I’ve been asked to describe the process of how I found a surname of a man that used an alias name and was of Jewish descent to boot. Number one thing to have is patience and lots of it. Number two is curiosity. Curiosity is what drives me and helps me to think outside the box. And number three thing to have is determination. Without these, this process can become daunting and frustrating.
When beginning a journey such as this, you always begin with family members and what they know. Unfortunately, both my mother and my aunt didn’t know of their biological paternal grandfather. They had always believed that their step grandfather was their grandfather and knew no different. Something that started so innocently by my cousin as to building a family tree lead to a mystery of intrigue for me. In April of 2017 I wrote a blog called “The Genealogical and Genetic Hunt for Alias ‘John Wallace’”. This blog talks about the documents that were available regarding this man “John Wallace” and the trail of clues left behind. Then on May 6, 2017 I wrote another blog called “DNA Expert & the Search for Alias John Wallace”, where Diahan Southard, a DNA expert, spoke with me regarding what to look for and how to utilize the DNA information provided by AncestryDNA, 23andme and FTDNA. This article provides detailed information that can be of great importance. During this time, I had to think about when you have an endogamous population, an endogamy or pedigree collapse can manifest. Endogamy is a tradition of marriage within the boundaries of cultural, social, religious, ethnic or tribal community in accordance with custom or law. Thus, ensuring in an endogamous community everyone will stem from the same small DNA pool. Pedigree collapse arises when two people share an ancestor that in turn causes the number of precise ancestors in the family tree of their children to be smaller than it could otherwise be. Examples of populations affected include: Ashkenazi Jews, French Canadians, Gottscheers and parts of Mexico. All of which I have within my family from both my parents. Pedigree collapse doesn’t automatically mean endogamy. As I have come to learn all endogamy populations differ from one another. However, for the Ashkenazi Jews the DNA relationship predictions compel a percentage of 2% or more for accuracy. And with at least 150 cM (centimorgans) to even be considered being looked at. As my luck would have it, I didn’t have those DNA matches yet. 2018 came in with trepidation and sadness because a sweet little boy of 15, my nephew, lost his battle to Leukemia in Nov 2017 and now my beautiful mother had been diagnosed with cancer. July came and a little sunshine shined for a few moments. Even though my mother was losing her fight to cancer maybe I could at least provide her with the knowledge of her true maiden name, that she had never known but was curious to know. On July 19th I noticed for the first time a 1st – 2nd cousin match on Ancestry with 388 cM (centimorgans) across 16 segments of DNA. Were my eyes deceiving me? This is where the blog called “Finding the Family Name” picks up the story. What I can say from this point is that when you are looking for an unknown person always get each and every document you can find out there, not just indexes. Use the indexes to find the documents. Then analyze the documents for clues to find other information. Documents if closely analyzed can provide more information than one can imagine. The article called “Analyzing A Document” will provide you with how to go about analyzing the documents. I am a fanatic about documentation and I’ll nit pick a document to death. As you are analyzing remember to think outside the box and do not limit yourself to where a document can lead to. Also trust your gut feelings. When you are looking for a DNA match that has no trees connected to their DNA then these websites can be of use. First you need to learn how to use google to benefit you the most. Digging Up Deep Roots on Facebook shared a great video on how to utilize Google. With this knowledge I went on to find everything that I could find on every website that had this person’s name. List of websites that I used:
With the help of these websites and gut feelings and one DNA match that would not talk and one DNA match that so thankfully listed their parents I was able to recreate a tree and find their connection allowing me to finally discover the true maiden name of my mother and aunt.
