All over the world, people pause to remember those who fought and died trying to protect their countrymen.  Different countries use unique ways to celebrate and honor their lives.  In my opinion, war is a terrible thing. If it can be avoided, I would hope leaders all over the world would choose peace and collaboration over pain and suffering.

In the USA, Memorial Day is celebrated on the last Monday in May. It is a federally declared holiday. Flying our flags, family picnics, parades of soldiers and sailors, decorating cemeteries, and remembering the many who gave of their lives to serve their country are some of  the ways it is celebrated.

World War II saw millions of people all over the world die due both to armed battles, and/or as civilians caught in those fights. In 1943, one of my aunts, my mother’s sister Nancy, had the opportunity to marry her sweetheart Bob while he was home from the war on leave. He was an Air Force Pilot, and she was so proud of him! I wasn’t even born yet, but my mother told us this story many times.

When their boyfriends and husbands were at war, several of my mother’s six sisters lived together in an apartment.  My mother Margaret and her sisters Nancy and Julia lived together. After having been married for a very short while, Nancy was missing her husband terribly. One Saturday  afternoon, she napped in her room. Suddenly she ran out into the living room crying and talking rapidly. “No, no, no!  Bob is dead! Bob is dead, I can’t stand it, I can’t say goodbye!”  Her sisters thought she was still sleeping and having a nightmare. However, Nancy soon explained that she awakened to see an image of Bob sitting on the bottom of her bed. She said that he spoke with her kindly, saying he was sorry, but he had to leave her, had to say goodbye. “He told me he loved me, and wanted me to have a good life.”  “No!”, she moaned in inconsolable grief, so sure of the reality of her dream.  The event shook all of the family, but most believed it was just a dream.  However, within 24 hours, two military personnel came to the door and notified Nancy officially that Bob had been killed! The extreme joy of a wedding, dreams of the future,  and it all died that day with her beloved Bob Guthrie. Apparently, Bob had truly appeared to my aunt, how else would she have know that news before it was delivered?  Every Memorial Day as I was growing up, we heard this story which became a family classic. Other relatives died in the wars, but this one stood out. A group of Bob’s classmates at the Military Academy wrote and sent this to my Aunt Nancy:

“Courtesy of His Classmates

United States Military Academy

Robert Wood Dailey Guthrie

14 May 1920 – 14 August 1944

Died near Brest, France, aged 24 years

Interment: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia

As June 1944 approached, many divisions including the 78th were raided for privates and lieutenants — among them First Lieutenant Guthrie. Even the goodbyes were hasty and Bob sailed for Northern Ireland as one of the many fillers destined for Normandy. His assignment was in Company “D,” 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division.

On the fourth of July 1944, the 1st Battalion entered into the severe combat of Normandy and over a month of testing for Bob. The baptism of fire began on the 8th and 9th of July against a determined enemy. This was the most costly combat for the battalion; 124 enlisted men and five officers. But more was yet to come. The best ground over which to break out of Normandy lay in front of the 1st battalion. But the enemy knew it as well. On 25 July, the battalion spearheaded the St. Lo breakout through which moved two armored divisions and the 79th Division. For that action the unit received battle honors in Army orders. In the breakout the battalion went 50 miles by foot to join in the capture of Rennes. In early August, the unit cleaned up enemy resistance and took in more than 300 replacements.

Then the 8th Division and the 6th Armored were sent west to surround the fortified port city of Brest. Here a German hero from Crete commanded three divisions plus many other units and was under direct orders from Hitler to hold out for four months. It was the lot of the 1st Battalion to be the first divisional unit to hit these fortifications. From 8 August, the battalion began to learn how to deal with piercing the forts as they closed the noose around the garrison. But the airfield had to be taken in order to close the last route of escape. On 11 August, while leading his men in that attack, Bob Guthrie was mortally wounded by enemy machine gun fire. He died in a field hospital on the 14th — an infantry combat leader of great courage hit at the head of his troops.”

ARLINGTON, VA – MAY 27: A member of the U.S. Army Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), salutes after placing a flag on a grave stone at Arlington National Cemetary May 27, 2004 in Arlington, Virginia. An event called “Flags In” takes place before every Memorial Day weekend in honor of those veterans who have lost their lives. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

When we think of the men and women who gave their lives protecting their countries, most of us think  of the actual fighters, and rightly so. However, “50 to 85 million people worldwide were killed during WWII.”  (Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II)  “Over 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians died as a result of WWI.” (Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I)  How is it that we choose this suffering for our world!   

