Author: joel@jmhartley.com

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My Family’s Match with Francis at MyHeritage and Likely McMaster Connection

I have a long title for this Blog. I see in a recent email that some in my family have a match with Francis at MyHeritage Here is Francis’ match with my second cousin Paul:

Here is the maternal side of Francis’ Tree:

I can look at my McMaster DNA Tree to see what I have there. My guess is that the connection is through James and Frances (Fanny) McMaster. Here is my Ancestry Tree:

Francis’ tree matches with my McMaster Web Page:

My McMaster DNA Tree

This tree already has Francis’ ancestor Jane McMaster:

It looks like I already have Francis’ mother on my Ancestry tree, so I just need to add Francis. That should be easy. I think that I even met Francis’ parents in England one year. I believe that his father was a shepherd in Ireland and had a collection of shepherd staffs.

I’ll add Francis to my chart above:

Francis is Paul’s third cousin once removed as predicted by MyHeritage.

DNAPainter

I can ‘paint’ Francis onto Pauls DNA profile using DNAPainter. Here is the DNA match between Paul and Francis:

By default, DNAPainter does not use the matches under 7 cM. So that leaves matches on Chromosomes 6, 11, 12, and 16. All the small matches probably indicate matches on multiple family lines. We know there are two McMaster Lines connecting Francis and Paul (James and Fanny).

Here is the match on Chromosome 6:

Note that the match overlaps with the Abe McMaster Line. That tells me that the match is actually from James McMaster and not Fanny McMaster. That is because James was a son of Abraham McMaster. Fanny was a daughter of William McMaster and Margaret Frazer (more little DNA segments).

Francis adds new DNA to Chromosome 11. On Chromosome 12, the DNA must be from Fanny as she is the daughter of William McMaster and Margaret Frazer (shown in orange).

The match on Chromosome 16 is new also.

My Sister Lori, My Brother Jim, and Francis

Lori and Jim show up on Paul and Francis’ shared match list. My sister Lori has this one match with Francis that Paul and Francis do not have:

I suspect that Francis and Jim share the same segment.

Here is what Lori has currently on her Chromosome 13 – paternal side:

 

Here is the new segment painted onto Lori’s DNA profile:

As James is the son of Abraham McMaster and Margery, the match between Lori and Francis must represent James McMaster’s DNA. This is true because the matches overlap. Note also, that I didn’t have James and Fanny McMaster on Lori’s profile previously, so I added it here.

It looks like I haven’t mapped as much for my brother Jim:

Here is Francis’ match with Jim painted on Jim’s DNA profile:

This shows that Jim’s matches with Emily and Faye are on the Margaret McMaster side rather than the Frazer side. Further, the same should be true as with Lori, that the McMaster match with Francis should be on the James McMaster side rather than the Fanny side. My assumption is that this is true because Lori and Jim are siblings. The reason it doesn’t show that way is that I have not mapped as many matches for Jim.

For example, here is how Jim matches Ronald:

The overlapping segments are what is called triangulation.

Summary and Conclusions

  • A new match that showed up sounded like a familiar name.
  • It is likely that I should be able to identify a third cousin DNA match and I usually can.
  • Due to the intermarriage of the Church of Ireland minority families in Ireland, the DNA relatioinships can be complicated.
  • It is helpful having the results from my 2nd cousin Paul who is a generation older than me in the Frazer Line.
  • In areas of overlap in DNA Painter, it is possible to tell more exactly where the DNA comes from. For example, instead of knowing the match is from one of the couple, it is possible to identify which spouse the DNA match comes from.
  • It is important to test different siblings if possible. Jim and Lori had matches that I do not have with Francis. This is due to the way that DNA is inherited.

Here is a map of how my siblings and I inherited our DNA on Chromosome 13:

Note that Jim and Lori show Frazer DNA (blue) while the other siblings inherited Hartley DNA (orange) on the paternal side of their Chromosome 13 in the are of the DNA match with Francis.

 

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Part 2 of My Revolutionary War Soldier Ancestors

In my previous Blog, I looked at 4 of my ancestral lines with potential Revolutionary War Soldiers. One who was Nathaniel Hatch from Falmouth, Massachusetts. He probably served the least time at 3 days, but those were important days, including April 19, 1775.

The Ancestors

  • The younger Anthony Snell served. The elder Anthony died before the War
  • Like Anthony, he was from Dighton, Massachusetts. He served locally and in Rhode Island. He also served 3 months in support of the Continental Army. The appears to be a younger Benjamin Luther from the same area who also served.
  • William Parker had extensive service including fighting at Fort Ticonderoga. He got sick during the war and died not long after his service. I am not sure if his son Isaac served or not, there were a lot of Isaac Parkers from his area who apparently served. There appears to be an Isaac Parker of Barnstable and one of Falmouth, but I believe that my Isaac was living in Nantucket when the other two Isaac’s had legal papers filed for Pensions.
  • Nathaniel Hatch was serving April 19, 1775. Perhaps he never went to Lexington or Concord but was there for backup.

