Simon's Sixty Done

 

Some goals may seem do-able, while others seem to keep us running as fast as we can. Today's goal was one of the latter: I wanted to complete the review of the sixty DNA matches linked to the descendants of Nicholas Snider's son Simon.

Reviewing those sixty matches brought up some thoughts. The prime observation had to do with pedigree collapse. In my mother-in-law's case—and this exercise is solely because of her history in Perry County, Ohio—her roots were quite tangled. I know the proper term for that might be pedigree collapse—think cousin marrying cousin, for instance—but in her case, I prefer to call it "endogamy lite." 

In the case of some of these Snider DNA matches, they are cousins several times over. Some of them were related to my mother-in-law's line through five or six different surnames from her past. That's just what happens when a small community stays in one place for two hundred years.

The purpose of reviewing these Snider DNA matches involved not only the process of linking each DNA match to my mother-in-law's tree, but updating each relative's profile page with links to documents. Some of these people, for instance, had been added to the family tree long before the 1950 census had been released, so an update was necessary. Then, too, marriage announcements in newspapers and other records found during this process allowed me to make many more profiles in my mother-in-law's family tree current.

With that goal completed, it's simply on to the next goal. While I've already added all the DNA matches for Nicholas' children Jacob, Lewis, Joseph, Maria, and Simon, there are three more categories of Snider DNA matches yet to conquer. The good news is that the remaining number of Snider matches is seventy seven—a far less daunting number than the 268 that appeared on my ThruLines readout when I first began this process.

With that, I'll move on to the DNA matches linked to Nicholas' son Peter tomorrow—a mere forty matches after all that's been done so far. 

To See it With my Own Eyes

 

What is it about documents for family history? Somehow, I can't just accept that someone else saw it, or transcribed it, or referenced it. I need to see the thing for myself. And that is simply not happening for Nicholas Snider, the second great-grandfather I'm seeking on my mother-in-law's family tree.

Granted, the man was likely born in in the mid-1760s and made his trip from Germany to a very young United States of America in the early 1800s when record-keeping was not our nation's bureaucratic strong suit. Whatever records might have survived—if even required to be taken, much less kept for centuries—would certainly not be of a format we'd expect today.

Though I had already read reports, thanks to Ancestry.com, that Nicholas had arrived in 1804 on the ship Fortune, I wanted to see the actual passenger list. So naturally, I was excited to learn that there was a digitized collection at FamilySearch.org called Pennsylvania Landing Reports of Aliens, 1798-1828. I was not so delighted to learn the collection—all 636 images—is not searchable. But you can browse.

From the transcription, I noticed that the Nicholas in that ship's entry had traveled with Anna, presumably his wife, and a five year old son named Jacob. Their surname was spelled Schneider, no surprise for a family traveling from Germany, although our Nicholas' family eventually went by the more English spelling, Snider or Snyder. Along with Nicholas' entry in the passenger record were entries for two unnamed children, aged three and one, who were marked as dead.

But were these the entries for the right Nicholas Schneider family? That was my impetus for finding the original record, in case any other information might have been provided. In addition, slight changes to details I had found—such as Nicholas' wife's name being Anna Elizabeth, which doesn't fit a middle initial "M" from the transcription—urge me to find more information.

Whether I have the fortitude to last through all 636 images in the collection, I can't yet say. I suspect, given the size, I'll find a spot which is safely within the date range of that 1804 transcription, and go page by page through that section. And hope. The FamilySearch wiki entry for the collection doesn't give much more guidance; sometimes you just have to turn the pages for yourself.

Searching Through Adams County Records

 

Tracing Nicholas Snider, my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather, as we go backwards in time can be a trying proposition. We've already discovered other men by that name in the early 1800s around the vicinity of Pennsylvania, so spotting that Snider name—or its variant spellings—in Adams County doesn't necessarily mean I've found the right man. Until I'm prepared to zero in on the right candidate, it seems a wise approach would be to glean more background information on not just the man, but the history—and historical resources—of the region during the time when I spotted him there: the 1810 census.

Since Nicholas' descendants, once they moved westward to Perry County, Ohio, were connected to the local Catholic Church there, it seems reasonable that they would have attended the same religious body while living in their previous home in Pennsylvania. Indeed, there was a Catholic church established in Adams County, known as the Conewago Chapel. And thanks to some notes at the FamilySearch wiki for available church records in Adams County, Pennsylvania, we can see those records reach back to 1790.

Besides baptismal records, though, I was curious to see what other ways I could track Nicholas Snider during his stay in Adams County. The good news for this, according to the FamilySearch wiki for Adams County, is that court records and land records date back to 1800. Added bonus: no courthouse fires to spoil my fun!

While attaining records from 1800 may not seem like much of a bonus, given my research goal of finding Nicholas Snider's origin and having found his appearance in the 1810 census already, I am fairly certain all I will need to work on would be that ten year span of time. Reason I'm sure: later census records indicate Nicholas' oldest son Jacob was born in Germany about 1799. All surviving children after that point were said to have been born in either Pennsylvania or Maryland before the family's arrival in Ohio.

