/plans.

I decided to start by looking at my post from 2020 about my plans for that year.  I didn't accomplish either one of the only two goals I set, but I did have shoulder surgery and recovery time to deal with, so I'll use that as my excuse.  I guess I better redouble my efforts this year.  Here are last year's goals, repeated verbatim:

===

1.  I will get back to work on finding the ever elusive Mr. X (probably Mundy), my paternal grandfather's biological father.  I've gone back far enough with no lines that come down to the present day that if/when I finally find someone connected to this line, it will be a distant enough cousin that DNA will probably not be helpful.  So I'm going to change my approach to looking for more documentation for my likely candidate, in particular photographs.  If I can find a photo of Bert Mundy and he looks a lot like my grandfather, I may grudgingly accept that as "proof" that he was my boilogical great-grandfather.

2.  I want to catch up on data entry in my family tree program.  I actually coughed up good money to retrieve all the data from my failed hard drive, including Family Tree Maker.  Now I need to see if it will run in a virtual environment on my Mac so that I can continue using the program I like.

===

I will add that one of the problems that delayed #2 is that my hard drive on my Mac is full, and I'm still trying to finish adding a larger hard drive, reconfiguring things, etc.  As for goal #1, I just didn't work on it.  Oops!

 

Minor Update

Because I already announced my 2021 goals in this post, I'm also sharing it on The Family Heart's January Genealogy Blog Party!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Children Did Your Ancestors Have?

I'm playing catch-up to an older Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post that I intended to comment on at the time, so no, you are not in a time warp.  That's why my topic doesn't match what's on Randy's blog today.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Thinking about your ancestors back through 2nd-great-grandparents — in other words, ancestors #2 to #31 on your pedigree chart — how many children did they have?  How many lived long enough to marry?  How many died before age 10?

(2) Tell us all about it in a blog post of your own, in comments on this blog post, or in a post on Facebook.  Be sure to link to them in a comment on this blog post.

So I took my cue from Randy and am only recording children born to my ancestral couples, not to other marriages or relationships those ancestors might have had.

#2–3:  Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. (1935–2019) and Myra Roslyn Meckler (1940–1995), 3 children, all lived long enough to marry.

#4–5:  Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr. (1903–1995) and Anna Gauntt (1893–1986), 1 child, who lived long enough to marry.

#6–7:  Abraham Meckler (1912–1989) and Lillyan E. Gordon (1919–2006), 3 children, all lived long enough to marry.

#8–9:  Unknown, possibly Mundy (?–?) and Laura May Armstrong (1882–1970), 1 known child, who lived long enough to marry; small possibility of a second child, who died before the age of 10.

#10–11:  Thomas Kirkland Gauntt (1870–1951) and Jane Dunstan (1871–1954), 10 children, 6 lived long enough to marry, 3 died before the age of 10.

#12–13:  Morris Meckler (~1882–1953) and Minnie Zelda Nowicki (~1880–1936), 7 children, 6 lived long enough to marry, 1 died before the age of 10.

#14–15:  Joe Gordon (~1890–1955) and Sarah Libby Brainin (~1885–1963), 4 children, 3 lived long enough to marry, 1 died before the age of 10.

#16–17:  Unknown, possibly Mundy (?–?) and Unknown (?–?), 1 known child, who lived long enough to marry.

#18–19:  Joel Armstrong (1849–~1921) and Sarah Ann Deacon Lippincott (1860–after 1904), 3 known children, all lived long enough to marry.

#20–21:  James Gauntt (1831–1899) and Amelia Gibson (1831–1908), 9 known children, 7 (that I know of) lived long enough to marry

#22–23:  Frederick Cleworth Dunstan (1840–1873) and Martha Winn (1837–1884), 6 children, 4 lived long enough to marry, 2 died before the age of 10.

#24–25:  Simcha Dovid Mekler (?–before 1905) and Bela (?–before 1924), 2 known children, both lived long enough to marry.

