DNA Origins Corroboration

Independent genetic evidence (Ancestry DNA "Origins Journeys") cross-checked against the paper-trail research. This is a strong piece of content because it's evidence from a completely different methodology agreeing with the genealogical record.

"Early Connecticut & New York Settlers" (5+ ancestors connect to this)

Matches the Norwich/Stonington cluster almost exactly: Thomas Minor, Walter Palmer, Thomas Tracy, William Hyde, Thomas Bliss, Thomas Sluman, Thomas Leffingwell, Stephen Post — plus the Dutchess County NY Palatine German cluster (Barthel, Hack, Lutz, Rauch, Lott) and the Barrett militia line.

"Rhode Island, Southern New York, and Northeast Pennsylvania Settlers"

Matches two confirmed clusters: the Newport/Westerly RI Baptist community (Angell, Crandall, Hubbard, Peckham, Clarke, Saunders) AND the Barnes/Reeves frontier corridor at Lackawaxen, PA and Orange/Sullivan County, NY.

"Southern Ontario, Northern New York & Northern Pennsylvania Settlers"

Matches the Fellman/Bachmann family's move to Waterloo, Ontario — miller Samuel Fellmann, 1847 Eby marriage, 1851/52 Mennonite census — plus the later Rochester/Bradford County branch, and the repeated pattern of other families relocating to northern NY late in life (Angell → Cortland/Broome Co.; Barnes → Wayne/Broome Co.; Winthrop Roe → Cortland Co., NH to NY move in old age). See Fellman – Bachmann – Zeisert.

Why there are no Fellmans in the DNA match list

This is expected. It does not mean the surname line is wrong. Ancestry’s match list is filtered by other people’s current surnames and trees, not by which 3rd-great-grandfather contributed a few percent of the kit.

1. Fellman is not a Y-DNA or mtDNA line on this kit

Autosomal DNA is what Ancestry sells. Y-DNA follows fathers only — Maiale, not Fellman. mtDNA follows mothers only — the Dowling/Irish line, not Fellman. The Fellman connection is one slice of autosomal DNA through Dorothy’s father. Samuel Fellmann (1820–1863) is a 3rd great-grandfather: on average about 3% of a tester’s DNA, and it recombines away in matches.

2. The name itself almost died on this side of the ocean

Samuel and Christina’s children were hit hard by tuberculosis and by daughters marrying out. The documented next generation that would still show up as Fellman is tiny:

• 🟢 Jacob Bachman Fellman (d. 1888, TB) left Gertrude Lillian, who married Charles Alvin Snell — her descendants are Snells — and Arthur Morely Fellman (b. 1883). That is the one documented Waterloo grandson who kept the name; his later descendants are not in this tree.
• 🟢 Magdalena m. Jared Master: son Walter Master, daughter Ella died in infancy. Matches would be Master, not Fellman.
• 🟢 Christine “Tiny” m. Otto Hymmen: sons Charles Walton Hymmen and Eldon Leslie Hymmen. Matches would be Hymmen.
• 🟢 Annie m. George Kalbfleisch, 1875; she died 1884 at 31. Waterloo Region Generations lists no children.
• 🟢 Samuel (1854–1926) of Hanover, Ont., m. Margaret Kern. Same source lists no children.
• 🟢 Ezra (the direct ancestor) had Harry Robert. Harry’s daughter Dorothy Audrey (1904–1926) married and died childless. His son Willard also used Ross. Willard’s daughters married as Russell and Maiale. After Willard, this American branch does not walk around named Fellman.

A match-list search for the word Fellman is looking for a surname this family mostly stopped using four and five generations ago.

3. Most Americans named Fellman are the wrong family

Ancestry’s own surname notes: in 1840 about 92% of U.S. Fellman households were in Pennsylvania. That is the Bucks / Montgomery / Quakertown Palatine cluster already flagged as a hint-merge, not Ödheim. The 2020 census has on the order of 1,300 Americans named Fellman — a rare name, and most of them are not this line. Matching a random Pennsylvania or Jewish/Alsatian Fellman would be a false lead.

4. The colonial side drowns the match list

The same kit has dozens of documented 1600s New England ancestors (Howland, Denison, Minor, Angell, Crandall…). Those lines are endogamous and over-tested. They generate hundreds of matches. One 1847 Waterloo couple cannot compete with that volume. The DNA that is from the Fellman landing shows up as a place — Ancestry’s “Southern Ontario, Northern New York & Northern Pennsylvania Settlers” journey — not as a last name.

What to search instead

Filter matches by tree surnames and places, not by the match’s own last name:

• Hymmen, Master, Snell, Buckberrough — documented children of Samuel and Christina’s kids
• Kalbfleisch (Morden, Manitoba) — Annie’s marriage; children not yet found
• Zeisset / Zeisert — Elisabetha’s German kin; some went to Kansas in the 1880s–90s. Distant; often no shared DNA
• Feldman / Fellmann / Felman / Fillman — spelling variants in the GEDCOM and on the stone
• Ross plus Rochester / Hempstead / Ventura — Willard’s documented alias
• Places: Waterloo, Berlin/Kitchener, Woolwich, Hanover (Grey Co.) — the actual landing, independent of surname

If those Ontario surnames and places do appear among maternal shared matches, the paper trail is genetically confirmed and the missing Fellman label is just the name dying out. If nothing from Waterloo / Hymmen / Master / Snell appears even among matches who share DNA with known maternal cousins, that is when to reopen the 🟡 question of Harry Robert’s 1880 birth vs. Ezra and Emma’s 1889 civil marriage — a missing biological link would also produce a match list with no Fellman-side Ontario cousins.

Not yet checked

• An Ireland-specific DNA Origins journey almost certainly exists on the same Ancestry account, given the volume of confirmed Dowling/Curry/Kelly/ Gilroy material (Dublin, Westmeath, Cork, Tyrone) — not yet pulled and compared.

Maiale-side DNA journeys live on ancestry.maiale.com/dna/.