There are some things that happen that you cannot explain. Random messages reaching the wrong person, but for the right reasons. That's how I came to do genealogy research for Jennifer from Walla Walla, Washington.
In 2015, Jennifer sent me a Facebook message telling me she was looking for a man she believed to be her biological father - I had the same last name as him and she wanted to know if any of it sounded familiar. I told her it did not, but would be willing to help her if she ever found ties to NJ. Fast forward to August 2019, Jennifer sent me a random video thinking I was someone else. We exchanged a few messages and went back to talking about her initial message about her father. She had not located him.
I suggested she do an ancestry DNA test. I had learned a bit about it in the last few years and would be willing to help her build out a family tree based on her matches. She was nervous, excited and for the first time in a long time she told me she had hope.
She decided to order a test, she took it and waited. Her results came in and we spoke on the phone on Sunday. I walked her and her husband through the process of sharing her tree and DNA matches with me. She had a lot of 2nd and 3rd cousin matches to work with. I told her this may take some time as I had to build out her mom's side to determine which parent's side each of her close matches were on.
She told me that her mom did a tree on ancestry a while back. She helped me find it. I was really impressed with her mom's trees (she had one for each line of the family). WOW! This was a HUGE help in determining which matches belonged to her mother's side. This saved so much time!
Once I labeled the matches for her mom's side, I was left with a few second cousin matches that had trees for those ancestry users and did not match anyone labeled for mom's side.
These two matches had trees that each listed the same man "George" Scherer. I started with K.S. as his tree had dates and more names. I looked for an obituary for his father, Howard Scherer in 1992.
Bingo, he had a son with the initials K.S. and learned his sister Darlene's married name was Wiersma. I started building out a tree for George and his wife Blanche and all of their children.
I learned a little tidbit from a newspaper mentioning their marriage license in the Evansville Press, a few things that I had passed by had finally made sense. George's legal name was Henry V. Scherer and he often went by George.
The first time I saw the name George was in the 1920 Illinois census as shown here with his wife Blanche and first two sons Vernon and Howard.
George and Blanche had 6 children that I know of. They were: Vernon, Howard, Albert, Mary, Herman and Darlene. Several of these names are in Howard's obituary. The next match was H.S. which turned out to be another grandson of George and Blanche's. His tree listed his parents as Herman and Joyce. I plugged him in the tree and ancestry hints pointed Herman to his parents. This is the correct family.
Next I worked up the rest of the siblings. Trying to pinpoint one that may have lived in the Portland, Oregon area. The only one that lived in Oregon was their eldest son, Vernon. I obtained a copy of his obituary:
Bingo! This was most likely the break I was looking for. He connects to Illinois and his sister is Darlene Wiersma! I dug a little deeper and sadly, came across these pieces from April 1969.
It appears that Vernon was married to a woman named Frances, had two sons and a daughter. Then I turned my focus to Frances. I found a marriage record for Vernon and Frances in Kankakee County, Illinois in 1948. Her maiden name was Nally. Then I looked for her in the 1930 census. She's living with her parents James and Vina Nally. When I looked at Frances' Social Security application, it listed James Nally and Vina Lemenager as her parents. I worked up her parents in the tree and knew there were a few 3rd cousin matches with the last name Lemenager. Time to figure out how they connect.
I started with M. Lemenager as she had a tree attached. She is the great granddaughter of Vina's brother Ulysses, making their common ancestors their great-great grandparents Jules Lemenager and Delia Poskin. They are true third cousins!
This all pointed back to Vernon Scherer and Frances Nally as Jennifer's grandparents! Based on Jenn's date of birth and the time of Vernon's son James' passing, he could not be her father. The only other possibility for her biological father would be Jack Ray Scherer. He passed in 2003. This was not what we had hoped for but at least it was an answer. This is his pedigree chart.
I am so grateful that Jennifer accidentally sent a Facebook message to me in August. She received my message asking her to consider turning to DNA on her birthday.
During this process, the best part for me was when Jennifer searched her matches for the original surname, she thought was her father and guess who came up as a 5th - 8th cousin match? - ME!
For more information on DNA and how the amount of cm's is measured this article can be very helpful (especially the green chart):
https://thednageek.com/the-limits-of-predicting-relationships-using-dna/
