Tag: Moran

Categories52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Great-Grandpa King Niall?

Posted on 23 March 2014by Brian Zalewski

The sixth ancestor in my 52 Week Ancestor challenge is Robert MORAN. Robert is my wife’s 3rd-great-grandfather on her paternal side.

moranRobert-possible
Possibly the same Robert Moran as it is labeled “Grandpa Moran” in the same album as “Uncle Chas and Uncle Gurley”, who are Robert Moran’s sons. – Monfort, Wisconsin library

Robert is listed as being born about 1820-21 somewhere in Ireland to Robert & Mary Ann (KNOTT) MORAN, though a few naturalization indexes list this as England, United Kingdom. By 1845, he has traveled from Ireland and settled in Granby, Shefford, Quebec, Canada. Here he marries Dorothea COOK on 5 August 1845. Robert and Dorothea’s first three children are born in Quebec. After that, they travel around a bit, having a child in Illinois, then, Iowa, and finally settling in southwestern Wisconsin where my wife’s ancestor, Charles MORAN, is born in 1864.

Dorothea passes away in 1872 and Robert remarries to a Margaret (KEARNS) ENYART. Margaret happens to be another one of my wife’s 3rd-great-grandmothers. Though, they have no children together, so the branches of the tree stay pretty straight.

Robert is also part of my wife’s father’s Y-DNA line and he has taken a DNA test with 23andMe. The Y-DNA haplogroup for him, and so also Robert, is R1b1b2a1a2f*. The interesting thing about that haplogroup is that it is part of study of one of the ancient kings of Ireland:

R1b1b2a1a2f2 reaches its peak in Ireland, where the vast majority of men carry Y-chromosomes belonging to the haplogroup. Researchers have recently discovered that a large subset of men assigned to the haplogroup may be direct male descendants of an Irish king who ruled during the 4th and early 5th centuries. According to Irish history, a king named Niall of the Nine Hostages established the Ui Neill dynasty that ruled the island country for the next millennium.

Northwestern Ireland is said to have been the core of Niall’s kingdom; and that is exactly where men bearing the genetic signature associated with him are most common. Genetic analysis suggests that all these men share a common ancestor who lived about 1,700 years ago. Among men living in northwestern Ireland today that date is closer to 1,000 years ago. Those dates neatly bracket the era when Niall is supposed to have reigned.

Most of the men who carry this haplogroup congregate mostly in part of County Tyrone in Northern Ireland and a few more in County Mayo to the west. This may help with future research of this MORAN line.

This post is 6 of 52 in the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” Challenge” begun by Amy Johnson Crow.

Categories52 Ancestors in 52 WeeksMoran

52 Ancestors #2: Frederick Moran

Posted on 23 February 2014by Brian Zalewski

I wasn’t really sure who to pick next. I didn’t want to pick an ancestor I always talk about, so I opened up RootsMagic and closed my eyes and clicked a random person from the pedigree tree. I picked Frederick MORAN.

Moran Family
Frederick & Norma (Powell) Moran family

Frederick MORAN is my wife’s paternal great-grandfather. He was born 21 February 1891 in the small Richwood Township in Richland County, Wisconsin to Charles & Emma (DIETER) MORAN. According to early census records, he was a farm laborer until his marriage on 31 October 1915 (Halloween and my daughter’s birthday) to Norma POWELL. For some reason, this line seemed to like marrying in Iowa as they were married in McGregor, Clayton, Iowa and my wife’s paternal grandparents also married in Iowa. They had two children, my wife’s grandfather, Keith, and his sister, Vivian.

He had many occupations over the next few decades including Farmer, Lime Grinder, and Janitor at the public school. He passed away on 22 March 1949 in Boscobel, Grant County in southwestern Wisconsin and is buried there with his wife.

Much of my wife’s paternal ancestors, including the MORAN family, settled in the southwestern area of Wisconsin, which is full of hills and mines, though none of them were miners as far as I can tell. According to the Wisconsin Historical Society, a lot of people were drawn to this area in the 1800s due to it’s potential for mining:

Although southwestern Wisconsin is best known today for its rich farmlands, place names such as Mineral Point and New Diggings evoke an earlier time when local mines produced much of the nation’s lead. In the early nineteenth century, Wisconsin lead mining was more promising and attractive to potential settlers than either the fur trade or farming. Its potentially quick rewards lured a steady stream of settlers up the Mississippi River and into Grant, Crawford, Iowa, and Lafayette counties in the early nineteenth century. By 1829, more than 4,000 miners worked in southwestern Wisconsin, producing 13 million pounds of lead a year.

This post is 2 of 52 in the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” Challenge” begun by Amy Johnson Crow.

