Mr. Barker and His Frazer DNA Connections

I have not spent much time looking at Mr. Barker as his YDNA results have not been posted on a FTDNA YDNA Project until recently. I was informed by fellow researcher Joanna of Mr. Barker’s results in early August 2022. Mr. Barker tested 111 STRs and was a perfect match to Joanna’s Frazer brother. That would put Mr. Barker squarely in the Frazer camp, but where?

Mr. Barker’s YDNA Results

Many Frazers have taken YDNA tests, so we have a fairly good baseline. The best test is the BigY Test. Here is the chart that I have for those Frazer who have taken the BigY Test:

One more Frazier has tested, but his genealogy goes beyond what is currently known. In other words, the Frazer common ancestor could be as early as the 1400’s. I may have Dingman on the wrong side of the chart. New STR testing seems to suggest that Dingman could be on the “James Line” or right side of this chart. By STR testing, Mr. Barker has a GD of:

• 0 to Jonathan
• 1 to Rodney
• 4 to Rick and Paul

This tells me that Mr Barker descends from the James Line Branch or the right side of the tree above.

Frazer STRs

Even though Mr. Barker shows as a 0 or perfect match to Jonathan, this cannot be. The reason is that that Jonathan and Rodney are second cousins. If Mr. Barker were to be a perfect match to Jonathan, that would make him a first cousin to Jonathan. This cannot be based on autosomal DNA testing and known genealogy.

Here is Barker’s STR results, now in the Fraser and Septs Project at FTDNA:

Barker is listed right below Rodney’s results. Here is my chart of the Frazer STRs listing only those STRs which vary from the Mode:

The Mode is the value that occurs most often in a group and is generally considered to be the oldest value for the group. On this chart, I have Barker above Rodney’s results. The places that they have different STR values than the Mode are at CDY, DYS710 and DYS552. It could be that Barker has parallel mutations with Rodney and Jonathan at these three locations. I would say for sure that DYS552 is a parallel mutation. That is because, Rodney appeared to have gotten it after the common ancestor that he he shares with Jonathan (Thomas Henry Frazer born 1840). As the connection between Rodney and Barker go back before that time, Mr. Barker’s mutation must have happened separately from the one that Rodney has.

Mr. Barker’s Autosomal Results

I have a list of Frazer desdendants who have uploaded their results to Gedmatch. I can compare these to each other. I upgraded to Tier 1 at Gedmatch to do some fancy matchings.

Here is the Matching Segment Search for Mr. Barker:

By looking at this, it appears that the largest match is Barbara on Chromosone 8 . She has a 15.3 and 27.1 cM match with Mr. Barker for a total of 42.4 cM. Mr. Barker’s second largest match appears to be with Jonathan on Chromosomes 1 and 20 for a total of 31.5 cM.

Barbara and Jonathan

I have shown Jonathan’s genealogy above. He is from the James Line. Here is a portion of my autosomal DNA match/Genealogy Chart from the James Line:

Jonathan is on the third row from the bottom and four from the left. I have him descending from Archibald, born 1751, son of James Frazer. Mr. Barker’s match Barbara should be in the green area. I fit her in based mostly on DNA matching. I’ll add her in now.

Another match along with Barbara on Chromosome 8 is Sunny. Sunny also descends from the McMaster/Frazer lines in grey and green.

Here I have added in Jean aka ‘Sunny’ and circled Judith who also matched Mr. Barker on Chromosome 8. Based on this short analysis of the people in this group, it would look like Mr. Barker could best belong in the Michael Frazer group.

What About WG?

My Frazer researcher friend Joanna says that she cannot explain a 108 cM match that our Mr. Barker has with WG at AncestryDNA. I don’t have access to Mr. Barker’s results.

It may be that he has other non-Frazer matches with Mr. Barker?

WG’s Genealogy Tree

I’m interested in taking a peek at WG’s genealogical tree. Here is what WG shows:

I have no reason to doubt his tree, but the large DNA match that Barker has with WG makes me curious. It looks like WG’s maternal grandfather was a Frazer.

I already had a tree started for WG:

So things seem to check out. I also now have access to Mr. Barker’s matches. At 108 cM, his match to WG has to be considered:

WG’s tree is lacking on the Kelly side;

Here is Wappingers Falls:

Here is the family in 1920:

I wonder if this is Joseph in 1870:

Here there is a John Frazier from Scotland living in the same house. The father Edward Kelly was a railroad foreman and Frazier was a Rail Road Laborer. This seems to be a coincidental reference to Frazier. We know that Joseph was born in Ireland. Here is Pleasant Valley:

The 1900 Census has Joseph immigrating in 1868. That seems to fit in with the 1870 Census. Here I have some more of the male Kellys, but not much on their wives:

My thought was that if there is a DNA match, perhaps there is an unknown relative that connects the match. As WG has some unknown genealogy on the Kelly/Kelley side, I thought that perhaps that could be the connection to Mr. Barker.

A Frazer STR Tree

A while back, I had taken a stab at a STR tree for our Frazer Clan. These trees are difficult to build. Here is what I had:

Since that time, I have come to think that Dingman should be on the James Line side and not as shown above on the Archibald Line. We also have a tester named Gary whose genealogy is from the James Frazer side. Then there is Mr. Barker to add.

I’ll take another shot using the new Modes as the Frazer Ancestor values.

This tree appears to make more sense. Notice in the old tree, it required DIngman to have three mutations to be in the Archibald Line. Here, it takes him only two mutations to be in the James Frazer Line. There is a rule of parsimony in creating these trees. That rule states that the simpler solutions are usually the better ones. I had trouble fittling Barker in as he is believed to be a close match to Jonathan and Rodney, but the genealogy shows that their common ancestor must be before Thomas Henry Frazer. I mentioned above that DYS552 must be a parallel mutation, so the above tree reflects that.

Dingman has taken the BigY test, but because his Haplogroup was the same as Archibald Frazer born in 1690, it was difficult to place him in either of the sons’ lines. Now that we see that Dingman has a DYS570 value of 18 in common with Gary, that is a clue that he is likely in the James Frazer Line.

Summary and Conclusions

• Further DNA testing seems to be adding clarity to the Frazer genealogical tree
• Mr. Barker shows a perfect 111 STR match with Jonathan, which could indicate a closer relationship than Jonathan has with his second cousin Rodney. However, this cannot be due to known genealogy and autosomal DNA testing. That means that Mr. Barker must have at least one parallel mutation.
• Dingman shows an affinity with 111 STR tester Gary. Gary is known to be in the James Frazer Line. This strongly suggests that Dingman should be in the James Line and not in the Archibal Frazer Line as previously supposed.
• I drew up an improved STR tree for the North Roscommon Frazer descendants to reflect new testing
• I compared Mr. Barker’s autosomal DNA at Gedmatch with other known Frazer matches whose DNA has been uploaded to Gedmatch. Based on that information, it appears that Dingman could be under the Michael Frazer Line. However, Mr. Dingman has other DNA matches with Frazers from other Lines at AncestryDNA that have not yet been explained.