For those ten years, possible searches could be made of land records in Adams County, which thankfully are available to view at FamilySearch from 1800 onward. In addition, I'll be searching for tax records attached to Nicholas Snider's residence there. But the main discovery of resources I'll be interested in is the collection at FamilySearch called "Landing Reports of Aliens, 1798-1828." No title could have fit my search parameters more closely. 

Recorded Signs of Existence

 

As we enter another season of religious holidays—both Passover and Easter—my mind turns in gratefulness to the records such religious institutions have provided us. As I chase after any signs of the existence of Nicholas Snider, my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather from the early 1800s, I realize I wouldn't even have what little I do know about him, if it weren't for the record keeping mandates of such organizations. 

I think also, unfortunately, of how much doubt I have that I've located the right Nicholas Snider in those baptismal records back in Adams County, Pennsylvania, before that German immigrant moved his family to Perry County, Ohio. Unlike the pristine handwriting preserved in some of the Catholic baptismal records I've checked for relatives back in their European homeland, the records from Conewago Chapel look like the handwritten scrawl one might expect from a cleric serving on the frontier—hurried, and not quite sure about whether, at a moment's notice, he and his little flock might have to flee for safety.

I think also about the little quirks I spot as I try to find each of Nicholas' children recorded in the church records at their birthplace. In 1812, for instance, Nicholas' wife was the only parent mentioned for the baptism of their daughter Maria Augusta. Where was Nicholas? And what was the meaning of the parenthetical note, "a catholica" after Elizabeth's name? I am not sure whether inspecting these oddities would lead me to clues, then answers, to the larger question of who, exactly, this Nicholas Snider actually was, and where he came from before landing in Pennsylvania. For all I know, they could be false leads, leading, well, nowhere.

A bit more information on what records in Adams County are still available from that time period would be helpful. It's time to broaden the search away from Nicholas, the individual, to examine who made up his community, and where they traveled to arrive at that settlement.

Goals Met —> Results Gained

 

If meeting goals means gaining results, how did my research goal for this month's DNA matches turn out? Since this is the time for my biweekly count, I have the answer: my mother-in-law's tree gained a lot.

Face it: connecting those DNA cousins to a family tree means verifying their position in the family. And that's not just by taking a lab's word for the connection. I need to know how these matches connect to the family tree. That requires collaboration by documents. Adding DNA matches to the collateral lines in a family tree can really make that tree grow quite bushy.

Reviewing the seventy eight DNA matches who connect to my mother-in-law's family through Nicholas Snider's son Jacob was just the first hurdle. Now, with the exception of two ThruLines candidates whose suggested tree includes a name twin instead of the right ancestor, I've completed the second goal: to verify the twenty eight DNA cousins who descend from Nicholas' son Lewis.

All that work has added up to one fact: I wouldn't have gained 485 more individuals in my mother-in-law's tree in the past two weeks if it hadn't been for that goal. A lot of work, yes—it feels good to know the job is done—but a significant addition to the family tree that might not have happened without the guidance of DNA testing and the tools available at the testing sites I've used.

My mother-in-law's tree now stands at 37,852 individuals, all documented by multiple records connecting them to the family. But even though my focus this month has shifted to my mother-in-law's family, don't think my own tree has languished in the meantime. Since I needed to close out the previous month's project, I did manage to add another seventeen individuals to my own tree from that project. That tree now includes 40,223 documented people. Until I return to working on my family's tree with my Twelve Most Wanted goals for the last three months of the year, I suspect that tree will not grow much more over the summer.

Gaining nearly five hundred new entries in my mother-in-law's line in the past two weeks, though, is a massive research pace. I doubt I'll keep going at that same rate, although I do have 155 more Snider DNA matches to review this month. We'll check on progress in another two weeks—and then, it will be high time for a well-deserved break.

Reaching Goals: Step by Step with Fortitude

 

It is likely just as true for genealogy as for any other endeavor: you can get more accomplished if you set research goals for yourself. The caveat, of course, is that you actually do the work you've set out for yourself.

In the case of my process of selecting my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors to research for the year, each monthly focus has sub-categories. One of those categories is to review, update, and catalogue my DNA matches for that specific ancestor. This may all seem elementary and routine—after all, you can't accomplish a goal without tackling it step by step—but there is another component I've lately discovered is also needed in this process: fortitude.

Take this month's research focus: my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather Nicholas Snider. While a second great-grandfather may not seem that far removed from our own generation—I actually know some people who have lived to see their own second great-grandchildren—in my mother-in-law's case, her family's generations were long. By that, I mean there was a lot of time elapsed between generations, especially when it came to those Catholic families with many children. A youngest child of a youngest child could mean generations that were separated by forty years or more.

Bottom line for all that: Nicholas Snider had a lot of descendants to trace. And there were quite a few of them in the past decade who have become fascinated with DNA testing. To put some numbers on this detail, my DNA test for this line—provided courtesy of my husband for his mother—currently has 261 matches tied to Nicholas Snider's line.

