The roadblock in the Y line
It’s a sad state of affairs, for sure, this Father’s Day in the United States, when so many people are celebrating their YDNA forebears.
And The Legal Genealogist uses that term “affair” with deliberation since it clearly was an affair that’s to blame here.
Look at this image:
On the left my father Hugo Hermann Geissler. Born 5 July 1921, baptized 12 February 1922, Bremen, Germany.1
In the center his father, my grandfather, Hugo Ernst Geissler. Born 24 March 1891, baptized 26 April 1891, Bad Köstritz, in what is now the German state of Thüringen and was then the principality of Reuss jüngere Linie.2
On the right his father, my great grandfather, Hermann Eduard Geissler.
And therein lies the tale — the tale of that affair.
In the Lutheran church records for the little town of Ossig in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, a single line in the entries of baptisms for 1855 tells the story — and it has sure created a roadblock in my efforts to do any deep YDNA research of my own direct paternal line.
It tells me that Hermann Eduard Geisler (only one S and no ß, that goofy German letter that’s usually translated as SS) was born 20 April 1855. Baptized 21 April 1855. Four separate godparents. And in the columns for parents… You know what I’m gonna say already, don’t you? Yup. Hermann Eduard Geissler was the first-born uneheliches kind (illegitimate child) of Friedrike Geisler.3
Whoever Hermann’s father was — the man with whom his mother had that affair — never gave him his name; Hermann used his mother’s maiden name all his life. We have no clues whatsoever to the father’s identity.
And yes, I’ve YDNA-tested my brothers. They match each other — thank heavens! — but their next closest match is a genetic distance of seven at 67 markers. Our statistical odds of having a common ancestor with that man don’t even reach the 50-50 mark until roughly 13 generations ago. If you figure 25-30 years per generations, we’d be looking somewhere between the early to mid-1600s. In Germany. A country where few people do DNA testing.
Sigh…
Happy Father’s Day.
SOURCES
- Bremen Zionskirche, Taufenbuch 1922 nr. 3, Hugo Hermann Geissler; FHL microfilm 953275. ↩
- Evangelische Kirche Bad Köstritz, Kirchenbuch, Taufregister Seite 69 Nr. 21 aus 1891, Baptismal Record of Hugo Ernst Geissler (digital image of record in possession of JG Russell). ↩
- Evangelische Kirche Ossig (Kr. Zeitz), Taufregister 1855 nr. 4, Hermann Eduard Geisler; Kirchenbuchduplikat, 1799-1874 (Staatarchiv Magdeburg); FHL microfilm 1,335,488. ↩
Judy,
Nothing against Y-DNA (which I love), but in this scenario at-DNA is a better bet. You’re looking for a missing great-great-grandfather, right? You’ll always have a match with second cousins. If there are any aunts or uncles on your father’s side or his cousins, they’d be 2nd cousins or better to any other descendants of the mystery man. If you have any others sharing the other 7 great-great grandparents on you paternal side, you may be able to identify common chromosome segments for them. Then that mystery match who fits into none of them becomes a candidate. It’s not sure fire, but it limits the possibilities. I’d bet you’ve checked the civil court records for his bastardy bond which might protect the parish and municipality from liability? They might have precluded a dead beat dad? Or maybe an ugly divorce were the undesired man is dispatched into oblivion by a wife who substituted her maiden name for his? I’ve had both scenarios in my own lines. These things happen. We even have a Y-chromosome showing up in descendants of grandma XXX who ran a whore house in Nebraska … one of those ancestors must have been naughty. That happens too!
Good luck finding your mystery man.
The records in Germany, where this occurred, are a bit different from what you’d expect here (no bastardy bonds, for example). I did have some hopes that the legal responsibility for the child might have been referenced when the mother married with court permission four years later (to a man whose name Hermann didn’t take, so not likely the father) but those court records are among the few that don’t survive for that time period. And in terms of autosomal DNA, even fewer Germans are doing autosomal testing than YDNA testing, so no hits at all. This is going to be a tough one, and we’re in it for the long haul.
Maybe try Big Y? There are, at FTDNA, 202 descendant nodes of E-V13. I have examples of no matches with STRs (e.g., Y-37, Y-67, etc.) who do have matches with Big Y (SNPs). But this usually occurs with more distant matches. That is, if you get a hit it may give you a surname, but it’s likely a distant relative. Last day of the sale is today
The chance of getting a good match with BigY when there are no close matches at 67 markers is essentially nonexistent. Germans who aren’t testing at 37 and 67 markers are most assuredly not testing at the BigY level!
Well, it depends on definitions. I have several instances of no matches with Y-67, which used STRs and yet get matches with Big Y. If there is enough generational separation, the STR mutations will not pass the matching thresholds. But SNPs, with slower mutation rates will produce a match.
“Germans” need not be in Germany. Indeed, some of my Big Y matches in several branches are from those with European roots living in the USA.
I agree, you have few options. While Big Y is a long shot, it may be the best one?
Ditto here. Nothing past my great grandfather. Worse yet, no baptismal or birth record. And Y-DNA connects with a different surname.
We don’t even have matches to connect to a different surname! 🙁
Blame it on “Fasching”…probably, maybe! When I was in Deutschland in the early 60’s this was about a 3 month Mardi Gras. Tradition went back into the 1600’s. A lot of wives and young women became pregnant during this time. Imagine Mardi Gras with thousands of huge beer halls. Great fun, but some had to live with the after effects.
The reality at this time was that illegitimacy was not unusual in Germany. Marriages required permissions that not everyone could get — and were expensive. So it really wasn’t uncommon for the first or even second child to be born before the marriage. But in this case the mother did marry, when Hermann was four, with court permission — but (sigh) those court records didn’t survive. Whine. 🙁
I am so with you here… similar scenario for my brother, who seems to have a super rare haplotype and whose line is currently stuck, AND my son, whose great-grandfather was “adopted” by his mother’s husband.
The haplogroup we’re in is what I would have expected — a solidly European and common-in-Germany E-V13. I sure wish my German cousins would start testing…
Right there with you on Y-DNA troubles. Only have ONE male cousin who did test at the 67 marker but is a difference of 3 on the 67 marker test. So far, have not found the missing links from dear ole great granddad who walked out on the family. Sigh.
It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Then again I know folks who have the opposite problem: too many matches! Sigh… never easy, is it?