Category: Ellis

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Looking at Some New Theories of Relativity for My Wife’s Ellis Side

I had heard not too long ago that MyHeritage had developed some new Theories of Relativity. These are DNA matches where MyHeritage thinks there is a likelihood that the genealogies also match up. I thought that I would write a Blog while this ‘new’ designation was still new, but it took me a bit longer than expected to write this Blog.

My Wife’s Aunt Elaine

I’ll start with Aunt Elaine.

The New part doesn’t jump out, but it is there.

The Theory has Elaine and Isabel as 1/2 third cousins. I’ll check my Ancestry Tree to see if this makes sense. It doesn’t:

I have Abraham’s father as John Rayner. I had this tree in an earlier Blog on my mother-in-law Joan:

Unfortunately, I missed one of Isabel’s ancestors where the red arrow is. Elaine is Joan’s sister. I assume that makes Elaine and Isabel full fourth cousins. I suppose there could be another connection or connections. Here is a corrected tree:

Adding Isobel to DNAPainter

Here is the new Rayner/Watson DNA added to Elaine’s tree

Here is the same graphic for Elaine’s sister Joan who had fewer matches with Isabel:

This match gets Joan up to 41% painted overall from 40% previously.

Elaine and Mervyn

MyHeritage has this for Theory 1:

I can’t figure out how MyHeritage got this connection. Their Theory 2 and three match what Ancetry has:

The next connection is to Dicks also, but a generation further back from MyHeritage’s Theory 1:

 

I’ll assume that Mervyn’s connection is on the Upshall side. I’ve already added Mervyn to Joan’s DNAPainter Map. I’ll add Mervyn to Elaine’s map:

Mervyn doesn’t overlap with Barbara, but doesn’t conflict with other more recent Upshall matches.

Elaine and Leslie on the Reinhold Line

Next, I need to verify this connection. I see that Leslie appears on Elaine’s ThruLines at Ancestry:

I’ll assume that Leslie’s genealogy is right.

This match gets Elaine up to 28% painted overall from 27%.

Mapping Leslie to Joan’s Map

This gets Joan up another percent to 42% painted overall. Leslie adds some important DNA to Elaine and Joan’s maternal side:

A Reinhold Tree

I’m surprised that I haven’t built a Reinhold DNA/Genealogy Tree. I’ll do that now. In order to do it right, I’ll try building out Leslie’s tree. Here is a birth record for Leslie’s grandfather Leslie:

I got this far with a fast tree, and it seems OK:

Other Ancestry trees has Lydia’s husband as Frederick John Rhynold born 1792. Here is my Rhynold Tree:

I will expect more additions over time.

Back to the Upshall Family with Betty

I would like to check this Theory. There are a few ways to do this. The best way is to build a tree for Betty back to  the commn ancestors. Or I could build my tree down to Betty. Or I could check Ancestry ThruLines. I’ll start with the ThruLines as they are easiest:

Elaine has 4 matches with descendants of Alexander Upshall, so that is a good sign. Here is a late addition for Theodore from 1951:

It turns out I already had Theodore in my family tree.

Betty adds some Upshall/Dicks DNA to Elaine’s Chromosome 6 and confirms some matches on Chromosome 11.

Adding Betty’s DNA to Joan’s DNA Map

Betty’s match is similar in that it adds some DNA to Chromosome 6 and confirms other Upshall/Dicks DNA matches.

Joanne on Elaine’s Paternal Side

This relationship is supported by Thrulines at Ancestry:

Adding Joanne to DNAPainter

This added a new ancestral couple for Elaine and segments on Chromosomes 1, 4, and 12.

The next logical step is to add Joanne to Joan’s DNAPainter profile:

Joanne’s match gets Joan up another percent to 43% painted overall. This is what 43% looks like for Joan:

Edna on the Dicks Line

It took me a while to figure this one out:

Edna also has a Theory 2 with Christopher Dicks who was the father of this Christopher Dicks:

I haven’t been keeping up with my Dicks DNA Project and had Edna already but as per Theory 2:

Here I’ve added in Edna again:

Finally, I’ll add Edna to Joan’s DNAPainter profile. I turns out I had mapped Edna to the elder Christopher. She would be better mapped to the younger Christopher DIcks. I think I can fix that in this screen:

I searched for Edna on Elaine’s match list but could not find her.

Time to Start a Newcombe Tree

However, Alicia and JP are at Ancestry and I see this for JP at Ancestry:

For some reasons, MyHeritage did not pick up these other connections. I’ll go ahead and map Alicia as Newcombe:

Alicia’s results are very similar to Joanne’s. When I look at the shared matches at MyHeritage, I see that Joanne is Alicia’s mother.  That makes sense based on the results. Of course, that means that JP is Joanne.

Elaine and Diann

Diann has a Theory with Elaine on the headachey Dicks side:

 

This looks good on the surface, but I don’t have Susan so far on my DNA tree and I don’t see a Susan on the Ancestry ThruLines:

Diann would add new DNA to Elaine’s map, so this would be an interesting connection to track down in the future.

Jacqueline Shows a MacArthur Theory with Elaine

Are these charts faded-looking because they are Theories? My shortcut check for Jacqueline’s tree is by using Ancestry’s ThruLines. ThrulLines shows that Elaine has 155 DNA matches on the MacArthur Line, but 51 of those are on the marion MacArthur Line. Elaine has 20 matches on the Ellen Line.

I see that Jacqueline is actually on the ThruLines:

The ThruLines don’t prove the connection, but strongly suggest it to be right. Next, I’ll compare the DNA with other MacArthur matches:

MG is Jacqueline’s mother. Robert is also a theory with Elaine, but he is MG’s son, so would add no new DNA.

Elaine and Josh Have Three Theories

I am leaning toward this one:

The Harriet Rayner Line is well-represented by ThruLines:

I’ll add Josh to Elaine’s DNAPainter Profile:

It looks like there is a possible crossover between Josh and Josheph. That could mean a few things. One possibility is that Elaine’s match with Josh is on the Simmons side. That would be one explaination of why one match ends where the other starts.

Josh and Joan

These two match on Chromosome 4:

I had already added Josh to Joan’s profile, but I had the match from the older Hopgood/Yeo. I’ll erase this match and keep the one I just added.

David and Joan

While I’m on Joan, I’ll look at this Theory:

The good thing about this Theory is that there are not other proposed theories. Ancestry’s ThruLines gets down to David’s grandmother Evelyn:

I would say that is evidence enough for my purposes of mapping David to Joan’s profile:

It appears that I have already mapped David. When I check more on the earlier David, I see this:

I don’t know why David would have had more matches earlier and why they were mapped to MacArthur.

I tried to see if Elaine had a Theory with David, but I didn’t see one.

Joan and Margaret’s Theory on the Ellis Side

Ancestry’s ThruLines get down to John England:

Margaret adds to the confusion on Chromosome 2:

I could not find this match for Elaine.

Elaine and Ron on the Rainer Side

I have found this Theory to be wrong before.  Ron is the son of Isabel who I have mapped already, so I’ll skip Ron.

Elaine and Randy

He is also at Ancestry:

I have already mapped his father, so I don’t need to map Randy. I should be getting to the end of the new Theories. The smaller match Theories are often not as important as the bigger DNA matches.

Elaine and Rachel

Here is an interesting Threory:

A fifth cousin is pretty distant. I looked to see if there were any Ancestry ThruLines and there were not, so I will put this Theory on hold.  So that covers it for ‘new’ Theories for Elaine. There were others that I didn’t discuss as the genealogy didn’t look right. There is perhaps another connection than the one suggested.

Joan and Wendy

These next Theories should apply to Joan only as I am done with her sister Elaine:

This relationship appers to be supported by ThruLines:

In fact, Alicia is mentioned above in this Blog. Wendy looks to be a 2nd cousin once removed to Alicia. I already have Wendy in Joan’s DNA map:

I’ll need to sort out Joan’s Paternal Chromosome 2 at some point as it is quite a mess:

Summary and Conclusions

  • By now, the ‘;new’ designation is going away, so I was right in trying to look at these before that happened.
  • I assume that Ancestry has the largest DNA database. Because of that it is worthwhile to get a second opinion from Ancestry’s ThruLines, to see if these Theories make sense.
  • I was able to add to Joan and Elaine’s maps as to where they got their DNA from
  • There was some conflicting information such as in the paternal Chromosome 2 above. This is due to intermarriage, or incorrect genealogies or both.
  • The first Theories were the best. The Theories at the bottom of the less were less reliable and/or less helpful
  • MyHeritage has a good combination of genealogical trees and DNA matches with detailed DNA information (unlike Ancestry). This makes them ideal for use with the DNAPainter Program
  • Joan is now at 43% painted overall and Elaine is at 30%

 

 

 

 

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Adding to my Ellis Mother-in-Law’s DNA Map: Part 2

Here is Part 1. In Part 1, In that Blog, I looked at MyHeritage Theories of Relativity for my mother-in-law Joan.

