Thanks Aunt Jean!

Well!  So much has happened, I don't know where to start.   Sisters Anna Jean Spence Wood on left and Nellie (Na) Spence Oliveto on right, daughters of Howard and Nellie Spence.  Their cousin Jean Robertson Brendel, daughter of Bessie Spence Robertson, in the middle.  At Grannie Phoebe and Grampa Bill's house on Aberdeen St. in Springhill, about 1940.

I started DNA testing to find my children's paternal biological family, since Doug was adopted.  But he died before DNA testing existed, so the genealogists at Ancestry told me to test all 3 of our children.  With all 3 of them, I was told, all of Doug's DNA would be present somewhere.  

It's funny now how excited I was when I saw those first matches!  They were clues to where Doug's father came from and where he lived!  Now, it's laughable, because I have thousands of matches and those first ones are so far removed.  But I started out by trying to sort and triangulate my family, since I know them, and if I could figure out mine, I could apply that method to his.

More and more cousins on my side contacted me - we searched each others' trees for new relatives, I told them stories they had never heard, they sent me pictures I had never seen - and lo and behold, my pictures matched their stories -  it became more and more fun.  

Picnic, possibly Cameron Beach, Nova Scotia, about 1940

Back row - Kate Lynster, Frank Robertson, Jean Robertson Brendel, Howard Spence, Bud Lynster

Front row - Nellie Spence, Mona Spence Hannah, Marjorie Spare Dyrsen

Kids in front - Nellie (Na) Spence Oliveto, Anna Jean Spence Wood, Howie Spence
This is a group of 4 families of Grannie Phoebe & Grampa Bill's children: Bessie, Harmon, Howard, and Helena - but only Howard appears in the picture.  Bessie has 3 kids in the picture: Frank, Jean, and foster daughter Marjorie.  Harmon has daughter Mona.  Howard is there with wife Nellie and children Na, Anna Jean, and Howie.  And Helena's husband Bud is there with his sister Kate.

Until I exchanged info with a 4th cousin who was an Acker.  Our trees were congruent, and we had DNA matches in common, but we weren't connected.  Surely one of us had made a research mistake somewhere, and I hoped it wasn't me!  Then Cousin Acker pointed out that Ancestry had dropped all matches below 8 cM.  Our connection must be below that.

I realized that the DNA account I was using on Ancestry was my daughter's, and as much Acker DNA as she had, I would have double.  Giving me double the relatives!  It was beyond time for me to do mine.  So I did.   Cousin Acker and I still weren't related, but a new observation had appeared.  Some of my DNA matches had trees that went back further than mine, and that gave me a link - DNA evidence - to the old country.

Most researchers have a wall they hit that they can't find any info past - it could be slavery because records weren't kept on individual slaves, or immigration where they don't know their ancestor's real name or country of origin.  My wall is 1783 - the year the American Revolutionary War ended.  Most of my maternal ancestors, all from Nova Scotia, are descendants of Loyalists, people who were on the losing side of the war.  They left their homes in the new United States for Canada.  But which American colony they came from is a mystery.

Baby Jean held by her grandfather, Joseph Ellis Robertson.  Jean's father Joseph Edwin Robertson is on left and her uncle Havelock Robertson on right.  Valley Stream, New York, 1928.

My DNA matches' trees brought me back to about 1800 - the approximate time that my ancestors appeared in Nova Scotia, whether from England, Scotland, Ireland, or the former colonies.  If I could go back another generation, I could leap over the wall into the old country.  There is one Acker cousin left in my mother's generation - my 94-year-old Aunt Jean.  Who graciously provided a lot of spit into a tube.

Aunt Jean is the reason we have jumped over the wall.  She has given me 4 new ancestors so far, because some of her matches have trees that go back to 1775.

Jean's great-grandfather Isaac John McSparling Acker on the deck of his ship, about 1860.  We believe he was a master mariner (ship captain) in the Coast Guard. 

The Revolutionary War was a civil war before the Civil War.  Neighbors and even families were divided in their beliefs.  Even a famous Founding Father like Benjamin Franklin had a divided family - his son William was the royal governor of New Jersey.  This has really brought home to me the tragedy of the Revolution:  the Civil War at least pitted region against region.  But in the Revolution, your enemy could be on the next farm, in the next street, or even the next bedroom.  And if they didn't kill you, you may have to kill them.

The Ackers, the Rushtons, the Coons - they didn't come here with their whole family.  Some people stayed in the States, and even fought on the opposite side.  Aunt Jean's DNA matches have found it easy to trace their ancestors - some of their lineage is recorded in their Daughters of the American Revolution application. Her DNA relatives go back to people who lived in New York before the war, and were still there 7 years later, in the 1790 census, and then 1800, 1810, and so on.

I never thought about that before - when Esther and John B. Acker came with their little boy and baby girl, they left behind their parents and their siblings.  When Mary and John Rushton came with their children and grandchildren, I think their parents were dead, but they left Mary's brothers behind, at the very least.  I guess all immigrants expect to never see their family again, but did they write each other, or did they consider each other to be traitors?

So now I am happily researching people on the other side of 1783.  There is lots of stuff to be found!  Stay tuned! 

Me with Jean Robertson Brendel, Christmas 2019