Dear Niece ...
I thought this would be the easiest way to organize the information for you.
Your Dad's parents are your "Grandma" Bridgett and Mr. Unknown .... then he was adopted by his grandparents, Clyde and Phyllis, Bridgett's parents. This makes things a little confusing on how we recognize your dad because that makes his mom his "Sister" and his grandparents his "Mom & Dad"
For the sake of the FAMILY TREE though, we are going to base things biologically..
Bridgett is your grandmother, born in Illinois. Mr. Unknown, well, he is unknown.
Clyde and Phyllis are your Great Grandparents.... they are both still alive. Both born in Illinois.
From this point, we are going to do Clyde's side ... and we'll do Phyllis' side next.
YOUR 2x Great Grandparents
Clyde's parent's were both born in Joliet, IL .... they were Clyde & Verna Yahnke. Your Great-Great Grandparents (so your 2x Great Grandparents)
YOUR 3x Great Grandparents
Clyde's parents, Martin and Grace Yahnke were also born in Illinois. Your Great-Great-Great Grandparents (so your 3x Great Grandparents)
Verna's parents were Robert and Winifred Lambert, also both born in Illinois. Your Great-Great-Great Grandparents (so your 3x Great Grandparents)
YOUR 4x Great Grandparents
Martin's parents Daniel and Roselie Yahnke were born in Prussia. Daniel was born in 1842 and Roselie was born in 1844.
Prussia is what is now, Poland and a lot of Germany. It was heavily populated with Jews.
Yahnke or normally spelled Janke, Jahnke or some version of that, is typically a Jewish surname. When asked the family if there was Jewish heritage, they say no. However, there were rumors that were heard that there was Jewish heritage. The name suggests that there is definitely Jewish heritage. No one would confirm it.
When your uncle Dennis got his DNA test done through Ancestry, it came up - specifically Jewish heritage at one point. In our eyes, that pretty much confirmed the connection.
You can see the last thing on the list is "European Jewish"
So like I said - even though it's so little (and so many generations back) it pretty much confirmed it for us.
It's possible that Daniel Yahnke was perhaps Jewish growing up. Maybe changed religion once he came to America. This is a possible passenger listening for Daniel to have traveled to America to come live. Notice the name was spelled with a 'J" instead of a "Y" ... it was common when people arrived in America that they would change their names slightly or outright, depending.
Grace's parents were Jospeh & Mary Dixon - Joseph was born in 1854 in Woodborough, Nottinghamshire, England .... Mary was born in 1867 in Illinois.
I will go one step further with Mary since she was born in Illinois. Her parents (your 5x Great Grandparents) are John & Maria Blogg. John was born in 1818 in Boston, Norfolk, England. Maria was born in 1827 in Crownthorpe, Norfolk, England.
(currently do not have photo of their grave/s)
So now you know, that even though Mary was born in Illinois, her roots were British.
Robert Lambert's parents are a bit of a mystery. We believe that they are named Thomas and Mary Lambert but we don't really have any information on them, not really birth years or where they are from.
(currently do not have photo of their grave/s)
The surname Lambert is very commonly a French surname. However there were many in England too, including some prominent ones.
Winifred's parents are Bernard and Winifred McNiff. Bernard was born in 1849 Rhode Island, United States and Winifred was born in 1852 in Ireland,
Now, again, since Bernard was born in Rhode Island I'll go a generation back for you. So Bernard's parents are John and Bridget McNiff. John was born in 1816 in Ireland. Bridget was born in 1824 in Ireland.
I find it REALLY interesting that I have more information on Bernard & Winifred then I do on generations closer to us.
One thing is that Winifred's surname (maiden name) is Cregg or Craig and it's Scottish. Scotland and Ireland are close together and I would assume it would be easy enough to move from one to the other. This is the Coat of Arms.
This interesting surname is of Scottish locational origin from any of the various places thus called, including Craig in North East Forfarshire, and Craig in South Ayrshire. The name derives from the Old Gaelic "creag" meaning rock, a word that has been borrowed in Middle English as "crag". In some instances, the name may be topographical, from residence by a steep or precipitous rock. Anneys del Crage of Edinburgh and Johan del Cragge of Lanarkshire rendered homage to John Balliol in 1296, and in 1323 reference was made to the land of James del Crag, son and heir of John del Crag, in Ayrshire. In "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries", Edinburgh, "the dramatic intervention of John of the Craig with his band of three hundred, who played a decisive part in the battle of Culblean on November 30th 1335" is referred to. Notable namebearers include John Craig (died 1655), who was physician to James 1 and to Charles 1, and James Craig (died 1795); an architect, who published designs for the laying out of Edinburgh New Town in 1767. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Johannes del Crag, which was dated circa 1165, a charter witness, recorded in "Early Records of Scotland", during the reign of King William, known as "The Lion" of Scotland, 1165 - 1214. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling. Read more: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/craig#ixzz2B0zJCHMU