Let's step back to that research goal for this month: Nicholas Snider. If part of that goal is to verify all those DNA matches, I've got a lot of work ahead of me. Granted, part of the step-by-step process for the past ten years has been to research each of the descendants of this ancestral founding immigrant, Nicholas Snider. There are a lot of names—plus documentation to verify—already in place in my mother-in-law's tree, thanks to that decade-long, step by step process. But that is just the foundational work. Next is the process of going through each match listed on Thru-Lines (for those Ancestry DNA matches), to verify their connection to this most recent common ancestor.

My genealogy happy dance for this weekend is that I completed the review of all DNA matches who link to Nicholas' eldest son, Jacob. When I started this project at the beginning of April, that meant reviewing eighty DNA matches—but something happened along the way: the number of DNA matches inexplicably reduced by one, then by another, leaving the count for my task now at seventy eight matches to verify.

Still, that's seventy eight people with records to verify. Yet, step by step, I got through the process. True, there were five I simply couldn't verify. That may be due to insufficient access to records—some states' records are more available online than others—but it could also be owing to mistakes in the match's own tree. I did spot a couple matches for whom documentation didn't seem to support the trees from which ThruLines draws its information.

One helpful tactic I tried this month was to start work on this DNA match list from the bottom rather than from the top. I had always done so from the top in the past, but I was concerned that I would run out of steam before finishing—and besides, I would simply be repeating the process if I started from the top once again. So I reversed engines and headed to the bottom of the pile this time.

Another approach was to keep a separate list of each match I completed, to ensure I hadn't skipped any—and, as I realized was also important, to note each "match" for whom I couldn't supply documentation or find verifiable connections.

Once at the top of the list, having completed the process for each descendant of Jacob Snider, it was time to move on to the next son of Nicholas Snider—but which one? I toyed with the idea of moving to the next largest grouping—that would be the descendants of Simon Snider, for whom I'll need to tackle sixty DNA matches—but decided on a different approach. Rather than jump around on the readout—not to mention, deal with another daunting number—I opted to simply go down the list as it was provided by ThruLines. 

With that, my next grouping to work on is the twenty eight DNA matches linked to Nicholas' son Lewis. Twenty eight seems like such a breeze after eighty, giving me a psychological lift from the grind of the last series. But strangely enough, working on this different set of descendants brings its own "flavor." I've already spotted two ThruLines charts which simply can't be possible. One was a case of confusing two different men with the same first name but differing middle names; the other will require building out the proposed match's own tree, as ThruLines connected that tree with an ancestral woman for whom I can find no marriage record.

Despite the different problems I'm encountering with this second ancestral line, I've already completed eight of the twenty eight listed DNA matches for Lewis Snider's line. And the next son of Nicholas after that will be Aloysius Joseph Snider, who represents only four DNA matches. Each segment completed brings me step by step closer to finishing this research goal. Though I had my doubts at the beginning of the month that I would completely tackle this pile of 261 DNA matches, getting over that first hurdle of nearly eighty matches was certainly an encouragement.

The Snider Will

 

Sometimes, just looking at the details of an ancestor's will can help connect the dots between the current generation of the decedent's offspring and relatives belonging to earlier generations. It is not so much a case of looking at the names of those who will inherit parts of their father's estate, but a matter of examining the connection with witnesses—and sometimes executors—named on the document.

In Nicholas Snider's case, he drew up his will in Perry County, Ohio, and signed it on April 17, 1854. Best I can tell, he died just shy of one year later. His will was presented in court on April 27, 1855. In the brief document, his son Conrad was named first, being the son with whom Nicholas had been living at the time of his death—or at least at the most recent census. Also mentioned in the will were Nicholas' unmarried daughter Catherine as well as his married daughter "Mary" (baptized Maria Augusta), along with several sons.

Looking at the names listed in the will for Nicholas' sons, I can find Jacob, the eldest, then Joseph (being Aloysius Joseph, as the first son by that name was said to have died at sea), and Lewis. Simon was named as executor, but there were no bequests made in the document for him. There was no mention of either Peter or Andrew, Nicholas Snider's two remaining sons, though Peter was certainly alive at the time, being mentioned as a son of Nicholas in a 1902 book, A Biographical Record of Fairfield and Perry Counties, Ohio.

It was the others named in the will that had me wondering, though. In drawing up a will, it was not uncommon to see a close family member of the father's generation called upon to ensure that the provision of the will be attended to faithfully. Sometimes, such a person might be the widow's brother, for instance, but in other cases, a trusted business partner might be called upon.

In the case of Nicholas Snider, he chose one of his sons to serve as executor. For the witnesses to his will, he asked two men to sign: John Lidey and David Church. Both of those names stump me. I am fairly certain neither of them were connected to Nicholas' wife's family—and at any rate, she had already died, so there was no need to protect her interests in her widowhood. 

The question still comes up in my mind, though: when Nicholas moved his family from Pennsylvania—even by way of Maryland—was there no one from among his own family to make the long trip to Ohio with him? I'm still looking for familiar surnames, but records on this end of his life are too far removed from the time period when any other family members might still be alive. Perhaps returning to those earliest census records might help spot possible connections in either 1810 back in Adams County, Pennsylvania, or 1820 after the family removed to Perry County, Ohio.