Multiple – The Rhoades Connections

This weeks theme is multiple. Many people are going to/have already written about twins or triplets, brick walls, immigrant ancestors, or siblings. This week, I’m still stuck on DNA.

All this Isreal and Stockford DNA research has encouraged me to look again at Rhoades. Let’s face it, my maiden name is Rhoades. It is my Rhoades line that hooked me into genealogy…they are my primary obsession.

Surprisingly – most of the DNA matches on Ancestry.com are Rhoades relations, despite the fact that this test was Autosomal. Sure, we have hits to Stockford, Cobe, Gage, Aleck, and DeJean relations, but the hits on the Rhoades family is just astounding. We have more than multiple, we have a plethora of DNA matches.

So, the downer news is, despite the multiple matches, I have not learned anything new. Remember, autosomal loses accuracy the further back one is related. At 6th and 7th generation matches, we are reaching our limits. While I am confident that John Rhodes of Allen County, Indiana is the son of Henry Rhodes of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, the review of current DNA matches has made me further confident in my theory. I have established my hypothesis in my blog articles for John and Henry (the younger, he married Catherine Arthurs – just to make my life more difficult).

My confidence is bolstered by the volume of other DNA matches that have been made since I first started the DNA adventure. To date, we have fifty-nine DNA matches to nine children of Henry Rhodes/Roth (the elder) and Catherine Unk of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It was this couple who brought their family to Westmoreland.

For some of the matches, I have completed a cursory independent validation of their lineage and have not come across anything I dispute. There are numerous others that I have not conducted independent validation, but they are all done by people with ties to allied families in geographic proximity to Westmoreland County and are done independently (assumed) of each other. Considering those that I have validated and the number of remaining matches, I think I can say we are all related to the same Roth/Rhodes family in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.

All of the DNA matches to Henry Roth/Rhodes and Catherine Unk. Note, Catherine is represented here, but Henry had the same matches on ThruLines^TM. If you click on this image, you will see white boxes and shaded boxes. The white boxes indicate people who are in my Ancestry tree while the shaded boxes represent people I have not yet validated. Also note, there is some error with Catherine B. Reed. She married a son of Henry and Catherine so I am not sure why she is showing up as a match. It could be an error from various trees that have accepted each other’s faulty research.

So, with John’s origins settled, and his father and grandfather identified, I have multiple next steps:

1. Determine where in Bucks County Henry and Catherine are from
2. Determine who were the parents of Henry (the elder)
3. Determine what was Catherine’s maiden name (there has been some dispute of her identity contributing to the deviation between English and German origins)

And I have a start, not with multiple DNA matches, but one. The one is most likely due to the fact that it has proven difficult to prove Henry Roth who moved to Westmoreland County came from Bucks County and is the son of Jacob Roth and Charlotte Unk.

There is hope, however. I believe I have located enough supporting records to prove Henry (the younger) is the son of Henry (the elder) from Bucks County. I am certain that they both came from Bucks County. I now theorize that Henry (the elder) is the son of Jacob and Charlotte of Bucks County. However, I am still gathering evidence to formulate my hypothesis on the origins of Henry (the elder).

To be continued…