Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Five Funny, Strange, Interesting, or Unique Surnames in Your Family Tree

I have too many possibilities for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver.

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

1.  We all have a plethora of surnames in our family trees — and some of them are funny, strange, interesting, or unique.  Please share five of your funny, strange, interesting, or unique surnames in your ancestry.  How are they related to you?

2.  Share your five surnames on your own blog, on Facebook or other social media, or in a comment on this blog.  Share the link to your stories on this blog, so readers can respond.

[Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for this SNGF prompt.]

I started out with about a dozen possibilities.  How did I narrow it down to five?  I managed somehow.

If I go for funny, I have:

Ida Bogus (1907–1978), who was married to Harry Herman Meckler.  Harry is my granduncle, the brother of my maternal grandfather.  I am in contact with extended family from the Bogus line.  Apparently that was the name in the old country.  Notwithstanding what the meaning of the name was there, here, in English, it's an amusing name to have.

I also have Mr. Byers (sorry, no given name or dates), who married my 6th cousin 1x removed Chris Eve Meeks.  I realize that is not amusing in and of itself, but the juxtaposition of Byers and Sellers certainly is.

For strange, I offer:

Berdelia Martha Elisa Abplanalp (1898–1967), who was married to Calvin William Hutson.  He is my 5th cousin 2x removed.  I know Abplanalp is a fine Swiss surname, but it's another one that English puts a different spin on.  When you say it, it kind of sounds like you're blubbering.

I have one name in my own family that I have found to be unique, at least in the form originally used by my family members.

Chanania Szocherman (no dates known), who married my 2nd cousin 3x removed (I think) Rojzla Perlmutter (about 1885–about 1941).  With that spelling, which is how it occurs in European records, I have found it only for my family members, and no one else.  Of the seven children I know of from this marriage, four died without issue, one daughter changed her name when she married, one son kept the spelling Szocherman, and one changed it to Socherman, which is also unique to this family, as far as I know.

Unique in a different way:

Margarita Artabotavsky, the mother of my 4th cousin's ex-husband.  When I Google this name, I get absolutely zero results.  So it must be spelled wrong, but that's the spelling my cousin gave me.  This name should eventually resolve when I learn the correct spelling.

Not in my family, but two other unique surnames I have researched:

Leo Martin McStroul (about 1881–1943), paternal grandfather of my aunt Mary McStroul.  His original name was Moska Leib Strul.  When he became an American citizen, he wrote a letter asking that his name be changed to Leo Martin McStroul.  Family members have told me that he didn't want a name that sounded Jewish.  So he made up the name McStroul.  If I find that name, I know it's my aunt's family.  I might be behind on a kid or two, but I know of only 21 people who have had that surname.

George Gudapel (1871–1950), maternal grandfather of Kathleen Joseph, with whom I used to work.  George's original surname was Gutapfel.  That name comes from three small villages in Alsace-Lorraine.  Most immigrants to this country tended to change the spelling to Goodapple, which is the literal translation of the German.  George changed it to Gudapel.  He married and had two daughters.  Four people in the history of the world have had that name with that spelling.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Find a Grave Entries?

This week it seems that Randy Seaver and I got wildly different results from his Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge.

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

 

1.  How many entries are there on Find A Grave for your exact current surname and for the birth surnames of your grandparents?  What about your spouse's grandparents' birth surnames?

2.  Write about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, in a status or comment on Facebook, or in a Google Plus Stream post.

Okay, here's mine.

I also used the Find a Grave search page.  It isn't true that it shows only exact matches.  It uses what you type as "begins with."  So when I searched for "Sellar", which had 8,173 matching records, and then went to the last page (409), it ended with "Sullivan-Sellars" and "Trosper-Sellards."

I also did the searches that Randy posted.

They're just not quite what you would expect.

