Category: Butler Autosomal DNA

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More Butler DNA Review and DNA Painter

I need to do some extra review now that I have a new set of ancestors for my wife’s Butler Line. I had previously thought that the immigrant ancestor Edward Butler was the son of Michael Butler and Margaret Croke. This has turned out to be extremely unlikely. A more likely candidate now is Edward, son of Henry Butler and Anne Russel. This man was actually born Adam but went by Edward.

Gedmatch

I had an early match between my late father-in-law Richard Butler and a Murphy descendant from New Brunswick. I can now map his DNA to Richard’s profile at DNAPainter. I have the match’s name as Nathan on my chart:

By the chart, Nathan is Richard’s third cousin twice removed. Here are some expected shared DNA amounts for that relationship:

Here is the match at Gedmatch:

Here is Richard’s DNA Painter map currently:

He shows Kerivan, Rooney and an unknown match. I’ll add in Nathan which represents Henry Butler or Anne Russell’s DNA:

When I do that, I see that I already have Nathan, but listed as an unknown branch. Now that I know that Branch I can make the necessary changes.

Note that there is no light blue bar for the X Chromosome as men do not receive on from their father – only their mother.

Virginia and Butler DNA Matches

I have the same unknown Butler in VIrginia’s DNA Painter profile:

We now know the common Butler ancestral couple to be Henry Butler from Wexford and his wife Anne Russel.

Virginia is Lorraine’s sister and the Henry Butler DNA on Chromosome 4 is shared with James from FTDNA. Fortunately, I made that note on my chart. Also, I was fortunate to find her old FTDNA code in an old address book of mine.

Here is Lorraine’s DNA Painter Profile for comparison:

I should note that the birth years for George Butler and Henry Butler are guesses.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I didn’t find any new DNA matches but I was able to sort out some old ones
  • Previously I was searching for the wrong Edward Butler. This lead me in the wrong direction for DNA matches
  • I now appear to have the right Edward Butler. Previously, I had to fill in ‘unknown Butler Ancestor’ in DNA Painter. Now that I know that the common ancestor is Henry (born Adam) Butler, I am able to fill in the unknown DNA matches using DNA Painter.

 

 

 

 

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Butler Enhanced Shared Matches

Shared enhanced matches is a new feature at Ancestry under their Pro Tools. They are helpful in ferreting out matches or identifying matches with no trees by associating them close matches that do have trees.

In my previous Blog, I looked at the Butler ThruLines for two of my wife’s late aunts. It turns out that recent revisions to the Butler tree have made a lot of my older Blogs obsolete. Here is one of my wife’s Aunt Lorraine’s matches:

Lorraine’s match with Will is interesting as it brings us back an additional generation from what we had. Here are Lorraine and Will’s shared matches:

 

These are shared matches where will also matches Lorraines match by at least 20 cM. There are more matches going down. Virginia is Lorraine’s sister. Barbara descends from Edward Butler and his son George. Brian descends from Edward’s brother George of Cincinnati as does Patty. The blue dots for Charles and Jennifer mean that I have not looked at these matches. There are additional matches not shown above.

This is one way that it could work. Charles is a shared match with Lorraine and Will, but he has no tree posted. I choose Charles to get his shared matches:

 

Charles is in the the second cousin range compared to Bobbi. I know that Bobbi descends from Mary Ann. She was the son of George Butler of Cincinnati. She moved to St. John, New Brunswick and had a family. That means that Charles must be related to the New Brunswick side of the Butler family. In fact, Charles is from Halifax, Nova Scotia:

Here is the relationship between the two places:

Bobbi is on the bottom left of the image above. She is with two other DNA matches from the New Brunswick Branch started by Mary Ann Butler. Mary Ann’s sister Rebecca remained in the Cincinnati area.

Lorraine and Will’s Shared Match Jennifer

Jennifer also has no tree, but I shared match between her and Lorraine does:

Based on other matches, the link is probably on the Kirwin side:

Maureen and Lorraine are related to Michael, but Michael is much more closely related to Maureen:

Michael’s 2nd great-grandfather was from Waterford:

This may be the connection. I believe that Maureen and family are from New Jersey.

Lorraine and Patty’s Shared Match List

Patty is one of Lorraine’s biggest matches from the Cincinnati Branch:

Jeremiah is the first on page 2 of Lorraine and Patty’s Shared Match List, but he is already on my Butler DNA/Genealogy Chart. James is someone new. Here is James’ Family Tree on his maternal side:

I see three Butlers. Richard Butler was from Wexford and Adam Butler is a name that comes up in the new Butler genealogy. This is worth tracking, so I’ll create my own tree for James focusing in on the Butler connection. Even better, I contacted a Butler relative in England and he assures me that his tree is right for the Butler part.

Here is James added to the Butler DNA/Genealogy Chart:

Here are the shared connections by DNA:

 

A Peek at MyHeritage

Lorraine has a match with Marie at MyHeritage:

Marie’s tree has some familiar names:

I’ve added Marie to my Butler Chart:

I didn’t check Marie’s tree, but I’m guessing that it is right. One good thing about MyHeritage is that they show where the match is between Lorraine and Marie:

Here I added that information to Lorraine’s profile:

This is the first Butler DNA I’ve added for Lorraine and it goes back to the 1700’s. I even have an unknown category. Hopefully that will be identified at some point.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It was helpful looking at enhanced shared matches. I don’t always find out who the match is if they don’t have a tree, but I get a much better idea of what branch of the family they are from.
  • I was able to enlarge my Butler DNA/Genealogy Tree. This is a tree of DNA matches that also show an ancestral connection.
  • I looked at one match at MyHeritage and was able to map it to Lorraine’s profile using DNAPainter.
  • This is still more searching to be done for matches at Ancestry, MyHeritage, FTDNA, and Gedmatch.

