Convoluted family relationships

Rolf Tandberg

My mother never knew with certainty who her birth father was. My widowed great grand mother remarried Olaf Matildus Pedersen LHX1-9RC. They had 3 children. My grandmother was a child of her 1st husband. Using DNA and 1920 records, I have connections to children of the 2nd marriage that are uniformly stronger than Shared cM Project 4.0 tool would suggest with a normal paper trail. The evidence leads me to believe that mother's biological father is my grandmother's stepfather. This fits with the verbal gossip in the family of the 1st family.

How is this accounted for when creating a family tree? The 3 children of the 2nd marriage are both1/2 siblings and 1/2 aunts and uncles to mother.

It was a messy situation in 1920.

Alan E. Brown

Family Tree is built using only two kinds of relationships: a couple relationship between two persons, and a parent-child relationship between a child and one or two parents. A person can have zero or more couple relationships, and zero or more parent -child relationships. That's it. Every other relationship you might describe is a result of a combination of those simple relationships.

For example, what we call a step father relationship might be a result of two simple relationships: a child has a parent-child relationship to her mother and father, and then the mother has a couple relationship to another man. That makes him the child's step-father through those two relationships.

So, @Rolf Tandberg , you need to gather source records and whatever other documentation will help you make accurate conclusions about the relationships in your family, and then create couple relationships and parent-child relationships accordingly.

Wayland K Adams

I would just add to Alan Brown's excellent response, that when you create various relationships, you can also specific what type of relationship it is. For example, you can specify a parent child relationship to be biological, step, adopted, guardianship, and foster. Likewise, you can specify various type of couple relationships. Here is a link that may help

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-specify-biological-step-adopted-and-foster-relationships-in-family-tree

Gordon Collett

I had to take your verbal description and draw it out to not be confused. Is this the family structure you are trying to show in Family Tree:

If so, this is easy to do because, as stated above, all you do is construct child/parent relationships and a person in Family Tree can have far more of these than anyone would ever need. However, there are only a few ways these can be labeled and the quality checker does not like it if a person has more than one biological father or mother.

A note of caution withe genetics: These people are shown as living in Rødøy, Nordland. In the 1920 census this municipality only had a population of 2,987. In small communities like this, there can so much endogamy that DNA statistics can really get messed up and not fit the standard models of relationships. For example, my wife's parents come from a small geographical part of western Norway and are related to each other nineteen different ways. You should probably get a consultation with a professional genealogist who is proficient in both the genealogy and genetics of tiny, rural communities where everybody is related to everybody.

On your mother's record in Family Tree it shows her as born in 1920 in Oslo but without a full date or christening information and no sources. But you do have a note that you have a birth record for her. I'm just curious about what notations might be on that birth record. Have you found it in the Digitalarchives? The 1920 census for Norway was taken on December 1, 1920 and shows your grandmother as single with no children in Oslo: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/census/person/pf01073701253258

Where was her daughter?

Gordon Collett

Here's what looks to be your mother's birth record: https://media.digitalarkivet.no/view/1850/150

What explanation is there for the father being reporting as a man from Ålesund? Do you know when your grandmother moved from Rødøy to Oslo? Those places are about 620 miles apart and in the 1920 census Olaf is still up in Rødøy: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/census/person/pf01074259002598

I'm not saying the genetics are wrong, just that they can be misleading.

Rolf Tandberg

Thanks everyone. I do have mother's birth certificate. The father listed does exist in the time frame. I believe it was done either without his knowledge or with his complicity

There is a family in the US that is descended from Olaf's twin brother. That family was in the US prior to Mother's time of conception. The grandson and I share ~380 cMs. The only way this happens is if the step father is mother's father. There is a MyHeritage auto cluster report that includes the US branch and the Norwegian descendants and it is quite densely packed with them. Part of that may be due to the parental DNA on each side from the descendants for the half sibling/half aunt and uncle relatives (260 cM range)

I see endogamy in many of the possible 4th and 5th cousin cohort on these DNA results from 2 testing services. There is one that is on both sides of the tree back several generations.

Rolf Tandberg

Mother was boarded sometime after birth with Andrina Roed, a spinster lady, whose (grand?) father was an Eidsvoll man (farmer from Sande and a framer of the constitution of 1814). When she passed away, mother went to a children's home in the western suburbs of Oslo (Alfredheim). When a little older, Mother was a border at Eugeniastifstlese. That was a dual purpose place where young females learned skills to work in households and they assisted in tending to the boarders. Mother graduated from Ila Skole.

Milda, my grandmother, worked as a seamstress and tailor to support mother and was in her life through this entire time frame. She even worked on clothing for Sonja Henning. Milda never spoke of the circumstances of Mother's conception.

Gordon Collett

I guess I'm not very observant. Emma is right there in the census with her mother but is listed on the line above her instead of below her where I would have expected to see her. They are living in a "home for homeless mothers and infants." That's sad.

Rolf Tandberg

The stepfather was 20 years younger than Hansine. I do not know if the event with Milda was consensual or not. Shortly after the census was when mother lived with Andrina. Mother slept in a bedroom with the maid. Andrina rented rooms to members of parliament when it was in session in Oslo. It was a very nice neighborhood in Oslo, the corner of Torsgate and Ekersberggate.

Gordon Collett

Any chance of tracking down descendants of any Johan Nilsens born 1896 in Ålesund and seeing if they have done any DNA testing?

You do have family rumors and it would surely have been scandalous, and nine months is certainly long enough to flee from home all the way to Oslo, so it is very possible that a random name was provided as the father but the more I learn about DNA, the fuzzier the science becomes.

Rolf Tandberg

This is the facility Mother was at after Andrina Roed:

Alfredheim

, tidligere stiftelse som drev barnehjem, grunnlagt av pastor Julius Riddervold (1842–1921), sekretær i Lutherstiftelsen. Riddervold som mistet sin toårige sønn Alfred i 1873, ville sammen med sin kone opprette et barnehjem for trengende barn til minne om deres sønn. Alfredheim ble stiftet i 1875, og startet i en privatbolig på Nesodden med fire piker. Senere ble det startet to barnehjem til, Alfredheim II og III. Antall barn økte til 60 på disse tre hjemmene. Alfredheim-barnehjemmene holdt til på flere forskjellige adresser. Da hjemmet i Guldbergs vei 31 på på Heggeli åpnet i 1915, bodde det 30 barn i ettårsalderen der.

Rolf Tandberg

I have not done anything on Nilsen. My DNA connection to US twin brother and to the half sister/half aunt fall within the expected ranges for those kinds of paternal event.