Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Your Zig-Zag Ancestral Line - A Challenge

I need to keep up on reading the blogs of other genealogists. It seems I'm always busy and never get a chance to sit down and read. I recently started reading several of the blogs I follow. I always enjoy Linda Stufflebean's "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun". The one titled "Your Zig-Zag Ancestor Lines" provides a new way to look at your family tree. She asks you to follow your family lines, zig-zagging from your father, to his mother, to her father, to his mother, to her father, to his mother, to her father, etc as far back as you can go.

Neither my mother's nor my father's zig-zag line goes back terribly far. If I could go to my mother's father's father's mother and back from there, it would go back significantly farther. If I could go back to my father's father's mother's father, that would also go back a lot farther than the straight zig-zag from his mother. Regardless, this is the challenge so here are my results.

My father's zig-zag ancestral line:

My father, John Anthony Miller (1929-2000) of Fort Madison, Iowa then Columbus, Nebraska, was the son of
Julia Doran Miller (1891-1968) of Fort Madison, Iowa was the daughter of
Thomas Doran (ca 1853-1936) of Carthage, Illinois then Fort Madison, Iowa was the son of
Nancy Doran (1826-1894) of somewhere in Ireland, then Delaware County, Pennsylvania, then Carthage, Illinois was the daughter of
Thomas Doran (ca 1803-1877) of somewhere in Ireland, then Delaware County, Pennsylvania, then Carthage, Illinois.

So my father's zig-zag ancestral line only goes back four generations to around 1800 somewhere in Ireland.

My mother's zig-zag ancestral line:

My mother, Agnes Catherine Panther (1931-2017) of Lee County, Iowa, then Columbus, Nebraska was the daughter of
Benedict Panther (1891-1965) of Des Moines County, Iowa, then Lee County, Iowa was the son of
Elizabeth Juliana Dunzinger (1854-1929) of New York, New York, then Burlington, Iowa was the daughter of
Andreas Dunzinger (1822-?) of Wemding, Bavaria, then New York, New York was the son of
Maria Francisca Leinfelder (1797-1839) of Wemding, Bavaria was the daughter of
Jacob Leinfelder of Wemding, Bavaria.

So my mother's zig-zag ancestral line goes back one additional generation, to five generations to the late 1700s in Bavaria.

There's your challenge. Figure out your zig-zag ancestral line. How far back does it go?

1 comment:

  1. Randy Seaver hosts the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun every week at https://www.geneamusings.com/2018/11/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-your.html. Be sure to post your link there. The challenges are quick to do and lots of fun. :)

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