I finally received my DNA results the other day and I was more than a bit surprised by the results plus my own family tree is a bit suspect to say the least. It makes one wonder sometimes about the scruples our ancestors have because one entry is very odd to say the least.
Anyway the results are a wonderful blend of mostly English, Scottish and Irish, plus some Danish and Swedish. I only have 24 percent German in me. Most of my ancestors came to the Carolinas and Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, and deep south. They all eventually moved westward to Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Oregon. Then there is the surprise that threw me for a loop. There is no evidence of Native American in me, but one percent came from Ghana and/or Ivory Coast in West Africa.
For as long as I remembered we were told that our great grandmother was half Cherokee, and no talk of a oops with regard to an ancestor being naughty with a young girl from Africa.
I’m continuing working on this tree. It is like my writing, a process. What surprised me most was two items I discovered today that has given me pause. I will need to investigate further but my great-great grandfather Samuel married the love of his life at age twelve. He sired six children until his death at age fifty. I thought children, even in the mid-1800s couldn’t marry at such a tender age.
The other is my great grandmother Elizabeth Catherine. Last name Schultz. She had children before she was even born in 1921. She had no parents of record and came to America from England in 1893. My conclusion is that she more than likely was a mail order bride for my great grandfather who lived in Oregon at the time. Obviously, she had no birth certificate and most likely had to have some identification in order to file taxes. A birth certificate was more than likely made out on December 7, 1921, and the bureaucrat who made this out mistakenly placed her date of birth as that.
It’s obviously a work in progress, and I’m very curious how that glaring error wasn’t caught until now. Plus the omission of my Native American lineage, replaced by African American. But what is really amazing, is how in my own writings, the characters’ names that I seemingly pull out of thin air are the names of long, dead ancestors, There are still some that aren’t there, which will eventually makes its way to more stories in the future.
Jerry Schellhammer 