Bradford

My ancestor Samuel Bradford of Plymouth, Massachusetts was born in 1755, so of an age where he could have been involved. However, my Bradford web pages have him born 1761, so the same age as Anthony Snell who served in the Revolutionary War from Dighton.

I see that in the definitive book on Bradford from the Mayflower Society, there is no birth date for Samuel, but he is listed between Josiah born in 1754 and Charles born 1756. If the birth order is correct, it is likely that he was indeed born in 1755. Unfortunately, the main line in the Mayflower Book stops with Samuel’s father Josiah who died in 1777.

Here is a guess:.

However, there are many Soldiers listed in the Massachusetts book of Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War. In addition, if my ancestor Samuel Bradford was born in 1755, he would have been 25 in 1780. Perhaps he was born in 1761, or that there was another Samuel Bradford born in 1761. I also note that Samuel’s father Josiah was listed as a mariner from Plymouth in 1770. Much earlier in his life, he was listed as a cordwainer.

I have looked through the Mayflower Families Bradford Book and did not see any obvious Samuel Bradford born around 1761 from Plymouth, so that is a bit confusing. The closest that I could find was a Samuel Bradford born 9 August 1761 in Duxbury and baptized at New North Church, Boston. His father was a Captain of a schooner. However, the Revolutionary War Soldiers and Sailors mentions that Samuel Bradford was from Plymouth. One possibility is that Samuel, son of Job went off to live on his own and moved to Plymouth. I am thinking that I assumed that he was the seaman listed above and that is where I got the birth date of 1761. Bottom line is that now I am not sure that this is our man or not.

Stephen Churchill Born 1743

This is likely my ancestor Stephen Churchill:

That first statement is quite interesting: “Lieutenant, in command of a company of Minutemen, which marched April 20, 1775, in response to the alarm of April 19, 1775, to Marshfield.” Based on a recent talk I heard at my local historical society, this is what happened. There were some loyalists in Marshfield and some British troops were sent there to protect them. A ton of American troops marched up to Marshfield and the greatly outnumbered British troops fled.

Here is an AI overview which is concise but clumsily worded in sections:

On April 20, 1775, one day after the battles of Lexington and Concord, British troops stationed in Marshfield, MA, evacuated by boat, avoiding an “almost-battle” with gathering local militia. Over 600 patriot militiamen from nearby towns had gathered to confront the ~100 British soldiers of the 4th Regiment (King’s Own) stationed to protect Loyalists.

      • The Evacuation: British troops, under Captain Balfour, had been in town for weeks. Knowing the patriots were mobilizing, they successfully escaped by boats up the Green Harbor River on April 20 to return to Boston, preventing a direct confrontation, say and.
      • The Alarm: On April 20th, Patriot militia in Marshfield signaled a full-scale mobilization, with Capt. William Thomas firing a pre-arranged alarm gun three times.
      • The Context: Marshfield was a Loyalist stronghold and one of the only towns other than Boston occupied by British forces.
      • The Aftermath: By April 21, hundreds of Patriot militiamen from Plymouth County had taken control of the town, but the British were already gone, resulting in the “almost-battle” described by.

I think that this is a different Stephen Churchill, but I am not sure:

I found this record:

This is confusing as I have Stephen born in Plymouth. Here is a different record or abstract:

David Hathaway Born 1744

Ancestry has a record for the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) for this David:

However, I think this is mistaken as the Soldiers and Sailors Book of the American Revolution has that David Hathaway as being from Dartmouth:

It is possible that my David Hathawy ancestor from Wareham could have been a Quaker. I do not see a military record for him from the Revolutionary War. I’ll remove the SAR reference from my Hathaway Ancestor.

Seth Cowing Born 1834 Rochester

Again, I have an SAR application record:

Here is another record:

This cemetery looks to be off the beaten path.

The Soliders and Sailors book seems to agree with the SAR application:

Summary and Conclusions

  • Of the eight lines I looked at some Revolutionary War service was normal.
  • The only line which apparently did not serve in my ancestry was Hathaway. This may have been due to religious beliefs.
  • Some service was difficult to determine due to similar names living in similar areas.
  • I would assume that those who served in the military were indeed convinced that they were doing the right thing.

 

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Looking for My Revolutionary Soldier Ancestors

I recently joined the Historical Society for the Town I grew up in and there was a talk that night on Revolutionary War ancestors. Or in this case, one of the local ancestors of the President of the Historical Society. I know that I have at least one ancestor who served in the Revolutionary war and he lived in the Dighton, Massachusetts area. He was Anthony Snell and his story can be found here.

