Charles at Large: Another Mystery Solved with DNA

In My last blog post, Charles at Large: The Search for Charles Hawley, I wrote about my great granduncle Charles Hawley and his disappearing act in the summer of 1910.

As I have written about before, I have been doing significant research into Hawley DNA connections. This research has led to the discovery of my 3rd great grandparents, Daniel Hawley and Sarah Sally Huff. You can read more about this discovery in my blog post; Parents of William Hawley... Proven Through DNA...?

As part of this continued research, I frequently check my DNA connections on Ancestry.com for the surname Hawley. Recently I found two new connections. Both of these connections had one name in common, Charles Hawley.

The first connection, we will call her J.M., is the 2nd great granddaughter of Charles Hawley and Sarah Flewelling. The second connection that I found, we will call her, J.H.B., was a shared connection with J.M.

J.H.B. also had a Charles Hawley in her tree, who was her great-grandfather. This man also had a son by the name of George Russell Hawley and lived in California. All seemed to be fitting into place very well. I was starting to get excited.

Let me break down some of the DNA results for you. Hopefully, this will help you to understand my excitement.

We already know that J.H.B. was connected to J.M., the 2nd great granddaughter of Charles Hawley and Sarah Flewelling. She is also connected to another direct descendant of Charles's, Charon Hawley. Charon Hawley is the great granddaughter of Charles Hawley and Sarah Flewelling. In fact, J.H.B. and Charon share a very strong DNA connection (279 cm over 10 different segments). To further prove J.H.B.'s connection to the Hawley family, she is also connected to me (Rebecca (McKenzie) Walbecq, my paternal uncle Robert McKenzie and my paternal aunt Betty (McKenzie) Krzewinski.

I have access to the detailed DNA results for myself, Robert, Betty, and Charon. You can see below the assumed relationship, predicted DNA relationship based on the amount of shared DNA and the proposed most recent common ancestor (MRCA), as well as, the amount of DNA shared.

J.H.B. also shares DNA with the following other members of the Hawley family. I have also included the assumed relationship and proposed MRCA for each of these connections below.

Based on the DNA evidence, there didn't seem to be any doubt that J.H.B. was a descendant of Charles Hawley.

However, anyone that does genealogy and especially those that work with DNA results know, it is NEVER that easy!

Therein begins the confusion and the journey to determine if two men, with two different families, could be the same person. To make my comparisons easier to understand, I will refer to my great granduncle as Charles 1 and the great grandfather of J.H.B. as Charles 2. You will see why this is needed shortly.

The first thing I realized was that the great grandfather of J.H.B., Charles Henry Hawley (Charles 2), was quite a bit younger than my great granduncle Charles (Charles 1).

Based on the Ancestry.com tree of J.H.B., Charles 2, was born on October 21, 1875, in New York. He married Hattie Josephine Schunk in about 1910. They had two children; George Russell Hawley (Born in 1913 in Bellflower, Los Angeles, California) and Violet Audrey Hawley (born in 1914 in Buena Park, Orange, California). He died in October of 1975 in Downey, Los Angeles, California.

Well, that did not match what I knew about my great granduncle Charles 1. Based on my records, Charles 1 was born in March of 1859, most likely in Nunda, Livingston, New York. This was a 16 year age gap.

At this point in my post, it may be helpful to read my last post, Charles at Large: The Search for Charles Hawley, if you haven't done so already.

In the case, that you have read my last post, but could use a little refresher, I will provide a brief summary of the life of Charles 1.

Charles 1 was born in March of 1859 to William Hawley and Mercy Brown. He had two siblings; an older brother Frank and a younger sister Minnie Bell. Charles 1 moved to Long Rapids, Alpena, Michigan in about 1866. He married Sarah Flewelling in about 1885. They lived in Ogemaw County and had eight children. The youngest being George Russell Hawley, born on July 29th, 1902 in Cumming, Ogemaw, Michigan.
Sometime between 1902 and 1910, Charles 1 seems to have left his wife and children and moved to California. Sometime between 1910 and 1920, Charles 1 and Sarah are divorced and we know that he was living in Buena Park, Orange, California on August 28th, 1914. This folks has always been the end of the story, as we knew it, for Charles 1.

So, how could Charles 2, the great grandfather of J.H.B., be the same man as Charles 1? They were born 16 years apart from one another. No one could get away with pretending to be 16 years younger for so many years, or so I thought.

