Here is Part 1. In Part 1, In that Blog, I looked at MyHeritage Theories of Relativity for my mother-in-law Joan.
Looking at Gedmatch
Gedmatch provides good information, but the most likely combination would be Gedmatch and Ancestry. However, it can be difficult to match the two. Here is a match for David at Gedmatch:
This appears to be David’s tree at Ancestry:
Laura shows as being from PEI, so that would be a good start. Here is what I get for a tree:
That means that David’s common ancestor with Joan is Malcolm MacArthur and Ann MacDougall. David’s matches with Joan overlap with other matches except for the end of Chromosome 18:
Repairing Some Broken Theories at MyHeritage
Here is Joan’s match with John:
It doesn’t make sense. It looks like two women were married and gave birth to Malcolm. First, I’ll build out a tree for John:
This is John’s maternal side:
Here I found some interesting information:
According to ancestry James Ellis was the father of Alexander McDougall.
Here are the crazy results I get:
That means that John would be a fourth cousin twice removed to my mother-in-law Joan:
It seems like John and Joan share a lot of DNA for that distant a relationship, but I will try painting them in to see what happens:
On Chromosomes 17 and 18, the match is bumping into MacArthur/MacDougal DNA which makes sense given the genealogy. However, I was not able to easily figure out a common ancestor on the MacDougall Line. The match, though confusing, got Joan up to 34% painted paternally and 40% overall.
These results appear to be supported by AncestryDNA’s ThruLines:
Untanglling a Rayner Mess
MyHeritage has this wrong Theory:
This is the DNA/Genealogy tree I have so far:
Here, I’ll add in Jason:
However, I see a problem in that he has MacArthur ancestry also. Jason and Joan are 4th cousins once removed on the Rayner Line.
It turns out that there is an Ellis connection on the MacArthur Line:
It turns out Jason is a fourth cousin three times removed to Joan on the Ellis Line:
I’ll go ahead and paint in Jason on the Rayner Line as that is a closer relationship. Here is how Jason looks in DNAPainter:
He has no overlap with Joseph on Chromosome 7. That means that Jason has new Rayner DNA or that he is overlapping on other ancestral lines. Here is how it breaks down:
On Chromosome 1, Jason’s match probably represents a crossover between Rayner and Ellis
On Chromosome 4:
Here Jason is outnumbered by Ellis matches, so this is probably his Sarah Ellis DNA. Same problem on Chromosome 6:
Chromosome 14:
The overlap with blue means that Rayner is right here. It takes some time to tease out the genealogy and DNA.
Robert with Three Theories
I must not have painted Robert previously because he had three theories. I will paint the closest match now:
Here is Robert on Chromosomes 3 and 4:
Chromosome 3 probably represents Joan’s crossover between Ellis and Gorrill. Or it could be Robert’s older match. Here is one of the two older connections:
Chromosome 4 is confusing because Jason’s red was meant to be Rayner. If I corrected Jason’s segment is should be gold color or tan.
Again, Chromosome 15 is difficult to interpret:
The match appears to represent a crossover, but I’m not sure which one. This could be Ramsay DNA or Ellis/MacArthur. The other confusing part is that Ramsay is back on the MacArthur Line.
Unraveling Another Mess MyHeritage PEI Theory
This can’t be right as it appears to show that Ellen MacArthur had two children the same year with different men. The connection appears to be on Donna’s paternal side:
When I build out my tree the closest connection I see is here:
There is another connection but it is another generation out on the Yeo side:
I’ve started a DNA/Genealogy tree for MacArthur which is sure to get bigger:
Joan and Donna are 4th cousins once removed. I think that Donna and Joan are 6th cousins on the Yeo Line. Here is where Donna matches on Chromosome 17:
Donna appears to add to the evidence that John’s match should be on the MacArthur side. Of course, at this point, I don’t remember who John is!
Detangling Mona’s Tree at MyHeritage
Joan’s side appears right up to Malcolm MacArthur except that his daughter should be Marion MacArthur. This is what I got by building out Mona’s tree, but I couldn’t find any familiar surnames:
Actually MacDougall is familiar, but I don’t know where the connection is – probably way back. I’ll give up on Mona for now.
Christopher on the Rayner Line
Time to pull out my Rayner DNA/Genealogy Tree:
When I do, I see that I missed Jason’s ancestor Silas Rayner. Here is Christopher added:
Here is Christopher painted on Chromosome 6:
Here Christopher, who does not appear to have Ellis ancestry like Jason, is correctly on the blue Rayner side. At this point Joan is up to 35% painted on her paternal side.
Lauren on the Rayner Line
Lauren has two Theories at MyHeritage – both on the Rayner Line. Here is Theory 1:
Lauren is on the Silas Line which I already looked at. Lauren should be more closely related to Jason above. MyHeritage shows that she is, but without triangulation. Actually Lauren has three Theories with Joan, but I will go with the tree that I have already made for now and assume that the connection is with Edward Rayner born 1775 and Mary Watson. Here is Lauren in my Rayner DNA/genealogy Tree:
Lauren’s match on Chromosome 1 shows a possible issue:
Her match overlaps on the Ellis/Gorrill side. This suggests that Lauren could have a match on Joan’s Ellis/Gorrill side or that there could be some other connection. The other two DNA matches are not in areas with other matches, so there is nothing to compare them with:
George on the Ellis/MacArthur Line
George is painted onto Chromosomes 1 and 18:
George’s match with Joan on Chromosome 18 appears to indicate that the match is on the MacArthur side. That is due to the overlap with pink matches.
A Rayner Connection with Roy
The tree associated with Roy at MyHeritage ends with Eva Dawson:
Eva’s marriage record gives a Rayner for her mother:
When I build out part of Roy’s paternal side, I get this:
This shows the confusion at MyHeritage between Edward John Rayner Jr and John Rayner. I can add Roy to my Rayner DNA/genealogy Tree:
I have three sons of Edward John Rayner that I have been tracking via their descendants’ DNA. My ancestry tree has 10 children of Edward John Rayner.
Roy’s DNA match with Joan overlaps with Lauren’s match which is good. This actually ties the three Rayner lines together. This brings Joan’s painted paternal matches up to 36%. The Rayner family was large, so there are likely many more DNA matches out there.
Summary and Conclusions
- DNA Painting is a good way to get an understanding of how your relatives fit in
- DNA Painting points out places where there are multiple common ancestors. In some cases, it makes it possible to sort out which DNA comes from which which common ancestor when there are multiple pairs of common ancestors.
- DNA matches tend to favor the more prolific lines
- I wanted to get Joan up to 40% painted and was able to do this. However, it took longer than I thought
- Using MyHeritage is a good way to paint matches as there is already some genealogy and they have the DNA matches in detail. The Theories are not always accurate, so need to be checked. I think that Ancestry’s ThurLines are one way to check the genealogy along with creating trees to flesh out the trees of the DNA matches.