Looking at Gedmatch

Gedmatch provides good information, but the most likely combination would be Gedmatch and Ancestry. However, it can be difficult to match the two. Here is a match for David at Gedmatch:

This appears to be David’s tree at Ancestry:

Laura shows as being from PEI, so that would be a good start. Here is what I get for a tree:

That means that David’s common ancestor with Joan is Malcolm MacArthur and Ann MacDougall. David’s matches with Joan overlap with other matches except for the end of Chromosome 18:

Repairing Some Broken Theories at MyHeritage

Here is Joan’s match with John:

It doesn’t make sense. It looks like two women were married and gave birth to Malcolm. First, I’ll build out a tree for John:

This is John’s maternal side:

Here I found some interesting information:

According to ancestry James Ellis was the father of Alexander McDougall.

Here are the crazy results I get:

That means that John would be a fourth cousin twice removed to my mother-in-law Joan:

It seems like John and Joan share a lot of DNA for that distant a relationship, but I will try painting them in to see what happens:

On Chromosomes 17 and 18, the match is bumping into MacArthur/MacDougal DNA which makes sense given the genealogy. However, I was not able to easily figure out a common ancestor on the MacDougall Line. The match, though confusing, got Joan up to 34% painted paternally and 40% overall.

These results appear to be supported by AncestryDNA’s ThruLines:

Untanglling a Rayner Mess

MyHeritage has this wrong Theory:

This is the DNA/Genealogy tree I have so far:

Here, I’ll add in Jason:

However, I see a problem in that he has MacArthur ancestry also. Jason and Joan are 4th cousins once removed on the Rayner Line.

It turns out that there is an Ellis connection on the MacArthur Line:

It turns out Jason is a fourth cousin three times removed to Joan on the Ellis Line:

I’ll go ahead and paint in Jason on the Rayner Line as that is a closer relationship. Here is how Jason looks in DNAPainter:

He has no overlap with Joseph on Chromosome 7. That means that Jason has new Rayner DNA or that he is overlapping on other ancestral lines. Here is how it breaks down:

On Chromosome 1, Jason’s match probably represents a crossover between Rayner and Ellis

On Chromosome 4:

Here Jason is outnumbered by Ellis matches, so this is probably his Sarah Ellis DNA. Same problem on Chromosome 6:

Chromosome 14:

The overlap with blue means that Rayner is right here. It takes some time to tease out the genealogy and DNA.

Robert with Three Theories

I must not have painted Robert previously because he had three theories. I will paint the closest match now:

Here is Robert on Chromosomes 3 and 4:

Chromosome 3 probably represents Joan’s crossover between Ellis and Gorrill. Or it could be Robert’s older match. Here is one of the two older connections:

Chromosome 4 is confusing because Jason’s red was meant to be Rayner. If I corrected Jason’s segment is should be gold color or tan.

Again, Chromosome 15 is difficult to interpret:

The match appears to represent a crossover, but I’m not sure which one. This could be Ramsay DNA or Ellis/MacArthur. The other confusing part is that Ramsay is back on the MacArthur Line.

Unraveling Another Mess MyHeritage PEI Theory

This can’t be right as it appears to show that Ellen MacArthur had two children the same year with different men. The connection appears to be on Donna’s paternal side:

When I build out my tree the closest connection I see is here:

There is another connection but it is another generation out on the Yeo side:

I’ve started a DNA/Genealogy tree for MacArthur which is sure to get bigger:

Joan and Donna are 4th cousins once removed. I think that Donna and Joan are 6th cousins on the Yeo Line. Here is where Donna matches on Chromosome 17:

Donna appears to add to the evidence that John’s match should be on the MacArthur side. Of course, at this point, I don’t remember who John is!

Detangling Mona’s Tree at MyHeritage

Joan’s side appears right up to Malcolm MacArthur except that his daughter should be Marion MacArthur. This is what I got by building out Mona’s tree, but I couldn’t find any familiar surnames:

Actually MacDougall is familiar, but I don’t know where the connection is – probably way back. I’ll give up on Mona for now.

Christopher on the Rayner Line

Time to pull out my Rayner DNA/Genealogy Tree:

When I do, I see that I missed Jason’s ancestor Silas Rayner. Here is Christopher added:

Here is Christopher painted on Chromosome 6:

Here Christopher, who does not appear to have Ellis ancestry like Jason, is correctly on the blue Rayner side.  At this point Joan is up to 35% painted on her paternal side.

Lauren on the Rayner Line

Lauren has two Theories at MyHeritage – both on the Rayner Line. Here is Theory 1:

Lauren is on the Silas Line which I already looked at. Lauren should be more closely related to Jason above. MyHeritage shows that she is, but without triangulation. Actually Lauren has three Theories with Joan, but I will go with the tree that I have already made for now and assume that the connection is with Edward Rayner born 1775 and Mary Watson. Here is Lauren in my Rayner DNA/genealogy Tree:

Lauren’s match on Chromosome 1 shows a possible issue:

Her match overlaps on the Ellis/Gorrill side. This suggests that Lauren could have a match on Joan’s Ellis/Gorrill side or that there could be some other connection. The other two DNA matches are not in areas with other matches, so there is nothing to compare them with:

George on the Ellis/MacArthur Line

George is painted onto Chromosomes 1 and 18:

George’s match with Joan on Chromosome 18 appears to indicate that the match is on the MacArthur side. That is due to the overlap with pink matches.

A Rayner Connection with Roy

The tree associated with Roy at MyHeritage ends with Eva Dawson:

Eva’s marriage record gives a Rayner for her mother:

When I build out part of Roy’s paternal side, I get this:

This shows the confusion at MyHeritage between Edward John Rayner Jr and John Rayner. I can add Roy to my Rayner DNA/genealogy Tree:

I have three sons of Edward John Rayner that I have been tracking via their descendants’ DNA. My ancestry tree has 10 children of Edward John Rayner.

Roy’s DNA match with Joan overlaps with Lauren’s match which is good. This actually ties the three Rayner lines together. This brings Joan’s painted paternal matches up to 36%. The Rayner family was large, so there are likely many more DNA matches out there.

Summary and Conclusions

  • DNA Painting is a good way to get an understanding of how your relatives fit in
  • DNA Painting points out places where there are multiple common ancestors. In some cases, it makes it possible to sort out which DNA comes from which which common ancestor when there are multiple pairs of common ancestors.
  • DNA matches tend to favor the more prolific lines
  • I wanted to get Joan up to 40% painted and was able to do this. However, it took longer than I thought
  • Using MyHeritage is a good way to paint matches as there is already some genealogy and they have the DNA matches in detail. The Theories are not always accurate, so need to be checked. I think that Ancestry’s ThurLines are one way to check the genealogy along with creating trees to flesh out the trees of the DNA matches.
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Adding to My Mother-in-Law Ellis’ DNA Map

I learned something interesting recently. My wife’s mother’s DNA seems more endogamous than my wife’s father’s. Endogamous means that your ancestors tended to intermarry with each other’s cousins. One way to check this is through AncestryDNA. Here are some numbers for Joan:

Divide Joan’s close matches by all her matches and multiply by 100 to get a percentage. I get 9.6%. For Joan’s sister Elaine, I get 10.5%. My wife’s father is not at Ancestry, but his two sisters are. For Lorraine, I get 7.3% and for Suzy, I get 7.6%. That means that there was more intermarriage on the Ellis side than the Butler side. The higher the percentage, the higher the intermarriage rate. I had assumed, that as half of Butler was French Canadian, that there would be more intermarriage there, but the PEI and Newfoundland ancestry of the Ellis family trumps the Butlers.

