Category: AutoCluster

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My Siblings’ Frazer and McMaster Clusters at Ancestry

In a previous Blog, I looked at some of my own Ancestry Clusters on my Frazer side. One of my conclusions was that my siblings may have better matches than I do.

Heidi and Mabel

I chose Mabel as she has a good match with Heidi:

Here are the clusters:

Here is the 9 match cluster:

As Keith is in this cluster, I will call this a McMaster Cluster. Here is part of my McMaster DNA Tree:

Keith and Heidi are 3rd cousins once removed.

Morgan

Morgan shows this tree:

Fortunately, the McMaster side is best represented. According to Shared Matches, Morgan could be a first cousin once removed to Keith above. I will try to add Morgan to my Ancestry tree.

For another tree, I see that Violet was born in Tobercurry:

It looks like I already have Frances Jane McMaster in my tree:

Here there are two places where I could connect on the McMaster side. Here are the common ancestors I recognize:

It turns out I already had Morgan in my McMaster DNA Tree:

He is a fourth cousin to Heidi and her siblings.

The 11 Match Cluster

This is also a McMaster Cluster:

However, there are many Frazers in there, but they also descend from Margaret McMaster. Whitney is new to this cluster but descends from Margaret McMaster.

The 18 Match Cluster

Here we have a double cluster. The closer relatives are at the bottom right. Keith and Morgan are the McMasters and the others are in the 2nd cousin range of Frazers. The top left are the Frazer only relatives that are more distant.

The 37 Match Cluster

Here is what I see in general:

BV has been added to the first cluster. Here is the connection:

This gets back to an older McMaster/Frazer connection. After looking more closely at some of the matches, I see that this is the way the clusters should sort out:

This means that it looks like Heidi has more Frazer matches with McMaster connections than without McMaster connections. The second box has Jane as the first match. She matches on two Frazer Lines.

From Jane’s tree showing her grandfather, the lines go back to Archibald Frazer and Anee Stinson and Richard Frazer. The most direct route is on the Richard Frazer Line.

Jane is a fourth cousin once removed to my sister Heidi and her siblings. That is through Violet Frazer on our line who married James Frazer.

Gladys is also in that second cluster. She is a third cousin once removed:

The cluster we are looking at is good because it has 2nd, third and fourth cousins in it. There are many unidentified relatives in the clusters also.

The 38 match cluster is very similar to the 37 match cluster.

Jonathan’s Clusters with Faye

Jon is my brother. Jon and Faye have a good match with each other even though they are 3rd cousins:

I don’t know who NF but he must be in the same relationship range as Faye:

Next, we are up to 7 matches:

This adds in Whitney and Stephen. Here they are in my Frazer DNA tree:

Jumping from 7 to 26 Matches

As above, I am seeing a distinction of two types of Frazer. One does not clearly include McMasters and one includes McMasters. For example, here is the last match, Goosie, who descends from William McMaster and Margaret Frazer:

Jeanette

Jeanette is an interesting match with Jon. Here is her paternal side tree:

Fraser in the cluster is Jeanette’s father. One clue at Ancestry is that Robert Johnston married Ann Frazer. I have Ann in my DNA tree:

I would like to add Jeanette to my Ancestry tree and to my DNA tree. Here is Lethbridge where Jeanette has her grandfather passing away:

I don’t find a lot of clues for Jeanette’s grandfather, so I will have to go with her tree.

Here is Jeanette’s great-grandfather in 1931:

Alexander is buried here:

Here is the family in 1901:

Ancestry has this going back to Ann Frazer (as a suggestion):

Here is Clarence in 1881:

I am thinking that Robert Johnson’s first wife had died by this time as the present wife is only 37. When I add in Robert W Johnston, I get another suggestion:

I do notice this record:

That could be why Michael is in a tight group with Fraser and Jeanette:

Michael descends from the Archibald and Anne Stinson Line through John Frazer:

I have that John was a brother of Mary who married William Johnston. It turns out I had this Line of the Archibald DNA Tree also:

I’ll change the color of this line for consistency:

This is part of the Archibald Frazer/Stinson Line. Michael is on the right in the red circle and I have added his sister Susan.

Here is an old chart I just updated by putting a green box on the right to show another relationship to the Johnston Line It shows the three Frazer brothers:

 

There should be another green line on the right for Mary Frazer who married William Johnston. So, if I have it right (and that is a big if):

  • The Johnston Line is under Philip Frazer and Archibald Frazer
  • My Line (blue) is under Philip Frazer and Richard Frazer
  • I’m not sure if the purple line is right (Falconer)
  • The duller green line with Jane is under Richard and Archibald Frazer.
  • The yellow line (Frazer/Hazzard) is also under Richard and Archibald Frazer
  • Same with the Fraser-Allen Line in a pinkish hue.
  • The least documented line seems to be the Philip Line. I think it is right based on naming patterns and DNA matches.

