Author: joel@jmhartley.com

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Penny of the California James Line of the Frazers

I have had a few emails from Joanna about Penny. Joanna is interested in Penny’s DNA results as both Joanna and Penny are on the James Line of the Frazers of Northern Roscommon, Ireland. Joanna tells me that Penny “…is descended from William Fitzgerald Frazer of Sacramento – if you remember he is my great grandfather Thomas Henry Frazer’s oldest brother”.

Some James Line Frazer Genealogy

Penny is on the bottom left of the chart. Clyde and Carol were all alone on the Frazer/Grant line but now they have Penny. Joanna is about the middle of the chart in red. If all has gone according to the chart, then Penny is a 3rd cousin to Clyde and a 3rd cousin once removed to Joanna.

Penny’s DNA and the James Line Frazers

Joanna has given me permission to look at her DNA results at AncestryDNA. This what Joanna’s match to Penny looks like:

Ancestry is sometimes conservative with their predicted relationship based on the DNA vs. the actual, so this sounds about right.

As mentioned above, Penny’s closest relative in the Frazer DNA Project is Clyde. This is what Penny’s and Clyde’s DNA match looks like at Gedmatch.com:

This represents the DNA that Penny and Clyde both got from their shared ancestors William Fitzgerald Frazer and Margaret Graham. Both segments could be from one or the other ancestor or one segment could be Frazer and another could be Graham DNA. I say this because if both segments that were passed down were Graham DNA, then Clyde and Penny would not be matching others in the Frazer DNA – at least not on the Frazer side. An MRCA of 4.5 could be a 3rd cousin once removed by DNA. This just means that Penny and Clyde share a little less than the average amount of DNA for 3rd cousins.

Penny’s DNA and All the Roscommon-Descended Frazers

Here I have sorted the matches into Archibald Line and James Line. This shows that most of Penny’s matches are on the James Line side. This makes sense given the genealogy we have.

Penny’s DNA in the James Line Group

Here is a larger view of Penny in just a portion of the James Line. Here Penny matches others by DNA  in the Archibald b. about 1792 Branch except for Charlotte, Mary and Madeline.

This does not mean that Charlotte, Madeline and Mary should be kicked off the Archibald line as Madeline has good matches with Jonathan, Janet, Betty and Clyde. I checked Penny for triangulation in the James Line group, but didn’t see any obvious triangulation groups.

Penny’s Matches with Joanna and Janet

Here is the match that Penny has with Joanna as seen in Gedmatch. Penny has the exact same match with Joanna’s sister Janet, but not with Jonathan.

I mention this because I have done some Chromosome Mapping for Joanna and her family. Here is Chromosome 15:

This shows that Joanna and Janet have a full dose of Frazer on their Paternal side. Jonathan is about 1/3 Frazer and 2/3 Seymore on the Paternal side of his Chromosome 15. Note the CY on the Map. This is for Charlotte who also matches Joanna and Janet on Chromosome 15. Charlotte descends from the McPartlands of North Roscommon. Their ancestor Owen McPartland married an Ann Frazer who could have been born around 1830.

Triangulation with Charlene, Penny, Joanne and Janet

We don’t have triangulation with known trees, but we do have triangulation with unknown trees. By unknown, I mean that we don’t know how the trees connect to our Frazer trees.  My most recent Blog on the McPartland connection is here. Based on this triangulation, one scenario could be that Ann Frazer b. about 1830, could have been the daughter of Archibald b. about 1792. Making this assumption, this could be how the Triangulation Group (TG) plays out:

Adding Speculation to Speculation – My McMaster Line

In my previous Blog on the McPartland connection, I showed this TG:

Now what if Margaret Frazer was a brother to Archibald Frazer b. around 1792? That would move the left side of my old TG on Chromosome 9 up a generation. I do that in part to fit the dates. Here is what I come up with:

Charlene is a key player in all of this. She is in a TG with Sharon, Paul, Karen and Chris in purple and in a TG with Penny, Joanna and Janet in yellow. This is the best explanation I have at this time. Hey, all these people had to come from somewhere. And all their DNA had to come from somewhere.  This is one explanation. It fits the McPartlands into the Frazer tree and some of my McMaster ancestors into the Frazer tree at the same time.

Checking the Purple TG9

When I check how Paul matches Sharon, Charlene, Karen and Chris, this is what I get:

This means that there are actually 2 TGs here. One is with Paul, Sharon and Charlene and one is with Paul, Sharon, Karen and Chris. Still, the overall effect is the same. The common ancestor as per my diagram would be the elder Archibald Frazer b. 1751. So that goes back quite  a way.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I believe that Penny’s DNA results clearly confirm that she is in the James Line of Frazers
  • Charlotte, Madeline and Mary seem to show less than average DNA matches for their relationships within the Archibald (b. about 1792) Branch.
  • I used Penny’s TG with Charlene, Joanna and Janet to come up with a proposed McPartland tree
  • I then used TGs with Paul, my sister Sharon, Charlene, Chris and Karen to come up with a Frazer/McMaster Tree.  Actually, I already had the McMaster/Frazer tree and wasn’t sure where it fit in. I had already assumed based on previous X Chromosome analysis and other factors that this tree should be on the James Line.
  • The tree I drew fits the information that I have now. Further testing may further support or disprove this theory.
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Men’s Breakfast Genealogy: Bob, Part 2

In my last Blog about Bob, I got his father’s side back to the early 1800’s or earlier in Nottingham, New Hampshire. I was able to do that with some pretty scanty information, as I didn’t even know who Bob’s dad was. Now I have more information on his mom’s side and will see what I can do with it.

Bob’s Mom’s Side

This side of the family sounds interesting. Family lore is that his mom’s dad jumped ship while traveling from Denmark to Stamford, CT. I told Bob, my mom’s dad also jumped ship. He was a Latvian sailing from Archangel to New York City. I now also know that Bob’s dad’s name was Virgil. So I’m excited to get started. The first record I found for Bob’s mom was the WWII Draft registration for her husband Virgil. This said he was born in Stamford, CT, instead of Maine as I had, but I’ll ignore that for now as I’m looking at Bob’s Kessler side.

Kesslers of Denmark

This little tree is the start. The leaf for Dorothy was for her husband’s WWII Draft Registration.  No other leaves are showing up. I don’t like looking for women in the Census due to name changes, so I’ll start with Lewis. Bob said he saw the name also as Lorin in a Census. I like starting with the Census as they cover everyone and have a lot of information in them. My first try for Lewis didn’t get me what I was looking for. Then I added that he lived in Stamford, CT. This helped.

Even the summaries of the search results are helpful. Now we have an idea when Louis was born and when he arrived. There is also a new middle initial.

Here is the family in 1920:

This is just some of the information. Louis had a mortgage and was a millwright at a furniture factory. It looks like Louis was 37 and his wife was 45.

Let’s jump forward 20 years:

Louis and Elizabeth are living by themselves. I forgot to mention that Louis was listed as an alien in 1920 and he appears to be one also in 1940.

Here is Louis’ WWI Draft Registration:

This was from September 12, 1918. The next page shows he had medium height and build, black hair and green eyes. I think that a non-declared alien meant that he hadn’t filed any papers to become a citizen. I’m not so clear on the middle name – either Henwick or Henrick. The transcriber went with Henwick.

I didn’t know but  there was also a Connecticut Military Census in 1917. Here Louis lists some of his skills:

The Louis Kessler Family in 1930

This is the record Bob mentioned. The transcriber has Louis’ name as Lorin Kessler or Loris Keasler. Watch out for transcriptions. The transcriber also has Louis speaking “Jewish” but I see it as Danish. Louis owns his own $6,000 home by now and is working as an auto mechanic. Handy guy. The Kessler family look to be on Givens Ave, Stamford, CT. Now his immigration is listed as 1904 rather than 1900 as per the 1920 Census. One obscure fact about the 1930 Census is that there was information on whether there was a radio set in the household. There was. Dorothy and Raymond are there, but Raymond went on to a new page, so I won’t copy the record.

Danish or jewish?

 

So far, I see a hard working Danish man that came to the US and was able to buy a house and raise a family. He was had skills in different trades and willing to try different occupations. I’m fresh out of easy hints except for a family tree hint. I tend to be wary of those as they can be either accurate or inaccurate.

North Omme, Denmark

The information is trickling in on Bob’s maternal grandfather. Louis’ World War II Draft Card shows he was from North Omme, Denmark:

By 1942, it appears that Louis Americanized his middle name to Henry. According to Google Maps, this is Omme. I didn’t have much luck with North Omme. [Edit: I show later in the Blog that Louis actually lived in the Parish of Norre Omme in the area of Ringkobing to the North of Esbjerg.]

Lewis or Louis?

Bob tells me that his grandfather moved to Florida after his wife died:

Louis Keseler in MA?

I tried searching at FamilySearch.org and found a Louis Keseler in Agawam, MA:

This ‘Keseler’ seems to meet all the right requirements. Agawam, MA is on the border of Connecticut and on the Connecticut River. This Louis was working on a horse farm in 1910. [Edit #2: I show later in the Blog that Louis’ family name in Denmark was actually Kæseler.]

Louis’ Brother Chris

Bob tells me that Louis/Lewis had a brother named Chris:

his brother Chris ran a large junkyard in Camden NJ – I think i have the right town, may have been Elizabeth NJ

A brief search did not reveal anything. On to Frick(e).

The Frick(e) Family

The information appears to be a bit sketchy here also:

Wife Elizabeth, I found a reference once to Lizzie Frick(e), may be in an old bible.  Pretty sure she is German.  Was married and had Joseph ? a cop in Fordam, NY. Remarried Lewis.

Sketchy, but specific, so that part is good. In genealogy, it is good to go from more recent to less recent. Here is the death record for Eliza Kessler:

That’s a start. It would be nice to have a marriage record. I actually did take a peek at one Ancestry Tree for the family and that tree had the ‘Eliza’ above listed as Lizzie Fricke. A search at ancestry came up with the important 1880 census that I was looking for.

It looks like Lizzie’s dad Henry was a Copper Smith. All the children except for Antonia were born in New Jersey. Antonia was born around 1867 in New York. Both parents were from Prussia.

