Recently Marilyn from the Dicks DNA Group mentioned a new person from the Dicks Line. It took me a little while to realize that this person was already on Gedmatch.com. Based on her gedmatch name, I will call her Forrest. She descends from the Robert Dicks Line. Robert Dicks was born in 1824 and married Jane Cran.
Here is a chart with Forrest on the bottom right.
The above chart shows only 2 of the children of Christopher Dicks b. 1784. There are 3 other lines represented by this DNA project.
The New TG at Chromosome 2
Chromosome 2 seems to be a Dicks DNA hot spot. In my previous Blog, I had noted 3 TGs on that Chromosome. It looks like this TG makes 4:
This TG, shown in gold, is spread out. It consists of Esther, Joan and Forrest. In between is one of the other TGs with Esther, Joan, Nelson and Sandy. Judy and Wallace are in there also, but not as a part of the TGs. As they are not matching in the TG, the DNA that they share should be from their [non-Dicks] Smith Line.
What’s going on at chromosome 2?
Here is a summary of all the Dicks TGs at Chromosome 2.
- TG 2A – Esther, Joan, Nelson and Sandra
- TG 2B – Esther, Joan, and Forrest
- TG 2C – Joan, Sandra and Nelson
- TG 2D – Nelson, Sandra and Molly (Note that Molly could be in one of two different Dicks Lines)
Chromosome 2 is quite a long one. Apparently there is room at this Chromosome for several TGs. Here are TG 2C and TG 2D from my previous Blog:
Now I will try to show the 4 TGs at Chromosome 2 with colored lines and circles:
I didn’t think that would be easy. The takeaway from this chart is:
- The 2 nieces (Sandra and Joan) share a lot of DNA with their Uncle and Aunt on the left side of the chart. Two of the TGs (TG 2A and 2C) are made up of these 4 people.
- For TG 2D, we can’t know for sure if this TG Marilyn that is in is from the Rachel Dicks/Joyce Line or the Robert Dicks/Cran Line. It would be one or the other, but not both.
- There is always a small chance that the TG 2B could be with a non-Dicks Line. This is because we don’t know the maiden name of Esther’s great grandmother. However, as we do know that Forrest, Esther and Joan all share the same Dicks ancestor, I tend to believe that Christopher Dicks b. 1784 is the common ancestor.
Relationships and Shared DNA
Based on each relationship in the chart, there is a certain amount of expected DNA that would be shared. As these relationships go further out, there is a chance that there will be no DNA shared between, say, 5th cousins. Another way to express your relationships is in the generations to your Most Recent Common Ancestors (MRCAs). For example 2nd cousins will share the same grandparents. Your grandparent is 2 generations away from you. For your aunt or uncle, they are one generation from the common ancestor and you are two generations away, so that averages out to 1.5 generations. Here is a chart from gedmatch that guesses how far away to a MRCA based on the amount of DNA shared between two people. After that number, I added the actual number of generations to the MRCA for people in the Dicks DNA Project.
I added some purple for Esther and Molly as they both have more than one known Dicks ancestor. For them, their generations to MRCA based on their gedmatch predicted DNA shared is always less than the actual relationship. One exception to this is between Esther and Joan. Esther is Joan’s half Aunt. That is where the analogy would break down as Joan would only share the DNA from Esther’s paternal side.
The darker salmon colored boxes are where there was no DNA shared at normal gedmatch defaults. This is expected at 5 generations to MRCA or more. In the chart below, a MRCA of 5 generations is equivalent to a 4th cousin.
What all this tells me is that the Dicks Ancestry Chart compared to the amount of DNA shared looks pretty good. Nothing looks out of line with what would be expected.