So the names I searched for and the results:

• Sellers (my current and only surname):  33,656 names
• Armstrong (my paternal grandfather's birth surname):  151,133 names
• Gauntt (my paternal grandmother's birth surname):  1,107 names
• Meckler (my maternal grandfather's birth surname):  413 names
• Gordon (my maternal grandmother's birth surname):  139,183 names

And I have no spouse, so no spouse's grandparents' names to search for.

My paternal grandfather's name at birth was Armstrong because my great-grandmother was not married when she had him.  No father was listed on the birth certificate, merely the socially disapproving "OW" for "out of wedlock" on the line where the father's name would have appeared.  She married Mr. Sellers seven months later.  Mr. Sellers informally adopted my grandfather, and Grampa used the name Sellers for the rest of his life.  When my grandfather was 37, his mother had a formal amendment processed for his birth certificate, naming Mr. Sellers as his father.

Even though my maternal grandmother's birth surname was Gordon, that was not her father's birth name.  That was Gorodetsky, originally written in Cyrillic.  That has a grand total of 108 names in the Find a Grave database.

I don't know why Randy's results for Richmond stopped at 10,000.  When I searched, I got 34,347 names.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Genealogy Database Statistics

I am far behind on my regular family tree event posts, but I found some time this evening to look at the statistics in my family tree program for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

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

(1) If you have your family tree research in a genealogy management program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database.  (Hint:  The Help button is your friend!)

(2) Tell us which GMP you use and how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database(s) today in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook comment.

NOTE:  We last did this in August 2017.

This is the first time I remember Randy including information about the last time we had done a topic, and I'm so glad he did.  I was able to quickly find the pertinent SNGF post from August 2017, and it even had a link to the previous year's post on the same topic.  So now I can do some comparisons.

I'm also happy Randy mentioned how to find the information in programs other than Roots Magic, because, yeah, I had forgotten where to look again.  Thanks, Randy!

This time around I am using Family Tree Maker 2019.  At some point after August 2017 my computer crashed, taking Family Tree Maker version 16 with it.  I was hobbling along using Reunion, but not only had it not imported everything from the GEDCOM (which I had expected), I never really warmed up to its interface.  And then I won a free copy of FTM 2019, yay!  So I installed that, and I've been reasonably happy since (although I still like version 16 better).

Anyway, here is the sreenshot when I follow Randy's instructions by going to Plan and clicking More:

Comparing 2017 to 2021:

Size
• 2017:  6,940 kb
• 2021:  11,540 kb
• Increase of 4,600 kb

Total Number of Individuals
• 2017:  7,971
• 2021:  10,111
• Increase of 2,140 individuals

Total Number of Marriages
• 2017:  2,659
• 2021:  3,572
• Increase of 913 marriages

Average Lifespan
• 2017:  57 years 7 months
• 2021:  60.8, which equals 60 years 9.6 months
• Increase of 3 years 2.6 months

Earliest Birth
• 2017:  1540, Ebert Mack (from my adoptive Sellers line)
• 2021:  1540, Ebert Mack
• The same!

Text Records
• 2017:  73,002
• 2021:  not given (which is okay, because I never figured out what it was)

Total Number of Generations
• 2017:  18
• 2021:  15
• Decrease of 3 generations

Total Number of Different Surnames
• 2017:  2,003
• 2021:  2,815
• Increase of 812 surnames

My database in 2021 has additional statistics not reported in this manner in 2017, due to the change in my version of Family Tree Maker:
• Most Recent Birth Date
• Facts
• Places
• Sources
• Templates Used
• Citations
• Media

The one thing I don't understand is how my number of generations went down from 18 to 15.  I still have the Sellers/Mack lines in the database, so I'm very confused.  They didn't change the way they count generations, did they?  Maybe I'll send a question to MacKiev about it.

Which Story Is True?

My mother (in back) and
me, Stacy, and Mark, 1964

Today is January 14, 2021, which on the Hebrew calendar is 1 Shevat 5781.  My mother died January 2, 1995, also 1 Shevat and therefore the date of her yahrzeit, the commemoration of her death.  The Hebrew calendar is a solar-lunar one, and the dates don't line up year to year with the Christian calendar.  So the fact that I write regularly about my mother on her yahrzeit means that the date I write about her changes from year to year.