Some Potential Revolutionary War Soldiers

I did not highlight the elder Anthony Snell as I have that he died fairly young on my web site. A source at Ancestry has his death in 1767.  I am not sure why I did not highlight Stephen Churchill.

Anthony Snell and DNA

I am not highlighting Anthony Snell here but I would like to mention his DNA as this is a DNA and Genealogy Blog. At a family reunion, I got the DNA from one of my father’s many 1st cousins. Here is Joyce’s connection to Anthony Snell according to ThruLines at Ancestry:

Let’s look at my Snell DNA/Genealogy tree to see how that compares:

It looks like I am a little light on the Anthony son of Anthony line.

Next, I looked at my own ThruLines:

It looks like I could improve my Snell family tree if these are correct. Here is Horace’s tree at Ancestry:

It looks like I already have Stephen Snell in my Ancestry tree:

The best way to add Horace is to add him as a floating tree and then attach him to my tree if it works out. This must be Horace’s draft card:

Here is Horace’s birth record:

Horace’s obituary summary gives some more information:

This shows that Horace ended up in Missouri.

Viola’s wedding record shows that her father was a fisherman:

Horace father and son) were farmers.

Next I just need to connect Arthur E Snell to Stephen Snell:

Here is Arthur and family in 1910:

According to this, Arthur was quite a bit older than his wife Nellie. The couple married in 1894 in Tiverton:

Next, I connect Horace’s line with my Ancestry tree to make it match what is shown on the ThurLines. All this to say that it is very likely that Horace and I share common DNA from Anthony Snell (or his wife Betsy Luther). I have pretty old DNA!

Here is the family in New Bedford in 1865:

This tells a potentially sad story. I believe that Stephen’s father Anthony died earlier in 1865 so is not shown. Elizabeth would be Stepen’s mother. I see no wife for Stephen, so she likely had passed away at this point.

I can also add Horace to my Snell DNA/Genealogy Tree:

Benjamin Luther

I have this information at my Luther Web Page:

According to the Luther Genealogy, “Benjamin Luther resided in Dighton, was of a family of seamen, and had four master mariners in his family. He was said to have always been spoken of as ‘Captain Benjamin of Dighton.’ He was a Revolutionary soldier, enlisting in Capt. Ephraim Hathaway’s Co., Co. Popes’ Reg’t., on the Alarms of Dec. 8, 1776 and Aug. 1780.”

I see this reference in the Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War:

I don’t have much more on this Benjamin Luther. He died in 1834. Apparently there was another Revolutionary War Veteran named Benjamin Luther that lived longer.

This 1835 Pension Roll Call is apparently my ancestor based on his age at the time – even though he died in 1834, this probably went to publication before they had knowledge of his death.

This appears to be where the church is:

Here is my Luther DNA Tree:

There is some connection here as Betsy Luther married Anthony Snell. I have a match to Lynn at Ancestry.

Parker

This family was from Falmouth. Theoretically William and Isaac could have served in the Revolutionary War. However, he died in 1778 at age 49. This must be William:

I have that William fought at Fort Ticonderoga:

It looks like William was a Patriot and gave the last years of his life for his country – even when ill. I am curious as to how and where he died. This adds a lot of information as I knew very little about William Parker. I see that in 1772, his father Thomas left him one dollar in his will:

William’s father Thomas was quite wealthy. I wonder what a dollar would have meant at this time as the currency was in British Pounds. According to the internet:

    • The Spanish Piece-of-Eight: The most common “dollar” was the Spanish dollar, which served as the unofficial, widely accepted currency. It held consistent value due to its silver content, unlike local, often depreciated, paper money.
    • Value in Shillings: While England used pounds, Massachusetts used a local pound system. Often, one Spanish dollar was valued at 6 shillings in Massachusetts.

This seems strange to leave your eldest son such a small amount as his estate was worth over 1300 pounds.

I see here the family connection with Rochester as Thomas owned a cedar swamp lot there.

Did William’s Son Isaac Serve in the Revolutionary War?

This is a difficult one. There are many Isaac Parkers listed in the American Soldiers and Sailors book. These seem to be two different Isaac Parkers:

 

There are many other Isaac Parkers listed in the Revolutionary Soldier Book, but the above seem to be the most likely. It is possible that Isaac stayed behind while his father fought in the war.

My father’s cousin Joyce has four matches with these likely descendants of Thomas Parker:

 

The two from Thomas Landers are closer matches on other lines:

Nathaniel Hatch Jr.

 

Nathaniel was Isaac Parker’s father-in-law.

