When Batting .500 Isn't Good Enough

 

I know there are some family history fanatics out there who are also baseball fans. While they may agree that batting .500 might be a great statistic for a baseball player, when it comes to genealogy, I am more often disappointed when that becomes my research average.

Right now, I'm working my way through my husband's DNA match list for Metzger cousins. He stands in as proxy for my mother-in-law, whose second great-grandfather Michael Metzger links my husband to seventy four other DNA cousins. After tackling that phantom son, John (or Johann) Metzger, my next move was to look at the six matches descending from John's brother Joseph. Supposedly, there are six descendants of Joseph who share a small amount of DNA with my husband.

While I say small—barely more than twenty centiMorgans for the best of them—I realize the combination of genetics and genealogical documentation can provide a more reliable link than such small numbers alone as I saw in those six matches descended from Joseph. However, when I looked more closely at those six matches, I found three of them for whom I could rustle up not one page of paperwork. For this quest, batting .500 wasn't really helpful.

The sticking point came in the listing of the sons of Joseph Metzger. Joseph was apparently married twice, so he had many sons. But the one name asserted to belong to the line of these three DNA matches—Clinton N. Metzger—was a name I could find nowhere in documentation for Joseph's family.

Looking at the problem from the opposite direction—following the line from the match to parents, then grandparents and upwards—I attempted to sketch out possible family trees to see where the trail missed a turn. After all, I've seen several times when a man was mistaken for a brother, or even for a cousin by the same name. In this case, however, I had no luck.

Sometimes, matches at Ancestry's ThruLines appear to be attributed to one ancestral couple when the match might turn out to be through another line in that family. I tried looking for other surnames as I built that quick sketch of a family tree. As it turned out, one of the daughters of this Clinton Metzger happened to marry someone whose mother was a "Rhinehart." Since my mother-in-law also has Rineharts in her ancestry, I looked for an alternate connection through that side of the family, but no clear path emerged.

It is indeed possible for matches hovering around that twenty centiMorgan range to be a mistaken connection. But I'm not quite ready to give up on those three cases quite yet. Once confronted with that impasse, I decided to take a closer look at the many Metzger lines descending from our Michael and his wife Apollonia to build out the lines of descent for each of them. At some point, that will become handy for connecting future DNA matches. Perhaps it will even untangle this maze leading from those three DNA cousins to our most recent common ancestral match in Michael Metzger.

From Johann to Joseph John

 

Though unable to find anything further on Michael Metzger's son John—or, as he was called in the German-speaking town where he settled in Indiana, Johann—we'll now turn to the rest of Michael's children to explore any clues about his origin. His possible oldest two children, Gregory and Joanna, apparently didn't marry—but then, I've found very little on them to even confirm that these were two of the foreign-born children of the founding immigrant.

The third child, Michael's namesake son, was my mother-in-law's direct ancestor. I've researched this line closely but have not yet been able to confidently push back to the previous generation through what I've found on this younger Michael's family.

Beyond that is the next-born son, Joseph John Metzger. I've already noticed that six of his descendants are DNA matches to my husband, so I've been working on how they connect to my mother-in-law's family tree. As that work unfolds, I'll share what I find here in the next few days—if, that is, there are any noteworthy discoveries. This Metzger family seems reticent to share any early memories of the homeland for our benefit.

What I do already know about Joseph John Metzger is that he was the first of the Metzger children to have been born after the family arrived in the United States. Specifically, Joseph was born in Pennsylvania, one testimony of the family's stop in that state on their way to their final destination in Ohio.

As it turns out, Joseph spent most of his life in Perry County, the same location where his parents had settled and the place where all his siblings—with the exception of Johann—remained in their adulthood. I say "most," though, because a pivot point in Joseph's life was the loss of his wife Mary Ann Bechtol after the birth of their five children.

With a young family yet to raise, Joseph Metzger did what any farmer of that era would have done: quickly found a wife to marry. That he did by 1857, when he and second wife Rachel exchanged wedding vows. The catch was that they were married a small distance removed from his parents' home, in Knox County. And it was likely in that same Knox County where Joseph raised his second, even larger, family of at least seven more children before his 1885 death.

Between all those children, I'm hoping someone researching this Metzger line will have run across some family stories on where this line originated. We'll take a closer look at Joseph John Metzger's line—and DNA matches—tomorrow.

Letting Dialects Drop a Clue

 

Can you speak Swabian? Well, neither can I. I suspect a lot of people in the United States wouldn't even realize it if they heard someone speaking that dialect. But if a German-speaking immigrant met another immigrant who spoke Swabian, I suspect the two could somehow find a way to understand each other. Even more important, just knowing there is such a language might guide us in untangling the origin of some Metzger ancestors in my mother-in-law's heritage.

For instance, consider this question: if Johann Metzger's son remembered that the household language of his childhood was German, why was his mother said to have been born in France?