When I was young, but not too young, my mother told me how she had decided on the names for my brother, my sister, and myself.  I'm the oldest, and she said I was named for her grandfathers, Joyne and Moishe.  So my name is Janice Marie, using the initials, a common practice among American Jews.  Probably because she wasn't an observant Jew, she did not also give me Hebrew names (hers being Mushe Ruchel, for her grandmothers, Mushe Zelda and Ruchel Dwojre).

My sister, the youngest of us three children, is Stacy Ann.  I was told that Stacy was for my mother's grandmother, Sarah, again using the initial.  Sarah died the year before Stacy was born, so that fits well.  Her middle name was for my paternal grandmother, Anna.  Ann is pretty much the same name as Anna and would seem to be in conflict with the Ashkenazi tradition of not naming after a living ancestor, but, again, my mother wasn't observant, so maybe this didn't bother her very much.

The name of my brother, the middle child, is much more entertaining, however.  Mommy told me that my father wanted him to be Bertram Lynn Sellers III (my father being Junior and my grandfather Senior).  My mother didn't want to do that, this time invoking the prohibition against naming for a living ancestor, plus the very practical consideration of what my brother would be called.  My father had gone through the early part of his life being called Sonny (although he insisted it was Sunny, for his "sunny disposition") and ended up going by his middle name as an adult.  What to call the third male with the same name?

My mother came up with what she considered a better choice, Marc Anthony Sellers.  Either because of the historical nature of the name (I was told it took my father three times through to pass history in high school) or another reason, my father objected to that idea.  After some back and forth, my mother suggested Mark Russell Sellers, which my father decided was okay.  What my mother didn't tell him was that Russell was the name of an old boyfriend!  But that's what my brother was named, and it has worked out well enough.

BUT!

Some time after my mother had passed away, I was driving her mother — my grandmother — to a family event, and my grandmother related an entirely different story about the origins of our names.

According to Bubbie (grandmother in Yiddish), the story my mother told her was that our first names were for deceased ancestors, in the Jewish tradition, and our middle names were after saints, because my father was raised Catholic.

If that were true, I am Janice for Joyne (the same), my brother is Mark for Moishe (no problem), and my sister is Stacy for Sarah (again the same).  So far, so good, right?

Under this interpretation, my Marie would be for Mary, mother of Jesus.  Okay, that works.

There are at lease a few Saint Ann(e)s to account for my sister's middle name.  Check.

But who would Saint Russell be?  Not that it's an infallible source, but Wikipedia doesn't have any listings for a Saint Russell.  Lots and lots of other saints are included, which make for an extensive listing, if not an exhaustive one.  Why no Russell?

And why different stories for different people in the first place?  Let's consider the situations.

I no longer remember the circumstances when my mother told me my version of the story, but I was young when I first became interested in family history, so I might have asked my mother about our names when I was in my early teens or even before that.  I wasn't particularly interested in Judaism, so I see no advantage to the explanation my mother gave me.

But I can think of two reasons that the version my grandmother repeated to me might have been preferred in a conversation between my mother and her mother.

The first reason that came to mind is that my grandmother might not have liked the idea that her grandson was named after an old boyfriend of my mother.   It's also possible that my mother was concerned that at some point Bubbie might repeat the information and my father would learn about it.

Second, and more important, is the Ashkenazi tradition (minhag) of not naming after living ancestors.  Saying that Stacy's middle name was for a saint, not an ancestor (who was most decidedly alive), could have allayed any discomfort Bubbie might have had with the name.

And that makes a lot of sense.  When Stacy named her son after my mother's brother, Bubbie was indeed quite upset, even though my sister pointed out that she had spelled the name differently.  Many years later, when Bubbie was getting older, she declared to the family that she would like the next female child to be born to be named after her, even if she was still alive at the time.  Stacy did that, and her youngest child has Lillyan as a middle name.  But Bubbie then was upset that Stacy did that while Bubbie was alive.  Yes, even though Bubbie had made the declaration.