In 1889, the family lived at 38 Pine St., in Jersey City:

If the family had arrived at Ellis Island, they could have walked to Pine Street. However, Ellis Island was built out about 30 years after the family arrived in the US.

New Jersey had an 1895 Census:

This family, transcribed as ‘Frecke’ goes on to the next page:

August is apparently now Gustav.

Searching for Hermine/Minnie, I found the 1900 Census at FamilySearch.org. The family was transcribed as Fricker there. Now they are at 114 Pine St., Jersey City. Hopefully, this Census will yield some important information:

This answers some questions I had. First, Lillian was a late arrival daughter, born March, 1888. Now I have a birth of Henry on December 1834. This should be helpful as there were many Henry or Heinrich Fricke’s born in Germany.

Hermina has been married 34 years, so that brings us to 1866 – probably after they arrived in the US. However, that would be cutting it close. Hermina had 8 children, but only 6 are living in 1900. The Census further shows that Henry and Hermina arrived in the US in 1866. Henry is listed as NA which I believe means naturalized. He is shown as a cooper smith (copper smith?). Herman is a laborer. Lottie(?) is a boxmaker. Her twin Gustav is a blacksmith and Lillian is at school.

Unfortunately, within 5 years, Hermine would be a widow. New Jersey had a well-documented populace. Here is the family in 1905 at 285 Pine Street:

The family is transcribed as Friche this year. Now Hermine is shown as being born in Germany which reflects changing country borders over time. This Census gives some more precise birth months and years. This census says that Hermine entered the country 45 years ago. That would be 1860.

Ancestry gives me a hint for ‘Minnie’ in 1920:

She is living as a widow at 548 Jackson Ave, Jersey City with her single son, Herman. This also shows she arrived in the US in 1865 and that she did not speak English.

Perhaps Hermine and Herman lived in and rented one of these houses in 1920. If I’m reading the Census right, it looks like there were 8 families living at this address. Can that be right? Perhaps addresses changed over the years?

Go Hermine: 1930

I was surprised to see Hermine in the 1930 Census at age 85. She is still at Pine Street, but now living in the suburbs of Cranford, NJ with her youngest daughter Lillian:

A Fricke Summary

So far, we have a lot of information about the Fricke family in the US, but not so much in Germany or Prussia. I don’t have a maiden name for Minnie aka Hermine/Herminia. I don’t have there marriage record or death records. All this would be helpful. It appears that the family pulled together to help out their mom Hermine in her late years. Herman who never married apparently spent his time with his mom from when his dad Henry died around 1903 to when Hermina died around 1933 or so. Also the youngest daughter took in both Hermina and Herman.

Spotlight on Lizzie Fricke

It looks like I got a bit side-tracked following Lizzie’s Fricke family. The last single record I have of Lizzie was in 1895 when she was about 21 years old. Here are the missing years for Lizzie:

They are between when Lizzie was about 21 and 42. A search for a marriage for Lizzie found this:

Note that Elizabeth has a C for her middle initial. Bob says she was married before. Perhaps C is the start of her first married name.

A Foray Into Danish Geneaolgy – Kessler

It turns out that Danish Genealogy is online. The problem is that it is mostly in Danish. I thought that I would take a look and see what I could find. It helps to know what parish the Kesslers were from. I took a wild stab that Louis Kessler was from the Norre Omme Parish. Remember on his draft registration, he said he was from North – Omme. Sound similar, right? Here is what I found on the second page of the Norre Omme Parish Records under births 1881-1882:

Turns out the Norre Omme Parish is in the Ringkobing District, a bit further North than I had before:

Here is Norre Omme Parish in the Ringkobing District in case Bob wants to visit (kind of in the middle):

This looks to be the Church:

If you were buried at the Norre Omme Churchyard, you would have a well maintained plot:

I think I see why Lewis/Louis was having trouble with his name:

None of his names would be familiar with people in the US. I’m guessing at Lavrids Henrik Kæseler. [Note: the census transcription below is Laurids.] I like the use of exclamation point. Imagine yourself being born in Denmark with different names, letters and a language that people don’t understand in the US. Yikes. I’m thinking there is one of those funny stuck together ae’s in the name Kæseler. If I can find two parents in this record, I’ll be happy.

Is there a Danish handwriting specialist around? I see three names and then probably Kaeseler. I don’t have good feelings about the first name, then Theodor, Wilhelm or Vilhelm. I’m afraid I don’t have a good point of reference for the mom’s name. This is where a good transcript would come in handy. The good news is I found the parents. The bad news is I can’t read a lot of what is there. I suppose the rest of the names on the right (seen below) are sponsors:

Norre Omme, Denmark Census

The Danish online Census is pretty cool. They have a button for viewing and searching for surnames. In the 1890 Census there are 14 Kaeselers and one Kaeisler. I’ll go with the Kaeselers.  Here is Laurid’s family:

Teodor is listed as a tomrer. My online dictionary has that as a carpenter which was one of Laurids’/Louis’ skills. Here there were two boys and two girls in the family. I’m guessing that the mother kept her maiden name and in this case it looks like it got passed down to the eldest daughter. Teodor was born in Tyskland and Jensine was born in Tvis. The place they lived in 1890 appears to be Fjalde By. It looks like Teodor and Jensine had a small window in which to get married. That being right around 1879. However, here is Teodor in 1880:

It looks like Teodor was living with his older sister. There is also a subtle difference unless there was a transcription error. The sister’s last name is Kaeselev with a ‘v’.

Norre Omme in 1870

This brings us a new set of parents:

Back 10 years to 1860:

I suppose Elisa’s husband was away in 1860. That would mean that Elisa Kæseler was the same as Margrethe Elisabeth Johanne Beise. At any rate, there are now two older brothers for Teodor or Theodor: Joahann and Erik Christian.  I don’t see any Kæselers in the 1855 Census. So I would have to look elsewhere. As the place of birth is given in the census, it would not be too difficult to trace these families back.

More Kæselers in the Danish Census

I wanted to check on the family in the 1901 Census, but that Census has not been indexed, so it would be too difficult to find them. I did a search at the Dansk Demografisk Database

I found many Kæselers there. However, in order to search on the name I had to enter the correct ‘æ’ symbol which on the keyboard is alt 0230. When I searched for Kæseler in Norre Omme, I got 30 matches.

Danish Census 1906

Most of what I did not have was the Danish Census of 1906. This would be after Louis aka Laurids emigrated to the US. One surprise is that Laurid’s grandfather is still alive at age 91. Another good thing is that birthdays are listed in 1906:

He is listed as tenant [Logerende]. Enkemand means widower. Ane Margrete may look familiar from above. She would be Jakob’s daughter. She shows as married, but Soren is a widower also, so perhaps she is there to help out. Landmand means farmer. A Hyrde is a shepherd or herder.

Can I get back before 1860 with the Kæseler name?

Here are the details for Jaob Henrick Kæseler in 1870:

The most important information as far as going back is his birth place.  Slesvig would be in English – Schleswig. There was a Schleswig war in 1864 fought between Prussia and Austria. This resulted in Denmark losing its land to the South:

By this time the readers will fully understand Danish, so no further explanation of the map above is needed. I assume that 1864 was a bad year for Denmark. Fortunately Jakob moved his family North before the War began. Hertugdømmet means Duchy, so I just need to find Heiligenhafen. Here it is below:

If it wasn’t for that war, perhaps Bob would have been boating out of Heiligenhafen today.

I found that searching on a site called https://www.danishfamilysearch.com was the most helpful. I found out that Heiligenhafen is in the area of Ostholstein which has 96 Parishes. Four of those Parishes are in Heiligenhafen. The fourth Parish is Heiligenhafen Stadt which I think is the downtown area. Stadt is a German word.

Heiligenhafen Stadt Census 1803

It appears that the only indexed Census for Heiigenhafen Stadt is for 1803. I was hoping to find a later Census as 1845 is the first year where people’s place of birth is given.

The other unfortunate aspect of the 1803 Census is that we have skipped a generation. However, as Baldric from Blackadder said, “I have a cunning plan”. If I can find the birth record for Jakob Henrik Kæseler b. 1814, then I should be able to link him to his parents. It appears there should be a link to from our early 1800’s Jakob Henrik to these Jacob Hinrich’s from the 1700’s. This is almost too much fun.

As expected, Jacob Hinrich was the son of Jacob Hinrich. What a surprise.

I suppose that Christian could have been Jacob’s brother in this other Heiigenhafen Kæseler household:

It looks like the Census is now in German as weber is weaver in German.

Into the Parish Records 1814 for Heiligenhafen Stadt

When I look for Church Books at www.danishfamilysearch.com I come up with nothing. That means I go back to the Danish web page which is /www.sa.dk/en/. I didn’t have luck there either. I’m guessing that I will have to go to German records? At this point I’ve gone full circle and am back at the Ancestry Search. After many attempts, I found this record at Ancestry:

So here we have yet another spelling change. I don’t think that Anna Catharina was also a Käseler. It appears that Ancestry saves some work and time by giving the husband’s name to the mother. Here is the original record:

I see the two last names as similar but not the same. Her name looks more like Kolfin or something. Fortunately, I get another crack at her name. Here is the marriage record:

I have looked at this original record also and the name is clearly Kulsen.

The way it looks is that the Kaeseler family was in Heiligenhafen for at least 100 years.

Summing Up

  • Thanks to Louis’ specific statement giving his home parish in his WWII Draft Registration, I was able to track the family back to Denmark.
  • I have not yet been able to get back to Germany for the Fricke Family. That would take knowing some more Fricke parents or getting other information as detailed ship records, naturalization records or marriage or death records. Right now there is not an easy way to trace the Fricke family back to Germany.
  • Is Bob part Danish or part Schleswigian?

 

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Men’s Breakfast Genealogy: Bob

Bob is someone I see at a weekly men’s breakfast that I go to. When I mentioned my interest in genealogy, he told me about his great grandfather Ansen Davis from West Haven. I said that I could look to see if I could find out more about the Davis family. I recently wrote a Blog on Fred from the breakfast group. After over 160 Blogs on genetic genealogy, the Blog about Fred was my first on just genealogy. Neither Fred nor Bob have taken a DNA test.

