Category: Personal Page 3 of 9

Fearless Females: Family Heirlooms

On 16 March 2016

The Fearless Female prompts were created and posted at The Accidental Genealogist

I’m trying to catch up and I know not all prompts will apply! So I’m on the 6 March prompt: Describe an heirloom you may have inherited from a female ancestor (wedding ring or other jewelry, china, clothing, etc.) If you don’t have any, then write about a specific object you remember from your mother or grandmother, or aunt (a scarf, a hat, cooking utensil, furniture, etc.)

My great-grandmother, Erma (Almy) Witherell died when I was 14. As per usual when someone passes, there was a great many things to go through, especially since my great-grandfather had died 2 years before her (we often say she died of a broken heart). I have vague memories of being at my grandparents home (they had a duplex which they shared with my great-grandparents) and there being a lot of items. Many items were saved, I believe, as some were passed on to me as the family historian.

My sister and I were allowed to choose one piece of jewelry from my great-grandmother’s collection at one point as well. I don’t remember what my sister chose, but I still have mine:

Great grandma's necklace

I have no idea when my great-grandmother bought it, if it’s old, or even if it’s valuable. I am not much of a jewelry person in that regard. Nonetheless, I do love this necklace and still wear it to this day. It’s valuable to me because of who owned it before me and the memories I have of her.

Funny enough, when my grandmother died, I was also allowed something of hers so I choose her hope chest (which is FILLED with all the family photos from her side and my grandpa’s) and a small jewelry armoire. My grandpa chuckled at that, mentioning he remembered buying that for her one Christmas. Again, nothing special as he probably purchased it at some random store (like Target or something), but to me it’s special because of who had it before me. Grandma did have a lot of jewelry (both women were quite stylish) so it reminds me of her every time I see it, even though I do not own a lot of jewelry. What I do own is in there but it’s mostly full of old paraphernalia of mine – photos, old driver’s licenses, old university IDs, journals, etc. etc.

The value in these items is purely sentimental but that is what an heirloom is about! Do you have any heirlooms that have been passed down in your family?

Fearless Female: Marriage

By Nichelle Barra

On 15 March 2016

In Fearless Females, Personal, Pictures

The Fearless Female prompts were created and posted at The Accidental Genealogist

The 4th and 5th prompts are on marriage with grandparents/great-grandparents, etc., and how they met. I do have records and some pictures of my grandparents marriage, but I really want to share my favorite story of how my paternal grandparents met, as told to me by my grandfather’s sister.

011 grandma and grandpa wedding

Before my grandfather’s funeral, the officiate did a unique thing (to me anyway) where the close family all came and sat in a circle and shared stories about my grandfather. It was an awesome way to remember him and I really think he would have loved that.

My aunt, his sister, told the story of how they met. I felt it was so completely my grandfather and I loved it! This is from memory so I’m not positive I’m going to get all the details correct, but the essential parts are there.

My grandmother worked at a store and my grandfather had to stop by for a delivery. The manager (owner?) asked my grandfather if he’d help him out with a problem he had. Apparently there was a leak in the basement that caused quite a mess so he asked if my grandfather could help clean it up. He said yes of course and went downstairs to start cleaning up the mess. A little while later, my grandmother came down to see if she could help – and found my grandfather cleaning up the mess with what was available around him – disposable pads.

I can picture my grandmother nearly falling over with laughter but not wanting to embarrass my grandfather who really meant well! Everything turned out wonderfully, (obviously, since I exist) as this picture – one of my favorites of the two of them – shows:

127 G-Pa and G-Ma

Do any of you have good stories about how a couple in your family met?

Fearless Females: Prompt 3

By Nichelle Barra

On 10 March 2016

In Fearless Females, Personal

The Fearless Female prompts were created and posted at The Accidental Genealogist

I’m a bit late to the game for this but figured I’d post a few this month anyway!

The first two prompts ask about a favorite female ancestor and for a picture of a female ancestor. I’ve discussed my favorite female ancestor, Lillie McLeod a bit before, and shared a possible picture of her so I figured I’d skip those two.

The third prompt asks: Do you share a first name with one of your female ancestors? Perhaps you were named for your great-grandmother, or your name follows a particular naming pattern. If not, then list the most unique or unusual female first name you’ve come across in your family tree.

