This Blog will be featuring Gladys who is a new Frazer autosomal DNA tester. She is the aunt of Bill and the 1st cousin once removed of Pat both of whom are already in the Frazer DNA Project. Not to be confused with my mother who is also a Gladys.
First Some Brief Genealogy
The Archibald Line refers to Archibald Frazer born around 1715, probably in North County Roscommon in about 1715. He had a younger brother, James who forms the other branch of this Frazer DNA Project. There are now 14 testers who have tested specifically for this project for the Archibald Line. There are 12 DNA testers who have tested specifically for the James Line of the Project. In addition, a few others have been found that know they are part of this family project or that we believe belong to the project due to DNA matches and Frazers in their ancestry. Here is a simplified view of the Archibald Line.
Some notes:
- There are 3 sons of Archibald Frazer and Mary Lilley shown here: Philip, Richard and Archibald. There was a 4th son named John, but we haven’t been tracking that son’s line in the DNA Project.
- James Frazer in the 1st blue box and Violet Frazer in the first yellow box were believed to be first cousins that married each other. This adds more DNA to the equation along with some confusion as to what DNA came from whom.
- Likewise there are 2 salmon colored boxes. These represent 2 first cousins that married.
- There are 2 sets of green boxes. These represent 2 lines from Jane, a tester in the project with many matches. She knew about her ancestors on the right set of green boxes. We added her to the left side based on triangulation groups and likely genealogy there.
- The purple and orange boxes represent Frazer Lines that don’t appear to have more than one Frazer Line in each family.
- Gladys who is the new tester would be in 3 of the above lines. That would be the blue line from James Frazer, the first yellow line descending from James cousin Violet Frazer and the second yellow line descending from Ann Frazer b. about 1807.
Forcing the DNA Through James Frazer b. about 1804 and Violet Frazer b. 1803
I can’t really force the DNA, but by picking the right people, I will be more likely to find the DNA from a certain couple. For example, with Gladys’ results, we now have 7 people who are believed to be descended from James and Violet Frazer. Therefor, if we compare those 7 testers’ results, we would think that it would be most likely that the DNA these 7 people share would be from that couple as opposed to more distant ancestors. Here are Violet Frazer and James Frazer and some of their descendants:
Here’s Richard Patterson Frazer b. 1830:
Here is George William Frazer b. about 1836 (my 2nd great grandfather) on the left:
I have two other reasons for starting with James Frazer and Violet Frazer. One is that they are my ancestors and the second is that I am starting with a more simple situation. On the left, descending from Richard, there are 3 Project testers including Gladys. On the right, descending from George, there are 4 project testers (including myself, my 2 sisters and my cousin Paul). All the testers are either one or two levels below what I have shown above. That means that the testers will be between 3rd and 4th cousins to each other. According to FTDNA, a 3rd cousin should match over 90% of the time and a 4th cousin should match over 50% of the time. Here is a Generations Estimate from Gedmatch.com:
For a 4th cousin, the generations to a common ancestor would be 5. The first 4 testers represent the blue line above starting with George Frazer b. about 1838. The last 3 testers represent the yellow line starting with Richard Frazer b. 1830.
Below is a Gedmatch tool called Traceability. I added the thick red line to show the divide between 2 of the sons of James and Violet Frazer: the Richard Line Testers and the George Line Testers.
The 2 blue lines represent a Triangulation Group at Chromosome 12. This has been discussed previously. This TG goes through Violet Frazer up to her father Richard Frazer b. about 1777.
Looking for James
In a past blog, I wondered where all the DNA for James Frazer b. about 1804 went. In the chart above, I notice that Patricia and I (Joel) have a match at Chromosome 6. This could represent James Frazer. It is interesting that this match came up between Pat and me. Pat is one generation younger than Gladys and I am one generation younger than Paul. Unless I missed something, Gladys and Paul didn’t match anyone else on Chromosome 6. Perhaps DNA is like water flowing down from James and Violet. When there is an obstruction, it flows a different way (through other siblings, for example). However, if the obstruction is in the parent, the faucet is shut off. The DNA trail stops there. We can’t have DNA that we didn’t inherit from our parents. Here is an example of an obstruction in Chromosome 6:
My sisters Sharon and Heidi are the first line. On the left hand side where I match Pat, they got their DNA from their Hartley grandfather, so they couldn’t match with a Frazer there. I match Pat in the lower left purple Frazer area from 5 to 12. There was an “obstruction” at my 2 sisters and the DNA “flowed” through me.
A James Triangulation Group
Next, note that Patricia and Sharon match on Chromosome 9. Here is what Sharon’s Chromosome map looks like on Chromosome 9. It is very simple.