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So, as you all know I’ve been on the hunt for alias John Wallace, my mother’s and aunt’s Grandfather, for a while. Below is the possible picture of alias John Wallace. The only true way I was ever going to find out his true name was if I found a first or second cousin due to the fact he was of Jewish descent. They needed to have at least 150cM to even be considered being looked at. That wasn’t happening for the longest time. Finally, this past July I found a 1st – 2nd cousin match on Ancestry, but with no family tree. This meant I had to write a message without scary this person. Nervous as anything I contacted CeCe Moore and she provided a little coaching, which was greatly appreciated. I sent the message and the next day I get this message, “who is yr mother and aunt?”. I told this cousin match the names. The response back was “I don’t think I’d know them. Sorry”. Cece informed me that if this cousin match wanted to speak with her, they could easily look her up on Facebook and send a message to her. I sent a few more messages trying to keep the communication going. But they weren’t having any of it. The only thing I had was a name of this 1st – 2nd cousin. On Aug 4th my mother passed away with never truly knowing her true maiden name. I did tell her about my encounter with this person and what their last name was and that it could be hers too but I wasn’t sure. I decided to put genealogy away for a bit. October came and the spark for the hunt again perked up again when Cece Moore spoke at the Benton Event Center in Benton, Arkansas. I began researching this DNA match like crazy. It felt as though I was stocking them. Facebook was of little to no help because they kept everything private. It didn’t help that this person was born after 1940 and with the name Karish, which was a dime a dozen around the Brooklyn, New York area. So, I decided to transfer my mother’s and aunt’s raw AncestryDNA to MyHeritage DNA. I had already had my mother and aunt do the 23andme, FTDNA and Ancestry. Why not MyHeritage DNA? Well that was the best decision I made. I found another 1st cousin 2 x removed – 2nd cousin 1 x removed cousin match. The best part was that they had put the names of their parents. Nothing else but at least their parents. Just what I needed. Once again I started a family tree for this cousin match and decided not to send any messages till, I could pin point how we are related. I have been able to build a tree going back to this person’s Great Grandparents. The down side is I only found 3 siblings of their Grandmother Regina Karash. The oldest child being born in 1867 and the youngest beginning born in 1888. I figure with that wide of a spread of a time period surely there are more siblings. Some could have stayed back in Poland. Or others could have come to America and I just haven’t found the connection. After utilizing everything I could possibly get my hands on from google to beenverified to newspaper articles, I was able to build a tree. I notice that in 1918 one of the siblings changed their surname from Kaiser to Karash, the siblings followed suit. They changed the name due to the ridicule and harassment of others. Others connected the name of Kaiser to the Kaiser of Germany. One of the brothers that came in 1911 to America and was living in Washington and then moved down to Monroe, Louisiana for one reason or another. But less then a month after he signed the draft registration card, he died from pneumonia. His family was not able to come till 3 years later after WWI. With a short little blurb in a newspaper in Bellingham, Washington of a girl by the name of Rose Karash visiting her aunts and uncles I was able to connect her with her father, the one that moved to Monroe, Louisiana. Once I made that connection, I found her sister and brother and mother. Her brother changed his name from Karash to Karish. Omg! Was this the connection to the other DNA match that wouldn’t share anything or speak? I found a child for Rose’s brother that changed his name from Karash to Karish, just by chance. So, I started pouring my time into investigating her and her immediate family. There is a ton of stuff about her husband. I was 100% sure of the connection, it was just more of a gut feeling. I decided to go on to mylife.com. It provides a short summary of the person. And low and behold it connected this person to their mother, which was the wife of the Rose’s brother. I decided to call this person and they answered and I ask if so and so what their sibling and they confirmed it. The DNA match that wouldn’t speak has a sibling that was so generous with information. We spoke for a long time. I confirmed what they new of and added a lot more details for them. I now have two cousins who are connected by the name of Kaiser. My job now is to learn to read Polish. What I always wanted to learn. I don’t want to say that “this person” is John Wallace yet. I have one person in mind that seems to have many similarities but I have to check for other siblings before I become 100% assured. I want to find all siblings and trace their tracks. My new best cousin is the person I spoke with yesterday. They were so kind as to send a picture of their Grandfather who came to America in 1911. They gave me permission to share it in hopes that if anyone else recognizes him (the man on the left.) than maybe they will contact us and we'll have even a bigger family. Off I go to learn another language and find Polish records.
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Penny Alvarez-KellerGraduated from Arkansas Tech University with a degree in Management / Marketing and a degree in Economics / Finance Archives
February 2023
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