Looking for Ansen

I had thought perhaps Ansen should be spelled Anson. I also thought that Ansen sounded Norwegian, but Bob said the family was from Wales. My first look at Ancestry.com for Ansen Davis produced people all over the US. Then I added that he was from West Haven and got this.

I went a way down this route only to find that this was the wrong Anson Davis family. This is why genealogists go from the present to the past. I should started with Bob’s grandfather rather than his great grandfather.

Wilbur Perry Davis

I just figured out from my notes that Bob mentioned that his grandfather was Wilbur Perry Davis. A search at Ancestry for Wilbur Perry Davis shows this:

This makes more sense as Bob mentioned Maine and West Haven. My guess is that this would be Bob’s grandfather, but let’s check.

Here is Wilbur’s marriage:

Here is the reference:

It appears that Eunice was baptized at this Church3 years before she married Wilbur:

Here is the Wilbur Perry Davis family in 1920 way up in Bangor:

According to this Census, Wilbur was born in New Hampshire as was his dad. His mom was born in Connecticut. Hmm… This also shows Virgil as a daughter, which I would have thought would be a male name.

Here is the Bangor Directory for 1923:

1930 – A Few Changes for the Davis Family

It looks like Wilbur moved to Greenwhich, CT, remarried and had two children by a second wife. Now the wife is Elizabeth born in Missouri. Now Virgil is correctly shown as a son. This even shows a son Wilbur born in Illinois. So a lot happened in 10 years. Wilbur, the head of the household is a salesman, but I can’t quite make out the name of the company.

Who is Wilbur Perry Davis’ Dad?

Here is a family tree clue from Ancestry:

 

Here is the paternal side Bob’s revised Davis Tree. I don’t know anything about Bob’s mother.

Wilbur Perry Davis: The Early Years

It looks like Ansen may have died young. Here is the 1900 Census:

I assume that Wilbur’s mother remarried a Frederick Smith. Wilbur is now listed as a stepson. Perhaps Wilbur’s mother’s maiden name was not also Smith. The 1890 Census was destroyed, so some important information is missing. Wilbur’s step-dad was a carpenter. This couple was married for 10 years as of 1900, so they married around 1890. That means that it is not likely that Wilbur knew his dad.

In 1910, Wilbur was a book keeper for a Wholesale Grocer in Orange:

My guess is that Wilbur had a good step father as Wilbur stayed in the house for quite some time. In 1910, Wilbur’s father is listed as being born in New Hampshire. Going back to check the 1930 Census, Wilbur’s father is said to be born there also.

Back to Ansen Davis

I still know little about Ansen. I did learn that Wilbur was born in Lee, NH. Ansen appears to have died when his son Wilbur was quite young.

Here is Lee:

Backing In To Ansen Via Alice

Let’s look at Wilbur’s mother Alice. Remember the 1900 and 1910 Censuses. That showed a Frederick J(?) Smith married to an Alice I(?). I see this promising record at FamilySearch.org. It has Fred and Alice’s daughter Eva:

My working theory is that Ansen married Alice Kelley and had Wilbur. Ansen died. Alice remarried Fred and Fred adopted Wilbur. All these middle initials and details play an important part in the research. Another thing I notice about Alice is that she was born in Connecticut but both her parents were born in England.

Summary at Mid-Point

  • First I found a few Anson Davises in the West Haven area. They were well documented and had a farm in Oxford, CT.
  • So far I have found no connection between Bob and this Connecticut Anson Davis family except by name
  • Bob’s grandfather Wilbur Perry Davis is fairly well documented. However, I am having trouble finding a birth record to confirm that he was indeed born in Lee, NH.
  • I have so far found no primary record linking Wilbur Perry Davis to Ansen Davis

Concerning the last point (and perhaps second), here is a Social Security record for Wilbur’s son Benjamin Anson:

I mention this because Wilbur’s first son’s middle name was Anson. This would be one of the only physical links I have found to the name Anson (or Ansen). There is also one family tree reference at Ancestry, but that lists the name as Benjamin Ansin Davis.

More on Wilbur Perry Davis

In order to find out about Wilbur’s father, we should find out more about Wilbur. This could be a record of his daughter, Elizabeth:

Could Eunice have been named for Wilbur’s first wife? And Possibly the E in the Mary E Chamberlain could be the Elizabeth I had previously for Wilbur’s second wife. Apparently so. Here is Wilbur’s entry in the 1930 Greenwich directory in bold:

Greenwich is one town to the West of Stamford.

A Major Breakthrough with Anson

After many searches for Ansen/Anson, I tried searching for Ansen Davis born in New Hampshire at FamilySearch.org. I came up with a lot of good information.

It was beginning to be a personal thing between Anson and me and I was determined to find him. Here he is as Anson B. Davis. I think he works at Shoesmith(?). Now I’m getting somewhere. I have a whole family with parents and children. They were living in Durham, NH in 1880. Not only that, according to this Census, Levi’s parents were both born in New Hampshire.

Just to be confusing, there appears to be another Anson B. Davis living in Farmington, NH in the same year – 1880. I don’t know who he is. He also works in a shoe shop. Is it possible that Anson was enumerated more than once?

This appears to be the record of Anson’s death:

I would have thought that Anson’s mother would be Lucy, but perhaps Lucy was Levi’s second wife. It is sad that Anson died so young. This also shows his birthplace as Nottingham, NH.

This is the document that I first found that appears to pull it all together.

Unfortunately, Anson had a son named Levi, apparently named for Anson’s father that died young. This clearly shows that Allice J. Kelley was the mother and Anson was the father. This confirms some of my research above. Interestingly, Allice Kelley was born in No. Waterbury, CT and Levi was born in Ansonia CT. This means that this family must have moved from CT to NH in 1886. Or, Allice went to Ansonia temporarily that year for the birth of her son, Levi.

Here is the marriage record for Levi and Henrietta:

It looks like there was some confusion as to the year of marriage. Here is the birth record for Henrietta:

Levi’s birth record appears to say that he had a Davis mother and father.

Now we can see more of Bob’s father’s tree:

This should get us to about the year 1800 in Nottingham, NH.

Here is the death record for Levi:

This shows that Levi’s mother was not a Davis, but a Burnham from New Durham, NH.

1857 Nottingham Map

Here is a spot where the Davis families likely lived in 1857:

Now compare that map with the 1860 Census:

  • J.E. Fernald is John E.
  • J. Davis I would have thought would be Jacob Davis, but perhaps Levi Davis is living here now. Perhaps Jacob passed away prior to 1860
  • Rev A Tuttle is Alexander Tuttle and father in law of Levi Davis. His occupation on the census appears to stand for First Baptist Clergyman
  • A Lucy is likely Alexander Lucy

That means that one of Bob’s ancestor was a Baptist Pastor.

The 1850 Census clears things up a little:

This brings us to the 1700’s for the Davis family. The Sarah in the 1860 Census was actually the daughter of Jacob, probably living in her father’s house.

The Tuttle Family

Here is an excerpt from a 1906 called “The Native Ministry of New Hampshire”

Genealogy gets easy when an ancestor is a bit famous. Here, we see that F.B. was actually Free Baptist. Browsing on Google, it appears that the Free in the name could refer to Free Will, an issue of theology relating to Arminianism. I note that there was also a Calvin Baptist Church in Nottingham which I suppose held an opposing view.

The Tuttle family is further documented in this book:

The Freewill Baptists and Anson

Is this reference more than a coincidence? This is from the same book on the history of Nottingham and mentions Rev. Ebenezer Scales:

Anson is a Town in Maine where there was a quarterly meeting of the Freewill Baptists. Hmm…

While I’m on the topic of Anson, his son Wilbur Perry Davis thought that his father was from Lee, NH. Lee is close to Nottingham:

The Free Baptist Church is above the large ‘M’ on the map for reference.

Anson’s New Hampshire Tree

This is just a skeleton. For example, I know the father of Stoten Tuttle but haven’t written that in.

Summary

  • There are more Anson’s out there than I knew
  • I had never heard of the name Stoten until now
  • Bob is descended from a Freewill Baptist Minister, Alexander Tuttle
  • The Tuttle’s were a prominent family in early Nottingham, NH
  • Less has been written about the Davis family, but they were apparently early residents of Nottingham, NH also
  • It doesn’t hurt to come up with theories on ancestors when all the facts aren’t known. Further information will show those theories to be right or wrong
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Men’s Breakfast Genealogy: Fred

On Tuesday mornings, I go to breakfast with some men. I mentioned that my hobby is genealogy one morning and a few shared some of their backgrounds and brick walls. One the men is Fred.

Fred’s German Heritage

Fred tells me his dad was born March or May 8th 1895 in Holzminden, Germany. I’m having a bit of trouble reading my scribbly notes. Fred’s dad was Walter Ulbricht(?) Reuter. As we are in the 21st century, that means that Fred’s dad was born 2 centuries ago. Fred asked me what was a good genealogy site. I said Ancestry. The first thing I did at Ancestry was to create a family tree for Fred. It just has Fred and Walter right now. Usually, when I create a tree hints pop right up. This time that didn’t happen. I guess that I stumped Ancestry.

It would have helped if I had asked Fred when and where he was born. Ancestry has a Search button which is helpful. I know Fred’s wife’s name and where he lives, so I added that in. Ancestry gave some telephone information from around the year 2,000. Now I know that Fred is actually Frederick R. That narrows down things a little.

Searching for Walter at Ancestry

I had better luck finding Walter at Ancestry.

It turns out that the US Government was very thorough in getting everyone’s name for World War II. Now I see where Walter lived in 1942 and that he was born in May and not March. And if we could go back in time, we could call him on an old-fashioned telephone. I also at least know the first name of Walter’s wife – Anna Marie. Speaking of Anna Marie, here is her marriage record from the Episcopal Diocese Records of Newark, New Jersey:

As I see a 1927 under the record, my guess is that they married in December, 1926. When I added this record to Fred’s tree, I noticed that Ancestry added parents for Walter. I had to turn the page on the marriage record to find this:

They say in genealogy every solution causes two more problems. Here are Fred’s grandparents: Ernst Reuter and Augusta Grote(?); and Richard Wolf and Anna Fritsch(?). The penmanship is actually quite good. Interestingly, Anna’s witness was also a Fritsch. Now the Ancestry computer cogs are turning and they think they have some clues as shown by the green leaves:

However, they don’t seem so sure about Walter’s parents.

