Wandering as I Wonder

 

At the start of each month, I sit down to form a research plan. I often follow the same basic procedure, and over the years, the process does become somewhat routine. In the case of my Polish paternal ancestors, though, the approach can be limited, leaving me to wonder, "now what?!" As I went through my usual routine, though, I began wandering through the results of what I found, more as if I were lost in the maze rather than zeroing in on my goal.

Looking to genetic records of DNA cousins is especially limited for Polish connections, based on the small number of matches I've found despite testing at five major genetic genealogy companies. Even though that is one of my first steps taken, in the case of my focus for this month (my father's great-grandmother Susanna Radomska). I have only four ThruLines suggestions given by that Ancestry tool. Each of those four ThruLines candidates happens to be a niece, nephew, or grand-nephew—each of them relatives I already know.

I tried a different approach. Rather than look at ThruLines to discover any alternate connections to Susanna Radomska, I picked up on a lesson I realized last month: stick to simply searching for the surnames. Though no DNA matches popped up with Radomska or Radomski in their family tree, at least I tried.

A second approach was to revisit the tree I've built at FamilySearch.org. First task was to make sure everyone was updated there, based on what I've already attained at my tree on Ancestry.com. FamilySearch is rich with foreign documents while Ancestry is lacking in such records, so that also provides a way to verify connections for both trees. As I wondered about each child listed in that Radomski tree—and made sure to connect documents back to my Ancestry tree as well—I began making new discoveries.

Those new discoveries, in turn, caused me to wander. And wandering is not exactly part of the profile of the "S.M.A.R.T." objectives researcher. Each time I entered a new name in my Ancestry tree, accompanied with the inevitable hints, I looked at the suggested trees to see whether the tree owner happened to be a DNA match. I then looked at that person's Shared Matches on my DNA readout, wandering from one possible match to another until I spotted the surnames I was seeking.

In the end, while ThruLines might not have provided me any direct links to the right people, this sidestepping approach, wandering from DNA cousin to DNA cousin, did eventually narrow down my focus. Some aspects of our quest can be so nebulous that there really aren't any exact links to lead us to our goal. But in the face of that blank slate, as we wonder what to do next, a little judicious wandering may just lead us to some answers—or at least productive realizations.

Stuck at Another Great-Grandparent

 

With the arrival of fall, it's time to switch our focus from my father-in-law's Irish ancestry to researching my own father's roots. There is only one problem with this change: I'm just as stuck at the point of my own father's great-grandparents, as I was with those of my father-in-law. It seems researching American-born ancestors proceeds far more smoothly than tackling the legacy of those immigrants' forebears. 

My father's father, the one who secretly changed the family name, was born with a surname which, itself, kept morphing over the years. Eventually recorded in the United States as Puchalski—possibly because in America "-ski" was assumed to always be affixed to Polish surnames—he was baptized in Prussia with the surname Puchała. 

This man's father, my father's paternal grandfather, was also difficult to locate through documentation. Perhaps because of the transcription hazards of copying (or bothering to even use at all) Polish diacritical marks, my best chance at finding his name in records in his homeland was through his wife. His 1868 marriage to Anastasia Zegarska did indeed confirm that Thomas Puchała was a man—unlike his baptismal record in 1844, identifying the Puchała infant as a "weiblich."

That document, faulty as it was, did help identify the soon-disappearing Thomas' parents. His father, according to church records, was noted as Johann. His mother, with a given name Susanna, had a partial rendition of her maiden name provided in that birth record. Fortunately, moving back a couple years, another record confirmed the maiden name of Johann Puchała's wife: Radomska.

From the point of that 1842 marriage record in the village now known as Lubichowo in northern Poland, we can begin piecing together the story of my father's great-grandparents. Our focus this month will be on Susanna, but my corollary hope is that some details of her life might uncover an explanation of whatever became of her husband and family, as well.

Marrying Into the Patriline

 

As long as I can remember, my paternal grandfather's origin was a closely-held secret. Even my older siblings and cousins who knew him personally could not coax the story out of him. Years after his passing, when all of us still tried collectively to find clues, there was not much to uncover. Despite my grandfather's decidedly Irish surname—which we didn't learn until just recently was an official legal request—we knew there had to be a different history for his family.

When the first of direct-to-consumer DNA tests came out, I learned about the Y-DNA test. Tracing the specific line from a son to his father, then his father, and so on back through the family's history, this genetic test could be a powerful tool to reveal a family's origin. There was one catch, however: this test was only applicable to a male descendant's patriline—and it was most meaningful when the subject's test matches someone else's test.

