Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Removed Cousins

Happy Birthday to my distant cousin Jacob Yoder who was born 29 Aug 1841. Now, I'm at a loss to tell you what degree of kinship we share.  That's the way it is with my Amish families. I seem to be related in multiple ways to many of them.  This Jacob Yoder is the son of Jonathan Yoder and his wife Catherine Yoder (and, yes, that is supposed to have been her maiden name also). I guess she could be called Catherine Yoder Yoder (or Yoder squared - with apologies to Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak for the use of the squared terminology).

My relationship calculator in my RootsMagic software tells me that Jacob is my:
1st cousin 3 times removed through Jacob Yoder & Mary Keim
3rd cousin 3 times removed through John (Hans) Reichenbach & Anna Rupp
4th cousin 3 times removed through Heinrich "Henry" Reichenbach & Barbara Thommen

The first one is, of course, the closest connection. His father Jonathan Yoder and my great great grandmother Barbara Yoder Lantz were siblings. Their parents were Jacob Yoder and Mary Keim.

Now, I'll try to explain the two through the Reichenbachs. I am descended through three different children of of Heinrich "Henry" Reichenbach and his wife Barbara. I suspect that this Jacob Yoder had multiple connections to the ancestor as well. That's why it is showing up multiple times and skips the generation of John Yoder and Barbara Reichenbach (the parents of Jacob Yoder, spouse of Mary Keim). We ended up having multiple relationships through some of these individuals.

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