Civilian deaths are sometimes called “collateral” damage. Their families might feel collateral  is not the right term. My maternal grandmother was one to be counted as collateral damage from WWI, but I’m sure she was not included in the numbers. On Memorial Day I have come to think of her wounding and death.  

It’s hard to believe, but this wonderful woman, a nurse by profession and by all reports a superb one, met tragedy at the hands of a patient. She was caring for a comatose private duty patient, a veteran of WWI. She had bathed him and went to empty the water, as my mother told the story. When she returned to the room, he yelled out for her to get away and called her by the derogatory name of some of our military adversaries in  WWI. He was delirious, but afraid. Unfortunately, there was a rifle hanging on the wall that was still loaded, no one had realized or dreamed it was still loaded!  In his delirious state he shot my grandmother in the head! Within a couple of hours, he was dead of his own illness, just that last semiconscious rousing  turned her whole world upside down and that of her children and husband also! She was shot on January 28, 1930, but not killed. The bullet apparently split in half, half traveling down her neck, and half lodging in her brain, inoperable. She lived, but was unable to talk and walk well for the rest of her life–and she had six children!  Shot by a mortally wounded soldier, she was a victim of the war herself.

Even though I’d heard this story all my life, as I worked on my genealogy,I found several newspaper articles in archives regarding her being shot. Her death certificate, and the patient’s certificate  were available to me in a records search. Since this was my mother’s mother, I heard the story from family repeatedly.

 These are two deaths that I will remember specifically on this Memorial day. There have been many more in our own family, and in yours, I know. This Memorial Day I will remember and honor the dead, but I will pray for leaders who seek peace.

 

This blog post was initially published by this author in the Worldwide Genealogy~A Genealogical Collaboration.

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Source: Carl Sagan, quotefancy.com

As many of you, my readers, know, I’ve been doing genealogical research for about five years now. It has become not only  my hobby, but my passion!  I can’t explain why delving into decades and centuries of ancestors is so satisfying for me. It’s the detective work that keeps me involved I think, intellectually, and the family captures my emotions.

That saying by Lawrence Dillard is so true! Through my genealogical research I have met so many new cousins and friends, I cannot even count that high!  Today I want to tell you about one of those special people. (The names of her and her family have been changed to protect their privacy.)

About a year or so ago, a person named Albany got in touch with me through ancestry.com with an amazing story. Just like me, she had her, and her sister’s dna tested for genealogical research purposes. Both of her parents were deceased. However, when Albany’s dna came back, it said she and her sister were only half sisters! Surprise and shock set in.  Very soon however, curiosity came to the fore. She decided to look into this situation more seriously, and see what she could discover. She started by turning to her beloved older sister Abigail of course. They were both having to deal with all the ramifications of this news. Albany’s father, whom she’d adored all of her life, was not really her biological father! Had they lied to her? Did he know? Did her mother even know?  Did her mother deceive her Dad all those years? Quickly she discarded that idea. Her mother was just not the type of person to do that, being honest had always meant the world to her mother. More than likely when Albany was born in the 1950’s, there was just no way to tell who the father was. Her parents had reunited as well, so more than likely, they both believed the long awaited second child was theirs.

This is just a bit of what Albany wrote in her journal at that time: “A year ago, just minding my business, working on my genealogical research,  I took a DNA test along with my sister. Then, BAM! I discover that I am not my daddy’s biological daughter.  I was 58 years old when I made this discovery. All those years a big secret was carefully hidden from me.” Of course, Albany knows that it may not have been “hidden” from her, but we can’t help but consider that when discovering such a monumental secret. She says her mother was overprotective. Her mother may have not wanted her to deal with all of that, or like we said, she might not have known.

Other journal notes: “In trying to unravel the mystery, I talked to my sister, asking about anything at all that she could remember. She told me, that my parents were legally separated for awhile when she was young. During the time when my parents were separated,  she remembered  a man who made a very brief appearance in my mother’s life.