 

 

 

 

 

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Checking DNA ThruLines for a Newly Revised Butler Ancestor

In my previous Blog, I mentioned that I needed to exchange an Edward Butler ancestor on my wife’s side for another one. Now I would like to look at some of the new DNA connections based on that exchange.

Michael Vs. Henry Butler Connections

I previously noted that there were no Ancestry ThruLines for supposed ancestor Michael Butler:

However, I would not expect any. I did expect some on the Henry Butler side:

I just made the change in ancestors today and already there are four matches. These are all from the George H Butler side who was from Cincinnati.

Let’s start with Patty. She matches Lorraine by 39 cM and shows on the chart as a 3rd cousin. Ancestry shows this:

This shows that 3rd cousin is the most likely choice for this level of match. I’ll start a spreadsheet to compare the matches:

kziemann

kziemann actually has a larger match than than expected, so there is only 28% chance of being the right match. Still, that is quite close to the highest likelihood:

Regina and Joey

Regina’s match comes in at 22%

Here is the rest of the chart:

The Frequency Column does not compare well. For example, for Regina and Joey, the frequency is 22%, but they are both still top choices. kziemann at 28% is a second choice (but not by much) and then only because her match is too high and not too low. My takeaway is that all these matches fit very well for my new Butler ancestor configuration.

My Butler DNA/Ancesty Chart

I currently have this chart which I now believe to be incorrect:

I need to move the right side so that Edward is George’s brother.

Here is the new chart showing the relationship between Patty on the George side and Lorraine on the Edward side:

It shows these two as third cousins. That is what they are, but it is good to check to make sure I have thre tree right.

Patty, Kim and Regina are already on the chart. I just need to add Joey:

An Extra Generation

Now that I have added in Edward Adam Butler, I get a bonus generation:

Lorraine’s ThruLines shows George Butler, father of Henry Butler. This name was provided by my most helpful Butler Genealogy friend Peter.

Here are two extra matches for Lorraine:

Here, Peter and Will are shown as half 4th cousins once removed. However, I suspect that is because the wife of George Butler above is not known. I have previously looked into the match with Will, but not the match with Peter.

This Peter is different than the genealogy friend Peter. When I click on the George Butler above, I see one tree from Peter:

Here is what Peter’s tree shows:

One interesting thing is that Peter of the DNA match above and Will are both from England. These two descend from Anastasia Butler of Wexford.

I’ll add George to my Butler DNA/Genealogy Tree:

I put Anastasia’s family on the left, though I do not know the birth order. My genealogist friend Peter made an educated guess on the George at the top and his children. However, an educated guess plus DNA matches makes for a more educated guess. The red lines and circles indicate that Peter and Will are fourth cousins once removed to Lorraine. The chart also shows the impressive amount of DNA matches to my wife’s family in support of the new family tree.

Here is my finished ThruLines Chart for my wife’s Aunt Lorraine and her sister Virginia:

Where the freqqency is on the lower side it is because the match is larger than average. I think what happens often is that there is either a  match or not. When there is a match, it tends to be larger thana average.

Summary and Conclusions

  • After correcting the Butler genealogy back to Ireland, I picked up some Ancestry ThruLines right away
  • I added those DNA matches to my corrected Butler DNA/Genealogy Chart.
  • The seven in the ThruLines amount to only about half of the total matches on the non-Edward Butler descended side of the chart. The other matches were from other testing companies or matches that didn’t have trees or linked trees and I was able to find out the genealogy.
  • I was a little surprised that the ThruLines added a potential ancestor of George Butler. He would have been born in the late 1700’s. This George was added in by my researcher friend Peter.
  • The ThruLines corroborate the corrected Butler ancestry on my wife’s side
  • I intend to do further analysis of the Ancestry DNA in a subsequent Blog.

 

 

 

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Swapping Out Butler Ancestors

Ever since I have been working on my wife’s Butler genealogy, I have been assuming that the parents of her Irish immigrant ancestor, Edward Butler were:

  • Michael Butler and
  • Margaret Croke

Now due to recent events I believe that Edward’s parents were:

  • Henry Butler and
  • Ann Russell

Here is Edward, now believed to son of Henry Butler from Wexford:

The Catalyst for the Change

The catalyst for this is that my wife’s niece and recently my wife’s sister have been looking into the genealogy. They convince me that, based on Mary Crowley’s death certificate of 1905, that she was a widow at the time. This means that Edward, son of Michael Butler and Margaret Croke who died in 1915 could not have been Mary Crowley’s husband. Mary Crowley was the husband of immigrant Edward Butler.

Major Reasons for the Swap

  • None of Edward’s children had the names of Michael or Margaret
  • A Blog I wrote in 2019 showed that Michael Butler and Margaret Croke were probably not the parents of Edward Butler based on DNA analysis. They were more likely in the Henry Butler and Ann Russell family
  • Immigrant Edward Butler lived in Cincinnatti during the 1860 and 1870 Census. Also living in Cincinnati was a George Butler, son of Henry Butler and Ann Russell.
  • George Butler had a brother named Edward (born Adam) who died in Boston in 1891.
  • There have been many autosomal DNA matches between the Edward Butler and George Butler family descendants.

Correcting the Genealogy

In my past research, I have a lot of information on Edward Butler. However, a lot of this is from the Edward Butler born in Poulrone, County Kilkenny and who died in Newton in 1915. I need to separate the two Edward Butlers and replace the wrong ancestral couple with the correct one. Once I do that, I believe that Ancetry ThruLines will begin to populate for Henry Butler and Ann Russell. Right now, my wife’s late Aunt Lorraine has no Michael Butler ThruLines (nor should she if I am right):

Downsides to Swapping the Edward Butlers

  1. I was used to researching the Edward from Poulrone
  2. Edward Adam would have been quite young when he married Mary Crowley

This is from my Butler researching friend Peter from England:

If Edward Adam Butler was born 24 July 1839 he would have been a few months shy of 16 when he married in St. John, New Brunswick in 1855.