My first name, Nichelle, is a bit unique but doesn’t come from any ancestors in my tree. Although I love to say it came from my mom’s love of Star Trek, that’s not true. She just had a friend who had a daughter with it as a middle name and loved it. I didn’t actually like having a unique name growing up (no personalized key chains/mugs/pencils/etc. for me) but now I love it, even though my name always requires a bit of an explanation.

It’s Nichelle, just like Michelle, but with an N like Nicole

Interestingly, with my unique first name, my middle name is NOT unique. I would bet many women have it – Marie. So where did it come from?

Erma Marie Almy’s graduation picture

My beautiful great-grandmother! Erma Marie (Almy) Witherell.

Before getting married, I had debated a few things with my name:

Doing the traditional thing and taking my husband’s name
Keeping my maiden name
Putting my maiden name as my middle name, dropping Marie

As a genealogist, my maiden name means quite a bit to me. I have a history with that name after all, so losing it to have my husband’s name was something I had to think about. I had considered keeping it as my middle name but that meant losing Marie unless I wanted an incredibly long name (I didn’t). Again, as a genealogist, I also knew where that name came from.

Considering all I knew about my great-grandmother, I decided to go the traditional route and simply take my husband’s name. My great-grandmother was quite a woman and I wanted to keep my middle-name in memory of some of the fascinating things I knew about her: her love of motorcycles, her love of travel, her incredible fashion sense, and her love of her family.

I don’t regret doing that in the least 🙂

DNA Admixture – Is it a Clue?

By Nichelle Barra

On 17 February 2016

In DNA, Personal

Over the holiday, I had my dad’s DNA tested. It took a while to come back, but by mid- January I had the results!

To be honest, I wasn’t too surprised at the results. Delighted, but not surprised.

I know that the ethnicity results (normally called admixture) aren’t anything to really go by. They are a great conversation starter, but really, because there are so many variables to the test, it isn’t something to ONLY test for. You shouldn’t be testing just to see those results, in other words.

To see more on what two experts (they are experts to me!) say about admixture, see the following blog posts:

“Ethnicity Testing and Results” by Roberta Estes on DNAeXplained

“Admixture: Not Soup Yet” by Judy G Russell on the Legal Genealogist

And if you’re curious about the science behind admixture results, check out this link: ISOGG Admixture Analyses

So, I do get it. It is an estimate. It’s a conversation starter, and it isn’t always accurate. Autosomal DNA is a random recombination of DNA from your ancestors. Just because you don’t show any of that Native American DNA (which you may have documented as being far back in your tree) doesn’t mean a sibling or cousin won’t. It is random.

Nonetheless, I’m intrigued. Here are my results from FamilyTreeDNA (which was transferred from AncestryDNA):

admixture results from FTDNA

The European was not in the least surprising, nor was any of that actually. According to family lore and what I knew so far, that all made sense. That Middle Eastern part held my interest though. Knowing my maternal grandfather’s background, I had assumed it came from him. His results didn’t have any Middle Eastern though. Again, knowing that that doesn’t mean anything, I was still a bit surprised.

So I had my dad tested. Just to see.

Dad's Admixture

Well what do you know – Middle Eastern! And it’s about double mine, which makes sense. How I wish my paternal grandparents were still alive so I could see what it would be for them!

Again, I try to rein in my excitement, remembering that these admixture results aren’t something to really go by. Yet… I can’t help my curiosity. Especially since I remember my paternal grandmother mentioning that we have Gypsy blood. I had always thought she said that because I wished to move all over and didn’t like the idea of settling in one place (this became very true for me in later years – my family moved my freshman year of college and after that, I never stayed in one apartment or city for longer than a year for 11 years – we finally bought a house a few years back but I began itching to move again after a year, much to my husband’s annoyance).

So, could that family story be true? Is there really a possible connection to that random family story I happen to remember and in my DNA? And which side did it come from? My paternal grandfather’s or grandmother’s?

What’s my plan now?

Well I’m going to take the DNA results from both my dad and me and analyze our results for possible connections. Looking at their admixture results may help me to narrow down that list a bit, but I’ll be focusing more on their actual documented family trees for obvious reasons. I hope to be able to narrow this down to a possible line and get some answers along the way! I’ll be sharing my analysis and my results (or really, the more questions I’ll gather) alone the way.

Have any of you had some interesting results in your admixture that you began to explore?