One evening some neighbors invited my mother to the VFW, and mother took my sister along. It was there mama met this man, “Danny.” After the VFW, Danny brought mama and my sister home and came inside for a while. My sister recalled that he was tall, nice-looking, friendly, and very, very charming. She learned that his last name was Mansfield.  A bit later he got up to leave, and mama walked outside with him, apparently just saying goodbye. In a while, my sister realized that mama had not come back inside, so she looked out the window and saw that Danny’s car was gone, and so was mama. She can’t recall how long mama was gone…maybe an hour or so, but for her it seemed like a very long time. Mama was extremely overprotective, and it was highly unusual for her to leave her daughter alone, especially at night.

After that, my sister vaguely recalls that she heard Danny’s name mentioned, maybe once or twice, but nothing more about him. Perhaps a few months later mama and daddy got back together, and I was born in December of that year. “

Why had Albany never, ever heard this before?  Well, as we realized, Abigail was young , and her parents got back together, so “all’s well that ends well”. That charming man just wasn’t important to a child anymore and was quickly forgotten!  Fast forward fifty-eight years to a dna test!  Albany was so shocked, and so worried about her family relationships and just everything, that she and her sister agreed to seek professional counseling together.  The counselor gave them some very practical insights, helped them discuss the difficult issues, and gave them resources. Albany and Abigail say they are glad they took that opportunity.

As the air around her cleared, Albany was determined to discover who her biological father was, and began to research vigorously. She enlisted help from other researchers as well, people skilled in dna, and people knowledgeable of the Johnson-Smith-Mansfield family. That’s how we connected! Albany belonged to ancestry.com and she found The Mansfield Family Tree I had researched for a cousin there! She wrote me a note asking if I might be interested in helping her search, and I readily volunteered, intrigued immediately. I was touched that this stranger would reach out to me, knowing that had to be difficult.

Albany had taken three different dna tests to aid us in this quest. She took one test from Family Tree DNA. She took another dna test from 23 and Me, and an autosomal dna test from ancestry.com. Each type of test gave her different types of results. If she’d had a brother it would have helped, y-dna from males usually traces the family line back efficiently. She would have had the information much more easily. As it turns out, she found cousins, lots of cousins!  The closest who weren’t identifiable as belonging to her mother’s family, were ones with names like Johnson and Smith. The closest being a second  cousin. We had that name Danny Mansfield as well. I could not readily identify a man with that name in my cousin’s family line, but I didn’t give up easily either.  I knew a woman who was collecting Mansfield family  information from all over the United States and beyond. I consulted her immediately and she gave me access to her huge  data base. We also started scouring newspapers from the time near her birth.

Albany turned to the others who were helping her as well. They gave her many hints, a sense of direction, and kept helping her narrow her search. This is one of many things she wrote in her journal: “I had matched on Ancestry with a 2nd cousin. Sharing this with one of the people who helped me with my DNA search, I saw that Jennifer Smith might be my great grandmother. I mentioned this to a friend, who quickly wrote me sharing an old obituary of Mrs. Jennifer Smith Johnson wife of Chester Johnson, stating that Mrs Cynthia Mansfield  was her daughter. I later found that Cynthia Johnson Mansfield  was married to Bob Mansfield, they would be my grandparents! . Ancestry census records had their sons as  Robert and William Mansfield. It looked like one of these men should be my biological father, but there was no hint of a Danny! Then I found an obituary for William Danforth Mansfield, and it had in quotes “Danny” as his nickname. Voila!”  

He fit! He had the right line going through the great-grandparents we’d identified as probably belonging to Albany. Next we found his obituary, which was sad, but had a surprise gift. Albany had a brother, a half brother named William, called Bill,  who lived out of state.  Albany wrapped her courage around herself, and called him on the telephone!  Bill was also surprised,  but could not have been kinder or more receptive! He offered to take a dna test, and within a month, they knew it was true, he and Albany were sister and brother! Since then, they’ve talked almost everyday.  Learning about each other what most of us grow up knowing, all the ins and outs!  They’ve become friends on facebook, and the wonderful thing is that they have included me in that friendship! Albany and I have become very good friends who enjoy many things in common like genealogy and gardening. That circle of “family” grows, and our hearts grow along with it! Albany  can love her new half brother and still love her sister, mother, and the father who lovingly raised her.