Two Ancestry Hints for Walter

The two Ancestry hints for Walter were the 1930 and 1940 US Census. Here is Walter in 1940 with a young child:

Now I see that Anna Marie was from Austria. Fred did mention the Austria-Hungarian Empire to me.

The 1930 Census is important as it gives immigration information:

Walter was a recent immigrant of only about a year and his wife arrived in the country 1915.

Back to the Old Country

Next, I did a search for Walter’s dad Ernst at Ancestry:

This was the first record that popped up at Ancestry. It certainly seems like the right couple. And they were married in time to have Walter in 1895. We have a lot of new basic information here. Now we know when Ernst was born and married and where he was born and married.

Some German Geography

Before I rush into the past with more dates and names, I thought it would be a good idea to look into some geography. Where is Holzminden and Oerlinghausen?

Oerlinghausen is at the top left of the map and Holzminden is the bottom right outlined in red. Apparently Holzminden is a town and a district.  The 5 mile scale is also at the bottom right of the map. I suppose these two Towns were 30 or so miles from each other. Here is a street view of Holzminden:

Holzminden had a large prisoner of war camp during World War I. It was famous for having the largest POW escape of British Soldiers during that War. Here is the prison complete with prisoners and guards:

Here is Oerlinghausen:

My guess is the church in the photo could be where Ernst and Auguste wed. Apparently between 1888 and 1895 the family moved to Holzminden.

The Wolf and Fritsch Families

Now I wonder if we can find out more about Fred’s Austrian side. As I mentioned, the Wolf family came to the US before Walter Reuter. That means that they should show up in the 1920 Census.

So far, all of Fred’s information was right. He told me his mom was from what is now the Czech Republic. That would have been referred to as Bohemia in 1920. As a bonus, Anna Fritsch’s parents are living in the house. They arrived in the US 4 years after the Wolf Family.  I had some trouble finding information on this side of the family. Here is the death record for Joseph Fritsch:

It looks like Anna was born a year after Josef and died 16 years after her husband in 1937. They were buried in the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Totowa, NJ.

It appears that Richard Wolf, Sr. was a diminutive man. Here is a physical description from his WWII Draft Registration:

Ellis Island

I was ready to give up on Fred’s maternal side, then I checked FamilySearch. That is the web site run by the Mormons. I told Fred that they had good genealogical resources. A search for Fred’s mom’s family at FamilySearch pointed me to the Ellis Island web site. Fred had told me his parents came through Ellis Island.

This manifest shows Fred’s mother Anna Wolf traveling to the US with her mother Anna and brother Richard. Importantly, it mentions that the family was from Karlsbad, Austria. The contact from where they moved from was Joseph Fritsch (Anna’s dad). He lived in a specific part of Karlsbad which I have trouble reading: Schulgadfe(?).

According to Wikipedia:

Karlsbad may refer to:

The right answer appears to be in the first bullet. It should be recalled that this trip took place during the first year of World War I. I would imagine that travel would have been difficult at that time. On the second page of the manifest, they needed to show where they would live. They would be living in Paterson, NJ with her husband.

This shows that the mother Anna and her son, Richard were born in Landau(?). The daughter Anna was born in Eger.

More Geography

Karlsbad in the current Czech Republic is close to Germany.

If I have Landau right, it is closer to France than the Czech Republic:

When I look up Eger, I get that it is in Hungary.

If I have it right, then Anna Fritz and her son Richard Wolf were born in Landau, Germany. Then the family moved to Eger, Hungary where Anna Wolf was born. Then the family moved to Karlsbad. However, there may be other explanations. Ancestry mentions a Landau, Austria.

This location seems more consistent than Landau, Germany as all these locations were in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This must be a small Town as I haven’t found out much about it, except that it  “… is a town in the Steiermark region of Austria”.

Back to Richard Wolf

When I last left Richard’s wife Anna, she was traveling to New York City via Rotterdam with her two children Richard and Anna. She had left the Austro-Hungarian Empire which was where World War I had started. In 1915, the War had been going on for one year, but the US was not to enter the War until 1917. So whatever the reason for their move to the US, it seemed like the outcome would be a good one.

I was able to find a passport application for Fred’s Uncle Richard Wolf, Jr. He was able to confirm my suspicion that he was born in Austria aka Czechoslovakia:

This passport application was filled out in 1922. It also gives important information about his naturalization papers which may come in handy.

I couldn’t make all of this out, but the clear part shows that he intended to visit with relatives in Czechoslovakia.

Fred’s tree looks like this:

You might say the brick wall is at Richard Wolf, Sr. I’d like to learn more about him.  I did find a passport extension for Richard, Jr. This one was actually typed, which is an improvement. Now rather than Landau, it looks like Richard, Jr. was born in Sandau, Czechoslovakia.

This appears to be closer to Karlovy Vary, aka Karlsbad. Richard, Jr. who was 22, planned to stay in Germany to study engineering:

Does Fred resemble his maternal Uncle Richard?

Here is Mittweida, where Richard, Jr. lived – not far from the present Czech Republic:

Back to the Reuter Side

It looks like Walter Reuter traveled to Germany a few times. He sailed from Hamburg to New York in 1924 before he was married. At that time, he said he would be staying with his cousin Hattie Grote in Fredericksburg, Texas. He sailed from Hamburg to the US on August 28, 1929. He was listed as a merchant with his last residence in Traventhal, Germany. In 1936, he visited Germany with his wife.

Here is where I stopped with Fred’s tree:

The Grotes and Reuters that I found were all from Oerlinghausen.

Summary

Fred had a good idea of where his parents’ families were from. Fred has a very German background. Even those that were from Bohemia or Austria appear to have German names. Fred’s ancestry is tied up in World War I. This is around the time that many of his ancestors came to the US.

Fred’s father took many visits to Germany and lived there in between his time of living in the US. I am not sure if he ever became a citizen. On the trip he took to Germany in 1936, his wife shows as a US citizen but it is not clear that Walter was.

Fred tells me that his father got a PhD in Germany. After publishing this Blog, Fred sent me a copy:

That is something to be proud of. Fred tells me the PhD was in Political Science.

The earliest of Fred’s ancestors that I could find lived in Oerlinghausen, Germany. Here is another map with Oerlinghausen pointed out:

And remember, Fred’s maternal grandmother lived in Sandau, not Landau.

 

 

 

 

 

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Visual Phasing: My Father in Law’s Chromosome 22

Looking through the visual phasing of my father in law’s family, I notice I am missing a map for Chromosome 22. Chromosome 22 is the easiest and hardest Chromosome to visually phase. It should be the easiest because it is the shortest Chromosome and should have the fewest number of crossovers. It should be the most difficult because it should have the fewest cousins matches. I assume that I haven’t visually phased Chromosome 22 because of the hard part.

Gedmatch One to One Comparisons

To do visual phasing, I need to compare my late father in law Richard to his two sisters in the Gedmatch Chromosome browser. Here is how Richard matches one of his sisters, Lorraine:

This shows that Richard matches his sister Lorraine all along the Chromosome except for a little segment between 43.6M and 43.8M. Hopefully this is accurate. Other comparisons should bear this out. By comparing siblings, we are looking at how many grandparents’ DNA they share. Green means that Richard and Lorraine share two grandparents’ DNA. More specifically, they share one maternal grandparent and one paternal grandparent.

Yellow means they share one grandparent on a maternal or paternal Chromosome and don’t share the grandparent on the opposite Chromosome. For example, if they share the DNA from a maternal grandparent, that means that they don’t share DNA from the same grandparent on the paternal Chromosome. This is all important information for visual phasing.

Finally, above the break in the solid blue line above is a red area. That means that in that little segment, Richard and Lorraine share DNA from neither of their grandparents. This is important information. Richard’s paternal grandparents are Butler and Kerivan. His maternal grandparents are LeFevre and Pouliot. So say Richard gets his DNA from Butler and LeFevre in that red area. That means that Lorraine must get her DNA from Kerivan and Pouliot in the red area. Those are the rules for Visual Phasing.

Next I put the three comparisons into Excel.

Then I look for changes in the colors on the Chromosome Browser. These changes should come in pairs. The first two changes are in the first two bars. The colors go from green to yellow. That means that the shared DNA goes from two grandparents to one. Lorraine’s name is associated with both those comparisons, so we say that Lorraine has a crossover there. A crossover is where Lorraine’s DNA changes. Before the crossover, she is getting DNA from one grandparent, and after the crossover, she is getting her DNA from another grandparent.

Again, these crossovers show up in pairs. A top/top pair assigns the crossover to Lorraine. A top/bottom pair goes to Richard. A bottom/bottom pair of changes assigns the crossover to Virginia. Above, Lorraine and Virginia got 2 crossovers each and Richard got three crossovers.

Next, I show the two Chromosomes that everyone has – in this case for Chromosome 22. Unfortunately, I don’t know which side is maternal and which side is paternal at this point.

These two copies of Chromosome 22 are blank for each sibling right now, but I’ll fill them in with four colors representing the DNA they got from each of their 4 grandparents. When the DNA changes from Butler to Kerivan on the paternal copy, for example, that is where the crossover is for a particular sibling.

Visual Phasing

Richard and Lorraine share a large green area. That means that they got the same DNA from one grandparent on the maternal side and the same DNA from one grandparent on the paternal side. The DNA from those two shared grandparents will be represented by two colors.

The blue and orange colors represent the DNA that Richard and Lorraine both share from the same grandparents: the same maternal grandparent and the same paternal grandparent. Unfortunately, I don’t know which side is maternal or paternal at this point and which grandparents they share. I just know they share the same grandparents.

Note also that Richard has a crossover at the beginning and end of this colored-in segment. We don’t know if his crossovers are on his maternal Chromosome 22 or paternal Chromosome 22 – or it could be that one crossover is maternal and one is paternal. That means that we will keep his blue and orange segments where they are – for now. However, Lorraine’s first crossover is to the left of the green shared area. That means her blue and orange DNA segments can move to her first crossover. The same segments can also be moved to the right up to Lorraine’s next crossover. No crossover means no change in the DNA.

This show that Lorraine got two pretty long segments of DNA. Let’s say she got them from Grandparents A and C.

