Wedding Wednesday -- Looking for Elizabeth

I'd like to learn more about one of the mysterious women named Elizabeth in my family tree. She married my great-great-grandfather four years before he married my great-great-grandmother.

The Illinois marriage index tells us:

• Elizabeth BREISWATER married on March 30, 1862 in Macon County, Illinois, to George VOSSLAR

The Macon marriage register appears a bit different:

• Elizabeth BREITWACHER married on March 30, 1862 in Macon County, Illinois, to George VOSSALER

I believe the correct version is:

• Elizabeth BREITWIESER married on March 30, 1862 in Macon County, Illinois, to George VOSSLER

Was Elizabeth married before? Was this her maiden name or a married name? Did she have children in this marriage or a previous one? Do I have some cousins descended from this Elizabeth? I'd love to hear from someone who knows.

Tuesday's Tip -- Cousin Bait

How do you connect with the distant cousins who can collaborate with you on your photos and your genealogical puzzles? You use cousin bait, of course.

The term cousin bait has been bandied about the genealogy community for a while -- I didn't make it up. If you've posted queries on forums, mailing lists or in newsletters, you've used cousin bait.

But what about your blog? Have you considered using a blog posting to help cousins find you? It's certainly another tool in your toolkit.

Your blog post needs to be formatted in such a way that someone searching for a particular ancestor will get a good hit from their search engine. Keep the important facts close together. Tell enough, but not everything you know. Leave them wanting more. Include your relationship to the ancestor you are describing.

Tomorrow I'll post some cousin bait about a mystery person for whom I have very little information and three possible spellings of her last name. I want to keep that post very simple and to the point. I don't want to lose a contact to a lot of words.

Meanwhile, I have not posted a layout in a while, so will share one that is part of my screen saver series. Here's my great-grandmother's cousin Wid, William Aaron Maddix.

ClubScrap Haberdashery digital kit

  

Friday Fun with AncestryDNA

I now know where I came from! 

Well maybe not, but I'll take you on a tour of Ancestry's latest offering.

My AncestryDNA test results have arrived and I'm very excited about it. There are different types of DNA tests and not all of them would work to help answer my biggest question, but AncestryDNA has the potential.

I've been looking for my Native American ancestor(s) and want to validate that I am at least 1/64th, or 1.5 percent, Native American. The problem is that this ancestral line crosses between male and female at least twice. A gender-neutral test is what I needed. The AncestryDNA test looks at a variety of markers to find ethnic results and is not limited by gender, so it fits my needs. The AncestryDNA test is also dynamic; the results aren't a one-time answer. They will refine their analysis and their database over time. I didn't get my answer, but do have hope that over the next few months or years it will become clear.

You want to know what it looks like and how it works. I got in at the introductory price of $99 in January (2013). My sister-in-law looked last week and the price was $129 and it's only for Ancestry members. I would estimate a two-month minimum membership would be needed to participate. Three months would be better to give you time to review your matches.

You order the test, it arrives, you collect a saliva sample, register the kit code online, send the sample back, then wait for it to be processed. The kit arrived about a week after I ordered it. The results took perhaps two to three weeks. I don't recall when I sent it back, but it was not immediately. There is a link to an FAQ that arrives by email when your results are available for review on Ancestry.com.

Here are some more screen shots from my results.

The match list, stars are set by me:

 

 

 A review match example (and yes, we had already connected before this):

 

Maps of my direct-line birth locations:

 

 

Possible match examples by name and by location:

 

 

An interesting tidbit about this match candidate is the Alabama connection. My Stapleton ancestral line runs through that Alabama birth. Right now I don't see a relationship in this match, but I certainly see a good possibility.

Ethnicity Limitations

You are wondering why I have German birth locations, yet show no German ethnicity. The ethnic results are looking further back than my tree goes. That's a drawback. Our European ancestors were warriors who invaded other lands, spreading their genes. I was surprised to see the high Scandinavian percentage of 63. I had myself categorized as only 25 percent Swedish, but those Vikings did get around!

If you have any questions, please leave a comment or drop me an email. I hope some of you will join me in this new type of genealogical adventure.