Based on other things I have been told, neither one of the names should have mattered anyway, because supposedly the Ashkenazi tradition is important for the Hebrew names, not the secular names.  But I know from my own experience that Bubbie was very unhappy with both names.

It seems to me that the story my mother told me is likely the accurate one, and the one she told her mother was trying to obscure some information my grandmother probably would not have liked.  So now that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: My Genealogy Database Statistics

For Saturday Night Genealogy Fun this week, we're looking at the statistics in our family tree databases:

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

(1) If you have your family tree research in a genealogy management program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database.  (Hint:  The Help button is your friend!)

(2) Tell us which GMP you use, and how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database(s) today in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook status or Google+ stream comment.

NOTE:  We last did this in June 2016.

Even though Randy uses Roots Magic, I'm glad he was nice enough to include the instructions for other programs again, because I had already forgotten how to get the information in Family Tree Maker.  And this time I remembered to make a screen capture of the little pop-up that FTM provided:

So the statistics this year for my family file are:

• Size:  6,940 kb
• Total number of individuals:  7,971
• Total number of marriages:  2,659
• Average lifespan:  57 years 7 months
• Earliest birth:  1540, Ebert Mack (from my adoptive Sellers line)
• Text records:  73,002 (I still don't know what this means)
• Total number of generations:  18
• Total number of different surnames:  2,003

For comparison, here's my post from last year.

During the past year I have added 87 individuals, 37 marriages (most gained from the release of the New York City marriage index, I think), and 33 surnames.  The average lifespan has gone up by 3 months.  The earliest birth and the number of generations have remained the same.  The text records have increased by 1,237, but since I don't know what those are (notes, maybe?), I don't really know what to think about it.  The file size increased by 105 kb.

I added some information this past year, but I have a lot more I haven't gotten to.  I really need to find some free time!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Survey of Genealogy Activities

This week's challenge for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun sounds similar to the one Randy Seaver posted on May 21 of this year, but this time he has given specific questions and made the exercise less open-ended, which actually makes it easier in a lot of ways.  But it's a lot longer!

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

1)  Answer these questions in my survey about your genealogy resources and usage:

a)  Which genealogy software programs for your computer do you use (e.g., Family Tree Maker, Reunion, GRAMPS, etc.)?

b)  Which online family trees have information submitted by you, in either a separate online tree (e.g., Ancestry Member Tree) or a universal (collaborative) online tree (e.g., WikiTree)?

c)  For which subscription genealogy record providers (e.g., Ancestry) do you have a subscription?

d)  Which FREE genealogy record providers (e.g., FamilySearch) do you use regularly?

e)  How much time do you spend each week doing actual genealogy research online?  [Note:  not reading, or social networking, but actual searching in a record provider.]  Estimate an average number of hours per week.

f)  How much time do you spend each week doing actual genealogy research in a repository (e.g., library, archive, courthouse, etc.)?  Estimate an average number of hours per month over, say, a one-year period.

g)  How much time do you spend each week adding information to your genealogy software program (either on your computer or online)?  Estimate an average number of hours per week over, say, a one-month period.

h)  How much time do you spend each month at a genealogical society meeting, program, or event (not a seminar or conference)?  Estimate an average number of hours per month over, say, a one-year period.

i)  How much time do you spend each month on genealogy education (e.g., reading books and periodicals, attending seminars, conferences, workshops, Webinars, etc.)?   Estimate an average number of hours per month over, say, a one-year period.

j)  How much time do you spend each week reading, writing, and commenting on genealogy blogs, Web sites, and social media?   Estimate an average number of hours per week over, say, a one-month period.

2)    Answer the questions in a blog post of your own (and please drop a link as a comment in this post), in a comment to this post, or in a Google+ or Facebook post.

