Last year I decided to venture into the unknown, at least to me, realm of genetic genealogy by completing a DNA test. I completed both a Y-DNA and autosomal test using the services of Family Tree DNA. I shared an overview of the Y-DNA test results in November and the autosomal test results in December.
I really had low expectations about the test results connecting me with a lot of new cousins. Rather, I was just plain and simple curious. What haplogroup did I belong to? What would my DNA test results indicate about my deep ancestral past? I found the results to be useful and perhaps even mildly amusing.
All of that seems to be changing now. I have been contacted by researchers who are very seriously examining the possible, maybe likely, connection between the Hadden family in Aberdeenshire, Scotland and the Hadden family of County Tyrone, Ireland.
A connection between the two families has been at least anecdotal based on references in old family letters written by the Irish Haddens to visiting the home of their ‘old ancestors’ in Aberdeen. As it appears likely that the ‘Irish Haddens’ may have left Scotland about 400 years ago, there are no written records found to date that can confirm the family connection.
That’s where my DNA comes in and may prove it’s worth. I can confirm my Hadden ancestral roots in Aberdeenshire. My grandfather left Aberdeen with his parental family in 1923. Many generations of my Hadden ancestors lived in or around Aberdeen, Scotland and there are fortunately plenty of paper records that verify these facts.
Family Tree Finder test results indicate that there are 978 matches of my Y-chromosome DNA with the Y-DNA of others in their database. Only six of the 978 are an exact Y-DNA match and bear the Hadden surname. Interestingly, three of these six individuals can trace their roots to County Tyrone, Ireland in the early 18th century. Of the remaining three exact Hadden matches, two do not list their most distant Hadden ancestor and one has traced his Hadden ancestry to mid-18th century Pennsylvania in the United States.
So did one of my Hadden ancestors move himself and possibly his family from Aberdeenshire, Scotland to County Tyrone, Ireland sometime around 1600 – 1650? I don’t know right now but working with other researchers, who fortunately are much more knowledgeable in the field of genetic genealogy than I am, I may find out, and soon!
From Tragedy To Dare – The Doerr Family Connection
As I shared in my last post, I have been carefully examining the excellent work of the late Ruth Merner Connell who self-published a genealogy of Ellen’s ancestral Merner family in 1976. The book has been an excellent resource helping me to add on to the Merner family information I had already discovered. As I have entered each fact into my genealogy database from the Merner genealogy book, I am careful to ensure that nothing is entered without a source citation.
In addition I have been ‘auditing’ the contents of the book to ensure that the facts it presents can be verified with primary source documents, something that Ruth Connell used when available but didn’t always have easy access to. I am about half way through the book and have been impressed to find that about 98% of the facts it contains are accurate. Small errors occur likely due to typographical errors (the book is about 600 pages long and each paged was typed on one of those old-fashioned things called typewriters).
Among the stories that I have uncovered was that of Irene Nelda Merner, Ellen’s second cousin twice removed. Irene was a great granddaughter of Ellen’s 3X great grandparents Jacob Emanuel Merner (Muerner) and Susanna Schluchter.
Irene’s father Ammon Merner was a hard working machinist/moulder who worked in the town of Waterloo, Waterloo County, Ontario where Irene was born in 1890. At the age of 26, in 1916, Irene married a young man from Berlin, now Kitchener, Ontario, named Weybourne Doerr. The newlyweds settled into married life in Kitchener and in July of 1917, their little family expanded when their first child, a son they named Carl Merner Doerr, was born.
The year 1918 however brought tragedy to the family as both Irene and her husband Weybourne died, within two days of each other, as a result of the ‘Spanish grippe’ or pandemic flu. Carl was orphaned at just fourteen months of age and would be raised by his paternal grandparents, Charles Henry Doerr and his wife Susannah Wagner.
