Perinchief Chapels of Mount Holly, New Jersey

It was in 2005 that I visited my sister in New Jersey and put 700 miles on her car in five days.  I did that by driving in every borough of New York City and the two additional counties on Long Island while I met about 25 cousins on my mother's side of the family.  I also drove around Mount Holly, New Jersey researching my father's family.  In addition to finding the house where his mother (my grandmother) was born, I visited the Brotherhood Cemetery three different times looking for the grave of my great-grandfather Cornelius Elmer Sellers.

You see, I had been talking with my grandaunt Betty, my grandfather's youngest sister, who at that time was the only surviving sibling.  I told her I was planning a trip to New Jersey and New York, and she asked if I could find out whether her father had a tombstone over his grave.  If he didn't, she wanted to purchase one and have it placed.  I adored Aunt Betty, so of course I told her I would try.

I knew which cemetery Elmer was buried in because I had his death certificate.  I had also spoken with the cemetery sexton, a Mr. Szelc, who had confirmed the burial and had found records indicating that a few young children were buried in the same plot.  I knew from my research that my great-grandparents had several children who did not live to adulthood, and I wasn't surprised that they were buried together.

The first time I visited the cemetery I walked up and down every row and path I could identify, looking for Elmer.  I thought I had done a pretty thorough job, but I was not successful.  I knew from my previous conversations with Mr. Szelc that he wasn't available during the day, so it wasn't going to do me any good to call him and ask where Elmer might be.

The only other option I could think of was calling Perinchief Chapels.  That was the funeral home that had handled Elmer's burial in 1918, and it was still in operation.  In fact, I learned that it was (at that time) the second-oldest family-owned funeral home in New Jersey.  (They might be the oldest one now.)  I was thinking that maybe they had a map of the cemetery, because they did burials there, and just maybe they could find Elmer on the map.

So I called and explained my request.  Well, no, they didn't have a map.  But the David Perinchief who answered the phone said that he would come out to the cemetery and help me look!  What a wonderful thing to do!  And a short time later, he arrived with his son, Patrick.  And the three of us tromped up and down the paths in the cemetery, again thinking we were doing a thorough job of looking at every tombstone, and yet we still didn't find Elmer.  I thanked them both very much, and they returned to work.

I decided to write about this today because it's National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day, and I want to recognize the Perinchiefs for taking time out of their work day to help me look for my great-grandfather, even if we weren't successful.  I'm not sure that every funeral home owner would have done the same.

Now, because we hadn't found Elmer, I called Mr. Szelc that evening and told him about my adventures during the day.  He told me he knew exactly where Elmer was.  He would put an orange flag next to Elmer's stone the next morning, and I should go back to the cemetery and look for it.

I did exactly that.  I walked up and down those same paths and missed the flag the first time I passed it because it was very small.  But I eventually saw it and discovered why the Perinchiefs and I had not found Elmer's tombstone the previous day.  Not only was it small, it was made of marble, which had heavily eroded during the ensuing 87 years.  It was very worn, and even with Mr. Szelc's flag to point me to it, I still had trouble reading Elmer's name on it.  But I found him!

When I returned home, I told Aunt Betty about my search and that her father did indeed have a stone.  Because it was so worn, she wanted to order a new one.  And then came a strange wrinkle to the story:  Mr. Szelc's primary occupation was making tombstones.  But when I called him to order a new stone for Elmer, he didn't call me back.  I tried several times and never received a response from him again.  So Elmer still doesn't have a new stone, and I'm sure the current one has eroded even more over the past 20 years.

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.

Tombstone Thursday: Cornelius Elmer Sellers

Cornelius Elmer Sellers
Born November 7, 1874, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania
Died September 14, 1918, Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey
Buried September 17, 1918, Brotherhood Cemetery, Haines Township, Burlington County, New Jersey

My great-grandfather was born 150 years ago today.  It was an adventure finding his tombstone in 2005.  It took three visits to the cemetery to accomplish!  I wrote about it in 2017.

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: 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: 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:

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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: Where Were Your Ancestors 80 Years Ago?

It's time to look at the 1940 census for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver!

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

(1) Determine where your ancestral families were on 1 April 1940, 80 years ago, when the U.S. census was taken.

