Blaine’s X Chromosome Challenge

Recently, Blaine Bettinger challenged people on his Genetic Genealogy Tips & Techniques page:

Who is your closest X match at GEDmatch, that you didn’t target test? 

Blaine’s previous challenge challenge produced some interesting results and I was running out of ideas, so I thought that I’d try it. Technically, my closest X match is fourth on my Gedmatch list below. That match is my maternal 1st cousin Rusty at 120 cM, but I think that Blaine meant to look for the first match that we didn’t know.

The top six matches are my mom, four siblings and a maternal 1st cousin. I have four matches at the bottom of the list. They all have the same email address, so I assume they are closely related. These are my highest X Chromosome matches where I don’t know how we are related. A good surprise is that the top match Alice has a family tree indicated by a GED hyperlink.

I quickly checked the GED link looking for maternal matches. My mom’s matches are usually German on her dad’s side, or from Sheffield, England. I was disappointed to not see any of those places on the list. I did however see a Pennsylvania name of Faunce. My mom is from Pennsylvania and has a Faunce ancestor.

Here is Alice’s tree as posted at Gedmatch :

Here is my mom’s tree:

If Alice’s tree had a Jacob Faunce, then I would have had a match and Catherine and Elizabeth Faunce could have been sisters. However, it is not that easy.

Back to the DNA

Here is the detailed match I have with Alice:

Here is the results of mapping the X Chromosome to myself and 4 siblings:

My match with Alice was in my Lentz area which leads back to Faunce. I have the bar starting with J. It looks like Sharon and Jonathan should also match Alice on the X. Here is the path that the X Chromosome inheritance could have taken for my mom:

Alice also has a clear sailing path for her X Chromosome. It goes from her mom Rosalie, to her grandmother Alice, then her great grandmother Ida, 2nd great grandfather Anson Hale and finally to Alice’s 3rd great grandmother Elizabeth Faunce. Now that I’ve established a route where there could be an X Chromosome match, I need to get back to the genealogy.

Catherine Faunce and Her Daughter Mary A Baker

It took me a long time to figure out who was the wife of my 2nd great grandfather George Washington Lentz b. 1840. I was determined to find out who she was. The 1910 Census George’s son Jacob Lentz gave me a hint.

Here on Earl Street there were three generations of Lentz. My grandmother, Emma, her dad Jacob Lentz and his mother Mary Lentz. Of particular interest was the fact that an Aunt, Sohpia Kemble was living with them. She was 72 at the time. Next, I go back 10 years to 1900:

Mary Lentz is living with her two sisters in Palmyra, NJ. One of Mary’s sisters is single – Elizabeth Baker. That gives me the maiden name of Mary Lentz. The Findagrave.com has an article on Mary Baker Lentz’s mom who was Catherine Faunce:

Here is the marriage record for Catherine Faunce in 1824:

The record reader interpreted Faunce as Fanner.

Elizabeth Faunce

Alice has her ancestor Elizabeth Faunce as the mother of Anson Hale on her tree. Here is Anson and mother Elizabeth in 1860 along with the rest of the family with them at that time:

Here Elizabeth was born in Pennsylvania. I had a lot of trouble finding information on Elizabeth outside of Ancestry Trees. This makes me suspicious that the trees are copying each other. The 1880 Census tells us that Elizabeth’s parents were also born in Pennsylvania. I was able to find a tree Alice put on FamilySearch:

Above, I’m not sure the jump from Pennsylvania to Plymouth, MA is warranted. My understanding is that the Philadelphia Faunce family was originally the German Fans which got anglicized to Faunce.  The Plymouth, MA Faunce was probably always the English Faunce. Another point is that in the 1880 Census, Elizabeth [Faunce] Hale lists both her parents as being born in Pennsylvania.

William Hale and Elizabeth are in Howell in 1850:

Joseph appears to be their eldest. He was born around 1832, so let’s say William and Elizabeth married in 1831. It turns out that may have been a good guess as I find this at Ancestry:

I at least feel better finding a record outside of a Family Tree. Now I feel justified in adding the Faunce surname to Elizabeth. However, note that these two were married in Philadelphia where my mom’s Faunce ancestors lived. From my tree, I have a Jacob Faunce living in Kensington, Philadelphia in 1820. At this time, Elizabeth would have been between 7 and 12 depending on whether she was born in 1809 or 1813.

There were eight people living in Jacob’s house in 1820. Let’s say there were two parents and six children. Of the six children, four were girls. One was under 10, two were 10-15 and one was at least 16. It could be that Elizabeth Faunce was one of these four girls.

Summary and Conclusion

• My closest non-identified X match is on my Lentz line
• That X inheritance line could follow back to my ancestor Catherine Faunce in Philadelphia
• My closest match Alice’s X inheritance line could follow back to her ancestor Elizabeth Faunce who married William Hale in Philadelphia in 1831
• Alice has a father for Elizabeth who was from Plymouth Massachusetts
• Based on the DNA and genealogy I believe this Plymouth father may not be correct for Elizabeth Faunce.
• I am suggesting that Elizabeth Faunce is linked with a Philadelphia Faunce family based on DNA and genealogy.
• Although I have shown that it is possible for Elizabeth’s father to be my Ancestor Jacob Faunce, I have not been able to prove that by the DNA and genealogy.