Grandfather Charles Doerr had established and operated a small ‘grocery’ store and biscuit bakery in Berlin, Ontario. Charles brought his grandson Carl into the business and began teaching him the ways of business world. In 1941, when he was just 24 years of age, Carl was forced to take over the business when his beloved grandfather died.
Carl, Ellen’s third cousin once removed, continued to grow the business and in 1945, he changed the family and company name to Dare. The company is now one of the largest food companies in North America, known for Melba Toast, Viva Puffs, Bear Claws, Real Fruit Gummies, Wagon Wheels (one of my favourites as a kid), and a large variety of cookies. Carl’s Dare Foods company was the first to introduce the resealable tin tie bag in 1954. Not only was Carl a great entrepreneur but he also demonstrated great philanthropy through contributions to the local symphony, hospital, conservation authority and through his foundational work in establishing the University of Waterloo.
Carl Dare/Doerr was inducted into to Waterloo Region Hall of Fame in 2008.
The Book of Murner, Muerner, and Merner
Take away all of the current databases and you are left with the archives, cemeteries, registry offices, courthouses and unknown family members that Ruth Merner Connell had available to her when she decided, in 1971, to explore her Merner ancestry. Ruth is pictured below with her husband Robert Connell in a screen shot captured from her book.
Six years after she began ‘climbing her family tree, Ruth produced, and self-published with the financial assistance of a Merner cousin, the almost 600 page book, Murner, Muerner, Merner: genealogy and related branches. The book, now out of print is available to be viewed as images on a page by page basis through Ancestry as well in several library special collections and genealogy society holdings.
Ruth Merner Connell used Jacob Emanuel Merner and his wife Susanna Schluchter, Ellen’s 3X great grandparents, as her starting point for research. As Ruth, whose exact cousin connection to Ellen I have not yet determined, soon discovered, Merner family members were to be found all across North America, Europe, Africa, and even in Japan.
Ruth chose Jacob Emanuel Merner as her starting point as he was the first Merner to arrive in North America. She worked backwards from Jacob and Susanna using the Family History Centers of the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter-Day Saints along with letters written to records office in different villages and towns in Switzerland. She even made regular contact with the Consulate of Switzerland in Cleveland, Ohio, not far from where she lived.
The records she found allowed her to trace her Merner ancestry back to Gwer Murner, born in 1545. Ruth was able to locate and identify records showing the eleven children of Jacob and Susanna who lived to adulthood and the ninety-three grandchildren they produced for their parents. New Hamburg in Waterloo County, Ontario, Canada became the central location from which the Merner family branches would fan out.
Ruth kept at it and found living Merner relatives through what had to have been onerous amounts of letter writing, receiving over time additional information about the lives of Merner descendants, usually derived from family bibles. Strangely, Ellen’s connection to her Merner great-grandparents is not documented in the book as, unfortunately not all branches of the family responded to Ruth’s letters requesting assistance with her project.
All of this was completed without a computer and was eventually, organized and published for the benefit of someone like me who came upon a connection to the Merner family, through marriage, and who unlike Ruth, can enjoy the fruits of her labour quickly through online resources providing me with information for my computerized genealogy database.
I began researching my family history about five years after Ruth’s book was published. There were no computers and online was where you hung the clothes to dry. It was really tough work, not the least of which was figuring out how various archives organized and stored the records you wanted to review. You had to spend time learning the filing system before you could even hope to actually look at a microfilm reel of records. I wasn’t very successful and so I am all that more amazed at the success that Ruth had and even more appreciative of her efforts.
Sadly, Ruth passed away at the much too young age of 57 in 1983. A true genealogist and a gift to future Merner researchers like me.
OMG! Not Another Politician In The Family Tree
My family was politically active. We voted. Regularly. Never missed an opportunity to exercise our franchise. We always took the responsibility, and the privilege, of being able to cast a ballot very seriously.
We campaigned for candidates. I spent many hours dropping off campaign literature before I was even old enough to vote. My father, in particular, often lead campaigns for candidates with whom he was close. We were never candidates. We just managed the political campaigns for those who sought elected office.