Next we need more grandparents. We only have two out of the four. In the middle of Chromosome 22, notice that Lorraine and Virginia have no match. There is a large break in the dark blue line. That means that in that area, If Lorraine has DNA from Grandparents A and C, Virginia has DNA from grandparents B and D. Now we need two different colors:

To check notice that Richard and Virginia also have no match in a smaller area, therefor they also show two different colors in that area. Virginia has the last crossover, so I move the brown and green segments to that crossover.

Richard and Virginia have a smaller green area starting at position 43.8.

Richard has no crossover that prevent the brown and green segments from going to the end of Chromosome 22. That is as far as we can go with the bright green areas (which are also called Fully Identical Regions or FIRs) and the red non-matching areas. At this point we could look at the yellow areas which are also called Half Identical Regions or HIRs. Or we could look at cousin matches to see if they give any hints. I’ll look at cousin matches.

Cousin Matches

A first cousin should sort out the maternal or paternal side. I pulled up Virginia’s spreadsheet where I have a lot of her matches. On Chromosome 22, I notice 2 of Virginia’s maternal 1st cousins, Joe and Pat:

 

In Virginia’s spreadsheet, I have these positions in pink for Virginia’s maternal side. Next, I checked out some of the matches at Gedmatch and got this:

Here, #1 is John, a nephew. Nephews are not as helpful as they can be related on the maternal or paternal side. Note also that something seems to be going on around 25.4 M. This could be Virginia’s maternal crossover. In fact, I think that is more likely than having four other people having their crossovers there. #2 and #3 are Pat and Joe.  #4 is a maternal 2nd cousin once removed named Sandra. More about her later. Now that I know where there is a likely maternal crossover at 25-1/2M, I’ll go back to the visual phasing.

Visual Phasing HIRs

So far with the visual phasing, everything is equal on the chromosomes. That is because, we have only dealt with FIRs and no matches. HIRs upset that balance and make us choose sides. Because the HIR creates an imbalance of one copy of the Chromosome vs. the other, we only get one shot at doing that. I don’t know if my reasoning is right, but because I have some information already for the left side of the Chromosome (Sandra), I will choose an HIR on the right side. I will choose the small HIR Lorraine and Virginia have starting at 43.5M.

Here on one copy of Lorraine’s Chromosome 22, the blue goes to brown while the other copy remains orange. Next, I see that Lorraine has no more crossovers, so I can move the DNA colors over to the right.

In addition, Lorraine and Virginia have an FIR on the right, so I can copy Lorraine’s colors onto Virginia’s maternal and paternal side. Now I have a lot of Chromosome 22 mapped out, but I still don’t know which side is maternal and which is paternal. Here is how Pat matches with Virginia, Richard and Lorraine:

Remember that Pat is a maternal cousin. It is important to note that Pat matched Virginia and Richard but not Lorraine. The yellow pattern of Pat matching Virginia and Richard matches the green above that I mapped out. That tells me that green and orange are the maternal side and brown and blue are the paternal side.  So thanks to Patricia, my in-law’s have identified maternal and paternal sides. Yay.

Next I bring back some cousin matches:

I had guessed that Virginia had to have a maternal crossover due to cousin matches at about position 24.5M. #4 above is Sandra. She is one of my in-law’s top maternal Gedmatch matches. She also is a match at AncestryDNA. She doesn’t have a public tree but she told me who their common ancestors are:

 

Sandra is a 2nd cousin once removed to Lorraine, Richard and Virginia. As such, they share only one of my in-law’s grandparents’ lines which is LeFevre.

Here is how Sandra matches Virginia and Richard:

Now I can add in LeFevre in the green segments.

Once I know green is LeFevre, then orange has to be Pouliot.

Next, I was pretty sure that Virginia had a maternal crossover at 25.5. Knowing that, I can fill in the rest of the puzzle:

  • Note that on the left had side of Chromosome 22, there are three FIRs in a row going from top to bottom. That means the three siblings have their DNA from the same two grandparents. They all have Pouliot on the maternal side and either Butler or Kerivan on the paternal side.
  • The maternal side is French Canadian.
  • The paternal side is Irish.
  • There aren’t as many paternal cousins matches to fill in the blue and brown as there are maternal matches. I’m looking for cousin matches to fill in the blanks
  • Virginia has DNA from only one paternal grandparent shown in reddish brown.
  • Lorraine has DNA from only one maternal grandparent – Emma Alphonsine Pouliot
  • There will be parts of the Chromosome where there is no DNA representation from one grandparent. For example, no one got green LeFevre DNA at the beginning of the Chromosome. No sibling got blue paternal grandparent DNA at the beginning or at the end of Chromosome 22.

 

 

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Tracking Some Howorth/Howarth DNA from Bacup, Lancashire

My Hartley ancestors came from Trawden, Lancashire. They were hand loom weavers. Due to the industrialization of weaving, hand loom weaving became obsolete. At that point, the family moved to Bacup, Lancashire where there were weaving mills. There, my ancestor Greenwood Hartley married a local Bacup girl named Ann Emmet. Ann Emmet was the daughter of Esther Howorth b. 1800 and Isaac Emmet. My web page on the Howorth family mentions that she was born either at Nun Hills, Bacup which I identified on a map or Nothill, Bacup. So there is some confusion with names within Bacup.

Anne from Australia: DNA Match and Howarth Descendant

Anne is about the perfect DNA match. She has a tree at Ancestry. She has uploaded her results to Gedmatch.com and she is from Australia. Being from Australia is important. That is because, as I live in Massachusetts, it is not likely that the match is on one of my colonial Massachusetts lines. She has her ancestor as Howarth rather than my Howorth, but I don’t think that is a big deal as these names are so close.

Anne’s Genealogy

Anne’s Howarth Line is on her paternal grandmother’s side:

Anne’s Howarth line goes out as far as James Howarth, born 1768. That would be Anne’s 4th great grandfather. This matches up well with my tree:

This is my grandfather’s tree and I also have a James Howorth born 1768. If Anne and I have our trees right, that would make us 5th cousins.

There were a bunch of Howorths born around the time that Esther and Abram or Abraham were baptized. Here is what Ebenezer Particular Baptist Church looked like around the time they were baptized:

For DNA comparisons, I like to draw top-down trees:

Anne is thinking like me and has had a DNA test for her 1st cousin once removed. Those results should be in in about a month. I have other 2nd cousins that have tested for DNA, but have just put Beth in this tree for now as I believe she has a match to Anne. Let’s assume that the tree is right. That would mean that Esther and Abraham were siblings. Ann Emmet and Elizabeth Howarth were first cousins and should have known each other. James Hartley b. 1862 should not have known Fred Taylor as James moved to Massachusetts with his family in 1869 before Fred was born.

Anne’s DNA

Anne matches me and my three sisters on Chromosome 4:

The first three matches are of 15.8 cM. In my view, any match of 15 cM or more is almost certain to be a genuine match. My brother Jonathan doesn’t match there as he is matching on his paternal grandmother’s side (Frazer) at that location.

Mapping Anne’s DNA Match to My Chromosome Map

That means that I can map that Chromosome 4 segment to either Abraham Howorth or his wife Mary. As I don’t know from which ancestor it came from, I can say one of those parents gave that DNA to their daughter, Esther Howorth b. 1800 for sure. So I will map that Chromosome 4 segment to her:

This is not a big segment that is added in lighter blue, but it about doubles what I had already on Chromosome 4. Also it goes back in time three generations from what I had belonging to either James Hartley or Annie Snell shown in darker blue.

Anne’s Chromosome 8 – We Have Triangulation

Here is how Anne matches some of my relatives on Chromosome 8:

These matches are with Joyce (1), Beth (2) and Patricia (3). I already mentioned Joyce and Beth above. Patricia is Beth’s first cousin and my 2nd cousin. For this to be a Triangulation, Joyce has to match Beth and Patricia and Patricia has to match Beth on this same segment. That is quite likely.  Here is how Joyce matches Beth and Patricia on Chromosome 8:

This is definitely a Triangulation Group. That Group can be visualized this way:

I should note that there a few other of my second cousins that did not match Anne. The point is that it takes a few people testing to get these triangulating results when the common ancestors are born in the 1700’s.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Anne’s combination of where she lived, her DNA matches at Gedmatch.com and Ancestry and her good family tree all helped in this analysis
  • My match with Anne gave me a new mapping area on the paternal side of my Chromosome 4.
  • Anne’s matches would also supply some good mapping for Joyce, Beth, Patricia and my sisters as well as for Anne herself.
  • My conclusion is that the DNA triangulation shown above gives pretty convincing evidence that Esther Howorth b. 1800 and Abraham Howorth b. 1814 were siblings.
  • Now all we have to do is to figure out who Mary is that was married to James Howarth.

 

 

 

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Edward and the Dicks Family Autosomal DNA

My last Blog was about Edward and his Newfoundland Dicks YDNA. In this Blog, I’ll look at the autosomal side of Edward’s DNA.

Edward’s Newfoundland Genealogy

Edward descends from Christopher Dicks who was believed to be from Harbour Buffett, born 1812:

This Christopher was believed to be the son of another Christopher who was born around 1784. The 1784 Christopher had many children and their ancestors have had their DNA tested. I have been trying to tie that DNA as best I can back to Christopher. This is somewhat complicated by intermarriages. My wife has also tested. She is the daughter of Joan. Esther is a half Aunt of Joan and has Dicks on her father and mother’s side. By this chart, Edward is Esther’s 2nd cousin, once removed, Joan’s third cousin and my wife Marie’s third cousin, once removed.

Edward’s Dicks DNA

Here is Edward’s match with Esther:

The estimated number of generations to their common ancestor is about what one would expect for a 1st cousin once removed. That could mean that Edward and Esther share ancestors outside of their Dicks ancestors shown above.

Here is Edward’s match with Joan:

Joan and Edward also share more DNA than expected. The 3.5 generations estimated to a common ancestor would usually indicate a 2nd cousin once removed. However, this is still within normal ranges. Also note that Joan shares some DNA with Edward that Esther does not. See Chromosome 6, for example.

