Was Johan Stephen Gose married to one woman or two?
Can DNA help us figure it out?
There are two different possible lines of investigation, mitochondrial DNA and autosomal.
If you descend in an all-female line from one of the highlighted women, your mitochondrial DNA will lead back to Maria Ernestine Beck. If descendants from each line are in the same haplogroup it would tell us that these descendants share an mtDNA lineage. If there are two (or more) mtDNA haplogroups it would tell us that there are two (or more) female lineages.
There are genealogies that show a man named Johan Stephen Gose, born about 1738, marrying either two sisters (in succession) named Elizabeth Spracher and Anna Catherine Spracher, both daughters of Maria Ernestine Beck & Johan C. Spracher. There are other genealogies that list a single wife, named variously: Elizabeth Anna Catherine Spracher, or Anna Catherine Elizabeth Spracher.
Is there a paper trail to one woman, or two? I am not sure. There might be a DNA trail.
These are the three or four generations of the lineages that I know of. There are ten from Anna Catherine Spracher and four from Elizabeth Spracher.
There are two different possible lines of investigation, mitochondrial DNA and autosomal.
If you descend in an all-female line from one of the highlighted women, your mitochondrial DNA will lead back to Maria Ernestine Beck. If descendants from each line are in the same haplogroup it would tell us that these descendants share an mtDNA lineage. If there are two (or more) mtDNA haplogroups it would tell us that there are two (or more) female lineages.
Theoretically, if there are descendants of Elizabeth Spracher whose ancestors did NOT intermarry with the descendants of Anna Catherine Spracher, we might be able to tell if there was one sister or two by comparing and contrasting autosomal DNA. The descendants of each sister should match each other more closely than they match the other sister group.
My DNA is already in this game. I have a single line of descent from Johan Stephen Gose (I have 6 from another ancestor, but that's a different story).
I realize that going this far back is problematic for autosomal DNA, but it can't hurt to look. I have one DNA match that is a sixth cousin on my Lykins line that I share 54.6 centimorgans with. As far as I can tell our only connection is our distant ancestors Marcus Lykins (b. 1735) and Margaret Howe (b. 1744).
If you want to compare yourself to me, you can find me on FamilyTreeDNA, gedmatch and MyHeritage.
FamilyTreeDNA kit #747482
GEDmatch/Genesis T276061
You don't need a kit number on MyHeritage, if we match at all a search for me will find me on your match list. The same is true of FamilyTreeDNA.
There is a Cumberland Gap mtDNA project (and Y DNA project) at FamilyTreeDNA run by
Roberta Estes. She is gathering and analyzing the haplogroup lineages of Cumberland Gap migrant families.
As far as I can tell no all-female line descendant of Maria Ernestine Beck has joined this project yet.
Have you researched these sisters? What have you found?