Ellen’s family, on the other hand, is full of elected officials both in Canada and the United States. One of her great grandfathers was the Mayor of Livermore, California. Several of her cousins were the Mayor of Berlin, later Kitchener, Ontario. Her cousins have been Members of Parliament at both the provincial and federal levels, and a second great uncle was a Canadian Senator. Recently, I found another politician ‘hanging’ in her family tree – Jonathan Joseph Merner (pictured below from his official Parliament of Canada biography).
Jonathan, Ellen’s first cousin, three times removed, was born in Blake, Huron County, Ontario, then Canada West, and raised on the family farm. His father, Gottlieb Merner, was a younger brother to Sen. Samuel Merner and had immigrated with his family to British North America around 1837 or 1838 from his native Switzerland. When Jonathan was quite young, his family moved to the village of Hay in Huron County, Ontario where Jonathan attended school. Eventually, Jonathan struck out on his own, finding employment with Mr. D. D. Steinbach, a general merchant in Zurich, Ontario. His experience with Steinbach enabled Jonathan to open his own successful mercantile shop, which would come to include a large evaporator and apple jam factory.
On September 21, 1911, Jonathan was elected to represent the federal riding of Huron South in the Parliament of Canada as a member of the Conservative Party. He represented the people of his riding in southwestern rural Ontario for the next ten years, losing his Parliamentary seat in the December 1921 election.
Jonathan died of an embolus during pancreatic surgery at the Hotel Dieu hospital in Windsor. Ontario on February 25, 1929. His death registration lists his occupation at the time of his death as Retired Builder.
Interestingly, Jonathan’s biography on the Parliament of Canada website lists his date of death as February 26, 1929. For the government being off by one day might be close enough; for a genealogist, it’s wrong.
The Marriage of Rev. Louis Henry Wagner and Miss Mary Staebler
Rev. Louis Henry Wagner maintained a diary as have many young men and women. Louis wrote in his diary faithfully as a teenager but large gaps in time occur in Louis’ diary writing during his adult years. Nonetheless, his diaries, as I have previously posted, can add rich detail to the Wagner family’s history.
When Louis (pictured to the right) married Mary Staebler in May of 1884, he apparently was not in a writing mood. There is a gap between March 3, 1878 and January 1, 1887. Fortunately, the local newspaper filled in a part of this gap by providing a brief article about the wedding. Below is my transcription of the article that appeared in the Berlin (Ontario) Daily News, the predecessor of the current Waterloo Region Record newspaper.
“MATRIMONIAL
Another of our excellent young ladies has become united in the holy bonds of matrimony to the man of her choice. Miss Mary Staebler, daughter of Mr. Jacob Staebler, Sen., was married last, Tuesday, evening at the family residence, Weber Street, to the Rev. L. H. Wagner, of Hespeler, who, by the way, is also a Berlin boy.
The Rev. S. L. Umbach, Presiding Elder of this District, performed the ceremony. Amongst the guests were, besides the Minister, Rev. Ch. [Christian] and Mrs. Staebler, South Cayuga; Rev. D. H. Brandt, Mr. J. M. Staebler and Son, Mr. L. J. Breithaupt, Mr. J. C. Breithaupt, Mrs. Breithaupt, Misses C. and M. Breithaupt, Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Hailer, rs. Hailer, Mrs. D. Bean, Mr. and Mrs. M. Wegenast, Mr. and Mrs. L. Greybill, Miss Wegenast, Miss Sarah Anthes, Miss Mary Anthes, Misses Emma and Carrie Goetze, Mr. and Mrs. I. K. Devitt, Mr. Geo. Wegenast, Mr. D. M. Staebler, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Staebler, London; Mr. and Mrs. Geo. Staebler, Cassel, and others.
The young couple, being very highly esteemed by large circles of friends, were the recipients of numerous and valuable presents. After the ceremony a sumptuous repast was partaken of by the guests, and at 8:40 Mr. and Mrs. Wagner took the train for the East, followed by all possible good wishes for their future happiness – in which the Daily News heartily joins.”
