Ancestry Clusters is a new feature for those who have Pro Tools. According to Ancestry:
DNA matches sharing between 65 and 1300 cM of DNA are grouped into grids as shown below (if you have more than 100 clustered matches, you will not see this grid view). Each group or cluster represents DNA matches that are shared with each other, and represent a branch of your family tree.
My Clusters
I have four Clusters:
The large one is my Hartley side Cluster. My great-grandparents had 13 children, so I have a lot of relatives in that one. The next three Clusters are on my mother’s side.
I have left out the names on the left side of the clusters. RB is my first cousin Rusty. I know that the purple cluster is my mother’s Rathfelder side. That is due to CW and DD who are Rathfelder cousins from England. That leaves the orange and dark grey clusters. These are Nicholson or Lentz.
These clusters did not pick up my Frazer ancestors. Additionally, it is difficult to tell which cluster is Nicholson and which is Lentz.
My Mother’s Clusters
My mother only has maternal clusters.
This is odd as my own clusters picked up her paternal Rathfelder side and my mom’s clusters did not pick that up.
BL is in the coral colored cluster. He has Nicholson only ancestry. My guess is that the orange cluster is Lentz (but includes Nicholson). I further suppose that the coral and purple clusters represent Nicholson but further break it down between Nicholson and Ellis:
However, as the matches are both Nicholson and Ellis through Nicholson, it is not possible to tell which matches are more Ellis versus more Nicholson. Furthermore, it appears that all the orange Lentz matches have Nicholson in their heritage also.
My Father’s Cousin Joyce
This is a more detailed view of my large orange cluster.
I only show Joyce’s maternal side as that is the Hartley side where I am related to her. Here is the genealogy:
One theory is that the four clusters could represent Hartley, Emmet, Snell and Bradford. I do know that the blue cluster represents Snell. Here is CH from that Cluster:
Making an Educated Guess for Joyce’s’ First Three Maternal Clusters
Here is how Joyce is related to some of the Bradford descendants:
Joyce has a higher match to Pat as she is a Hartley also. Here is Pat in Joyce’s second cluster:
Therefor, my assumption is that the second cluster favors Bradford. I would not like to guess about the other two clusters. However, I do know that I have a lot of matches to Hathaway descendants.
My Sister Heidi’s Clusters
Where I have four clusters, my sister Heidi has 6. The first two are paternal and the last 4 are maternal. The paternal clusters are on the 2nd cousin level. I can only assume that these are Hartley and Snell clusters, but I cannot tell which is which.
Heidi’s Maternal Clusters
Here is what I think:
- Purple is clearly Rathfelder
- Teal is Nicholson or perhaps Ellis
- Red and blue are either Lentz or Nicholson
My Brother Jon’s Clusters
Jon’s Clusters are halfway between mine and my sister Heidi’s. The first match in the second cluster has Frazer ancestry as she is Aimee, a first cousin once removed. But because the other matches are from the Hartley side, this must be a Hartley paternal cluster. The purple cluster is Rathfelder. Blue is Nicholson and pink is Lentz/Nicholson.
Sister Lori’s Clusters
All Clusters are listed from largest to smallest. Lori’s largest and smallest cluster are both paternal and the other three are maternal. Aimee is is the first match in the fifth cluster. My assumption is that this Cluster is the first Frazer Cluster.
Loris’s Frazer Cluster
Here are the details from the Cluster:
Although John does not have a searchable tree, I have figured out who is on the Frazer tree.
Lori is John’s second cousin once removed. Aimee is John’s second cousin twice removed. I need to add Aimee to my chart as she is an important match:
Matthew
That leaves Matthew in the Frazer Cluster. Shared matches shows that he is related on the Hubert Frazer Line:
John’s father was born in 1919, so my guess is that he is Matthew’s granduncle.
I’ll add Matthew to my Ancestry Tree as a floating tree. Here is what Matthew has:
Matthew has followed his paternal grandmother’s line. I assume that the connection is not on that line. I found this information at Ancestry:
From an obituary index, I see that Matthew’s mother was a Frazer. that means I am getting close to figuring out where Matthew fits in.
Next, I look in my tree and find a perso with the same name as Matthew’s mother. I’ll take that to be the same person. Here is tree I already have for Matthew’s mother:
I merged the two people that I have which should also add Matthew to my tree. Next, I need to add Matthew to my Frazer DNA Tree.
This now describes Lori’s smallest cluster. It turns out I already had MatthewI on my Frazer DNA tree. It also turns out that John and Matthew are first cousins once removed.
My Sister Sharon’s Clusters
Sharon has three simple clusters:
- Hartley
- Lentz/Nicholson
- Rathfelder
My Daughter’s Clusters
These would make more sense if they were sorted by Paternal and Maternal instead of by size. When I look at the names, I see that Clusters 1 and three are paternal and 2 and 4 are maternal. Cluster 1 is Hartley and Cluster 3 is Lentz/Nicholson.
My daughter’s mother was a Jarek, so that would account for Clusters 2 and 4. Here is Heather’s mother’s tree:
Here are my daughter’s maternal clusters:
The second cluster has a match to a man named Matusik. His common ancestor with my daughter is Jarek/Ras. I would say that the first cluster represents Jarek/Wozniak and the second could represent a generation old: Jarek/Ras.
My Son’s Clusters
I suspect they should be similar.
The difference is that JJ also has some Rathfelder mixed in with his Lentz/Nicholson in Cluster #3. That explains the gap in matches in Cluster #3 as the Rathfelders and Lentz families are not related. Also JJ has a Snell not related to Hartley in Cluster #1. JJ’s match with Matusik is in Cluster #3 indicating an older connection to the Jarek line.
Summary and Conclusions
- Ancestry has a new Cluster feature which is at a basic level of 65 cM for now. At this level there should be no surprises. These will be the lines with the best level of DNA matches
- My sister Lori had the only Frazer Cluster, so she should be the best person to check for Frazer matches.
- It is interesting how the clusters represent some lines well and others not at all well. I assume that this has to do with the number of desendants there is in a given line and how many of those descendants took DNA tests at Ancestry.