As Nathaniel was from Falmouth, this seems promising. I see that Nathaniel was busy having children during this time:

I am not sure if this is the same person:

Here are some Hatch DNA connections:

I will look at more potential Revolutionary War soldier ancestors in an upcoming Blog.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I am surprised that I have never highlighted my Revolutionary War ancestors before. The 250th anniversary of our nation has helped me focus on the topic
  • Each of the four lines that I looked at had at least some Revolutionary War experience. My Hatch ancestor appears to have had as little as 3 days service.
  • We know so little about our ancestors at this time, the service in the War gives us at least a glimpse into what they were doing in support of our Country.
  • There appears to be DNA connection to each of my four lines that served in the Revolutionary War. Those lines being Snell, Luther, Parker and Hatch.
  • Looking at these lines has helped me to add to, update and correct my family tree at Ancestry
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Who Is My Wife’s Cousin Adria?

I recently had a notification that my wife had a close relative match named Adria:

Adria has two Boggy trees and one Butler tree, so I assume the match is on the Butler side:

Fortunately, I had tested my wife’s Aunts before they passed away. When I check the Aunt with the biggest match I see that Adria is likely a grand niece. When I check Lorraine’s shared matches with the closest match to Adria, I find Jasmine:

This could be a short Blog, because the two people icon near Jasmine means that Ancestry likely knows how Lorraine and Jasmine are related:

 

That meansn that the private box above Jasmine must be Adrai. The John Butler above was my wife’s Uncle Jake. Adria apparently lives in Illinois which is perhaps why my wife had lost touch.

Updating Jake

This would be a good time to update Jake in my Anestry tree:

I don’t even have his wife.

I added some information to my Tree. I see now that Jasmine, her mother and grandfather John have all tested at Ancestry. Here is a photo of Uncle Jake from Findagrave:

Summary and Conclusions

  • My wife’s match with Adria was a bit of a mystery at first
  • Shared matches solved that problem as Adria’s daugther Jasmine had a good tree
  • I was able to update my Ancestry tree for John “Jake” Butler and his children, most of whom are still living.

 

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More of My Sister Heidi’s Common Ancestors at Ancestry

In my previous post, I had good luck at looking at one of my sister Heidi’s DNA matches with a proposed common ancestor at Ancestry. Heidi and Sonja went back to Nicholson ancestry. Sonja’s Nicholson ancestor moved to Hartford while my her ancestor’s brother, my ancestor moved to Philadelphia.

Heidi and Thelma

Going down the list of Heidi’s unviewed distant relatives with proposed common ancestors at Ancestry, I see:

Here is the proposal:

Based on a new theory, I have suggested that my ancestor Robert Hartley could have been an Ann. This has turned up some Halstead genealogy. Here is Thelma’s tree:

Thelma has Alice Halstead from Didsbury:

I think that this is the place:

Another tree has this:

Heidi and Mike

This connection also leads to a possible Halstead connection:

This connection leads to two Halstead families on Mike’s tree:

There seems to be something going on with this Halstead connection. However, I would prefer to look at this in a separate Blog.

Heidi and Mr

MR has a private tree with 4 people in it. Shared matches between MR and Heidi are inconclusive. However, MR’s mother is in the shared match list. MR’s mother has a shared match with Carolyn who is a known relative on the Nicholson side:

Further, it appears that the proposed John Nicholson in Ancestry’s common ancestor tree was living right next to his sister in 1860 Hartford. I talked about her in my previous Blog:

John and his brother-in-law Thomas were both hardware dealers at the time. Sarah A is likely Sarah Ann Nicholson Hield. Interesting. That means that the Mary shown above could be the Mary in the Ancestry Common Ancestor Tree. However, if this is right, then my tree may be inaccurate:

I have John marrying Margaret Reaney.

Ancestry suggests this for the 1851 Census in Sheffield:

Mary was born outside Yorkshire. It appears that this is the correct marriage record:

Here is my corrected tree:

It appears that the elder John Nicholson died young in 1863:

I won’t go through all the genealogy, but I expect that this connection should work out. Here is a Social Security extract:

Heidi and Robert

Here is another potential Halstead connection:

My Nicholson DNA Tree

I’ll just update this tree:

This is a large tree and above is only part of it. Actually, I need to go up a generation:

This Matthew Nicholson had a lot of children and died at the age of 41:

My DNA Tree above only represents three of these children.

Here are my sister Heidi’s ThruLines:

That means I need to add the John and Sarah Lines. Here is the John Line:

MR’s great-grandmother was Ruah which is an interesting name. Apparently her son moved to Little Rock, Arkansas:

The Sarah Ann Line

Sonja was the subject of my previous Blog. Here the two Connecticut Nicholson Lines are added:

I was previously unaware of these two Lines coming forward. I probably would have otherwise assumed that these families remained in England.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I found a few of my sister Heidi’s DNA matches with proposed common ancestors
  • Those ancestors were Nicholson and Halstead
  • Halstead is more problematic as this is based on a new theory. I decided to wait on those matches.
  • The Nicholson match was interesting as two siblings of my Nicholson 2nd great-grandfather were living next door to each other in Hartford, CT in the 1860 Census
  • I added the two lines descending from the two siblings of my Nicholson 2nd great-grandfather to my Nicholson DNA Tree

 

 

 

 

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A Nicholson Line Connected by Ancestry’s Common Ancestors

Right now I am looking at my sister Heidi’s DNA matches with Common Ancestors.