(2) List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence locations (as close as possible).  Do you have photographs of their residences from about that time, and do the residences still exist?

(3) Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status post.

I actually had several ancestors alive in 1940 (not "direct ancestors", because that's a nonsense term; someone is either an ancestor or a collateral relative).

• My father, Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. (born 1935), and my paternal grandparents, Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr. (born 1903) and Anna Gauntt (born 1893), were living either in New Jersey or in NewYork.  I have looked up, down, and sideways for them in the 1940 census and have not found them.  At this point I don't expect to, because when my grandfather compiled a list of all the places he had lived during his life, he included three(!) locations for 1940.  I'm pretty sure they simply were missed by census takers.

• My paternal grandfather's mother, my great-grandmother Laura May (Armstrong) Sellers Ireland (later called Nanny Ireland; born 1882), was also not enumerated in the 1940 census.  I know the address at which she was living on Broad Street in Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey, but that house number was missed by the census taker.  It does not appear in the enumeration district.  I have a photo of the house, though, which was owned by family members for at least 40 years.

• My paternal grandmother's parents, my great-grandparents Thomas Kirkland Gauntt (born 1870) and Jane (Dunstan) Gauntt (born 1872), were living at 119 Hume Street, Mount Holly Township, Burlington County, New Jersey.  I not only don't have a photo of the house, I can't find the address on Google Maps, so the street name might have changed.

• My maternal grandparents, Abraham Meckler (born 1912) and Lillian Esther (Gordon) Meckler (born 1919), were living at 484 Livonia Avenue, Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.  My mother was there also, in a way, because my grandmother was pregnant with her when the census was taken.  I don't have a photo of the building from that time, and a quick peek at Google Maps shows a pretty modern-looking building, but I might be able to get a photo by paying New York City.

• My maternal grandfather's father, my great-grandfather Morris Meckler (born about 1862), should be in Brooklyn, but I haven't found him yet.  I really want to find him in 1940 because I have been told that he married a second time after my great-grandmother Minnie Zelda (Nowicki) Meckler died in 1936.  If he actually did, that second wife might be enumerated with him.  I know he was alive in 1940 because he didn't die until 1953.

• I might have found Minnie's father, my great-great-grandfather Gershon Itzhak Novitsky (born about 1858), also in Brooklyn, at 99 44th Street.  I think it's him, even though the person is enumerated as Jean, not Gershon, because the age and birth location are right, and he is enumerated with a wife named Ethel.  If this is the correct couple, that Ethel is Ethel (Nowicki) Perlman (botn about 1868), who was Gershon's niece.  I was told many years ago that Gershon had married his niece later in life.  Apparently, it was not uncommon in some Jewish communities for an older man who was widowed to marry a niece.  This wasn't necessarily a fully "active" (ahem!) marriage; the reason for it was for the elderly widower to have someone to take care of him.  I have a second one of these uncle/niece marriages in my family.  I don't have a photo of this residence, and Google Maps shows me a modern concrete building, so that ain't it.  This is another location that I might be able to obtain a photo through New York City.

• My maternal grandmother's parents, my great-grandparents Joe Gordon (born about 1892) and Sarah Libby (Brainin) Gordon (born about 1885), were living at 10 Livonia Avenue, Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, just a few blocks from my grandparents.  Also living with them was their oldest child, Sidney Gordon (born 1915).  I don't have a photo, and when I look for that addresss on Google Maps, I can't even tell what the building looks like, because it's covered with scaffolding.  Yet another location that I might be able to get a photo from New York City.

So I have a total of twelve ancestors who were alive in 1940, seven of whom I have found in the 1940 census.  Four of the remaining ancestors I have conceded that I will never find.  The only one left after that is Morris Meckler; I haven't given up on finding him — someday.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019

I always have fun with lists of questions for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but I have to admit I've never heard of the word "geneameme" before.

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) Jill Ball reconstituted her "Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019" on 30 December 2019 and invited readers to participate.  

(2) This week, let's contribute our answers to her questions about our genealogy accomplishments in 2019.  Copy the questions below and add your own responses.

(3) Share your responses on your own blog, in comments on this blog, or on Facebook.  Please leave a comment on this post so readers can find your post, and please let Jill know about your efforts by e-mailing her at jillballau@gmail.com.

