My iPhone vibrated on the stand next to my bed just moments after I’d turned off the lights Tuesday night. It was alerting me that a new email had come through. I looked at the preview on the screen and realized my day was not over. The results of my mitochondrial DNA test were back from the lab. Like I could sleep… More →
Month: September 2015
Crappy Valentine’s Day
Some of my distant cousins made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. November 27, 1937 was not a good day for Valentine Biesemeyer, my 1st cousin, 4x removed. After his amorous advances were rebuffed by his housekeeper, he struck her in the side of the head with a hatchet. She managed to survive the blow and recounted the horrific tale to the… More →
D-N-Abled Discoveries
Genealogy wouldn’t be the same for me if I didn’t have my DNA-matched cousins on Ancestry.com “turbocharging” my research. Many of these distant cousins have built out their public family trees far enough back that they often unknowingly help me confirm a connection or overcome a research roadblock. Earlier this week I introduced yet another Martin Trantham. I wondered if any of my DNA cousins could provide evidence that this Martin and his descendants… More →
Yet Another Martin
A package from the public library of Huntsville, Texas arrived this week. It was stuffed with the genealogical findings of a distant Trantham cousin. In a frenzy reminiscent of Christmas mornings past, I ripped into the padded envelope and quickly scanned for the section on “Martin Trantham”, our presumed common ancestor. I had high hopes that the author, Herbert Raymond Trantham, Jr., had… More →
Labor of Love
It has taken me a couple of months to work my way through the History and Genealogy of the American Descendants of John and Ann Chamness of London, England. I have painstakingly transferred all 126 typewritten pages of Chamness distant cousins into my family tree. While this might seem like cheating or circumventing the research process, I should point out that the book… More →