Taking the Plunge

The first step is changing my records at Ancestry.

I also had to remove records that were associated with Edward Butler of Poulrone. Here I have that George of Cincinnati and Edward are brothers:

So there is a bit of sorting out to do.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It is difficult to swap out one ancestor for another. This is especially true as I have been researching this ancestor for so long. It is sort of like saying goodby to a family friend who is no longer family.
  •  There is also the nagging questiion of, did I get the right guy this time? Most signs point to adding in Edward (Adam) Butler of Wexford. The major problem right now is that he was born a bit later than I would have thought he should have been. The possible explanation is that he padded his age to sound older.
  • However, overall, there were many reasons to remove Edward Butler of Poulrone, County Kilkenny with Edward (Adam) Butler of Wexford.
  • One reason why Edward (Adam) was added in was due to DNA matches between the one who I now believe is his brother (George Butler of Cincinnati) and my wife’s Butler family.
  • I am looking forward to exploring more of these DNA matches in a subsequent Blog.

 

 

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Adding DNA to My Butler In-Law’s Map Using DNAPainter

My late father-in-law was Richard Butler. Richard is 24% ‘painted’ overall:

Most of that is on the maternal side. Richard is 8% painted on his Irish paternal side and 39% painted on his French Canadian maternal side. First, I’ll look at Gedmatch. I see a Melanie there that I don’t see mapped. She is also at Ancestry.  Here is how Melanie and Richard match at Gedmatch:

By Melanie’s last name, I am guessing that the connection is on the French Canadian side. Richard did not test at Ancestry, but his two sisters did. Here is how Richard’s sister Lorraine matches Melainie:

This relationship is quite distant. Richard’s sister Lorraine has a large amount of DNA shared for a 5th cousin, once removed relationship. Richard’s amount of shared DNA is considerably higher at 88.7 cM.  I’ll just go ahead and paint Melanie’s DNA match onto Richard’s map and assume that the common ancestors are correct.

Painting Melanie’s DNA Match to Richard

I see that Richard already has Louis Girard mapped by others, so I don’t have to add the Girard/Tremblay couple.

I see that the previous Girard/Tremblay DNA that I had added to Richard’s map was from Doris:

I might have expected some of these matches to overlap, but they did not. The only place there was overlap was on Chromosome 14:

That overlap was with Doris who had Delisle/Lanouette shared ancestors back in 1715. Melanie raises Richard’s mapped percentages to 40% maternal and 25% overall.

Richard and Benoit – Same Girard/Tremblay Ancestors from MyHeritage

Richard has this “Theory of Relativity” at MyHeritage:

Let’s paint in Benoit:

Benoit’s DNA makes sense compared to Doris and Sleuth as Girard and Tremblay go back from the Pouliot Line. Above, Melanie had an overlap with Charlotte. Charlotte goes back to Delisle who is on the LeFevre Line, so this made less sense. It shows that there may be other connections or the genealogy may be off. Other connections would be my first guess. Benoit raises Richard another percent on his maternal side:

Richard and Alan at MyHeritage

Richard has a Theory with Pierre, but there are two possible pairs of common ancestors. I’ll skip Pierre for now. Alan and Richard only have one pair of common ancestors shown:

These common ancestors are on the Bulter’s Lefevre side.

Alan overlaps on Chromosome 2 matches who have Lefevre ancestors.

The overlap with the brown DNA represents Edmond Lefevre and Leocadie Methot. That means that, if these matches are accurate and the genealogy is accurate, then the green DNA on Chromosome 2 that overlaps with yellow would be from Leocadie Methot and not Edmond Lefevre. It further means that  the brown DNA that overlaps with yellow would be from Joseph Martin Lefevre and not Emma Pouliot. Richard’s match with Alan gets him up to 42% painted on his maternal side.

Reina at Gedmatch and Ancestry

Here is how Reina matches Richard:

Reina represents a new set of common ancestors:

Reina brings Richard up to 44% painted maternally and 26% painted overall.

Richard and Germain at Gedmatch and Ancestry

An Ancestry/Gedmatch combination is good for painting Richard’s DNA map. Here is how Ancestry shows Richard’s sister Lorraine and Germain connectiing:

the connection is so far out (back to 1690), it makes me wonder if there are other connections. Germain matches on Richard’s Pouliot side. Germain’s match is on the Pouliot side also in DNAPainter:

On Chromosome 9, Germain’s match overlaps with Benoit’s.

Here is Chromosome 17:

The area between Michelle and Germain would define a crossover. Michelle represents Richard’s Lefevre side and Germain (and the purple matches) represents Richard’s Pouliot side.

Richard is now 27% painted overall. Progress.

Richard and DR

Here is DR and Richard’s DNA match at Gedmatch:

Here is DR’s paternal tree:

The connection appears to be on the Rooney side which is Richard’s paternal side. That is where a lot of Richard’s DNA mapping is missing.

Here is a Rooney tree which I had built previously:

I’m not sure why I put the green as a different color. It could be because Daniel disagreed with the way I came up with the genealogy. Also I now see that I had two wives for Timothy Rooney. That first I have as Margaret Ann Gorman. If that is true that Richard and DR are half third cousins once removed. I just need to add in DR:

I note that in DR’s tree, his marriage record for John Rooney has Terence and Ann Rooney as his parents, but his death record has Timothy and Margaret Rooney.

