I was happy to learn of a new Frazer DNA Tester from Australia. Even better, she had the foresight to have her mom tested. This makes 13 testers for the Archibald Line Branch of the Project and 12 testers for the James Line Branch of the Project. In addition, there are others who have tested and we are quite sure they belong to the project where they didn’t know this previous to testing.
Jean and Her Mom
In this blog, I will be using Jean’s mom’s DNA results. This is because in every generation, we lose some our parents’ DNA. Jean’s mom is from the Frazer line, but Jean lost some of that DNA to make room for some her dad’s DNA. So Jean doesn’t have any Frazer DNA that her mom doesn’t have or have more of.
Gedmatch Comparison
First, I used the Gedmatch feature where you can compare a bunch of people to Jean’s mom. I used our Frazer DNA testers as the bunch of people. This turned up some interesting results on Chromosome 8, that I hadn’t seen before.
#1 and #2 matches to Jean’s mom are BR and PW. PW is my second cousin once removed and BR is my third cousin once removed (though he has 3 Frazer ancestors – so this relationship is not consistent for all lines!). Note how the yellow match and green match overlap for a way. Here I was suspicious of a Triangulation Group. All that is needed in addition to what is shown above, is for BR and PF to match each other. Then they will be a TG. I checked, and sure enough, BR and PF did match each other. In fact, they matched twice:
Here, VO is Jean’s mom. Notice above, that BR and PF match in 2 spots. I had to lower the Gedmatch levels for the lower match to show. Even without the lower 6 cM match between BF and PF, there is still a Triangulation Group (TG).
Who Does This DNA Come From?
Up to now, the TGs in the project have all been around the 1777 to 1778 date range. This TG appears to come from one generation earlier than that – to Archibald Frazer who was b. about 1743 and Mary Lilley. If this is right, this would be the oldest TG the Frazer DNA Project has had so far. Here is a partial chart showing some descendants of Archibald Frazer and Mary Lilley:
This is small and a bit difficult to see. Here is how the 3 Frazer DNA Testers in the TG fit into the above chart :
- PF descends from James Frazer (blue line) and Violet Frazer (first yellow line). James and Violet were believed to be first cousins
- BR descends from the same James and Violet as well as from Jane Frazer (the yellow line on the far right)
- VO descends from only one Frazer line. This is the darker purple line to the left of the orange line.
The only common ancestral couple for these 3 testers is Archibald Frazer and Mary Lilley at the top of the chart. Now please endure a little wild speculation on my part. BR and VO have a fairly large match. This could indicate that this match is on the Archibald Frazer/Ann Stinson Line to the right of the chart. The 2 matches between BR and PF must mean something, but due to cousin marriages, it is a bit baffling. As PF is in 2 of the above lines and BR is in 3, there should be at least 6 combinations of ways they could match!
The Younger TG
Here is what I found on Chromosome 18:
There is a lot going on for VO’s matches on the left side of the image above. This is where the TG is. I’ll ignore the pink matches, as they are under 5 cM. #1 match is RF who is VO’s 1st cousin once removed. Here they are showing off their largest autosomal match of over 60 cM. This gave plenty of room for a TG. #2 is Janet from the far away James Line. This match is 5.2 cM, so likely to not be Identical By Descent (IBD). Just to make sure, I checked to see if Janet matched RF and got no match down to 5.0 cM. VO’s green #6 match is Jane. She is the one I wrote my last blog about. She was in 4 TGs and now in 5. The last blue match under Jean’s orange match with RF is #8 who is CR. However, she doesn’t match RF or Jane here. In chart form, the Chromosome 8 results look like:
Above, the TG consists of the middle 3 matches. Note that CR is on either side of the TG. Also on paper, CR descends from Archibald Frazer and Catherine Parker. So perhaps something went wrong with her test, or that middle section of her DNA dropped out.
Introducing the Youngest Frazer TG
Yes, this TG is a mere 200+ years old:
The first line above represents VO’s ancestors. The second represents RF’s. The third represents CR’s (who is almost, but not quite in the TG) and the last represents Jane’s ancestral family.
The Impossibility of Triangulation
There has been a lot of writing about Triangulation recently in the internet. One theory is that it is so unlikely to happen, that it should not happen. Or that, if it did, a TG would indicate common ancestors so ancient that they would be beyond the scope of normal genealogy. I can see the point. How likely is it that DNA that drops out randomly and is inherited randomly could come together over the ages at the same segment of DNA to form TGs? Many matches are of just one segment. That segment is one portion of 22 Chromosomes. That one remaining segment must be at least 3 people’s same last remaining segment to form a Triangulation Group. It doesn’t seem likely to me. Yet, how is it, that a small DNA project like this with 13 testers has had 6 TGs? 11 of the 13 DNA testers on the Archibald Line of this project are in at least one TG. One person is in 5 TGs. Perhaps it is like the story of the bumblebee which is not theoretically supposed to fly. Yet it does.
For the theorists who point to the unlikelihood of Triangulation, we can point to the James Line which has yet to find a TG. Still, I am hoping to see one there also.