DNA solves a family mystery...sort of

By Matt Crenson

updated 1:07 p.m. ET July 8, 2006

This much we know: He was about 5-foot-2, bald, with hooded eyes, thin lips and a deadpan look that gave nothing away.

He gave away so little, in fact, that my great-grandfather went to the grave without telling any of his children where he came from. “He used to make a joke of it,” my grandfather said. “I would say where did you come from. And he would say, ‘Timbuktu.”’

Now we have a chance to fill in my great-grandfather’s branch of my family tree. Because in the 21st century, when family lore and genealogical research come up short, we have DNA.

The news often reports amazing tales of how genetic analysis proves that a few ancient Adams and Eves living in Africa tens of thousands of years ago gave rise to the entire human race. Genetic testing demonstrates that 3.5 million of today’s Ashkenazi — Jews with roots in Central and Eastern Europe — descend from just four women who lived in Europe less than 2,000 years ago. It shows that most of Ireland descends from a legendary king named Niall of the Nine Hostages.

Could DNA unlock a similarly romantic past for my tiny clan?

Actually, my great-grandfather’s story is pretty romantic already. What it lacks is credibility.

He said that he’d run away to sea during his early teens, and that his career as a merchant seaman had taken him all over the globe — Australia, South America, China. He brought European immigrants to Ellis Island and dodged U-boats in the North Atlantic during World War II. Eventually he made enough money to buy his family a comfortable home in Harrison, N.Y.

According to an affidavit signed in January 1917 by one Ellen Scharker — said to be either Gus’ sister or half-sister — my great-grandfather was born in New York City in November 1893.

But that document, apparently drafted during World War I as a means of gaining Gus entry to the U.S. Merchant Marine, has some serious credibility issues. It claims that Gus’ mother traveled to New York from Halifax, Nova Scotia, not long before his birth, brought him into this world, then returned to Canada shortly afterward — thus rendering him a U.S. citizen.

The mysterious Ms. Scharker goes on to explain that Gus “grew up in Canada and came to the U.S. about eight years ago and took up a seafaring life.”

What a convenient sequence of events both for Gus and the nation, which at just that moment desperately needed sailors to ferry supplies across the Atlantic to its allies in World War I.

Efforts to confirm Ms. Scharker’s tale have failed miserably. New York City’s records make no mention of Gus Crenson’s birth. Canadian census records contain no record of any Crensons living in Halifax during the late 19th century. And Ellen Scharker is a complete genealogical enigma.

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