A New DNA Match in Marilee and a New Frazer Line

I was searching for Frazer matches at MyHeritage recently and came across Marilee. I thought it unlikely that she would be matching on the same Frazer line that I have going back to County Roscommon, Ireland. However, when I looked at her tree, I saw this:

Marilee shows that she descends from John Frazer of Roscommon. Not only does Marilee show that she is related to me, she shows that she is on a Frazer Line that has not been found to be DNA tested yet. That is great news.

Marilee and Frazer Genealogy

The John Frazer Line is shown here in some Frazer research that was done before I was born:

John is shown as the eldest son of Archibald at the top left of the image above. The Frazer DNA Project has people from the Philip, Richard and Archibald Lines, but Marilee is the first from the John Line. This is like finding a lost tribe.

Dating the Archibald Line of the Frazers

The above hand-written tree was done for a coat of arms for a Frazer that was issued in 1952. The birth dates were given for the four brothers as 1757, 1758, 1759 and 1760.  Originally I had followed this early research which had the first known Archibald, born in about 1690 having two sons. The first son was  Archibald who married Mary Lillie and the younger son was James . It was the Archibald who married Mary Lillie that was shown as having the four sons above. Other researchers felt that there needed to be another Archibald in the line for the dates to work out. I added that extra Archibald but never felt all that comfortable doing that. That change also required having later birth dates for the four sons. As a result, perhaps, Marilee’s tree shows John’s first son born when he was two years old!

The Elphin Census of 1749

The first good record I have of North Roscommon Frazers is in the Elphin Census. This is what it shows:

Let’s assume that this represents the situation for the Frazer family in Aghrafinegan, North Roscommon Ireland in 1749. We believe that Archibald had four sons. That means that he had at least four children. The Census shows that Archibald had three children under 14 and none over 14. That makes me believe that these children were on the young side of 14 and that there were children yet to be born .

The Added Archibald

That must be what lead to the researcher’s interpretation that there needed to be another Archibald:

Under this scenario, the Archibald that married Mary Lillie (or Lilly) was not the son of Archibald born around 1690, but his grandson. He was not only the eldest son, but th eldest child.

The One Archibald Scenario – My Preference

There could be many explanations for the Elphin Census. It is possible that none of the children in the Census were the four brothers. That would have to be case if the birth dates of 1757-1760 were right in the early research. Let’s assume under the one Archibald scenario, that Mary Lilly was the mother of all the children. Let’s also say that she may have had children over a time span of 20 years or so. I’ll guess she got married at the age 20 and had children until about the age of 40. I’ll give her 5 years to get married and have three children. That would put their marriage at 1744. I’ll say Archibald was born in 1720 and his brother was born around 1722. If Mary was 20 at the time of her marriage in 1744, then she could have had children until about 1764 or so. If Marilee’s tree is right, then John had a son in 1777. Let’s say John was 22 at the birth of Stuart. That would mean that John would have been born 1755. That is a lot of supposin’, but I would start the four sons’ birth dating at 1755. The other three sons’ births could be spread out between 1755 and 1764 or so.

Further Supposin’

Let’s look at Archibald and James’ parents. Let’s say that Mary was 22 when Archibald was born. I had Archibald born in 1720. That would put her birth at 1698. Then she would have been a 51 year old widow in 1749. Perhaps her husband was two years older than her and was born in 1696. I’ll say he died about 1745 at the age of 49.

John Line Added to the Frazer DNA Tree

This is my tree of the Archibald Branch of Frazers that have had their DNA tested:

Marilee’s eldest John Line is added on the left in pink.  I cut off some of the Archinbald/Stinson Line of the right. I also updated the birth dates for the top two rows. The addition of the John Line to the Frazer DNA Tree is a big deal as the John Line represents 25% of the DNA of these four brothers.

From this tree, Marilee is my 5th cousin once removed. From the configuration of the three, it looks like Marilee’s closest Frazer relative should be a 5th cousin.

I didn’t check Marilee’s genealogy. It wouldn’t hurt for someone to check to see if they come up with the same results she did.

I’m glad I got a new, larger screen on my computer. This is the overall Frazer Project:

This is actually a simplified view as the yellow and blue lines are much bigger. Also the yellow line should be in there three times and the blue line two times. The James line is in white on the right.

Marilee’s DNA

Marilee’s DNA test results are at MyHeritage, so I will only be able to compare her results with those results that I have uploaded to MyHeritage. Let’s see how Marilee compares. I’ll start:

I have a match with Marilee on Chromosome 7 and a small match on Chromosome 20. I can add those to DNA Painter, however, I will have to lower the threshold for the Chromosome 20 match as it is only 6.7 cM.

Here is the view on my DNA Painter Map. I circled the new segments from Marilee that represent Archibald Frazer and Mary Lilly.  Green represents my Hartley side. So on Chromsome 7 and 20, these matches are at important places. They represent where my DNA crossed over from my Frazer Grandmother to my Hartley grandfather.

On Chromosome 20, the brown represents my 2nd great grandparents George Frazer and Margaret McMaster.

Where my DNA goes from brown to mustard could be where my DNA crossover went from McMaster to Frazer. There are other possibilities.

Marilee’s DNA Compared to My Siblings

I didn’t see that Marilee had a match with my sister Heidi. Sharon has a match. Sharon’s match was similar to the match I have with Marilee, except it is a little smaller on Chromosome 7 and I didn’t see a match on Chromosome 20. I didn’t see a match between my brother Jonathan and Marilee. My sister Lori’s match with Marilee appears to be identical with mine.

While I was at it, I checked if my cousin Paul and my more distant cousin Gladys matched Marilee, but they did not. So that is it for the DNA comparison for now. The genealogy part was more interesting than the DNA in this case.

Summary and Conclusions

• It was great to come upon Marilee through her DNA match. Finding a DNA match with someone from the John Line is like finding a lost tribe or city. I have been looking at the DNA for about three years and Marilee is the first DNA-tested John Frazer Lline descendant that I have found.
• While looking at the John Line, I also streamlined the Archibald Line by taking out an extra Archibald that was added previously.
• I see why the extra Archibald was added based on an interpretation of the Elphin Census of 1749. However, I see how that extra Archibald is not needed by another interpretation of the Elphin Census.
• Marilee matches three out of five in my family. By the tree, we would be 5th cousins, once removed. That is pretty far out for a DNA  match.
• I am hoping that Marilee will be able to get her DNA uploaded to Gedmatch.com. Then, I can take a look to see how she matches all the people in the Frazer DNA project.