It can be fun trying to identify the relationship of each guest to the bride and groom and, certainly Louis and Mary Wagner’s wedding guest list reads a bit like a ‘Who’s Who’ of 19th century Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario history. Most of the identified guests were cousins or friends but a few notables were present that might escape notice. “Mrs. Hailer” was the groom’s grandmother, Margaret (Riehl) Hailer, the wife of Berlin pioneer (and Waterloo (Ontario) Region Hall of Fame member) Johann Jacob Hailer. Mrs. Hailer is listed next to her daughter, “Mrs. D. Bean” who was the mother of the groom, Margaret (Hailer) Wagner Bean.
Fortunately, this newspaper clipping is safely preserved in the archives at the University of Waterloo, part of the Wagner Hailer family fonds.
The Merner Family Goes West
Anna Merner (name variant Muerner) was the seventh of eleven children born to Jacob Emanuel Merner and Susanna Schluchter. I married Anna’s great-great granddaughter 179 years after Anna took her place in the Merner household in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland in 1824.
I don’t know when Jacob and Susanna Merner brought there family to Canada but they had arrived by the time the delayed Census of 1851 covering Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia was compiled in January of 1852. The family can be found in the village of New Hamburg, located in the County of Waterloo in what is now the province of Ontario. The Merners would come to be long associated as one of the leading families of this community for years to come.
While New Hamburg may have served as the family ‘seat’, it was also the launching pad for family members seeking adventure and prosperity in other parts of North America. For example, in 1875, Jacob and Anna’s son Johan set off for the United States where he settled on a farm of his own in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
While a number of Merners ventured shorter distances to surrounding towns and villages in what is now southern Ontario, some saw the opening of Canada’s west as their ticket to a better way of life.
And so it was that Levi Merner struck out with his young family in the late 19th century. It is believed that Levi died enroute to his dream, probably in 1900 in what is now the province of Manitoba. His widow, Mary Merner however ‘soldiered’ on and can be found living with her children in Didsbury, Alberta in 1901. Levi and Mary Merner’s descendants can still be found enjoying the beauty and richness of Canada’s western provinces today.
I owe a debt of thanks to Ellen’s fourth cousin Glenn Swanson for contacting me, through this blog, and providing some of the breakthrough information that assisted in deepening my knowledge and understanding of the family.
My Favourite Female Ancestor
March has been designated as Women’s History Month and I don’t want to let the month pass without highlighting my favourite female ancestor – Roseannah (sometimes Roseanna or Rose Ann) (nee Dowds) Mitchell, a paternal third great grandmother of mine.
Why is Roseannah my favourite? Well, it isn’t because she achieved something of great benefit to all of mankind. No, she’s my favourite because she provides colour to my ancestry. I’m not speaking of skin tone or pigmentation but rather Roseannah spent several years in prison as a convicted thief.
While some might consider Roseannah’s criminal and prison records as scandalous and embarrassing I am proud of Roseannah and proud that I am her great-great-great grandson.
I admit that I was startled to learn through a search of the 1881 Scottish Census records that Roseannah was in that year a ‘guest’ of her Majesty’s hospitality in the General Prison for Scotland. Roseannah, or Rose Ann as she is named, is listed on line 16 from the 1881 Scottish census record page seen below. What could she have possibly done to warrant such a circumstance?
Following up, I was able to locate her court files in the National Archives of Scotland and obtain of copy of all the documents describing the evidence used in the case that resulted in Roseannah’s conviction to the eleven charges of theft and the resultant eight year sentence of imprisonment. I summarized the trial and evidence in a series of blog posts (from August 2011). The posts can be found at: The Trial of Roseannah Mitchell (nee Dowds), Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; and, The Trial of Roseannah Mitchell (nee Dowds): Her Words and Summary.
