I was in touch with Jennifer at 23andme recently as I wondered how we were related. Jennifer wrote back to me and said that her grandmother was a Gurney. From there, I could tell how we were related.
The green boxes have people in them that have had their DNA tested. Jennifer is in the bottom right. All these people descend from James Hartley and Annie Snell who had 13 children. Colleen is Joyce’s granddaughter. She also tested at 23andme and we have been in touch recently.
Jennifer’s DNA
The DNA that Jennifer and I share is from either James Hartley or Annie Snell. We can’t tell which. In order to figure that out we would need to have a match with a Hartley that isn’t related to a Snell or a Snell that isn’t related to a Hartley.
Here is what that DNA looks like on a Chromosome Browser at 23andme:
My Chromosome Map
I have been mapping my Chromosomes. That means that I have been keeping track of where my DNA comes from. Here is what I have so far:
The second to the lightest blue is the DNA that I know is from James Hartley or Annie Snell. This would be from all the other people in the green boxes that have had their DNA tested. This appears on the male side of my Chromosomes shown as the top side above. About half of my paternal side DNA should be from the Hartley/Snell side. The other half is Frazer from my father’s mother.
If I superimpose my match with Jennifer with my chromosome map above, there will be places that Jenneifer matches with DNA that I have already gotten from other cousins. There are also places that I haven’t had a match yet. I think that Jennifer will add new Hartley/Snell DNA to my map on Chromosomes 3 and 10.
I have circled the new parts of Hartley/Snell DNA that Jennifer and I share.
Comparing Jennifer with Others at 23andme
The view above is how my DNA compares to:
- Jennifer in purple
- Colleen in orange
- Brian in yellow
I know how I am related to Jennifer and Colleen, but I don’t know how I am related to Brian. Brian is a shared match with Jennifer. That means he probably has a common ancestor somewhere in the ancestry of James Hartley and Annie Snell. I would like to know which ancestor the yellow bar on Chromosome 10 represents but Brian has no ancestry tree.
Chromosome 10 Ancestor, Where Art Thou?
Emily at 23andme also shares DNA with Jennifer and me. She has a bit of a tree at MyHeritage:
The bottom line would be Emily’s parents. The way our DNA is matching, 23andme estimates our relationship to be at 4th cousins. Emily shows all four grandparents. However, that would be the 1st cousin level. The level we may be matching at may be three generations or so beyond that level. The Lee Line appears to be in Scotland, so I would rule that out. That leaves three grandparents at the 1st cousin level:
- 6 great grandparents – 2nd cousins
- 12 2nd great grandparents – 3rd cousins
- 24 3rd great grandparents – 4th cousins
That means that I would need to build out Emily’s line to 24 3rd great grandparents before I might find a common ancestor. I’m too busy, so I’ll look at another matching person.
Shamus’ Tree
I match Shamus at about the same segment that I match Jennifer, Brian, and Emily on Chromosome 10. However, Shamus has a tree at FTDNA. Shamus’ paternal side is Irish, and my Hartley side has no known Irish ancestors. So I’ll look at Shamus’ maternal side:
The first two people are Shamus’ maternal grandparents. So that would be 1st cousin level. Assuming that I am 4th cousin with Shamus, that would be the last column of 16 ancestors. Actually, there are 15 as one is missing. This means that Shamus has done a lot of the work on his tree that I would have had to have done on Emily’s tree and that I couldn’t do on Brian’s tree because I had nowhere to start. Unfortunately, I don’t recognize any of these names as being in my tree.
FTDNA does identify these surnames that are both of our trees:
These are names that go way back to colonial times.
Any Inman Connection?
I did notice that Shamus was missing a mother for Earle Inman. According to one ancestry tree, his mother was Lydia Wheelock born 1812. That same tree has her father as Avis Handy which doesn’t make sense unless Lydia was married more than once.
I did notice that Townsend should not be on my list. For some reason my ancestry tree had Townsend as the father of the Almy family. That wasn’t right, so I changed it.
The Wing Connection
There is a connection between Shamus and me, but it goes back to the 1500’s. That is a long time ago:
John Wing born in 1584 had Daniel Wing who I descend from and Stephen Wing who Shamus descends from. John Wing is my 10th great grandfather. So that would make Shamus and me approximately 11th cousins. I wouldn’t be ready to assign the DNA to the Wing family just yet. However, the DNA seems to come from a colonial Massachusetts source.
My Shared DNA Matches with Shamus
Here are some other people that share DNA at Chromosome 10 from Gedmatch:
All that shared DNA and I can’t figure out where it comes from. The match between me and Shamus is at the top. Then other matches appear to have gotten their DNA from the same place that Shamus and I have.
The other people are:
- Randy – no tree
- Don – no tree found
- Valarie – no tree found
- Kathy – She had a good tree, but I couldn’t find good matches by both place and name
- Jessica – no tree found
- Michelle – can’t find tree
- Cheyenne – She has a large tree at Ancestry, but no obvious match
- Sean – no tree
At this point, I’m ready to call it quits.
More DNA Mapping
As I went back and looked at Colleen’s DNA compared to me, I see we have some DNA that I haven’t mapped on Chromosome 9. This would have had to have come from Colleen’s grandmother Joyce. That means that I must have not mapped Joyce’s DNA to my Chromosome Map:
Here is my match with Joyce:
Here is what I had:
Here is the new map:
This filled in some more Hartley/Snell DNA on my Chromosome 9 and in some other areas – most notably Chromosomes 2 and 14.
Summary and Conclusions
- I looked at Jennifer’s DNA. We are 2nd cousins once removed and we both tested at 23andme
- Jennifer added new DNA from my great-grandparents that I didn’t know about before.
- I tried to track down the common ancestors for a shared match on Chromosome 10 but had no luck.
- I noticed from comparison with Colleen, that I had missed her grandmother Joyce when making my Chromosome map, so I added her results.