Double Cousins

I recently came across a report of a Dooley cousin in St. Louis - Alex Dooley, Hamburger Man in St. Louis - (though I haven't yet contacted this family and they may not be aware of our connection). My Legacy Family Tree software tells me that Alex's children are my fourth cousins, through two different paths, i.e., double fourth cousins.  I set out to find out what that means genetically and if there is some sort of metric to allow me to compare a "double fourth cousin" to the more common single fourth cousin.  There is a Coefficient of Relationship, R, related to degrees of relationship, but the math might be too much, so first I'll skip to the results, then try a brief basic explanation, then point to some resources for more information, if you're interested.


Single relationships

Siblings have about half of their genes in common, the degree of relationship is 1 or first, and the corresponding coefficient of relationship, R, is 1/2.  Advancing one generation: first cousins have in common about 1/8 of their genes, the degree of relationship is 3, and the corresponding R is 1/8. Each consecutive generation shares just 1/4 as many genes as the previous generation, the degree increases by 2, and the corresponding R is only 1/4 as large.  The following table shows these values through fourth cousins.

Relationship	Degree	R	% genes in common
Self or identical twins	0	1	100
Siblings	1	1/2	50
1st cousins	3	1/8	12.5
2nd cousins	5	1/32	3.1
3rd cousins	7	1/128	0.8
Double 4th cousins	8	1/256	0.4
4th cousins	9	1/512	0.2

Our double relationship

So, where does the "double" come in? Back in 1863, William Dooley married Elizabeth Martin in St. Louis.  In 1887, William's niece, Anastasia LaBrune, married Elizabeth's nephew, James Hogan. This created a double relationship between the Dooleys and the Hogans. William and Elizabeth's son, Thomas, was a first cousin to both Anastasia LaBrune on his father's side and James Hogan on his mother's side.  As an aside, since Thomas was an only child AND the Dooley's were Anastasia's only family in St. Louis AND Thomas and Anastasia were only four years apart in age AND James Hogan was also family AND the Hogan kids and Thomas' kids were all close in age, the Hogans and Dooleys were probably very close, akin to siblings, at least in their teen and adult lives.  In the next generation, Thomas' kids were second cousins to the Hogan kids, once through Anastasia and the Dooleys and again through James and the Martins.  This made them double second cousins. The next generation were then double third cousins, and so forth. How does that change the values in the table? Basically this means that instead of having one set of ancestors in common, they have two, both the same number of generations back, so the descendants of Thomas Dooley and of James and Anastasia LaBrune Hogan all have twice as many genes in common. The degree of relationship for double fourth cousins in 8, R is 1/256, and they have about 0.4% of their genes alike. According to one of the sources listed below, this is about 117 genes of the approximately 30,000 in the human genome.

More about quantifying relationships

If you'd like to know more, perhaps about how to include half siblings, or how to trace out any relationships, here are some explanations on the WWW:

Genetic and Quantitative Aspects of Genealogy
A thorough explanation of the Coefficient of Relationship (R) and related subjects.

Quantitative Consanguinity
A less through explanation with more applications to genealogy, but they only show degrees of relationship through 7, whereas a fourth cousin is degree 9.

Degrees of Relation and Number of Genes Shared
Not thorough, but relates R to the number of genes shared for various relationships.

Cushings of Fort Winnebago, Portage and Lewiston, Wisconsin

[A very frustrating experience at the library.  Found hundreds of newspaper articles including Cushings and Caseys in the Portage newspaper database at the library.  I emailed all my findings to me, then find that only the titles were sent, not the text information. But, there were a few that I remember.  I'll report more precisely when I go back and copy the articles.]

One of the articles reported four marriages that took place at St. Mary's Catholic church in Portage one day.  Two of the brides were Cushings.  One was Nellie, daughter of John, who married Dennis Callahan.  The other I don't remember exactly, but married McSorley (from Texas, I believe) and was from one of the Portage or Lewiston Cushing families.  The article stated that the two brides were no relation to each other, which (if accurate) answers a question we've had for many years. So our Cushings of Fort Winnebago were not, at least closely, related to the other Cushing families in Portage and Lewiston. 