#26–27:  Gershon Itzhak Novitsky (~1858–1948) and Dora Yelsky (~1858–1936), 7 known children, all lived long enough to marry.

#28–29:  Victor Gordon (~1866–1925) and Esther Leah Schneiderman (~1871–1908), 9 known children, 8 lived long enough to marry, one died before the age of 10.

#30–31:  Morris Brainin (~1861–1930) and Rose Dorothy Jaffe (~1868–1934), 8 known children, 7 lived long enough to marry, one died before the age of 10.

I didn't break down the children by sex, but the total number of children is 74.  Of those, 62 lived long enough to marry (the original question Randy posed, not whether they actually did marry) and 9 died before the age of 10, but I don't have death dates for everyone, so both numbers might actually be higher.  In addition, there is one child whose father is unknown, but that man might be the same as someone else's, which would bring total number of children to 75 and 10 children who died before the age of 10.

I had 15 families, the same number as Randy, but my average was 4.93 children per family and 4.13 children who lived long enough to marry.

One family had only 1 child and two other families had only 1 known child.  One family had 2 known children, but there were almost definitely more.  Three families had 3 children; one of them might have had more.  One family had 4 children, one had 6, two had 7, one had 8, two had 9, and one had 10.  Several of those might have had more children.

My parents had 3 children and no deaths before the age of 10.  My grandparents' generation averaged 2 children and no deaths before the age of 10 per family.  My great-grandparents' generation averaged 5.5 children and 1.25 deaths before the age of 10 per family; and my great-great-grandparents' generation averaged 5.625 children and 0.5 deaths before the age of 10 per family.

My numbers differed from Randy's in some ways, but as he said, it's hard to tell what exactly that signifies.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your 2020 Plans/Goals/Resolutions for Your Genealogy Research

The new year is a time when lots of people make resolutions for what they're going to do.  Me, I don't make resolutions, not since the one I made many years ago and have followed ever since:  never to make another resolution!  So I'm glad that for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver gave the option of calling them plans or goals instead.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission: Impossible! music!):

(1) It's the New Year, and many readers have already made resolutions, or goals, or plans for one or more tasks or projects.  Or they haven't yet, but could or should.

(2) For this SNGF, please tell us what plans you've made, or what goals you've stated, or what resolutions you've averred for 2020.  Writing them down may help you achieve them.  Do one or more as you wish.

(3) Put it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post so readers can find your resolutions/goals/plans.

I think I will set myself two genealogy goals for 2020:

1.  I will get back to work on finding the ever elusive Mr. X (probably Mundy), my paternal grandfather's biological father.  I've gone back far enough with no lines that come down to the present day that if/when I finally find someone connected to this line, it will be a distant enough cousin that DNA will probably not be helpful.  So I'm going to change my approach to looking for more documentation for my likely candidate, in particular photographs.  If I can find a photo of Bert Mundy and he looks a lot like my grandfather, I may grudgingly accept that as "proof" that he was my boilogical great-grandfather.

2.  I want to catch up on data entry in my family tree program.  I actually coughed up good money to retrieve all the data from my failed hard drive, including Family Tree Maker.  Now I need to see if it will run in a virtual environment on my Mac so that I can continue using the program I like.

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: Make One Genealogy-related Resolution/Goal for 2019

So I was expecting something related to the new year for this week's edition of Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, and Randy Seaver did not disappoint.

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

(1) Did you make any New Year's resolutions, or state goals and objectives, for genealogy and family history research in 2019?  If so, tell us about them.

(2) If not, then make ONE resolution, or state one goal, for your genealogy research that you are determined to keep during 2019.  We'll check on progress toward that resolution/goal during the year in SNGF (if I remember!).

(3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook status post.  Leave a link in Comments to any post you make.

Well, I made my last resolution so long ago I don't remember when it was, but I've stuck to it:  never to make any more resolutions!  So I won't call this a resolution, but I guess a goal is ok.