Here's my breakdown:

(a) The only genealogy software program I use regularly for my own family tree information is Family Tree Maker, v. 16.  I also have:

• Reunion 9
• Mac Family Tree
• Legacy Family Tree
• PAF
• Personal Ancestry Writer
• Roots Magic
• and I think one or two more

I keep the other programs handy to be able to open other people's files if necessary.

(b) I have submitted no information to any online family tree anywhere.  I have a page with the names I am researching on my own Web site.  I have also discovered that a distant relative of my brother-in-law has entered my mother's information on Geni.com.

(c) I have a paid subscription to FindMyPast.com, because it's the only way I have found to have access to the British newspaper collection.  I still think the interface sucks.

(d) My definition of a free genealogy record provider includes those databases I can use for free at my local Family History Center (technically, FamilySearch Library), in Oakland, California.  These are the sites I use regularly.

• FamilySearch.org
• JewishGen.org
• SephardicGen.org
• Chronicling America
• FultonHistory.com (another site with great material but an awful interface)
• FindAGrave
• USGenWeb
• FreeBMD
• RootsWeb
• Google
• Wikipedia
• Ancestry.com
• Fold3.com
• Newspaper Archive
• 19th Century British Newspapers
• ProQuest Obituaries
• GenealogyBank
• Newspapers.com
• VitalSearch

(e) Online genealogy research each week averages about 15 hours.

(f) Repository research each averages about 3 hours.

(g) I don't spend a lot of time adding information to my own family tree program.  It's probably only about 2–3 hours each week.

(h) Genealogy society meetings and events run about 15 hours every month.

(i) Genealogy education takes about 15 hours of my times every month, once I take into account conferences and seminars.

(j) Reading, writing, and commenting on genealogy blogs, sites, and social media runs about 20 hours each week.

Yikes!  My weekly total is about 70 hours each week that are devoted to genealogy.   That sounds about right, but I hadn't realized it was so high.  This year is probably running a little higher than average due to the number of conferences and seminars on my schedule (SLIG, San Francisco History Days, Sacramento African American Family History Seminar, CSGA [twice!], Jamboree, Ancestry Day, Civil War Teachers Institute, IAJGS, IBGS, and the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society's John Colletta seminar).  And this total didn't even include volunteer work!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Female Ancestors' Ages at Death

The project for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun is kind of an extension of one Randy Seaver did this past April, when he asked people to figure out the lifespans of their great-great-grandparents.

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

1) Review your pedigree chart (either on paper or in your genealogy management software program) and determine the age at death of your female ancestors back at least five generations (and more if you want to).

2)  Tell us the lifespan in years for each of these ancestors.  Which of your female ancestors in this group lived the longest?  Which lived the shortest?  

3)  Share your results in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or on Facebook or Google+.

So here are my female ancestors for whom I have at least approximate birth and death years in my family tree program:

Mother:
• Myra Roslyn (Meckler) Sellers Preuss, 1940–1995, 54 years

Grandmothers:
• Anna (Gauntt) Strickland, 1893–1986, 93 years
• Lillyan E. (Gordon) Meckler, 1919–2006, 87 years

Great-grandmothers:
• Laura May (Armstrong) Sellers Ireland, 1882–1970, 88 years
• Sarah Libby (Brainin) Gordon, about 1885–1963, about 77 years
• Jane (Dunstan) Gauntt, 1871–1954, 83 years
• Minnie Zelda (Nowicki) Meckler, about 1880–1936, about 56 years

 Great-great-grandmothers
• Amelia (Gibson) Gauntt, about 1831–1908, about 77 years
• Sarah Ann Deacon (Lippincott) Armstrong, 1860–about 1927, about 67 years
• Martha (Winn) Dunstan, 1837–1884, 47 years
• Ruchel Dwojre (Jaffe) Brainin, about 1868–1934, about 66 years
• Esther Leah (Schneiderman) Gorodetsky, about 1874–1908, about 34 years
• Dobe (Yelsky) Nowicki, about 1858–1936, about 78 years

3x-great-grandmothers:
• Frieda (Bloom) Yelsky, about 1838–about 1898, about 60 years
• Jane (Coleclough) Dunstan, about 1811–1865, about 54 years

And that's everyone I have entered in my database.  I have more names and dates for the Gauntt lines, but I haven't had time to enter that information.