Here I have added Jeanette’s Line to my tree at Ancestry:

Here is Jeanette’s Line added under my Philip Frazer DNA Tree:

Here she is on the Archibald Line:

Summary and Conclusions

  • It was helpful to look at my older sister and brother to see what some of their Frazer clusters looked like
  • My brother’s clusters added a Johnston Line that I did not have on my Frazer DNA tree previously. This reminded me that the Johnstons are related through the Archibald Line as well as the Philip Frazer Line.
  • This also helped me to work on the Ancestry Tree to update my Johnston connections.
  • I still have two younger sisters who have tested at Ancestry. They may reveal slightly different clusters.
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Clusters from One of My McMaster and Frazer Lines

From studying Frazer DNA matches, I was able to locate one of my Frazer Branches that was more obscure than my obvious line. Here is the closest way to my Frazer ancestry:

My grandmother was Marion M Frazer and her father was James Archibald Frazer. It appears that James’ father George had two Frazer parents. To confuse things more, James’ mother was a McMaster whose maternal great-grandmother was a Frazer. It is this Frazer/McMaster Line that I would like to look at.

My Match with BV

I have a pretty good match with BV considering that she is a 3rd cousin twice removed. Perhaps because of the different ways we are related. Margaret Frazer was married to William McMaster. The family moved to Ontario from Ireland. However, my ancestor, Fanny remained in Ireland and married yet another McMaster.

My Clusters with BV

Here are the DNA clusters that I have with BV:

Before I get into it, it seems my best DNA tree is on the McMaster side:

A 3 Match Cluster

Sometimes simple is better. Here is Robert:

Robert is from the James McMaster Line I was mentioning above. mt must be Robert’s sister:

Here is part of my McMaster DNA Tree:

I added in mt today.

A 4 Cluster Group between BV and Me

I hope that this cluster will be as easy as the first. ck manages B.V.’s kit and is her daughter. It is not obvious to me how Steven and Alannah fit in. Alannah has a pretty good tree:

Johnston is a name associated with Frazer in Ireland. This could be the connection. I have this connection in my tree:

Catherine could be a daughter of William and Mary or John and Jane.

Moving on to a 20 Match Cluster

Here I see 4 clusters. But clusters three and four overlap on Clif and Cluster 1 and 2 overlap on BV and John. This is not surprising considering the Frazers and McMasters intermarrying in my ancestry.

Cluster 1

This is similar to the 3 match cluster above going back to William McMaster and Margaret Frazer. The difference is the addition of Matthew. I know who Matthew is:

Matthew is my third cousin.

Cluster 2

Matthew gives a hint as to Cluster 2. They should be descended from George Frazer and Margaret McMaster. They are all in my Frazer DNA tree already:

I left out my branch, as those matches would be closer than I set the DNA limits.

Some overlap makes sense as we have a McMaster/Frazer cluster next to a Frazer/McMaster cluster.

Cluster 3

I know who Gladys is:

Our connection goes back to two Frazers. Namely, James and Violet:

Kathryn is first cousin or niece to Sandra:

 

It appears that most of the others that I can’t figure out in this Cluster are close relatives to Sandra and Kathryn.

Next is Clif who straddles Cluster 3 and Cluster 4. Here is his tree:

He is also shown as related to Gladys and could be her 1st cousin twice removed. I assume that his connection is on his paternal side which is missing some information.

Clust’er 4

I don’t have a good handle on this cluster. I have been in touch with the administrator for CA’s DNA and she says there is a Frazer connection on her maternal side.

A 26 Match Cluster

These 4 clusters seem someewhat discrete. Cluster 4 does not match with Cluster 3 and Cluster 4 does not match with Cluster 2 except for Clif who I have already mentioned above.

Each cluster seems to go back a generation. Does that mean that Cluster 4 is even older? One common name in that cluster is Acheson. That family lived near my ancestors.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I am still having fun using Ancestry Clusters
  • It is quite helpful being able to choose a person of interest as that focuses the clusters to the area one is interested in.
  • There were no outstanding new revelations, but it is helpful to look at the DNA in a different way
  • There are still other Frazer lines that I may like to cluster.

 

 

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Looking at My Wife’s Side French Canadian Clusters at Ancestry

I’ll start by looking at my wife’s Aunt Lorraine’s Clusters. Lorraine’s mother was French Canadian:

Perhaps we will see some Lefevre, Methot, Pouliot and Fortin Clusters.

Here are Lorraine’s Clusters including paternal:

The connected clusters 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8 are maternal or French Canadian. Clusters 4, 5, and 6 are on the paternal or Irish side.