The goal I will set for myself is:

Return to my research on Mr. X, the biological father of my paternal grandfather, and try to determine who he is.  I'm pretty sure he is a Mundy, as my father matches two different men on 107 of 111 markers on a Y-DNA test, and both of those men are named Mundy.  I already have a good candidate in Bert Mundy, who was a salesman in northern New Jersey whose wife divorced him not long after my grandfather was born.  When I was working on this previously, I became frustrated because both Bert's generation and his father's generation appeared to have no living descendants.  I don't think I had completed my research on Bert's grandfather's generation, so that's where I will be picking up.  Although I have a fair amount of circumstantial evidence pointing to Bert as the father, I would prefer to have something a little stronger if possible.

Looking back on an earlier post, this was also the goal I set for 2018.  Hmm, I haven't gotten very far, have I?

I would have preferred to make my one goal finding my aunt's son whom she gave up for adoption in 1945, but I've done as much work on that as I'm capable of.  Matters are now out of my control.  It's just a waiting game to see if anyone appropriate matches my aunt or one of my cousins, who between them are now in all of the major DNA databases.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Who Is Your Second-most Recent Unknown Ancestor?

This week's Saturday Night Genealotgy Fun challenge is a rather logical extrapolation of a previous one.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Who is Your SMRUA — your Second Most Recent Unknown Ancestor?  The one that you don't have a name for, or any information.  The one completely unknown to you.  

(2) Have you looked at your research files for this unknown person recently?  Why don't you scan it again just to see if there's something you have missed? 

(3) What online or offline resources might you search that might help identify your SMRUA?  What about DNA matches?

(4) Tell us about him or her, and your answers to (2) and (3) above, in a blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a comment on Facebook or Google+. 

NOTE:  We've done Most Recent Unknown Ancestors before.  Feel free to work down your list to someone you haven't written about before.

Here's mine.

I have written previously about my Most Recent Unknown Ancestor, which is my paternal grandfather's biological father.  I have found two close Y-DNA matches to my father, which have led me to the hypothesis that my biological great-grandfather was a Mr. Mundy.

When I looked through my family tree, I was surprised to see that my second-most recent unknown ancestor is . . . Mr. Mundy's father, my great-great-grandfather!  Yes, even though I am Jewish on my mother's side, I have at least a given name for every one of my great-great-grandparents on that side, and I have complete names for most of them, as well as for everyone on my paternal grandmother's line.

Obviously, finding my great-great-grandfather's name is entirely dependent on identifying my great-grandfather first.  I guess this challenge is a hint that I really should get back to working on tracing those Mundy lines backward and then forward in time, so I can try to find some living Mundy descendants with whom to communicate.  Maybe I will be lucky enough to find one or more who have already done autosomal DNA testing, so I can try to confirm my hypothesis that Bertram Mundy was my grandfather's biological father.

Like I always say, hope springs eternal!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Who Is Your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor (MRUA)?

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun is actually a repeat of one from about a year and a half ago.  I often don't participate when the topic is a rerun, but I'm still stuck on the same most recent unknown ancestor, so I figure if I post again I might get some more ideas from people!

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

(1) Who is your MRUA:  your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor?  This is the person with the lowest number in your Pedigree Chart or Ahnentafel List that you have not identified a last name for, or a first name if you know a surname but not a first name.

(2) Have you looked at your research files for this unknown person recently?  Why don't you scan it again just to see if there's something you have missed? 

(3) What online or offline resources might you search that might help identify your MRUA?

(4) Tell us about him or her, and your answers to (2) and (3) above, in a blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a comment on Facebook or Google+.

1.  My most recent unknown ancestor is still my paternal grandfather's biological father, my great-grandfather, #8 on a standard pedigree chart and Ahnentafel.

2.  I admit that I have not looked at my research for Mr. X recently, but that's because I moved from California to Oregon in September 2017, and the house is still full of unpacked boxes.  I don't even know where my research files are right now.  But with the SNGF post from 2016 available, I have a lot of information readily available to remind me where I was with the project.