Johanna Cussen/Cushing O'Connell of Lodi, Wisconsin

I've found the last of the known daughters of Dennis and Catherine Casey Cussen/Cushing.

Johanna was born in Galbally in 1836, travelling with her family to Newfoundland, Boston, and Fort Winnebago by about 1848. In about 1858 she married George O'Connell, I believe a recent immigrant from New Brunswick, Canada, and they settled in Lodi, about 25 miles south of Fort Winnebago. They were farmers. From 1860 to 1876 they had thirteen children in Lodi: Katie (1860), Ellen (1861-1931), John F (1863), Mary E. (1864-1937), George, Jr. (1865), Joanna (1866, m. Edward Kerrigan), James E. (1868), Maggie (1869, m. John Bastian 1906), Frances (1871, died 1873), William (1873, died at 6 weeks old), Daniel (1874, died in 1888), Alice (1875), and Mark (1876). George, Sr. died in 1877, leaving Joanna with 11 children between the ages of 4 and 17 and a farm to run.  I have no records over the next 20 years, so don't know how she managed. By 1900, Johanna was living in Portage, near Fort Winnebago, with only James remaining at home.  She remained in Portage until her death, in 1923, and is buried with her family in St. Patrick's Cemetery in Lodi.

A side note: In 1860, 27 year old Michael Welch, also from New Brunswick, was living with George and Johanna.  Ten years later he married Johanna's younger sister, Ellen Cushing. A brief google indicates that Michael's mother's name may have been O'Connell, so he and George may have been cousins.

Another side note: As I research Johanna's family, I find that their last name is O'Connell only on the markers of their Lodi graves. George O'Connell's marker looks to be an original tombstone, strong evidence of the last name O'Connell.  Nonetheless, every other record I've found, for generations, gives a last name of Connell and I've decided to use this as the family name.

Hypothesis: Philip LaBrune m. Josephine Oligée in Ohio in 1868

[Just realized I posted this information at Iowa GenWeb in 2012, but nowhere on my blog or website. So:]

If there are any LaBrune researchers listening, please let me know if you have any information that might support or refute an hypothesis I'm working on.

What I think I know:
(1) Philip and Ann LaBrune and family were in Clermont Co., Ohio in 1840. Jean-Baptiste was born there after the census. In 1850, the family was in Dubuque co., Iowa. Comparing the 1840 and 1850 censuses, a 20-25 yr old boy and a 10-15 yr old girl are not with the family in Dubuque. (These are the ages they would have in 1850.) Did they stay behind? Did they die? Were they not members of the family, but just living with them in Ohio? I don't know, but I have looked around to see if there are any LaBrunes back in southern Ohio.
(2) We don't know what happened to Philip. He is in the 1860 census. He is listed in an 1865 property tax roll. He is not in Dubuque in the 1870 census. He is not buried with his wife and the other LaBrunes. I have not researched extensively myself, but know of no death records for Philip. As an interesting, a little surprising, side note: Daniel Dooley, a neighbor and father-in-law to Philip & Ann's son, Jean-Baptiste, is buried next to Ann. Ann died in January 1868.
(3) In Oct 1868, a Philip LaBrune married a Josephine Oligée in Brown co., Ohio, a county adjacent to Clermont co., where the LaBrunes lived in 1840. Thinking this might be the missing LaBrune son, who possibly stayed behind, I dug deeper. I found Philip and Josephine in the 1880 census. They were both born in France: he in 1796; she in 1804. This Philip is about the same age our Philip who disappeared from Dubuque. Could it be?

Putting together the pieces:
As I said, the last record I have of Philip in Dubuque is a tax roll in 1865. If he did not die there, I assume he would have remained with his wife, Ann, while she was living. She died in Jan 1868, about 9 months before the marriage in Ohio. Perhaps after the death of his wife, he went back to the Clermont/Brown co. area of Ohio for something. Maybe that's why when Daniel Dooley died a year later, in 1869, the LaBrune family allowed him to be buried in "Philip's plot", since Philip had moved away and remarried. Maybe that's why there is no record of Philip's death in Iowa - he didn't die there?

