Kunz / Streider Family Revisited
After re-evaluating my process, I’ve decided to go back and look at the families I’ve already looked at.
My mom has one 3rd cousin match that has Peter Kunz and Anna Catherine Streider as her great great grandparents. Her tree was one of the first trees I recreated/mirrored and then linked my mom’s DNA to her tree.
When I first did this, I had no idea what branch of her family my mom would have connections to. When I clicked on the little green hints button, I got a wopping (sarcasm) five shared ancestor hints. However, all 5 led back to Peter Kunz and Anna Catherine Streider. Both were born around 1811-1812 in Germany and both settled in Gillespie County, Texas.
This presents a little problem for me – as far as tracing backward… I’m at a record stand-still. And it seems like all of my mom’s DNA matches are as well. Almost every tree stops at the first generation immigrants.
So… I’m using a slightly different… and much more time consuming method to narrow down where my mom fits into this tree,
I’ve listed out Peter Kunz and Anna Catherine Streider’s children on a piece of paper. I’m working my way down the list.
So here’s a quick example of what I’m doing..
- 1st child (date of birth – date of death)
- 2nd child
- 3rd child
- When I’m done listing all children, I then research the first person on the list and then add their family to the list
- 1st child’s spouse
- 1st child’s 1st child
- 1st child’s 2nd child
When I reach a spouse, I will try my best to work backwards – researching their parents and their parent’s parents… When I finish doing this, I try to remember to link my mom’s DNA to one their children – It will still show a DNA match to Peter Kunz but I might come up with more DNA shared ancestor hints… I haven’t come across any YET but since most of the 1st generation descendants married other German immigrants, I’m having the same issue of tracing back far enough to get more shared ancestor hints.
I’ve gone through 4 pages and have created about 20 pages of names. This method ensures that I’m researching every descendant of Peter Kunz and Anna Catherine Streider. When I first looked at this family, I didn’t have a set method and I was just jumping around to whoever looked familiar – I was so overwhelmed. The families were so big. Most families had about 10 kids – sometimes more, sometimes less. Needless to say, I missed a lot of people when I didn’t have a plan.
I’ve had a few moments of Oh my! I think I’m on to something! – I’ve come across names that I’ve seen already in other trees- I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned them in the past. Some surnames I’ve come across that looked familiar are Blackwell, Cessna, and Fowler. Here’s to hoping I get a new shared ancestor hint soon.
Trying to keep busy so I don’t go crazy waiting on the 23 and me results.