My pride in Roseannah is based on my sense that she did what she had to do to sustain her family. I can’t avoid the image that she lived in a Dickens novel, an unrefined Eliza Doolittle working as a ‘hawker,’ buying and selling odds and ends, often articles of clothing, always trying to make a few cents in order to feed her children. I’m proud to have an ancestor who demonstrated that level of devotion to family. That Roseannah was convicted of several crimes based on evidence that would not, in my opinion, stand any legal test or challenge in a modern 21st century courtroom, is irrelevant, not embarrassing.
Minnie Has Been Identified!
Back in November (2012) I posted a photograph that had been sent to my paternal grandmother, Agnes Hadden (nee Little). The photograph of a young woman included an inscription on the back “To Agnes from Minnie with Love.” I had no idea as to who Minnie might be and what connection she had with my grandmother.
Minnie (seen above in the photo sent to my grandmother) turns out to be Wiliamina ‘Minnie’ Gammie. Minnie was identified by my cousin David Hadden of Florida.
Here’s what I know of Minnie: she was born Williamina Alexander in 1904 in Aberdeen, Scotland. In 1905, she was adopted by Andrew and Helen Gammie (Helen Gammie was Helen Shand when she gave birth to my great grandfather Alexander Shand Hadden in 1883).
There were four Williamina Alexanders born in 1904 – 1905 in Aberdeenshire and as I don’t know the names of either of her birth parents, I can’t pinpoint nor document her exact date of birth. In April of 1907, Minnie, as she was referred to, boarded the ship ‘Lake Erie’ and immigrated to Canada with her Gammie family consisting of parents Andrew and Helen, brothers Andrew, Peter and James, and sister Helen Ruby ‘Ella.’ The ship’s passenger list that documents the journey records that the family arrived in Saint John, New Brunswick and was bound for Saskatchewan.
Minnie married George Loken in 1927 and passed away in Swift Current, Saskatchewan in 1986.
I am unsure as to the connection with my grandmother but can theorize that Minnie may have met my grandmother while visiting the family when travelling through Toronto and they struck up a friendship.
Many thanks to my cousin David and for those of you who offered great suggestions on how I might try to identify Minnie.
A Wagner Family Artifact Comes Home to the Family
You never know what contacts you might make as a result of an online family history blog. Sure, I’ve had the great pleasure of being contacted by long, ‘lost’ cousins but never before did I imagine that a family artifact would find it’s way back to the family as a result of my blog.
Don Wagner (no known relationship to my wife) runs the Soldier’s Museum website. As a history buff, Don also finds and collects historical artifacts. One of Don’s finds was a small, hard covered book (pictured below) entitled, “Americans’ Guide to Hindustani.” The book is best described as a pocket-sized dictionary containing the Hindi-Urdu translations of useful English language phrases and words, likely a useful book to have if you were born in Saskatchewan, Canada and posted during World War 2 to north India.
On the inside flyleaf of the book (pictured below), the soldier who owned the book had written his name and regimental assignment, “F/O Gordon Wagner – 229 Group RAF India.”
When Don decided to do a little research to see if he could find any additional information about the soldier, a Google search lead him to my blog post about Ellen’s uncle, Gordon Gilbert Henry Wagner. Don left a comment on my Gordon Wagner blog post and then also contacted me by email to see if we could determine if ‘my’ Gordon Wagner was the same Gordon Wagner who had written his name inside the book.
There are precious few records available in Canada covering the 1,159,000 Canadians who served in World War 2 and there are access restrictions to the service files of those who survived the war, including Gordon. Fortunately for me, Gordon had two passionate interests that he pursued in his retirement. Genealogy and writing.
Gordon’s genealogy research served as the initial basis for my own research of the great history connected with Ellen’s family. Gordon’s passion for writing resulted in the publication of several books, including his autobiographical recollections of his time in the Royal Canadian Air Force, entitled “How Papa Won The War” (published by the Flying-W-Publishing Co. in 1989).
