#09 (Vol 3, No 2) - June 2022 - Rowland Genealogy

Hello Rowland Genealogists,

In this issue, we look into the status of the 1950 U.S. census, learn about new descendants in Y-DNA Group B, and delve into three new “untested” groupings with descendant trees. We also discuss website updates, additional resources, and much more.

Y-DNA Tests on Sale for Father’s Day

What would Father’s Day be without the annual Y-DNA test sale at FamilyTreeDNA? The best (and only) place for Y-DNA testing kits is having a sale for a limited time. You can get the Y-37 test for $99, Y-111 for $219, or learn all there is to know about your Y chromosome with the Big Y-700 for $399. See more at the FamilyTreeDNA sale page. (Note: RowlandGenealogy is not affiliated with FamilyTreeDNA and it receives no compensation for this recommendation).

1950 U.S. Census

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released the United States 1950 census on April 1. However, it did not become immediately included in searches at FamilySearch.org and other genealogical record sites. FamilySearch used computers to scan and automatically index the records. They then launched a Community Project with humans reviewing, verifying, and correcting the computer-generated indexing. Presently, seven states (Delaware, New Hampshire, Nevada, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming) have been completed and are available to search. You can learn more, or join the Community Project, on the FamilySearch 1950 U.S. Census page.

Rowland DNA Group B

DNA Group B: This group is of special interest to me for the simple reason that I am a member of it. A couple of years ago, I tagged many of the WikiTree profiles in this group with a “needs descendants added” flag. In my so-called spare time over the past few months, I added 188 new profiles. The quantity of profiles in this group now exceeds 2,800.

New DNA Untested Groups

I have added the following groups to the DNA Group Untested page. If you descend from any of these, then please take a Y-DNA test and join the Rowland Project.

Warren County, North Carolina: Burch Rowland (c1765-c1835) was born in Warren County, North Carolina, and passed away in Montgomery County, Tennessee. Many of his 113 WikiTree descendants migrated to Lee County, Arkansas while others remained near Montgomery County, Tennessee.

Delmarva Peninsula: Samuel Rowland (1676-1727), was born somewhere on the Delmarva Peninsula (now Delaware and the eastern shores of Maryland and Virginia) and passed away in Sussex County, Delaware. He currently has 146 documented descendants on WikiTree. It should be noted that Cecil County, Maryland is at the northern edge of this peninsula and is home to numerous Rowland families from Y-DNA Group B. However, there is no known relationship between these lines, which DNA testing will one day prove or disprove.

New South Wales (from Middlesex): The earliest known paternal member of this line is William Rowland (1807-1850). He was born in Middlesex, England, and died in London. After his death, his widow and children emigrated to New South Wales, Australia. There are 242 descendants documented on WikiTree, all in New South Wales.

Website Updates

Be Fruitful and Multiply – Our page featuring Rowland families with 12 or more children had 38 listings added. Barbara (Roland) Keithley (1757-1847) appears to be the titleholder for “Most Children Birthed by a Roland” with 18 offspring to her credit.

Untimely and Unnatural Deaths – The names and particulars of more than two dozen individuals who met an early demise were added to this page.

Other Resources

Roland Family Ancestry is a private group on Facebook focusing on the descendants of Rudolph Neat Roland (1806-1901) in and around Owen, Harrison, and Grant counties of northern Kentucky. Administered by Cheryl Roland and Cindy Meredith, the group is notable for the numerous old photographs they share. This line is believed to be part of Rowland Y-DNA Group I (although currently untested/unverified) and traces back to Gasper Roland (1721-1809).

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913 is a “fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London’s central criminal court.”

Tips and Tricks

As a subscriber to this newsletter, you receive an email each time we publish a new issue of the newsletter. What you may not be aware of is that you can also subscribe to our website. By doing so, you will receive an email notification each time we publish a new article. If this is of interest to you, then go to the RowlandGenealgy website. In the right-hand sidebar area, just below the “Subscribe to Rowland Genealogy Newsletter” widget is the “Subscribe to website” widget.

Past Newsletter Issues: Remember, you can access all past issues of the Rowland Genealogy Newsletter.

Recent Articles

A World Apart (published May 26, 2022). The aptly named “A World Apart” World War II monument in Savannah, Georgia, memorializes two Rowland men. Charles G Rowland and Albert A Rowland, unrelated but both from Chatham County Georgia, gave their lives in service to their country during World War II. The DNA line for each is unknown, making these two lines part of the Rowland Y-DNA Untested grouping.

Charles W Rowland and His Gold Bullets (published April 29, 2022). Charles W Rowland, an expert marksman, became famous for setting world records and making his own bullets from solid gold. Although well-known among the other rifleman of his day (and those of present-day), his fame likely peaked with the general public four years after his death. At that time, “This Curious World” published a drawing of him, which was syndicated in newspapers nationwide. Charles is part of Rowland Y-DNA Group E.

Augustus Butler Rowland Receives Medal From President Coolidge (published April 11, 2022). On April 29, 1925, President Calvin Coolidge bestowed the prestigious Gold Lifesaving Medal on Augustus Butler Rowland at a special White House ceremony. On January 21, 1925, Rowland and three other crew members were aboard an F-5-L “flying boat” seaplane that crashed near Gull Point in Escambia Bay, northeast of Pensacola, Florida. Despite suffering the pain from two broken ribs and a double fracture of his right arm, he dove down to the wreckage, successfully saving Phillip D McCall, an unconscious and injured shipmate, from drowning. Augustus Rowland is part of Rowland Y-DNA Group J.

Rowland Burials – Where In The World Are We Buried? (published March 29, 2022) Where in the world are our Rowland and Roland ancestors buried? It was a question I had, so I did a little digging to come up with an answer. On a worldwide basis, the FindAGrave website currently contains 93,134 memorials for people with the surname Rowland, Roland, and other spelling variations. Pennsylvania is the final resting place for the largest quantity with 6,814.

Free WikiTree Help

I am convinced that WikiTree’s vast richness of tools, its policy of a single profile per ancestor, and its pledge to remain free make it the best choice for documented ancestral tree building. I’m also aware that WikiTree can be somewhat daunting to newcomers, especially those without prior experience with document markup language techniques.

Therefore, I will help you get started by connecting you (or your recent Rowland/Roland ancestors) to the global tree. Please note that I will not add living people to the tree. That is something you will need to do so that you can control the privacy level. If this is of interest to you, then please email rowlandgenealogy@gmail.com with your ancestral information. Note: if you already have a public tree documented on another site, then I can work with that.

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Ron Rowland
Editor & Publisher

PS – I welcome your suggestions for improvements, features, topics, and website restructuring. Please let me know of any errors, inconsistencies, or additional Rowland/Roland lines.