Painting DR (Daniel at Gedmatch) to Richard’s Map

As it appears that Daniel and Richard are 1/2 cousins, that would mean that their only common ancestor is Timother Rooney.

This brings Richard up to 10% painted on his paternal side (from 8%).

More Painting of Daniel to Richard’s SIster Lorraine

Lorraine has a match similar to Richard’s with Daniel, but slighter larger on Chromosome 14:

My colors are not consistent between siblings.

Visual Phasing Butler DNA

I had visually phased Richard, Lorraine and Virginia:

This means that Virginia should not match with Daniel as Rooney is on the Butler’s Kerivan side. Virginia only recieved Butler DNA on her Chromosome 13.

Here is how I had visually phased Chromosome 14:

Again, Virginia has no Kerivan DNA on Chromosome 14, so has no match with Daniel. Lorraine has all Kerivan DNA, which explains her larger match with Daniel on Chromosome 14.

When I was doing the phasing, I also show why my wife Marie did not recieve any Kerivan DNA from her father:

Where Marie would have gotten green Kerivan DNA from her father, it was replaced by Richard’s maternal side Pouliot and Lefevre DNA.

Shared AncestryDNA Matches with Daniel

The largest shared match that Lorraine and Daniel have at Ancestry is with FG. Here is her tree:

I hope that, if I build out FGs tree, I will bump into a Rooney.

Here is a Rooney three generations out from FG. It turns out I already had Frances in my tree:

As Frances has a common DNA match with DH and Lorraine, the above connections are suggested.

People Who Match Richard and Daniel at Gedmatch: Jeanette

Gedmatch also has a utility to look for common matches. Jeanette matcches Richard and Daniel and also has a family tree:

Surprisingly Rooney is the first name on Jeanette’s tree. I have looked at a lot of Gedmatch trees and it is unusual to find what you are looking for. Now I need to check out Jeanette’s tree.

According to Findagrave.com, John H Rooney is John Henry Rooney. That means that I can add Jeanette to my tree:

My thinking is that Jeanette is a 1/2 third cousin once removed to Richard.

Adding Jeanette’s Match to DNAPainter

First, I’ll go with Richard:

The blue DNA in Chromosome 11 represents Tim or Terence Rooney’s DNA that came down to both Jeanette and Richard.

Jeanette and Virginia

Virginia is Richard’s sister:

So far, that is Virginia’s only match going back to Tim Rooney (in pink here).

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was able to paint some extra DNA onto Richard’s map and some onto his two sisters.
  • I was happy to find some Rooney matches as they are on Richard’s mostly unpainted paternal side
  • Many Rooney families had large families which is good for DNA matching
  • To me the DNA matches tie together two branches of the Rooney famiiy.
  • I didn’t mention the genealogy here, but I have looked at the genealogy in older Blogs.  I also mentioned a Jenny there which is the Jeanette in this Blog.

 

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Denis’ DNA Match On My Wife’s French Canadian Side

I was looking at my wife’s Aunt Lorraine’s DNA matches at Gedmatch recently. I found that she matched Denis:

I was also able to find Denis at Ancestry:

His tree was modest, but was something that I could work with.

Finding a Common Ancestor Between Denis and My Wife’s Family

The next step is to build my own tree for Denis. My assumption is that the match is on the Lefevre side as my wife’s aunt’s mother was a LeFevre. As soon as I enter Denis’ parents into my tree, I start getting hints.

I see that my wife’s second great grandfather was Edmond Lefevre born in Saint-Antoine-de-Tilly, so I feel I am on the right track.

Here is the baptismal record for Denis’ father Ernest:

Ernest’s father was Odilon. We further learn that Ernest’s mother’s name was Alma LeFleur.

Odilon LeFevre Born 1874

Next I would like to focus in on Odilon:

Here he is in 1881:

This appears to be three generations of LeFevre’s: Lazare, Joseph and Odilon. Here is Lazare from my wife’s grandmother’s tree:

Linking Joseph to Lazare

I next just need to show that Joseph was the son of Lazare. Here is a portion of Joseph’s marriage record:

This establishes that Joseph was the son of Lazare, “Notaire”. From what I understand, a notaire would be a sort of paralegal.

That means that we have a connection. I have a small LeFevre tree already, but it needs updating:

Let’s add Lazare and Denis:

According to this tree, Lorraine and Denis are third cousins. There may be other connections further back, but I will disregard those connections for the time being.

Mapping Denis’ DNA to My Wife’s Aunt Lorraine

The match between Denis and my wife’s Aunt Lorraine is either from Lazare LeFevre or Adelaide Bouré. We don’t know which without further DNA analysis. Here is what I have for Lorraine on her maternal side so far:

Lorraine’s DNA is 37% mapped out on her maternal side and 22% totally mapped (maternal and paternal). This would show as pink above. Denis bumped up Lorraine to 38% mapped maternally. Here is Denis’ contribution highlighted in gray:

He brings new information on Chromosomes 3, 5, 11, 12 and 16.

On Chromosome 11, it is truly new information. On Chromosome 12, it is already covered by RL, Sandra and Caroline.

Painting On My Father-in-law

I’m a bit behind on Richard as I don’t have a category for Lazare LeFevre and Adelaide Bouré. Richard has a more modest match with Denis:

When I paint this on to Richard’s DNA map, I see something interresting on Chromosome 5:

This shows that Richard’s DNA match with Denis is overlapping with Richard’s DNA match with Michelle. This is where I have a problem with my key. I had thought that Michelle’s common ancestor was Methot, but it is actually with Joseph Martin LeFevre born 1874. I need to differentiate my colors better. I changed Methot to yellow, so that it will be less confusing in the future;

Adjusting My Tree

Now that I know where Denis belongs in my tree, I can add him in:

That should help AncestryDNA figure out the ThruLines.

