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Vickers Mystery
Christine Shroeder-Vickers wanted to know who her father was, and she had 26 DNA matches for 100 to 340 cM. One of the strongest was with Sharon Scott who had no obvious link to her tree. The nominal family tree that we started with is shown below. Christine was born the same year her mother graduated high school, suggesting a high school fling which might narrow the search for her father.
Step 1 is always to group all the DNA matches into exclusive groups using the shared match feature. I am looking for 4 independent groups that corresponding to the 4 grandparents families. In this case, the 4 groups were led by the Anderson, Hammel, Basher and Raybold families. If there is test data from multiple vendors, it is important to pool the shared matches using surnames in common, so that there is complete grouping of the DNA matches.
Step 2 is to construct a family tree for each grouping, hopefully linking them back to the starting nominal family tree. Christine was confident in her nominal tree back to maternal grandparents. Her nominal Maternal GGP branches are Shroeder, Mathews, Stewart, McGinnis.
However, Trulines DNA supports only GGP Mathews and McGinnis. Schroeder and Stewart are most likely NPE's.
Independent shared DNA groups are; Anderson (part of Shroeder tree) , Hammell, Basher, Raybold, Nerino. Hammell, Anderson, Basher DNA groups are maternal as they appear in both Christine and Brianna Fowler DAN matches. Because of high match to Sharon Scott and Wayne Hammell, the only way the DNA matches work is for the actual maternal GGP's to be Basher, Mathews, Hammell, McGinnis. Therfore
Raybold & Nerino must be the 2 paternal GP DNA groups.
The Nerino DNA group consists of 4 approx. 150 cM matches. 3 of them can be traced back to Polish GGP's.
4 of the surnames also appear as multiple DNA matchs, so the second paternal 2GGP's are probably Marchinowski, Lewandowski, Jankowski, and Brubaker.
This leads to a probable tree.
The detailed trees for each DNA group is constructed by starting with any public trees associated with the individual DNA matches looking for surnames in common within the group. The next step is to research the trees for each surname to find out how they are linked and where different surnames merge through children. A powerful trick is to use a search in the public trees for key names. Often it is a question of just systematically going through each person in the tree building out the tree. The next step is to add the matches that do not have public trees, by searching for the individual matches and hopefully finding parent names to build the tree up from the bottom. The challenges are that there is no QA on the trees, and lots of people just copy existing trees that can just propagate errors. Many individuals swap first and middle names, change spelling, and anglicize names. Many families use a limited number of first names resulting in errors and confusion. Finally, all it takes is a Non Parental Event (NPE) to propagate DNA without any family tree record.
Each of the trees linking the DNA matches are shown below, along with the DNA match values. The next step is to propose different individuals and points of connection into the starting nominal tree. For each proposal there is a resulting relationship to Christine that will have a possible DNA range. By comparing the DNA match to the relationship range, each proposal can be evaluated.
The close family maternal tree shows DNA matches ONLY to female maternal GP's; Mathews and McGinnis. In the Hammell DNA group, the 387 cM match to Wayne Hammell means that his father must be the link as an NPE maternal GGP. The Basher DNA group is very large and can all be linked by family. The DNA matches are stronger than the tree would imply, suggesting that there may be an additional NPE indicated by the blue arrow. George Basher b 1916 is the most likely maternal GGP that supports the DNA match to Sharon Schroeder.
On the paternal side, to carry both Rabold and Prussman DNA, the first GP is most likely 1 of the 3 children of George Raybold and Catherine Prussman. The second GP comes from the Nerino DNA group, with 2GGP surnames; Jankowski, Marcinowski, Lewandoski, and Brubaker. There is a family tree with a marriage between Raymond Jankowski and Casmiera Marcinowski, and their daughter Teresa is the right age for a GP. I could not find a direct family tree connection between Raymond and Casmiera and the DNA matches, although they are all based in Western PA and have common heritage, additional NPE's are a possibility.
There are 2 possible fathers, Frank Jankowski and Gregory Lewandowski, with the right age and who have lived in Camden.
The complete "Possible" tree is shown below between the maternal and paternal trees. This tree should be viewed as starting point for further research. As noted above there are 3 separate NPE events in the tree already and any additional NPE's would change everything, along with numerous opportunity for mistakes.
Christine was then able to find some additional information which resulted in identifying Keith Bressler as Father, which she confirmed through a DNA test on her half sister. The final tree below, matched the grouping in the PROBABLE tree above. The particular candidates in the POSSIBLE tree above were not close but not correct. There were no DNA matches to the Bressler branch until Christine asked for the tests.