These 7 matches could keep me busy for a while. Three maternal. Three paternal and one unassigned. These are all listed under distant relatives.

Heidi and Sonja:

Sonja has her Hield ancestor as being from Connecticut, so no obvious connection there. I need to know if Sarah married a HIeld and moved to Connecticut. I do know that Sarah was living in Sheffiled in 1851:

Sarah’s father had died young and her mother was a beerhouse keeper to make ends meet. Here is Sarah Hield in Hartford, Connecticut in 1860:

We can see that Sarah’s daughter Sarah was born in Connecticut, so that puts the move from England between 1855 and 1858. Sonja has that Esther was born in 1861 so that explains why she does not appear on the 1860 Census.

Here is the possible marriage:

Unfortunately, the father’s name were “dead” which is not very helpful. However, I do know that ‘my’ Sarah’s father was dead. Here is PIttlsmoor:

Sonja’s DNA Connection: Shared Matches

Here are some of Sonja and Heidi’s shared matches:

Melinda is my maternal 1st cousin’s daughter. Carolyn is my mother’s second cousin on the Nicholson side. The other matches seem to be related on the Nicholson side or Clayton side. The DNA indicates that the Common Ancestor clue from Ancestry is probably right. This gives encouragement to continue along the lines of the Common Ancestor match.

Nicholson ThruLines

Here are Heidi’s ThruLines:

Back to the Genealogy

The Hield family seem to move around a bit. The first son, John William, was born in the Wicker, Sheffleld:

The name John Willam also gives circumstantial evidence to relation to the Nicholson family:

William was Sarah’s younger brother. John was her grandfather. We are not sure of Thomas Hield’s ancestry, but Sarah’s second son was named Thomas. As a guess, Esther could have been Thomas’ mother:

Let’s look at the proposed timing.

  • Sarah Ann marries Thomas Hield in 1852
  • They have children and move to Hartford, CT around 1856 or 1857
  • Sarah’s younger brother William arrives in the US about 1868 with his family and settles in Philadelphia.

I’ll add Sonja to my tree as floating tree and likely connect her later.

Sonja’s great-grandfather was an interior decorator in 1920 in West Hartford, CT.

Here is the family in 1900. There were a lot of Russels:

This Russel was a stock broker. However, at this point, it is Esther that I am interested in. From the Census, it appears that Esther married about 1880.

Here is ab obituary from August 11, 1928:

Recall above that Esther had a brother named Thomas. Circumstantial evidence again. This leads us back to Brooklyn:

Sarah A HIeld is 39 in 1870 which means she was born about 1861.

Here is the Sarah Ann in my tree:

I’ll say that is close enough for a match. I just need to merge the two trees. Here is part of my new tree:

My ancestor William Nicholson was about 5 years younger than Sarah Ann. I wonder if William and Sarah Ann ever connected in the US.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I started at looking at my sister Heidi’s unviewed Common Ancestors at Ancestry
  • Heidi’s first match with possible common ancestors was Sonja
  • Sonja’s tree went back to Connecticut with her ancestor Esther Hield
  • Ancestry suggested that Esther Hield’s mother was Sarah Ann Nicholson, the sister of one of my Nicholson ancestors
  • Based on Shared DNA matches between Heidi and Sonja, as well as genealogical clues, the match appeared to be right
  • It would still be nice to find the smoking gun genealogical clear evidence, but the inferred evidence from the DNA and genealogy was enough for me to agree that Ancestry’s proposed common ancestors were correct.
  • That leaves 6 other proposed comon ancestors that Heidi has at Ancestry to investigate

 

 

 

 

 

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Playing with My Unused ProTools at Ancestry

I say unused ProTools because I have used the clusters and Shared Matches a lot. I have not used some of the other ProTools.

Familyhistorydaily.com has a good article on ProTools. On my Tree menu at Ancestry, I see this Pro options:

There is a Tree checker and Charts and reports.

Looks like I have 9483 people in my tree. This includes my wife’s Butler family.

Here are some filters and stats:

Despite all these errors my tree gets an 8.9 rating.

If I choose direct family line, all possible errors, I get 178 entries. If I choose duplicates under all possible errors, I get 32 people. That seems like a manageable number:

Let’s look at Thomas Clarke on my list:

If I hover over the ‘i’ in a circle to the right, the note says, “possible duplicates”. There are also some hints, but I am not concerned with that right now. I press the ‘i’ in the circle and it goes to profile view for Thomas Clarke in a new window with this note to the right:

I want to review this to see if I agree:

Scrolling down, I see that this Thomas Clarke has the right wife:

This is his second wife, the one I do not descend from. At this point, I will take it on faith that if I merge these two people it will solve more problems than it will solve. Now I am down to 31 direct ancestor duplicates.