Speaking of ThruLines

Here are Lorraine’s ThruLines for Lazare LeFevre:

There is one match on the Joseph Line with Brad.

More Painting for My Wife’s Aunt Susy

I haven’t been paying as much attention to Aunt Susy’s DNA Map:

However, she has nice colors. Here is her match with Denis at Gedmatch:

I’ll need to add Lazare in to DNAPainter. Here is Aunt Susy’s maternal side:

DNA Painter gave me a boring color, but a chose a brighter color for Lazare and his wife. Susy was 33% painted maternally and 21% overall. Denis bumped these numbers up to 36% on the maternal side and 22% overall.

Denis and My Wife

Unfortunately, my wife and Denis do not share a lot of DNA.

Denis and Marie are third cousins once removed. That should translate to 4.5 generations to their common ancestors. That means that Denis and Marie share a little less than average for that relationship.

Painting this on to Marie’s map does not add any missing areas:

However, it does confirm the match with Caroline and others.

More on Caroline

I should have added Caroline to my LeFevre DNA tree. Caroline is at MyHeritage:

Charles Lefebvre shows as 1891. I checked my old blogs and see that the tree had “before 1891. Here is Lazare in 1851:

Charles is 9, so was born around 1842. The birthplace for all is Ville Quebec which I take to be Quebec City. I made a new tree with Caroline in it:

I’m sure that this tree could get quite big. This is what Marie has for ThruLines at AncestryDNA:

Outside of the Edmond Lefevre Line, Marie has 9 matches from 5 siblings of Edmond. And when I expand the Charles Line, I find Caroline in the photo:

Marie J G above is Marie Josephine Gratia who went by Gratia.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I started by looking at the DNA of Denis. I painted his DNA onto my wife’s map as well as my wife’s father’s and two aunts’ maps.
  • Marie’s father had a smaller match with Denis compared to the matches of his two sisters. Marie’s match was even smaller.
  • I made a DNA tree for LeFevre/Lefebvre
  • This tree included Caroline who I had mapped previously. She also appears on my wife’s ThruLines at Ancestry.
  • I was able to map Marie’s family’s DNA connection to Caroline because she also has her DNA at MyHeritage.
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Elizabeth: A DNA Match from the Cincinnati Butlers; Lisa’s Butler Connections

I recently discovered that Elizabeth was a match to my late father-in-law Richard. I found her by doing a Tier 1 Cluster Analysis at Gedmatch. Richard’s clusters look like this:

All the gray squares connected to the colored squares probably indicate Richard’s French Canadian side. The last two small clusters likely represent Richard’s Irish side as they are not connected to the other clusters. The last two people in the last cluster are Elizabeth and Nathan. I wrote to Elizabeth and she confirmed that she was from the Cincinnati Branch of Butlers. I probably would not have known about Elizabeth if she had not uploaded her DNA to Gedmatch as Richard did not test at Ancestry. His two sisters tested there, but they don’t match Elizabeth by DNA.

Here are Nathan and Elizabeth on a tree:

The green boxes are for people who have detailed information on their chromosomes. They have tested at FTDNA, MyHeritage or 23andMe or uploaded their AncestryDNA results to Gedmatch.  The people in the bottom white boxes are connected by DNA and genealogy at Ancestry, but don’t have detailed information on their DNA.  This is what I call the Cincinnati Branch of Butlers. Nathan descends from the first wife of George Butler and Elizabeth descends from a second wife. Nathan’s ancestors moved to Nova Scotia where my wife’s ancestor married. Because of the genealogy, any DNA that Nathan and Elizabeth share have to come from George Butler but not either of his wives.

Here is the whole tree:

Because there are so many DNA connections between these two lines, I have proposed a Butler father to Michael Butler the earliest known ancestor of Richard and Henry Butler, the earliest known Butler ancestor of Elizabeth.  There are other possibilities.

Lisa with Possible Butler Ancestry

I wrote to Lisa about a year ago, because she had a large match with my wife’s two Aunts. Lisa would like to know how she fits in. Here is my wife’s side of the tree:

If I put up some DNA match numers for Lisa, it should tell where Lisa fits in on this tree:

That means that Lisa most likely descends from Marguerite Butler born in 1912. Here are some possible relationships between Amanda and Lisa:

My guess would be that Amanda and Lisa could be 1/2 first cousins or first cousins once removed. When I look at shared matches between Lisa and Amanda, I see a Herman in there which means that Lisa may have Herman and Butler ancestry somehow. This should give Lisa something to work on.

Lisa and Elizabeth

I bring Lisa up here because she also has a small match with Elizabeth:

That means that Lisa also has ancient Butler DNA links going back to Ireland.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was fortunate to find Elizabeth through Gedmatch’s Cluster Program
  • Elizabeth is from the Cincinnati Butlers which link my wife’s Butlers back to Ireland
  • Lisa, who I had corresponded with previously also has a small match with Elizabeth
  • Lisa was unsure of her ancestry
  • Lisa gave me access to her DNA results at Ancestry. I compared her results to my wife’s Butler lines and she matched best with the Marguerite Butler Line.
  • Lisa and Marguerite’s granddaughter Amanda also have a shared match with a Herman which means that Lisa and Amanda could be as close as first cousins once removed.

 

 

 

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Butler Visual Phasing: Part 4

In my previous Blog, I worked on updating the visual phasing for my late father-in-law and his two sisters. While doing this, I updated their DNA Painter Maps. I made an interesting discovery based on an old Cincinnati Butler descendant match that I had found back in 2015. The old spreadsheet that I had on Richard was helpful, so I updated that for him and one of his sisters. I will next update Virginia’s spreadsheet from Gedmatch.