Why?:
Why would Philip go back to Ohio? I haven't found other LaBrunes there, so I'm giving up on finding the missing son. But what about the daughter? She could have been 5 in 1840 (listed as female under 5 at the time of the census). The first record I'm aware of in Iowa is the 1850 census, so the LaBrunes could have left Ohio as late as 1850. The missing daughter could have been as old as 15 years old when they moved. Still kind of young. I've gone back and looked at the 1860 census of the Oligée family in Brown co., Ohio. Josephine was married to an older Jacob Oligée and had several sons. The three that I saw were all married, and their wives were 20 to 25 years old, the age range of the missing LaBrune daughter.

Conclusion:
I think the missing LaBrune daughter being married to one of the Oligée boys is a stretch. But I think there's a good chance that our Dubuque Philip moved back to Ohio and remarried. The age, the name, the location, the timing, and the lack of other LaBrunes in that area prior to the 1868 marriage are an awful lot of coincidences. I don't spend alot of time on my genealogy, but I'd like to dig up more information to either support or shoot down this theory.

Goodwins of Cascade, Iowa from about 1856

Posted this on Rootsweb this week. A brief summary of the Goodwin family, the family of Lydia LaBrune's biological mother, from 1856 Dubuque co. to California in the mid-1900s.

Thomas Jefferson Goodwin m. Eliza A Summers

Thomas Jefferson Goodwin, b. 1832 Indiana, m. Eliza A Summers, she b. 1841 in Iowa, in 1856 in Dubuque, Iowa. They had 5 children and raised them in Cascade township: Emma (1880), Alonzo (1862), Ida (1863), Rollie (b. 1876, d. 1877), and Monroe (1879). The 1880s brought big changes for the families.

Emma had married Oscar Albert in 1879, but he apparently abandoned them in 1885 and she was granted a divorce in 1887. By then, the Goodwin family, including Emma, had moved across the state to Sioux County. Emma had four children (as far as I can tell), of whom she was granted custody. I know that Verda was adopted by the Board family in Cascade and that Lydia was adopted by the LaBrune family (my family) in Jefferson twp. [Verda went on to marry William Gearhart, then Daniel Moore; Lydia married Frank Schirmer.] I don't know what became of the other two kids, nor why the children were given up (taken?) for adoption. Emma began a new family with Lars Peterson in about 1894.

Emma's sister, Ida, married Pedermar (?) Jester. They had seven kids before he died in the late 1890s. She remarried Stanley (?) Tibbets.

I don't know what became of Alonzo.

Sometime around 1908 the whole clan moved out to southern California: Eliza Goodwin to LA with Monroe, Emma Peterson and family to San Diego, and Ida Tibbets and family to Long Beach (LA co.). Some of the older grandchildren may have married and stayed in Iowa, as did Emma's children from her first marriage.

I'm especially interested in finding out why the Emma Goodwin Arnold children might have been given up for adoption.

Rules of Thumb for my Family Tree

FWIW: Here are some of the rules I follow when deciding whether or not to include someone in my family tree. This is just off the top of my head.  If I've missed someone or inadvertently implied that I don't consider someone family, please let me know so I can fix it.

1) Publicly post only deceased relatives.
2) When sharing with others, share deceased and any living up to first cousins.
3) Include biological, adopted, foster, etc. relatives and their immediate in-laws: parents, siblings, siblings' spouses. Some exceptions when assisting close cousins with their genealogy. Including generations of relatives for every in-law is just too many people to keep track of. [If I were requested to add a family tree, I probably would because I love my in-laws! 8-) ]

For recently deceased:
[
4) Don't include all marriages.  Include those that yielded children, the last marriage, marriages mentioned in important sources, like obituaries, etc. This is not hard set.  I tend to ignore it more with ancient relatives, but with relatives recently deceased, I'd rather not advertise someone's difficulty staying married by listing seven spouses.
5) Don't publicly post information concerning mental health, including death by suicide.
]

6) Where many variations in spelling exist for old families (prior to about 1900?), adopt an American spelling and an immigrant spelling.  For instance Cussen (native Irish ancestors) and Cushing (descendants in the US), or Donley (native Irish ancestors) and Donnelly (descendants in the US).
7) Record a source for all information.
8) Publicly, post only basic information: birth, marriage, death. This is to encourage serious genealogists to contact me for additional information (sources, burial, places of residence, etc.) which I am happy to share (within privacy constraints) and to share information that they may have about the family in question that I do not have.
9) Include individuals ...
Tier 1: for whom primary sources exist (birth, marriage, death certificates, land records, wills, ...)

