Ancestry has a new feature which shows clusters of DNA matches. These clusters can represent particular ancestors or ancestral couples. Here are my wife’s clusters:
These clusters are in Beta which means that Ancestry wants to use smaller matches to get more clusters. Right now, the matches go down to only 65 cM and the cross matches go down to 20 cM. My wife’s five clusters are sorted by size starting with the largest one in the top left. This shows that clusters 2, 3, and 5 are related to each other and that clusters 1 and 4 are on their own.
Here are Marie’s paternal clusters:
Here, the red and blue clusters are more related to each other than the orange cluster. Here is one match from the orange cluster:
Marie and Debbie share Butler and Kerivan ancestors.
This is the Irish side of the family. That leaves the red and blue clusters to the French Canadian side of the family. This makes sense as French Canadian genealogy tend to have a lot of matches. As far as the red and blue goes, my assumption is that on favors LeFevre and the other favors Pouliot, but I am not sure which is which. I will look more into my wife’s Aunts’ clusters.
I will look at my wife’s maternal side in a subsequent Blog. This will include Ellis and Upshall.
Aunt Lorraine’s Clusters
Aunt Lorraine has 8 clusters:
Three of Lorraine’s clusters are paternal:
Brian is the most interesting match in the red cluster. He does not show his family tree at Ancestry, but I have the common ancestor here:
This goes back 225 years to Henry Buter and Anne Russel in Wexford, Ireland.
The Blue Cluster
Here is a match from that Cluster:
What is Left for the Teal Cluster?
The teal cluster also has Kerivan and Rooney, so my assumption is that one cluster favors Kerivan and the other Rooney, but I do not know which. It may be possible to tease out which cluster is Rooney and which one is Kerivan with Shared Matches, but it is probably not worth the effort at this point.
Aunt Lorraine’s Maternal Clusters
Here we are in the world of French Canadian ancestry:
It may be easier to start with the small yellow cluster:
If Ancestry has the right common ancestor, this goes back to the year 1800. Another match agrees:
My Wife’s Aunt Suzy’s Clusters
This provides a sort of DNA fingerprint for my wife’s late Aunt Suzy. She has 7 clusters. This could roughly represent her 8 great-grandparents.
Here is Suzy’s paternal side:
Emily is in the blue cluster:
I don’t have Emily in my Butler DNA tree. Apparently, I do not have James Alfred Butler in my Ancestry Tree. He should be easy to figure out. From the tree, it appears that Emily Mary married a Butler.
Emily’s Genealogy
Here is the Emily Mary Butler family in 1930:
Emily’s husband, William Butler was a house painter. James Alfred was not likely born yet. Emily has her father’s birth place as Illinois. The family lived in Watertown, Massachusetts. Here is James in 1940:
James is still at home in 1950 working in a plastic factory:
A further revew of information at Ancestry including an obituary for Michael W Butler confirms the connection. I will add Emily to my Butler DNA tree:
Suzy’s Orange and Green Paternal Clusters
A review of a few matches looks like the Orange Cluster is Kerivan/Rooney:
Blue was Butler/Crowley. What does that leave for the green cluster? Turns out that green or teal is also Kerivan/Rooney. So both orange and green are either Kerivan or Rooney, but I am not sure which. That is why there are not many matches between the blue Butler/Crowley and the orange and teal Kerivan/Rooney:
Or more specifically, the areas I have highlighted between blue and teal have no matches. So orange seems to be Kerivan/Rooney with matches to Butler and teal is Kerivan/Rooney with no matches to Butler/Crowleyy descendants.
Suzy’s Maternal Clusters
Here is where things get a little wilder due to the French Canadian Heritage.
Without looking at the names, I see that Cluster 1 and Cluster 3 have no interaction (matching). Cluster 1 and 2 have a lot of matches with each other and Clusters 2 and 3 have a lot.
Suzy’s Cluster 1 – Orange
There are 28 matches in this cluster. 19 show common ancestors. I went through the suggested common ancestors and got these:
The fact that there are two matches that go further up on the LeFevre side indicate to me that this cluster belongs to Edmund LeFevre:
If I am right, then this rules out the Methot Line.
Suzy’s Pink Cluster 2
Here there are only 14 matches. Here is what I show for common ancestors:
Joseph Martin LeFevre marries twice and the last three matches are to the second wife.
Cluster 1 is Edmond LeFevre and Cluster 2 is Joseph Martin LeFevre.
Suzy’s Purple Cluster 3
Unfortunately, I cannot explain these results well:
The only difference between Clusters 1 and 2 are that Cluster 1 has 2 first cousins and that Cluster 3 has a 2nd cousin with a common ancestor of Pouiot/Fortin.
I also find it curious that there are many matches between Clusters 1 and 2 and many between Clusters 2 and 3, but none between Clusters 1 and 3.
Fred’s Tree
I do see one error. I have been in touch with Fred who is an excellent genealogist. He should be related on the Pouliot side. Here is a simple tree I have for Fred:
Aunt Suzy’s birth name was Virginia. That means that Ancestry’s common ancestor was wrong.
Here is Robin’s tree:
She descends from the same Wilfred Joseph Pouliot that Fred does. I will put Robin into my Pouliot DNA Tree:
Here, I’ll also add Belharuk:
Here is what I have:
My assumption is that Ancestry got John’s common ancestors with Suzy wrong also. I could figure out how he fits in, but I will assume that he is a 2C1R with Suzy in the Pouiot/Fortin column. So that was not as easy as I thought. Moral of the story: don’t trust Ancestry’s common ancestors.
Aunt Suzy’s Green Cluster 4
Here there are 5 matches. Four have unlinked trees and one shows a common ancesetor:
Here is the common ancestor match:
A fifth cousin once removed that matches at 100 cM is quite unusual. That common ancestor was based on this tree:
It would take me quite a while to figure out the seven generations of this tree. My reasoning is that the match is on the Fortin/Gagne side:
In summary, this is my best guess for Aunt Suzy’s Maternal Clusters:
- Orange Cluster – Edmund LeFevre 1834
- Red Cluster – Joseph Martin LeFevre 1873
- Purple Cluster – Joseph Pouliot 1848
- Green Cluster – Fortin 1804/Gagne
It may help to look at her sister’s clusters. I suppose that can wait for a subsequent Blog.
Summary and Conclusions
- I looked briefly at my wife’s paternal clusters
- I then looked at my wife’s paternal Aunt Suzy’s Clusters.
- I had thought that Aunt Suzy’s maternal French Canadian Clusters would be straightforward, but there were mistakes on the common ancestors for one of those lines. These mistakes were on a line that I have had no previous questions due to my working with a relative who has a great French Canadian Tree.
- As a result of this Blog, I was able to augment and improve my wife’s paternal side DNA trees.