In fact, it is all or nothing on my family’s paternal side. Sharon (S) got all the Frazer DNA while Heidi (H) and I (J) got all the Hartley (green) DNA. It’s a good thing that I tested my sister Sharon after testing myself and my sister Heidi. The match between Patricia and Sharon is shown as 85 to 90. On the map above, I see another match with Gladys which is 85 to 100. That is a good sign for a Triangulation Group (TG). Many others who are related to Sharon on the Violet (and her father Richard’s) side and had a chance to match them here but didn’t. So, I’m calling this a James Frazer TG. This is where we start to separate these 2 married Frazer cousins. Here’s what the TG looks like in spreadsheet form.
Note that Bill (BR) could’ve been in the TG also, but the match he had with Sharon (SH) was small (less than 4 cM and not shown here), so I didn’t include Bill.
Any Other Bits of James Frazer b. about 1804?
A Triangulation Group isn’t necessary to prove that DNA testers have common ancestors. However, it does add some certainty when the genealogy is less than certain. In this case, my less than certain ancestor is James Frazer b. about 1804. When the genealogy is fairly certain, it should only take 2 people to establish a common ancestor. Perhaps this match represents James Frazer also. Here is how Gladys matches the other 6 James and Violet Frazer descendants on Chromosome 18:
The first 3 green lines are for me and my 2 sisters. The pink is Paul, but as the match is small, I will disregard it. The Gladys match with my family also helped me map my Chromosome 18. Before her match, I couldn’t tell who I got my DNA from on my paternal side between my Hartley grandfather and my Frazer grandmother. All I knew was that I had purple and blue segments of DNA there.
Again, my assumption is that, as others are not knocking down the door to match Gladys and my family here on Chromosome that this match is likely to represent James Frazer b. about 1804. Prior to this, it was found that many of the TGs that included this couple also included Violet’s Father Richard. For that reason some of the other TGs were seen to represent Violet.
How Did I Do in My Previous Guess of James’ DNA?
Get ready for a rocky ride with this one. Back in November 2015, I had a guess of where some of James Frazer’s b. about 1804 DNA came from. At that time, I was looking at a match between my cousin Paul and Bill. I guessed that this DNA was from James Frazer and not his wife Violet Frazer.
My guess was due to a DNA match that only matched with descendants of James and Violet (i.e Paul and Bill). However, the usual other matches with testers who were descended from Violet’s father Richard were not there this time. That lead me to think that this DNA was from from James Frazer. How does my old guess stand up? First I thought I was right, then I thought I was wrong, but now I think I’m right again. As you can guess, the answer is not straightforward. Here is what Chromosome 8 looks like now.
Above, I see a TG between Bill (BR), Gladys (GM) and Paul (PF). The Most Recent Common Ancestors (MRCAs) for those 3 are James and Violet Frazer. But what threw me off is that now VO is in there also. Now that VO is in there, the Frazer MRCA would be Archibald Frazer b. about 1743 and Mary Lilley. My theory is that this DNA did pass through James Frazer b. about 1804 and up through his father Philip like this:
Recall that Gladys, Bill and Paul all descend from James on the blue line. VO is related on the purple line. I didn’t have the TG go through Violet due to the lack of other matches on her line (via Michael and Jane, for example). So while the new DNA testers’ matches make things confusing, I believe that the results are still consistent with my earlier guess. That guess was that my cousin’s Paul’s match with Bill on Chromosome 8 is from James Frazer and not his 1st cousin wife, Violet Frazer.
Summary
- It was a bit overwhelming looking at all the DNA matches from 3 of Gladys’ Frazer ancestors. So I started by looking at a subset of a subset of the Archibald Line. That subset was James Frazer and Violet Frazer.
- James Frazer and Violet Frazer have 7 descendants in the Project. That seems to be a good number for getting plenty of good matches. This is especially true as we are starting out with 2 married first cousins.
- James and Violet represent 2/32 of my 3rd great grandparents. Or 1/16 when both James and Violet are considered (combined). Or 1/8 combined of my paternal DNA. Remember we all have a full set of paternal and maternal DNA.
- With Gladys and Paul in the project, these 2 testers are one step closer to James and Violet Frazer. James and Violet combined would represent 1/4 of Gladys’ and Paul’s paternal DNA. That doesn’t seem possible, but apparently it is. That means we are comparing 1/4 of Gladys’ and Paul’s paternal DNA with 1/8 of Bill’s, Pat’s and my family’s DNA. That resulted in some good chances for our DNA to match.
- Early on in the Frazer DNA Project, Triangulation Groups were found. However, these TGs were for the parents of Violet. It was not clear at that time what happened to the DNA of James Frazer her husband.
- I had thought that where Paul, my 2 sisters, Bill and Pat shared this double Frazer couple that it should be easy to find James Frazer’s DNA as well as Violets.
- Thanks to Bill sponsoring his Aunt Gladys’ DNA, it seems like we now have found solid evidence of James’ DNA also.
- James’ DNA appears to show up on Chromosomes 6, 8, 9 and 18. I had previously made a guess that I had found some of James’ DNA at Chromosome 8.
Next up: another look at Gladys’ matches with more of the Archibald Line DNA testers.