CategoriesGenetic GenealogyGermanIrishMoranZalewski

23andMe Follow-up

Posted on 12 July 2013by Brian Zalewski

I mentioned in a recent post that I was able to get 23andMe tests for my father and my father-in-law that would hopefully help narrow down DNA matches and also find out more about ourselves. Those tests have been taken, sent in, and now finally analyzed. There were no surprising results, but it does help make a clearer picture of certain things.

With my father’s tests, I was also able to get his mtDNA (or Maternal) Line passed down from his mother’s line. The surnames that it follows would be CORRIGAN > BRAATZ > STEARNS > SCHUMACHER > HEINZ > HETTLER and that’s as far as I have right now. It’s basically a deep German line (minus the obvious Irish one in the beginning.) His mtDNA haplogroup is U4, but the subgroup is U4a3. 23andMe says:

Haplogroup U4 is found in western Eurasia, from Mongolia to central Europe. It arose about 25,000 years ago and subsequently spread with the migrations that followed the end of the Ice Age about 14,000 years ago.

[U4a] diverged from its U4 sister lineages about 21,000 years ago in the region surrounding the Baltic Sea. Today it is most common among the people of the Volga River and Ural Mountains of Russia, such as the Chuvash, Kets and Mari. It is also common among the Baltic and Finnish people of northern Europe who speak languages related to the Finno-Ugric tongues of the Volga-Ural region in western Russia.

That didn’t really surprise me. As for the YDNA line, which I also share, what is interesting is that my haplogroup is R1a1a* which usually means they know you’re R1a1a, but more than likely part of a subgroup. My father’s YDNA haplogroup is found to be just R1a1a, technically putting us in separate groups on the site. More than likely their tests are now more accurate and figured out that we’re directly from the R1a1a haplogroup.

My father-in-law’s tests were doubly useful as both the YDNA and mtDNA info was new to us as my wife doesn’t get either of those passed down from him. His mtDNA line, which follows the surnames: COLLINS > HUIZEL > REINDL > BOHM. The research on this line ends in the South Bohemian section the Czech Republic, which I assume was Czechoslovakia at the time. His mtDNA haplogroup is found to be H5.

H5 appears to have originated during the Ice Age, as the human population of Europe retreated to the few relatively mild pockets of the otherwise frozen continent. The haplogroup appears to have sprung up somewhere near the Caucasus Mountains, or in forests near the Black Sea. H5 is particularly common today in Georgia and in other populations from the Caucasus region. Not long after it originated, a few migrants carried H5 along the southern fringes of Europe into the Balkans and as far west as France, where the haplogroup can still be found today.

It seems to line up with the little amount of data we have on that line. His YDNA line, which we assumed was pretty deep Irish as the surname is MORAN, was pretty close to our assumptions. The YDNA haplogroup was found to be (besides the longest one ever) R1b1b2a1a2f*. There is that little asterisk again.

R1b1b2a1a2f2 reaches its peak in Ireland, where the vast majority of men carry Y-chromosomes belonging to the haplogroup. Researchers have recently discovered that a large subset of men assigned to the haplogroup may be direct male descendants of an Irish king who ruled during the 4th and early 5th centuries. According to Irish history, a king named Niall of the Nine Hostages established the Ui Neill dynasty that ruled the island country for the next millennium.

Northwestern Ireland is said to have been the core of Niall’s kingdom; and that is exactly where men bearing the genetic signature associated with him are most common. Genetic analysis suggests that all these men share a common ancestor who lived about 1,700 years ago. Among men living in northwestern Ireland today that date is closer to 1,000 years ago. Those dates neatly bracket the era when Niall is supposed to have reigned.

Image copyright The New York Times.
Image copyright The New York Times.

Besides matching our assumptions, that is a cool fact about men from that haplogroup. It’s the first haplogroup I’ve dealt with that names an actual (possible) ancestor. It also gives a highly-probable area of where to look for the origin of his MORAN ancestors.

Outside of the haplogroup testing, we’re still using this new info to break down DNA matches. Having at least one parent allows you to know which side a match comes from, narrowing down the research. I’m still working on that. The tests also gave us some interesting data on our Ancestry Composition which I will post about soon.

Anyone test their parents or other close relations and get some useful information?

CategoriesMilitary

Happy Veterans Day

Posted on 11 November 2012by Brian Zalewski
Joseph Zalewski – WWI – Click for larger

I’d like to thank all of our ancestral military veterans in our family trees. Thanks for fighting for this country in any way you could, be it fighting in combat, fixing machinery, or defending our borders. Thanks for helping fight to allow me things like freedom of speech and the right to vote. Here is a (hopefully full) list of all of our veteran ancestors.

