My Non-Rowland Ancestors

Like all of you, I have thousands of ancestors that are non-Rowland ancestors. The image above is a fan chart of my family tree going out to my 7x great-grandparents. Since the number of ancestors per generation doubles with each successive generation, we should all have 512 people that make up our 7x great-grandparent list (in theory). However, there are few solid lines visible in the last three generations, slightly to the right of the middle. This indicates that a particular ancestor is already in the chart, as when second cousins marry and they share a set of great-grandparents. This is an example of what is called pedigree collapse, and it reduces the actual number of unique individuals for a given generation.

This may sound like a unique situation, but the simple fact is that we all have pedigree collapse in our family trees. Think about it, if the quantity doubles with each generation, then that means we have 4.3 billion unique 30x great-grandparents and 1.4 trillion unique 35x great-grandparents. Clearly, this is not the case, especially if you believe we all descend from Adam and Eve. It has been said that extremely long-range family relationships are more of a web than a tree.

The image below shows my 8 great-grandparents and 16 great-great-grandparents. Here is a brief description of what I know about my great-greats:

Paternal Ancestors

Alexander Rowland (1826-1876) was born in Stark County, Ohio, and passed away in Wood County, Ohio. He and I are one of the 2,400+ documented descendants of James Rowland, who is the patriarch of Group B in our Xref Project. Alex was a Lieutenant in Company D, 111th Ohio Infantry, in the Civil War. He was among the first settlers in Wood County, Ohio.

Hanna Dull (1831-1874) was born in Henry County, Ohio, and also passed away there. Her sister Catherine married Alexander’s brother John, which made for many Rowland-Dull descendants in NW Ohio.

Silas Van Tassel (1829-1910) was born in Ohio, but his family came from New York. The Van Tassel line is well documented back to the early 1600s. The first of these ancestors, Cornelis Jansen Van Texel, arrived on Long Island from the Isle of Texel, off the coast of the Netherlands. There he married Catoneras, a member of the Montauk tribe near East Neck, New York.

Rachel Mollock (1842-1925) was born in Akron, Summit County, Ohio, and passed away in Jackson County, Michigan. Both of her parents, Frederick Mollock and Catherine Sugar, are believed to have been born in Germany.

Richard Norman (1827-1910) was born in the Barnstaple district of Devon, England. He migrated to Elgin County, Ontario about 1854. I do not have many DNA matches with Richard as a common ancestor. I do not know if this is the result of fewer test takers in Canada and England, or if I just have a much smaller than average amount of Richard’s DNA.

Jane Parker (1827-1876) was born in Braunton, Devon, England. Jane Parker is a common name in Devon, and I have been unable to trace this line any further. Like her husband Richard, I have very few DNA matches for her.

Adney Minard (1834-1903) lived his entire life in Elgin, Ontario, Canada. The Minard ancestors supposedly came from France, although I’m still looking for a confirmed source of this. They were in New York by the 1740s. His grandfather married Abigail Camp, and her grandfather married a Baldwin. It is through these Baldwin ancestors that we can trace a line back to royalty. Yes, we are descendants, or I should say, among the many millions of descendants of William the Conqueror.

Clarissa Ferguson (1843-1906) lived her entire life in Ontario, Canada. Her father and grandfather were both born in New York, and her grandmother was from Massachusetts. Beyond this, we know very little about her ancestors.

Maternal Ancestors

Nathaniel Dryden Wilson (1823-1876) was born in Washington County, Virginia, and passed away in St Clair County, Missouri. He relocated there about the year 1867. Nathaniel served in Company C, 13th Battalion of the Virginia Light Artillery during the Civil War. He received the name of his grandfather, Nathaniel Dryden (1745-1780), who fought in the American Revolution. Unfortunately, Lieutenant Wilson died in the Battle of King’s Mountain. He is honored by name on a monument at King’s Mountain Battlefield Park.

Elizabeth Reid (1828-1893) was born in Virginia and died in Missouri. Her ancestors include Arthur Orr, Benjamin Keys, Elizabeth Stuart, and others, making her very well connected to the known pioneer families of Washington County, Virginia. As a side note, one of my favorite instrumental pieces is “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” by the Allman Brothers Band, although we must assume they were not referring to my great-great-grandmother.

