Looking for Frazer DNA in All the Right Places

In my last Blog on Frazer DNA, I summarized all the Frazer Triangulation Groups (TGs) that I knew about. Since that time, I ordered a Big Y test for myself. I also wrote some blogs on the DNA of my wife’s Dicks family from Newfoundland. I used a more methodical way of looking for TGs with the Dicks family. Also I was able to conclude more about the TGs that I did find. As a result, I thought that I would take a fresh look at the Frazer TGs.

Summary of the Previous Frazer TG Summary

There were 11 TGs
14 people were in those 11 TGs
Those 11 TGs represented 7 groups. Those 7 groups were 7 different Frazer ancestors – or ancestral couples that were born between about 1690 and 1803. These Frazer ancestors were mostly on the Archibald Line. However, one TG was believed to represent the founding father of the Frazers in Ireland. He was Archibald Frazer born about 1690.

New and Improved Frazer TG Analysis

This time I looked at some of the extra people that have been shown to match our group, but aren’t sure where their Frazer ancestors fit in. I compared all the project Frazer descendants in a Gedmatch utility called Multiple Kit Analysis. I downloaded those results into a spreadsheet. That resulted in 1280 segment matches between all those that tested. I have 27 testees in the current study. I left out daughters as their mothers (Charlotte, Vivien and Clyde) had the better DNA for analysis.

archibald Line testees

Bill
Pat
Gladys
Heidi
Joel
Sharon
Paul
Michael
Jane
Ros
Cathy
Doug
Vivien
David

James Line Testees

Prudence
Charlotte
Mary
Jonathan
Janet
Joanna
Judith
Bonnie
Beverly
Clyde

Testees unsure of their frazer ancestry

Karen
CA
Jenn
Melissa
Stephanie

The Ground Rules For the Frazer Triangulation Groups

As I mentioned above, I didn’t include any children where the parent would provide as good or better DNA
I didn’t include siblings in a Triangulation Group. I used them individually, but not together. So for example, there are 2 sets of 3 siblings in the project. They would obviously triangulate with their own parents as common ancestors. Or if 2 siblings’ DNA matched another person in the group, I would not count that as a TG. The reasoning is that siblings all get their DNA from their parents and they are treated collectively as one person for the purposes of triangulating.
I did use niece/nephew to aunt/uncle relationships in triangulating. The reasoning here is that they are getting their DNA from different sources. I found in the previous study that I did, very often the niece would be in the TG and the aunt wouldn’t, for example.

And the answer is:

Rather than go through every TG individually, I will just give the final answer.

Now I’m up to 29 TGs from a previous 11 TGs
Due to overlapping TGs in different generations of ancestors, there were 2 TGs that I counted in my previous analysis that I didn’t count here.
There are 24 People in these TGs
The Frazer TGs are indicated in green
Blue could be McMaster TGs – which is confusing as my McMaster ancestor had a Frazer grandmother
Pink could be Price TGs. The only people in these TGs descend from George Frazer b. 1858 and Susanna Price.
There are 5 groups of people.
- The first descend from Richard Frazer b. 1777 (or from his brother Philip, but for simplicity, I left him out)
- The second group descend from Richard Frazer b. 1777 or from Archibald Frazer b. 1778. These people have ancestors in both groups.
- The 3rd group descends from Archibald Frazer b. 1778
- The 4th group are not sure of their Frazer descent
- The 5th group descend from the James Line of Frazers.
Note that TG01A is probably an Archibald/Stinson TG. This is because Vivien descends from Archibald and not Richard. That brings Michael and Jane (who descend from either Richard or Archibald) into Vivien’s Archibald camp.
TG01B is probably a Richard 1777 TG. This uses the same logic. Heidi and Paul descend from Richard and not Archibald, so they pull Michael and Jane into the Richard camp.
Other TGs’ ancestors can be guessed at using the same reasoning
Where there are people in a Richard 1777 TG there are not people in an Archibald 1778 TG and vice versa. This makes sense as people in those 2 groups descend from either Richard or Archibald.
TG12 is popular with 7 people in this group.

