Right before the COVID19 Pandemic, I had PLANS.
The successful busting down of one of my genealogical brick walls led me to believe that following a similarly focused path would lead to another victory. So in the last summer of the Before Times, I made a goal and began to relentlessly pursue it.
That goal was to utilize DNA to figure out the origins of Sarah Tuttle, wife of Philip Hess Bender, Sr.
It’s been said that setting goals turns the invisible into the visible.
With a brick wall ancestor, it often seems like one is chasing a ghost, hoping one day for identity to materialize. The pursuit can last years – decades, even.
This is the story of how setting a concrete goal enabled me – nearly one year after I had set my goal – to finally busted one of the biggest brick walls in my family tree!
DNA Day is here and many have been snapping up DNA test kits on sale this week at FamilyTreeDNA and Ancestry.
Most probably test because they want to learn what the test will tell about their ethnic makeup. But for serious genealogists and family historians, testing opens the doors to exciting yet often bewildering territory.
Here are my top three tips for getting the most out of testing your autosomal DNA:
Illegitimacy often poses serious challenges to tracing one’s roots. This is the roadblock I face with the third of The Three Sarahs.
Sara Rebold/Sarah Raybold, wife of Godfrey Bender, was born 6 Sept. 1765 in Germantown township, Philadelphia.
Her death date is listed in the church registers of St. Michael’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germantown. From the exact age in years, months and days recorded at her burial, I could easily calculate her birth date.
But finding a baptism record proved tricky.
Sarah (Tuttle) Bender’s death certificate contains erroneous information.
Continuing on about my brick walls, The Three Sarahs, let me introduce the next Sarah.
She has eluded me for years.
Sarah Tuttle, the wife of Philip Hess Bender, Sr., was born 7 Apr. 1831 in Pennsylvania, according to her death certificate and this date roughly matches her age given in census records.
She died in 1914, nearly a decade after Pennsylvania began requiring civil registration. So finding out the names of her folks should have been no problem, since parents’ names, if known, were recorded.
But, of course, it wasn’t as simple as that.
Like every genealogist, I have my share of so-called brick wall ancestors. Ones for whom a paper trail is scant or missing.
On my paternal grandmother’s side there are three such ancestors, each with the given name Sarah.
The origins for two of “The Three Sarahs” have long been a mystery with very few clues and even fewer records to assist in figuring out their background. The third Sarah was an illegitimate birth, with no record of who her father may have been.
This post concerns the Sarah for whom I have the least amount of information.
axehandles 