Hello out there,

I have a request for help with a man who may or may not be a distant deceased relative of mine. I am trying to find out who his descendants may be, so that I can see if I share DNA with any of them and prove the relationship.

His name is either Clarence J. Borst or Clarence I. Borst. There are definitely some Clarence Irving Borsts in some of the records, though I'm confused about how to verify if it's the same one that I'm looking for.

Anyway, the FamilySearch profile for this man is here: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LJ1H-7PQ

I am basing the hypothesis that I am related to him on the single source provided there of the 1880 census, where he is listed with his parents and three siblings. The family is shown as living in Lyon, Preston, West Virginia.

There are then at least two records of a Clarence Borst married to a Gertrude Borst (married name unknown), the 1910 and 1920 censuses. The 1910 one has a daughter, Helen F, listed. Both times the family lives in Mineral Creek, West Virginia.

How would you go about proving or disproving this is the same person? I have been looking for marriage records, which sometimes list parents names, or death records, which often do the same, and have not turned up anything.

I did just do an additional search on Ancestry and found one person's tree claiming that the Helen F above later went by Nellie (middle name Frances) and married a man with the surname "Bright." I then did a search for that last name in my DNA matches and found a number of distant cousins, which could be evidence that the CLarences are the same person. So maybe this isn't as bad of a brick wall as I thought. Typing out what I have and where I am stuck helped me think of ways to break through. But I still welcome any suggestions of what you would do, and if people are interested and engaging with the post, I will come back and do updates.