Here are mine.

1.  An elusive ancestor I found was:

I did not discover the names of any unknown ancestors in 2019.

2.  A great newspaper article I found was:

I found several interesting newspaper articles about my cousin Sam Brainin on Newspapers.com, including one about a bad car accident he was in as a child.

3.  A geneajourney I took was:

I took three geneajourneys, to RootsTech, the Ohio Genealogical Society conference, and the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

4.  I located an important record:

Yes!  I found the passenger list for my great-great-grandmother Ruchel Dwoire (Jaffe) Brainin immigrating to the Untied States with four of her children.

5.  A newly found family member shared:

A cousin I discovered through a DNA match shared lots of information on his branch of the family, plus a photograph of my great-great-grandparents Gershon Itzhak Nowicki and Dube (Yelsky) Nowicki from about 1915, while they were still in Russia.

6.  A geneasurprise I received was:

When I posted a family photograph that I love but didn't know who was in it, one of my cousins recognized her grandmother and grandaunt, which was totally unexpected.  Plus the photo is probably of her father's bris!

7.  My 2019 social media post that I was particularly proud of was:

I am glad I took the time to write up all my family connections in "Now That's What I Call a Blended Family!"  It takes a genealogist to keep track of a family as complicated as mine.

8.  I made a new genimate who:

I've gotten to be friends with someone who comes regularly to the African American Special Interest Group at the Genealogical Forum of Oregon.  We're even working toether on a few genealogy projects.

9.  A new piece of technology or skill I mastered was:

Well, not quite mastered, but for the first time I was the speaker for a Webinar, and I did all the computer stuff for it.

10.  I joined:

Well, I rejoined the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon.

11.  A genealogy education session or event from which I learnt something new was:

I always learn something from every conference and Webinar, but one of the standouts last year was Judy Baston's presentation on the Vilna Ghetto Library, which I attended at the IAJGS conference.  It was fascinating to see the kinds of documentation that have survived.

12.  A blog post that taught me something new was:

Jennifer Mendelsohn's "No, You Don't Really Have 7,900 4th Cousins:  Some DNA Basics for Those with Jewish Heritage" has incredibly useful information on how to work around the overabundance of matches that endogamy produces.

13.  A DNA discovery I made was:

For the first time, a DNA match connected me with someone on the Jewish side of my family I was able to place in my family tree immediately but didn't know already.

14.  I taught a genimate how to:

I did 25 presentations at conferences and genealogical societies, in addition to my volunteer work at the Gresham Family History Center and "Helping Hands" sessions for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon.  I think I taught several "genimates" how to do a lot of things.

15.  A brick wall I demolished was:

I had been looking for my great-great-grandmother's arrival into this country for about 20 years (see #4).

16.  A great site I visited was:

"Old Photographs of African Americans" is a site that displays unidentified photographs for free.  People have been able to find their relatives' photos, which is wonderful.

17.  A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was:

I found a copy of London:  Then and Now by Diane Burstein at a thrift store, and it was a bargain.

18.  It was exciting to finally meet:

Like Randy, I also can't think of someone new and exciting I met in 2019.  I'm sure there was someone, but my memory is blanking.

19.  I am excited for 2020 because:

I am really looking forward to working more on figuring out who my paternal great-grandfather Mr. X was.

20.  Another positive I would like to share is:

I'm always excited about a new year of opportunities to learn about and share genealogy!

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.

Cornelius Elmer Sellers, November 7, 1874–September 14, 1918

Laura May (Armstrong) and Cornelius Elmer Sellers

Today, September 14, 2018, is the 100th anniversary of the death of Cornelius Elmer Sellers, my great-grandfather.  None of his grandchildren knew him, because he died well before any of them was born.  This is some of the information I have learned about him through my research, none of which my family knew previously.

Elmer, as he was known, was born November 7, 1874 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Cornelius Godshalk Sellers and Catherine Fox Owen.  His father died when he was 3 years old, and his mother remarried in 1882 in Mount Holly, New Jersey, to George W. Moore.  The family appears to have stayed in the Mount Holly area from that point on.

Cornelius and Catherine Sellers had three children who died young, and George and Catherine Moore had at least two children, only one of whom survived to adulthood.  Elmer's surviving sibling was Howard Evans Moore.