Updating Joan’s DNAPainter Map

This is what I have:

The higher percentage Joan has explains why I had trouble finding consistant common ancestors for some of Joan’s DNA matches. Many matches had more than one possible set of common ancestors. Joan is 36% painted overall now. I would like to bring that number up a bit in this Blog.

Ivan at MyHeritage

MyHeritage has DNA and Trees, so is a good place to start:

Based on Joan’s ThruLines at Ancestry, George seems to be a likely son of Peter Upshall:

Ivan overlaps with two people who have Dicks genealogy:

That means that Ivan could have Dicks genealogy or that Edna and Cheryl could have Upshall genealogy. There are even other possibilities!

Glenys at MyHeritage

Glenys matches on the Upshall Line:

She shows as a 2nd cousin once removed. I can check on the tree quickly. Glenys has her mom as Gladys Upshall from Newfoundland. She has her grandfather as Theordore Malcolm Upshall from Harbour Buffett. That is where my wife’s ancestors came from, so that makes sense.

This record at Ancestry is helpful:

I painted Glenys in, but she did not add any new DNA.

Irma at MyHeritage (MacArthur)

The MacArthurs had a large family, so Joan will have a lot of 4th cousins from that line:

Here are the ThruLines from Ancestry:

Joan has 175 matches, with 55 matches on her Marion MacArthur Line. The Effie MacArthur at MyHeritage is probably the Euphemia at Ancestry. Let’s add in Irma:

On Chromosomes 4 and 9, the MacArthur DNA is bumping into the Ellis DNA, so something could be off in the genealogy on one or both sides.

Unfortunately, I’m not up to sorting it our right now. My guess is that Irma could have Ellis ancestry.

Mervyn on the Upshall Side

Mervyn is also on Ancestry:

Based on Joan’s 7 matches to descendants of Susan Upshall, I’d say it is time to add Susan to my wife’s ancestry tree.

The match on Chromosome 2 is interesting:

Mervyn is matching the Dicks. However, if Chris Dicks married a Collette for example, this would make sense as Mervyn is also a Collette.

Richard on the MacArthur Line

It is not clear to me why the top person was deleted. It seems clear that it would be MacArthur/MacDougall. I’ll just assume the genealogy is right.

Richard filled in some paternal DNA for Joan on Chromosomes 1 and 17, but her overall painted percentage is still 36%.

Rebecca: Another MacArthur Descendant

Rebecca comes down by way of Hugh MacArthur:

Rebecaa matches Joan on Chromosome 11:

Rebecca’s match overlaps a bit on the Rayner side. My colors are a bit off. I need more contrast between MacArthur and William Ellis. Also between Ed and John Rayner.

Rebecca brings Joan up to 37% painted overall and 29% paternal.

David at MyHeritage: A New Line?

David matches on the Gorrill/Newcombe line.

David’s match is on Chromosome 14 and gets Joan up to 31% painted (from 29%) on her paternal side.

Rhonda on the Ellis Side

I feel like I have a long way to go here:

Rhonda shows as a third cousin twice removed to Joan.

The match on Chromosome 17 should indicate that the match with Debbie should be on the Ellis side and not the Gorrill side.

Wendy on the Newcombe/Pring Line

This would be a new set of ancestors to map:

Joan and Wendy have a different possibility at the 5th cousin level, but I will stick with this option. First, I’ll check on William, son of William Newcombe. I see this in the 1851 Census for Devon, England:

That means that that William and Mary had a pretty big family.

This results in a bit of a mess as Chromosome 2 shows overlap with other families. Something to work out at a later time! Also, I see that other trees have names other than Pring for Mary.

Wayne on the MacArthur Line

The tree looks legit. We have come across Euphemia or Effie before.

Wayne fills in a bit of a gap at the end of Chromosome 4 for Joan:

Wayne also matches Joan on Chromosome 18 but only in areas already covered by other matches.

Devin on the Dicks Line

Bonnie on the MacArthur Line

I have had good luck painting in the MacArthur line:

Bonnie gets the paternal side up to 32% painted:

She fills in some missing area on the paternal side of Joan’s Chromosome 12.

Richard on Joan’s Daly Line

Joan doesn’t have many matches on her Daly side:

Richard is a good find. That brings Joan up to 44% painted on her maternal side and 38% overall. For some reason, the Theory above shows ‘deleted profile’. Here is Richard’s tree on his maternal side:

Richard would be a good candidate for an X Chromosome match to Joan based on their genealogy. However, MyHeritage does not show X Chromosome matches.

Loretta with a Single Ellis Common Ancestor

 

According to MyHeritage, Joan and Loretta are 1/2 third cousins once removed. That means that they only have one common ancestor who is James Henry Ellis born in 1801. That also means that the DNA that these two share comes from James Ellis.

Loretta’s matches with Joan are on Chromosomes 9 and 11. On Chromosome 9, Loretta fills in some blank space. On Chromosome 11, Loretta’s matches indicates that Marianne’s and Melissa’s DNA are from the Ellis and not the Gorrill side.

Janet on the Dicks Line

Janet fills in a small blank in the maternal copy of Chromosome 15:

Shantall and Hopgood/Watson Common Ancestors

Shantall provides the first painted in segment for Joan on her Chromosome 22:

Sharon on the Rayner/Simmons Line

Sharon is Joan’s first paternal side match on Chromosome 10:

This match tips the scales and gets Joan up one percent to 33% painted paternally and 39% overall.

Clarice on the Rheihold/Hurst Line

Clarice is the first maternal side identified match for Joan on Chromosome 16:

A Small Rayner/Hopgood Match with Brian

This small match was the first for Rayner/Hopgood and shows at the very beginning of Chromosome 9:

Josh on the Hopgood Line

Josh is the last Theory of Relativity at MyHeritage that Joan has right now:

The Theory has a few deleted profiles, but the genealogy seems alright:

Josh is the first painted Hopgood/Yeo segment:

Summary and Conclusions

Here is the new map for Joan:

  • I was pleased overall with looking at the Theories at MyHeritage. They added many new segments
  • I didn’t add some segments as there were multiple close common ancestors
  • There were some theories especially on the MacArthur line where the genealogy was messed up, so I didn’t try to fix the genealogy.
  • I was hoping to get Joan up to 40% painted. I think I can do that by working out the MacArthur genealogy or looking at Gedmatch for DNA matches. This can be handled in a subsequent Blog.
  • The interrelatedness of some of Joan’s ancestors presents some challenges when looking at the DNA.
  • I enjoy making these maps, but it can be a time-consuming exercise.
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Daley DNA and Genealogy

I am looking for specific Daley DNA and genealogy on my wife’s side. Here is my mother-in-law’s maternal side:

Elizabeth Daley was born in Canso, Nova Scotia and died in Boston during the Flu Epidemic in 1919. DNA matches have been scarce, but we will take a look.

Ancestry Daley ThruLines

An easy place to look for genealogical connections with DNA matches is with Ancestry’s ThruLines. Here is one of the Daley ThruLines as shown from the perspective of my mother-in-law Joan:

This shows that Joan has a DNA match with Katherine who likely descends from Elizabeth Daley’s sister Mary. Here is what Katherine has about her grandmother:

It looks like Mary stayed in Canso. This appears to be Mary Kelly’s mother Mary in 1911:

Here is the family in 1921:

This was not easy to figure out. Ancestry transcribes her husband’s name as Canet. However, I see something more like Everett. Julia would be Katherine’s grandmother Mary Julia. All this to say is that the ThruLines for Katherine and Joan look right.

More ThruLines Back to Lawrence Daly

This shows Edward (who my mother-in-law Joan descends from) and two siblings: Michael and Ann. I must not have Ann in my tree as she shows as green. However, the fact that there are three DNA matches to Joan tell me that Ann is the real thing.

A Daley DNA Tree

Here is the start of my Daley DNA tree:

Here is Canso, where many Daley’s lived:

Canso is in Nova Scotia below Cape Breton and not too far by water from Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland where my mother-in-law Joan’s other ancestors were from.

The Ann Daily Line

The DNA matches are to Joan. Carol has a reference to Ann Daily’s marriage which makes all this seem legit.

Here is Black Point – not far from Canso:

Here is an enlarged Daly/Daley Tree:

 

Elaine’s Daly ThruLines

Joan’s sister Elaine has some DNA matches also.

