Unraveling Some of the Dicks Family DNA from Newfoundland

In my first Blog on Upshall DNA, I gave some background and made some guesses on where the related ancestors were in my wife’s Upshall Newfoundland ancestors. At that time, I came up with a family diagram that looked like this:

My wife’s grandmother Florence is represented by the lower left circle, her great Aunt Esther is the circle to the right of Florence. Florence and Esther have the same father, but different mothers. This turns  out to be useful knowledge to have. That means that my mother in law, who is the daughter of Florence, will be related to Esther on the Upshall/Dicks lines but not on the Shave/Kirby lines. This is a bit complicated due to the fact, that Esther’s parents were related to each other. Gedmatch estimates that Esther had a common ancestor 4.0 generations before her. Note that, assuming my drawing above is correct, she could have a Dicks ancestor 4 generations before her. I added the question marks above as I am not positive of the relationships.

After visiting my wife’s Aunt Esther recently, I came upon an ancestry chart that she wrote up in the 1990’s.

I asked her about the father of Catherine Dicks who Esther had as Christopher Dicks, b. 1781 as that seemed old for that generation. That would put the average generations between Christopher Dicks and Esther at 49 years. She mentioned that it was possible as she knew of a man in his 60’s in Newfoundland marrying an 18 year old. Esther’s father was 49 when he had her. I also believe that this Christopher Dicks had a son Christopher, so there are other possibilities. I was ready to go with Aunt Esther’s results until I found a blog I had saved from Heather Lynn that she wrote in 2011:

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Puzzle of the Day: Christopher DICKS of Newfoundland

Christopher DICKS was born (likely in February, 1784) somewhere in England. There are competing theories concerning his origins.
He and his wife Margaret (born 1789) had at least 11 children over the course of 24 years between 1808 and 1832, born in various places around Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, including Trinny Cove, Jean de Baie, & Hay Cove.

William (1808-1894) married Mary Ann Sheave
**Elizabeth (1809 – 1892) married Thomas ADAMS in Burin 1839 (my 3rd Great-Grandmother)
Joseph (1810-abt 1857) married Mary Griffith
Frances (1811 – ) married Charles Burton
Christopher (1812- ) married Elizabeth
Henry (1815- )
Rachel (1817-1893) married James Joyce
Robert (1824-1903) married Jane Crann
Susan (1827- )
James (1830- )
George (1832-1892)

Christopher DICKS died October 24, 1845 in Harbour Buffett, Newfoundland. His wife Margaret lived until February 1867. Here is an excerpt from his will:

Secondly,   All my money whether in cash or credits in Merchants Accounts as also such money as shall be and remain in the British Funds at the time of my decease, I hereby give and bequeath to my dear wife for her sole use and benefit and afterwards to be disposed of at her death as she may be inclined ~ Subject nevertheless to the following deductions, that she my said wife shall pay unto our sons James Dicks and George Dicks the sum of thirty pounds currency each at the time of my decease.
Thirdly,   My fishing room situate in Harbor Beaufet with all buildings and appurtenances there unto belonging together with all boats, skiffs, punts, seines nets and all kinds of fishing craft, I hereby give and bequeath unto my four sons Christopher Dicks Junior, William Dicks, Henry Dicks, and Robert Dicks to be equally divided share and share alike in value among them.

Let’s see how this information fits in with my chart above. Based on Esther’s and Heather Lynn’s research, I come up with this chart:

Based on the chart above, it appears that Jane Ann Dicks b. 1841 (top right) could likely be the grand daughter of Christopher Dicks b. 1784 (top left).

Here is Fred Upshall in 1920 wearing a straw hat:

Here is a map of Harbour Buffet and vicinity where my wife’s Newfie ancestors hailed from. Living there, it was important to have a boat or access to one. Many living in these parts of Placentia Bay were fishermen.

More Dicks DNA

Now that I know how Aunt Esther is descended from the Dicks family, I have tried to piece together a Dicks Chart based on the blog above and family trees I’ve found at Ancestry and FTDNA. I left out one line of the Dicks line for now to simplify things. That would be the Henry/Harold Dicks Line. I think the Henry/Harold is a parallel line to the Christopher Dicks Line (perhaps a brother).

The green boxes are those that have taken DNA tests. However, not everyone has uploaded their DNA to gedmatch.com which would make comparisons easy. There are 10 DNA testers in the green boxes, but I will be looking at the 6 that have uploaded their results to Gedmatch.com.These 6 are:

• Sandra
• Nelson
• Joan
• Esther
• Wallace
• Kenneth

My wife’s great Aunt Esther is on the row 4 generations down from Christopher Dicks, b. 1784. So is Nelson. We already know that those 2 have high matches of DNA between them. In fact, gedmatch.com estimates that Nelson and Esther should have a common ancestor back 3.2 generations instead of 4. This is likely due to the past intermarrying on Newfoundland, which increased the amount of DNA shared.

Triangulation of Dicks DNA

The goal is to find triangulation groups. If three people all match each other on the same segment of a chromosome, that is an indication that the 3 got that DNA from a common ancestor. Actually, the real goal is to confirm that the genealogy shown in the chart above is correct [using triangulation], and that these people do indeed descend from Christopher Dicks b. 1784.

