Beth’s Hartley DNA

In this Blog, I will be looking at Beth’s autosomal DNA. That is the DNA that she got from both her parents. However, I am more interested in Beth’s father’s mother’s DNA as she was a Hartley and the DNA that we share would be Hartley DNA.

Hartley Tree of DNA Testers

Here are those closer relatives that have had their DNA tested and uploaded to Gedmatch.com:

Here Hartley is shown as green and Snells are shown as yellow. The DNA testers are in gold. Any DNA that the four DNA testers have in common will belong to James Hartley and Annie Snell. However, it will be difficult to tell which. Any DNA that Patricia and Beth share could also belong to Charles Nute which Jim and my family will not share. Here is an example of that on Chromosome 1.

Here is a photo believed to be Mary Hartley with her sister Nellie:

Hartley and Nute DNA On Chromosome 1

This is a Chromosome browser from Gedmatch.com showing where Beth shares DNA with Heidi (1), Joel (2), Sharon (3), Jim (4) and her first cousin Patricia (5). Is the DNA that Beth and Patricia share Hartley DNA or Nute DNA? To find that out we can look at Patricia’s DNA browser. If she shares DNA in this same area with Heidi and Jim, then it will be Hartley DNA.

The above Browser shows Patricia matching Beth (1), Jim (2) and Joel (3). This means that the DNA that first cousins Beth and Patricia share in Chromosome 1 is Nute DNA. If I were to map Patricia’s maternal Chromosome 1, it would probably look like this:

This shows that Patricia got her green DNA (matching Jim and me) from her Hartley maternal grandmother and her pink DNA (matching Beth) from her Nute maternal grandfather.

First Cousins Vs. Second Cousins

First cousins share two grandparent as their most recent common ancestor. Second cousins share two great grandparents and get their shared DNA from one of them. The first cousin DNA matches will be larger in general. The second cousin matches will tend to be smaller.

First cousins

As shown above, first cousins will share the DNA from two of their grandparents. In the case of Patricia and Beth, those two grandparents will be maternal grandparents. The catch is, that when two first cousins match each other, they won’t know which grandparent they match on. They just know that it will be one or the other. In the example above, we did know which grandparent matched because of other second cousin matches.

second cousins – Two common Great grandparents

Second cousins have as their most recent common ancestors two of their great grandparents. But again they won’t know which great grandparent they are matching on.

The best way to identify which great grandparent the gold people match on would be to have a third cousin that is only related on the Hartley side OR the Snell side. I don’t know of anyone in this category right now, so I’m a bit stuck. I would like to figure out which DNA is which. The main reason is that I’m stuck on the Hartley genealogy. I know that Greenwood’s father was Robert, but before that, I’m not sure. If we could find another Hartley relative going back then it might break down the Hartley brick wall.

Any Other Way To Separate Hartley DNA From Snell DNA?

There is one main difference from James Hartley and Annie Snell above as it relates to their DNA. James was born in Bacup, Lancashire, England and Annie was born in Rochester, Massachusetts. All of James ancestors would also have been born in Lancashire. On the other hand, all of Annie’s ancestors that would produce matches go back to Colonial Southeastern New England. That means that if we find a match that is from England and has no ancestors in the United States, there would be a good chance that that DNA match was through the James Hartley side.

Beth’s X Chromosome

First, let’s look at my family. There is  no Hartley X Chromosome sharing with this group because the X-DNA does not travel from father to son.

Second, look at Beth compared to Jim:

Beth got one of her X Chromosomes from her dad. This was the same X that he got from his mother Mary. Jim got an X Chromosome from his mother. She got it from James Hartley b. 1862 and Annie Snell. So Beth and Jim have James Hartley and Annie Snell in common.

These pieces of blue where Beth and Jim match represent DNA that they share from James Hartley and/or Annie Snell.

How do Patricia and Beth compare by X-DNA?

Next we will look at Patricia and Beth. They will share X-DNA with their grandmother Mary Hartley. Beth’s dad got no X-DNA from his Nute dad, so Beth and Patricia will only match on Mary Hartley.

Note here that Beth and Patricia share some X-DNA from their grandmother that isn’t shared between Jim and Beth on the left side. They also share a longer segment at the right hand side than Beth and Jim shared. However, Jim and Beth shared a segment from 123 to 138M that wasn’t shared between Patricia and Beth.

Let’s See How Patricia Compares With Jim

The only comparison left is between Patricia and Jim.

I compared the three comparisons and came up with a bit of an X Chromosome map. In the first match between Beth and Patricia, I have that match in red. On the very right there are three matches, so I have that as great grandparent 1. We don’t know which great grandparent it is – just that it is the same one. On Jim’s map, it is his grandparent 1. Going from right to left on Jim’s map, he changes from getting his X-DNA from grandparent 1 to grandparent 2. However, Patricia and Beth continue to match on great grandparent 1. In the middle there are no matches, so we can’t tell what is going on. Also the two reds and one blue on the left may actually be two blues and a red as we don’t know how they match with the segments on the right.

Beth’s Hartley (and Snell) Chromosome Map

If we look at all the matches Beth has with Jim, my siblings and me, we will have a map of her known Hartley (and Snell) DNA:

I didn’t use the DNA shared between Patricia and Beth as they are first cousins. As such, they will share Nute and Hartley DNA and it will not be as easy to tell which is which. So second cousins are good for these maps. The red is in the bottom part of each chromosome. That represents the paternal chromosome. We have not mapped any of Beth’s maternal chromosome. If Beth were to look for Hartley or Snell matches, it looks like her best bet would be on Chromosome 12.

For comparison, here is my Chromosome Map.

On my map, the blue corresponds to Beth’s red Hartley DNA. We seem to share a stretch of Hartley DNA on Chromosome 1. But where Beth has a long stretch of Hartley DNA on Chromosome 12, I have none.