Sunday, August 9, 2009

SNGF on Sunday Morning

Since I was not feeling well last night, I have postponed my SNGF until this morning.  Oh well - better late than never!

Here are the directions for this week's SNGF (originally posted on Genea-Musings):
1) List your 16 great-great-grandparents in pedigree chart order. List their birth and death years and places.

2) Figure out the dominant ethnicity or nationality of each of them.

3) Calculate your ancestral ethnicity or nationality by adding them up for the 16 - 6.25% for each (obviously, this is approximate).

4) If you don't know all 16 of your great-great-grandparents, then do it for the last full generation you have.
5) Write your own blog post, or make a comment on Facebook or in this post.
My only problem is that I don't know all of my great-great grandparents.  My biggest brick wall of all is of my great grandfather, George Rogers.  I know very little about him and nothing about his parents.  I also recently broke another brick wall on my great-great grandparent generation through another researcher, who is sharing information with me faster than I can verify it all and type it in!  Therefore, with these gaps in my family tree, I have decided to post the generation of my great grandparents (I know all of them!).

Here are my 8 great grandparents and all of their information.  In parentheses, I've included the ancestry for that person.  If the ancestry is in italics, then the ancestry is an educated guess since I don't have proof.

Monroe "Bum" Dugger: born on 20 Jan 1885 in Tennessee; married abt. 1908; died 21 May 1951 in Tennessee.  (English)

Matilda E. Clawson: born on 21 Mar 1886 in Tennessee; died 8 Aug 1936 in Carter County, Tennessee.  (English)

George M. Rogers: born abt. 1883 in James County, Tennessee; married abt. 1923; died in 1950s in Washington (English)

Julia Margaret Morris: born 28 Nov 1893 in Springfield, Greene County, Missouri  (English, French)

Maxamillian Adolf Doerflinger, Sr: born on 7 Jan 1873 in Missouri; married 17 Sept 1902 in Butte, Silver Bow County, Montana; died 16 Oct 1960 in Sacramento.  (German)

Marie Keppler: born Apr 1876 in Germany; died 16 Oct 1958 in Seattle, King County, Washington.  (German)

William Fredrick Harney: born abt. 1880 in Indiana; died 29 Oct 1956 in Seattle, King County, Washington (German)

Ethel Janice Weston: born Mar 1894 in Washington.  (Welsh, English)

Since I only did my great grandparents, I have to calculate my ancestry by using 12.5% per person (6.25% when two origins are listed).

Here is my ancestry: 37.5% German, 50% English, 6.25% Welsh, and 6.25% French.

This weeks SNGF is very eye opening.  I've realized just how many holes are in my genealogy and how I need to refocus my energy to fill in those gaps.  I think there are parts of my family tree that are too intimidating to tackle because of some sort of research challenge.  Therefore, to force me to face my fears, I am going to be writing about each of these ancestors, just to show to the world (and myself) where the holes are.  With each writing, a plan will also be included of places that I can look to find the answers.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Great job, Elyse. Very interesting also. Your recording and research will benefit generations to come. Keep up the good work..

Diana Ritchie said...

Great job Elyse! I also have "holes" in my 16, but I posted them anyway. Like you, there are some lines I sort of conveniently "ignore" because I just don't think I can even find anything. I will look forward to reading about your research on your brickwall ancestors.