William J Burton (1836-aft 1910) was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, and moved to St Clair County, Missouri. He, and his father before him, grew up in Pittsylvania County, which was the heart of tobacco country. There was a renowned Burton Tobacco company in the area, but as far as we can tell, they were not closely related.

Mary Elizabeth “Betty” Tarpley (1849-1883) was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, and passed away there before the family moved to Missouri. Her parents were Robert M Tarpley and Martha J Robertson. We know little about them, although I have numerous Tarpley and Robertson DNA matches, so it appears I got more than my fair share of their DNA.

Abraham Brown (1844-1928) was born in Vermillion County, Illinois, and passed away in Bates County, Missouri. It seems his birthplace was more or less by chance, being on the route his family was taking to Missouri. Genealogists of the past documented this line well in “The Ancestors and Descendants of Abraham Brown” 1986 by Wilma Henderson, and in “The Ancestors and Descendants of Abraham Braun the Miller and Jacob Braun the Wagonmaker” 1983 by John B Fisher and Margaret B Anderson. The document by Wilma Henderson is available in the free download area of our store.

Mary Emma Zona Minnick (1855-1937) lived her entire life in Missouri. Her father was from Rockingham County, Virginia, and his father was born in Pennsylvania. Her mother was Eleanor Stribling from Clark County, Kentucky.

Frank Henry Diehl, Sr (1827-1906) was born in Baden, Germany, and passed away in Bates County, Missouri. He came to this country in the 1840s. The Diehl Family Reunion was a large event every summer in Bates County. It was my introduction to large extended families and genealogy. The “Genealogy of Frank Henry Diehl Sr 1827-1906”, written by Elsie M (Diehl) Davis in 1963 tells the story of how he came to America and lists his descendants.

Philippina Katherine Rimmelin (1847-1926) was born in Kittersburg, Baden, Germany, and passed away in Bates County, Missouri. Frank Henry Diehl’s first wife passed away in 1866, and then Frank wrote back home and had Philippina sent to America to be his new wife. She arrived in July of 1868 and they were married the following month.

DNA Clusters

DNA clustering is a process to identify and group DNA matches that descend from common ancestors. In its simplest form, your DNA matches from your mother’s side of the family constitute one cluster, while those on your father’s side are a second. The MyHeritage autocluster tool is extremely helpful, but you will need to pay to access it. If you have an AncestryDNA account, then you can use their tools to perform your own DNA clustering. It is a manual process, but the video How to Cluster your DNA Matches with Ancestry’s DNA Matches provides a very good explanation and process to follow.

I used a process similar to the one in the video above to perform clustering analysis on my DNA matches at Ancestry. I defined 16 clusters, one for each of my 16 great-great-grandparents. Since they were each a child of two different gene pools, there are 32 family surnames represented in my clusters. Here are the current quantities of DNA matches in each of my clusters at AncestryDNA (data as of January 2020):

• 301 Rowland-Moorhead
• 339 Dull-Koester
• 318 Van Tassel-Richmond
• 84 Mollock-Sugar
• 13 Norman-Pearce
• 12 Parker- Unknown
• 84 Minard-Unknown
• 23 Ferguson-Middaugh
• 480 Wilson-McQuown
• 280 Reid-Keys
• 257 Burton-Thomas
• 120 Tarpley-Robertson
• 227 Brown-Brown
• 334 Minnick-Stribling
• 26 Diehl-Unknown
• 33 Rimmelin-Berel

I also have two mystery clusters. They are labeled as such because, in theory, all of my DNA matches should fit snugly into one of the 16 DNA clusters defined above.

• 107 Mystery Cluster #1
• 9 Mystery Cluster #2

The 107 people in Mystery Cluster #1 are all DNA matches to each other and to me (and some of my close relatives). However, they do not match any of the people in the other clusters. The same is true for the second and smaller mystery cluster. This is usually the result of an NPE. NPE is the genealogical shorthand for Non-Paternity Event, which is when the surname of the child is not the same as their biological father. There are many possible scenarios for this, including:

• adoption, taking the surname of a step-father or guardian
• child taking the surname of the mother (single parent, unknown father, surrogacy)
• an apprentice/salve/tenant/vassal taking the name of the master, landlord, or chief
• formal (legal) or informal name change or stage name

Every family has secrets, and these two mysteries revealed by DNA remain a secret — at least to me.

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