Fortunately, to solve our paternal mystery, my only brother was willing to serve as the test subject. I say "fortunately," not because I doubted my ability to talk my father into doing his own test, but because the opportunity to do so was, by then, long gone; he had passed away years before genetic genealogy of any type was publicly available. Because my brother's only son had also died, the only possible subject would have been my brother. I'm glad he was willing to participate.

Testing was the first part of the process. The second part was waiting to see if we had any matches close enough to provide guidance on where my father's family originated. We're still waiting for that discovery. In the meantime—and mostly thanks to records digitized at FamilySearch.org—I have managed to trace my way from my father's father to his father and, eventually, back to Poland where some documents identified his father as Jan Puchała.

From there, progress stopped. I had figured out who my father's great-grandfather was, but I could move no farther back in time.

No matter which ancestor I'm tracing, I've long since learned that, when stopped cold at a research roadblock, learn to step sideways. If a direct line refuses to divulge any details about the past, look to a collateral line. Siblings are one example, especially when minute changes in record keeping laws or customs over a span of even a few years may yield the detail that was missing for that direct line ancestor. 

There is, however, another way to tackle those brick wall ancestors. If I can't find the information I need on that earliest node in my father's patriline, I can sidestep that man entirely and look to his wife. For this month's selection of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026, as we transition to research on my father's side of the family, that is exactly what we'll do for October: see what we can find on Susanna Radomska, wife of Jan Puchała of Lubichowo in Poland's north region of Pomerania.

Simply Search for the Surname

If I had it to do all over again—and I will, the next time we revisit this puzzle of Johanna Falvey Kelly's roots—I would have first examined all the DNA matches whose family tree simply contained the surname Falvey. Of those, my husband has a genetic link to at least twenty nine others.

Interestingly, those twenty nine others are not necessarily the same ones that popped up when I used Ancestry's ThruLines tool to connect with Johanna, my father-in-law's great-grandmother. For one thing—and a very encouraging sign—the DNA cousins from this surname group match my husband at about twice the amount of genetic material as those ThruLines candidates I had previously checked.

Does that make this tree-based group closer relatives? Not necessarily. The connections are still rather distant. Yet that might be enough to help guide me back to the precise family in the right townland and parish of County Kerry.

This tree-based group comes from Falvey immigrants who settled in a wide variety of places. One group, as we discussed yesterday, left Ireland bound for New Zealand. A very small subset, I suspect, make up those who call Australia their home, possibly leaving for that destination after first landing in New Zealand.

Another very small set of DNA matches currently live in Canada, which is not surprising, considering the economic and political dynamics of leaving Ireland simply to relocate in another part of the United Kingdom, as their ancestors must have done during the 1800s.

Those Falveys who immigrated to the United States fell into three camps. Johanna Falvey herself came with her husband and children to Fort Wayne, Indiana. There are two other DNA matches who link to that family line. Another set of Falveys—whether closely related or not, I can't yet tell—headed to Massachusetts. A third set, which I'm having more difficulty tracing, made their destination the state of Michigan.

Each set of immigrating Falveys warrants their own attention. I'll be building out their family trees on my own to verify what each DNA match asserts in their own tree. Whether each one can lead me back to parish records in County Kerry, I won't know until I trace each immigrant family back to their homeland.

That, however, will be job number one for the next time I return to this research puzzle. Now that we're at the end of the month, it's time to move on to the next of my Twelve Most Wanted. Come October, we'll shift from a focus on the Irish and begin considering the first of three paternal ancestors from Poland. 

Assessing the (Diminishing) Possibilities

 

Finding the possible link between Johanna Falvey Kelly, my father-in-law's great-grandmother who had migrated to Fort Wayne from County Kerry, and the four DNA matches I've found in New Zealand promises to be a challenge. That is not simply because of the distance between North America and the South Island of New Zealand; it's the tiny amount of genetic material that these DNA cousins actually share.

Looking at the numbers, the possibilities for a more distant relationship stretch from third cousin once removed all the way to eighth cousin or beyond. That, at least, is according to calculations from The DNA Geek regarding a match of eighteen centiMorgans. You can get a snapshot of the hopeless probabilities from the "What Are the Odds?" diagram here.

To put it briefly, the closest of the four New Zealand Falvey descendants are two matches who each have one segment of eighteen centiMorgans in common with my husband. That's it. Each of them, as well as the other two with similar genetic connections—but divided into two or more segments, rather than one unified strand—descend from one of three daughters of Norah Falvey, the supposed relative of Johanna Falvey who had emigrated from County Kerry to New Zealand.