Along with the Edward Daley Line, Elaine has 4 matches in the Michael Daly Line and 4 matches on the Ann Daly LIne.

Elaine’s Michael Daly Line Matches

Elaine shows four matches. However, the ThruLines connection with Lois appears to have an error. It has Michael Daly in the tree twice for some reason. Here they are added to my Daly genealogy/DNA tree:

Elaine and the Ann Daly Line

Elaine’s match with Tara adds an additonal branch:

I had the Ann Daily Line wrong in my tree above. Here I have corrected it:

Here is the whole tree:

The could have been some marriage of cousins in this scenario as some of the surnames in these lines look familiar. I have not been able to find Daley matches where the match has uploaded to Gedmatch or tested at MyHeritage or FTDNA. Because of that, I don’t have detailed information on these Daley DNA matches.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Between Joan and Elaine, they have several DNA matches with the descendants of Lawrence Daley and Elizabeth Snyder
  • It seems like all these matches are at AncestryDNA
  • AncestryDNA does not supply specific DNA information on how those Daley/Snyder match
  • Because this specific DNA information is missing, I was not able to map the Daley/Snyder DNA matches onto Joan and Elaine’s chromosomes

 

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Updating My Wife’s Mother’s Ellis DNA

I manage my wife’s mother’s DNA kit and my wife’s mother’s sister’s DNA kit. Their names are Joan and Elaine. I was looking at Elaine’s DNA this morning.

Ellis Line Match with Joseph

The match I found for Elaine this morning was with Joseph. He is a good match because he is on Gedmatch and Ancestry. He also has trees on Ancestry and Gedmatch. Using DNA Painter, I added Joseph’s match to Elaines DNA Map:

Joseph matches Elaine on Chromosomes 7 and 14. The match appears to go back to 1775. Here is how Elaine and Joseph connect:

Elaine and Joseph show as 4th cousins going back to 1775. Ancestry also has this highly unlikely scenario:

Joseph has a smaller match with my mother-in-law Joan. They only match on Chromosome 7. I’ll add that match in:

 

Here Joseph in orange is bumping into Debbie in green. That could mean that I have some of the genealogy wrong. I can’t find the Debbie’s DNA match anymore, so that doesn’t help.

Elaine’s DNA Map makes more sense:

Here we see the split between Rayner and Hopgood:

Elaine’s great-grandfather is Abraham Rayner and her great-grandmother is Henrietta Hopgood.

A Rhynold Match with Stuart at MyHeritage

MyHeritage shows this Theory of Relativity between Joan and Stuart:

Rhynold is on Joan’s maternal side. Here is what DNA Painter has to say:

They are finding DNA overlap with other ancestors, so is this really Rhynold DNA? I’m curious, so I’ll try painting him in.

There is no overlap on Chromosomes 7 and 20 and only a minimal overlap on Chromosome 1, so I think that we have the right common ancestors.

I had already painted Stuart onto Elaines Chromosomes 7, 9 and 20. Elaine doesn’t match Stuart on Chromosome 1, because she has larger Upshall matches on that Chromosome:

Rynault is on the Daley side:

James Robert Theory of Relativity: Ellis/MacArthur

Joan and James Robert show as third cousins:

I’ll paint James Robert in to see if that makes sense. Here is how I painted James Robert in to Joan’s map:

James Robert is the orange match on Chromosomes 1, 2, and 5. The reason is that there are two entries for James Ellis born 1801 is that James had two wives. His first wife was Jane Ramsay. However, Joan descends from the second wife who was Marion MacArthur. In some cases, the DNA match is just with James Ellis, in other cases, it is with James and his wife Marion MacArthur.

Next, I’ll paint James Robert onto Elaine’s map. She already has an Ellis/MacArthur entry:

For some reason, there was not any overlap between Elaine’s DNA matches with James Robert and Robert who I show as also descending from James Ellis and Marion MacArthur.

Painting MacArthur/MacDougall

MG has a double Theory of Relativity with Elaine. However, MacArthur/MacDougall is the closer relationship:

The other common ancestor is with James Yeo, but is a half 5th cousin relationship. Let’s paint Elaine’s DNA match with MG to see what happens. When I go to paint MG, I get this message:

That actually makes sense because Marion would be a daughter or Malcolm MacArthur:

MacArthur/MacDougall is painted in in maroon in Chromosomes 4, 17, 18 and 19. This gets Elaine up to 20% painted on her paternal side. Chromosome 19 is where the small overalp occurs:

I also reorganized the key so it makes more sense.  MacArthur is on the Ellis side.

For Joan, I already had a listing for MacArthur/MacDougall:

Elaine’s match with Barry and MG overlap on Chromosome 4. I assume that would be considered triangulation:

MyHeritage shows triangulation by circled segments.

Edna on the Dicks Line

Edna fits in well with my Dicks DNA Project:

Edna also has this Theory of Relativity:

I’m not as sure that this is right. Here is the DNA tree I have:

I added Edna in under the left circle. HereI have painted Edna on to Joan’s DNA Map:

Edna has good overlap with other Christopher Dicks descendants. I think that Henry Dicks is from a more distant line. There is also overlap on Chromosome 21:

Edna overaps with Joan’s Aunt Esther. Esther overlaps with a more recent Dicks Line. So while Edna adds no new Dicks DNA to Joan’s map, this exercise places Edna within the DNA framework I have for Christopher Dicks born 1784 and his wife Margaret.

For some reason, I could not find Edna on Elaine’s MyHeritage match list.

Nat’s Theory on the Ellis Side

Nat has three Theories of Relativity with Elaine at MyHeritage. Here is the closest:

Theory two is similar to Theory one but involves a 4th cousin once removed. Theory three is more distant on the MacDougall side.

Here we have a problem on Chromosome 6:

Hopgood (yellow) and Ellis (blue) should not be sharing the same space on the Paternal side of Chromosome 6. That means that there is a problem with the genealogy or some mixing of lines. I see that Jo-Ann has three Theories of Relativity. Here is Theory Three:

Turns out that Jo-Ann’s Chromosome 6 match with Elaine is most likely on the Ellis/Tawton side. I can fix this in DNA Painter:

Unfortunatley, that changed all of Jo-Ann’s matches. Here is the screen I should have used:

This is what I had wanted:

After checking chromosomes, I found another issue:

Jo-ann is bumping into Robert on Chromosome 4. I’m in deep on this one. I’ll assume that Robert has no Hopgood ancestry and change this segment also.

I hope that Jo-ann doesn’t mind me messing around with her DNA!

Next, I paint Nat onto Joan’s map:

Nat and Joan only match on Chromosome 6. Here I need to switch Jo-ann from Hopgood to Ellis like I did above:

That looks better. The three yellow segments now match up.

AutoClusters at Gedmatch

Here are Joan’s AutoClusters at Gedmatch between 35 and 250 cM:

This is how I see Joan’s matches shaking out. What about the clusters inbetween the two connected sets of clusters? Green Cluster 8 has someone with Guysborough, Nova Scotia ancestry. That is likely on Joan’s Daley side, but I was not able to match up the genealogy.

Elaine’s AutoClusters

Elaine, as may be expected has a similar profile to her sister Joan between the levels of 35 and 250 cM.

The configuration is inverted for Elaine. Her Newfoundland cluster group is in the top left and her PEI cluster group is in the bottom right. Elaine has four clusters in the middle compared to Joan’s three. My guess is that all or most of these clusters could be on the Daley side.

Barry is in blue Cluster 9. He appears to have PEI ancestry.

This shows Barry’s connection to Joan but the connection to Elaine would be the same.

Tammy is in brown Cluster 10. She has Rhynold in her tree. Tammy’s tree goes back a bit further than what I have.

Tammy’s maternal side goes back to Johann Rheinhold:

He apparently married Ann Lowry and had Tammy’s ancestor John Gleason Rhynold and Frederick born 1792 who was my wife’s ancestor. Tammy has Johann Capar Rheinhold born in Frankfurt and marrying in Cornwall, then settling in Guysborough, Nova Scotia.

I can add this couple to my wife’s family tree. I’ll add Tammy to DNA Painter:

Tammy is right below Stuart mentioned earlier in the Blog. Actually, the four in  Cluster 10 are probably all closely related.