It took a while to go through Cluster 1:

I looked at all the common ancestor suggestions and assumed that they were right. Out of 28 matches there were 17 common ancestor suggestions. They all included Lefevre, so I assume that this is a Lefevre cluster.

Here is the overall picture:

Clusters were paternal, so I did not look at them. Lefevre or 1873 had two wives. My wife descends from the Pouliot wife and not the other, so the blank wife (CA2) indicates a half relationship.

The last Tremblay/Bouliet result does not go well with the Methot/Angesrs descendant match as Tremblay is in a different part of the tree:

What I see is that most of Lorraine’s Standard Clusters are on the Lefevre side. A few are on the Methot/Angers side. There are some on the Lefevre/Pouliot side, but those relations are too close to be helpful. This would be at the 1st cousin level. Usually, one looks for the 2nd cousin level or further out to track.

Pouliot Clusters

I can force Pouliot clusters by choosing a person of interest:

I’ll choose 2nd cousin Belharuk. I’ll choose a match level between 30 and 150 cM:

I don’t know why sometimes I get a large cluster to see and sometimes I do not. Here is the first match in the 10 match cluster:

Robin is on the Lefevre side, but her grandmother is a Pouliot. This is very confusing. Here is a situation where I can identify with the Ancestry computers as they are confused also. I better go to Fred’s tree. He is one of my wife’s relatives and I trust his tree:

Fred does not actually descend from Lefevre. That explains Lorraine’s clusters above. Many that are called Lefevre are actually Pouliot. Fred’s tree shows on his paternal side.:

Here is a Pouliot DNA tree I made a long while ago. I believe that it correctly shows the Pouliot relationships:

Here we see Belharuk, Robin, Fred, and Lorraine. Fred, Belharuk, and Lorraine are 2nd cousins to each other and not related on the Lefevre side. The confusing part is that Joseph Martin Lefevre also marries Mabel Ford:

And that is what causes a great deal of confusion.

I am not sure how to fix this at Ancestry.

Here is John in Cluster 1:

He is the third match down. According to Shared Matches at Ancestry, he is the son of Judy. Here is Judy’s tree on her maternal side:

Here, I have added Judy and John to my Pouliot DNA tree for the next time I get confused by what Ancestry is showing:

Back to Lorraine’s Standard Clusters

I just remembered that I can filter Lorraine’s standard clusters by her maternal side:

Cluster 3 is actually Pouliot:

This explains the mystery as to why Lorraine had so many Lefevre clusters. Not all the Lefevre clusters were really Lefevre clusters.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I assumed that the Common Ancestors shown in the close relationships of the  Standard Clusters were right, but many were not.
  • I found this out when I went looking for Pouliot Clusters
  • That means that I should not always accept the close common ancestor suggestions that Ancestry has.
  • This Blog has me thinking about mapping my wife’s aunts’ French Canadian DNA using DNA Painter.

 

 

 

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Looking for Pilling Clusters at Ancestry

In this Blog, I would like to look for Pilling matches. I have a motive for this. Those who are descended just from Pilling will not be descended from Hartley. Theoretically, I could eliminate some of my matches from my Hartley ancestor search. As it is, when I look at many of my Hartley DNA matches, it seems like some of them could be Pilling relatives.

So as I think of the matches, it occurs to me that going forward in time from Mary Pilling, there would be matches that descend from Mary Pilling. However, going back from Mary Pilling, there should be no Hartley descendants that match us unless it is by coincidence. Hmmm…

Pilling Genealogy and ThruLines

I believe that my genealogy is right for Mary Pilling:

However, when I look at the ThruLines for my father’s 1st cousin Joyce, I see this:

This shows Horsfall coming from Robert. Robert died in 1835. May Pilling Hartley remarries Robert Wilkinson and has more children. I thought that the ThruLines were more messed up than they are. When I look at Joyce’s ThruLines for Mary Pilling, it looks correct:

That means that Ruth would be a great person of interest in looking at Pilling Clusters.

When I look at another of my father’s first cousins’ ThruLines, I see this:

Derek has an even larger match with Maury at 42 cM.

Maury’s Pilling Clusters

Maybe my chances of finding Pilling Clusters would be better with Maury than with Joyce.

I was thinking I should see an overall cluster, but I don’t see it.

The first group is the closest group of matches:

EB has a private tree, but according to shared matches, he is a nephew of Derek.

Cluster 2 includes two people from the Wilkinson Line:

Cluster 3

This seems to expand past the children of John Pillng born 1822 for the first three matches of this cluster. This tells me that there are two different groups, but Norman appears to be matched to both. This appears to be where the matches have gone from the known (Pilling and Wilkinson) to the unknown.

