[Note: I originally wrote the first part of this blog in October 2015 but did not publish it.]
In this Blog, I thought it’d be a good idea to spotlight someone who has contributed to the Frazer DNA Project. Michael is from England and is one of the people who has done quite a bit of research on the genealogy of the Frazers in Ireland – specifically the area around Northern Roscommon where where our Frazers came from. He got me to update the Frazer Web pages with a lot of his input which is always a work in process – as is all my other web pages. So he didn’t mind it when I asked him to take a DNA test.
Michael at AncestryDNA
Michael took his test at AncestryDNA which is a good choice, because they have good Ancestry trees and 1,000,000 customers taking the DNA test to compare results. They don’t have the greatest tools you can use yourself, or specific information to view on your results, but you can get around that by uploading to gedmatch and/or Family Tree DNA (FTDNA).
Here Ancestry shows that Michael has 3 Shared Ancestor Hints. This is where Ancestry sees that there is a DNA match and also an ancestor in common between the 2 DNA matching ancestor trees. This is something that we were already looking for in Frazer project, so it was no surprise, but it can be helpful in cases where you are getting matches that you were not already expecting. Turns out these 3 Shared Ancestor Hints are my 2 sisters and me.
It All Averages Out?
When I click on the Shared Ancestor Hints I see my older sister Heidi as a 4th Cousin to Michael with a range of 4th to 6th cousin and then myself and my younger sister Sharon as distant cousins to Michael with a range of 5th to 8th cousins. Further the 3 siblings have DNA confidence ratings for our matches to Michael according to Ancestry. They are: Extremely High for Heidi; High for me, and; Good for Sharon. You may wonder why different levels of matches to Michael for 3 siblings? This is typical for DNA. That is part of the reason why it helps to have multiple tests done. I suppose I had an average match to Michael, while my sisters had higher than average and lower than average matches to him.
For comparison, Gedmatch shows the actual numbers that Ancestry doesn’t show. Here’s Heidi and Michael:
Michael and me:
Michael and Sharon:
So which answer is right? They all are. My 2 sisters and I all received different parts of our dad’s DNA which match Michael. Michael and I share more than average DNA for the distance of our relationship. Part of the reason for this is that we both had Frazer first cousins that married each other back in the early 1800’s.
AncestryDNA Shows Our Shared Ancestors
When I click on match between Michael and Heidi at the Shared Ancestor Hint, it shows this:
Actually, it shows more. I didn’t include the more recent information. On the lower right, it goes down to my sister Heidi and shows her as a 4th cousin, once removed to Michael. Pretty neat, but we were able to figure this out without ancestry. Also we were able to use the actual DNA figures and triangulate the relationship which is more specific than what Ancestry does. Here’s another cool feature. See above, that Richard Frazer is Shared Ancestor Hint 1 of 2. Here is Hint 2:
Again, I’ve blocked out the bottom, but this shows that Michael and Heidi are now 5th cousins, once removed. Well, we knew that, but in case we had missed it, Ancestry didn’t. Now, we know that this Archibald is one generation older than Richard. And that is the way he is shown. Of course, this is just a dumb computer program with an algorithm. If you put a garbage tree into the system, you will get garbage out.
Shared AncestryDNA Matches
There is a relatively new feature at AncestryDNA called Shared Matches. When I choose the match between Michael and my sister and then choose Shared Matches up pops Jane from our Frazer Project. This means that AncestryDNA has figured out on their predicted 4th cousin or closer level, that Jane matches both Michael and Heidi by DNA. Well, we already new that and were looking at that. In fact, we already knew that Jane was in a triangulation group (TG) with Michael, me and my 2 sisters. See How I Added 2 Frazer Lines by DNA. Also Bill is in this TG, but he didn’t test at AncestryDNA, so Ancestry wouldn’t know about him.
So why doesn’t AncestryDNA show Jane as having a shared ancestor with Michael? They show that they both have shared DNA matches. The shared ancestor has to do with the family trees. For some reason, AncestryDNA’s computer program isn’t picking up that Jane and Michael have common ancestors even though they do. Perhaps Jane’s Frazer ancestors weren’t entered in a way that Ancestry recognized.
[Note: end of October 2015 blog and start of the February 2016 blog]
I recently wrote “Mapping All My Frazer DNA” and was reminded of my sisters’ and my matches with Michael. One of my favorite ways of looking at matches is using Gedmatch’s
| People who match one or both of 2 kits Updated |
I’m usually interested in the part where someone matches 2 different people. In this case it would be between Michael and my family. I will match Michael with my 2 sisters and myself and see what shows up.
Michael and Heidi’s Matches
I have discussed the Chromosome 1 Triangulation Group (TG) before. Here it is with others that match Michael and Heidi:
On the right hand side is the TG. The first 3 are Jane, Paul and Heidi of the Frazer DNA Project. This group has a common ancestor of Richard Frazer, b. 1777. The 2 groups of people below that are people that are not in the project and mostly not contacted yet. They may have the same common ancestor or one further back.
The next interesting Chromosome showing Michael’s matches in common with Heidi is #10:
This also looks like a TG. Those in our Frazer DNA Project are #2 and 3 (my 2 sisters). Then Jane is in pink with a tiny match and I am in blue. Note that Jane and I don’t overlap, so could not be in a TG. Let’s take Jane’s match level way down at Gedmatch to see if she matches Sharon or Heidi, my 2 sisters. Well, I tried it and it didn’t work. Jane matches neither of my sisters on Chromosome 10. She does match me which was unexpected. However, where she matches me is on my non-Frazer side. So perhaps Michael, Jane and I match somewhere in the past on a non-Frazer line. However, the other larger matches of 1-8 are likely in a TG. One has been contacted with the name Haslett.
Finally, here is my lone 22 cM match with Michael at Chromosome 17:
No TG here.
Michael and Sharon’s Matches
In order to be thorough, I checked, though I expected similar results. Heidi and Michael had 26 shared matches. Michael and Sharon had only 12. All of Michael and Sharon’s shared matches were the same as Heidi’s, except for one.
Michael and Joel’s Matches
Now we are down to only 8 matches. However, Michael and I have 2 unique matches and one that only matches with my sister Sharon. One of the unique matches that Michael and I had was with Pat who is in the Frazer DNA project. It makes sense that we would both match her as the 3 of us are believed to descend from Violet Frazer b. 1803.
Michael’s Frazer Ancestry
These are 2 brothers who lived near the Northern border of County Roscommon, Ireland: Richard Frazer and Archibald Frazer. Michael descends from both lines shown in peach color. He is 2 generations below what I show below.
Michael is in one Triangulation group for each one of these brothers. Those two TGs include just people in the Frazer DNA Project. There are additional TGs if we include outside people. In addition, Michael matches others in the Project outside of TGs that indicate his ancestry in these lines.
Summary
- It has been interesting sharing ancestors, genealogy and now DNA with Michael
- Most of the best DNA leads appear to be from Triangulation Groups (TGs). TGs provide some surety of where the DNA is coming from based on common ancestors of the group.
- However, there are some individual matches that may be worth investigation also
- AncestryDNA has worked well for Michael. He overcame the universal complaint that they don’t have a chromosome browser by uploading his results to Gedmatch.
- I neglected to mention that Michael has uploaded his DNA results to FTDNA, so he will have matches that may not be at AncestryDNA or Gedmatch