Cluster 11 has Susan. She has PEI MacArthur ancestry.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I started updating the four grandparents of my mother-in-law. They are Ellis and Rayner from PEI. Also Upshall from Newfoundland and Daley from Nova Scotia.
  • One easy way to update DNA matches is through MyHeritage’s Theories of Relativity. I like to use DNA Painter to map out those DNA matches.
  • I also used Gedmatch AutoClusters. In this case, it was easy to pick out the large amount of Newfoundland matches as well as the PEI matches. There are not many Daley side matches.
  • It was possible to connect many of the Ancestry uploaded Gedmatches to their Ancestry profiles to check on family trees.
  • I found a new connection to Germany through the Rheinhold line connected with the Ellis’ Dale side. Johann Caspar Rheinhold apparently was born in the area of Frankfort, married in England and moved to Guysborough, Nova Scotia. I have not tried to confirm the genealogy, but it is in several trees and the match by DNA supports or confirms those trees. This surname was later changed to Rhynold and Rynault
  • In using DNA Painter, it is possible to sort out the DNA matches where there is more than one possible pair of common ancestors that the DNA may have come from.
  • DNA Painter also points out that the DNA matches are not evenly distributed by the four grandparents. There were very few matches shown on the Daley side at the match levels chosen. Most matches were on the Upshall side.
  • I didn’t break down the clusters between Ellis and Rayner, but I think that there are more Ellis matches than Rayner matches as there were many large Ellis families.
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A New Frazer STR Tree with Associated Families

First, I don’t like to make STR trees. They take a while to build and then when the SNP results come out, I can be proven wrong with my previous STR trees. Nonetheless, I’ll forge ahead based on the new 111 STR results from a Frazier relative.

First, Who Are the Associated Families

My understanding is that our Frazer ancestors came to Scotland at some time around the time of Christ. They probably formed a small group of people around the Inverness area. At the time when people were taking on surnames, they probably took on the surnames of the people who were surrounding them at the time. This would likely account for the names of Riley, Hayes, Stuart, Grant and Frazer/Frazier below. There were likely other names adopted. The name of Chisolm comes to mind and perhaps other names that haven’t had YDNA tests.

Building a STR Tree

First I extracted STR results from Frazers and other more distantly related families:

These are 25 STR results for Riley, Hayes, Stuart, Grant and Frazer/Frazier. From this, it appears clearly that a DYS447 of 24 defines Frazer/Frazier and a DYS447 of 25 defines the families above. It appears that the value of 25 is older as there are more of that number and it is applied to three different families.

Without getting into the details, here is a simple tree:

The important thing here is that our most recent Frazier tester falls solidly in with our North Roscommon Frazers.

Further, there is a clear break between Riley and Hayes/Stuart/Grant:

This is just with 25 STR testing.

Frazer and Related Families at 37 STRs

Here is the testing up to 37 STRs:

I took out the markers that were all the same. There was a further distinction I didn’t note above in the first 25 markers that identifies the Archibald line of the North Roscommon Frazers. That is a DYS391 of 11. This is where I was before Richard’s 111 STR results came in. It looked like he was fairly closely related to the Roscommon Ireland Frazers. At the 37 STR level, one of the Stuarts drops out as he only tested to 25 STRs.

111 STRs

At this level, some more families drop out:

There is still one Riley and one Stuart left. In the last column, there was a 16, 17 and 15 for results. In that case, I assumed that the 16 was the ancestral value and that Riley mutated up and Stuart mutated down. I made a similar assumption in the column that had 12, 13 and 14.

It is in the lighter blue 38-111 STRs that Richard shows some of his differences from the North Roscommon Frazers in DYS710, 717 and 712. These are the three markers that appear to put Richard further back as a match with our Roscommon Frazers before they were in Roscommon. Again, the SNP results should give a better idea if this is indeed the case.

This is my best guess for a STR tree:

The big question is whether Richard is under Archibald Frazer or further back as I have it in the above diagram. The main reason for putting Richard’s common ancestor with Archibald Frazer descendants back before the Irish Frazers is that Jonathan’s matches with other known Irish Frazer descendants appears to be closer than with Richard. Here are Jonathan’s STR matches:

Jonathan matches known North Roscommon Frazer descendants at a GD between 1 and 4. He matches Richard at a GD of 7 which is about the same level at which he matches two Stuart descendants.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I built a Frazer STR tree which tries to take into account other related families of Riley, Hayes, Grant and Stuart.
  • Frazier seems solidly in the Frazer camp based on one of the STR markers
  • However, based on genetic distance, it seems like Richard should have a common ancestor with the North Roscommon Frazers at some point before they moved to Ireland.
  • These findings seem consistent with what I looked at in my previoius Blog on Richard’s 111 STR results
  • My guess is that Richard’s BigY SNP results will confirm what appears to be happening with his less reliable STR results

 

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AutoClustering My Mother-In-Law Joan’s AncestryDNA

I’m excited about looking at my mother-in-law’s DNA. I tried autoclustering her FTDNA results but had a difficult time identifying many of her clusters.

Making Joan’s DNA Fun Again

When I first started looking at Joan’s DNA several years ago, it seemed like a lot of her matches resulted in common ancestors. Then later, I saw that there was a lot of inter-marriage going on in Prince Edward Island (PEI) where Joan’s two paternal grandparents came from. Let’s take a look at the Geneticaffairs AutoCluster for Joan:

That’s not very clear, is it? My previous autocluster reports were in the range of three or four hundred matches. This report is quite large, with about 650 matches. Large is good, but it makes the chart difficult to view. To get the Chart above, I used thresholds between 25 and 600cM.

Joan’s Ancestry

Joan’s ancestry is one-half PEI, 1/4 Newfoundland and 1/4 Nova Scotia. The records are poor for Newfoundland and the Nova Scotia relatives are a bit obscure.

The first column has Joan’s great-grandparents. Ellis through Hopgood are PEI. Upshall and Dicks are Newfoundland. Daley and Rhynold are Nova Scotia. Here is a guess on how Joan’s autocluster will look:

It would be nice to sort the Ellis from the Rayner in the top square. However, there is some crossovers in the families as you go back in time. I’m also curious to look into Joan’s Newfoundland and more obscure Nova Scotia ancestry.

Let’s Get to the Clusters

First I start with the Identifying Spreadsheet. This is to identify Joan’s 66 clusters – or to at least get a start on them.

This goes down to Cluster 42, because the results went off my screen. However Brian at Cluster 41 is important.

Brian’s Upshall Match

Here is an Upshall Tree. I think I have it right:

Brian is Joan’s 1st cousin once removed. However, they are only related on the Upshall side because Fred Upshall’s first wife died and he remarried and had Gertrude and Esther. I drew my big green box starting with Brian in Cluster 41 in my initial guess.

Joan’s Ellis Side

Joan’s Cluster Chart is headed up by E.E. Here is E.E.’s Shared Ancestor Hint (SAH) with Joan at AncestryDNA:

E.E. is in Joan’s Cluster 1 and is a second cousin to Joan. E.E. is the top left square in this cluster.

The higher matches are on the top left and the lower matches are on the lower right. The Shared Matches fade out a bit from the top left to the lower right. Most of Joan’s matches with Newfoundland ancestry can be found in this cluster. That should include more of the Dicks relatives than Upshalls.

Now I have two out of 66 clusters:

These might not be the best names for these clusters, but that is what I am calling them right now. Cluster 1 has 105 members and Cluster 41 has 101 members, so those two matches represent clusters that total to over 200 matches.

Joan’s AncestryDNA Circles and Her Clusters

Joan has 22 Circles at AncestryDNA. These Circles point to common ancestors and should help to identify Joan’s clusters. One of the more obscure clusters leads me to Gordon with Rhynold ancestry:

Gordon and many others are in Cluster 61. This probably represents the start of Joan’s Daley maternal grandmother’s side:

Cluster 61 has been bolded and the Upshall Cluster is shown in the upper right of the image above. These may be other Newfoundland Clusters between Upshall and Daley/Rhynold.

