Looking At Joanna’s Frazer Shared DNA Matches and Shared Clustering

Frazer genealogist Joanna recently expressed some interest in Shared Clustering, so I thought I’d take a look at her shared DNA matches and shared clusters. I won’t go into how shared clusters work, but the output is supposed to organize your DNA matches into ancestral lines.

Joanna’s Ancestry

I am mostly interested in Joanna’s Frazer ancestry, as I am distantly related to her on at least one of her Frazer lines. Here is what I see for Joanna’s tree:

Joanna is divided into four parts: Frazer, Seymour, Dickins and Williams.

Shared Clustering

Shared Clustering has a basic 50 cM setting. Here are Joanna’s matches sorted at 50 cM and above:

Cluster 1 looks like Joanna’s Williams side. Cluster 2 is Joanna’s close relatives and Dickins side. Cluster 3 is Joanna’s Frazer side. I didn’t see anyone from Joanna’s Seymour side. That means that she doesn’t have close matches on that line or not enough close matches to make a cluster. Because Joanna has many close relatives tested, the demarcations between the clusters don’t show up well. Close relatives will be in all clusters. I put a yellow box around the Frazer Cluster 3.

At 30 cM Joanna Has 7 Clusters

Here is a shrunken down image of all of Joanna’s matches and how they are clustered into 7 groups:

The places where the red markers go a long way in a line are Joanna’s closest relatives.

The Cluster that I recognize at this level is Cluster 2 – Gail and Sharon are in this Cluster. They are Joanna’s second cousins with common ancestors Thomas Henry Frazer and Eliza Jane Palmer. Gail and Sharon also show that they have a correlated cluster in Cluster 1. I take that to mean that Cluster 1 could be a Palmer Cluster.

More on Joanna’s Cluster 2 at 35 cM

Joanna’s Cluster Two is a bit of a compound Cluster:

The first part of Cluster Two is somewhat separated from the second part but not totally.  Let’s look at my Frazer DNA/Genealogy Chart:

Here I’m at a bit of a loss as I am not an expert on Joanna’s side of the Frazer tree. However, one interpretation is that the two sides of Cluster Two could be for William Fitzgerald Frazer and Thomas Henry Frazer. The question could then be: what happened to the descendants of Edward Wynn Frazer born 1830? There has been a problem with Joanna’s family matching this branch in the past, so let’s keep an eye on this branch. I see that I have permission to look at Madeline’s DNA, so it may make sense to look at her shared matches to see how they fit in. This will probably require a separate Blog.

Kelly in Cluster 2

Joanna has a match in Cluster 2a with Kelly who has Frazer genealogy. Let’s take a look. Cluster 2a is the William Fitzgerald Frazer Branch.

Here we see that Kelly shows her ancestry goes back to a William Frazer born 1824. Also notice that Kelly’s ancestor has a middle initial of W. Here is how Joanna shows Kelly’s ancestor:

So while I was thinking that Kelly would fit into the William Fitzgerald Line, the genealogy shows that she is in the William Wynn Line. Here is Kelly’s ancestor grave marker:

This seems further supported by the 1851 Census of Ontario:

That leaves me with this possible interpretation of Joanna’s Cluster:

 

 

This shows that Joanna matches Thomas Henry closely (through second cousins). She matches William Fitzgerald descendants who are third cousins once removed. Then she matches a group that appears to be descended from William (not Edward) Wynn Frazer. This is probably William Frazer:

That leads to this crazy situation:

This shows that Joanna is a 5th cousin twice removed to Kelly. I say it’s crazy because the relationship is so far out. Joanna matches Kelly on two segments which means that they could be related on more than one line. For example, Joanna doesn’t have a wife for her ancestor Archibald Frazer born 1792. Perhaps his wife was a Knott. Or Kelly and Joanna just have a randomly large DNA match considering the relational distance.

A Transitional Clustering at 30 cM

I already ran this Shared Clustering for Joanna, so I’ll show it.

Here, Joanna’s second cousins popped out into their own Cluster 3. Cluster 2 now appears to just be William Wynn Frazer and Kelly and William Fitzgerald Frazer in the lower right part of the Cluster.