Johann Metzger—or John, as he was listed in American government records—married a woman by the name of Mary Ann Wiest. The wedding took place in Perry County, Ohio, where John Metzger's family had settled at the end of their immigrant journey. The straightforward marriage entry in the county records—in English, incidentally—showed the date of their marriage as August 24, 1852. Though I haven't yet been able to find John Metzger's entry in the previous census, his intended was easily found in the household of Theodore and Cecelia "Weast" in the 1850 census. 

It was in that census, though it was hard to read the handwriting, where I first gleaned the idea that the Wiest family had emigrated from France. Just to be sure, I followed the family from Ohio to Dubois County, Indiana, after John and Mary Ann's wedding, to see whether that birth designation was repeated in subsequent records. Sure enough, France was the answer for the subsequent census in Indiana, as well as for the following two decades' records. It wasn't until after John's 1896 death, when Mary Ann lived with her eldest son Frank, that he reported her birthplace as Germany.

Was that simply a matter of changing the information to the politically correct designation of the time? I don't think so. Again, reading between the lines, I believe that unexpected birth designation for a German-speaking immigrant can provide us a clue as to the family's origin: the borderland region once known as Alsace and Lorraine, now in France. Their centuries-old borderland disputes make that one location a likely candidate for such mixed messages over the decades, true, but just looking at the history of the dialects spoken in that region over the years can give us an idea of why someone said to have been born in France could actually be a native speaker of a German dialect.

Which is why I began by asking about the Swabian dialect. Years ago, many who lived in Alsace spoke a dialect similar to Swabian, which is a form of high German. Yet, Alsace is considered to be part of France, not Germany. Similarly, what is now the neighboring Lorraine also has a German-speaking population in the northeastern part of the region, known as Moselle.

Just knowing these details about the languages and dialects spoken throughout the history of these two regions can help point us to the possible homeland of the immigrating—and "German" speaking—Wiest family of France, and perhaps, the origin of the Metzger family, as well.  

When "I Don't Know" Can't be the Answer

 

If you ever hope to get past your brick wall ancestor, the phrase "I don't know" cannot be part of your vocabulary. If you want to find those answers, you have to know what you're looking for before you begin a successful search. That doesn't mean you already know the answers, but it does mean you at least need to find a factual toehold before you can grasp the rest of your ancestor's picture.

Thus, before we begin puzzling over the phantom relative I found in my mother-in-law's Metzger line, we need to start with an inventory of what we do know—or at least the details which seem to be most likely facts.

In today's example, that "phantom" family member was a previously unknown son of my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather, immigrant Michael Metzger. In all the records I could find for him, his name was represented as John Metzger, but apparently he also went by the name Johann Metzger—especially after he surfaced far from home in a small town called Ferdinand in Dubois County, Indiana.

Just today, in laying out the facts I've already accumulated on this John (or Johann) Metzger, I learned enough background information to connect some dots in his story line which hadn't previously made much sense to me. For instance, I couldn't understand why, if the man was known in earlier years as John Metzger in records back in Perry County, Ohio, where his family had settled, he would become known as an adult as Johann rather than John. Looking up a brief entry on the town of Ferdinand helped explain, for instance, why his headstone clearly listed his name as Johann: the town was settled mostly by German-speaking immigrants from central Europe.

Since John Metzger had married in Perry County in 1852, I had expected to see his entry in the 1850 census, but so far I haven't located him listed under either given name, John or Johann. The digitized marriage entry was difficult to read on the bottom of the page in Perry County court records, but thankfully a volunteer had posted a clearer copy of that record in his Find A Grave memorial. 

After that point in 1852, John Metzger and his bride, the former Mary Ann Wiest, showed up in Dubois County records in Indiana until the point of their passing, in 1896 and 1917, respectively. Oldest child Frank was born there in 1853, followed by four more sons and one daughter. Interestingly, in all the U.S. Census records which included his name from 1860 through 1880, this mystery relative was listed not as Johann but as John Metzger.

Working from those small points which were the familiar toehold of what little I knew about the man, a picture began to emerge. It took following through on each of John and Mary Ann's children for that picture to take shape. An entry on third-born son William, long after his parents' passing, was the stroke of luck which confirmed his parents' German-speaking heritage: William happened to be included in the expanded section of the 1940 census, which provided the information that the language he remembered speaking in his childhood home was German, not English. Surely that detail echoes back to previous generations as well, reminding me that John's parents also were German speaking residents in their adopted home in Ohio.

Just reading between the lines on those few things that we do know about a supposed "brick wall" ancestor can lead to fresh understanding which, once we think about it, can lead to more clues and, eventually, answers. When we begin a search for a new ancestor, we may presume at first that we don't know anything, but even grasping for the one detail we can say is true can connect us with a corollary piece of information which will help us along our way in that research mode. Each step may indeed be a baby step, but it leads us closer to sketching in the picture of who that mystery ancestor might have been.