Daley represents 1/4 of Joan’s DNA but a smaller percentage of her actual matches. I have now defined the three main areas of Joan’s ancestry on the clusters. They are: PEI, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

Separating Ellis from Rayner

I have distinguished three areas of Joan’s ancestry. I have Joan’s Ellis, Upshall and Daley ancestry. Now I would like to separate the Ellis DNA from the Rayner DNA. This is a little difficult due to crisscrossing of Rayner and Ellis ancestry. Here is some of Joan’s paternal ancestry:

Back to the Circles

Here is a Rayner Circle from Ancestry:

There are 21 in this circle. Hazel is a match with strong confidence. Yet, she appears in Joan’s Cluster 1:

I do see that while Hazel has two Rayner Lines, she also has an Ellis ancestor:

It looks like Joan may be matching on this Ellis Line rather than the Rayner side. Confusing, isn’t it?

The Mary Watson Circle

Mary Watson was the wife of Edward John Rayner. If Edward was in Cluster 1, shouldn’t Mary be also? Or can AncestryDNA somehow separate the two?:

Joan’s first non-close family relative in the Mary Watson Circle is Esther. Turns out Esther is in Cluster 13. Hence, my question above.

 

Looking at Esther’s tree, I don’t see Mary Watson:

Perhaps it is more obvious through other trees.

One of the next matches to Joan in the Mary Watson tree is Mary-Ann. Mary-Ann is in Cluster 12. Mary-Ann has one non-private person in her tree who is not a Rayner and not a Watson. At this point, I can choose to trust Ancestry’s Circles or trust them. I’ll assume that there is something to the Circles and add Cluster 12 as a Mary Watson Cluster.

Here is Joan’s green Cluster 12 highlighted:

Let’s Try a Mary Yeo Circle

Here is Mary Yeo.

Mary is Joan’s third great-grandmother on her paternal Rayner side.

Wanda is a top match in the Mary Yeo Circe, but she is in Cluster 1. Wanda also has at least one Ellis ancestor. I am beginning to question some of these Ancestry Circles. However, to be fair, I have had trouble separating out Ellis and Rayner by hand, so I’m sure a computer program would have the same problems.

One More Rayner Side Circle: Amelia Watson

Ronald is a top match in the Amelia Watson Circle. He has Gorrill, Hopgood and Watson ancestors. He is also in Cluster 7. Hmm…

An Additional Ellis Cluster

Kath is in Cluster 4:

However, Kath is in the Pring Circle. The Circles are confusing me right now, so I’ll have to ignore them. Note that Kath has two Shared Ancestor Hints (SAHs). Here is the second:

I suppose that is how Kath got into the Pring Circle. Fortunately both these ancestors are on the Ellis side. From the above, it appears that Richard Gorrill Married two Newcombe sisters. I’ll record this in my spreadsheet like this:

This shows that I have five PEI Clusters identified out of what appears to be a total of 40 PEI Clusters.

One More Cluster – #19

There is always one more Cluster to Identify. My next strategy is to look down the list of clusters from my AutoCluster Report:

I have a few notes for Heather and L.M. that indicate that they should be on the Rayner side.

More on Newfoundland DNA

I have written many Blogs about Dicks and other Newfoundland DNA. I will look into those matches now.

Crann DNA

Joan matches other with Crann DNA. Heather is from New Zealand and Joan and Heather’s common ancestors are likely Henry Crann born 1757 in Netherbury, Dorset, England and his wife Elizabeth Collens. This is a case where the DNA gets ahead of the genealogy. Heather is in Joan’s Cluster 46

Building Out Terrence’s Tree

Terrence is also in Cluster 46 and has a tree with four people. I am curious about his tree as his mother is a Crann. I have avoided building out any trees in this Blog, so I will build one out now:

This is Terrence’s mother’s grandfather’s line going right back to Jenry Crann and Elizabeth Collens. One interesting thing about this tree is that I have Richard Crann being born in Harbour Buffett where Joan’s Newfoundland ancestors lived.

Tyler Also from Cluster 46

In addition to Terrence is Tyler. I don’t have to build out his tree. His tree also goes back to John Crann. When I put Heather, Terrence, and Tyler in a tree, I get this Cluster 46 Crann Tree:

R.N. From Cluster 46

R.N. is Joan’s last match at Cluster 46 (at the threshold that I set). Turns out R.N. also has a tree on the New Zealand Branch:

Now Joan has symmetry in her Cluster 46 between Newfoundland on the left and New Zealand on the right.

Where is Joan in Cluster 46?

That is the problem. I don’t have good records for the match. I had proposed that John Crann had a daughter named Elizabeth who married Christopher Dicks.

The problem with this theory is that I don’t have any paper evidence. I already had Tyler in this tree, but I am missing Terrence. He needs to be added in. I note that at Ancestry all the trees that have a name for Christopher Dicks wife have Elizabeth Collier. There is one researcher who has Christopher’s wife as Elizabeth Crann but has no parents for her.

Summary and Conclusions

  • With the AutoClustering technique, I was able to break down Joan’s DNA into her three ancestral regions.
  • I had some difficulty in splitting Joan’s PEI Ellis and Rayner grandparent clusters. This may be partly due to a fairly high 600cM top limit for the clusters.
  • I wonder if I lower the top number will I get more clusters. There were a lot of people in the two main Ellis and Upshall Clusters.
  • I focused on one small Crann cluster with small matches but good trees. This cluster added to my previous work where I propose the Elizabeth Crann is the wife of the Christopher Dicks born about 1812.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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My Mother-In-Law and Her FTDNA AutoClustering

Joan’s Genealogy

I find Joan’s DNA fun to work with. Even though Joan has Canadian background, she has no French Canadian which can muck up the works. I don’t mean to sound prejudice in a DNA sort of way. Joan is 1/4 Newfoundland, 1/4 Daley which is from Nova Scotia and the other half is from Prince Edward Island. Out of Joan’s four grandparents, the Daley side seems to be most obscure. However, the Newfoundland side is problematic due to poor records there. The Church in Harbour Buffet burned down at one point.

  • Ellis and Rayner – PEI
  • Upshall – Newfoundland
  • Daley – Nova Scotia

AutoClustering Joan

For some reason, Joan’s results came through as untitled text files:

I was able to change the first two files to csv files and the last one to an html file and that solved the problem. I chose a range between 12 and 400 cM.

How Many Clusters?

Joan had so many clusters that they ran off the graph:

I’ll say Joan has over 80 clusters. 

This represents about the first 25 of Joan’s clusters. Here is the total at the bottom of the report:

I forgot that FTDNA add small segments to make the matches larger, so I should have had a higher bottom cutoff point.

Joan’s Cluster #1 – Newfoundland

A journey of 1,000 miles starts with one step. Joan’s top match is Ken. I’ve looked at his DNA before and had trouble figuring out where all of his DNA came from. If you look real close, you will see Ken’s grey dots going toward other clusters. Those are other places where he is related to Joan. I mentioned that French Canadians mucked up the works with intermarriage. This would be true of islands also – like Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island.

Joan’s #1 AutoCluster Match: Ken

Ken and Joan both descend from Christopher Dicks born in the 1780’s and his wife Margaret. I have run a DIcks DNA project and I recognize a lot of people in this Cluster.

Joan and Nancy

I didn’t recognize Nancy’s name in the group. Here is her tree:

I don’t get a lot of Upshall leads, so this is interesting. I assume that Nancy also has Dicks ancestry at some point. See, AutoClustering leads to good things.

That was quite easy. Here is the spreadsheet I use to keep track:

Cluster 2: PEI

I recognize some PEI descendants in Cluster 2. I have written about Glenda. She descends from Elllis and Rayner and matches Joan equally on those lines. That means I need to look at other Cluster 2 people and their trees.

Barbara and Lee

Barbara and Lee from Cluster 2 both have McArthur or MacArthur in their trees. That would seem to favor the Ellis side over the Rayner side:

However, I am just matching surnames, I am not matching actual shared ancestors. That would take more work.

Agnes’ Tree

It seems that there a lot of good trees at FTNDA. Agnes matches on the Rayner side.

Agnes’ maternal side has an Edward Rayner. His parent are the Edward John Rayner and Mary Watson in Joan’s tree. Of course, that favors the Rayner side. However, I note that there is an Ellis on Agnes’ Rayner side also.

Jane’s Tree

Here is where I need Ancestry to pull the trees together for me:

Jane has McArthur and Ellis on her paternal side.

I guess I’ll call this cluster Ellis/McArthur for now.

I spent a bit of time on this cluster, but it is Joan’s second largest cluster.