I showed with Y-DNA testing that my grandfather's biological father was not the man my great-grandmother married, who did indeed father her other son who survived to adulthood.  Two men match my father on 107 markers through the 111-marker test, and both of those men are named Mundy, so that's my hypothesis for the name of my biological great-grandfather.  Research I had done, and additional documents sent to me by the kind and generous Suzanne McClendon, found a likely candidate, Bertram Mundy, who lived in northern New Jersey (the wrong end of the state) but (1) traveled for work and might easily have gone to the Philadelphia/Burlington County area, and (2) had problems with his first marriage, and his wife divorced him.  Bertram was a name I had already been looking for, because that was my grandfather's name, and my grandfather's youngest sister told me that he was named for "a close family friend."

The number of markers in common with the two Mundy gentlemen indicate a relationship of about 6th cousins, so I was working on tracing Bertram Mundy's family tree back and then bringing lines forward to try to find someone alive today who would be willing to take a Y-DNA test (if I can find a straight-male-line relative) or an autosomal test (although that won't be nearly as helpful, since 6th cousins don't share that much DNA).  So far my research on the Mundy family tree has found no relatives alive today at all.  I also was working on tracing the trees of the two Mundy men my father matches to see if either or both connect with Bertram Mundy's family.

3.  Something that might help my research is to find a living descendant of Bertram Mundy's family just to talk about him and try to find out if there is any knowledge of him traveling to the area where my great-grandmother lived.  Although this would probably be only anecdotal information, being able to place Mundy in the right area at the right time would support my hypothesis.

I also should try to get a copy of the Mundy divorce file.  Although the newspaper article when the divorce was granted to Mrs. Mundy stated desertion as the cause, details in the file might mention that he was also a philanderer.  Ooh, wouldn't it be amazing to find my great-grandmother's name mentioned?!

As for online resources, gee, it would be great to find a newspaper article saying that Bertram Mundy was in Mount Holly attending some convention in mid to late 1902, but I don't think I'm going to be that lucky.  Besides, Suzanne did a yeoman's job of finding lots of newspaper articles about Mundy already, and nothing discovered then placed him in southern New Jersey.  But hope springs eternal!

Another online resource that I have not yet used is the Lazarus tool at GEDMatch.  I have DNA from three of my grandfather's children (from three different mothers, no less), and from my siblings and myself.  It would be interesting to see what kind of reconstruction of Mr. X's DNA could be accomplished.

How Did I Do on My 2017 Genealogy Goals?

Last year at about this time, Randy Seaver posted a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge:  What are your genealogy goals for 2017?  As I think about goals for this year, I decided to look back at what I had in mind for last year and see how much I actually accomplished.  It doesn't look as good as I might have hoped.

Personal Research

• Find the son my aunt gave up for adoption in 1945.  Not accomplished.  I've done almost as much as I can, but I'm very much constrained from direct research by New Jersey adoption privacy law.  I have my aunt's DNA results in Family Tree DNA and GEDMatch.  Her samples were not good enough for Ancestry to analyze, unfortunately.  Long Lost Family does not appear to be interested in her situation.  I should have her test at 23andMe.  I'm also considering submitting her story to another television show.

• Determine who the biological father of my grandfather was.  Not accomplished.  Three children of my grandfather (from three different mothers) have DNA results in multiple databases.  So far the only helpful connections are two men who match my father on 107 markers on Y-DNA results.  Both of them have the same last name, Mundy, so that has been the focus of my research.  I need to continue the research to see if I can find someone who could/should be closer than the estimated 6th cousins these two matches are.

• Catch up on entering all the information I found in 2016 into my family tree database, including citations.  If I don't count the citations, then I've almost entirely accomplished this.

• Make sure I have uploaded the DNA results of all the family members who have tested to all possible databases.  Spend more time with the DNA databases looking for matches and contacting close matches to share information.  Work more with chromosome mapping; try the Lazarus tool on FTDNA.  I've mostly done the first and the second.  I need to find time to do more chromosome mapping and to try the Lazarus tool.