My wife, as expected also got a little more DNA than average for a 3rd cousin once removed:

The DNA that Esther, Joan and Marie share with Edward should represent the DNA shared with Christopher Dicks b. 1812 and his wife Elizabeth. This is especially true for Joan and Marie. Remember I said that Esther has a Dicks ancestor on her maternal side, so this is a complicating factor.

The Autosomal Matrix for Dicks Descendants

I’ll do a multiple kit analysis at Gedmatch with 24 descendants of Christopher Dicks b. 1784. Then I put the results in a matrix:

I’m quite happy with the results as all the Christopher Dicks descendants scored well (inside the bold box). Everyone is well behaved. Hayley has slightly lower scores with Joan but that is expected as she is one generation removed from Edward, Barry and Joan. Edward has some notable matches outside the Christopher Line of around 100 cM with Molly and Ken that could be worth pursuing. I’m still a bit puzzled with the large match that Ken has with Esther.

Triangulating

Next I take all the specific segment matches between the 24 Dicks descendants and compare them to each other. Actually, I have done this already for 23 of the Dicks descendants, so I need to look to see what difference Edward makes in all these comparisons. Now we will be unlocking the secrets of Edward’s genetic past. The say something like that on the Finding Your Roots TV show that I watch.

Triangulation Group (TG) Chromosome 5

The first significant TG is see is at Chromosome 5. It looks like this in spreadsheet form:

Gedmatch repeats the matches, so each match shows up twice. Here we see that Esther, Edward and Joan all match each other.

It would be logical to assume that the common ancestors for this TG are Chritopher, born about 1812 and his wife Elizabeth. The theory is that the TG points to only one ancestor, so the DNA for this TG is only from Christopher or Elizabeth. So, what about Hayley? She is not in the TG. She shows as matching Pauline who is also not in the TG. That tells me that their match is coming from a different direction. Hayley does have Christopher and Elizabeth as ancestors, but Pauline does not. We would have to look for another common ancestor that these two have. Pauline is on the Dicks/Joyce Line.

Grace, Dorothy and Catherine are all from the Dicks/Adams line, so it could be likely that they are matching on that line only.

A nested TG on Chromosome 5

This next TG on Chromosome is a little more complicated:

In my previous work on Dicks DNA, I had noted the TG with Wallace, Judy, Katherine and Cathy. I also had Nelson in there, so I probably lowered some thresholds for that. This time, there is also a TG with Edward, Esther and Barry above, and Edward is added to the TG below. I interpret this as meaning that the top TG harks back to Christopher and Elizabeth and the second one is for the elder Christopher b. 1784 and his wife Margaret.

This should be an interesting visual:

The black TG is the first TG that is more recent (Christopher of the early 1800’s). The second TG goes back to the elder Christopher (from the late 1700’s) and wife in red. Edward is in both TGs. My strong guess is that the red TG is truly a TG for Christopher and Margaret. This is because the DNA is coming from four of the children. It is possible, but not likely that each of these four lines has a common ancestor with a surname other than Dicks.

Why is Edward in two TGs and Barry and Esther only in one. I can only guess. My guess is that Edward inherited DNA from Christopher b. 1784 and Margaret. Perhaps Esther and Barry inherited DNA from only Christopher or Margaret. Any more guesses would make my brain hurt too much, so I’ll stop there.

TG Chromosome 6

There is a similar situation on Chromosome 6.

At the top, there is Grace, Sandra and Dorothy. They are from the Elizabeth Dicks/Thomas Adams Line. Katherine, also a part of that line, pops in below. Wallace, Judy, Molly and Howie are in the Rachel Dicks/James Joyce Line.  So picture these Dicks line outside of the highlighted TGs.  The highlighted TG could be one TG where Cathy opts out and decides to start matching Cheryl. Edward opts into the TG not far from where Cathy opts out. The other way to look at it would be like the previous TG. Barry, Edward and Hayley all have Christopher b. 1812 and his wife as ancestors.

Well, that’s pretty ugly. In this situation, I’m not sure if Cathy, Barry, and Hayley might not have another common ancestor. My best guess right now is that I have the ancestors right.

another brain twister on chromosome 6

 

Here Edward is in the middle of two new TGs. Edward matches Esther and Pauline in one TG and Joan and Ken in the other. Here are the two TGs in a Chromosome Browser from Edward’s point of view:

  1. Esther
  2. Pauline
  3. Joan
  4. Ken

We know that neither of these TGs have Christopher b. 1812 and his wife in them. That is because, as far as we know, Pauline and Ken do not have these two as ancestors.

I have shown in the past from DNA that Esther and Joan have Crann in their ancestry. One place where Crann may have come in could be that the Margaret that married the Christopher in the top red circle was a Crann. That would make the red TG a Crann TG and the yellow one a Dicks TG. Again, it is a bit of wild speculation, but it does help explain why Ken has such large matches with other Dicks. He is likely related on many lines.  Note above that he descends from a Dicks/Crann Line.

Cathy and TG7

Cathy was in a TG above with Barry and Haley on Chromosome 6. Here she is in a TG with Edward and Esther:

This makes me wonder what Cathy has in common with Edward, Esther, Barry and Haley. I see by her family tree that she had Harbour Buffett ancestors.

One or two new TGs Chromosome 9

This was a little difficult to see, so I hid some of the duplicate matches:

Aah, the mysteries of DNA. There is one good thing about my mother in law being in TGs. She is a half niece to her Aunt Esther, so that cuts down on some of the possible lines. Below is Esther’s family tree. Joan is only related on Esther’s paternal side which includes those ancestors within the red box.

The bad news is that there are a ton of gaps in the tree. The only two surnames I have for sure are Upshall and Dicks. Plus it is difficult to be sure about the two oldest Dicks families on the tree. The point is that the TGs on Chromosome 9 have to be on the top part of the tree highlighted in red.

TG10

Esther and Edward have at least one ancestor in common with Ken who is from the Dicks/Crann Line:

TG11 Christopher b. 1812

 

TG13 – Dorothy from the Adams Line

 

I must be near the end.

TG14 – back to home base and Christopher

 

This is all solidifying that Joan, Edward and Esther have the same relatively recent common ancestors.

TG18 on the Adams Line with Grace and Nelson

TG19 – With Wallace and Judy on the Joyce Line

 

Those are all the TGs. Now I just need to summarize them.

TG Matrix

The matrix is getting big, so I will have to show it in two screen shots. I hid a few of the people. One person, I don’t see in Gedmatch anymore. Sandi was in only one TG and Forrest was in none. I hid Clayton as he is unsure of his Dicks ancestry.

Assuming that all these TGs represent Dicks, we should be amassing quite a bit of information on the various Dicks Lines and for their parents Christopher Dicks and his wife Margaret. In fact, I show at least one triangulated segment for each chromosome.

Filtered TG matrices

Here I filtered just by Edward’s TGs:

Esther:

Joan:

Finally, the Matrix filtered for Ken’s TGs:

This further shows Ken’s affinity to the Christopher Line by TGs.

I’ve gone on way too long, so it’s time to quit.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Edward has contributed a substantial amount of information to the Newfoundland Dicks DNA Project
  • Edward is clearly in the same group as Esther, Joan, Barry and Hayley and has formed many new TGs
  • The arrival of DNA results recently for Edward, Barry and Hayley has more than doubled what was available for the Christopher DIcks b. 1812 descendants.
  • Ken continues to play an interesting part in his matches and TGs
  • Filtering the TG Matrix showed some promise. It appears that Ken is more closely related to Joan than to Edward based on filtering.  However, Ken showed up most in Edward’s TGs other than TGs Edward had within the Christopher Line.
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Edward and the Dicks Family YDNA

I recently had an email from Edward. He had found my Blogs on Dicks DNA via Google. He had done a lot of Dicks genealogy in the past and now has had his DNA tested. That is great news. Edward is someone with a great knowledge of Dicks genealogy and has tested his Autosomal and YDNA.

First, Dicks YDNA

Seeing as I knew nothing up until now about Dicks YDNA, I’ll start with that. Edward is R-L371. That needs a bit of explanation. In very broad strokes, that shows that the branch of Dicks that we are looking at is R1b > L21 > L371. L21 is an interesting branch. L21 has been called the Celtic branch. This may be inaccurate, but to me it typifies the old inhabitants of the British Isles. As you know, the British Isles have been invaded by many different groups. I suppose you can say the L21’s are the invaded rather than the invaders of the British Isles.

Here is L371 on the L21 Tree:

This is from an outmoded tree. The creator of the tree gave up updating it in 2015 as so many L21 branches have been discovered. You will notice that some groups have more branches than others. L371 has very few branches. YFull tracks (for a fee) branches for people that have taken the BigY YDNA test or equivalent.

The interesting thing about the YFull Tree is that it gives dates. It shows that R-L371 was formed 4300 years ago. However, it has R-Y15149 right under it formed only 350 years ago. That is a long time span.

For R1b, Alex Williamson’s Tree is another resource. This tree also analyzes BigY testers.

I erased the ID’s for privacy. From the above, it looks like there are three L371 people that have taken the BigY test and uploaded to the Big Tree. This shows that McKee and Stewart share one variant (with a number) and two SNPs. SNPs are the ones starting with letters, like BY11922. If two Dicks descendants were to take the Big Y test, it would be likely that a new SNP would be found that would be unique to the Dicks family.

STRs Vs SNPs

I started out discussing SNPs above as they are more certain than the STRs. SNPs are Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms. The Single is the important word and it means that they are singular or unique. STR stands for Short Tandem Repeat. A repeat is a number of copies of a position at your YDNA that gets repeated more or less due to a mutation. Because the value of the STR can go up or down over time, this makes for some ambiguities.

STRs and SNPs have an interesting interplay. For example, STRs are used to estimate a SNP, then SNPs are further tested for verification. This is unless a BigY or similar test is taken. The BigY finds all your named SNPs and then discovers new or unnamed SNPs which would be named at a future date once someone else tests positive for them. Once one has tested for a SNP or Haplogroup that is as close to the present as can be found, the STRs can be used as a sort of fine tuning within that SNP.

Ed and Harold’s STRs

Ed forwarded me the results of his 111 STR test. 111 STRs are a lot. That is pretty much the maximum number of STRs that people take at FTDNA. Ed also sent me Harold’s 111 STR results. Harold is a Henry Dicks (b. 1774) Line descendant and Ed is a Christopher Dicks (b. 1789) Line descendant.