Highlighting Some James Line TGs

tg02A & TG02B – Paul, Heidi, Sharon, Jonathan and Stephanie

Jonathan had a small match that put him in the first of these 2 TGs:

Here there are 2 TGs, but they are difficult to see. The first one I didn’t have before as it required me to lower the thresholds for Jonathan’s match to Paul. So the first TG includes Paul, Heidi, Sharon and Jonathan. The second TG, I didn’t have in my previous TGs, because I didn’t include Stephanie. She is in the second Triangulation Group and Paul is out. On my first chart, I have these 2 TGs in blue as they may go back to my McMaster ancestor (whose grandmother was a Frazer)

TG15B – Charlotte, Mary, and Paul

Here, I noticed that Charlotte and Mary matched. This was not surprising as they are aunt and niece. Also Charlotte and Paul matched. However, I wasn’t showing a match between Mary and Paul which would make the last link of the TG. I lowered the thresholds between Mary and Paul and found the missing link. In my master chart, I show this TG in blue as this could also be a McMaster match. This is combined with the fact that Charlotte has an X match with my 2 sisters. The X cannot travel from a father to a son, so is not a good indication of a male line (in this case the Frazer Line). However, as shown in the Ancestry tree of my grandmother above, there could be an X connection between my sisters and Charlotte to a Frazer via the McMaster Line. Paul would not have this same X match as he got his X Chromosome from his non-Frazer mother and no X from his Frazer father.

TG17 – Doug, Bonnie and Beverly

Here, again, I lowered the threshold and found that Beverly and Doug did match, forming a TG. I don’t know if Doug has any ancestors along the Knott line, but there are many other possibilities where these 2 families could match up including Archibald Frazer born about 1690.

Richard 1777 or Archibald 1778?

Here is an interesting TG. It is made up of Bill, Gladys and Jane. As far as we know, these 3 are both descended from both Richard and Archibald. However, look at the details:

Here it is important to note who isn’t in the TG as well as who is. Cathy and Michael match, but are not in the TG – even though they match on a segment where they could be in the TG. Cathy is the only one out of the 5 above that does not potentially descend from Richard Frazer born 1777. This means that the Michael/Cathy match would be on the Archibald/Stinson Line. This further means that the TG with Bill, Gladys and Jane is more likely to be on the Richard Frazer Line.

In a less likely scenario, perhaps Michael and Cathy only got the Stinson DNA and Bill/Gladys/Jane and Michael got only Frazer DNA. Or vice versa. The last scenario would be difficult to prove unless one group matched a Stinson who wasn’t related to a Frazer. Nothing is easy.

And Finally, the Puzzling TG09A-D

TG09A & B don’t look too complicated:

They look like the standard Bill/Gladys/Pat [Frazer/Price] TGs. However, adding in TG09 C & D:

It looks like there is a blue TG nested inside the gold TG. Then inside them both is a non-TG match between Ros and Vivien which is on a different line – the John Parker Frazer (born 1827) Line.

A closer look at Chromosome 9: Sharon, Paul, Pat and Gladys

Here is Sharon’s Chromosome 9 map. She is on the first row. I am on the second row and my other sister Heidi is on the third.

Sharon’s DNA is represented by the top orange/purple bar. I show her with no crossovers. I also show that she received her paternal (top bar) and maternal (bottom bar) grandmothers’ DNA intact. Now Sharon’s Frazer grandmother got her DNA from her 4 grandparents. These would be: Frazer, McMaster, Clarke, and Spratt. Paul only matches with Frazer and McMaster. Bill, Gladys and Pat only match with Frazer.

Note that Bill and Gladys and Pat and Gladys match from about 1-90. This would indicate a large chunk of DNA that they inherited from George Frazer, born 1858. Then out of that large chunk, George got his DNA from his 4 grandparents. In this case, two of his 4 grandparents were first cousins, Violet and James Frazer.