Cluster 4

Now that I have not figured out Cluster 3, I will move on to Cluster 4:

This represents the ultimate representation of Pilling clusters that I am aware of on my side’s matches. This would be one interpretation:

I was thinking that the first cluster were people who descended from Mary Pilling. However, George is a new match.

When I look at George’s shared matches, he comes out close to the Wilkinson side. Perhaps I can fit him in. George has an unlinked tree:

George’s mother is from Massachusetts. Perhaps that is a clue.

I don’t know if I have a better Pilling DNA tree, but this one looks like it could use some updating – especially on the Wilkinson side:

I’ll add George to my tree as a floating tree.

I’ll go with the findagrave hint at Ancestry for Barbara – Geoge’s mother:

In 1950 George Nelson is a Taxi Driver living in New Bedford:

His sister Barbara A Nelson is listed in the same household on the next page:

The house is in the Sassaquin neighborhood of New Bedford:

Here is Barbara in one tree at Ancestry:

That same tree has father George Nelson dying before 1930. However, if that is the case, how can he be the father of Barbara Ann Nelson born 1931? This appears to indicate that George died in 1930:

Here is the family in 1940, but where is Barbara? She should have been about 8 or 9 at the time.

It appears that it is not easy for me to trace this match back to Wilkinson and Pilling.

More on William Wilkinson

Shared matches seem to indicate that the George match above could be a 2nd cousin to Richard and Paul:

That could mean that they both descend from William Wilkinson born in 1879. Here is Willia a death certificate for Wilkinson in 1936:

At the time, he was living at Lindsey Street, New Bedford:

Lindsey runs between North Street and Court Street. That confirms that this must be William in the 1930 Census:

According to Paul’s Tree at Ancestry, William had a second wife:

Back to the Clusters

George is somehow connected to the Wilkinson side, but I do not know how exactly. The next cluster is from from Ann Hartley. She was the daughter of Greenwood Hartley who was the son of Mary Pilling.

The Third Cluster

  1. Elliot
  2. Talia
  3. Jane
  4. Catherine

Jane and Catherine are in the order of 1st cousins to Maurey.

They descend from James Hartley. Cluster 2 descend from James’ sister Ann Hartley Burrows.

Elliot and Talia

Elliot’s family appears to be from Tasmania:

As Elliot’s tree only goes to about the year 1900, it would take quite a bit of work to trace it back to the Pilling family.

Cluster 4

The last person in the last cluster has this possible connection:

Victoria fits in with the theory that these should be Pilling clusters. However, the tree goes back quite far. The further a tree goes back, there are more possible ways that something could have gone wrong. Here is the earliest Howorth that Victoria has:

The information looks a little vague. I don’t mind trying a quick tree to see what I get. It looks like I already checked this out in 2019:

I have Edmund’s son Edmund born in Bacup. This is interesting as this is where the Emmet side of family lived. After a quick look at the ThruLines, I do not see an easy connection.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Looking at the Pilling Clusters gave me a different perspective on this family and their descendants
  • The largest result gave me four clusters. These were: Pilling/Wilkinson, Descendants of Ann Hartley Burrows, descendants of James Hartley her brother and a fourth presumably earlier group of Pillings.
  • My assumption was that I would get a list of Pilling descendants that I could eliminate from my list of earlier Hartley descendants. It did not seem to work out that way and/or I did not look at a list to subtract them from
  • I found an interesting match to the Wilkinson line, but could not figure out how he is connected.

 

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An Overview of Upshall Clusters for My Wife’s Great-Aunt Esther

My wife has a late great-aunt Esther who is actually a half Aunt. That means that she matches by DNA on only half of my mother-in-law’s maternal side. This is my mother-in-law’s tree:

My mother-in-law and Aunt Esther match on the Upshall side and not the Daley side. Fred Upshall first married Elizabeth Daley. She died in the Flu Epidemic. He then married Margaret Shave and Esther descends from her.

Here is Esther’s tree:

Esther’s grandfather was born in 1841. That was before there were good records in Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland where the family lived. I believe that a church burned down which did not help in the record department. There are Burtons and Dicks on both sides of Esther’s tree and her parents were related to each other in some way or ways.

Esther’s Standard Clusters

Here we see 5 clusters. Clusters 4 and 5 look like they could be connected.

  1. In this cluster, I recognize everyone as farily close family to my wife except for Stephen
  2. This Cluster has my wife’s aunt – my mother-in-law’s only sister.
  3. I don’t recognize anyone right away. It is a paternal cluster as are all the clusters.
  4. My later mother-in-law Joan is in this cluster. She matches all people in all clusters by at least 65 cM except for Grace
  5. I don’t recognize anyone right away in this three match cluster.