The longest lived I know about in those five generations was my paternal grandmother, Anna (Gauntt) Stradling, partner of Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr., who lived to be 93 years old.  The shortest by far was Esther Leah (Schneiderman) Gorodetsky, wife of Victor Gorodetsky, who died at about 34 years old.

The average age for these 15 women (I have fewer than half the number Randy has!) is a little more than 70 years.  (Well, I used to have more, until I went and proved that Elmer was my grandfather's adoptive father.)  The averages for each generation are:
• Mother:  54 years
• Grandmothers:  90 years
• Great-grandmothers:  76 years
• Great-great-grandmothers:  62 years
• 3x-great-grandmothers:  57 years

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: My Genealogy Database Statistics

This week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Randy Seaver had people looking at the statistics in their genealogy databases:

1)  If you have your family tree research in a genealogy management program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database.  (Hint:  The Help button is your friend!)

2)  Tell us which GMP you use and how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database(s) today in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook status or Google+ stream comment.

Randy uses Roots Magic 7 but generously gave instructions on how to find the statistics in several programs, including Family Tree Maker 16, which is what I use.  I didn't take a screen capture of the results from my inquiry, but the statistics from the default settings are:

• Size:  6,835 kb
• Total number of individuals:  7,884
• Total number of marriages:  2,622
• Average lifespan:  57 years 4 months
• Earliest birth:  1540, Ebert Mack (from my adoptive Sellers line)
• Text record:  71,765 (I have no idea what this means)
• Total number of generations:  18
• Total number of different surnames:  1,970

I don't know if I can adjust the inquiry to add more statistics, but the default shows that Family Tree Maker gives substantially different information than Roots Magic.  But now I know how many people I have in my database (which is not totally up-to-date, unfortunately, or it would show a birth in 1508, along with several hundred more individuals)!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Three More Ancestry Questions

Randy Seaver told us last week that he was splitting up this little genealogy quiz into two parts, so we were expecting this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun to be the final three questions, and indeed it is:

1) My friend and colleague Linda Stufflebean posted JUST FOR FUN – 4 X 6 = 24 FAMILY TREE QUESTIONS on her blog last week, and I thought we could answer half of the questions last week and half this week.

2)  Here are the last three questions:

*  Name four places on my ancestral home bucket list I’d like to visit:

*  What are the four most unusual surnames in your family tree?

*  Which four brick walls would you most like to smash through?

3)  Answer each of the questions based on your own ancestors, not the collateral lines.  If you didn't answer the first three questions, you can include them this week.

4)  Share your answers with us in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this post, in a Facebook post or a Google+ post.  Please provide a link to your response if you can.

So here are mine.  The hard part again was restricting answers to my own ancestors.

D.  Name four places on my ancestral home bucket list I'd like to visit.
This one was tough, because how do I narrow it down to just four?  But I decided to choose:
• Kamyanets Podil's'kyy, Ukraine (formerly Kamenets Podolsky, Podolia, Russian Empire)
• Kamyanyets, Belarus (formerly Kamenets Litovsk, Grodno, Russian Empire or Poland)
• Krustpils, Latvia (formerly Kreuzburg, Courland, Russian Empire)
• Porazava, Belarus (formerly Porozovo, Grodno, Russian Empire or Poland)

E.  What are the four most unusual surnames in my family tree?
• Brainin from Kreuzburg, Russian Empire
• Coleclough from Lancashire, England
• Winn from Lancashire, England
• Yelsky from Pororozovo, Grodno, Russian Empire