On November 7, 1903, Elmer married Laura May Armstrong and accepted her 7-month-old son, my grandfather Bertram Lynn Armstrong, and raised him as his own.  They went on to have eight additional children I have documented, three of whom lived to become adults.

Elmer was in the New Jersey National Guard.  In 1905, he received a service medal for five years' service, which was reported in the Trenton Times of March 20.  After five years, he was still only a private.

Elmer registered for the World War I draft on September 2, 1918, only two days before he passed away.

Elmer's occupation was listed as plumber on his 1903 marriage record, farmer in the 1915 New Jersey state census, and ship builder on his 1918 draft registration, but I have been told that the family was always poor and never really had any money.  When Elmer died, however, the funeral home costs were more than $100.  It took me a while to figure out where the money had come from — Elmer's mother had paid for the expenses.  She outlived him by five years.

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.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Make an Ancestor's Timeline

I haven't participated in Saturday Night Genealogy Fun for the past few weeks, partly because I'm still unpacking mountains of moving boxes (will it never end?!) and partly because the themes weren't really up my alley.  This week, however, Randy Seaver chose a topic that looked a little more fun to me.

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

(1) Have you created a timeline for one of your ancestors using a genealogy software program (e.g., Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, Legacy, Reunion, etc.), an online family tree (e.g., Ancestry Member Tree, FamilySearch Family Tree, Geni, MyHeritage, etc.), or a spreadsheet (e.g., Excel)?

(2) If not, try to create a timeline using the program/Web site of your choice.  If so, create another one for the ancestor of your choice!

(3) Show us your timeline creation and tell us how you did it:  which program/Web site, the process you used, and how you captured the images to display your timeline.

(4) Share your timeline creation on your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or on Facebook or Google+.

1 and 2.  I have created a timeline before.  In fact, Randy used this idea in 2016, and I posted a timeline then.  In addition, the program I use, Family Tree Maker, automatically creates a timeline with the facts that you enter about each individual.  I created the timeline I'm posting tonight specifically for this exercise.

3.  I use Family Tree Maker v. 16.  I created a Genealogy Report that included all the facts I had for my great-grandfather Thomas Kirkland Gauntt.  I exported the information in an RTF file, then added additional facts and edited the file in MS Word.  I copied and pasted the text from Word directly into this blog post.  I have found that makes it easier to read, as opposed to doing a screen capture.  As Randy commented, it's pretty plain, but the benefit of exporting the file and opening it in a word processor is that I can add as much information as I want to it.

THOMAS KIRKLAND GAUNTT

May 25, 1870, born in Fairview, Medford Township, Burlington County, New Jersey

June 28, 1870, enumerated in U.S. federal census in Medford Township, Burlington County, New Jersey

June 15, 1880, enumerated in U.S. federal census in Mt. Laurel, Burlington County, New Jersey

May 15, 1885, enumerated in New Jersey state census in Centre, Camden County, New Jersey; occupation farm laborer

September 2, 1891, married Jane Dunstan in Greenland, Burlington County, New Jersey

May 15, 1895, enumerated in New Jersey state census in Centre, Camden County, New Jersey

June 27, 1900, enumerated in U.S. federal census in Mt. Laurel, Burlington County, New Jersey; occupation farm laborer

June 1, 1905, enumerated in New Jersey state census in Burlington County, New Jersey

April 27, 1910, enumerated in U.S. federal census in Mt. Holly, Northampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey; occupation insurance agent

June 1, 1915, enumerated in New Jersey state census in Mt. Holly, Northampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey

February 1920, enumerated in U.S. federal census in Burlington, Burlington County, New Jersey; occupation farm laborer

April 23, 1930, enumerated in U.S. federal census in Mt. Holly, Northampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey

1935, living in Burlington, Burlington County, New Jersey

April 15, 1940, enumerated in U.S. federal census in Mt. Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey

August 1, 1954, died in Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey of a pulmonary embolism

About January 23, 1954, buried in Brotherhood Cemetery, Hainesport, Burlington County, New Jersey

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.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Unbroken Chain of Gravestones

I'm going to be pretty much a total failure tonight for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge.  Lack of digitization is part of the problem, but not all of it.

