And Then There Is DNA...
And Then There Is DNA...
The above genealogical histories of the Gallagher, Peterson and Wolff clans follow the
paper trail. Or at least they follow as
much of the paper trail as could be uncovered. The paper trail worked to reveal a lot of
information about the Wolff family. But the paper trail was inadequate to
completely untangle the mystery of the Peterson's and it failed completely to
uncover anything about the Gallagher’s before Black Pat’s marriage in 1888.
So I turned to DNA. I took an autosomal DNA test on
Ancestry.com. The results were downloaded and placed on websites 23 and Me, Family Tree DNA, GED Match and My Living Tree
DNA. The DNA results turned up links to
the James, Barker, Newton and Woods families in the form of distant cousins who
were descended from people either already in the family tree or readily found
to be part of my family tree. But
frustration continued in getting any further with the Peterson or Gallagher
trees. There were NO Peterson's or Gallagher’s
showing up in the DNA results.
Indications of a problem surfaced in late 2020 when I made contact with a couple of the great grandchildren of
Carl Peterson (1874-1960). Carl was a
younger brother to Lena Peterson Gallagher and Mary Peterson Wolff, my great grandmothers. So,
theoretically, I should be a cousin to Carl's descendants. One of them, John Janosko (son of Marion
Janosko and grandson of Violet Peterson), had his DNA results on 23 and
Me. My DNA results there
as well. No match. I kind of wrote this off as possible
evidence that the Peterson family was in fact a blended family. However it would mean that Lena and Mary had
a different mom AND dad than did Carl Peterson.
That is not entirely out of the question, but it does seem unlikely.
It became more obvious that there definitely was a problem when
no Wolff family members appeared in the DNA results. The Peterson's could be a blended family in
such a way that there would be no matches with known cousins. The Gallagher's may not show up if it were a
small family back in Black Pat’s day and their descendants were not pursuing
their genealogy online. But the Wolff
family was very large. There are at least two distant cousins that were tracing their ancestry (Bliss Ireland
and Ron Wolff). The fact that there was
no DNA match was puzzling.
One way to possibly sort this out was through
a Y-DNA test. I had taken one
earlier back in January, 2020. The results
are on Family Tree DNA (test kit #B577723).
A Y-DNA test shows the male line.
So it should show my ancestors down the Gallagher family
line. Nope. Still no Gallagher’s. Only one name came up – HEPPELL. Heppell?
What’s a Heppell? Never heard of
it before.
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| Y-DNA results |
At this point I was thinking that maybe Black Pat was not born a Gallagher and that maybe I had found Black Pat’s roots. Then on January 5, 2021, I received an email from a Dominic Gagnon in Quebec, Canada. He manages a page for a 90 year old relative named Gaston Heppell, one of the Heppells on the Y-DNA list (shown above). He was wondering how I was related to the Heppells.
He was the first one to suggest that the Heppell link was much closer than Black Pat’s parents (second line in the email below).
I wasn’t quite buying it. I was convinced that Lawrence was Black Pat’s son and that Ken was Lawrence’s son. Although only the paper trail to backed this up. On the DNA front the website “23 and Me” was pointing to a first cousin – Sherry Bigelow.
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| 23 and Me DNA matches |
This was the first real proof that the break in the Gallagher line was much closer than Black Pat. But I missed it. Then enters cousin Ike Gallagher.
The I contacted cousin Ike to see if Ike ever heard of the name Heppell. If anyone knew anything about any connection to Heppell it would have been Ike’s dad, Russ, as he was the oldest of the Gallagher siblings. Ike, of course, made a joke of it (in true Gallagher fashion), treating the name as if it were some kind of disease. Finally, he did admit that he had completed a DNA test and the results were on Ancestry. That news in and of itself indicated that Ike was NOT a blood cousin because Ike's results never appeared in my list of matches.
Ike was kind enough to provide access
to his DNA results. Turns out that Ike
matches with Herbie Clark, a grandson of Herbert Gallagher (a brother to
Lawrence Gallagher) and two folks with the Frasier name. These last two are George Frasier and
Alexandra Frasier, son and granddaughter of Charlene Gallagher Frasier, George
Gallagher’s eldest daughter. That meant
that Ike’s dad Russ and Charlene’s dad George were indeed brothers, but it
appeared that my dad may not have been their brother by blood.
It took a while to accept
that. Ken Gallagher looks so much like
his brothers. But he was wired differently.
Much more driven. He always had
to be working on something. He was never
very good at just relaxing. His brothers
were more laid back. They could go fishing and really enjoy it. Ken not so much. The DNA
results seemed clear. Dad was not born a
Gallagher. It was HIS dad that was a
Heppell.
That took me back to the match with Sherry Bigelow. The centimorgans in
the match, which at first seemed too low for her to be a first cousin, would be correct if she were a HALF first cousin. That meant that her grandfather was my grandfather. Her grandfather
was Wilfred Heppell (1904-1978).