  • Carey TONEY – My wife’s 5th-great-grandfather – Stories say that he served with the Virginia Militia in Rev. War in 1781 and was an eyewitness to the surrender of Cornwallis
  • William J DAKINS – My wife’s 3rd-great-grandfather – His obituary states that he served in the Civil War with the 17th Wisconsin Infantry and was with Sherman on his famous march to the sea.
  • Johann LAST – My 3rd-great-grandfather – My research tells me that he served in the Civil War with the 50th Wisconsin Infantry. It seems he was stationed in what was the Dakota Territory at the time to protect the western front.
  • Jesse TONEY – My wife’s 3rd-great-grandfather and Carey’s grandson – Served in the Civil War as Corporal in Company G 33rd Wisconsin Infantry.
  • Joseph ZALEWSKI – My great-grandfather – Served in World War I with the 86th Division, Company B, 331st Machine Gun Battalion. That division was split apart into other divisions. I wrote a post about my findings. I have not found information on where he went after the split, but stories say he fought in combat in France near the end of the war.
  • Richard ZALEWSKI – My grandfather and Joseph’s son – Served in World War II, though didn’t see any combat. He was stationed with the US Navy in Hilo, Hawaii as an Aviation Machinist’s Mate.
  • Keith MORAN – My wife’s grandfather – Served in World War II. No documented information on his experience, but my father-in-law says he was involved in some combat in the colder areas of Europe, probably around the Belgium area.
  • LeRoy THIELKE – My grandfather – Served in World War II – I have recently posted a large amount of information from his experience in WWII. Though, he’s not the one who likes to talk about it. Hopefully, I can find more information to honor his service.

I may have possibly missed a few individuals. I think there were more Civil War veterans, but it’s tough to search my information for that. In any case, today is the day to honor them, though we should always honor their sacrifices for our freedom.

CategoriesTombstone Tuesday

Tombstone Tuesday: Kearns-Moran

Posted on 11 October 2011by Brian Zalewski


The headstone of my wife’s 3rd-great-grandmother Margaret KEARNS from her father’s maternal side. Born in 1822 in Ohio, she first married Nelson ENYART (sometimes spelled ENGART) in 1841. There is mystery surrounding what happened to Nelson, but in 1875 she ended up marrying Robert MORAN, who is actually my wife’s 3rd-great-grandfather from her father’s paternal side. They didn’t have any children, so the branch of that tree didn’t get too twisted. She died in 1890 and  is buried near Robert at Tavara Cemetery in Richwood Township in Richland Co., Wisconsin. Photo courtesy of B. Coberley at Find-A-Grave.

[Find-A-Grave Page]

CategoriesFamily TreeSaturday Genealogy Fun

SNGF: Matrilineal Line

Posted on 1 October 2011by Brian Zalewski

It’s time for another one of Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun posts.

  1. List your matrilineal line – your mother, her mother, etc. back to the first identifiable mother. Note: this line is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you!
  2. Tell us if you have had your mitochondrial DNA tested, and if so, which Haplogroup you are in.
  3. Post your responses on your own blog post, in Comments to this blog post, or in a Status line on Facebook or in your Stream at Google Plus.
  4. If you have done this before, please do your father’s matrilineal line, or your grandfather’s matrilineal line, or your spouse’s matriliuneal line.
  5. Does this list spur you to find distant cousins that might share one of your matrilineal lines?

According to my blog, it seems I did this line for myself already. Though, I will post it again in case something is more up-to-date. I will do my father’s line and also my wife’s line since I haven’t really inspected those before. Here is mine, first.

My matrilineal line:
  1. Brian J ZALEWSKI
  2. Sharon THIELKE married John ZALEWSKI
  3. Marge DeBROUX married LeRoy THIELKE
  4. Mildred Vida VAN PRICE (5 Jul 1903 Mattoon, Shawano Co., Wisconsin – 29 Oct 1994 Port Washington, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin) married Leon DeBROUX
  5. Minnie May MUHM (12 Jul 1879 Norwood, Langlade Co., Wisconsin – 6 Jul 1959 Port Washington, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin) married Pieter Fransiscus VAN PARIJS
  6. Ida W SCHAVANDIE (6 Sep 1852 Germany – 12 Nov 1934 Antigo, Langlade Co., Wisconsin) married Peter MUHM
  7. Anna RASCH (? in Germany – ??) married Lawrence SCHAVANDIE

Unfortunately, my matrilineal line is one of the few lines in my tree that is somewhat short, though I have not done a ton of research on it. I have done a DNA test, so I do have my mtDNA information. According to the latest 23AndMe info, my Maternal Haplogroup in H11a. I have made my 23AndMe Maternal Line page public, so you can view more details there. It does match the German ancestry that I find in my research.

Next is my father’s matrilineal line, though there is no mtDNA haplogroup info since my DNA does not have that information. Only his DNA (or his sibling’s) would show that.

