A Little DNA Goes A Long Way
Every year I promise myself that I will knuckle-down and really learn all about DNA and every year that never happens. I think that’s mostly because of a few things:
1. I am math-challenged.
2. I am science-challenged.
3. DNA is HARD.
4. I don’t have that many years left on Earth.
What I have recently discovered about DNA is that you can take it in bite-size chunks so as not to overwhelm yourself and doing it that way is rewarding and informative.
My latest example of a little DNA success story involves my maternal great-grandmother (Carolina Neidhart) and her family in Baden, Germany. Recently, Ancestry rolled out matches according to parentage. One match on my mom’s side caught my eye: a possible 4th to 6th cousin with Carolina’s last name. I jumped on their tree (thank goodness for public trees) to see what they had on the Neidhart family. This tree went back to a Lawrence Neidhart born about 1810 in “Germany.” While that was not tremendously helpful in and of itself, the tree did have Lawrence’s wife’s name: “Crescentia Reichman.” Armed with these names, I started to research that family. In short order, I learned that Lawrence (aka Lorenz) and Crescentia were married in Kichen und Hausen, Baden, Germany, the same place where Carolina and her mother were born.[1] Sweet!
With this information, I tentatively identified Lorenz’s father as Thomas. Thomas was born in Kirchen und Hausen in about 1764, only five years after my fourth great-grandfather, Franz. I didn’t have much on Franz, but my first thought was maybe they were brothers. Well, long story short, they were! Their parents were Joannes Simon Neidhart and Catherina Wiedemann, married in Kirchen un Hausen in 1755. Lorenz and Franz were two of Simon and Catherina’s eight children.
Based on these newly discovered ancestors, it looks like my DNA match and I are, in fact, 6th cousins! How fun. I’ve reached out to my cuz to see if they are as tickled as I am but haven’t heard back.
This little DNA journey took me two more generations back on this branch of my family tree and even opened up a new line. A bit thrilling and also do-able. Not a daunting as tackling all of DNA. Now to get to know those new ancestors and learn their stories!
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[1] Now called Kirchen-Hausen, it is a district in the city of Geisingen, Baden-Württemberg, located on the Danube. I haven’t included proper citations because I haven’t been able to access the actual records and am relying on the Ancestry description. Never fear, I will get them included!