The
Heppells were originally from the Alsace area of France. According to Google Maps, Alsace is an historical region in
northeastern France on the Rhine River plain. Bordering Germany and
Switzerland, it has alternated between German and French control over the
centuries and reflects a mix of those cultures. Its capital is Strasbourg.
The family came to this country about 1740 and ultimately settled in Salem, New York. Before 1790 the next generation of the family had moved north and settled in Quebec, specifically in Rimouski, Quebec. Rimouski is on the east side of the St Lawrence River about 180 miles northeast of Quebec.
It has traditionally been a farming area and the Heppells were farmers. Between 1875 and 1880, Adamore Heppell, known as Dan (1857-1938), left Rimouski and settled in the Snohomish area of Washington State. Dan was between 18 and 23 years old. It is not known why he left the rest of the family – parents and six siblings - and moved so far west. Washington was still a territory as it did not become a state until 1889.
In June, 1890, Dan marries Victoria Mary Plante (1869-1926), also a Canadian. They go on to have at least six children (there is some indication they may have had as many as eight, but only six survived to adulthood). Wilfred, born in 1904, was one of the youngest.
Wilfred would have been about 15-16 when Ken
was conceived. He and his family lived
in Snohomish, Washington at the time. But
who was the mother?
Other family names that kept popping up in
the writer’s autosomal DNA results were Bradshaw and Sprague. Turns out there was a Martha “Mattie”
Bradshaw (1870-1938) that married a Theodore Sprague (1862-1944). They had seven daughters. He was from Kentucky and she was from Arkansas,
but they settled in Washington State by 1907, first in Snohomish then moving to
Easton. Mattie kept showing up in the
trees of folks whose DNA matched with mine.
By 1920 they had seven daughters that ranged in age from 33 to 13. One of them, Willie May Sprague, actually married into the Heppell family. The oldest son of Dan Heppell was Adamore Joseph Heppell (1891-1977). He married Willie May Sprague in Mt Vernon, WA, in 1909.
This established the connection with the
Sprague family. So the
Heppells and the Spragues certainly knew each other. Given their ages, any of the seven daughters could
theoretically have been Ken’s birth mother.
However, by 1920 all but one was married. The youngest daughter was the one not
married, but she was only 13.
In looking at each of the daughters, some peculiar entries cropped up. One of the daughters, Leoline Sprague, was shown in the 1920 US Census as married to Manford Miller.
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| Manford and Leoline are listed at the bottom |
They had one son who was five years old and they were living in Easton, Washington. Easton is located on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass just before Cle Elum. Manford was listed as a railroad foreman. In the 1930 census this couple is not together. Leoline is living by herself in Seattle at 408 Wall Street (that is now part of the downtown Seattle business district). She is listed as a lodger at that address and her occupation is a “power machine operator.” She lists herself as divorced.
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| Leoline is listed on line 41 near the bottom |
It is odd that she does not have her son with her. He would have been ten years old at the time. Typically the wife ended up with the child after a divorce. It is also odd that a woman would list herself as divorced. Divorces were rare back in the 1920s and 1930s. There was a fair amount of stigma attached to a divorce at that time.
Her ex-husband, Manford, is shown in the 1930 census as still living in the Easton/Cle Elum area.
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| Manford is listed on line 34 and his son, Arthur, is on line 35 |
Their son is with
him. Manford lists himself as a
widower. Clearly his wife is dead to
him. It is hard to know when the divorce
occurred other than it was some time after the 1920 census and before the 1930
census. Ken Gallagher was born on
November 18, 1920. That means he would
have been conceived around mid-February 1920, a full month after the 1920
census was taken. Because of these
circumstances, Leoline may be Ken’s mother. The theory is that Leoline’s divorce
occurs because Manford somehow knows or discovers that Ken is not his child.
The piece that is still missing is how Ken
ends up in Great Falls, Montana where he was born. One theory is that Manford
and/or Leoline did not want the child born in the small community of
Easton. Manford did work for the
railroad. So it would have been easy to
get Leoline out of town. But why Great
Falls?
The only birth certificate for Ken that the writer has seen is dated 1940.
That is a full twenty
years after Ken’s birth. He may have needed the birth certificate to enter his machinist apprenticeship. I contacted the State offices in Helena, Montana that handle birth
certificates. The person that I spoke to said that the birth records on file look as if Ken was born to
Bessie. She saw no evidence of an
adoption in the information she had. When asked if back in the day the doctor simply handed the baby over to the
Gallaghers would the birth certificate just be made out as if they were the
parents, the state employee laughed and
said “Well, this is Montana and back in those days (1920) anything was
possible.” So it could be possible that Ken
was placed with the Gallaghers very shortly after birth and that his birth
certificate information was filled out as if they were his birth parents.
