Friday, April 26, 2019

Updated Ancestry DNA Results

Ancestry.com updated their regions for me recently. I had taken a 23andMe test as well and found it highly accurate based on my research. Ancestry, not so much. I knew I had no Iberian Peninsula relatives anytime in the recent few hundred years unless there were a bunch on the other side of the blanket.  Not likely.

Anyway, I received my updated map and it is far more in line with what I know to be true. My Danish is typically German or Swedish - as is the case for many Danes. And, Iberian Peninsula is off the map completely.
BEFORE
Iberian Peninsula? I think not.
AFTER
Massively Scandinavian/German/English
with under 1% Ashkenazi Jewish (I still love my pastrami, okay?)




Ancestry DNA and Mystery Solving

I think that many of us, who do this maddening thing, watch at least one of those Ancestry shows on TV. I like Dr. Gates' PBS show best, but they also clearly have a giant staff of paid and trained scientists and genealogists combing through records all over the world on their behalf. I'd like to be famous for just a short bit so I'd be invited on and he'd get some of my own questions answered.

DNA connections keep getting better and better on Ancestry.com. ThruLinesTM, now in Beta, is proving to be quite interesting. Of course, it all depends on how accurate your fellow researchers are, and that has proven to be iffy at best, but I have been able to go down at least two paths I couldn't get down before and at least form a hypothesis where I could not before.

It's also proven connections to specific families where I was not sure, or had nothing to cite to make the connection. I'm sure that will give others license to just accept the information at its face and run with it, which will further screw up sorting it out, but I hope not.

One of my discoveries this month was a definitive connection to Sarah Anne Lindsey, child of
Sarah Anne Lindsey Dorathy
(in a classic Lindsey/Linsey look)
Harvey Lindsey and Peace Macumber/Macomber. They lived in New York state and were the parents of my 2GG Oscar Lindsey who pioneered by way of Indiana to Whiteside County, Illinois, and then to Benton County, Iowa. I knew Oscar had an unmarried sister, but was not aware he had at least one other sister, Sarah, who married a Dougherty (later Dorathy) and had a gigantic family who stayed in the Whiteside area and another group of whom moved to Nebraska. It was quite exciting.

Because of DNA, I know I am related to that group and can make the connection at last. It also brings me to my next questions - because of the age difference between Sarah (who was likely one of the older children of Harvey and Peace) and Oscar (likely one of the younger). Are there more siblings out there we don't know about? I'm betting there are and time will tell. I just hate waiting.

What about you? What's been your big discovery this month?

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Clan William: Simmons Family in Society in Early Oklahoma City

Capt Thomas Munson > Samuel Munson > Samuel James Munson > William Munson > Samuel II Munson > Freeman Munson > Henrietta Munson > Sara Jane Vaughn > William Wallace Simmons m Alice Carpenter > Merle Phillip Simmons 

A long time ago, I talked about the Simmons family which had its roots in the family of the sister of my 2nd great grandmother, Mary Ann Munson Smith. William Wallace Simmons and his wife, Alice O. Carpenter, married in 1889, the same year the first White settlements started in Oklahoma City. In 1901, the couple and their only child, Merle Phillip Simmons made the trek from Iowa to Oklahoma City where they established their household. Oklahoma City was still young.

Alice Simmons opened up a bakery in 1913, which started by baking four loaves of bread per day. It grew over the course of time to a very large bakery serving the entire city. William Wallace Simmons died suddenly while on a business trip in 1915. Mrs Simmons kept on growing her business when WWI took her son for service in France. One of his letters home to his mother made the Daily Oklahoman paper.
OKLAHOMA CITY BOY DESCRIBES FRENCH FARMING
Mrs WW Simmons,
Oklahoma City
Received your Christmas box about three weeks ago. We have nothing to worry about
over here as we are comfortably located, have warm weather, and lots of work to do, a place to sleep, something to cat and no place to go, so why should we worry?
France is very interesting, especially are the quaint customs. The roads are of gravel and clay and are in fine shape for motoring as they are so smooth. There are no mud holes or ruts. All over France the roads seem to be the same. A hard sandstone lays just beneath the top soil. Timber is very scarce and as a result the people naturally build their homes of stone and whatever is built of this material lasts forever, it seems. All along the roads are stone walls, three to four feet high. They also surround the farms, which are small and irregular. If stone is not used, a thick hedge is grown. And when you look into the valleys from the hilltop, it is easy to pick out each individual farm. There is not much waste land as the farms are kept clean and in excellent condition.
 Grape vineyards appear to be plentiful as the French seem to be great wine drinkers. The Frenchman's wine to him is as necessary as beer to a German. The farm houses are large, built of stone, with a red-tiled roof which is usually covered with green moss. The house is usually two stories and connecting on one end is a barn and the other a porch or shed used for drying corn, beans, and the like. The farmer wears a loose-fitting work shirt which slips on over his head and is fastened with a draw string around his neck. He wears these instead of overalls. Wooden shoes are very popular.
On market morning the farmer and his family get into a two wheeled cart and go to town. There seem to prefer the carts. Geese and p*** are about all they bring to down now as it is spring and most of the cr**** have been marketed.
I guess we will be paid in a couple of days? We are all broke because we haven't been paid for two months. It is one way to save money, because when a fellow gets broke he can't spend and he can't find anybody to borrow from.
Merle P Simmons
The Daily Oklahoman
(Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, United States of America)
10 Mar 1918, Sun  •  20
Her reputation in the city for her business acumen was growing and her activities frequently made the society pages of the Daily Oklahoman. In 1925, she remarried Mr Horace W. Hakes. The divorce of the Hakes', which occurred during Mrs Simmons final illness in 1938, included a financial settlement of undetermined amount to Mr Hakes. Mr Hakes blamed his stepson, Merle, for his marital troubles. Merle had been slowly taking over the business the past few years and Mr Hake's opinions on the course of the business were ignored.
`1924 Ad for Mrs Simmons Home Bake Shop


Mrs Simmons passed away on 13 Mar 1939 from her long illness. She left her son, Merle and his wife Esther Day and their three boys, Merle Jr., William Wallace, and Robert Day. A daughter, Betty Lou, died at 17 months in 1923.

Two of Merle and Esther's boys, Bob and Bill's weddings made the society page. Son Merle Jr. worked with his father in the bakery business, but never married. The advertisements I found for the business ended about 1949.

Bob served as a pilot in the US Air Force. He later worked from Superior Oil and then with Prudential Bache Brokerage Firm, and then worked as an independent oil and gas broker. He and his wife, Sue Ellison, had four children. He died in 1997. Bill married Sarah Jo Durland and they had two children. I don't know a lot about him, but he for several years worked as the North Texas State University as associate director of admissions. He died in 1971 at the young age of 41.