Joan’s Cluster Three People Don’t Look Familiar

Unlike the first two clusters, I don’t recognize these matches. There were four trees for the 13 people in this cluster. I think I’ll skip this one. By the little dots to the left and above this cluster, I would say there is some connection to the previous PEI cluster. It seems like an odd group. At least one tree was from New Zealand and one was from Ireland.

Skipping on to Cluster 4

As I look at the names and trees, it appears that this Cluster is from Newfoundland. I’ll just call this a Newfoundland Cluster:

That also gave me an idea for a name for Cluster 3.

DNAPainter to the Rescue?

I’m getting stuck on these Clusters, so I’ll take a look at what I have already painted for Joan. Here is the key to Joan’s painted Chromsomes:

One problem I see with this is that DNAPainter takes from many places – not just FTDNA.

Melissa in Cluster 34

Melissa has a common ancestor of Ellis/Gorrill with Joan.

I’m not so sure about the other two matches in the group. So I didn’t find a lot by that method.

The Clicking on Trees Method

Next, I’ll just click on trees to see if anything shows up. This resulted in a few general discoveries. I then clicked on the highest cM button to try to overcome FTDNA’s over-counting of their DNA matches.

Here are some of the clusters partly identified:

Summary and Conclusions

  • I had trouble finding specific ancestors for many of these clusters. I think it may be related to FTDNA having higher cM matching than is warranted. This may be partially fixed by raising the lower threshold to 20 cM when running an AutoCluster Report at FTDNA.
  • At Joan’s 2nd great-granparent level, I can identify 16 ancestors. In this analysis, I got 92 clusters. That is too many. 
  • Even though the cluster identification was difficult, it was good to take a fresh look at Joan’s FTDNA through the eyes of AutoClustering. I have at least one new lead to follow up on.
  • Another issue that makes Joan’s cluster identification difficult is that her ancestors come from two islands: PEI and Newfoundland. There was some intermarriage going on there. Joan is also once quarter from Nova Scotia. I’m not aware of intermarriage there, but matches with these relatives are relatively rare (no pun intended). 
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Painting My Wife’s Chromosomes

In this Blog I’ll paint my wife’s chromosomes. I use DNAPainter for this. This utility requires a subscription for over one painting, and I’m over that now, so I subscribed. Painting DNA is taking all your DNA matches and painting them onto your chromosomes. The match that you have shows that you have DNA from a common ancestor. So what I will be showing is where my wife, Marie, inherited her DNA on which chromosome and from which ancestor. Hopefully, it will become clear as I go along.

Right now I have profiles for my mother, myself and two siblings:

Next, I’ll create a profile for Marie. DNAPainter just needs to know her name and that she is a female. This makes a difference for the X Chromosome as women have two of those.

Which Matches Do I Paint for Marie?

I will look at painting no matches closer than those that represent Marie’s grandparents. That means that I don’t want to count matches from 1st cousins. Full 1st cousins share two grandparents. The first two people who I will paint will be Marie’s father’s 1st cousins Patricia and Joe. That makes them first cousins once removed to Marie.

Marie’s match with Patricia and Joe will show up on her map as DNA from Joseph LeFevre and Emma Pouliot. That is because we don’t know who the DNA came from. It should be part LeFevre and part Pouliot. Here is Marie’s match with Patricia from Gedmatch.com:

Here is what that looks at DNAPainter:

The DNA is on Marie’s paternal side, so that is on the blue bar. The key at the bottom says who the DNA is from. Now Marie has gone from zero to 7% of her chromosomes painted with adding just one cousin:

Marie also matches Patricia on her X Chromosome. So I added that. Next I need to add Patricia’s brother Joe. This time I’ll paste in his X Chromosome match along with the other matches. Gedmatch has you do a different query for the two. Adding Joe brings Marie’s painted DNA up to 10%. Now we can expand the Chromosomes to see the details:

 

The X Chromosome expands to this:

This shows that Joe shares more X Chromosome with Marie than Patricia does. Next I added RL who matches only on the LeFevre side as far as I know. This added 1% to Marie’s map and got her up to 11% mapped.

Here is Marie’s match with RL on Chromosome 12. Where RL matches Joe, that is likely all LeFevre DNA. On the right where RL does not overlap with Joe and Patricia, we don’t know if the DNA was from the LeFevre side or Pouliot side.

[Note: I have RL in the wrong color which I correct later in the Blog.]

Adding Some Pouliot DNA

Marie has some matches with Pouliot only DNA. These matches are with Fred, Don and Sleuth:

Now, wherever Marie has a match with Fred and Patricia and those matches overlap, that will show that the match with Patricia was on the Pouliot side and not the LeFevre side.

Here is a new color and this gets Marie’s painted chromosomes up to 13%. Here is Don on expanded view on Chromosome 1:

The green overtook the pink in the expanded view. This is OK as Pouliot is the more specific match and the older one. This tells us that Marie’s match with Patricia on Chromosome 1 is from the Pouliot side and not the LeFevre side. Next I added Don’s two siblings to bring Marie’s painted DNA up to 14%

So far, I have painted 6 matches to Marie’s paternal side. This represents only one of her grandparents – the LeFevre side. This 14% represents 27% of Marie’s paternal side DNA.

Starting Marie’s Maternal Side DNA Painting

Marie has Ellis and Upshall grandparents on her maternal side. Marie matches her half great Aunt Esther on the Upshall side. The half part is important as it narrows down the match to one of Marie’s great-grandparents.

This brings Marie’s mapped DNA up to 20%. So we are one fifth complete.

Here I wanted Frederick on the bottom as he is on the maternal side. I also added a line by choosing Joseph LeFevre/Emma Pouliot. I then chose Edit Group and I checked a box saying I wanted a line below this group.

More Painting

I don’t want to stop now. Marie’s next match at Gedmatch is a first cousin once removed, but he is a younger cousin. He shares two of Marie’s grandparents as common ancestors, so we won’t map him. After Nick is Gaby. Gaby is Marie’s second cousin on Marie’s paternal side. This match represents Marie’s Irish side.

This brings Marie to 23% mapped:

Next: More LeFevre DNA

Sandra has been a big help in uploading her DNA to Gedmatch. She tells me that she is a third cousin to Marie. Their common ancestors are  Edmond Lazare Lefevre and Leocadie Methot.

Sandra manages three DNA kits including her own that are close matches to Marie. I assume that they all have LeFevre and Methot common ancestors. I mentioned RL above but didn’t put in the correct common ancestor.

Here I will want to move RL to another group, but I haven’t set up that group yet, so I’ll add KK first.

Here I have added a new pair of ancestors for Marie on her maternal side with a splash of tangerine. I moved the ancestral pair down one on the key so they would be with the other LeFevre’s. Next I moved RL to the Edmond LeFevre Group. I see now that I could have created a new group before also.

I then added Sandra which brings the mapped number of segments up to 116.

Adding Anne to Marie’s Maternal Side

As I go down the list, it takes a little bit more to figure out where the people fit in. This looks to be the right tree for Anne:

Marie is Joan’s daughter, so that makes Marie a second cousin twice removed to Anne. So we are quickly back to about 1812 with Marie’s DNA.

This is only the second maternal ancestral pair. Unfortunately, I don’t have a last name for Elizabeth. Crann would be a guess. We still have no ancestors for Marie’s fourth grandparent: Ellis.

Ronda: An Ellis Match for Marie

Ronda is next on the list at Gedmatch:

Ronda is a third cousin to Marie. Note that there is another shared ancestor hint. However, it is further out and also on the Ellis line.

As this is a new grandparent match, it means that there will be no overlaps with any other matches and this brings Marie’s painted DNA up to 26%.

An Unknown Upshall Side Match

The next match going down the Gedmatch list is Leslie. Unfortunately, I can’t see an obvious common ancestor for Leslie and Marie. I’ll have to wait until I find one.

After the unknown is Sarah. I was able to find her at AncestryDNA. She has a Shared Ancestry Hint with Marie:

This is Marie’s first painted DNA from the 1700’s. The new matches are on the maternal sides of Chromosomes 2, 4, and 6.

On Chromosome 6, I circled one of Marie’s crossovers. That is where her DNA crossed over from her Upshall side in light blue to her Ellis side in teal and orange. The actual location of the crossover is where the blue changes to teal.