Here is Esther’s paternal side:

After briefly reviewing the clusters, this is what I get:

  • In cluster 1, the matches were too close except for Stephen
  • In Cluster 3, the was one Upshall suggestion and one Dicks suggestion

Stephen in Cluster 1

Stephen’s closest matches with suggested common ancestors are Danielle and Catherine. Here is Danielle:

Neither Danielle nor Catherine are on Esther’s Stard Cluster chart.

Here is Catherine:

So this could be a Dicks Cluster. De

Summary and Conclusions

  • All of Esther’s Standard Clusters are on her paternal side. This could be because many who have tested are also on her paternal side.
  • Esther’s parents were related to each other, so some of the DNA results could be confusing
  • Delving more into the extended clusters would give more results on Esther’s maternal side. However, that is of less interest to my wife’s family as they are related to her on her paternal side.
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Playing with My Children’s Expanded Clusters at Ancestry – French Morrow Side

Expanded Clusters are a good new genetic genealogy tool at Ancestry.

I am more interested in my children’s maternal side as I know more about the paternal side (me). Here is my children’s mom’s tree:

The top half is polish and the bottom is Irish (Warren), English (Gatley) and French Canadian (Morrow/Tacy/Tessier).

Morrow

As I look at my daughter Heather’s ThruLines, I see this:

That is not very encouraging as it is such a small match. I can try clusters based on Erica, but many of these clusters work on a 20 cM match and Erica only matches by 12 cM. I’ll try to cluster on Erica anyway.

This results in 2 clusters. Not bad.

Therese is probably Erica’s niece. Therese has a larger match to Heather, but no tree.

Going back to the larger cluster, it seems everyone is related:

It seems like there are a lot of holes in this side of the tree:

So perhaps I need the genealogy to find more matches and more matches to support the genealogy. At this point, I am skeptical concerning Mary A Cassion’s surname. I did a surname search under Heather’s DNA match names and got no results.

Morrow Genealogy

The 1880 Census for Lowell seems significant:

Here older brother Dennis Morrow has married Sarah Whalen. But where are Dennis’ parents? He is now the head of the househould with his two younger brothers and a brother-in-law. If I can find the birth record for any of these three brothers, I should have the names of the parents.

I was able to find the Roman Catholic record for Dennis’ marriage:

Both witnesses are on the Whalen side.

Apparently Dennis remarries in 1916:

Here we have the mother of Dennis:

My best reading is Mary A Casson. At any rate, she dies in 1876. Her husband dies in 1879. That explains the 1880 Census above.

I asked Google if Morrow is a French Canadian name:

I find it frustrating that I am not able to find this family in Quebec. According to Dennis, he was born in Quebec:

Here is his brother Joseph:

The death record for Joseph in Providence gives some more information:

Here we have his middle name and a different name for his mother. Also, this indicates that his mother was from Ireland. Here the mother’s name is given as Rose Cassin from what I can tell. Another interesting thing is that Joseph dies of gas poison “probably” accidentaly. The informant is his daughter Nellie Glancy. This death record appears to contradict some of the other records concerning Mary or Rose Cassin.

Here is a stone from St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Lowell, MA:

While looking through Naturalization papers I found a different Joseph Morrow who was naturalized in Maine but from New Brunswick;

This is a possible hint to his last name.

Back to the Cluster

MK on the Heather’s cluster above has a tree with a little over 70,000 people. Here is one branch of his tree:

There is even a Jean- Baptiste in the line. I suspect that Joseph Frederick’s father was a Jean-Baptiste (John B.). Here is Louis from MK’s tree:

Here is another tree for Louis at Ancestry:

Actually, this is a Joseph born around the time I was looking for a John B.

Another thing is, that this match with Erica could be on the Tessier side:

Summary and Conclusions

  • I tried to use Heather’s expanded clusters to ferret out some more genealogy on her Morrow side
  • I had trouble with the genealogy as it appears the Morrow name could have be Moreau, Morin, Morot, Morault or something else perhaps.
  • There was one small match between Erica and Heather of 12 cM. This seems small for a 3rd cousin and JJ did not match Erica at all
  • One shared match suggests that the Morrow name could have been Morin. However, the match could also be on the Tessier/Tacy side which is not known to be related to the Morrow side.
  • While researching Joseph Morrow I found some interesting details about his death.

 

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Some Butler DNA Clusters at Ancestry

Since Ancestry enhanced their clusters, I thought that I would try them out on my wife’s Butler Line. I have two of my wife’s tested at Ancestry.

Here is my wife’s father’s paternal line:

Here is my wife’s Aunt Lorraine’s ThruLines on the third cousin level:

Patty seems like a good choice to try to cluster on.