I’d love to hear about your own adventures with meeting new family members through your dna or genealogical work. I have written about some of my own before, including the post just before this one on dna. Meanwhile, I hope things are going well for you, and am wishing you all the best, Helen

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This blog post was first published on “Worldwide Genealogy–A Genealogical Collaboration, July 27, 2015. I wanted to share it here with you as it connects to my next post as well. You can see the exciting Worldwide Blog at http://worldwidegenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/07/dna-integral-part-of-my-genealogical.html?showComment=1439293198648

It’s been almost two years since I tested my dna on ancestry.com. Since then, I have done four more tests for cousins there, and I have administered two tests on Family Tree DNA. I have downloaded raw data, and uploaded it to GEDMATCH and other sites. I am far from an expert in dna, in fact, I am quite the amateur, but I have been intrigued by what I have learned of it; it has affected the way I do my research; and it has introduced me to several hundred new cousins!  I thought you might be interested in this journey.

For this blog post, I am going to concentrate on the autosomal dna that I did through ancestry. Since I keep my family tree there, it is a great enrichment to my research and findings. I have about 4000 matches to my dna on ancestry! The matches are arranged by closeness of kinship, with parents, brothers  and sisters and 1st cousins listed before  2nd , 3rd, and 4th and more distant cousins/relatives. Most of those matches are attached to a family tree I can consult. You are also given dna circles, I have eleven of those which have shown me incredible things which I will explain below. You can also search your matches by surnames or by location, or by both. It is amazing to me!

Ancestor confirmed by autosomal dna, by Linda Geddes on ancestry.com

First, let me tell you about the dna circles. I have eleven of these as I said,  I am including a detailed description of what ancestry’s dna circles are and how they are created from ancestry.com at the end of this post, hope it is helpful. But one of the most exciting things about these charts of your dna matches, is that it can give you new relatives, as it did me!  Ancestry explains it like this, “Descendants of an ancestor often inherit pieces of DNA from that ancestor, and they may share those pieces with other descendants. If these descendants are in a DNA Circle for their ancestor, you can get a New Ancestor Discovery to a DNA Circle, even if you don’t have this ancestor in your tree.”

I was amazed by my circles. Let me give you just one example. I looked at my 11 circles on ancestry, and one was  titled the “Cuthbert Cheely DNA Circle”. That surprised me because I had no Cheelys in my tree at the time, and had never heard of this man, whom ancestry said was my 4th great grandfather! There are five “members” in this dna “circle”, I have some with ten members. When I looked at one of the matches, this is the chart I saw: My maiden name is Helen Spear Youngblood by the way, that’s me on the bottom left in this chart.

I was shocked, because my family did not know who the father of my great- grandfather was! My Great-Grandfather, Walter Thomas Houchins was born in 1854  of a single mother which we knew,and could clearly be seen in the censuses. William W. Stoops lived on the farm next door to my 2nd great-grandmother Nancy Houchins, and was actually her boss at work it appeared. On one census, when Walter Thomas was 16, he can be seen on the census living with his neighbor, we now know as his father! It looked like he was just working there. In 1880, after all of her seven children were born and mostly adults, Nancy and William W. Stoops married. Why then I wonder?  Elizabeth Cheely was William’s mother, and Cuthbert was her father–a family mystery solved, and new 3rd and 4th grandparents identified, all from a dna test! Previously, I had consulted a professional genealogist, a genealogical society in Walter Thomas Houchins area of birth, collected marriage, death, military and census records, none of which helped me identify his father! Now with no research on my part, my dna circle identifies him, wow!

I have discovered many new relatives through my dna!  One thing ancestry does is  list all of your dna matches with “shared ancestry hints” separately from all of your matches, even if they are not in a circle. I have 63 of them. When I look at this list exclusively, the first one was also my first match when exploring my Scottish Hogue family! Turns out she is my 3rd cousin, lives in Pennsylvania compared to my North Carolina, and we’ve become good friends on facebook. She is also experienced in  genealogy, so we have enjoyed searching for our Hogue family origins in Scotland together!  Actually, I formed a Hogue research group on facebook , almost totally made up of Hogue cousins I met through my dna on ancestry. There are two from California, two from Connecticut, one from New Jersey, Colorado, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Virginia, Florida, and my North Carolina of course! We even have a member from England and one from Scotland! We are stretched across the USA and the world, truly a genealogical collaboration! We were all already interested in genealogy and dna, now we are letting it guide us through our history.

