[Informational] Dave's Quest for History

Bubble181

Bubble181

Didn't really want to make a new thread, adn this seems like a good place: my long-lost sister (over 10 years of no contact with the family) has reached out to me and my brother again. Huh. She's living in Ireland now, married, twins. I'm in favor of contacting her again, but my brother's never told his daughter that there was another aunt, and he doesn't want to tell her just yet, depending on how the contact turns out. Also, my parents and sister probably both don't want contact with the other, so that might get weird. Sigh.
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

Let it get weird, if there is a serious falling out between your folks and your sister, so what she is still your sister. Just don't take sides between your parents and sibling.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
sixpackshaker said:
Let it get weird, if there is a serious falling out between your folks and your sister, so what she is still your sister. Just don't take sides between your parents and sibling.
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Whenever I'm stuck between warring parties that I like, I always tell them the following:

I am going to agree to everything you say. And when I'm with them I'm agreeing to everything THEY say. But I also won't tell them what YOU say.


The few times I've had to use this it's been very up front that I was not taking sides but I would be sympathetic and discreet.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
UPDATE!!

Brother Rick has taken the Ancestry DNA test and the results came back today. And yes, we do match as half-brothers. So it's certain that Steve is not related to me biologically in any way. Rick and Steve are half-brothers, sharing the same mother but different fathers. Rick and I talked about it. Steve is a pretty smart guy so we're going to let HIM open the subject.

On the maternal side, I've found a lady with a family tree that has 27,000 people in it...and none of them match with anyone that I know are on the paternal side. So I know for a fact that this tree has my mother hidden in it somewhere. I just have to find out which of the many branches she's on. If she's still living it's going to be double plus hard as it won't show me her name at all but will just say "Private".
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Time to dust off this old chestnut with some interesting information. I logged on to Ancestry on the computer and saw that I had a message waiting for me from March 15. I usually use the iPad app, which doesn't give access to messages. The message reads:

Hello,

My name is Stephanie and I am a Producer with Lenzworks, the production company responsible for Relative Race. If you are unfamiliar with the show, Relative Race follows the journey of 4 teams as they race across America and meet new relatives.

I am contacting you directly because you happen to be a match to one of our contestants. My team would love the opportunity to talk to you about the show, and see if you may be interested in meeting your relative.

Please click the link below for more information.

http://lenzworks.com/201703trrcasting-group1b/

Note: If the link doesn’t work by clicking on it, you may need to copy and paste the URL into your internet browser (e.g., Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, etc.).

We hope to hear from you soon.

Thank you for your time,

Stephanie
LenzWorks Productions
http://lenzworks.com/
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So I thought what the hell and sent a reply. Now I wait.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Welp, that ray of sunshine didn't last very long. I'm pretty sure I know who my biological grandfather's sibling is. He's the only one that fits. So all I have to do is figure out which of his brothers or sisters is my grandparent. Easy right? Nope. Turns out he's adopted. So knowing who he is helps me not in the least. I have to find HIS biological family to find mine.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
And I have confirmation that the person I thought was my Great Uncle is indeed my Great Uncle. Which means his brother or sister is my grandparent on my mother's side. And not only is he adopted, but he died in WWII bombing Japan. (Sorry, Japan, but you started it!) His (adopted) name is Walter Homer. Now I just have to find his biological siblings. Oy.

https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=56111137
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Time for a humorous update.

I got a message from a lady that is my second cousin that there was a new player in the game - a first cousin of hers! Wow! Uh...wait. That can't be your first cousin if I'm your second cousin. That's my dad, Richard. Interesting. See, second cousin is trying to find her grandfather as her MOTHER was adopted. We started looking through charts and graphs and centimorgan amounts to see what was up...and we found the only scenario that fits everything.

At 650 or so centimorgans, she thought that my father was her first cousin. But also at that range would be Great Uncle. And my cousin Ken (remember Ken?) showed as a first cousin as well (550 centimorgans or so) yet that made no sense since he is my father's nephew. But looking at the chart, a Half-Uncle would also fit the bill. Which means that Jen's mother is cousin Ken's sister! A sister cousin Ken did not know that he had.

But it gets even better. Second cousin's DNA results showed that the person SHE thought was her father was not. In fact, he's only the father of one of the couple's three kids.

Gotta hand it to DNA, man. All those cold, dark secrets aren't staying hidden any longer.
 
Cheesy1

Cheesy1

Dave said:
Time for a humorous update.

I got a message from a lady that is my second cousin that there was a new player in the game - a first cousin of hers! Wow! Uh...wait. That can't be your first cousin if I'm your second cousin. That's my dad, Richard. Interesting. See, second cousin is trying to find her grandfather as her MOTHER was adopted. We started looking through charts and graphs and centimorgan amounts to see what was up...and we found the only scenario that fits everything.

At 650 or so centimorgans, she thought that my father was her first cousin. But also at that range would be Great Uncle. And my cousin Ken (remember Ken?) showed as a first cousin as well (550 centimorgans or so) yet that made no sense since he is my father's nephew. But looking at the chart, a Half-Uncle would also fit the bill. Which means that Jen's mother is cousin Ken's sister! A sister cousin Ken did not know that he had.

But it gets even better. Second cousin's DNA results showed that the person SHE thought was her father was not. In fact, he's only the father of one of the couple's three kids.

Gotta hand it to DNA, man. All those cold, dark secrets aren't staying hidden any longer.
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Officer_Charon

Officer_Charon

I have never delved into family trees too much - that's my mom's gig. My father's side of the family never kept too close of a family tree - to the point where I suspect that Dad is actually the product of some infidelity, as he is noticeably different from his brothers and sisters.

