Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

Serendipity!

It’s Saturday Night — time for some Genealogy Fun!

This week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge asks:

Serendipity! What happened when you went looking for an ancestor or a genealogical record and were pleasantly surprised to find someone else or something else you didn't expect while you were doing that search?

At first, I wasn't sure how I was going to answer this week's question. Then I realized that one of my recent research adventures was a perfect example of genealogical serendipity.

Looking for Richard Foster's Land

My search began with Richard Foster. I wasn't looking for a new family connection or trying to solve a DNA mystery. I was simply trying to figure out where Richard owned land in Warren County.

Using information from a land abstract along with a map showing the area's early landowners, I was studying Richard's property and the people who owned land nearby.

That's when one name caught my attention:

John E. Stufflebeam

Stufflebeam?

I knew that name!

Following the Stufflebeam Clue

Instead of staying focused on Richard Foster and his land, I did what genealogists so often do—I followed the unexpected clue.

As I dug into the Stufflebeam family, I discovered connections involving Harriet Ostrander and Caroline Ostrander.

Suddenly, what had started as a search for the location of Richard Foster's land had turned into an investigation of an entirely different family.

And then DNA made the story even more interesting.

What About My DNA Matches?

Since the Stufflebeam name had now caught my attention, I checked my DNA matches.

To my surprise, I found about 15 matches with Stufflebeam connections.

Even more intriguing, those matches weren't neatly confined to one side of my family. They appeared among matches associated with both my paternal and maternal sides.

Now I had even more questions.

Were these matches evidence of the Ostrander connection I had uncovered?

Was there another connection between these families that I hadn't yet identified?

Or was I looking at several different relationships that just happened to involve the Stufflebeam surname?

I don't have those answers yet.

That's Serendipity!

And perhaps that's what makes this such a good example of genealogical serendipity.

I went looking for Richard Foster's land.

I found John E. Stufflebeam living nearby.

That led me to the Ostrander family.

Then I discovered a group of Stufflebeam DNA matches that gave me still more questions to investigate.

None of that was what I was looking for when I started.

Genealogy research is often like that. We search for one record, one person, or one piece of evidence. Along the way, we notice a name in the margin, a neighbor on a map, a witness on a document, or a familiar surname that makes us wonder:

Where have I seen that name before?

Sometimes that little detour becomes more interesting than the original search.

In this case, my attempt to put Richard Foster on the map introduced me to another research trail—one that I'm still following.

And that is my example of genealogical serendipity!

I can also make this a little more conversational and “Heartland Genealogy”-like, especially by emphasizing the FAN-club lesson of always paying attention to the neighbors.