Counting Frazer Cousins: Who Knew It Could Be So Difficult?

I started out writing a blog summarizing all the Frazer Triangulation Groups (TGs) in a Frazer DNA Project. In order to look at these TGs, I thought that it would make sense to figure out how many relationships there are in the Frazer DNA Project. Who knew it could be so difficult? The problem is that there are 3 testers that appear to have a least two Frazer cousins that married each other in their ancestry. There are 3 testers that are descended from 3 related Frazer Lines.

Here are some ancestors of some of the Frazer cousins I am counting:

Frazers

A Brief Summary

The project is broken up into 2 Frazer Lines: The Archibald Line and the James Line. These are 2 very likely brothers that were living in proximity to each other in North Roscommon, Ireland at the time of the Elphin Census in 1749. The Archibald Line has descendants that have the cousin ancestors. The James Line does not have any known cousin marriages. There are 14 testers from the Archibald Line and 13 from the James Line for a total of 27 testers. Here is a view of some of the Archibald Line:

Archibald Frazer Line Chart

The Problem

Bill (along with his aunt and second cousin who have tested) is descended from the blue line and the 2 yellow lines. That means he descends from 3 Frazer brothers: Philip, Richard and Archibald. Here are the testers with multiple Frazer ancestors:

Multiple Frazer Ancestors

I added in Archibald at the top to show that he is the father of Philip, Richard and Archibald.

The Answer I Came Up With

When in doubt, I go to the ISOGG Web Page. According to the ISOGG Page on Cousin:

“A cousin is a relative with whom a person shares one or more common ancestors.”

There you have it. I was tempted to count the relationships more than once as my cousin Paul and I were both descended from James Frazer and Violet Frazer. However, those are not common ancestors. The common ancestors would be the grandparents of James Frazer and Violet Frazer: Richard Frazer b. about 1777 and his unknown wife.

Archibald Frazer Line Chart Common Ancestor

The red circle is the point at which I start to count the extra relationships. However, this still seems to be complicated. Let’s just look at VO from Australia. She is on the purple line (further down for privacy). She does not have any known multiple Frazer ancestors.

VO’s Archibald Line relatives are:

  1. Daughter Jean (purple)
  2. 1C, 1R Ros (purple)
  3. 3C Cathy (orange)
  4. 3C Jane (green on the right) to Common Ancestor (CA) Archibald Frazer who married Catherine Parker
  5. 4C Michael (salmon on the right)
  6. 4C Gladys (yellow on the right)
  7. 4C, 1R Bill (yellow): CA Archibald Frazer/Ann Stinson
  8. 4C, 1R Patricia (same yellow)
  9. 5C Michael (salmon): CA is Archibald Frazer/Mary Lilley
  10. 5C Paul as he descends from Richard
  11. 5C, 1R me (Joel)
  12. 5C, 1R Heidi
  13. 5C, 1R Sharon
  14. 5C Jane
  15. 5C Gladys as she descends from Richard
  16. 1R Bill
  17. 5C, 1R to Patricia
  18. 5C Paul as he descends from Philip
  19. 5C, 1R me (Joel)
  20. 5C, 1R Heidi
  21. 5C, 1R Sharon
  22. 5C Gladys as she descends from Philip
  23. 1R Bill
  24. 5C, 1R Patricia

The method I used was to go up each line to a common ancestor. Due to cousin marriages, there were multiple lines for some people going up to Archibald Frazer and Mary Lilley. Bill and his 2 relatives come up 3 times as they have 3 Frazer ancestor lines.  Six others come up 2 times because they have That method resulted in finding 24 relationships for VO just on the Archibald Line. Then there would be additional relationships on the James line for those 13 testers. Having said that, let’s move on to the James Line

Is 24 the Right Number?

Sometimes I like to check my work. With 14 testers, there should be 13 relationships as you are not related to yourself. In my chart of multiple relationships, I had 21 relationships with 9 people. That should be an additional 12 relationsips. 13 + 12 = 25. I seem to be missing one. I went through my list again, and see I missed Doug. Sorry, Doug. That makes the total 25. Always check your work.

VO is 4C, 1R to Doug

The premise still stands: Who knew it could be so difficult to count relatives? The Chart I was looking at above was made before Doug tested. I need to add him in there.

James Line Relatives

There are a couple of problems here. One person has pointed out that the James Line Chart that I have been using is inaccurate. No chart is perfect, so I use it as a working model. As more testing and analysis is done, as well as more genealogy, there may be minor or major adjustments made to the chart. There is also something on the Archibald Line Chart that effects the relationships. Note in the colored chart that above Archibald and Mary Lilley there is is another Archibald. This Archibald wasn’t there in the original research done 50 or so years ago. My understanding is that he was added more recently to make more sense with the dates. But if that Archibald doesn’t belong there, it would make the relationships between the two lines closer. All this is to say that there are a lot of variables in comparing DNA to genealogy.

Here is the James Line Chart:

James Line

In the above chart, there is hot dispute as to whether Archibald who married Catherine Knott should be under Michael or rather under the Archibald that married Catherine Peyton. However, with regards to VO from the Archibald Line and her level of relationships with testers from the James Line, these specific issues should not be so important.

VO and her James Line Relationships

I use VO from the Archibald Line of the Frazer DNA Project to continue the example. I am keeping the ‘extra’ Archibald on the Archibald Line that was added to make sense with the dates. Without him, the relationships will be a little closer and move all the relationships up half a step. I wonder if perhaps that extra Archibald should not be there. That might help explain the number of DNA matches between the two lines. Or are the number of matches between the two lines due to the cousin relationships on the Archibald Line? Or perhaps both reasons apply?

James Line matches to VO:

6C, 1R (6C if we take out the added Archibald on the Archibald Line)

  1. Charlotte
  2. Betty
  3. Joanna
  4. Janet
  5. Jonathan
  6. Beverly
  7. Bonnie
  8. Judith

7C (Or possibly 6C, 1R – see above)

  1. Clyde
  2. Kathy – as a daughter of Charlotte, her DNA results don’t get used
  3. Mary

7C, 1R

  1. Carol – as a daughter of Clyde, her DNA results don’t get used

The Grand Total

I get a total of 37 relationships for VO from Australia (25 Archibald Line plus 12 Archibald Line). Recall that she is just one of 27 Project testers. Hopefully, all the testers will not have 37 relationships.  I chose VO somewhat randomly, but she was a good choice. I mention her in 2 of my fairly recent blogs

Note that Triangulation Groups came up in both the above blogs about VO. So VO (or less impersonally, Vivien) will be mentioned in my upcoming blog when I discuss all the Frazer DNA Project Triangulation Groups.

Rechecking the James Line

As I said above, always check. There are 13 James Line testers, so there have to be 13 relationships there. I missed Prudence at 6C, 1R. That means we are up to a total of 25 Archibald relationships and 13 James Line Relationships for Vivien for a total of 38. Note that the effect of intermarriage increases the number of effective relationships by a factor of almost 2 in the Archibald Line (25 vs. 13).

In formula form the total is:

Number of testers minus one plus extra relationships due to intermarriage

27-1+12=38

That is my final answer (until proven wrong).

 

 

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