There are so many stories I could tell, and so many experiences I’d like  to share, but it is not possible in this one blog post. However, I feel I’d be remiss not to tell you how incredibly the dna dovetails with my normal research. I was helping my cousin’s fiance research his family tree as a gift for them, when several things happened. One, I got to a brick wall in one of his lines. I had learned to check my dna matches for everything, so in this case, I did exactly that, and bingo, discovered I was related to this young man via this line, and that my dna took the line further by connecting me to a researcher with thousands of people in his tree and this line! I even saw that his line connected to some Mayflower relatives that I already had in my tree, and was easily able to share this exciting news with him.

Here is another example of using my dna for research– say I am looking for information about my great-great grandfather James Steptoe Langhorne. I could search all the family trees on ancestry for clues, or I can search my dna for the surname Langhorne, and search my matching dna trees/people for information. If I am searching a family tree that I know already matches my dna, well then, anything I learn will surely match me, and that is a step forward in my research!

What can I say–dna has changed and enriched my life and my research! It has added hundreds of friendly new cousins, many of them now facebook and ancestry friends! We have learned to research together, and my research alone is more efficient.  It is so exciting and interesting to me..  If you have questions, I will try to answer them, or find someone who can. Thanks for reading and please share your thoughts with me. Helen

Ancestry explains dna circles this way: (http://help.ancestry.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9120/kw/dna%20circles)

“A DNA Circle is a group of individuals who all have the same ancestor in their family trees and where each member shares DNA with at least one other individual in the circle. These circles are created directly from your DNA and your family tree in a five-step process.

1. Find DNA matches

We compare your DNA to the DNA of every AncestryDNA member. When we find enough shared DNA to suggest that you and another member have inherited that DNA from the same recent ancestor, we consider you a “DNA match.” Based on the amount of DNA you share, we then estimate your relationship (for example you may be 5th or 6th cousins).

2. Search trees for shared ancestors

Once we’ve found a DNA match, we carefully search both of your family trees looking for ancestors who appear to be the same person. We consider facts like name, birthdate, birthplace, parents, and spouse (going back nine generations).

3. Calculate a shared ancestor hint confidence score

We consider a variety of factors to determine how likely it is that you and your match share DNA from this same ancestor (as opposed to sharing DNA common to a region, or sharing DNA from a different ancestral line).

4. Add more people to the DNA Circle

Now, we repeat the process and look for other pairs of individuals who have the same shared ancestor in their trees and who share DNA with one or more of existing circle members (each circle has at least three members). Some of these new members may not share DNA with you, but each member of the circle has DNA evidence supporting their relationship to the share ancestor, and therefore to you.

5. Calculate connection levels

Last, we figure out a connection level for every member of the circle based on the number of people they match in the circle and the strength of their connections. It’s a simple way to show how likely it is that each member is a descendant of the shared ancestor. Levels go from Strong to Good, Weak, or Emerging.

DNA Circles will change over time

You’ll notice that DNA Circles are constantly evolving. A circle could grow, shrink, or even disappear. And new circles will be created too. This all happens for a couple reasons. First, AncestryDNA members are constantly growing and improving their family trees. Second, as new people take tests and join AncestryDNA, we have even more information to analyze and use to improve our circles and help you fill in even more pieces of your family history puzzle.

Note: What if you aren’t a member of a DNA Circle for one of your ancestors? One possibility is that you descended from the ancestor, but you didn’t inherit DNA from them. Another explanation is that more descendants need to take the AncestryDNA test before there’s enough evidence to create a circle.”

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Hi friends and family, hope your summer has been going well. I did not mean to take a summer break from writing, but as it turns out, I did so! We have been busier than ever.  Doesn’t it always seem that everyone is so busy these days? My husband and I are both retired, but we stay crazy moving. This summer we have had the joy of seeing a fair number of guests, for short visits many, and for a bit longer others. How much that adds to our quality of life doesn’t it!

Max has been woodworking and gardening with me. I’ve been gardening and playing with family, friends and grandkids!  We’ve had some health issues to deal with. Mostly we’ve had joy and love, and a life worth living. Here are just a few photos of our activities this summer!

In the next few posts I want to share with you some adventures in dna, genealogical research, and where those exciting connections can lead!  Hope you’ll join me if you can.  Wishing you all the best, always, Helen

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