• Share all the photos I've been scanning with family members from the appropriate lines and ask for help with identification of as-yet unlabeled photos.  Another partially accomplished.  I've shared with some family members and gotten more ID's, but I haven't shared with everyone yet.

• Look for a group that is planning to pool money for research in the Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine archive and join up, with the aim of finding documents on my Gorodetsky, Kardish, and Schneiderman relatives from Kamianets Podilskyi.  Accomplished but not helpful.  I have looked for a group, I just didn't find one.

• Stay in better touch with cousins with whom I have already made contact.  Accomplished!  About time I managed to finish something.

• Figure out how to do some sort of research in Punjab remotely, so I can make progress on my stepsons' grandfather's family lines.  Not accomplished.  Well, kind of figured out, but not tested yet.

• Get back to working on Irish research, so I can make progress on my stepsons' grandmother's family, my half-sister's mother's family, and my friend's O'Gara family from County Roscommon and County Sligo.  Not accomplished.  I have a new presentation about doing Irish research but haven't had time yet to use the information myself.

• Any time I take a trip, check to see what research I might be able to do in the area while I'm there.  Accomplished!  I think I was able to do some research on almost every trip I took.

Education

• Go to the Ventura County Genealogical Society's family history event for Black History Month.  Accomplished!  I was the featured speaker, so it would have been really bad if I hadn't done this.  I helped with general genealogy questions in the morning and taught two classes in the afternoon.

• Attend the Forensic Genealogy Institute in San Antonio, Texas in March.  Accomplished!  I learned lots of information about legal records and procedures from the Legal Genealogist herself.

• Attend the annual Sacramento African American Family History Seminar in March.  Accomplished!  I taught a session about Freedmen's Bureau records and went to two other classes.

• Attend Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank in June.  Accomplished!  I taught one class (the very last session of the conference) and went to several where I learned new stuff.

• Attend (probably) the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Orlando, Florida in July.  Accomplished!  I ended up giving five presentations over the six days of the conference and went to at least a couple of dozen other sessions.

• Attend the Northwest Genealogy Conference in August in Arlington, Washington, if I have a talk accepted.  Accomplished!  I had four talks accepted, which meant I didn't have a lot of time to attend other speakers' presentations, but I squeezed in a couple.

• Attend the Federation of Genealogical Societies annual conference over Labor Day weekend, this year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Not accomplished.  Even though I won a free registration, my move to Oregon ended up taking place the weekend of the conference.

• Watch Webinars from Florida State Genealogical Society, Illinois State Genealogical Society, Legacy Family Tree, Minnesota Genealogical Society, North Carolina Genealogical Society, Southern California Genealogical Society, and Wisconsin State Genealogical Society, and whatever other ones I hear about.  Accomplished!  I averaged two to three per week.

• Attend local genealogy presentations, primarily at the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California, California Genealogical Society, East Bay Genealogical Society, San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, and Oakland FamilySearch Library.  Accomplished!  I went to presentations at all of the groups I anticipated.

• Make presentations at local genealogical societies and FamilySearch Centers and Libraries.  Accomplished!  I made 15 presentations to ten groups.  I had to cancel three talks because of my move to Oregon.

Writing

• Stick to my average of about three to four posts per week on my blog.  Partially accomplished.  I was doing fine at the beginning of the year but fell off quite a bit after August due to my move.  I'm still trying to get back to a regular schedule, especially for Treasure Chest Thursday.

• I want to update and expand my article on the research I did on my Cuban cousins.  Not accomplished.  I don't think I even looked at it.  Or I looked at it and didn't have time to do anything with it.

• I have a translation project and two transcription projects I'm working on that I need to devote more time to.  Not accomplished.  I looked at them as I packed them for the move.

• Write some book reviews that I'm behind on.  Not accomplished.  I did find one book I'm supposed to review that had been missing, however, so I'll count that as a small success.