Let’s Triangulate

First I entered the 6 of the 10 testers in green above and compared them in Gedmatch.com using a utility called Multiple Kit Analysis. Then I downloaded all those matching segments into a spreadsheet and sorted them. It wasn’t long before I found a triangulation group. The first one was at Chromosome 2.

In the table above, the 2 in the first column is the Chromosome number. The next column is the start of the match. Then the end of the match location and the cM value for the match. The above is actually a triangulation group of 3 people: Esther, Joan and Nelson. Sandra didn’t match with Joan or Esther. Note also that the gedmatch utility puts in every match twice. So the first match is Joan/Esther. The second match is Esther/Joan.

I almost missed this Triangulation Group (TG) because Esther and Joan had such a large match. Here is what Esther’s Chromosome Browser looks like at Chromosome 2:

The large red line is the match between Esther and Joan. This has to represent Esther’s father Fred Upshall who descended from the Dicks family. Fred is Esther and Joan’s common ancestor. Fred had 2 wives and Esther and Joan descend from different wives. The smaller green match is between Esther and Nelson. The pink match is between Esther and Sandra but is too tiny to consider. Plus, it is out of range of the DNA match that Esther has with Nelson.

Here are the 3 that triangulated on Chromosome 2 shown on the Dicks Chart:

Five Dicks Triangulation groups

All in all, I found five Dicks triangulation groups. The second TG was also in Chromosome 2:

Note that this TG is similar to the first one except that this time Sandra is in and Esther is out.

What happened to Esther? Esther got her DNA from her 4 grandparents. That fact that Joan matches two Dicks descendants and Esther doesn’t must mean that Esther must have  gotten her DNA in this part of her Chromosome 2 from her grandfather Henry Upshall and Joan got her DNA at that location from Catherine Dicks b. 1851. This is all good to know. So any paternal matches Esther has in this area of Chromosome 2 (location 171-192) where she is not matching Sandra, Nelson, and Joan would be a match along the Uphsall Line. I would like to add that Cheryl in the chart above is not counted as she tested at AncestryDNA and I don’t think that she has uploaded her results to Gedmatch.com. That means we don’t know if she triangulates with the others or not. The same is true for the person below Elizabeth that doesn’t show.

The third TG at chromosome 9

The TG at Chromosome 9 has a different apparent Dicks descendant: Kenneth.

Here I note:

• This TG is from 3 different children of Christopher Dicks: Elizabeth, Christopher and Rachel.
• Note that Joan is not in this TG. This could mean one of 2 things
  1. She just didn’t inherit that segment of DNA or;
  2. Esther’s part in the TG is through her mother’s side where she has another Dicks ancestor. I didn’t show that Dicks ancestor in the chart as I don’t know which Dicks that ancestor descended from.
• Sandra and Kenneth are 4th cousins by way of their common ancestor Christopher Dicks b. 1784. There is a little better than 50% chance that they would show as a DNA match. However, having Newfoundland ancestors means that they may match on more than one line.
• As Wallace is a known 2nd cousin to Kenneth, his descent from the same Dicks ancestor is inferred. Wallace just didn’t inherit the same segment of DNA that Kenneth did.

TG 11

This is just another permutation of the first TG. Note that Sandra inherited the Dicks DNA in Chromosome 11 while this same segment bypassed her uncle Nelson.

And finally, the TG at crhomosome 19

This final TG includes the last Dicks descendant who uploaded his results to Gedmatch.com: Wallace.

This group includes Christopher Dicks b. 1812 and Rachel Dicks b. 1817. Note that for any TG that Joan is in, Esther’s Dicks relationship is through her father and not her mother. This is because Joan is only a half niece to Esther on her paternal side.

Summary of TGs

Green in the box below a name means that the person is in the TG to the left:

Here is how they are related:

Disclaimer

There is always a small chance that the triangulation represents an unknown family. For example, the last name of Esther’s great grandmother Elizabeth is unknown. Also Elizabeth’s mother Margaret’s maiden name is unknown. It is possible that Wallace, for example, is actually triangulating with one of those families. However, as it is the Dicks that are in common in all these TGs, it is most likely that the Dicks are the common ancestors.

Summary, Comments and Conclusions

• I am very happy to see that all 6 of the Dicks descendants that uploaded their DNA results to Gedmatch triangulated with other Dicks descendants, zeroing in on Christopher Dicks b. 1784.
• Triangulation gives weight to genealogy showing common ancestors.
• It is likely that other Dicks descendants are already at Gedmatch or could upload their DNA results there.
• Having more Dicks descendants in the study group would improve the results and further solidify genealogies and lines of descent from common Dicks ancestors.
• It should be possible to use this same triangulation technique to unravel the ancestry of other Newfoundland families.
• The Dicks family was a good choice to look at as there are so many descendants from Newfoundland. Many descendants can make the genealogy confusing, but it is a plus in DNA analysis as they provide more potential to look at shared DNA and Triangulation Groups.
• TGs that both Joan and Esther are in show that the Dicks DNA that Esther inherited was from her paternal side – not her maternal side. This information may be helpful in further DNA analysis.
• Next step:
  1. Look for more descendants that are at gedmatch or who could upload their results there;
  2. Expand the triangulation to other Dicks Lines.