F.  Which four brick walls would I most like to smash through?
First I have to state that I don't have any brick walls.  "What??!" I hear you ask?  "How can she possibly not have any brick walls?"  I only count a research question as a brick wall if I have tried every possible avenue, and I haven't done that yet with any of my thorny problems.  My choices below are those where I have exhausted most possibilities and have only a couple left.
• Find out what happened to Raymond Lawrence Sellers (1945–??), the son that my 90-year-old aunt gave up for adoption.  He was born in Bridgeton, Cumberland County, New Jersey and was placed for adoption in that county.  I hope he is still alive and is amenable to meeting her.  My aunt has tried twice to do the Ancestry DNA spit test, and neither was usable.  Now she's going to do the Family Tree DNA swab test.  I hope, hope, hope we find a close match once she's in the database.
• Determine the biological father of my paternal grandfather, Bertram Lynn Sellers (1983–1995).  I only recently proved via Y-DNA that this was not Cornelius Elmer Sellers.  I'm hoping autosomal and Y-DNA will help me solve this problem.  (This one was a no-brainer for my short list.)
• Learn something (anything!) about my great-great-grandmother Beile [unknown maiden name] Meckler (??–??), mother of Moishe Meckler.  She was born, lived, and died in the Russian Empire, probably all in or around Kamenets Litovsk, Grodno gubernia.  I have nothing but a given name.
• Make contact with some cousin from my Jaffe/Michels line.  My great-great-grandmother was a Jaffe, a very common Jewish surname.  Her sister married a Michelson.  Their son, Bere-Leib, was the only person I know from the Jaffe side of the family who immigrated to the U.S.  He changed his name to Barnet Michels and married Rose Yudelson; they had three children.  One died young but had surviving children, whose names I don't know.  The other two siblings refused to talk with me.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Three Ancestry Questions

This week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Randy Seaver has again been inspired by another person's post.  He linked to Linda Stufflebean's "Just for Fun – 4 x 6 = 24 Family Tree Questions" and asked everyone to follow that theme.

1) My friend and colleague Linda Stufflebean posted JUST FOR FUN – 4 X 6 = 24 FAMILY TREE QUESTIONS on her blog this week, and I thought we could answer half of the questions this week and half next week.

2)  Here are the first three questions:
*  What four places did my ancestors live that are geographically the farthest from where I live today?
*  What are the four most unusual given names in my family tree?
*  What are the four most common given names in my family tree?

3)  Answer each of the questions based on your own ancestors, not the collateral lines.

4)  Share your answers with us in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this post, in a Facebook post or a Google+ post.  Please provide a link to your response if you can.

I guess we know what next week's SNGF will be!  The tricky part about this, though, is restricting it only to ancestors and not including any collateral lines.

A.  What four [known] places did my ancestors live that are geographically the farthest from where I live today?
The Russian Empire is farther from me than the British Isles or continental Europe, so those will be the relevant ancestor residences for me:
• Chişinău, Moldova (formerly Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russian Empire or Romania)
• Kamyanets Podil's'kyy, Ukraine (formerly Kamenets Podolsky, Podolia, Russian Empire)
• Porazava, Belarus (formerly Porozovo, Grodno, Russian Empire or Poland)
• Kamyanyets, Belarus (formerly Kamenets Litovsk, Grodno, Russian Empire or Poland)

B.  What are the four most unusual given names in my family tree? [I have so many single instances of names, I just picked four.]
• Abel Amos Lippincott (abt. 1825 – aft. 1884)
• Mendel Herz Brainin (abt. 1860 – 1930)
• Simcha Dovid Mekler (? – bef. 1904)
• Sirke [unknown maiden name] (? – bef. 1893), married Abraham Yaakov Nowicki

C.  What are the four most common given names in my family tree?  [Mine are so much easier to count than Randy's.]
• Ann (5)
• Esther, Etta, Hananiah, James, John, Mary (six-way tie with 3)

Evolution of Family Names in China

ScienceDaily has an interesting short article about a study of the evolution of family names across China.  The study, which was published in American Journal of Physical Anthropology, was conducted by Chinese researchers.  One statistic mentioned is that 100 family names account for 85% of the population.  A key assumption that seems to have been made, or at least that is not accounted for in this article, is that people did not change their names.