Recently, while working on my tree, I realized I was a recipient of a random act of genealogy kindness, and I naturally passed on this kindness onto someone else. Sometimes these random acts are a genealogy breakthrough for the recipient. Which happened to me and, in turn, the person I helped.
Here is what happened to me and maybe this has happened to you too.
Received one email
FamilySearch sent me a hint to my email about a record about my Swiss 2nd great-grandmother. I checked it out and said ‘yes, everything matches’, and added the record. I knew from her marriage record that Anna Carolina’s parents were Gottfried Steiner and Elisabeth Kreienbühl. This led me to find her parent’s marriage record. That record listed their birthdates, fathers and where they were from. All seemed to be going well, but I wasn’t finding anyone matching my tree on Ancestry or records.
(By the way if you are not familiar with FamilySearch they are the best, are free and for this line have the best records for my Swiss lines.)
For this line I decided to look at Geneanet to see if my lines were on there. I am not that familiar with Geneanet, but when I was helping my friend Leonard, which we uncovered a few mysteries you might be interested in, Geneanet was a suggested hint on Ancestry for his tree. Mind you, I will not add Geneanet as a direct source as, while the tree might be correct, it has no sources listed to prove it is correct.
Instead, I will add the weblink to my tree to source it and remind me where I can go to find it in the future.
Sure enough, I found a few trees that had my ancestors listed. I contacted two people: one that was Steiner and the other Krienbühl to see if we were related.
All I was expecting to hear back was ‘yes, we are related’ or ‘no, that is not the right line’. Another thing I noticed as I contacted them was that English was not their preferred language. I thought maybe they lived near where my ancestors came from.
Kreienbühl Lines
The first one to contact me was the Kreienbühl lines and I will call him Matthew. Matthew first said ‘yes, we are related’ and proceeded to give me more information with the direct links to FamilySearch records. For some reason, I decided to have him look at my records as I was having an issue with the dates. I am glad I did, as he took one look and found the correct parents for Elisabeth Kreienbühl.
Another issue was my 2nd great-grandmother’s Birth/Baptism record. On the index, it states February was the month she was born. When I looked at the record, I did not see February written. I even tried putting what I thought I saw in Google Translate with no luck. He told me it was February and I decided to go to FamilySearch Wiki and look at the German Genealogy Word List and, sure enough, there was the alternate spelling for February. On the record, it was abbreviated, but he confirmed that what I saw was February.
See if you can make out February in this photo. Hint look for the number 6.
One other discovery that I would never have known about and would be confused about to this day is the use of a nickname for the surname. When Matthew gave me some records, I noticed on Jacob’s second marriage record he was listed as a widower.
So, I searched for Jacob’s first marriage record and found it, which it was fine, but when I found his wife’s death record it listed his surname as Jacob Giger. I emailed Matthew my findings and he responded back saying Giger was a nickname and meant “Violinist Jacob” and he said his father was listed as Giger Carl in the indexes. They did not use the Giger on every single record and sometimes they listed both surnames on the Baptism record.
A few days later I was contacted by “Robert” from the Steiner lines.
Steiner Lines
Reading his response, I learned he was not related to me, but I was surprised what came next. He took the time to look up records and give me all the information and sources for my Steiner family! 2 whole generations worth of information was now at my disposal. Remember I had my 2nd great-grandmother’s Baptism/Birth record? He took me further back and gave me birth and death records with the source information for my 3rd and 4th great-grandparents.
His email was in French, but with Google Translate, I quickly transcribed so I could understand the information about my family. I just couldn’t get over how this wasn’t his family, but yet his random act of kindness helped me break through my Steiner lines.
During this same time, I was contacted by a DNA cousin.”
DNA Cousin
At the same time I was receiving my emails from the Kreienbühl and Steiner lines, I received an email from Brett, one of my many DNA cousins on Ancestry. One of the first things he asked me is how are we related. Off to the right of the message on my laptop was his relationship to me with a “View” icon button to explore the DNA connection. I noticed that his grandparents are listed from Switzerland which, of course, is what I was working on.
His tree is fairly small with no information past his grandparents. So, I poked around on his tree and also used the Ancestry search and found the Naturalization record and their emigration record. With this information, I told him when and where his grandparents were born. On the emigration record, I find that his grandparents traveled together but were not married yet. Her emigration record listed her father and her final destination was her brother-in-law in New Jersey, while his listed father’s last name and his final destination mentioned a friend but at the same address as his future wife’s.
From that, I tell Brett the final destination with the name, and he made the connection to one of his close DNA cousins with close surname that I mentioned. From that information, I did more and found his grandmother’s sister and the sister’s emigration record had her mother’s name listed. So now, Brett had more information to explore. You can say he also broke through a brick wall.
Random Acts of Genealogy Kindness
Maybe you have been a recipient of similar random acts of genealogy kindness where it helped you breakthrough a dead-end line. Or you provided the kindness like I passed my random act of kindness to Brett where eventually we might find our common DNA connection, but if not, I sure gave him more leads to explore. Just remember, if you are a recipient of a random act of genealogy kindness, pass it on as it goes a long way in helping someone maybe have breakthrough on their tree. As they say “Let’s Keep it going!”
It's Not a Mystery
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YES. all true. Nancy Dru told me to turn the page on the immigration doc she mentioned (which i had seen before, but had not gotten much new info from), and there it was… a familiar name to make a solid connection to a close cousin i knew nothing about and could not place until then. the first cousin i could dna match to my father’s side (my mother’s side had MANY, so many). she then helped me with finding the line up to my grandmother’s sister (who i also didn’t know about), and that info has allowed me to have a solid name on a great grandparent on my father’s side.
a true act of kindness indeed.