CategoriesIrishMoranWay Back Wednesday

Way Back Wednesday: Moran Family

Posted on 30 March 2011by Brian Zalewski

Charles Moran Family

This is a photo of my wife’s great-great-grandparents, Charles & Emma (DIETER) MORAN, and three of their children. The child on the left is her great-grandfather, Fred MORAN, born in 1891. Basing the date off of the children, this photo was probably taken in about 1900. The other two children are probably the twins, Alma & Allan. Charles was one of the first Moran children of Robert & Dorothea (COOK) MORAN to be born in Wisconsin. The rest were born in Quebec, Canada as Robert & Dorothea must have immigrated there from Ireland and later married. There were a lot of Irish immigrants in that specific area of Quebec.

CategoriesMoranPersonal

Passing On

Posted on 11 January 2011by Brian Zalewski

Barbara Elaine (Collins) Moran
16 Apr 1924 – 11 Jan 2011

My wife lost her paternal grandmother early this morning. She wasn’t doing too well for the past few weeks, so she is now free from that pain. I’m sad that my daughter was not able to meet her great-grandmother, but great-grandma was able to see a photo of Aerissa. Plans are still up in the air, but we may be making a cross-state drive sometime in the near future for the funeral, which may be interesting with a 2-month-old baby.

CategoriesWeekly History

Weekly History: August 8th – 14th

Posted on 8 August 2010by Brian Zalewski

Important dates in our family history for this week. As always, you can find this info on the Dates & Anniversaries page.

Frank Zalewski
Frank J Zalewski, Sr - Unknown Year

August 8th

1941 – Died – Frank J ZALEWSKI, Sr – Frank is my great-great-grandfather on my father’s side. He was born somewhere in Germany or Poland on 4 Sep 1858. He married Anna LINDNER in January 1885. They had 3 children in Europe before emigrating to America via Baltimore and then settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in about 1892. They had 6 more children here. He passed away in Milwaukee and is buried with his family at Holy Cross Cemetery. Frank is the subject of my “Everything I Know About Frank Zalewski” website.

August 9th

1671 – Married – Nicolaes van CRAYBECK & Helena WAGEMANS – Nicolaes and Helena are my 9th-great-grandparents on my mother’s side. They were both born in Belgium in the mid-1600s. They were married at Kuringen, Belgium. Nicolaes passed away in 1671 and Helena in 1678, both in Kuringen.

1748 – Born – Sarah ROGERS – Sarah is my wife’s 6th-great-grandmother on her mother’s side. She was born in New London, New London Co., Connecticut. In 1776, she married William MOORE II and together they had 4 children. It is unknown when Sarah passed away.

August 10th

1782 – Married – Carey TONEY & Elizabeth DOREN – Carey & Elizabeth are my wife’s 5th-great-grandparents on her father’s side. They were married at Bedford Co., Virginia. Together, they had 10 children including her ancestor, William TONEY. They both lived to be over 100 years of age when they passed away in Preble Co., Ohio.

August 11th

1990 – Died – Norma (POWELL) MORAN – Norma is my wife’s great-grandmother on her father’s side. She was born 24 Dec 1892 in Crawford Co., Wisconsin. She married Frederick H MORAN in about 1915. Together, they had two children, Vivian and Keith. Norma passed away in Madison, Dane Co., Wisconsin and is buried at Boscobel Cemetery in Boscobel, Grant Co., Wisconsin.

August 14th

1872 – Died – Johann W G LAST – Johann is my 3rd-great-grandfather on my mother’s side. He was born in Prussia in about 1820. He married Charlotte STRASSMAN in Prussia and they had three children before leaving for America. Their last child, Amelia, was born in Wisconsin. Johann fought in the Civil War for Co. K in the 50th Wisconsin Infantry. He survived the war, but passed away a bit later in 1872 in Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin. He is buried with a Civil War headstone at Union Cemetery in Port Washington, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin.

CategoriesWeekly History

Weekly History: August 1st – 7th

Posted on 1 August 2010by Brian Zalewski

Not much going on this week, but there are still a few important dates. As always, you can find them on the Dates & Anniversaries page.

August 5th

1845 – Married – Robert MORAN & Dorothea COOK – Robert and Dorothea are my wife’s 3rd-great-grandparents on her father’s side. It is not exactly known where they were married, but it is possible that they married in Quebec, Canada as they had their first born child there in 1846. They later moved to Wisconsin where Dorothea passed away in 1872. Robert re-married and passed away in 1897.

August 7th

1853 – Born – Nepomuncena (SYLDATK) SZULTA – Nepomuncena, also known as Annie, was born at what is now Gowidlino, Sierakowice, Kartuzy County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Kashubia, Poland. She was baptized there on August 14th. She married Ignatz SZULTA in 1875 before she emigrated to Wisconsin in 1881 after Ignatz had found a place. They had 9 children, the first 3 in Poland. She passed away after Ignatz on 22 Dec 1925 and is buried with him at Holy Cross Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.