Finding Direct Ancestors of Other People

I would like to find direct ancestors on my wife’s side. How do I do this? I do not see an easy way to do this. I suppose that is one of the problems of having my wife’s tree connected to my tree. I can try a workaround, but it is not very good.

My wife’s father’s mother was French Canadian. I can filter for Quebec:

Unfortuantely, this does not give me all the people who lived in Quebec, just the ones that I specifically designated as being from Quebec in my tree:

Also, these are not necessarily my wife’s direct ancestors. I do know that Joseph Pouliot is my wife’s ancestor. Isn’t an ancestor a direct ancestor?

When I choose Joseph Pouliot to evalutate, I get this message:

Joseph married a Josephine. Could that be the issue?

Also this 1700’s Joseph Pouliot has no birth date:

Here is birth date:

Here, fils or son is underlined. After making that change, I still see a duplicate for Joseph, so the confusion must be for his wife. I guess I’ll have to live with some Ancestry possible errors that are not really errors.

Using the same logic, I sorted by lived in Prince Edward Island:

I recognize James Henry Ellis as a ‘direct’ ancestor of my wife:

The sketchy right hand of the comparison has Henry Ellis and one child, but they match, so I will merge the two. When I do that and refresh my list, there are only two who lived in PEI that have possiible errors.

Map View

The article I mentioned above shows how to use Map View.

Here are my direct line ancestors:

A lot from the US.

Direct line paternal:

England, Ireland and the US.

Direct line maternal:

Latvia, Germany, England and the US.

Back to Duplicates

In my Summary and Conclusions, I mention that finding duplicates may help in inaccurate ThruLines. I often have trouble on my Hartley Line:

This could be the source of my problems. Further, I am not so sure that Robert was born at Bough Gap. That was a possible guess. When I choose the ‘i’ in a circle, I see this:

This is exactly my problem that I am trying to fix. Robert Hartley was certainly not Robert Wilkinson. Robert Hartley’s wife was Mary Pilling. Robert died and Mary remarried Robert Wilkinson. I will be glad to choose ‘not a duplicate’ and hope that will correct many ThruLine errors. I get balloons for pushing those two links:

View all errors for this tree just brings me back to my unfiltered tree error list.

I am honestly baffled as to why Ancestry computers thought that Mary Pilling’s second husband was the same as the first – especally after the first husband died.

Frazers on My Duplicates List

I am familiar with my Frazer ancestry:

My Second Great-grandfather George William

The George on the right looked good until I got to wife and children.

After working a bit on the list, this is what it now looks like:

Summary and Conclusions

  • This Blog covered some of the Pro Tools that I have not used yet
  • Duplicates are always a problem. I suspect that I should go through my 31 remaining direct line possible duplicates to try to fix those. This may even help in some of the ThruLines. After I wrote this I did find something above in my Hartley Line that was apparently causing a lot of problems.
  • I can find some of my wife’s ancestors but not a comprehensive list of her direct line ancestors due to the way that I set up my Ancestry Tree. It would be an improvement if Ancestry gave you a focus person choice and then you could look at their direct line ancestors.
  • Now I just have to review a little over 600 other potential errors.

 

 

 

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Theories on My Mother’s (Rathfelder) Side

I started looking at my mother’s MyHeritage Theories in my previous post and will continue here.

Hannah

I would say the Theory between my mother and Hannah cannot be correct:

For one thing, there are 112 years difference between first cousins Johnn and Ottilie. I was able to find Hannah’s Ancestry tree:

One way to check this is by my Gangnus genealogy book by Gustav Gangnus published in 2003. As far as I can see, Hannah’s tree checks out. That would add a line her on my Gangnus DNA Tree:

Here I have added in Hannah:

Hannah shows as my mother’s 4th cousin three times removed. This makes more sense than the MyHeritage Theory.

Hannah at DNA Painter

Hannah’s match tells us something about a different match:

Notice that Hannah’s DNA match overlaps with Otis. Otis matches my mom in several ways. However, for this segment, the match must be on the Gangnus side. So while the blue segment says Schwechheimer/Gangnus this match is really through Gangnus or specifically through Anna Charlotte Maria Gangnus born 1780:

Hanni

This Theory does not look familiar:

MyHeritage proposes that Hanni from Germany is a third cousin twice removed.

Hanni’s tree has two Gangnus Lines:

Hanni is in another Theory which does not make sense:

Under this Theory, Johann Lutz has a daugther when he is one year old. I’ll skip this one. Theory one is wrong also as the father of Lutke in my mom’s line was Lutke. That means I’m on my own.

