Andrew Joseph Dingman was born on December 15, 1913 in West Point to Herman and Bernadine Mueller Dingman. He is a distant cousin of Walt’s through the Wellman side of the family.

Andrew was the 4th child of 7 born to Herman and Bernadine. In 1920, the family was farming in Pleasant Ridge Township in Lee County, Iowa. This image from the census shows Herman’s family at the bottom of the page, just below his brothers, Theodore and Henry.

In 1930, Andrew was attending school and helping on the family farm. He continued to work on the family farm into the 1940s. He registered for the draft.

On November 28, 1948, Andrew Dingman married Mary Agnes Meierotto. They were married at St Mary’s in West Point. Andrew and Mary had a farm on Highway 16. They had 5 children together.

Andrew died on December 25, 2003.

Distant cousins in a family tree

I was asked recently why I have some of these more distant cousins in our family tree. I started all of this work from notes from various family members, and as I have gone on, people have provided me with more information. If I can find a connection to our families, I add it to the tree.

There have been times when as I have done more research on a person, I find that there is more than one connection to the family. These shirttail relations have been covered in several previous posts. This post talks about crossing paths with relations in ways you might not have expected.

My software program will give a listing of all the ways two people are related. Looking at Andrew and Georgina I found there are actually 8 connections on the tree between them. In no case are they related directly, but only through marriage. This type of information is interesting to me and can be useful in further research.

One of the big reasons I add these names to our tree is not for ourselves. Since my tree is available on Ancestry, other people can look at these connections and further their own research. I have been able to help people answer questions about their own family history.