Rick Heiser

Ancestors

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Rick Heiser [send private message]

Biography

This profile is part of the Clezie  Name Study.

An autosomal DNA test done in 2019 says my ancient ancestors were about 52% Hunter-Gatherers, 38% Farmers and 10% Metal Age invaders.

They were entirely European, coming mainly from West and Central Europe (79%), Northeast Europe (12%), and Southeast Europe (9%). The only puzzle is that last group. I’ve got no known ancestors from Southeast Europe. Who were they; how long ago?

My immediate ancestors - the last 3 or 4 generations - were all Northern European migrants to the New World:

Clezie ancestors from Berwickshire, Scotland moved to Edinburgh, then left Scotland after baby twins tragically died from measles; they migrated to Canada in 1832, settled near Montréal, later moved to Toronto, then across the Great Lakes to Cleveland, Ohio (cousins in Scotland variously wrote the name Clazie, Clazey, Clazy, Clezy);

Heiser ancestors came from Hessen, in west central Germany, where they had been farmers and shepherds for generations; they migrated to the United States in 1865, just as the Civil War was ending, and settled at Cleveland, Ohio;

Lockhart ancestors left Renfrewshire, Scotland and migrated to Canada around 1830; William Lockhart was shown with his family in the 1831 census at Saint-Philippe, Québec, near Montréal; he died, his widow remarried and moved across the Great Lakes to Troy, New York, later moved again to Chicago;

Megert family members - 13 together - left the canton of Bern, Switzerland in 1850, sailed on the ship “St. Nicholas” from the French port of Le Havre during the Christmas season; most of them later added “h” to the name - for unknown reasons, making it Megerth;

Schwab ancestors from Württemberg, in southwest Germany arrived in New York about 1872; they intermarried with other German migrants and ended up living at Cleveland;

Tomoń was my Polish grandfather's name but Poland had ceased to exist, swallowed up by its neighbours, so my ancestors were Austro-Hungarian subjects when they migrated in 1903; they met other Poles at Cleveland and soon married.

Żarnowska was my Polish grandmother’s family name when she migrated to the U.S. in 1903, following her sister, who left home a year earlier; they settled at Cleveland; Żarnowski is the Polish spelling for males, Żarnowska for females;

Other family surnames prominent among my ancestors were Bogaczewicz and Cieśla in Poland; Henderson and Lockie in Scotland; Schenk and Rupp in Germany; Iseli and Stalder in Switzerland.

(I'm doing a one-name-study on the unusual Clezie - Clazey - Clazie - Clazy - Clezy name, found here: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Clezie_Name_Study)

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Rick Heiser at registration.

• Autosomal DNA test taken in 2019 through www.familytreedna.com