There they were in black and white.
Obviously, the same names propagated in my AncestryDNA report too.
But one name STUCK OUT: Duane Schleder.
When I saw this moniker on my results, I had previously learned that the Elder Duane Schelder was a life long farmer in the Green Valley area and had passed away.
After mom’s test results came back , I looked a bit closer. There was ANOTHER Duane Schleder, he was my age!
So, I Facebook messaged him. Sure enough, it was he who had taken the test.
Wait…What? If he had taken the test, that means his DAD is my Mom’s first COUSIN.
That’s when I went back, and started building out more “Family Trees” on Ancestry.com. Duane’s Grandma Frieda had two brothers, Albert and George. Meet the new grandpa candidates:
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- Duane(DJ), his Dad, Lonnie on up to his Grandma Frieda
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- Daddy Option #1 Albert Senior
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- Daddy Option #2 George
So what’s next? I went to Google.
Typed in….”Albert Volk”.
What I sadly found, was an obituary for Albert Volk Jr.
He had passed away only a couple months ago.
He had children.
I found one on Facebook. But, then noticed a “Debbie” who I shared several Facebook friends with. She wrote on Krystal’s page under a picture of Krystal and her Dad “He was my favorite uncle”.
I sent Debbie a note asking “Are you a Volk?”. She replied, “Yes, are we related?” I said, “I think so, but I don’t know exactly how.”
Debbie let Krystal in on the conversation, along with her daughter, Marissa, and other cousins Jan and Joyce. They pillaged through the Wehyrich Genealogy Book and found everyone that I had DNA matched with in it.
Yes, we are most certainly close cousins.
We all gathered in Green Valley a couple weeks ago.
I’m not going to lie, it felt like I had known these ladies my WHOLE life. We laughed, and looked at pictures for 3 hours straight. Before we all ate pizza, Krystal conducted the AncestryDNA test. That’s fancy words for she spit in the tube.
I learned that Albert Senior was widowed 7 years before my Mom was born. George was a “free spirit” too. So that didn’t help narrow things down.
As we wait for the official test results, we ALL can’t help but feel that we are first cousins.
We have done picture-by-picture comparisons of my Mom with Debbie’s Mom, Laverne and, also with Krystal’s Dad, Albert Jr.
Laverne, CJ’s Mom
Albert Jr. , CJ’s Mom
If everything is what we think, Laverne and Albert Jr. are my Moms half brother and half sister.
Debbie, Krystal, Jan, Joyce and myself will all be biologically close cousins to some degree.
But we are ALL hoping this is the correct scenario.
It’s only a matter of 2-4 weeks until we get the AncestryDNA test results and will know for sure the answer to….Who is CJ?