Chromosome 17

My note says that this is done but  the paternal side needs to be idendified:

On Chromosome 17, I was trying to figure out what DNA my wife inherited from her father based on the Chromosome Mapping.

The key to Chromosome 17 is finding paternal matches. Not unlike the key to all the chromosomes. I’ll run Virginia against Jack, who is a top Kerivan match. I’ll look for the matches in common at Gedmatch and then run a Matching Segment Search. I come up with one match on Chromosome 17:

It looks like Virginia’s paternal crossover is around 6. That would mean that paternal GP1 would be Kerivan. I see that Richard has a match with Jane also:

I don’t see a DNA match between Jane and Lorraine.

I’m ready to declare victory over Chromosome 17 and move on to the next battle.

Chromosome 18

Assuming my previous work was correct, I first need to identify the easier maternal side:

Next, I’ll add DNA Painter information:

This works well, except for Richard’s purple match with Fortin/Tremblay. Based on my visual phasing, there should be no crossovers in that purple area. My guess is that orange is LeFevre and that the purple match that Richard has with Gerry is not right.

Here is Gerry’s tree at MyHeritage:

MyHeritage was not able to figure out our common ancestor. I’m not sure how I came up with what I did. I would say now that it is not right or that there is a closer common ancestor. I decided to delete Gerry from Richard’s map until I can figure out how he belongs.

The remaining question is the location of Virgina’s maternal crossover. That can be found at the Gedmatch full resolution image of the match between Richard and Virginia:

 

That happens here at about 42.5. That fits in with Virginia’s Lefevre match on Chromosome 18:

Next, I need to find a paternal match to identify the paternal side of Chromosome 18.

It appears that the salmon colored paternal side is predominately all Kerivan or all Butler. An in common match between Jack (who represents Kerivan) and Virginia didn’t show any matches on Chromosome 18. That means that I should run an in-common match for one of the Butler matches. Lorraine has a pretty good match with Kim at Gedmatch:

I haven’t connected these two families by genealogy but they are connected by DNA and many circumstantial incidences. I had no luck finding Chromosome 18 matches with this comparison either.

Chromosome 19

I’ll add the DNA Painter map to the bottom of the work I had done previously:

It looks like Lorraine should have a maternal crossover where her match ends, but Richard’s Lefevre green is actually two matches:

The problem is that I have not mapped Jane to Lorraine’s map. Mapping Jane onto Virginia’s map helps show Virginia’s Pouliot segment between the two Lefevre segments:

It looks like there should be a crossover for Lorraine on the right side of her match with Jane. However, it appears that the match between Jane and Richard was larger previously. Now it is in line with the matches between Lorraine and Virginia:

I guess the algorhythm changed at Gedmatch. I don’t feel like changing Richard’s results right now.

A Paternal Match for Chromosome 19?

Using my previous in-common analyses, I have this Kerivan-type match for Lorraine:

I have this Butler-type match – also for Lorraine:

Unfortunately, that does not fit in with the way I have Lorraine mapped, unless I change the visual phasing. Due to uncertainties, I’ll leave Chromosome 19 for now.

Chromosome 20

Here is what I had done previously for Chromosome 20:

I’ll convert this to Excel from Powerpoint. I also want to look at the DNA Painter maps for these three siblings. Here is Lorraine:

She has LeFevre DNA at the beginning and Kerivan DNA at the right end of Chromosome 20. Lorraine’s matches appear to define Paternal GP1 as Kerivan.

Virginia shows Pouliot up to position 60:

Here is what Richard has:

When I re-do this Chromosome, I’ll start from the righ hand side as the left-hand first crossover is not as important. I did this but got the same results:

However, now I know the paternal side. At some time, I need to look at Virginia’s match list to see where her matches are falling out after position 60.

Chromosome 21

Here is what I had done previously in Powerpoint:

I’ll start by looking at the three DNA Painter maps. Only Richard has one match so far. That is for Pouliot between 10 and 22:

When I bring this into Excel, I need to see the left-hand side:

With the left side completed, I see the only color that Richard has uniquely there is blue, so that has to be Pouliot. That defines the maternal side of the three siblings’ Chromosome 21 and defines the maternal grandparents. However, it leaves a gap in Lorraine’s Chromosome 21.

Chromosome 22

Here is the work I did previously:

All l need to do is identify the two paternal grandparents. I checked the three DNA Painter maps and saw no paternal matches that would help me.

Summary and Conclusions

My list of completed chromosomes is getting larger:

I now have only 8 chromosomes that are not completed. If I do some more work on these, I may be able to complete one or two more.

  • It was helpful referring to the DNA Painter maps for these three siblings.
  • Looking at in common matches was helpful at Gedmatch
  • I will likely continue working on these unfinished chromosomes and follow up on some of the paternal in common DNA matches – especially on the Butler side.
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Visual Phasing My Father-in-law’s Butler Side: Part 3

Here is where I am with visual phasing of my father-in-law’s Butler side:

I started about four or five years ago and recently have been updating their visual phasing. Visual Phasing maps out in what way three siblings got their DNA from their four grandparents.

I’ll look at the chromosomes that I haven’t completed and see if I can complete or improve on any of them.

Chromosome 1

I’ll update this to Excel and start over. The crossovers seem straightforward until we get to the right end. Then there are three in a row:

Here is my attempt at visual phasing:

When there are two crossovers in a row for the same person, it means that there is usually a Half Identical Region (HIR) which goes unidentified.

If I add some more Pouliot to Virginia’s DNAPainter map, it will help. I will also add more LeFevre:

This brings Virginia up to 18% painted.