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you to:

(1) Determine what is your longest unbroken line of ancestral gravestones:  How many generations can you go back in time?  Do you have photographs of them?

(2) Tell us and/or show us in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog, or in a Facebook status or Google+ stream post.

Let's see how lacking my contribution is and the reasons for that.

I am happy to report that my father is still alive.  That means that he has no tombostone, and therefore nothing for me to have a photo of.

My mother was cremated and her ashes scattered in Choctawhatchee Bay in Okaloosa County, Florida.  She has no cenotaph or other marker.

So much for my parents.

On my mother's side, even though I have seen it, I don't think I have a photograph of my grandfather's tombstone.  I believe I have a photo of my grandmother's tombostone, but it was taken with a film camera and I haven't digitized the image.

On my father's side, I'm not sure if my grandfather has a tombstone.  If he does, I'm pretty sure I don't have a photo of it.

I do, however, have a photo of my grandmother's tombstone.  (Finally!)  Anna (Gauntt) Stradling [Sellers] was born January 14, 1893 in Westhampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey and died January 20, 1986 in Lindstrom, Chisago County, Minnesota.

According to FindAGrave, neither Nana's mother nor her father has a marker in the Brotherhood Cemetery in Burlington County, New Jersey, where they are buried.  So I have one generation in this unbroken chain!

But let's get hypothetical.  IF I could find the photo of my maternal grandmother's tombstone, that would give me one for that family.  I do have a photo of the tombstone of her father, Joe Gordon, who was born about 1892, probably in or near Kamenets Podolsky, Podolia, Russian Empire, and died May 2, 1955 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York:

That's my grandmother, Lillyan (Gordon) Meckler, standing on the left and her brother Sidney Gordon on the right.  I think this photo was taken at the unveiling of my great-grandfather's stone, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

I also know I have a nondigitized photograph of the tombstone of Joe's father, my great-great-grandfather Victor Gordon.  He was born about 1866ish in or near Kamenets Podolsky and died January 26, 1925 in Brooklyn.  So even though I'm not able to post them all tonight, I have a chain of three generations of tombstones on my Gorodetsky/Gordon line.  I have no idea when my 3x-great-grandfather Gersh Wolf Gorodetsky died or where he is buried, so I don't think I'll be adding that to my records anytime soon.  And my maternal uncles are happily still alive.  I think three is about as far as I'm likely to get for a while.

Obviously, I have not made a huge effort to photograph tombstones of my family members, nor to digitize the ones that I do have.  I guess I can't do everything!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Which Ancestor Moved the Furthest?

There's another genealogy meme with a lot of questions going around, but rather than use the whole thing, it looks as though Randy Seaver will be choosing one question at a time to post for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  That's ok by me!  It will make the fun last even longer!

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you:

(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 first question:  "Which ancestor moved the furthest from their home?"

(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.

My Ancestors

For my ancestors, I looked at the side of the family that came from Eastern Europe.  Since Google Maps has problems determining distance when you cross oceans, I used Distance Between Cities for my numbers.

• My ancestors who appear to have moved the furthest distance were my great-grandfather Joe Gordon (~1892–1955) and great-great-grandfather Victor Gordon (~1866–1925).  Although I have yet to verify the information, both are said to have been born in Kamenets Podolskiy, Russian Empire (now Kam'yanets'-Podil's'kyi, Ukraine).  Distance Between Cities gives a result of 4,602.20 miles between Kamenets Podolskiy and Brooklyn, New York, where both men immigrated.

• The next furthest distance for a move appears to be my great-grandparents Morris Meckler (~1882–1953) and Minnie (Nowicki) Meckler (~1880–1936), who immigrated from Kamenets Litovsk, Russian Empire (now Kamyanyets, Belarus) to Brooklyn.  Distance Between Cities shows that was 4,358.40 miles.

Collateral Relatives

If I look at the collateral lines in my tree, there is one clear winner.  Betty Ellett (1935–2006), the mother of a second cousin once removed, moved from Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia to Reno, Nevada, a leap of 9,340.41 miles.  Not quite as far as Linda Seaver's great-great-grandmother, but a pretty impressive distance all the same.

Wordless Wednesday