I got some results, so that is good. Here is the 6 match cluster:

I believe that all these descend from George Butler of Cincinatti.

Here is the 19 Match cluster:

Here Patrick is interesting. What I am seeing is that there are two major clusters and Patrick is in-between the two. Patrick is the son of Will:

The common ancestor between Patrick and Lorraine is likely George Butler. He was born some time in the 1700’s and likely from Wexford, Ireland. Lorraine is Will’s 4th cousin once removed and an important DNA match.

Patty is in the cluster above Patrick. This is likely the Cincinnati cluster descending from the George in the DNA tree above.

The cluster below Patrick appears to be from another George. This George was the son of Edward Butler who confusingly also had the birth name of Adam. Edward was the brother of the George who moved to Cincinnati.

So here is what I think I have:

This is what one blogger calls walking back the ancestors.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Georges here. The lower right corner of the pink cluster is from George Butler born 1872 and brother of Edward Henry Butler born 1875. Patrick descends from the George in the upper right hand corner of the Ancestry tree above. The upper left corner of the pink cluster descend from George Butler born 1826 and brother of Edward “Adam” Butler. I find it satisfying to be able to see all these connections in one place using Ancestry Clusters.

Lorraine’s 30 Match Butler Cluster with Patty

This is no doubt a more detailed picture of the previous pink cluster:

T

Top right is Cincinnati Butlers. Will and Patrick are from Butlers that never came to the US. The tighter cluster is from George Butler. He moved to Massachusetts. I cannot place the last 5 in the bottom right. Lisa has Murphy and other ancestors from Wexford. It is possible that some matches go beyond what we know about in the area of genealogy. This view also includes Patrick’s father Will.

Virginia and Brian

Brian comes up as a large match to the Butler family. He is a fourth cousin to Virginia who is another of my wife’s Aunts. My guess is that Virginia’s clusters with Brian should look very similar ot Lorraine’s clusters with Patty.

 

 

It is a little different. The upper left cluster is the George Butler born 1826 in Wexford, moved to Cincinnati. Actually the common ancestor between Brian and Virginia should be Henry Butler born about 1800 in Wexford – not George born 1826 as stated earlier in the Blog.

Then within that Cluster is Will and Patrick. The common ancestor between them and Virginia is Henry Butler’s father and George Butler and his unknown wife.

The third cluster would also have the common ancestor of Henry Butler but this cluster represents the desendants through Edward Henry Butler down to his son George Butler born in 1872.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Running clusters for my wife’s two late Aunts confirm my previous DNA and genealogical research.
  • Two important matches are Will and Patrick. They bring the Butler connection back another generation in Wexford, Ireland. Their DNA matches also tie together two other branches descending from two son sons of Henry Butler of Wexford: a George Butler Branch who remained in Cincinnati and a Edward Butler Branch who lived for a while in Cincinnati but who eventually moved to Massachusetts.
  • There is also a connection with Brian who descends from the Cincinnait branch, but one branch moved to St Johns, New Brunswick. This connection is important as that is where Edward Butler lived briefly and married Mary Crowley before moving to Cincinnati and eventually to Massachusetts.
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Clusters from My Mom’s Latvian Side

Let’s look at my mom’s clusters. These should include Rathfelder, Nicholson and Lentz for starters.

Standard Clusters for Gladys Rathfelder

These had to be refreshed:

  • Orange is Lentz, but really Lentz/NIcholson.
  • The next cluster is Nicholson/Ellis
  • The third cluster is also NIcholson/Ellis. So perhaps one cluster favors Nicholson and the other Ellis
  • For some reason there are no Rathfelder or Latvian clusters

A Custom Rathfelder Cluster

My mom has a good match here with Donna:

Maria was the wife of my mother’s grandfather who was Johann Heinrich Rathfelder. I’ll choose Donna as the match of interest for the custom Rathfelder Clusters.

Donna is the fourth match down. The first cluster is along the Gangus Line:

Here is the second cluster:

Here is the only hint I see from that Cluster:

However, I have never checked this out. One tree at Ancestry has this:

That means the Johann on the right above could be Johann Jacob. I suppose mine could be Cornelius Johannes. However, for now, I will leave it be.

Clusters with Gladys and Catherine

Catherine has a slightly lower DNA match to my mom compared to Donna, but a closer relationship:

Catherine is a 2nd cousin once removed and Donna is a 2nd cousin twice removed to my mom.

It is interesting how different the two clusters look (between Gladys and Donna and Gladys and Catherine). Under this, there are two sub-clusters. Here is the first:

Here are some more loose clusters. Here is match number 5:

Match number 4 has a similar connection and is probably a sister. This Hans Jerg Rathfelder married a Biedenbender.

