Family Reunion: A Line of Mothers I
The first of two lines of mothers
Normally, we see people refer to their “line” in terms of a particular surname. Even when we take a mother’s line into account, we tend to follow her father’s surname back through subsequent generations before we look at her mother - and her mothers.
This week, I’m going to take a look at my children’s maternal ancestry. This is referred to as the “matrilineal line” and this is the line of descent tested using Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). You can learn more about that from the National Human Genome Research Institute or from this very detailed Wikipedia article.
For the sake of respecting the privacy of living people, we’ll start with my wife’s maternal grandmother:
Martin
Merilyn (Martin) Rossiter (1923 - 1997) was the daughter of Howard William Martin (1897–1970) and Aletha Frederick Putnam (1899–1981), born on 17 Aug 1923 in Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie, Iowa. She married Arvid Wesley "Bud" Holmquist (1920–1996) in 1943 in Douglas County, Nebraska.
Putnam
Aletha Frederick (Putnam) Martin (1899 - 1981) was the daughter of Charles Walter Putnam (1859–1922) and Daisy Deane Frederick (1871–1964), born on 16 Nov 1899 in New Albany, Floyd County, Indiana. Her family moved to Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, between 1904 (when her younger brother was born in New Albany) and 1910. Aletha married Howard William Martin (1897–1970) on 3 Jul 1919 in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. They resided with Aletha's family in 1920.
Frederick
Daisy Deane (Frederick) Putnam (1871 - 1964) was the daughter of Lafayette Frederick (1837–1918) and Jane Eliza "Jennie" Smith (1840–1916), born in Dec 1871 in New Albany, Floyd County, Indiana. Daisy married Charles Walter Putnam (1859-1922) on 5 Jan 1899 in New Albany, Floyd, Indiana.
Note: as of this writing, this is as far back as I have gone in WikiTree. The rest of this post is based on records I have found and added to my Ancestry tree, “The Merilyn Martin Project”. To see if I have made any progress adding profiles for the following people, click on the link to Daisy Deane’s profile, and look for an “Ancestors” button!
Smith
Jane Eliza "Jennie" Smith (1840-1916) was the daughter of Adam Smith (1792–1847) and Experience Garretson (1800–1897), born on 26 Jun 1840 in Galena, Floyd County, Indiana. Jennie married Lafayette Frederick (1837–1918) on 26 Nov 1863 in New Albany, Floyd County, Indiana.
Garretson
Experience Garretson (1800–1897) was the daughter of Jacob Garretson (1755–1836) and Millicent Tomlin (1768–1854), born in New Jersey on 27 Sep 1800. She married Adam Smith (1792–1847) on 20 Oct 1825 in Floyd County, Indiana.
Are YOU descended from any of these families? If so, I’d love to hear from you.
Asking me questions about my research is a good way to guarantee that I will continue working on the families that you’d like to learn about, so comment early, comment often, and subscribe to keep up with future posts!