I have not been able to locate any documentation on a Norah Falvey in the Catholic parish where I had found Johanna's marriage to John Kelly. Nor has her location come close to the other supposed sister of Johanna, whose DNA matches also connect with my husband. The closest baptismal record I could find for a Norah Falvey was for a distant parish which, though still in County Kerry, would have required a walk of several hours.

My hunch at this point is that, though those New Zealand cousins are likely Falvey connections, the nexus between their specific ancestor and the ancestor of the American Falveys would be far beyond that of siblings. While I agree that it will be helpful to map out these New Zealand cousins' connection to each other through this Norah Falvey, the most recent common ancestor may well be two or three generations beyond Johanna's as-yet unconfirmed parents.

Beyond "Down Under"

 

One of the fascinating gifts of DNA testing for genealogy is being allowed a peek at how far our genetic connections can go. In the case of my father-in-law's Falvey connections, that line not only leads this American family back to Ireland, but it also provides us a link to distant cousins "Down Under" and beyond even that.

While it was a relationship as close as my father-in-law's great-grandmother who came from County Kerry, there are now third and fourth cousins popping up as DNA matches to my husband, who serves as testing proxy for my father-in-law who has long since passed away. I've tried my best to figure out these matches, but other than those direct lines descended from that great-grandmother, Johanna Falvey Kelly, I have yet to uncover the connection between the rest.

Pulling up ThruLines at Ancestry.com, I discovered there are four specific matches who supposedly descend from a woman called Norah Falvey. She, like Johanna, was said to have been born in County Kerry. But unlike emigrating Johanna, Norah's route took her even farther away than Johanna's journey to Fort Wayne, Indiana. For Norah, her destination—and final resting place—became the old settlement of Nelson on the South Island of New Zealand.

From those four specific DNA matches, I've discovered through Ancestry's ProTools that there are more than twenty other matches affiliated with that line in New Zealand. Obviously, I've found a lot of incentive to learn who this Norah Falvey might have been. Yet, try as I might, a review this past weekend shed no light worthy of "aha" moments. I cannot find any specifics on where in County Kerry this Falvey descendant once lived—none, at least, pointing out how she connected to Johanna Falvey.

While those many matches linked to Norah don't show up as a cluster in any reports at Ancestry, that doesn't mean I can't sketch out the connections between these distant cousins. While such an exercise might not inform my original research question concerning Johanna Falvey Kelly's origins and parentage in County Kerry, I can't help but remember that one line from Johanna's own obituary: that she had one sibling who had moved to New Zealand.

Someone in New Zealand obviously could claim a genetic connection to Johanna's own family line. Whether these DNA matches connect directly to that unnamed sibling, I can't yet determine, but keeping in mind this might be a years-long research pursuit, I may as well get started sketching out the connections I can find. That, if nothing else, will be a valuable addition to the Falvey research log for whenever I do alight on those elusive telltale records.

Missing the Connection

 

As frustrating as this seems—seeing we are nearing the end of the month, and thus time to move on to yet another of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026—I am having a difficult time making the leap from my husband's DNA connections in North America to their Falvey ancestors back in Ireland. Come to think of it, even the twenty of his DNA matches in New Zealand seem to be missing any connection to the parents of our specific Johanna Falvey Kelly. I'm beginning to wonder whether that sliver of matching genetic material is actually a persistent fragment passed forward from generations long before that time period.

Needless to say, this DNA puzzle has slowed down progress in adding another generation to my father-in-law's side of the family tree. In fact, not much of anything has actually been added to that tree. In the past two weeks, I've managed to find only thirty four individuals through tracing these Falvey connections, most of them through work on DNA matches. Truth be told, many of those new names hide within a "floating branch" of my father-in-law's tree, a token way to say, despite its presence, "I'm still not sure about this one."

Still, my in-laws' tree contains 44,402 documented individuals, which I'd consider a good start. Reviewing all the DNA matches yet to link to that tree, though, there is much work ahead, whether for the Falvey line or other branches of the tree. Other than what we might discover in the last few days of this month, we will need to move on to the next month's selected research subject.

With that shift, we'll also step from my in-laws' side of the family to my own. Not that that will be an easy transition; up next will be a leap from the dearth of documents in Ireland to the challenge of navigating foreign language records in the old dominion of Prussia. The last three months of the year will be the domain of the ancestral brick walls on the paternal side of my own family.

In advance of that move, in the last two weeks, I've had the opportunity to add ten more names to my own family tree. Most of those came, thanks to a recent email received from a distant cousin on my father's side of the family who shared some resources with me. In preparation for next month's move to research my paternal ancestry, that puts me at 41,979 individuals in my own tree.

Before we make that jump, though, we do have just three more days to muddle through some observations made evident by delving into those Falvey DNA matches which still stump me.