Next is another unknown match. This is with Bobby. I can tell that the match is on the Ellis side, but not exactly where. I do see that Bobby also has his DNA at FTDNA. However, the tree is not all filled out there either.

Next is Danielle. I can tell by Shared Matches at AncestryDNA that she is related on the LeFevre side, but the detailed tree is missing also.

Karen and Martha with Newfoundland Roots

Newfoundland Roots means the Upshall side for Marie. I don’t have a good tree for Karen, but I have blogged about her. Based on her DNA, I have theorized this tree:

 

We’ll say I’m right. I have that Henry Upshall married Catherine Dicks. I added Karen’s match on Chromosomes 8 and 9 in lilac:

 

For Martha, I have another best guess tree:

Actually, this is double made up as we cannot easily prove that Peter Upshall is the father of Henry Upshall. However, this is a best fit tree. Marie would be a third cousin once removed to Martha’s maternal aunt. I believe that M.B. is Martha’s maternal aunt.

The good news is that I’m getting more maternal side matches for Marie. The bad news is that paperwork in Newfoundland is missing and it is hard to verify the last two matches.

Michelle at FTDNA on the LeFevre Side

I mentioned FTDNA above. Marie has matches there also. Here is an interesting one with Michelle. Michelle is related to Marie only on the LeFevre side:

Michelle’s maternal grandparents were Martin LeFevre and Mabel Ford. Marie’s great-grandparents were Martin LeFevre and Emma Pouliot. Emma died and Martin remarried Mabel. Here is Marie’s match with Michelle at FTDNA:

Transferred to DNAPainter:

I now have an entry for Joseph Martin LeFevre by himself as well as the couple of Joseph LeFevre and Emma Pouliot.

More Maternal DNA for Marie on the Upshall Side: Edward

Edward and Marie have this common ancestor:

Here Marie and Edward are fourth cousins. They have a common ancestor of Christopher Dicks and Elizabeth Crann. I’m not positive about the Crann. Here I made a couple of mistakes:

First I forgot to assign this to the maternal side and secondly I already had an entry for Christopher Dicks. Fortunately, DNAPainter had a way for me to merge this group into the right one on Chomosomes 9 and 11 (Chistopher Dicks in purple).

This gets Marie up to 150 segments mapped.

Marie and Wallace at MyHeritage

Marie has a good match with Wallace at MyHeritage. I uploaded Marie’s results there while writing this Blog.

Here is where I have Wallace:

Wallace is a 2nd cousin once removed to Marie. At this point, Marie’s maternal chromosomes are 22% filled in and her paternal chromosomes are 36% filled in. A lot of paternal LeFevre relatives have tested. Here is Marie’s maternal side only:

That is what 22% filled in looks like.

Adding Cheryl and More of Martha’s family

Cheryl has Dicks ancestry. I have written many Blogs on this family and how their descendants match up by DNA.

Cheryl is on the bottom left. She is a fourth cousin once removed to Marie. As there are some missing lines in Marie’s Newfoundland genealogy, there may be other ways Marie is matching some of these Newfoundland descendants. Here is how Cheryl compares with some others on Chromosome 9:

The light blue represents Christopher Dicks born 1784 or his wife Margaret. Many people descend from this couple.

Next, I’ll add Martha’s brother and Martha. Some of these matches are not adding new DNA.

Back to LeFevre

Here is a match on the LeFevre side:

This is on the French Canadian side. Note that there are two other pairs of shared ancestors. However, this is the most recent.

This is Marie’s first mapped French Canadian DNA from the 1700’s (in red). It is interesting that Marie and Kbou also match by XDNA. In order for this X match to occur, there cannot be any two males in a row in Marie’s or Kbou’s ancestries. Looking at their trees above we see that is indeed true. This match brought Marie’s mapped chromosomes up to 30%.

I could keep on going, but I’ll stop here.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I mapped 30% of Marie’s chromosomes using DNAPainter and matches from Gedmatch, FTDNA and MyHeritage. AncestryDNA was helpful to provide trees but it does not provide the detailed DNA information needed to map the chromosomes.
  • I was able to paint 10% of Marie’s chromosomes with two of her first matches. After that, things went more slowly.
  • Of Marie’s four grandparents, Butler matches are the most rare. Marie had one Butler match.
  • I gave an example of a crossover.
  • Marie has DNA mapped on every chromosome. However, a paternal or maternal side may be missing.
  • It would be interesting to create a DNAPainter map for Marie’s mother and father and see how they compare to Marie’s map.
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An Adoptee’s Match with My Wife’s Mother and Aunt

I recently had a message from an adoptee named Martha. Martha was understandably enthused about a match she had with my wife’s Aunt Elaine and mom, Joan.

Martha’s DNA Matches

Here is how Martha matches Aunt Elaine:

Based on the match, MyHeritage puts Martha and Aunt Elaine between 1st cousin twice removed and 2nd cousin twice removed.

Here is how Martha matches Elaine’s sister Joan:

The big difference is that Elaine had a match on Chromosome 19 with Martha that Joan did not. Joan and Martha are said to be between 3rd cousin and 5th cousin. I find it interesting that MyHeritage distinguishes between 2nd cousin twice removed and third cousin as from a DNA standpoint, I would think that they would be quite similar.

Martha and Joan at FTDNA

Martha and Joan are both at FTDNA. Martha mentioned that she and Joan match on the X Chromosome, but I don’t believe that the match is significant:

My understanding is that a match between two women of less than about 15 cM is not significant. These matches are all below 7 cM and are quite tiny. I suppose that the matches could represent some type of general ethnic similarity.

Where is the Common Ancestor between Joan, Elaine and Martha?

If Martha is a 3rd cousin with Joan and Elaine, that means that their common ancestor would be back 4 generations. MyHeritage shows Shared Matches which come in handy:

Joan and Martha’s first shared match is, of course, Elaine. After that, the next match is Vance. Let’s look at his tree:

The father’s side is missing. However, I did find this additional information on a Family Tree at Ancestry:

That gives me a better feeling about Vance’s family tree.

Here is Joan’s father’s tree. It seems like Martha and Joan must match in PEI:

George Ellis and Lillian Rayner are Joan’s paternal grandparents. My guess is that Martha and Joan may match on more than one line. The two names I see in common in the tree of Vance and Joan are MacArthur and Yeo. However, MacArthur appears more recently in Joan’s tree than Yeo. So this may be the closer match.

Back to the DNA and Triangulation

Using Triangulation, we can know where Martha, Vance, Joan and Elaine have common DNA. This DNA should correspond to a specific common ancestor.

This shows that Joan, Martha and Vance triangulate on Chromosomes 4, 17 and 18. I checked between Elaine, Martha and Vance and the triangulated segments are the same.

Martha at Ancestry

Martha also tested at Ancestry. At AncestryDNA, Martha and Elaine are predicted as 4th cousins which is a big difference from what MyHeritage showed. Based on the color mapping of Elaine to her four grandparents, it seems like Martha matches on the Ellis side rather than the Rayner side.  This type of mapping is also known as the Leeds Method. Based on this, my best bet is that the match could be through the MacArthur side.

 

This seems to be confirmed by the spreadsheet that I have for Joan:

Based on past research I had found a common ancestor of MacArthur/MacDougall. This was for a DNA match that Joan and Barry had right at the spot where there were triangulated segments on Chromosome 4 between Vance, Joan, Elaine and Martha.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Different testing companies have different ways of representing what relationship the test results represent. AncestryDNA turns out to be fairly accurate.
  • I looked at common matches at Ancestry between Elaine and Martha. These seemed to put Martha and Elaine’s match along the Elaine’s Ellis ancestry Line.
  • Martha, Joan, Elaine and Vance triangulated at MyHeritage. Vance had Yeo and MacArthur in his ancestry which was shared with Joan and Elaine. However, the MacArthur ancestry occurs more recently in Joan and Elaine’s ancestry.
  • Joan’s worksheet shows that I had identified MacArthur as a common ancestor with another match on Chromosome 4. This was in the same place as the triangulated segments between Vance, Joan, Elaine and Martha. Right now, MacArthur seems like the best bet for a common ancestral surname between Martha and Elaine. Assuming that Malcolm MacArthur is the common ancestor, that would make Elaine and Martha about 4th cousins. The DNA matches could be higher due to matches on other more distant lines.