Genealogy for Hanni

I will add Hanani to my tree and see if I can connect her. Hanni has her mother born in Hirschenhof which is interesting:

I see in Hanni’s tree that Lydia’s mother should actually be Alide Gangnus.I see several entries for Alide in the 2003 Gangnus Genealogy Book. One of the most interesting is on page 57. This page shows three Gangnus lines. It appears to trace the farms that they lived on in HIrschenhof. Alide shows ther born in 1905 married to Stahl.

Page 129 of the Gangnus Genealogy book shows Alide as the last child of of Johann Conrad Gangnus and Marie Whilhelmie Gangnus. From here is should be easy to trace Hanni’s Gangnus heritage. The first Gagnus to connect with one of my mother’s Gangnus ancestors wins the prize.

So far, my tree is following Hanni’s:

I also have three out of four in the last column with hints at Ancestry. Unfortunately, Johann Georg Gangnus was a very popular name in Hirschenhof:

Actually, I now see where Hanni fits in on my Gangnus DNA Tree:

I see that Philipp Gustave Gangnus is already in my tree, so I can link Hanni’s tree to him. It took a while to fix my Ancestry Gangnus Tree, but I think I have it right now.

Hanni Added to the Gangnus DNA Tree

She and Michael are 4th cousins twice removed to my late mother.

What About Gustav?

I still need to fill in parents for Gustav born in 1809. I do not have to go far to find his father:

Gustav’s father is Johann Georg Gangnus born in 1781. However, Gustav is the son of Johann Georg’s second wife Maria Magdalena Gagnus.

The good news is that the common ancestors are the same:

That means that Hanni and Gladys are 2 times fourth cousins twice removed.

Hanni on My Mom’s DNA Painter Profile

Hanni’s match overlaps with Ruta’s on Chromosome 11. I had trouble figuring out exactly where Ruta fit in as she descends from Gangnus/Muller and Gangnus/Niclas. This tells us that this match with Ruta must be from Gangnus/Niclas. Not that it probably matters, but it is interesting that we can know that from the DNA match.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I looked at Hannah and Hanni. They both descend from Gangnus LInes
  • I was able to fit both of them into my mother’s (hence my) Ancestry Tree as well as into my Gangnus DNA Tree
  • The Gangnus family was prolific. In addition there was a lot of intermarriage of these Gangnus Lines in Hirschenhof. That adds up to a lot of potential for DNA matches and criss-crossing genealogcial trees
  • It is possible to sort out which DNA matches are associated with which Gangnus Lines if we get matches that overlap on a particular segmant on the chromosome.

 

 

 

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MyHeritages Updates of Theories: Part 2

In my previous Blog I looked at some Theories for myself, my Frazer cousin Paul and my mother. In this Blog, I will continue to go down the new theories list.

My Frazer Theory with Christopher

I have done a lot of work on Frazer DNA and genealogy, so let’s check this one out:

Christopher has an American Flag by his name, but he shows his parents were from Australia. Christopher’s paternal side tree goes back to Mary Frazer:

I feel like Christopher will connect, so I will build a floating tree for him in my family tree and then connect it – assuming he fits in. According to Ancestry, it was Christopher’s grandfather who moved from Sligo to Australia:

I would expect to find grandfather Thomas in the 1901 Ireland Census:

He was in Kilmactranny Parish where my Frazer ancestors lived.

According to Google, the Townland is actually Drumsoghla bordering Loch Arrow and County Roscommon:

My relatives live on the NE side of Loch Arrow. As expected, Thomas’ father is George Acheson. And it is George’s mother that I am looking for.

Here is the family in the same place in 1911:

I assume that it was George who did not want the Frazer name to be forgotten. All the boys in the house have a Frazer in their name. It appears that George also made his way to Australia:

Here is George’s

burial place in Tasmania:

How to Get from George to Mary Frazer?

This is some of the information on Christopher’s tree:

From fellow Frazer researchers I have this information:

There were two Mary Frazers born in 1828. The one that Christopher has was apparently the daughter of John Frazer and Isabella. It looks odd that William was born 12 July, but Mary was baptized 22 July. I am looking at my old Frazer Genealogy Web Page and see this:

That means that Isabella would have been the sister of Violet Frazer who was my 3rd great-grandmother. That means that Christopher descends from the Richard Frazer and Archibald Frazer Lines. That puts Christopher most closely related to Michael in my Frazer DNA Trees:

This is the side I am more closely related on:

 

Here I am a 4th cousin once removed to Michael.

Here is some more information from my web site:

OK, I guess I’ll go with what I have. I connected the my floating tree for Christopher with my own tree. I now just have to add Christopher to two of my Frazer DNA Trees:

Christopher and I are 5th cousins on this tree:

Now Michael is not so lonely on his branch. I am one generation further out on the Archibald Line as we descend from Archibald father of Archibald.

