Since Ancestry enhanced their clusters, I thought that I would try them out on my wife’s Butler Line. I have two of my wife’s tested at Ancestry.
Here is my wife’s father’s paternal line:
Here is my wife’s Aunt Lorraine’s ThruLines on the third cousin level:
Patty seems like a good choice to try to cluster on.
I got some results, so that is good. Here is the 6 match cluster:
I believe that all these descend from George Butler of Cincinatti.
Here is the 19 Match cluster:
Here Patrick is interesting. What I am seeing is that there are two major clusters and Patrick is in-between the two. Patrick is the son of Will:
The common ancestor between Patrick and Lorraine is likely George Butler. He was born some time in the 1700’s and likely from Wexford, Ireland. Lorraine is Will’s 4th cousin once removed and an important DNA match.
Patty is in the cluster above Patrick. This is likely the Cincinnati cluster descending from the George in the DNA tree above.
The cluster below Patrick appears to be from another George. This George was the son of Edward Butler who confusingly also had the birth name of Adam. Edward was the brother of the George who moved to Cincinnati.
So here is what I think I have:
This is what one blogger calls walking back the ancestors.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of Georges here. The lower right corner of the pink cluster is from George Butler born 1872 and brother of Edward Henry Butler born 1875. Patrick descends from the George in the upper right hand corner of the Ancestry tree above. The upper left corner of the pink cluster descend from George Butler born 1826 and brother of Edward “Adam” Butler. I find it satisfying to be able to see all these connections in one place using Ancestry Clusters.
Lorraine’s 30 Match Butler Cluster with Patty
This is no doubt a more detailed picture of the previous pink cluster:
TTop right is Cincinnati Butlers. Will and Patrick are from Butlers that never came to the US. The tighter cluster is from George Butler. He moved to Massachusetts. I cannot place the last 5 in the bottom right. Lisa has Murphy and other ancestors from Wexford. It is possible that some matches go beyond what we know about in the area of genealogy. This view also includes Patrick’s father Will.
Virginia and Brian
Brian comes up as a large match to the Butler family. He is a fourth cousin to Virginia who is another of my wife’s Aunts. My guess is that Virginia’s clusters with Brian should look very similar ot Lorraine’s clusters with Patty.
It is a little different. The upper left cluster is the George Butler born 1826 in Wexford, moved to Cincinnati. Actually the common ancestor between Brian and Virginia should be Henry Butler born about 1800 in Wexford – not George born 1826 as stated earlier in the Blog.
Then within that Cluster is Will and Patrick. The common ancestor between them and Virginia is Henry Butler’s father and George Butler and his unknown wife.
The third cluster would also have the common ancestor of Henry Butler but this cluster represents the desendants through Edward Henry Butler down to his son George Butler born in 1872.
Summary and Conclusions
- Running clusters for my wife’s two late Aunts confirm my previous DNA and genealogical research.
- Two important matches are Will and Patrick. They bring the Butler connection back another generation in Wexford, Ireland. Their DNA matches also tie together two other branches descending from two son sons of Henry Butler of Wexford: a George Butler Branch who remained in Cincinnati and a Edward Butler Branch who lived for a while in Cincinnati but who eventually moved to Massachusetts.
- There is also a connection with Brian who descends from the Cincinnait branch, but one branch moved to St Johns, New Brunswick. This connection is important as that is where Edward Butler lived briefly and married Mary Crowley before moving to Cincinnati and eventually to Massachusetts.