A puzzling document has been floating around in my family for years: the birth certificate of my great-grandfather, Henry Roth. How could a birth certificate be puzzling? Well, it listed his mother as Kathryn Koontz. In contrast, every other record from Henry’s life, and family tradition, says his mother was Mamie Brown. Shouldn’t a birth record be reliable when it comes to the mother? Then why do so many other sources say otherwise? To put this mystery to rest, I decided to use DNA.
My mom (granddaughter of Henry Roth) took an Ancestry DNA test so that I could use the results to investigate. I started by clustering her matches to isolate the ones just coming through the Brown line. (We’ll talk about how to do that in another post). I determined there were three high matches in the Brown line cluster.
Before I could figure out how those three matches were related to my family, I needed to do some traditional research on the Brown family. According to the 1895 Minnesota State Census, Christian Brown and Mrs. Christian Brown [Caroline Larsen] were from Denmark and were born about 1862 and 1860, respectively. It was likely that they separated sometime between the birth of Walter in 1890 and Caroline’s appearance as a single mother in the 1905 Minnesota State Census.
Caroline Larsen was born on 6 May 1859 in Vor Frue Sogn, Odense Amt, Denmark, to Peder Larsen and Anne Hansen. Caroline immigrated with her husband Christian to the United States sometime after the births of Hjalmar and Robert and before the 1890 birth of their son Walter. Though Caroline was not located in the 1910 census, she appeared in the 1920 census with Walter and the 1930 census with Mamie in St. Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota. Caroline died on 18 May 1934 and was buried on 21 May 1934 at the Atlanta Lutheran Church in Ulen, Clay, Minnesota. This record named her children Elmer (Hjalmar), Robert, Walter, and Mamie but did not list a spouse.
Christian Brown and Caroline Larsen were the parents of the following children:
Hjalmar (Elmer) Brown was born about July 1883 in Denmark. He married Huldah Doris Sweet on 9 November 1904 in Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota. Nothing is known about his death.
Robert Brown was born about August 1887 in Denmark. He married Rose Catherine Beck on 10 May 1937 in Dakota County, Minnesota. He died on 9 October 1963 in Stillwater, Washington, Minnesota.
Walter Brown was born on 19 July 1890 in St Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota. He married Deborah Massey around 1922. He died on 26 March 1952 in Douglas County, Oregon.
Lillian Brown was born in January 1898 in St Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota. She died on 3 June 1908 in St Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota.
With my documentary research done, I knew I was looking for descendants of Hjalmar, Robert, and Walter. They would not be DNA matches to my mom if she was not a descendant of their sister Mamie. With this information in mind, I returned to my three Brown matches.
Research on Match 1’s family proved that they are descended from Hjalmar Brown. Research on Match 2 proved that Match 2 is a descendant of Robert Brown. Research on Match 3 proved that they are a descendant of Walter Brown. This means that these matches (1, 2, and 3) and my mother share the most recent common ancestors of Christian Brown and Caroline Larsen. Having a match descended from each of Mamie’s brothers was good evidence that my mom was also a fellow descendant of the Brown family.
Documentary research combined with DNA created a strong case that Mamie Brown was the mother of Henry Roth. So, despite what the birth certificate says, Mamie Brown IS the biological mother of Henry Roth. As for Kathryn Koontz, she remains a mystery. My mom has tried to find documentation of her existence with no luck. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall at that hospital to understand how such a recording mishap occurred!
Comentários