Week 19 of The WikiTree Challenge for Devon showed us that even some of the strongest brick walls can come down! Team members once again impressed us with their dedication, focus, and research skills. People were grouping up to tackle those more stubborn brick walls, and untangled many branches in the process!
These challenge participants added 337 profiles to her branches. There were 66 direct ancestors and 271 nuclear relatives of ancestors. 14 of the new ancestors were completely new to Devon!
Altogether, more than 35 members made 3,500 edits to her ancestor profiles. Military and migration records were found and documented. Many did research, while others worked on profile narratives, looked up articles, added categories, and contributed in other ways.
Here are some highlights from our discoveries:
- Katherine (Foster) Townley was already established on WikiTree. Once the right connections were made, Devon gained 15 new ancestors!!
- Richard Townley’s mother, Joane (White) Townley, presented a stubborn brick wall. Her parents were discovered to be William White (born before 1593) and Mary (Sackville) White (born about 1599). Mary has an illustrious ancestry. Her line was traced back through at least two members of Parliament. Christopher Sackville's mother was Margaret (Boleyn) Sackville. Christopher’s maternal grandfather was William Boleyn who was knighted by Richard III. These lines added more than 100 ancestors to Devon’s branches.
- Johann Michael Paul Zumstein was born around 1792 in Germany, and of great interest to Devon. He married Maria Philippina Molter and had ten children with her. Of those ten, two died young in Germany, and at least six of the remaining eight children migrated to Canada. Philippina gained an additional first name after the marriage record was translated. After finding the marriage for Johann, a team member discovered that his father was Johannes Zumstein. Another brick wall broken!
- It was discovered that Devon's 8th great-grandfather was a Johann Anthonius Klein (bef.1691-bef.1758), not an Antonio Heinrichs Klein. The new parents were Conrad Klein, the son of Balthasar Klein, and Eva (Krappen) Klein, the daughter of Hans Peter Krappen. This added 6 new direct ancestors!!
- In late-breaking news it was discovered that the father of Mary (Deats) Gulick was an Adam, not a William. Six more children were quickly found for Adam, and were being added right before the LiveCast went live!!!
Team Captain: Maddy Hardman
MVP: Dieter Lewerenz
Top Bounty Hunter: Dieter Lewerenz
For more information see the challenge scoring explanation and check out the week 19 statistics to see a summary of all contributors.
If you missed the wrap-up LiveCast and want to see Devon's reaction to our endeavors, you can view it at any time on YouTube.
Quotes:
- Wow. Nice. … I didn’t know I had any Welsh!
- Wow! That is exciting! Good job!
- The Peake line, that might be a super trail. I’m going to go look at that one, for sure! I said, I’d love to have a DAR (patriot)!
- Ok, ok! So, I’ll have to report that! That will be exciting! Wow! I don’t know what else to say but Wow!
- ..I want to say that now that you guys have added so many ancestors for me, people will be able to see ‘how’s Devon related to me’ and I’ll be able to say “oh, that’s a valid line!”
- I can’t thank you guys enough for everything you did!
