Jaci Dawn

Where was I? Oh, researching the Scots. Got a little side-tracked by the Germans, but discovered some exciting things about my family history through those little shaking leaves on Ancestry.com. Like how German I am.

I pulled up some military records for my 3rd Great Grandfather on my maternal side: Henry B. Rowe was a Private in the 18th Division, Wisconsin Infantry, during the Civil War (that’s on the North side for those of you not familiar with history).

Both 6th Great Grandfathers up the same maternal line were Privates in the American Revolution: Benjamin Reigel (or Riegel, there’s some discrepancy in spelling so it’s either pronounced with the long I (Reigel) or the long E (Riegel). Benjamin was a Private in the 1st Battalion, Northampton County Militia (Pennsylvannia). Peter Kern was Private 2C1 under Captain Arndt’s Company, 1st Battalion of Associators, Northampton (also PA).

Peter Kern is where I ran into trouble with those cute little fluttering leaves of hints. I could accept the data leaves with verifiable written history, but the “other ancestry trees” veered way off course. I had to back way the heck up.

Start with his wife, one Catharine (Catharina) Deshler, born 11 JAN 1746 and died 11 Hmmm… February of 1825 or November of 1815. Wait… She might have been born 11 JAN 1751. Oh, and her maiden name may have been Hoffert. What the…?

I’ll explain in a minute, after I tell you about Peter.

Peter Kern was born either 11 April 1741 or 23 July 1741. He may have been known as John Peter. He died either 31 May 1820 or 25 May 1820. And his surname may have been Daudistel.

I can’t accept those”hints” because I have no record tying them together. Someone did a lot of interesting research, but how did they tie those names (and dates) together? What records?

Or did someone do what I did ONCE (and one time, only) on Ancestry? Just blindly accepted a hint because the dates were similar and the names were “close enough” that maybe there was room for doubt?

STOP.RIGHT.HERE.

Do NOT accept those hints. Back off. Find another way to verify this person is your ancestor. I now need to find the birth records, marriage records, death records – the actual verifiable bits of history to tie up the loose ends of the Kern/Deshler connections. The children are right and the siblings match, but where the heck did those alternate surnames come in?

UGH. I have a headache just thinking about untangling that web of misinformation.

On the other hand, I as able to follow the hints into the Rheinland down that same maternal line by veering into a paternal line. 6th great Grandfather Benjamin Riegel’s father, Matthias, immigrated from Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany during the early 1700’s. His spouse, Maria Margaetha (Unknown) immigrated around the same time from Rheinland-Palatine.

BINGO: family came out of the German Palatine immigration.My husband’s ancestors also immigrated from the same area around the same time (darn! We might be related outside of marriage – haha). I know another family line came out of the same area (too tired to look it up, but it was up a patriarchal line on my father’s side).

What is interesting to me is how much more connected I am to the Scots/Irish connections than to the German, although the German probably played a greater role in my DNA. Considering how religious the Palatine Germans were, when did that heritage drop off and the Irish/Scots Protestant kick in? (Pretty certain my German ancestors were Protestant, although many were Catholic).

I’m excited about the possibilities even though I feel I’ve reached a dead end up this particular family line as Ancestry has proven ambiguous. But never trust in a single source. I’ll just have to go old school on this line, so I am tabling it for now.

I did save documents about occupations (a lot of carpenters in there), military records, and how people died. Certain records are historic proof.

Oh-Oh-Oh! Rose became Rau the closer I got to Germany. Heinrich Rau was my fourth great grandfather, but the spelling of his surname quickly changed to Rowe, and his son, Johannes, became John. I can trace that and the names are similar enough to make that transition.

Common names often went through a period of misspellings: Presley/Priestly/Pressler/Pressley or Willcocks/Wilcox/Willcox. Johannes is the same as John in German. Rau to Rowe is a simple hop. Americanization. Assimilation. I even noted one stenographer who interpreted the hand-written “ROWE” signature to be “RONE” (I looked at the record. It’s clearly ROWE to me).

But Daudistel to Kern??? Or Deshler to Hoffert??? That’s not a simple leap. And the disparate birth/death dates are a huge red flag.  I’m backing way the heck off on that one until my brain quits hurting.