McCook NEBRASKA

Back in Galesburg, Albert Muffley in 1939 was working for Berg’s Radio and Appliances at 258-264 E. Simmons, and his family lived at 368 South Whitesboro, near the Jagger family. This was the address from which Albert wrote a letter about Muffley family history to James I. Muffley of Alma, Michigan. Albert said in his letter that an unknown Muffley family lived in Quincy after our branch left. Some John Muffley, of unknown ancestry, died on May 19, 1919, and was buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Quincy; his widow Lutie Bosier Muffley and kids appear in the 1920 census of Quincy. Albert also knew then of the existence of Glenn Muffly, refrigeration engineer, who years later contacted my father about family history.

The new home (pictured) on West 3rd in McCook was completed the summer of 1941, and there was a visit then to McCook by the Galesburg Muffleys: Joe, Albert, & Edna. Shirley recalls that they were not long in the new house before she answered the phone to hear of the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Back in Galesburg,





Robert’s brother Kenneth Francis Muffley married Flossie Wilson on April 5, 1942. (pictured: 1942 Wedding of Ken and Flossie Muffley- from left: Bob, Ken, minister, Flossie, Bessie). Ken was interested in motorcycles by this time, and raced motorcycles. Ken was drafted into the army, and worked as a military policeman. Flossie followed him to his job in Maryland. Ken was in the hospital with a back injury at the time of the birth of their daughter Karren Louise Muffley (b. June 24, 1944) in Havre de Grace, Maryland.


Albert, Edna, & Joe Muffley made a trip from Illinois through McCook and on to the Rocky Mountains in 1942. I was born in McCook, Nebraska, on June 1, 1943, and shortly after that Dad made the conductors’ seniority list. At some point, I inadvertently (I’m sure) dropped some food from my high chair onto the floor. My mother asked, “Did you throw that on purpose?” I reportedly replied, “No, I threw it on the floor.” (That's me on the left- with my first camera).

SPEARFISH REUNION OF 1959

Our “first contact” with hitherto unknown Muffly/Muffley kin was when Glenn Muffley (b. 1884) visited the Robert Pierce Muffley family in McCook, Nebraska. Some time after that was the 1959 Muffly reunion in Spearfish, South Dakota, attended by the McCook Muffley family. Robert Pierce Muffley took a number of slide photos of the attendees, but identification of those in the photos (attached to this blog section) is incomplete. Blog reader help would be appreciated; please make notes in the Comment section, if you know anyone in the photos.

The Muffly people attending this reunion mostly descended from Charles Timothy Muffly (b. 1828, Pennsylvania). For those with Ancestry.com access, refer to the Howlett-Muffly tree at http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/11302215/person/-488963449

Charles Timothy was a brother of Joseph Wendell Muffly, who wrote a Civil War history of 148th Pennsylvania Infantry. Charles Timothy was also a 3rd cousin of our ancestor Joseph “Joe” Pierce Muffley. Charles Timothy Muffly lived in Pennsylvania, then Illinois, then Nebraska, then South Dakota. He was a Nebraska State Senator (1897) prior to retirement to Hot Springs, Fall River County, South Dakota. He was buried in Madison County, Nebraska, in 1913. He had at least at dozen kids by two wives. Descendants of his kids James Henry Muffly and Alma Alice Muffly Cooke were known attendees at the 1959 reunion, and there were likely others as well.

 Part of the Spearfish S.D. reunion involved a visit to a ranch in adjoining Crook County, Wyoming. Charles Timothy’s daughter Alma Muffly Cooke (1858-1950) & family had settled there. Gary recalls meeting Alma’s son Vane Cooke (1889-1965), who appears in some reunion photos. An old address book in McCook had the name Svoboda as a descendant of Alma. That rings a faint bell. It is now noted that Larry Svoboda of Houston had put posts (2000 & 2001) on a “Muffly Board” at Ancestry.com. A 2002 note on that board refers to periodic Muffly reunions in the Black Hills, so the 1959 reunion was just one in a series. Also at the 1959 reunion was Marjorie Muffly (b. 1907), daughter of Glenn Muffly of “first contact”. In the 1970s, Marjorie’s brother Gary Muffly (1909-1979) & his wife Cynthia were visited in Powell, Tennessee, by the family of Gary Muffley (b. 1943), then living in North Carolina. Marjorie & Gary Muffly were 6th cousins of Gary Muffley.

GENETIC GENEALOGY

9/15/09 update
Further SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) Haplogroup R1b subclade panel testing of Gary Muffley’s yDNA has yielded a code of R1b1b2a1a1 (new coding system adopted in early 2009). It seems that my male-line ancestors bearing the basic R1b Haplogroup y-chromosome may not have entered Europe as early as I had previously thought, so probably did not spend the last Ice Age in the Iberia Refugia after all. My y-DNA is positive for Marker M269 (yielding a R1b1b2 code), which may have developed about 8,000 B.C. in the vicinity of the Caucasus Mountains. The R1b1b type was later found in the Maykop Culture (northeast of the Black Sea) and in adjacent cultures to the south. The Maykop Culture arose about 3,500 B.C. in the area thought to be the origin place of R1b1b2, was an advanced Neolithic culture of farmers and herders, and later saw early development of metalworking and metal weapons. The R1b people in this area comprised part of the Proto-Indo-European peoples, along with their R1a neighbors to the north: The Yamma Culture, first domesticators of horses.

About 2,500 B.C., well into the Bronze Age, there was a sudden decline in the Black Sea Maykop Culture, perhaps due to large scale migrations of this Proto-Indo-European group, possibly crossing the Black Sea and going up the Danube River. By about 2,300 B.C., R1b1b2 was found in central and western Europe. Proto Italo-Celto-Germanic people settled around the Alps, where metals for bronze-making were abundant. The incoming Indo-Europeans had several advantages over European peoples who were already there, particularly the Indo-European use of metal tools and weapons, horses, and chariots. The R1b Haplogroup in time replaced earlier haplogroups as the predominant male haplogroup (female-line mtDNA haplogroups were less affected by the new migrations) in western Europe, and the Indo-European languages came to dominate. As the centuries passed, the Indo-European peoples of the Alpine area differentiated into Italic, Celtic, and Germanic groups.

About 1,500 B.C. (give or take a few hundred years), Gary’s Marker S21 likely appeared (yielding the R1b1b2a1a1 Haplogroup subclade). It is not known exactly when or where this genetic mutation occurred, but places where the R1b1b2 Indo-European group settled for long periods are prime contenders: Old Maykop stomping grounds beyond the Black Sea (least likely); Austrian Alps/southern Germany (suggested by considerable R1b subclade diversity in this region); and the Frisian coast of northwest Europe (highest frequency of S21). By the birth of Christ, S21 was reportedly well-established in future Frisia. The marker has been termed a Frisian or Western Germanic marker. At the birth of Christ, my ancestor bearing the S21 marker would have been at least 55 generations back from me.

The Alemanni may have been the Germanic group who carried my yDNA to Switzerland, as my ancestor Christian Maffli Sr. (born about 1651) was in an area where High Alemannic was spoken. Alemanni operated along Rome’s Rhine frontier, e.g. 212 A.D., and eventually settled in future Switzerland. The West Germanic S21 marker was particularly spread by 5^th Century migrations, especially by Frisians and Saxons to England; by Franks to Belgium, France and Franconia; and by Lombards to Austria and northern Italy.