Let’s follow Sharon’s matches down the list.

From 4-9, she matches Paul and is not in the TG with Bill, Gladys and Pat
From 38-78, she is in a TG with Paul and Karen. These 2 matches could be a McMaster match as Sharon, Paul, Karen are not matching Bill, Gladys or Pat in this segment
From 18-23, she matches her sister Heidi, but this is a non-Frazer maternal match
From 85-90, she is in a TG with Pat and Gladys. Their common ancestors are James Frazer and Violet Frazer.
So, even though Sharon could have matched Bill, Gladys and Pat from 0-90 where they had a large match with each other, she didn’t. She only matched them starting at location 85. Something happened there. This is the precise point where I surmise that she went from matching on the McMaster Line to the Frazer Line.

This is how it could look mapped out on Chromosome 9

Notes:

Sharon appears to have all her Chromosome 9 from her Frazer grandmother
Pat and Gladys match from 12-90. They are also in a TG which would indicate by itself a common ancestor of either George Frazer b. 1858 or his wife Susanna Price. As Bill and Gladys also match between 1-90, I could have shown the purple segment as going further to the left.
However, Sharon is in a a TG on a portion of this same DNA segment (see the red above). That red TG identifies Gladys’ purple segment above as being Frazer and not Price. The common ancestors between Gladys and Sharon in red are James Frazer or Violet Frazer. I drew the red to the 100 mark as Gladys and Sharon match each other from 85 to 100.
Sharon matches Paul from 22-86. However, this match does not match with Gladys in the same area of her Chromosome 9 where we have established she has a long Frazer DNA segment. Sharon and Paul have as common ancestors George Frazer b. 1838 and Margaret McMaster. As Sharon and Paul don’t match Gladys in this Frazer region of Gladys’ DNA segment, the match between Paul and Sharon must be through the McMaster side. There aren’t any other options left. [See the chart below.]
Violet Frazer descends from Richard Frazer. As there are no other matches of Richard Frazer descendants in this [red] TG, it would be more likely that the common ancestor is James Frazer, Violet’s first cousin.

Here is how the red TG09D looks like on the Frazer Chart:

I don’t have any photos of James and Violet Frazer, but here is their house in Derrycastle (or Derrycashel) Roscommon:

My cousin, James Frazer and my wife were checking out the front doorway in 2004. Without the help of my Frazer relatives in Ireland, I would not have been able to locate this house.

A brief note on the importance of triangulation groups

In my blogs, I tend to put a lot of emphasis on Triangulation Groups. They are important, but especially so for relationships where we have little to no paper documentation. When I first found Bill as a relative, I had to convince him that we were related. I was only really guessing as I didn’t have definitive proof myself. Now, with DNA, we see that my guesses were accurate.

TGs have less importance where the relationships are known and documented. It is interesting that Bill, Gladys and Pat are in TGs, but whether they are or if they just match singly, they already know how they are related to each other. The same is true of Vivien and Ros in my last example. They are not in a TG with each other on Chromosome 9, but they know that they are related and who their common ancestors are.

Summary and Conclusions

My recent work with my wife’s Newfoundland side of the family resulted in many more TGs than I had found in the Frazer DNA Project. Many of those TGs resulted from Aunt and Uncle relationships. Armed with that information and looking at the Frazer Project matches in a more methodical way, I found many more TGs
I also found some TGs where there were 2 people in a triangle and a third didn’t match. By lowering the thresholds at gedmatch.com, it became clear whether the third person would match the other 2 or not.
By looking at who is and isn’t in the TGs, as well as looking at nested TGs, it is possible to make educated guesses of which ancestors a TG represents. This comes in especially handy when a TG that could be from more than one Frazer Line.
Only 4 people in the project did not triangulate. They are Judith, Joanna, Prudence and Clyde – all from the James Line. That may be due to the fact that the relationships tend to be more distant in that Line. Also there are no known Frazer cousin marriages in that line. One other person in the unknown group, Melissa, did not triangulate.