One of the best things to happen, in my opinion, to an
amateur genealogist or family history hobbyist, is the crashing down of a family
history brick wall. My husband and I just experienced this with his paternal
great-grandfather, John Ryan. What a day!
As I thought about how we kept missing the critical puzzle
piece, it occurred to me that I had ignored some of the very learnings I have
gathered over the past 10 years building our family trees: (a) don’t necessarily believe a date on a document
and use that to filter other sources, (b) while you should be somewhat critical of family
stories, don’t fully ignore them in your search, and (c) take advantage of DNA
testing as much as possible to help guide the way.
My father-in-law, Walter Ryan, who just recently passed
away, had mentioned years ago, that he heard that there may be German ancestry on his
side as he heard the Ryan last name was once Rhine (assuming it was German). We tried a few searches on that name, but
with nothing else to help determine a fit or not, it led us nowhere. And, with
some of the searches too broad, we relied on the one birth year information
that we had from the 1900 census to further direct us (turns out it was 10
years off!). With a birth location of “Ohio”
and a name of John Ryan, it pulled way too many people…using John Rhine did not
help much.
Then we provided my father-in-law with an Ancestry.com DNA
test for Christmas and sent it in within the first 2 weeks of the new year. Unfortunately, my father-in-law passed away
before the results came back...results we would have loved to share with him. However, what they provided was a 2nd
cousin link to a man whose last name was Rhine. The lights started blinking and sirens started going off in our heads.
Within an hour of searching and cross-referencing, we broke through our
brick wall...we found John William Ryan as John William Rhine in Guernsey,
Ohio.
John William Ryan (Rhine), photo taken Los Angeles. |
From that DNA flag and the matching family trees, we discovered that he named his first and second
sons after his father and brothers (John Elmer and Thomas)…found a common occupation (construction)…connected
Los Angeles as the city he moved to after he left Ohio in his father’s will…and
found a picture of his youngest sister (Cinda) that had a striking similarity to John. The few bits of information that we had on John
all started to fit into place.
So, what we found is that John William Rhine, born in June
1857 (not June 1867!), was the oldest son of Thomas Elijah Rhine and Lucinda Francis (Clary)
Rhine. He was born in Guernsey County (likely Millwood) and following his birth
were 8 siblings! So, now we have a
whole bunch of relatives in Ohio we knew nothing about.
A little sad that Walter passed away before we could share
that news, but then I reflected & then realized that he was met by his relatives as soon as he
arrived at the pearly gates, finding out before us anyway.
Link to Thomas Elijah Rhine Biography
Link to Thomas Elijah Rhine Biography