But damn if this ain't fascinating to learn about. Dave, thank you for sharing your journey and education on the subject here!
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

All this infidelity is making me feel good about my thus-far lack of cheating on my wife.

(Also I probably couldn't get any other girl to do anything with me even if I wanted to, so she's definitely got nothing to worry about)
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
She may have cheated on me, but at least mine didn't have a kid by way of it, I suppose. If she had, and I'd still found out after she was gone, I'd like to believe I'd be man enough for it to not matter as far as the kid would be concerned.

But I'm still glad to not be in that position.
 
General Specific

General Specific

Dave said:
Time for a humorous update.

I got a message from a lady that is my second cousin that there was a new player in the game - a first cousin of hers! Wow! Uh...wait. That can't be your first cousin if I'm your second cousin. That's my dad, Richard. Interesting. See, second cousin is trying to find her grandfather as her MOTHER was adopted. We started looking through charts and graphs and centimorgan amounts to see what was up...and we found the only scenario that fits everything.

At 650 or so centimorgans, she thought that my father was her first cousin. But also at that range would be Great Uncle. And my cousin Ken (remember Ken?) showed as a first cousin as well (550 centimorgans or so) yet that made no sense since he is my father's nephew. But looking at the chart, a Half-Uncle would also fit the bill. Which means that Jen's mother is cousin Ken's sister! A sister cousin Ken did not know that he had.

But it gets even better. Second cousin's DNA results showed that the person SHE thought was her father was not. In fact, he's only the father of one of the couple's three kids.

Gotta hand it to DNA, man. All those cold, dark secrets aren't staying hidden any longer.
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All I get from this is:

8bi5EMq.gif
 
Siska

Siska

Dave said:
Gotta hand it to DNA, man. All those cold, dark secrets aren't staying hidden any longer.
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I guess it's not surprising when you consider the pressure to marry (young) and the difficulty in getting a divorce back in those days. And I think often if was not really a secret but something the "fathers" knew but ignored or preferred to keep hidden.
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

So many strange things went on with "unplanned" pregnancies. Like a 15 year old girl leaves town for a year and comes back with baby sister. Or what happened in my family once, there were two sisters (my Great Aunts) one could not have kids and the other had too many. So one sister literally gave a child to the other. The worst part was they never told the boy. It was at the adoptive mother's funeral that the birth mother told him that she was really his mother.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Well never mind. Found an email address, which led me to names of kids, which led me to Facebook pages, which led me to messaging about 6 people. Here's to hoping one of them gets curious and responds.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
One of them got curious. The lady would be my cousin if this lead holds up, which right now is looking at about 50/50 at best. I'll keep chugging away at this lead, but will start going through the trees again to find a suitable female candidate just in case. Lot of work, though. Here's how I was able to get to her in the first place (redacting out last names):

I did the Ancestry DNA and found my father through a cousin in Sioux City. Because I have proof of my father, I am able to isolate those who do NOT match with his DNA, which means anyone who shares a match there is from my maternal side. Most don't have very many people in their family trees, but one - Carolyn - who has 25,000+ people in her family tree. Since her and I are 3rd cousins, we share great-great-grandparents. So I went through her tree starting at the great-great-grandparents and working my way down. When I'd hit a dead end (usually because the people are still alive and are set as private) then I'd go look at both obituaries and the website find a grave. Working down through the great-great-grandfather, Andrew, I went to William Henry, then Bertha, then Fern - who was born in the right year to be my biological mother.

So I had a name, but her account still shows as living, which is obviously incorrect. (This is why I say these things are tenuous - we're not dealing with official paperwork or certificates, merely information entered by other people.) I then hit obituaries (nothing) and find a grave. On find a grave, I was able to find Bertha Pentz (link removed).

This gave me the names of her MALE children - for some reason it didn't show the females. But clicking on the link to Daniel gave me a picture with the entire family. I clicked on the name under the picture (K. S.) and went through the comments, which included an email address for her. So I emailed her. After a few back & forths, she sent me an email she received from Archie back in 2015. I sent him an email, but considering his age I thought it would be best to try and find more information. So I googled his email address, which took me to this webpage document called US Action. (link removed)

This gave me his city - [City], [State]- which when googled as "Archie [City]" took me to a site called Radaris. I clicked the "full profile" link thinking it was going to then tell me to pay for information, but instead took me to a page with "Related to". The "Related to" includes Melanie (I assume that's you), Betty, Daniel, Crystal, William, & Joyce.

I then went to Facebook and looked for people with those names that included friends in their list that also included any of those names and was from [State]. I found Dan and looked through his comments, then messaged people that were active and had the right names.
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See? Easy.
 
strawman

strawman

If you're going that far back you might actually find something useful in census records as well, if you hit another dead end.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
stienman said:
If you're going that far back you might actually find something useful in census records as well, if you hit another dead end.
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Yup. The 1940 census has been a godsend. Strange how difficult it is finding census data later than that, though.
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

Yeah, not everyone knows that, I guess.

Oh, and don't bother looking for the 1890 Census. Most of those records burned with the building where they were stored. (If there ever was one census that I really really really wish I had access to, that would be the one TBH.)
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Well, folks, Fern Pentz is....NOT my mom.

She had 2 kids and her daughter was born in April of 1965. So unless she has super-human gestation periods, she couldn't have had me on October 3 of the same year.

Back to square 1 I go.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
One month is the longest recorded difference. Mine would be 6 months. So t would still be super-human.
 
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