Phantom Genealogy

 

It is an eerie feeling, discovering an ancestor's sibling when none used to be there before. I sometimes feel like I've been researching phantoms in my family tree when those mystery relatives appear. Where there had been no indication of the person's existence, suddenly there he was.

Now that I'm revisiting the family line of my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather, Michael Metzger, this is one detail I'll need to tackle. Though I can explain away the missing family member—Michael apparently had three children born in his European homeland before traveling to Pennsylvania, where two more were born before the final move to Ohio, all before 1825—I still do need to document his existence. The trouble is, while the others dutifully remained with their parents through the entire immigration journey, this one phantom family member did not. With a scenario like that, it could be easy to imagine missing that son entirely.

While Michael Metzger died before the 1850 census—plus, with no sign yet of a will,  no other paper trail to indicate the names of everyone in his household—almost all of his children remained in Perry County, Ohio, where they can be found in that 1850 census listing plus every subsequent decade's record until the last of the Metzger children passed in 1911.

Notice, however, that that is almost all of his children. One son apparently left and headed west to Dubois County, Indiana, shortly after his 1852 wedding in Perry County. I've seen him listed in some records as John Metzger, while others represent his name as Johann, making the search more challenging. If it hadn't been for a volunteer's work on his Find a Grave memorial and eight DNA matches flagged by Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool, I would have totally missed this collateral line.

So far, I've worked my way through seven of those eight DNA matches, and the lines all lead back to this same Metzger ancestor. I keep pinching myself to make sure I have not fallen asleep or daydreamed my way into imagining this connection. But the paper trail holds out. The DNA told the real story. It's time to learn more about this phantom relative Johann Metzger's story and try to discover why he left the rest of the family in Ohio to strike out on his own in Indiana.

Letting DNA be the Guide

 

Collateral lines are the key to figuring out that multitude of DNA matches, but what happens after discovering a previously-unknown additional child of that shared ancestor? With this month's research focus on my mother-in-law's Metzger line, that is exactly what I'll be tackling.

Michael Metzger, my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather, immigrated to the United States along with his young family. Best I can tell, they arrived in Pennsylvania before the birth of their son Joseph in 1819. Then within the next five years, they moved once again, this time to Ohio, where the family's journey ended.

The problem is, there were apparently children whose identity seemed to slip through the cracks in those early years, and only showed up on my genealogy radar a couple years ago, when I last focused on this family line.

Fortunately for me, descendants of one of those mystery children have shown up on my husband's DNA matches at Ancestry.com.

All told, my husband has seventy four DNA matches at Ancestry.com attributed via ThruLines to Michael Metzger's descendants. Thirty four of them trace back to Michael's namesake son, Michael junior, my husband's direct line. Another six are supposedly descendants of Joseph, that first American-born child of the Metzger family. A daughter Elizabeth has seven descendants who match my husband, and another son, Jacob, yielded nineteen matches.

That mystery child, though, actually became the line from which eight more DNA matches descend, a hopeful sign that I did indeed miss another child in the Michael Metzger family line. The closest of those matches, a fourth cousin once removed, matches my husband with forty seven centiMorgans—not a large number, but reasonably within the range determined by Blaine Bettinger's Shared centiMorgan Project interactive version at DNA Painter.

Of course, there are other possible relationships that can also match at the same level, but at the beginning of a research project, this sounds like a promising sign. What we'll need to do first is review the information already gathered on this possible son of Michael Metzger, then see what else can be found about this man's family history. Along the way, I'll be working on the other DNA matches descending from this same son, to see what else can be learned from those lines of descent. There are still so many loose ends to tie up concerning this son who left the Metzgers' Ohio home to build a life of his own, far from the rest of the family.

Revisiting a Metzger Mess

 

It's a new month, and hopefully a time to view an old research problem with fresh eyes. This month's focus regarding my Twelve Most Wanted for 2024 will be the family of founding immigrant Michael Metzger, my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather who eventually settled in Ohio. Not that I haven't worked on this family before—they had stumped me back in 2022—but this time, I hope to take a different approach.

A main focus will be to revisit all my husband's DNA matches related to the Metzger line—of which, thankfully, there are many—to learn about the descendants of the collateral lines in this family group. Apparently, when I last worked on this line, I had missed some of Michael Metzger's children. Aware of that possibility happening again, I want to review my work from two years ago to check for completeness, as well as thorough documentation. And, of course, to review those DNA matches at each company where my husband has tested.

One challenge with this month's research focus is that Michael Metzger was a far more recent immigrant to this country than, say, the Ijams line we examined last month. Michael, born sometime in the 1780s, did not arrive in America until just before the 1819 birth of his son Joseph. My question is: what was his country of origin? Different possibilities have been suggested by various researchers—either Germany or Switzerland—and I'd like to find some solid confirmation of this.

We'll start this month's exploration on the immigrant Metzger family with a review of current DNA matches tomorrow, then look at what has already been confirmed about Michael Metzger next week.