No it's not true that the possibility that FS and Gertrude might not have had the same mothers didn't just appear. Evidently, it was mentioned in some book, I think it was Kurth's, that Felix and FS's family was more liberal in thinking than Gertrude's mother's family which was part of FS's father's other marriage which seem to have indicated that there were two different mothers. Then somewhere along the line, Penny mentioned she was looking into this statement. She wasn't and as far as I know hasn't declared that Gertrude and FS did have different mothers, because, at this time Gertrude's birth record can't be found. So, some of us has made a decision to "sit on the fense" until we've learned for sure if Gertrude and FS did or did not have the same mother.
Logic is always good. Since the DNA seems to show that triangle that if Gertrude is related [sister to 10th or 25th cousin] FS and AA has the same mthDNA as Gertrude's grandson Karl Maucher, that it all fits, that FS and AA are the same person.
Nice neat little package.
Penny started a link for us to speculate who AA might be if she wasn't FS. So, we've run through various data about AA and FS which ranged from ears, shoe size, height and did AA speak Russian. The more the differences were discussed the more of us have just stepped back and made the decision just to wait and see.
I'm not sure why our "just wait and see" is so hard for some to accept. But accept it or not, that is what some of us are doing.
Of course, this doesn't mean we're anti-DNA or have some kind of agenda or think green little men walk about the dark side of the moon.
For newbies, it appears there is a huge canyon between those who believe AA is FS and the "let's wait and see group". There really isn't.
If FS and Gertrude have the same mothers than that is okay with most of us. But if they did not have the same mothers then we have to step back and return to the mtDNA which we assume was done correctly. And, since it probably is correct than understand how Gertrude ends up being related to AA and how were their mother's related. And, that is why we'd have to discover the common ancestor for both Gertrude and AA.
Would FS be out of the picture..... No, not necessarily. But we don't have FS's DNA so the task might prove to be impossible to discover any kind of relationship.
So, as you can see, the problem only occurs if FS and Gertrude had different mothers.
To this point in time, we do not know if they did have or didn't have the same mothers.
Since my other other hobby is genealogy, I know how easy it is for descendants to not know about who belongs to whom when an ancestors was married two, three sometimes six times, or parents of a child dies and the uncle or an aunt takes them into their family as their own or when a child is born out of wedlock and is absorbed within a family....
AGRBear