Here is how Valdis matches:

Here is a guess as to what is happening:

Here is some more support. Karin is related to Valdis. Here is J.S.:

But how does Kirk fit in?

This tells me that the second cluster is actually a Gangnus Cluster:

Valdis, Karin and JS were Schwechheimer/Gangnus. But Kirk show that the match was really on the Gangnus side of that couple. This cluster also distinguishes from the Gangnus line on my Rathfelder grandfather’s maternal side.

 

The clusters are very specific.

Matthew appears to be a new match:

Checking Out Matthew’s Line

I don’t see Matthew on my Gangnus DNA Tree:

I do see Maria Senta in the excellent genealogy on the Gangnus family by Gustav Gangnus. I can trace the line back to Johann Jacob Gagnus, but it gets confusing as this man had 19 children with two wives. Matthew descends from the first wife and Patrick, Kevin, Leva and my mom descend from the second wife.

Here I have added in Matthew to my Gangnus DNA Tree:

This makes Matthew a half third cousin twice removed to Gladys. The shared DNA is all Gangnus.

How Does Reinhold Fit In?

Here is what Ancestry shows:

However, Reinhold shows up in my Gangnus DNA Tree:

He is also a fourth cousin once removed. On Matthew’s side of the tree, Reinhold is a 5th cousin once removed also:

The left side of the tree represents the paternal Gangnus side and the right side of the tree above represents the maternal side of the Gangnus matches. Rienhold appears to be matching on the maternal Gagnus side if I understand the clusters correctly even though that is the more distant relationship.

This is the part of the cluster that is easier to figure out due to common ancestors that have been confirmed by genealogy:

Summary and Conclusions

  • By using different matches of interest, I was able to get very different results. The second person of interest gave easier answers, probably just by the chance people they matched by DNA.
  • I added a new match to my Gangnus DNA Tree
  • I was able to identify a likely Rathfelder cluster and two different Gangnus clusters: one on my grandfather’s paternal side and one on his maternal side.
  • I was able to identify in this way about one third of my mother’s Rathfelder clusters.
  • I assume that the further one goes down on the clusters, the further out the matches are.

 

 

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My Father’s Cousin Joyce and Snell Clusters

I was hoping that the DNA results from my father’s cousin Joyce would result in new revelations on Hartley genealogy. So far, the results have been confusing. Joyce has a second cousin on the Snell side, so let’s look at those clusters.

Here is Joyce’s 2nd cousin on the Snell side:

I should note that Isaiah was married to a Bradford, so they should also factor in. I chose chd as the person of interest to cluster on and the range of clusters between 20 and 150 cM. This resulted in three clusters.

Here is the first cluster:

I already have a large Snell DNA Tree. Here is part of it:

The person I chose to cluster on is Chuck in the DNA tree above.

Cluster one is quite tight. We can see many of the people from that cluster in my tree. Trey is not on my DNA tree as he has no tree of his own identified. Shared matches shows that Jessica is his first cousin or half niece. I remember Florence from childhood and another child Janice not shown in the chart above. Florence and Janice attended the same church as me. Here is a photo of Florence from Ancestry:

Now that I am looking at Jessica, I see that I have the tree wrong. Here is the right relationship:

Jessica is Janice’s granddaughter. Here is the fix:

2nd Snell Cluster

We see the original Snell/Denault cluster from Trey to bessey.

Here is Y.R.:

YR is not on my tree. I will try to add her by evaluating the tree as Ancestry suggests. Here is part of a document that tells about Helen’s mother who died young:

Here is the couple in 1930 just before Helen is born:

Mildred did not marry until she was 31.

Here is the Washington Death Index:

Here is Mildred in 1900 on Perry Hill Road in Acushnet:

The person listed before this as the head of family was Jerome B. Tripp.

Jerome’s wife Marcia must be the Marcia Snell we are looking for. This seems to be checking out easily.

Here is Nancy’s birth record:

My tree agrees with Ancestry that YR is a third cousin once removed to Joyce.

In Cluster 2, there is also a small group of two in the bottom right. Andrew has an interesting Snell connection 7 generations out:

I don’t see Susannah on my Snell web page. That means that if this is the connection, it would be quite ancient.

The Third Snell Cluster

These are the clusters I see within the cluster. I’ve already looked at the YR cluster. I looked at the Trey cluster, but now it is larger. I’ll look at Wendy in the second box. She has this tree:

I’ll add Wendy to my Ancestry tree to see if she connects anywhere. I found a tree that has John Snell of Westport, MA as the father of Xenophon:

Unfortunately, Roy’s father Guy passed away when Roy was young. I will just take the Ancestry suggestion of Guy for Roy’s father. Here is Guy in 1880:

Here is Xenophon’s marriage record showing his father as John Snell:

Here is what I have so far:

Snell Locations in the Wendy Line

I have:

  • Roy born North Dakota
  • Guy born Fond Du Lac County Wisconsin
  • Xenophon born in New York

It would be helpful to figure out more about where Xenophon was born. The tree I borrowed from above, has Xenophon born in Homer, Courtland County.