This came out quite small. Harold is listed first. the value in red is Harold’s Haplogroup. It is in red because this SNP is a very general SNP estimated on his STRs. Ed has the haplogroup or SNP of R-L371 that I mentioned above. This is in green indicating that Ed has tested for that Haplgroup or SNP confirming that he has it. Ed highlighted in yellow the STRs that differed between him and Harold. He noted that there were only 4 out of 111 STRs that were different. That likely means that Harold and Ed share the same Haplogroup of R-L371.

FTDNA L371 YDNA Project

FTDNA has many Projects for surnames and different Haplogroups. I find the Haplogroup Projects to be more helpful. Ed is in the Dicks surname group and the L371 Group. I haven’t seen Harold’s results in either group. Here is the grouping that Ed is in within the FTDNA L371 Group:

Ed is placed with six other YDNA tested people because they have similar STRs. The heading he is under is called Modal 1.3. When I look at the L371 Group description, it says that:

Modal 1, R-L371+                   Represents an early Briton (Celtic?) group found heavily today in Wales and scattered across south England.

The modal for this group is important. The modal is basically the number for the STR that occurs most often. This modal is considered to be the representative number for the group or can be considered the older number. The colored numbers are the ones that deviate from the Modal. So in this case, I take the modal to be the modal for the group that consists of Thomas, Monroe, Reese, Phillips and Dicks. As there are five different surnames, I am guessing that this group has been around since before there were surnames in that area. That area probably being Wales according to the information above.

A Dicks YDNA Signature STR

A signature STR would be a set of STRs that would define the Dicks surname. I looked at the places where Ed and Harold were different than the Modal 1.3. It turns out these were the STRs that Ed and Harold were different from each other:

The exception was for DYS534. However, without Harold, the Modal was tied between 15 and 17. With Harold added the modal would have been 17, so I’ll leave that one out. Assuming that the Mode is the older, that means that Ed would have the older STRs for DYS449, CDY and DYS710. Harold would have the older STR for DYS549. Another point is that the STRs in maroon are the faster moving STRs.

A Simple Dicks STR Tree

Here is one guess of how a STR tree could be drawn for the Dicks family including Harold from the Henry Dicks Line and Ed from the Christopher Dicks Line.

Keep in mind that these trees are not an exact science. This is just one possibility of how to draw a tree. More information would refine this tree. You may wonder why Harold had three STR changes and Ed had only one if they were the same distance from a common ancestor. All I can say is this is pretty typical. DNA seems to have a mind of it’s own. Harold’s first two changes were the fast STRs, so that makes sense. Harold and Ed only had one STR change each for non-fast STRs. Some people even tend to disregard some of the fast moving STRs such as CDY as they can be misleading over a long time period. Another interesting fact is that the difference between the mutation rate of the fastest and slowest mutation STRs could be as much as a factor of 1,000 times.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I didn’t know anything about Newfoundland Dicks YDNA. Now I do.
  • Even though some complicated things happen with YDNA, the changes are confined to one long line going from father to son where all the fathers and sons follow a straight line – in this case Dicks line.
  • The Newfoundland Dicks Haplogroup appears to be R-L371
  • Harold is almost certainly R-L371 based on STR similarities to Edward
  • There is likely at least one haplogroup below R-L371 that would further define the Dicks surname. However, finding new haplogroups requires the BigY or similar testing.
  • In a previous Blog I tied together the Henry Dicks and Christopher Dicks Lines together by looking at autosomal DNA matches. The YDNA matches between Edward and Harold do the same thing in a more precise manner.
  • I’ll look at Edward’s autosomal DNA in an upcoming Blog.

 

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Marie’s Connection to Richard and Newfoundland by DNA

Marie is my wife. Richard is a person on Marie’s Gedmatch match list. In fact,  Richard is, at the time I write this, Marie’s 495th match on her ‘one to many’ match list. Marie and Richard don’t know each other, so how do I know they have a Newfoundland connection?

Marie and Richard’s DNA Match

Marie and Richard’s DNA match looks like this at Gedmatch:

This shows that Richard and Marie share modest amounts of DNA on three of their Chromosomes. By DNA they could have a common ancestor about 5 generations ago. That means that they could be roughly 4th cousins. Marie could have gotten this DNA from her mom or dad, but she got it from her mom, Joan. This is how Richard and Joan match:

Joan shows as 4.3 generations away from Richard. The difference between Joan and Richard and Marie and Richard should be 0.5 generations roughly. This is because Joan is one generation closer to Richard and her common ancestor, but Richard is no closer or further. So it should average out to 0.5 generation difference roughly. Richard and Joan should be about 3rd cousins once removed, or something similar. Now I’ve narrowed down Marie’s match to about half of all her DNA matches.

Marie’s 1/2 Great Aunt Esther

Marie’s Aunt Esther is the key to understanding her match to Richard. Richard and Esther also match by DNA. Both of Aunt Esther’s parents were from Harbour Buffett, Newfoundland. So if Richard matches Esther, Joan and Marie and Esther, Joan and Marie match each other in the same DNA segment, that means they all have a common ancestor. Here is Richard’s match to Esther:

This shows that Esther, Joan, Marie and Richard only share DNA on Chromosome 11 from about position 12-19 M. That shared DNA would likely represent the common ancestor between Richard, Esther, Joan and Marie. Here is Marie’s family tree up to Aunt Esther:

Fred Upshall’s first wife Elizabeth died in the flu epidemic. Marie descends from Elizabeth. Esther descends from Fred’s second wife Margaret who was also from Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland. Any shared DNA with Joan, Marie and Esther must come from Frederick or one of his ancestors and not from the Shave side. That is how I know that Richard and Marie connect through Newfoundland and more specifically through Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland. Even more specifically, the Upshall side of the Harbour Buffett tree. We have narrowed down Marie’s DNA match with Richard to her mother’s side. Then to Marie’s maternal grandmother, Florence. Next, Marie has eight great grandparents, but we have narrowed down the DNA she shares with Richard to one of her eight great grandparents, Fred Upshall. Put another way, Marie has 2,000 matches on her ‘one to many’ match page at Gedmatch. This would narrow those matches down to 250, on average.

Richard’s Genealogy

So far, I haven’t looked at Richard’s genealogy at all. Richard and Esther have both tested at AncestryDNA. Richard shows as a predicted 3rd cousin to Esther at AncestryDNA. Above, Gedmatch estimated 3.5 generations to a common ancestor. This would be equivalent to a 2nd cousin once removed.

Richard’s Newfoundland side is through his father. Here is Richard’s paternal Newfoundland Line:

Two Trees Together: Where Are the Common Ancestors?

This is the difficult part. The genealogy of Newfoundland is missing much information. Here are Richard’s and Esther’s trees side by side:

Ancestry points out that Richard and Esther have the common Kirby surname. It could be that Joseph and John Kirby were brothers.

The Crann Connection

In a previous Blog, I show a triangulation between Esther, Joan and a Crann back to England. I show that Elizabeth and an Upshall spouse could have come from John Crann, but I now see that they could have come from another child of Henry Crann. I’m sure there are other possibilities.

This is where things get interesting. The John Crann in the diagram above is the same as in Richard’s tree. Remember when I said that Richard, Esther, Joan and Marie all matched on only one segment? That is the same segment represented by the Triangulation Group (TG) in the diagram above:

All I have to do is to see if Richard matches Heather from New Zealand. The good news is that he matches Heather. The bad news is that it is not on Chromosome 11:

Sometimes the DNA doesn’t behave like I would like it to. This could be a case where Richard and Heather are matching on the Collins side and Esther, Joan and Heather are matching on the Crann side (or the other way around). A TG only points to one ancestor. Here is Richard added to the Crann Tree:

In this tree, Richard matches Forrest (his third cousin twice removed):

Richard matches Wayne:

And Heather matches Wayne for a triangulation on a specific segment on Chromosome 8:

What I’d like to make clear is that the line is green is from New Zealand. The line in white is from Newfoundland. The ancestors Henry Crann and Elizabeth Collens were from Netherbury, Dorset, England and their children headed off in opposite directions. So this is a long range triangulation. This helps those with intermarried Newfoundland roots as the New Zealand descendants have just the Crann/Collens ancestors. This makes finding common ancestors easier clearer.

Summary and Conclusion

In this Blog I traced a DNA match between my wife, Marie and Richard. This match went up through Marie’s mom and through a common match with Marie’s 1/2 great Aunt up through one of her eight great grandparents. This greatly narrowed down where the match came from.

Then I looked at common ancestors. Richard and Esther have a Kirby surname in their ancestry, but the Kirby isn’t in Joan and Marie’s ancestry. After that, I looked at the Crann connection that Richard has. This was based on previous DNA work I had done. It turns out that Richard triangulates with Crann descendants from New Zealand that have never had ancestors in Newfoundland. This New Zealand triangulation removes some of the complications of intermarriage in Newfoundland. The Crann connection also confirms the previous work I did showing that there must be a Crann somewhere in the ancestry of Esther, Joan and Marie.

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My Mother in Law’s Ellis DNA and Genealogy

I’ve been Blogging about Genetic Genealogy for over 2 years and I don’t think that I’ve written on my mother in law’s Ellis DNA and Genealogy. I have Blogged about about her mother’s Newfoundland Upshall and Dicks DNA and genealogy, but not the Ellis side.

Joan’s Ellis Ancestors

I have a web page on Ellis genealogy here. The Ellis family started out around Northam, Devon, England:

In 1818, William Ellis, ship builder and husband of Hannah Tawton moved his family to Prince Edward Island. There they had many descendants. William’s great grandson, George Ellis moved to Massachusetts where he married Lillian Ethel Rayner in 1898. He was the grandfather of my mother in law, Joan.

Joan’s DNA

Joan’s second largest Ellis DNA match at Gedmatch is with Melissa:

Gedmatch shows an estimated 3.6 generations to a common ancestor. That would make Joan and Melissa 2nd cousins once removed. Melissa says that she and Joan share common ancestors James Henry Ellis b. 1846 and Clarinda Gorrill. That was easy:

Melissa tells me her mom was from PEI, so that line stayed there a few more generations than my wife’s Ellis family. That would make Melissa a 3rd cousin to my wife, Marie. Of course, now I’m curious as to how Marie and Melissa match by DNA:

Marie got DNA from half the chromosomes where her mom matched Melissa. However, Marie got the smaller match on Chromosome 3 and only part of the match her mom had on Chromosome 17.