DNA Painter

I have a lot going on in my 7th Chromosome:

The red match at the beginning of the Chromosome is where I match Christopher. It is possible I match him a generation further back at Archibald, but more likely it is from Richard Frazer. There appears to be a little overlap with Susan and Ken. However, they descend from James and Violet Frazer. Likely the overlap indicates that the DNA shared with Susan and Ken is from Violet who is the daughter from Richard Frazer as is Isabella. It is interesting that I connected to someone on an Acheson Line as I know I have at least one other Acheson DNA match that I haven’t figured out yet.

Going Through my Sister Heidi’s Theories

I am just looking for Theories that are likely to be real. I see Inguna from my last Blog, so I can add her to Heidi’s DNA Painter profile. Heidi already matches these 2nd cousins on Chromosome 11:

Here is Inguna added:

Heidi and Bill

Bill was one of the early matches. We are 4th cousins and the match goes back to James Frazer and Violet Frazer. This is Heidi’s DNA match with Bill:

Bill overlaps with and confirms other Frazer DNA matches:

Heidi and Alans

Alans is not new, but I have not added him to Heidi’s profile at DNA Painter:

Alans’ big match is on Heidi’s maternal Chromosome 3.

Wrapping Up with My Mom’s Theories

I’m ready to end the Blog, but want to check to see if there are many new Theories for my mother. Gladys’ first new theory is listed as having low confidence:

At Ancestry, I have that Elizabeth was a Rihl:

A further look at Pathways 1-4 of the Theory above has the Renner siblings born in Tenessee.

This seems unlikely as my mother’s family was from Philadelphia.

Mom and Ruta

This looks promising:

I like genealogies with photos. I also have a Gangnus Genealogy book written in German which is helpful. By the looks of the Theory, if it is right, mom and Ruta should be half third cousins. Ruta’s Tree is also helpful:

I’ll add Ruta to my tree as a floating tree and then connect the float assuming she fits. Ruta’s Tree is managed by Robert. Here is Robert at Ancestry:

He shows as descending from Philip J G Gangnus. I have him here on my Gangnus DNA Tree:

Robert shows to be related twice to my mom. That is why these DNA charts are helpful. The Theory has Ruta desecending from Gangnus and Biedermann which would be the third row from the top – the couple that is circled.

Robert has Ruta’s father moving from Riga, Latvia to Cleveland:

Heinrich’s comfirmation record includes his birth date and first names of parents:

This record looks helpful:

Here we get the mother’s name of Gagnus = Gangnus. Heinrich appears to be named for Heinrich Gagnus if I read the record correctly.

According to the Gangnus book written by Gustav Gangnus and published in 2003, Alma was one of 7 children.

Based on Robert’s tree Ruta is most likely his mother (though an Aunt is possible):

That being the case, I can just add Ruta in two places on my Gangnus DNA Tree:

The interesting thing about Ruta (and her relatives) is that they are related on my mother’s paternal grandfather (Rathfelder) and grandmother’s (Gangnus) sides.

Next, I want to connect Ruta to my tree. However, I see I already have her family in my tree:

Also, I spelled Heinrich wrong. I combined Heinrick and Heinrich.

Also when I search for Maria Magdalena, I see I have a duplicate:

These trees are a headache!

So basically, the Theory is wrong, but ny one generation on one side. That means the actual common ancestors are one above Gagnus and Biedermann as shown on the Theory.

Painting Ruta to My Mother’s DNA Profile

Ruta matches my mother here:

Here are the numbers:

The Chromosome 1 match is just under the standard thresshold of 7 cM that DNA Painter adds.

Chromosome 5

I think that this is telling me that Ruta is related on the Gangnus/Niclas side due to the overlap with Gangnus/Biederamann (in bright green):

I could change this segment in DNA Painter to reflect that, but I don’t think I will right now.

Ruta’s matches to my mom on the other chromosomes are not as clearly identified:

The other good news is that Ruta gets my mother’s DNA paternal painted DNA percent up to 50 from 49:

Robert and Long-Term Research

Many years ago, I would see Robert’s match show up at Ancestry and wonder how we were connected. I finally figured out the answer to my question. I wrote that up in a Blog in 2019 which can be seen here. Robert had his Latvian great-grandmother as Magnus rather than Gangnus. Robert corrected his tree, had his mother tested at MyHeritage and here we are. Cooperative research.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I found an interesting new Frazer/Aceshon relative
  • I added some DNA matches to my sister Heidi’s list
  • I found an interesting Latvian match for my mom that added a lot of DNA to her DNA profile
  • It appears that the well has not yet run dry on my mother’s Theories, so I will continue to look at them in a subsequent Blog.