I am tempted to go with Randy’s Tree suggested at Ancestry:

He has John living in Forest, Wisconsin in 1860:

That is the same town that Xenophon is living in at that time:

Here is Forest:

John and the Squire Snell family are on the previous page of the 1860 Census:

Notice that Squire is also listed on the above genealogy. I have already connected Xenophon to my tree:

I just need to link all the other children to Phoebe Head. I fixed this by merging Phebee Snell with Phebe Head:

Adding Xenophon’s Line to my Snell DNA Tree

Here is my existing tree:

Phebe at the red arrow must be the sister of the John Snell who moved to New York and then to Wisconsin.  This shows the likely relationship between Joyce and Wendy:

It appears that there are two Heads in Wendy’s Line, so there may be more DNA represented on the Head line than the Snell Line. Here is what Joyce has on her ThruLines in this area:

I did not add OT here before as he is already on the Snell line in a closer relationship. See above under Jerome Peckham Tripp. However, perhaps I should add him as there is a new match: Carol under Mary Polly Snell. It looks like I have already checked out the OT line as the ancestors are in white on the ThruLines.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I did not see any obvious connections to the Bradford family. However, I did not look at all the clusters. I can address Bradford in a subsequent Blog perhaps
  • The smaller earlier clusters are the easiest to figure out. The later later Snell clusters were more difficult.
  • I enjoy using my Snell DNA tree to keep everyone straight
  • I was able to update and correct my Snell DNA tree
  • It could still use some work. For example, I did not add Carol above.

 

 

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Hartley Genealogy and Playing with Ancestry’s Custom Clusters

Quite a while back, I took a sample from my father’s cousin to get a better representative sample of Hartley DNA. I will look at Joyce’s custom clusters. In the past, I have built a Hartley/Bracewell Tree on the assumption that that could be the correct genealogy:

The tree looks promising in that it is large, but I have trouble proving the genealogy. The part that is proved is on the Burrows > Rasmussin Line:

This gets the common ancestors back to Hartley and Emmet. The common matches also filter out the large number of Snell relatives. Kristen has a good match to Joyce, so would be a good pick for custom clusters:

A Custom Cluster between Joyce and Kristen

There are 4 small clusters. The first cluster:

This has Kristen and Emily who have been identified, but also Jennifer who I have been unable to place. The next cluster:

Zachary and Rachael are related to Jennifer. They are niece and nephew. I do see from previous correspondence that Jennifer’s father was John Williams:

Jennifer’s father or grandfather could be the John B Williams born in 1906. Here is the family in 1906 in Fall River:

But perhaps that is the wrong family. This is John A. Here is John B. Williams in 1940:

This could be the same family if John Williams remarried. This is John Burroughs Williams in October, 1940:

Here is 291 Maple Street:

Earlier in the year, the family lived here:

I won’t clear up where Jennifer fits in, but it is clear it is part of the Williams’ family.

Here is the next Cluster:

Kristen is the match in common with the others.  Ruth fits in on the Pilling family:

Mary was a single mother, so that means I do not know who the father of John Pilling was. Perhaps that adds some uncertainty to the Cluster. [Actually, it would not, as I do not desend from the unknown father of John Pilling.]

Here is the last cluster:

I guess that Emily down and to the right is a Pilling Cluster. That means that Sheryl up and to the left could be a Hartley Cluster. Interestingly, Sheryl’s match shows this:

In this Blog, I questioned the connetion shown above. That leaves me with confusing DNA and confusing genealogy.

Maurey and Kristen

Another of my father’s cousins has tested his DNA at Ancestry. I can try the same shared clusters with Kristen as I did for Joyce. This resulted in three clusters. I’ll skip to the third:

Derek and Ruth are on the Pilling Line. Jane and Catherine are related on the more recent Hartley/Snell Lines.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Questions on Jennifer’s ancestry lead me to previous enquiries which revealed that Jennifer is the daughter of John Williams. However, is this the John born in 1906? There is some confusion on the genealogy in that line.
  • I have questions on Hartley genealogy and DNA. How do the Pilling and Emmet Lines fit in as well as Hartleys?
  • There are other lines in there that should fit in but cannot be placed.
  • Overall, it is helpful to observe the arrangement of families in the clusters. This may result in some fresh thinking on the problems in the genealogy.