Thomas From Cluster Two

Because I only have one known person (Kelly) in the first part of Cluster Two, I’ll look at Thomas. He has an Alexander Frazer in his tree from Pennsylvania. I’ll take what Thomas has and see if I can make a connection:

This appears to be Alexander and family in 1920:

Alexander’s brother William was said to be born in Connecticut. Here is Archey’s Declaration of Intention:

Archibald was transcribed as being born in “Roocommon”.  That narrows it down. It appears that Joanna was ahead of me and already has this line:

However, this is in a different Frazer Line than Joanna is in, so more mystery. I’ll be glad to add him to my Frazer/Stinson Tree:

So the mystery deepens. Joanna, what is going on? Again, I suspect that there could be a non-Frazer connection somewhere. The question now is how Kelly and Thomas are related?

Joanna also matches Emily on this Line. My guess is that Emily is Thomas’ daughter. In fact, that is how Joanna has Emily.

Taking Joanna’s Shared Clustering Down to 20 cM

At this level of DNA matches, Joanna has 31 Clusters. Let’s see what they show.

Emily, Thomas and Kelly are still in the same Cluster, but now it is Cluster 22. The fact that these three are still in the same cluster tells me that this could be a fairly old set of common ancestors. This is one possibility in addition to this being a non-Frazer cluster (or a cluster that has Frazer and another common ancestor).

Going Down to 6 cM for Joanna’s Clusters

Doing this doesn’t create any new clusters, but it shows people that probably would be in clusters if clusters did go down that low. I am setting my expectations low here. I am just hoping for not too many more questions to come out of this.

The extra matches that Joanna has are above and below Cluster 22. Here are the ones above:

What I find interesting is that the top part of Cluster 22 has a pink designation. Joanna has this as McMaster/Frazer/Haire/Bowles if I am reading it right. The green is Frazer.

Here are the extra matches at the bottom of Cluster 22:

They form at transition between Clusters 22 and 23. Cluster 23 has Toni from the William Fitzgerald Frazer Branch. Notice that Joanna’s pink designation has mostly gone away for Cluster 23.

Joanna’s Other Clusters

Joanna’s Cluster 26 is the McPartland Cluster:

There are only three in that Cluster. That McPartlands can trace back to an Ann Frazer. Here is where Joanna has Ann:

However, this is genealogy is just a guess at this point. I have written many Blogs about the McPartland including one on Joanna’s sister.  However, after looking at how the clusters are associated, I can see where Joanna would come to the conclusion that this is the place to put the McPartland family in her genealogy. The McPartland Cluster 26 has an affinity for Joanna’s Cluster 27:

Cluster 27 and Different Common Ancestors

Here is another thing to sort out. Cluster 27 and matches associated with that Cluster have differrent common ancestors:

 

As per above, the McPartland Cluster had common ancestor Archibald of Tullynure. That Cluster had an affinity for Cluster 27. It looks like all the Common Ancestors that are in Cluster 27 proper have Archibald of Tullynure (or Thomas Henry Frazer). It doesn’t seem normal that there should be a group that is associated with Cluster 27 includes Palmer in Notley. If these were really Palmer and Notley, I would assume that these matches should be associated with Palmer and Notley Clusters. That leads me to believe that could be some relationship between Archibald of Tullynure (or his wife) and Palmer or Notley (or their spouses).

Here I have filtered Joanna’s clusters and matches by Palmer and Notley common ancestors:

 

I also included the row number to the left. Cluster 1 has a Notley common ancestor in the cluster. Cluster 10 has a Thomas Palmer common ancestor. Then rob has a Notley common ancestor associated with Clusters 1 and 10 which makes sense. I’m saying that it doesn’t make as much sense that Claire, Alexander, etc have Notley and Palmer common ancestors that are associated with Cluster 27 which is a Thomas Henry or Archibald of Tullynure Cluster.

Summary and Conclusions

• Many Blogs I set out trying to solve all the genealogical problems, but in reality I end up inching toward the truth
• The Blog raised more questions than providing answers
• One question: How does the Edward Wynn Frazer/Ismena Jane White branch fit in as the DNA connection is not clear? I hope to look at the DNA from this branch in my next Blog
• Next questions: Joanna is in a cluster with Kelly who appears to be a 5th cousin twice removed.
• This Kelly is also in a Cluster with Thomas who is in an even more distant Line of Archibald Frazer/Stinson. How are these two connected?
• My last question had to do with Joanna’s Cluster 27 at the lowest resolution of clustering. She had many matches with Palmer or Notley ancestors in a Cluster which had her ancestor Archibald of Tullynure. This suggests that the two families could be related.
• I looked at a small McPartland Cluster. This cluster seems to support the way Joanna has this family in her genealogy. However, I also match this family through X Chromosome matches. It would be interesting to try to integrate the connections between Joanna, McPartlands and my family.