Hello!
My "brickwall" ancestor would be my great great grandparents, on my grandmother's side. They were supposedly from Ireland, but their last name is so common, it is just about impossible to find. (I have searched Ireland documents and have found too many Browne and/or Browns.)
What I do know for sure, is that my great grandmother was Teresa Ann Girten Hardenbrook and her parents were Spencer Girten and Mary Ann Browne Girten Clark (she married twice). Mary Ann was definitely from Ireland, but the last name "Girten" seems to be German and I have absolutely no German in me and I believed my grandmother thought that her mother (Teresa) was 100% Irish, which does confirm with my DNA, because that would make my grandmother 50% Irish and my mom 25% Irish and me 12% Irish, which shows on my DNA and after several years, Ancestry broke down the Irish into Baltic and Wales and Scottish roots, etc... (my sister inherited the Scottish side completely for the Irish 12%, I got absolutely no Scottish but 7% Irish and some Baltic & Wales instead). Yes, my sister & I are completely 100% sisters. I had my doubts since childhood, but our DNA matches both parents. LoL (You get only 50% of your parent's DNA, but that doesn't guarantee that all siblings get the same 50% and we are prime examples of that.)
Is anyone else related to the Girtens? Can you tell me if they may have taken that last name? Or, is it really Irish? I cannot seem to find any relatives past David Girten being the father of Spencer and Rebecca Wiley being his mother. For Mary Ann, I think her father may have been John Browne and her mother with the maiden name Ankoron, from the Irish baptismal record, but that's as far as I can get.