Tier 2: from living family members closely enough related to know from personal knowledge and family interviews; corroboration with primary sources preferred
Tier 3: some secondary sources, such as census records, obituaries, grave markers, biographies, town histories, etc.
Tier 4: Published, well-researched, well-scrutinized genealogies (such as Douglas, Pierce, Matthew Cushing, ), corroboration with primary sources preferred
Tier 5: Posted genealogies which cite any of the above sources

Don't include:
Posted genealogies/trees with no source citations, or that cite only other posted genealogies, including LDS IGI and AF information, Ancestry.com and Rootsweb and other like sites

But ...
Unsourced information can be used to start research that, once substantiated, can be added to my tree. Authors of posted information can be contacted for leads or sources that might lead to substantiated information added to the tree.

10) Respect living family wishes regarding public information, such as fathers of children born outside of a marriage, etc.
11) Don't stir up old family feuds!

Lydia LaBrune Schirmer 1882-1955

Lydia LaBrune is first seen in the family of Jean-Baptiste and Catherine Dooley LaBrune at the age of 13 in the 1895 state census.  In 1900, she is described as adopted. And that is all we knew. Very recently I was contacted by a couple of Lydia's great-grandchildren who had discovered through a living relative that Lydia was believed to have a sister by the name of Verda Moore, who lived in Cedar Rapids in the 1930s. A few hours of research uncovered a good deal of Lydia's origins.

Lydia and Verda and another sister, Bessie, were the children of Emma Gooding and Oscar Arnold.  Emma and Oscar married in about 1879 (they are together in 1880 in the census in East Cascade, Dubuque co.).  The girls were born in about 1880 (Verda), 1881 (Lydia), and 1883 (Bessie).  In 1885 the family is together in Cascade; "Lida" and "Virdia" are both there! According to divorce papers (as reported in the newspaper), Oscar was abusive and abandoned the family in 1885 in Cascade.  In 1887, Emma filed for and was granted a divorce and custody of the kids.  That's the last information I found for them. I couldn't find any more trace of Oscar, Emma, or Bessie. In 1895, Lydia was with the LaBrunes in Jefferson twp and Verda was living with Lewis and Liddie Board and family in Cascade (both in Dubuque co., Iowa). In 1902, Verda married William Gearhart in Dubuque. They had four kids, then William died in 1909. Verda then married Daniel Moore in 1911. I found a newspaper article saying she filed for divorce for cruel treatment in 1920, but apparently they resolved their differences, at least for a while, since they were together as a family in 1930. In 1962, Verda Gearhart was buried next to William Gearhart, so I'm not sure of the history of Verda's relationship with Daniel Moore.

Addendum:
Found more information, regarding Emma Arnold.  She was the daughter of Thomas Jefferson Goodwin and Eliza A. Summers.  She is with them in the 1870 census in Cascade. Her father died in about 1882 and is buried in Cascade.  In 1887 her divorce was filed in Sioux co., in the far western side of the state, far from Cascade. Her mother, Eliza Goodwin was there in 1900 and I suspect that Emma had gone to live with her mother who had relocated there. In about 1894 Emma married Lars Peterson and they had four or five children together.  They live next door to Emma's mother in 1900 in Hawarden, in Sioux co.  In the 1900 census, I also found a clue as to how Emma's daughter, Lydia, came to be adopted by Jean-Baptiste and Catherine LaBrune.  A few houses away from the Goodwins and Petersons in 1900 are Caspar and Adaline Luchsinger.  Caspar's first wife was Jean-Baptiste's niece. His second wife, Adaline, was also related to the LaBrune family.  So when Emma gave up or lost her children, Lydia may have found a new family through their Luchsinger neighbors. By 1910, both Emma Peterson's and her mother's families had moved out to California: Emma to East San Diego, Eliza to LA. I believe that Eliza Goodwin died between about 1910 and 1918.  Emma Goodwin Arnold Peterson passed away in 1940 in San Diego.