More on Roosevelt and Rust - Harvard Class of 1904

Almost two years ago, I shared the 1934 invitation to the White House that my step-grandfather, Edgar C. Rust, and grandmother received, as well as a newspaper clipping that was in my grandmother's collection. (Saturday is the 119th anniversary of my grandmother's birth: Elizabeth Adsit was born on June 18, 1897.)

Classmates Meet Again, Unknown newspaper.

In trying to find the original of this newspaper clipping (not yet successful), I also found the following newspaper articles about this college reunion at GenealogyBank which does indicate that family members were in attendance.

My Aunt's Closest DNA Matches on a Chromosome Browser

My aunt A recently took a DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA. On average, she should share about 25% of DNA with me, her niece or my brothers, her nephews. (I am using initials to try to protect the privacy of my family members. Hopefully you can still follow along.)

Autosomal DNA is inherited equally from both parents. The amount of autosomal DNA inherited from more distant ancestors is randomly shuffled up in a process called recombination and the percentage of autosomal DNA coming from each ancestor is diluted with each new generation. [Source: ISOGG Wiki for Autosomal DNA]

The following screenshot from FamilyTreeDNA shows how much DNA that A shares with her top matches.

A's matches are sorted by relationship. Her closest relationship is to her sister, M.

Her next closest DNA matches are:
to my brother, S, sharing 1970.09 cM, with the longest shared block being 163.73 cM.
to me, Elizabeth, sharing 1837.98 cM, with the longest shared block being 101.44 cM.
to my brother, R, sharing 1805.56 cM, with the longest shared block being 108.96 cM.

The Shared cM Project, conducted by The Genetic Genealogist, Blaine Bettinger, shows the range of shared cM (centimorgans, a measurement implying genetic distance) that can be found between people of a known genealogical relationship. Hundreds of genealogists responded to his request for information and Blaine has generated some interesting charts to display the information.

In the case of aunt/uncle - niece/nephew relationship, the average amount of DNA reported to be shared is 1703.45 cM, with the greatest amount of DNA shared at 2226.60 cM and least amount of DNA shared at 121.34 cM. So it appears that my brothers and I share more than the average amount of DNA expected between an aunt and a niece or nephew.

The next step is to compare us in FamilyTreeDNA's chromosome browser.

DNA: Sisters' Ethnicity Results

DNA test results have come back from FamilyTreeDNA for my mother's sister (A).

The following colorful images are from FamilyTreeDNA's MyOrigins feature which shows estimates of an individual's ethnicity going back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The key word here is estimate - this is really just a fun way to see where your distant ancestors came from.

As I have noted before, we are European.

Surname Saturday ~ Morgan of Guysborough, Nova Scotia

The earliest Morgan I have in my family tree is John Morgan. Guysborough Sketches has a brief description of him as a "pre-Loyalist" settler whose sawmill was producing lumber by 1784 when the Loyalists arrived, suggesting that he had been in Guyborough prior to 1784.

Guysborough, Nova Scotia

"Morgan... is said to have been a Welsh millwright, and one of the first mills in which he was interested is said to have been on the Hadley property." [Guysborough Sketches, p. 155]

His wife was Diana Hadley, whom he married between 1784-1789. Last fall I borrowed a Family History Library microfilm of Guysborough Baptismal Records, which shows that John and Diana (Dinah) had at least six children: John, Henry, Ruth Hadley, Joseph, Diana, and Sarah Margaret.

I don't have birth information or death information for John Morgan and I wonder if more research in Guysborough County would help.

I descend from their daughter Diana.

Generation 2:
Diana Morgan was born December 17, 1803, in Manchester, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia.

She married Thomas Cutler Whitman on March 13, 1827, in Guysborough. They followed their daughter, Esther, to Boston in 1857. I wrote about Diana in a 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks post last year.

She and her family can be found in Jamaica, Queens County, New York in the 1860 U.S. Census.

She died "after a lingering illness" on April 25, 1861, in New York City. She is buried in Elmont Cemetery, Nassau County, New York, and there is a FindAGrave memorial for her.

They had nine children, born between 1828 and 1851: Esther Abigail, George William, Thomas, Judson, Maria E., Ira A., Harriet, Charles, and Gordon. Most of them came to New York, but a few remained in Canada.

I descend from their oldest child, the daughter they followed to Boston: Esther Abigail Whitman.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Bald Mary

Helen, my maternal grandmother, was the youngest of five sisters (Marion, b. 1899; Caroline, b. 1900; Mary, b. 1903; Margaret, b. 1905; Helen, b. 1907).

The family story is that, when she was young, middle sister Mary had scarlet fever and had her head shaved to aid in her recovery. I have many photographs from this side of the family and have three showing a bald great aunt Mary:

Margaret, Mary, and I believe Helen (my grandmother) in the background.