Missing a Greenberg family member that was in California in 1917 #usa #dna


Sharon Ann Dror
 

Need some help to find a Greenberg family member that was in the San Bernardino, CA area around 1917.
 
It has been confirmed through DNA matches that we may have a NPE  -  Non-paternity event. It is also possible that he never knew he had a daughter. 
 
There may have been another sibling that we didn’t know about. 
 
Another thought I had is - was he disowned by the family because he was seeing someone who is not Jewish and the daughter wouldn’t be considered Jewish in their eyes?
 
David Greenberg and Judith Shimshelievitch had 4 children to our knowledge: 
Shoshana (Feige Reisel) married Yeshaya Kivelewitz, (two children)
Fruma (Fannie) married Zvi Hirsh Atotsky.  (three sons)
Chaim Greenberg married Cecilia Feinberg, (one daughter) 
Moshe Greenberg married 2x - Taube Mesimik  (two children) and Miriam Alber (four sons and one daughter).
 
Fruma Fannie had 3 sons, and no grandchildren. No DNA. 
 
Three children’s relatives that took the DNA test and have a match with HARRIETT95320 in Ancestry are: (I will give full names when someone wants this info via email to protect their privacy)
 
Shoshana’s 1 grandcson & 5 great grandchildren: 
 
Moshe’s granddaughter: 
with Moshe’s 2nd wife
 
Chaim’s 2 granddaughters:
 
Took 23andme test - Shoshana's 3 great grandchildren
 
HARRIETT95320 - her real name is Gay Lynn Sperry. Her mother Dorothy’s siblings grandchildren took the DNA test. They all discovered that they are half related to HARRIETT95320 and have 0 Jewish ethnic. There were 7 siblings. All the 3 siblings relatives match with each other in full while they are half with Dorothy. The other 3 siblings had no children. Dorothy’s father is not who they thought he is - James Madison Gay but her father is someone in our Greenberg family.
 
Nancy’s mother is from the Howard family. I have contacts with them - none have Jewish ethnic and they have a match with HARRIETT95320 so we know that Nancy is her mother’s daughter. Ruled out being adopted. 
 
In Ancestry, Dorothy’s sister Bertha’s family shows half relationship as a sister. Bertha was married 3 times so there are many half relationships under Martin, Kincaid and McGraw. 
 
Dorothy’s sister Lillian and Jobe’s family are also in Ancestry. Also showing half relationships. 
 
My family has zero matches with the Howard family and the James Madison Gay family. I am in touch with Opal Wilder whose grandmother is Ethel Gay - her brother is James Madison Gay. She has ZERO Jewish and ZERO match with HARRIETT95320.
 
Dorothy’s mother Nancy nee Hobbs was married to James Madison Gay and they moved from Kentucky to Modesto, CA with their three children around in 1903. Jobe, Bertha and Lillian. The other 3 and Dorothy were all born in Modesto, San Bernardino, California.
 
The newest DNA match is from Dorothy Gay’s first marriage to Byron Bassett. They have one son. Bryon Jr. He has three children, one is David Bassett who took the DNA test. He confirmed he has half matches to all of the above DNA in the Greenberg lineage and in gedmatch.
 
So we want to know who the missing Greenberg family member is…. Any suggestions? He has to be in California around 1917. Nancy was still married to James Madison Gay at that time with 6 children. 

Obviously the name GREENBERG is a very common name so it is challenging in finding the right person without knowing the first name of our "relative". 
 
Thanks in advance.
 
Sharon Ann Dror
SharonAnnDror@...
 
 
 
 
 


Michele Lock
 

Let me see if I have these relationships right – Harriett95320 is a child of Dorothy, and Dorothy is a child of Nancy Gay and a male Greenberg. If the male Greenberg is David Greenberg, then Dorothy was a half-sister to Shoshana, Moshe, and Chaim. This would make the DNA-tested grandchildren of Shoshana, Moshe and Chaim the half 1st cousins once-removed to Harriett95320. It is only the grandchildren who matter, since they are the closest generation to Harriett95320.

What you should look at are the number of centimorgans (cM) that each of the Greenberg grandchildren share with Harriett95320. On AncestryDNA, you click on the line for a DNA match that says ‘X cM / Y% shared DNA’ (where X and Y are numbers). That will open up to a new window, which will show the following information:

 

The amount of shared DNA and the longest segment will give an indication of how closely Harriett95320 and the grandchildren of Shoshana, Moshe, and Chaim are related.

 

Finding if David Greenberg had a brother - that would be done by looking through records for this particular Greenberg family, to see if a son shows up in an early census, prior to 1917. It is also possible that there is a family tree on Ancestry that shows if this David Greenberg had a brother.

 

San Bernardino is close to Los Angeles, so I would look for a male Greenberg who had been in the Los Angeles area in 1917, about the time that Dorothy was conceived. This NPE event might be due to a long term affair, a short affair, a one-night stand, or even the remote possibility of a non-consensual act. Regardless, no one would have thought it strange that the married woman Nancy Gay had another baby. And it is possible that the male Greenberg did not know that he fathered a child.

 

If this Greenberg family has no connection to Los Angeles, it could be that the male Greenberg was there for school, or business, or even something connected to the military, since the draft for men to enter the US Armed Forces to fight in WW I had already begun in 1917.

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Michele Lock

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