Marie’s Connection to Richard and Newfoundland by DNA

Marie is my wife. Richard is a person on Marie’s Gedmatch match list. In fact,  Richard is, at the time I write this, Marie’s 495th match on her ‘one to many’ match list. Marie and Richard don’t know each other, so how do I know they have a Newfoundland connection?

Marie and Richard’s DNA Match

Marie and Richard’s DNA match looks like this at Gedmatch:

This shows that Richard and Marie share modest amounts of DNA on three of their Chromosomes. By DNA they could have a common ancestor about 5 generations ago. That means that they could be roughly 4th cousins. Marie could have gotten this DNA from her mom or dad, but she got it from her mom, Joan. This is how Richard and Joan match:

Joan shows as 4.3 generations away from Richard. The difference between Joan and Richard and Marie and Richard should be 0.5 generations roughly. This is because Joan is one generation closer to Richard and her common ancestor, but Richard is no closer or further. So it should average out to 0.5 generation difference roughly. Richard and Joan should be about 3rd cousins once removed, or something similar. Now I’ve narrowed down Marie’s match to about half of all her DNA matches.

Marie’s 1/2 Great Aunt Esther

Marie’s Aunt Esther is the key to understanding her match to Richard. Richard and Esther also match by DNA. Both of Aunt Esther’s parents were from Harbour Buffett, Newfoundland. So if Richard matches Esther, Joan and Marie and Esther, Joan and Marie match each other in the same DNA segment, that means they all have a common ancestor. Here is Richard’s match to Esther:

This shows that Esther, Joan, Marie and Richard only share DNA on Chromosome 11 from about position 12-19 M. That shared DNA would likely represent the common ancestor between Richard, Esther, Joan and Marie. Here is Marie’s family tree up to Aunt Esther:

Fred Upshall’s first wife Elizabeth died in the flu epidemic. Marie descends from Elizabeth. Esther descends from Fred’s second wife Margaret who was also from Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland. Any shared DNA with Joan, Marie and Esther must come from Frederick or one of his ancestors and not from the Shave side. That is how I know that Richard and Marie connect through Newfoundland and more specifically through Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland. Even more specifically, the Upshall side of the Harbour Buffett tree. We have narrowed down Marie’s DNA match with Richard to her mother’s side. Then to Marie’s maternal grandmother, Florence. Next, Marie has eight great grandparents, but we have narrowed down the DNA she shares with Richard to one of her eight great grandparents, Fred Upshall. Put another way, Marie has 2,000 matches on her ‘one to many’ match page at Gedmatch. This would narrow those matches down to 250, on average.

Richard’s Genealogy

So far, I haven’t looked at Richard’s genealogy at all. Richard and Esther have both tested at AncestryDNA. Richard shows as a predicted 3rd cousin to Esther at AncestryDNA. Above, Gedmatch estimated 3.5 generations to a common ancestor. This would be equivalent to a 2nd cousin once removed.

Richard’s Newfoundland side is through his father. Here is Richard’s paternal Newfoundland Line:

Two Trees Together: Where Are the Common Ancestors?

This is the difficult part. The genealogy of Newfoundland is missing much information. Here are Richard’s and Esther’s trees side by side:

Ancestry points out that Richard and Esther have the common Kirby surname. It could be that Joseph and John Kirby were brothers.

The Crann Connection

In a previous Blog, I show a triangulation between Esther, Joan and a Crann back to England. I show that Elizabeth and an Upshall spouse could have come from John Crann, but I now see that they could have come from another child of Henry Crann. I’m sure there are other possibilities.

This is where things get interesting. The John Crann in the diagram above is the same as in Richard’s tree. Remember when I said that Richard, Esther, Joan and Marie all matched on only one segment? That is the same segment represented by the Triangulation Group (TG) in the diagram above:

All I have to do is to see if Richard matches Heather from New Zealand. The good news is that he matches Heather. The bad news is that it is not on Chromosome 11:

Sometimes the DNA doesn’t behave like I would like it to. This could be a case where Richard and Heather are matching on the Collins side and Esther, Joan and Heather are matching on the Crann side (or the other way around). A TG only points to one ancestor. Here is Richard added to the Crann Tree:

In this tree, Richard matches Forrest (his third cousin twice removed):

Richard matches Wayne:

And Heather matches Wayne for a triangulation on a specific segment on Chromosome 8:

What I’d like to make clear is that the line is green is from New Zealand. The line in white is from Newfoundland. The ancestors Henry Crann and Elizabeth Collens were from Netherbury, Dorset, England and their children headed off in opposite directions. So this is a long range triangulation. This helps those with intermarried Newfoundland roots as the New Zealand descendants have just the Crann/Collens ancestors. This makes finding common ancestors easier clearer.

Summary and Conclusion

In this Blog I traced a DNA match between my wife, Marie and Richard. This match went up through Marie’s mom and through a common match with Marie’s 1/2 great Aunt up through one of her eight great grandparents. This greatly narrowed down where the match came from.

Then I looked at common ancestors. Richard and Esther have a Kirby surname in their ancestry, but the Kirby isn’t in Joan and Marie’s ancestry. After that, I looked at the Crann connection that Richard has. This was based on previous DNA work I had done. It turns out that Richard triangulates with Crann descendants from New Zealand that have never had ancestors in Newfoundland. This New Zealand triangulation removes some of the complications of intermarriage in Newfoundland. The Crann connection also confirms the previous work I did showing that there must be a Crann somewhere in the ancestry of Esther, Joan and Marie.