Every Once in a While it's Easy: DNA [and why you should research collateral branches]

A while back, I received an e-mail from Toby about my 3rd cousin once removed, Barbara.  Toby was interested in the potential 2nd-3rd cousin match of Barbara to her relative B.J.  Toby also mentioned a number of other relatives she's had tested.  I've seen them show up in some of the FamilyFinder results, but always very distantly.

I've been attending a lot of DNA lectures, so the first thing I did was pull up the FTDNA chromosome browser.  They share 53 DNA segments, but most of them were small.  Once I filtered out everything under 10cm, I was left with a handful of shared segments, all of them under 20cm.  I figured there was nothing here worth investigating, but I wanted to be nice, so I wrote Toby back and answered her questions.  She was looking for AUERBACH/AVERBUKH connections.

Hi Toby,

Yes, I manage Barbara's kit.  There don't appear to be any strong matches to any of Barbara's known relatives that I've tested (Cooper and Allen/Entes lines).  However, Barbara's paternal grandmother, Edith Goldweber (1898-1989), was the daughter of Motel Goldweber and Chova AVERBACK. Could Averback be a misspelling of Auerback?  Edith Goldweber settled in Cleveland, Ohio.  I'll see what else I can find out about her.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Mindie

Toby immediately wrote back:

Hi Mindie,
Yes- you've got it. 
Chava Goldweber was the sister of Avram Goldberg, my great grandfather. Their original surname was Auerbach (which is written and pronounced as Averbukh, Averback, Auerbakh etc). this is absolutely verified by paper trail and family .

We had a mini-reunion of Auerbach descendants at my parents house in abt 2008. Barbara's parents and her uncle and aunt Sylvia were all there. 
....
This isn't a line I'm researching, but now Toby has another kit she can use as a reference point and I know how several other kits that I haven't contacted (because they were too distant) are related to my ALLEN/ENTES family.

Toby also sent me a ton of information about this really interesting line:  

"Our Auerbach/Averbuch family descends supposedly from a lineage of 14 generations of rabbis. I'm still working on that part, BUT what we do know is the following 

1. The earliest known forefather was the Gaon Rabbi Yisrael Auerbach, Rabbi of Kosow. He had one son (at least): Yehuda Leib b abt 1750. 
2. Yehuda Leib was the Gaon Rabbi Yehuda Leibish Auerbach. He was the rabbi and Av Bet Din of Horodenko, then of Kosow later Rabbi of Torcin, and finally Av Bet Din of Vishniewitz where he died in roughly 1810. He wrote a book called Mehokek Yehuda.  He was married twice and had at least 3 sons and 2 daughters by the first wife. Not clear on children from the second wife.
3. Not clear which of the sons was our direct relative. We actually know more about the daughters as they married famous rabbis. 
4. Then we have Mystery Son's child, Rabbi Yitzhak Yehuda Auerbach. He married a woman named Gella. YY was the Rabbi and Av Bet Din of Rozhishche. They are supposed to have had about 10 children. We know 6 of them: Ephraim b. abt 1857, Abram Elya b. 1858 (my great grandfather), Zlota b. 1867, Chava b. 1871 (Barbara's great grandmother), Rochel, and Jennie. YY died before 1885. Gella died before 1904. 

    * Abram came to the US in abt 1885. He brought over his wife, Toba and children, then helped bring over Zlota and Chava. This is family from which B.J. descends.
    * Ephraim was a rabbi who died in 1925 in Horchiv, Russia where he was a rabbi. One of his children came to the US aided by Abram. The rest of that line was killed in the Holocaust. 
    * Zlota married a Siegel. She was known as Sarah in the US 
    * Chava married Mottel Goldweber in Rozhishche and 7 of their children were born there. The whole family was in the US (in Cols OH) by 1911 This is the family from which Barbara  descends. 
    * Jennie married Joseph Bronstein in Russia. Of their 7 children 4 came to the US (Cols OH) and 3 remained in Russia. One child of the family that remained in Russia was able to survive WWII and get out. This is the family from which Jenny [another person who shows up in the DNA matches] descends. 
    * Rochel married Isaac Schafir. Two of their children came to the US, one had descendants who went to Israel, the rest died in Russia in the Holocaust. This is the family from which Ruth [another tested DNA kit] descends. " 
...

All of this makes me glad that I've been researching people who aren't directly related to me.  The GOLDBERG and GOLDWEBBERs aren't related to anything I'm researching, but they married into my lines.  If I hadn't been researching those collateral branches, we wouldn't have been able to figure out how B.J. connects to Barbara.