Next, I’ll add the LeFevre matches to Lorraine’s map:

This doesn’t add any new LeFevre information for Lorraine, but may be helpful for other chromosomes. Next, I put the DNAPainter maps below the Visual Phasing Chart. This will tell if the theoretical and actual matches agree:

The scales may not match here. For Lorraine, it is clear that there is a crossover from LeFevre (blues) to Pouliot at 205:

:

I checked Richard vs. Virginia and that crossover is actually 204, not 202.

Virginia has a crossover from Pouliot to LeFevre at the same location:

That likely means that Richard does not have a crossover at 204. That is good to know.

Now Chromosome 1 is starting to come into it’s own. I see that Richard has a crossover here:

At 217, the crossover goes from Pouliot to LeFevre. I also see that Richard matches a LeFevre here:

I now have Richard and Virginia’s maternal sides finished and identified:

I think that this is as far as I can get, unless I find more matches between 0 and 70:

Chromosome 5

I had that this Chromosome was not started.

I recopied these comparisons from Gedmatch as he previous ones didn’t seem right. This is what I get without looking at Half Identical Regions (HIRs):

When I add my one allowed HIR, I get this:

Next I added in matches from DNAPainter:

Virginia has a large match that Lorraine and Richard do not have. This match is from 75 to 118. Michelle represents LeFevre, so green must represent Lefevre. Dark blue on Lorraines bar is also Lefevre, so that would support salmon being Lefevre.  Then there are the three Michelle matches near the beginning of Chromosome 5.

  • Lorraine: 18-31
  • Virginia: 28-34
  • Richard: 18-34

This suggests that Lorrain has Lefevre to Pouliot crossover at 31 and that Virginia has a Pouliot to Lefevre crossover at 28. That is good, but it means that I have to adjust my crossovers. Instead of two Richard crossovers, there is a Virginia crossover and then a Lorraine crossover. I think the problem is that I didn’t add enough detail to the comparisons. For that, I will need to lower the match level to 3 cM:

This shows another segment from 35 to 38. I may have to come back to this Chromosome as it seems quite complicated – especially in the region around the 30’s.

Chromosome 8

Here is the work I had done in 2016:

I redid Chromosome 8 in Excel:

This time I saw an R and L crossover where I saw a V crossover previously on the right side of the Chromosome. This is what I get this time:

The small blue segment on Lorraine’s top bar looks ridiculous, so I will take that out. Next, I add information from DNAPainter. However, these matches are Lefevre only:

This tells me that Lefevre is salmon and Pouliot is green.  This completes the mapping for Lorraine and Richard, but it does not identify and paternal segments. The arrows point out where the crossovers were for Richard and Lorraine, that I had previously identified as a Virgininia crossover:

It may look like Virginia should have a maternal crossover, but that is only because I did not map one of her segments. I just did that and here is here extra segment:

Joseph Methot was the father-in-law of Edmund LeFevre, so on the LeFevre side.

Chromosome 13

Here is what I had done with Chromosome 13 in 2017:

An identifying match for Virginia would help between 39 and 59.

 

It turns out that Virginia’s match with Philip that I just added is helpful. The match was between 40 and 60:

It appears that there was a match to a Rooney descendant which is on the Kerivan side. That helped identify the maternal side of Chromosome 13. While I’m at it, I’ll add Philip to Richard’s DNA Painter Map:

Richard’s match with Philip starts at 36, so it defines Virginia’s crossover from Pouliot to Lefevre at 39 or 40.

Chromosome 16

I had origingally worked on this Chromosome in Word. I redid the work in Excel and came up with the same basic results:

Next, I look at DNA Painter. Here is what I have for Richard:

He shows Pouliot at the start and near the end. then in the middle, there is some really old Lefevre DNA going back to 1715. This is from a match from Christine, that I found at Gedmatch. She had uploaded from Ancestry, but I can’t find her at Ancestry right now. However, I assume that I had the common ancestors correct. I see that Richard also has a match to Doris at MyHeritage. This common ancestor is on the Pouliot side:

This should define a Pouliot to Lefevre crossover at about 50. The problem is that I haven’t identified a crossover for Richard or any crossover at the 50 location on Chromosome 16.

One thing that I do know is that all three Butler siblings match on the Pouliot side at the beginning of the Chromosome:

 

Virginia and Lorraine do not match on the Pouliot side near the end of the Chromosome, so I came up with the above map. I think that French Canadian intermarriage may have messed with the middle of the Chromosome, so I may have to change this at some point.

Looking for Paternal Matches

I went to Gedmatch to download 1,000 of Richard’s newest matches. Most of these should be from Ancestry. As Richard tested at FTDNA, I would be better off downloading VIrginia and Lorraine’s results. They tested at Ancestry. However, I did find something interesting on Richard’s old spreadsheet:

Here is a match James who I have on Richard’s maternal side. My note says he has Cincinnati roots. Here is  the maternal side of his tree at FTDNA:

The least documented side is Branch where I think the connection is. Alma’s mother was Rebecca Butler based on Alma’s marriage record:

Here is Rebecca in the 1870 Ward 17 Cincinnati Census:

My working theory is that my wife’s Butlers are related to these Butlers. That helps me solve Chromosme 16:

Here is how Richard and James match:

This is how I have connected the two trees, but I don’t have the genealogy to do it at the top level.

Lorraine Matches James Also

Lorraine matches James here on Chromosomes 4 and 16:

Virginia  matches James on Chromosome 4 only.