• Finish creating a name index for a book about Niceville and Valparaiso, Florida.  Not accomplished.  I looked at the book as I packed it for the move.

Overall Results

It's very humbling to look at this list and see what I didn't do.  I did great with my educational goals and some of my personal research, but a lot of stuff fell by the wayside as I packed up everything in the house I'd been living in for 24 years and moved it 600 miles north.  It's probably a good thing I haven't made an extensive list of goals for this year, because I'm still looking at lots of unpacked boxes in most rooms of the new home.  I think I'll mostly lie low and play catch-up this year.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Make ONE Resolution/Goal for 2018

This week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver has a very logical suggestion, but one that's causing me a minor problem.

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

(1) Did you make any New Year's resolutions, or state goals and objectives, for genealogy research in 2018?  If so, tell us about them.

(2) If not, then make ONE resolution, or state one goal, for your genealogy research that you are determined to keep during 2018.  We'll check on progress toward that resolution/goal during the year in SNGF (if I remember!).

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

The minor problem is that I have followed the New Year's resolution I made so many years ago I've forgotten when it was:  never to make another New Year's resolution!  But I guess Randy has given me an out by saying I can call it a goal instead, so I'm going with that.

Hmm, so what is one genealogy goal I want to commit to for 2018?

I think I'll go with really working on trying to determine who my paternal grandfather's biological father was.  This means I need to get back to work on taking the Mundy family tree back a few more generations and then bringing all of those lines forward, to try to find living people with whom I can compare DNA.  It also means I might want to try out Family Tree DNA's Lazarus Tool, since I have already tested half a dozen of this man's descendants.  And, of course, I need to conduct more document-based research to see if I really can put my prime candidate in the right area at the right time.

All right!  Time to get started!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Research Grief

I missed last week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun because I moved from Oakland, California to Portland, Oregon the day before, and I didn't get Internet until the Monday after.  Since this week's challenge is a repeat of the one from October 17, 2015, which I posted about at the time, I'm going to answer last week's question instead.

Your mission this [last] week, should you decide to accept it, is:

(1) The Family History Hound listed 20 Questions about Your Ancestor, and I'm going to use some of them in the next few months.

(2) Please answer the question, "Which ancestor gives you the most researching grief?"

(3) Write your own blog post, make a comment on this post, or post your answer on Facebook or Google+.   Please leave a link to your answer in comments on this post.

The ancestor who has been giving me the most research grief of late is my paternal grandfather's biological father.  I used Y-DNA testing to prove that this man was not the husband of my great-grandmother, the man my grandfather grew up with as his father.  Since that time I have been working on trying to determine who the mystery man is.  My grandfather's original birth record did not list a father's name at all.

My father matches two men on 107 of 111 markers based on their Y-DNA test results.  Both of these men have the same last name, Mundy, which I have interpreted to mean it is the likely last name of my mystery great-grandfather.

I started looking for Mundys in and around Burlington County, New Jersey, where my great-grandmother lived.  As she did not have much money, I don't believe she could have traveled much, so my hypothesis has been that Mr. Mundy probably came to her area.  I have focused on Burlington County and Philadelphia, which is close by (just across the river) and the nearest big city.

I did find a Mundy family in New Jersey, but they were in the northern part of the state, so I noted them but put them aside.  I began to look at them more closely when a generous soul named Suzanne McClendon dug up several newspaper articles on Bert Mundy, a member of that northern Jersey family.  Good old Bert apparently was a traveling salesman and a philanderer, making him a decent possibility for someone who might have traveled to the southern end of the state and had a short fling.  Another thing that makes him a good candidate is that my grandfather's name was Bertram and he was said to have been named after a "close family friend."

I've done a lot of research on Bert's family, hoping to find some living not-too-distant cousins who might be willing to do autosomal DNA testing and compare results.  So far I've gone back two generations and brought everyone forward, but none of the lines has any surviving individuals.  Taking it back one more generation is getting to be a little too far to easily determine connections, but it's the most promising path right now.