Joan’s DNA Match with David

Joan’s top Ellis match at Gedmatch is with David.

I sent an email to the match. The email went to David’s daughter Betty who was working on her dad’s genealogy. She said her paternal grandmother was “Laura Freda MacArthur  from O’Leary Prince Edward Island.” I was able to find Betty’s tree at Ancestry:

I then found another Ancestry tree that showed that Nathaniel was born 1867. It has Nathaniel’s father as Hugh Malcolm MacArthur 1812-1870. Then his father was Malcolm MacArthur b. in Scotland 1783 and died 1865 PEI. The same Ancestry Tree has Marion MacArthur born between 1812 and 1835. The tree has her dad as the same Malcolm MacArthur. Using this Ancestry Tree, I get this connection:

Under this scenario, David and Joan would be 3rd cousins once removed. I would have expected a closer relationship based on the DNA match. Either that is the way the DNA shook out or perhaps Joan and David match on another line. David and Melissa would be 3rd cousins twice removed. Melissa does match David here:

However, the match is less than expected also and not on the same Chromosome. So my theory is not without its problems, but it is better than what I had before.

Joan’s next dna match: Sarah

I found Sarah’s tree on Ancestry:

Here she has Agnes Ellis, George Russell Ellis and Bridget MacArthur. Fortunately James Monroe Ellis appears to be from a different Ellis line. Sarah’s three ancestors I mentioned above are 4 generations from Sarah. She would likely match Joan at Sarah’s generation 5. Joan and Sarah appear to be 4th cousins three different ways.

Joan and Robert’s DNA and Common ancestor match

On Robert’s maternal side, I see William Ellis and his wife Hannah twice again, as well as a MacArthur. In addition, he has the Rayner name.

That could take a while to sort out. The good news is that this is starting to look like a PEI DNA project.

The Rayner connection

Here are Joan’s Rayner ancestors:

Robert above has both a GED and Wiki Tree at Gedmatch. On the GED, Robert shows his 4th great grandfather:

 Edward Rayner, b. 1775, Whittlesford, CAM, ENG, d. 1847, Tiltons Creek, PEI, CAN

This is the same person as Joan’s 3rd great grandfather. That makes Robert and Joan 4th cousins once removed by that line.

Joan’s PEI Common Ancestors

Next, I put all of Joan’s common ancestors for her top PEI gedmatch matches in an Excel Spreadsheet:

These are for David, Melissa, Sarah and Robert. I didn’t check the last two MacArthur/MacDougall ancestors, but I think that there was only one MacArthur family on the Island at the time. Assuming, I am right above, the DNA should agree.

Continuing Down Joan’s Gedmatch List

Joan’s next match is with Dorises. I can’t figure out how she fits in right now, so I’ll skip her. The common ancestor may even be in England. Betty, Daughter of David is in there also, so I’ll skip her. Agnes is next on Joan’s Gedmatch match list. Agnes appears to be the mother of Robert. Her match to Joan is very similar to Robert’s:

However, I would rather use Agnes in the PEI project as her matches with others should be better than the matches her son Robert has.

Joan at FTDNA

Joan’s DNA was taken at FTDNA. That means, I can only see her Ancestry matches if they have uploaded their results to Gedmatch. At FTDNA, I found John. He has no tree, so I sent him an email. He does have in ‘in common’ match with Melissa, so I suspect that he could have PEI genealogy.

The next paternal match for Joan at FTDNA is Glenda. She is listed above Melissa on Joan’s FTDNA match list. Glenda has Ellis, Rayner and MacDougall ancestors. That would make Joan and Glenda 3rd cousins once removed on the Rayner line. They would be half 3rd cousins on the Ellis line. That is because James Ellis married twice. I suspect if there is a MacDougall common ancestor, that would be further out. I can check that out later if I need to.

Here I have sorted the common ancestors into surnames. I have added Glenda and Joan’s common ancestors on the bottom row. Note that the wife of James Ellis b. 1801 is not a common ancestor as he had two different wives (Ramsay and MacArthur). Joan and Glenda are descended from different wives.

Back to Gedmatch

Joan matches Barry next. Barry does not have a tree listed at Gedmatch and has an AncestryDNA Kit number. Here is how he matches Joan:

I noticed that at Chromosome 11, Barry and Joan matched where David and Joan matched. That means that there could be a common ancestor. To find out I triangulate. All that means is that I check to see if Barry and David match each other at the same segment on Chromosome 11.

This shows that even though I don’t have Barry’s ancestry tree, I can tell that David, Joan and Barry have a common ancestor. Based on what I know now, that common ancestor could be MacArthur or MacDougall.

I wrote to Barry and he tells me he does have a MacArthur ancestor. His great great grandmother was Ellen MacArthur. She was born in 1845 or 1846 I suppose based on the age of her death in 1938.

A search for Ancestry Trees shows that Ellen’s dad was likely Hugh Malcolm MacArthur. His mother was Susanna Dyment or Mae Diamond. Hugh’s dad was Malcolm b. 1775.

Note that Barry and David are 2nd cousins once removed. Joan and Melissa are also 2nd cousins once removed, but in a different generation with respect to the MacArthur Line.

Joan and Lee

I had followed up on this match about a year ago. At the time, Lee’s daughter Elizabeth had decided the match could be on the MacArthur name.

Lee’s MacArthur Line appears to go back one more generation:

Here Lee and David are 4th cousins.

Joan’s MacArthur DNA

Joan’s Ellis tree has quickly turned into a MacArthur DNA tree. This is due to the fact that there appear to be many MacArthur descendants and importantly descendants that have had their DNA tested.

I have another Ellis descendant to try to balance out my DNA tree. That is Jane. I have been in touch before and she descends from James Ellis b. 1801. I put Jane on the Ellis tree so she would be easier to see:

It Takes (At Least) Three to Triangulate

Next I want to compare these people to each other. For this I use the Multiple Kit Analysis at Gedmatch. Then I choose the Segment CSV File. This gives me all the matches of everyone to everyone else, including the detailed information. The goal is to find Triangulation Groups (TGs). These will match each other at least three ways. Here is the beginning of my list of matches:

Note under Chromosome 1 that Melissa matches Agnes and Sarah matches Agnes, but Melissa doesn’t match Sarah. How is this? Actually Melissa and Sarah do match, but below the threshold. Usually, it is not advisable to lower the matching threshold, but in the case of TGs, I sometimes do. Here is how Melissa and Sarah match at a threshold of 5 cMs:

What this is telling me is that the following have common ancestors:

  • Melissa, Agnes and Sarah (Chromosome 1)
  • Joan, Sarah, Jane (Chromosome 2)
  • Melissa, Sarah, Agnes (Chromosome 2)
Finding the common ancestor for joan, Jane and sarah

The triangulation is the easy part. Finding the common ancestor is difficult. Let’s look at Joan’s TG as I have the list of common ancestors based on her ancestry:

I’m not sure if this list is complete. Joan’s TG has Joan, Sarah and Jane. That means that the DNA from that TG represents one common ancestor. The common ancestors between Joan, Jane, and Sarah appears to be William Ellis and Hannah Tawton. In fact, Sarah, has William and Hannah in her ancestry twice. I would think that would up the chances of those two being the common ancestors. We can’t know from this whether the TG represents William or Hannah, but we will say Ellis due to naming considerations. Their children who brought the DNA down to the present generation would have been named Ellis. However, what about MacArthur? Jane’s tree shows a Hugh MacArthur married to Nancy Ramsay. This couple is 6 generations from Jane. If I’m counting right, William Ellis and Hannah Tawton are listed as 7 generations from Jane. Now I’m back to the Ancestry trees. It appears that Hugh’s grandfather was probably Hugh MacArthur that married Flora Gillis. They would be common ancestors, but as Hugh was born before 1750, we will say that common ancestor is much less likely.

This common ancestor thing drives me a little crazy as I have to know everyone’s genealogy. I need to add Sarah to my Ellis DNA tree:

This shows that Jane, Joan and Sarah are all 4th cousins to each other. The DNA that they share on Chromosome 2 was likely from either William Ellis or Hannah Tawton. This does not show that Melissa does not belong to this line. If Melissa were to be in this TG, Melissa would have had to have gotten DNA from her mom’s dad Stanley. However, at this particular location, she may have gotten her DNA from her mom’ mom which would have kicked her out of this DNA match.

Also note on the yellow line that Jane descends from the first wife of James Ellis who was a Ramsay. However, that does not really change the common ancestors for Ellis. It would mean that Jane and Joan would not have a MacArthur common ancestor on this line.

Joan’s MacArthur TG on Chromosome 11?

Joan’s other TG with the group I looked at in this Blog is on Chromosome 11:

This shows that Joan, David and Barry have a common ancestor. David and Barry have MacArthur ancestry but not Ellis as far as I know.

Summary and Conclusions

I have started to take a look at Joan’s paternal side PEI DNA to see how she triangulates with others. The others that she matches also have PEI genealogy. For the two TGs that I looked at, one on Chromosome 2 is most likely Ellis/Tawton DNA. The second TG on Chromosome 11 appears to be MacArthur/MacDougall DNA. Using this I could map Joan’s DNA to these ancestors. In addition, other DNA tested people that are in a larger TG in these areas should have Ellis/Tawton or MacArthur/MacDougall genealogy. This is a good way to confirm existing genealogy and to focus genealogy where researcher are unclear on their genealogy. For example, in this Blog, I started out looking at the Ellis name, but the DNA and common genealogies pushed me in the direction of MacArthur.

There were other TGs that Joan was not in that I didn’t look at closely. This is because I am not sure of the different ways that these people may have common ancestors. I have identified some, but there may be others that I don’t know about. It takes a bit of work to look for common ancestors where there are common DNA matches. Where there are multiple common ancestors, this complicates matters.

As a result of this exercise, I have identified new PEI ancestors for my mother in law. These ancestors appear to be confirmed by Ancestry Trees and DNA, but could use further confirmation.