Summary and Conclusions

  • 9 out of the Butler sibling’s chromosomes are believed to be completed
  • While looking for paternal matches for Visual Phasing, I found one that I had discovered in 2015. It turns out that this match was a descendant of the Cincinnati Butlers who are related to my wife’s Butlers by DNA.
  • DNA Painter has been helpful in identifying matches also and I have been adding to these three Butler siblings’ maps
  • The only cousins on the Butler grandparent side used to check the visual phasing are those that have not been proved by genealogy, but are certainly cousins by DNA.
  • I will continue on with Chromosomes 17 through 22 in a subsequent Blog

 

 

 

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Updating the Visual Phasing of My Father-in-law’s Butlers: Part 2

In my previous Blog, I was successful in updating the visual phasing for the four grandparents of my father-in-law. I was able to complete several of the 23 chromosomes. This was my previous summary:

Chromosome 11

It appaears that I should be able to find some maternal matches to complete Chromosome 11. This is what I had come up with in 2016:

Here is what I have for Richard on his Chromosome 11 in DNAPainter:

I found this match for my wife from a previous Blog:

This indicates that Kbou would be on the Pouliot side for my father-in-law. From the key for Richard’s DNAPainter map, it appeared that Gagne/Girard was improperly put in a group with LeFevres, so I will move that down:

That means that Richard’s crossover at position 117 is his change from Pouliot to LeFevre:

Here is the finished Chromosome 11:

Kbou is also an X Chromosome match.

Marie Girard was my father-in-law’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother. If Richard or one of his sisters were to have the mitochondrial DNA test, that would pass to the mother’s only side also.

Chromosome 17

This was some of my early work in Visual Phasing as it is in Word:

As paternal matches are very scarce, it is difficult to identify whether blue or purple is Butler or Kerivan.

Chromosome 22

Unfortunately, I could find no paternal matches on Chromosome 22.

Chromosome 5

The crossovers were complicated in this Chromosome which is perhaps why I did not pursue this Chromosome previously:

I’ll give this a shot now. I’ll start in the middle:

Things seem clearer there. The confusing par is around 30 to 40. I’ll work on solving the right side and hope for good matches on the left side. Here is a partial solution:

Lorraine and Alan have a small match on Chromosome 5:

Lorraine has a better match with Yvonne:

This would be a good match to compare with Richard and Virginia. Here is Richard’s match with Yvonne:

I don’t see a match for Virginia.

Unfortunately, Richard and Lorraine have a Fully Identical Region from 77 to 116:

That means that this hint does not help.

Back to Alan

Virginia and Richard show no match with Alan on Chromosome 5. If Lorraine’s match is valid, I show this:

That match identifies the top bar as maternal and the bottom as paternal. That would also meanj that Lorraine and Richard would have LeFevre DNA between 77 and 116 which corroborates with the Yvonne match. I’ll leave Chromosome like this for now:

Chromosome 1

I worked on this Chromosome in 2016:

On Richard’s DNAPainter map, he has this second green match with KK:

Thjat match represents LeFevre which I have a purple:

Chromosome 2

This Chromosome is interesting as it has some Butler DNA from an unidentified Butler ancestor. I will re-do this Chromosome in Excel. Richard’s DNAPainter map shows that he has Kerivan DNA on the right side of his paternal copy of Chromosome 2:

Light blue represents Kerivan and dark blue is unknown Butler DNA.

It would be helpful to ‘paint’ Lorraine’s paternal Chromosome 2 as well as Virginia’s.

Here is Lorraine:

As a bonus, Lorraine’s match with Kim shows a bonusk segment of unknown Butler in Chromosome 4.

I don’t have anything mapped for Virginia yet. I’m not showing a match between Virginia and Kim. Here is Virginia’s matches with Jack who has Kerivan ancestry:

This mapping is not necessary, but it is helpful to see where Virginia’s Kerivan matches are. At the right side of Chromosome 2, I also see the possibility of a double crossover:

Instead of two Virginia crossovers, the last Virginia may be a Richard and Lorraine crossover. Here is what I get for the right side of Chromosome 2:

Next, I need some more maternal side for Lorraine. I unlocked something at FTDNA so I could get a good match. This is with Michelle – on Lorraine’s LeFevre side:

Next I unlock Virginia’s FTNDA results. Here is how she matches Michelle:

I have not been consistent with the colors between siblings. From just cousin matches, the Chromosome 2 Map looks like this:

I can expand some of the segments like this:

That leaves the left side of the chromosome undone. I can pretend I don’t know the results for the right side, solve the left side and then add in the right side.

The bottom three pairs of bars were visually phased.

Michelle’s DNA Matches with Richard, Lorraine and Virginia

I am hoping that key to solving Chromosome 2 lies in Michelle. Michelle matches:

  • Lorraine 31-69
  • Virginia 37-115
  • Richard 38-75

The key appears to be in the beginning of the matches. My guess is that Michelle who represents LeFevre is the salmon color:

That also means that the map would be the same except that the colors for LeFevre and Pouliot are switched. Virginia will still have the blue Kerivan on her paternal side. Green will be Butler and orange will be Pouliot.

And the answer is:

The key to solving this Chromosome:

  • Matches with Michelle and Jack
  • Solving the left side as if I didn’t know about the other DNA matches and then adding them in.
  • A double crossover for Richard and Lorraine at position 227.6.

The Importance of Chromosome 2 for Butler Genealogy

The green Butler segments of Chromosome 2 are where Richard and Lorraine match Kim and Nathan. This is my best guess of how the Butler families tie together:

Kim and Nathan descend from George Butler who lived in Cincinnati . My wife’s 2nd great-grandfather Edward Butler also lived in Cincinnati for a while – not too far from George Butler. Here is how Nathan and Kim match each other:

This is the DNA that Kim and Nathan share that came down from George Butler who was born in 1826 in Ireland.

Summary and Conclusions

  • 12 of the chromosomes have been completed.
  • It takes time to get matches to confirm and improve the work
  • As Butler matches are scarce, it would be better to try to get some Butler matches from AncestryDNA to upload to Gedmatch, MyHeritage or FTDNA.
  • It takes a long time to figure out who matches you on a specific chromosome. If you have a profile on DNAPainter, that makes the job easier.