Another theory is that the child was given up
to the Catholic Church. The Heppells
were Catholics. It is hard to say about
the Spragues. Leoline and Manford were
married before a Justice of the Peace in Ellensburg (May 16, 1914). If the child was given up to the Catholic
Church it is possible the Church relocated Ken before giving him up for
adoption (the word "adoption" is used here, but there is no proof that
Ken was formally adopted; he may have been placed with the family without any
legal proceedings). Lawrence Gallagher
was raised a Catholic (although his wife Bessie was not). It is possible they may have learned about
Ken through Catholic Church connections.
It is not known why Lawrence and Bessie would adopt a child when they
were in the process of having their own.
By the time Ken was born they already had three children – Russ, George
and Harold (“Bus”).
Also, it is amazing that Lawrence and Bessie
did not tell anyone that Ken was not their natural child. I am convinced that Ken (his father)
did not know any of this. I adopted both of my sons (Kyle and Jamie).
Ken spent a lot of time with them when they were growing up and he had
ample opportunity to say something about his own adoption if he had known
anything. Also, if the family had known
they would not have been quiet about it.
Bill Gallagher in particular would have been very vocal about Ken not
being a "true Gallagher" (Bill made such comments to me about my sons. Clearly a case of the pot
calling the kettle black as Bill himself had adopted his wife Marie’s son, Mike).
As far as could be discovered, Leoline only had the one son. He married and had two daughters, Carolyn Jane Miller (1943 - ?) and Linda Ann Miller (1947 - ?). It is not known whether either of them are alive or if they have any children. A DNA test from either Carolyn or Linda would prove whether or not the writer’s theory is correct.
Update 2022 – It Really Helps to Test Everyone!
In late 2021 I offered to pay for a DNA test for my sister, Patricia Gallagher, if she was interested. She agreed to take the test. The purpose was just to get an extra data point to see if that would help in some way. It did help, however the results were nothing that my sister or I expected
Our mother, Edna, had taken
a DNA test several years before she passed away in 2018. Both Patricia and I are matches with Edna and she shows up as, in fact, the mother of
both of us. Okay so far. However,
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Our father never took a DNA test as he passed away in 2007 before I had taken an interest in DNA testing (and before the DNA tests became readily available and affordable on Ancestry.com). So there was no DNA for the paternal side. As a substitute, I looked at Patricia’s results that did not match up with the writer or with Edna.
Close family
results listed Lawrence (Ike) Gallagher, Glenna Gallagher (Ike’s daughter) and
GP Frasier (George, Charlene’s son) as 1st -2nd cousins
to Patricia. They are in fact first
cousins. None of these names show up on
my list of matches.
So, what all this means is that I was completely wrong about Ken Gallagher not being a Gallagher. I was also wrong about Wilfred Heppell being my grandfather. AND, as if all that wasn’t enough, I was wrong about who was born a Heppell. Don't you just hate it when that happens?!
The person born a Heppell was me.
So back to the DNA
results. The Y-DNA test shows that I am descended from the Heppells on my paternal side. The autosomal test shows that I am related
to the Sprague’s as well. So where do
the Heppells and the Spragues come together? As mentioned above, the only such instance found was where Adamore Heppell
(1891-1977) married Willie Mae Sprague (1890-1974). They had three sons: Ernest Adamore
(1910-1983), Randall Laurence (1913-1979) and Earl Royal (1915-2003). One of those sons was very likely my birth father.
The paper trail for all three men was then examined. Of the three, the one that stood out was Earl Royal Heppell. The 1950 US Census lists him as a supervisor at an aircraft manufacturer and he lives in Seattle.
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| Earl and his family are listed near the bottom |
There was only one aircraft manufacturer in Seattle – Boeing. Edna had mentioned that she worked at Boeing before the writer was born. The 1950 Census lists her as a secretary at an aircraft manufacturer.
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| Edna and Ken are listed near the bottom |
She never said much about her time at Boeing except that she “was very naïve.” I never thought to question why she said that. It is interesting to note that Edna did go back to work when I was in junior high. But she did not go back to Boeing, the largest employer in the Renton-Seattle area at the time. Instead she went to work as a secretary at the Renton Vocational Training Institute (now known as Renton Technical College).
At this
point, 70 years after I was conceived, it is impossible to know what
happened to my mother in January 1952. I may never know for certain.
However, I am 99% certain that dad, Ken, never knew I wasn’t his biological son. Dad had quite the temper. If he had known I was not his son, it
would have come out during one of his angry outbursts. I am about 80% certain that mom did not know that Ken wasn’t the dad.
They had been trying to have children for almost nine years before I came along. So chances are that she
did not think twice about who the father was.
The fact that I look like mom's father’s side of the family (the
James clan) probably helped to quash any questions in her mind as time went on.
The lack of a DNA connection with Dad
does answer some questions, like why I do not have my father’s athletic ability or his mechanical ability.
It will take at least one more DNA test to be completely certain as to which of the sons of Adamore is my birthfather. Hopefully one day, one of Adamore’s descendants will take a DNA test. Until then, Earl Royal Heppell, is the best guess. But it is only a guess. As I have discovered in this journey, it really helps to test EVERYONE!
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| Earl as a High School Senior |
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| My High School Senior Photo |
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