I could have given up right then, and if it hadn't had been for such a strong DNA connection, I may have. But somewhere deep in my gut, I just had a feeling that these two men were one and the same.

In the next section, I will walk you through a comparison of the lives of Charles 1 and Charles 2, so that you can see the similarities

We know that Charles 1 left for California sometime between 1902 and 1910. We also know that he returned back to the home of his father and stepmother in Ossineke, Alpena, Michigan on June 9th, 1910 to be with his ailing step-brother George. We know that his father William and stepmother Sarah must have returned to California with him because William died in Bellflower, Los Angeles, California on August 28th, 1914.

This is where it gets interesting. As I mentioned before, Charles 2 married Hattie Josephine Schunk around 1910. I know this based on the 1920 census.

As any genealogist should do, I started to research Hattie. It turns out that Hattie Schunk was born on March 21st, 1893 in Saint Clair, Saint Clair, Michigan to Jacob August Schunk and Minnie P. Bugermeister. The Michigan connection was interesting, so I researched further.

My next step was to determine where and when Charles 2 and Hattie were married. If I could prove that they met and married at a time and place that Charles 1 could not have been, then my theory would be disproved. Just the opposite happened.

Hattie was living with her parents and two siblings; Daisy and Herbert, in Ossineke, Alpena, Michigan in 1900 and 1910.  So now we know that Hattie is living in Ossineke, right around the same time that Charles 1 returned from California to visit his ailing brother. Could they have met during that summer of 1910? It seems very possible. Ossineke was and still is a small community and the Hawley family was, by all accounts, well know and well liked.

Now that I know there is a possibility that Charles 1 and Hattie could have met in Ossineke, I wanted to move my research to California and the life of Charles 2 and Hattie there.

Based on information found in other's family trees on Ancestry.com, Charles 2 and Hattie's daughter, Violet Audrey Hawley was born on November 19th, 1914 in  Buena Park, Orange, California. We know that, based on the obituary of his father, Charles 1 is also living in Buena Park, Orange, California on August 28, 1914.

The graphic below shows a comparison of the lives of Charles A. Hawley (Charles 1) and Charles Henry Hawley (Charles 2). In the graphic, I show the known events for both men side by side. I have included their assumed ages at each event. I have also highlighted, in yellow, the years between 1910 and 1914, which show the overlap of locations for both men.

At this point in my research, I decided to reach out to other members of the Hawley family, including several descendants of Charles 1. I shared my finding thus far and the comparison graphic above. This sparked a lot of great conversation.

One very interesting piece of information that came from this discussion was a family story passed down to Charon Hawley, the great granddaughter of Charles 1 and Sarah Flewelling.

Below is the story shared by Charon Hawley in a Facebook group related to the Hawley family

Jon Theodore "Ted" Hawley, the great grandson of Charles 1 and Sarah Flewelling, also shared a similar story

Charon makes mention of Charles 1 running off with his namesake. This would be Charles Alvin Hawley, born June 29th, 1889. Based on my research Charles Alvin Hawley was still living in Michigan in 1920. He was recorded on the 1920 census, as living in Grayling, Crawford, Michigan. Living with him were his mother Sarah and his little brother George Russell Hawley.

However, there is a piece of the story that seems to ring true. By April 9th, 1930 he was living in Hawthorne, Mineral, Nevada with his wife Golda and her three children; Richard, Dorothy, and Ethel. So it seems that Charles Alvin Hawley, the namesake of Charles 1, did move to Nevada. However, he didn't move until sometime in the 1920s. He continued living in Nevada, moving to Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada by April 1st, 1940. He lived there until his death on April 21st, 1958.

There was one thing still bothering me, based on the family tree of J.H.B., Charles 2 passed away in October of 1975. If Charles 1 and Charles 2 were the same people, this would have made him 116 years old. However, Hattie, the wife of Charles 2, remarries to David Orvil Overstreet on January 1st, 1943. This leads me to believe that Charles 2 actually passed away sometime between April 4th, 1940 when he and Hattie were recorded on the 1940 census as living at 1015 N. Florence Ave. in Downey, Los Angeles, California, and January 1st, 1943 when Hattie remarried.

We do know that when Frank Hawley, the brother of Charles 1, passed away on July 23rd, 1943, Charles 1 is not listed as a living sibling in his obituary.

I started to search for a death record for Charles 2 in Los Angeles County. I found a record for a Charles A. Hawley who died on August 28th, 1941. I took a chance and ordered the death record.