On page 157 of the book, Gordon wrote, “In their campaign to chase the Japanese out of Burma, the British army needed aircraft to transport supplies and paratroops into the jungles of north-western Burma. The Royal Air Force received the army’s request and asked the Royal Canadian Air Force to supply the aircrews. The RAF would fly us to India, providing the planes and the base. The RCAF would form two squadrons, train the crews and take the squadrons into Burma. At least that was the plan, a good one really.”
Gordon provided a copy of his new assignment to the RAF, dated September 12, 1944 to the 229 Group India.
So both ‘my’ Gordon Wagner and the Gordon Wagner who owned the book were both assigned to the 229 Group in India during World War 2. It’s still possible that they are two different people but I doubt that very much.
I agreed to a price for the book (or maybe it was a finder’s fee) with Don and he mailed the book to me. It arrived back in the hands of the Wagner family today!
The 1949 World Softball Champions
Softball, specifically men’s fastpitch, also known as fastball, was very popular in Toronto, Ontario during the 1940’s and early 1950’s. Kew Gardens, located on the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto’s east end area referred to as ‘The Beaches’, became a baseball destination for the thousands who turned out to cheer on their favourite teams.
Like in most sports, fastball teams were hit hard by World War 2 and the loss of most of the league’s best players. In 1946, however, the men were back from the war and eager once again to don their gloves and swing their bats. Sam Shefsky, the manager of the Tip Top Tailors team, was ready to greet them and sign them up to play for his team. Sam said his line-up would look a lot like it did in 1940. “They were tops then, nothing has come along to replace them since and their places are open if they wish to play for Tip Tops,” Sam was quoted in the Toronto Star newspaper as saying.
Sam signed shortstop Ed Geraldi and outfielder Art Upper, both fresh from stints in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Lenny Gaull (pictured below in September 1949 in the Toronto Star newspaper), my first cousin, twice removed, was signed as the catcher following his time in the Canadian Army.
In 1949, the Toronto Tip Top Tailors team won the right to represent Canada at the Amateur Softball Association Championship, at the time considered the world championship of men’s fastpitch. They had defeated a team sponsored by Peoples Credit Jewelers two games to none in a best two-out-of-three match in the annual Canadian National Exhibition tournament. They were off to Little Rock, Arkansas, the scene of the world championship tournament for 1949.
It was a culture shock for the team in Little Rock from the time they arrived. According to Bill ‘Babe’ Gresko, a Toronto resident and team member quoted in a 2009 Toronto Sun newspaper story, at the airport, there was sign to the left that said ‘Whites’ and a sign to the right that said ‘Blacks.’ The team decided to stay together and walk right down the middle. At the hotel, the three black members of the team were told to leave immediately. In response, the whole team left and stayed in the black section of town along with three or four other teams who had faced the same problem.
The Toronto Tip Top Tailors went through the world championship tournament undefeated, setting up an exciting climatic championship game against a team from Clearwater, Florida for the world title.
On September 23rd, 1949, the Toronto team faced legendary softball Hall of Fame pitcher Herb Dudley, known for his strikeout ability. With Toronto down by a run in the final inning, Lenny Gaull, who had earlier in the game broken Dudley’s bid for a no-hitter, again reached base and scored the tying run on a hit by his battery mate, pitcher Charlie Justice who was one of the three black players not welcomed at the hotel. The game went into the 18th inning before Lenny Gaull again reached base and scored on a two run single delivered by Art Upper. The final score: Toronto 3, Clearwater 1.
The team was celebrated on their return to Toronto with a civic reception and in 2009, they got their due by being inducted into the Canadian Softball Hall of Fame. Sadly, when the team was inducted only three of its members were still alive.
The list of surviving team members became shorter on February 2nd of this year when my cousin, Lenny Gaull (formally George Leonard Gaull) passed away at the age of 93.
My thanks to Lenny’s daughter, Margaret who informed me of her father’s death. May he rest in peace!