Frazer – Page 14 – Hartley DNA & Genealogy

February 21, 2016

Michael’s DNA Contribution to the Frazer Project

[Note: I originally wrote the first part of this blog in October 2015 but did not publish it.]

In this Blog, I thought it’d be a good idea to spotlight someone who has contributed to the Frazer DNA Project. Michael is from England and is one of the people who has done quite a bit of research on the genealogy of the Frazers in Ireland – specifically the area around Northern Roscommon where where our Frazers came from. He got me to update the Frazer Web pages with a lot of his input which is always a work in process – as is all my other web pages. So he didn’t mind it when I asked him to take a DNA test.

Michael at AncestryDNA

Michael took his test at AncestryDNA which is a good choice, because they have good Ancestry trees and 1,000,000 customers taking the DNA test to compare results. They don’t have the greatest tools you can use yourself, or specific information to view on your results, but you can get around that by uploading to gedmatch and/or Family Tree DNA (FTDNA).

Here Ancestry shows that Michael has 3 Shared Ancestor Hints. This is where Ancestry sees that there is a DNA match and also an ancestor in common between the 2 DNA matching ancestor trees. This is something that we were already looking for in Frazer project, so it was no surprise, but it can be helpful in cases where you are getting matches that you were not already expecting. Turns out these 3 Shared Ancestor Hints are my 2 sisters and me.

It All Averages Out?

When I click on the Shared Ancestor Hints I see my older sister Heidi as a 4th Cousin to Michael with a range of 4th to 6th cousin and then myself and my younger sister Sharon as distant cousins to Michael with a range of 5th to 8th cousins. Further the 3 siblings have DNA confidence ratings for our matches to Michael according to Ancestry. They are: Extremely High for Heidi; High for me, and; Good for Sharon. You may wonder why different levels of matches to Michael for 3 siblings? This is typical for DNA. That is part of the reason why it helps to have multiple tests done. I suppose I had an average match to Michael, while my sisters had higher than average and lower than average matches to him.

For comparison, Gedmatch shows the actual numbers that Ancestry doesn’t show. Here’s Heidi and Michael:

Michael and me:

Michael and Sharon:

So which answer is right? They all are. My 2 sisters and I all received different parts of our dad’s DNA which match Michael. Michael and I share more than average DNA for the distance of our relationship. Part of the reason for this is that we both had Frazer first cousins that married each other back in the early 1800’s.

AncestryDNA Shows Our Shared Ancestors

When I click on match between Michael and Heidi at the Shared Ancestor Hint, it shows this:

Actually, it shows more. I didn’t include the more recent information. On the lower right, it goes down to my sister Heidi and shows her as a 4th cousin, once removed to Michael. Pretty neat, but we were able to figure this out without ancestry. Also we were able to use the actual DNA figures and triangulate the relationship which is more specific than what Ancestry does. Here’s another cool feature. See above, that Richard Frazer is Shared Ancestor Hint 1 of 2. Here is Hint 2:

Again, I’ve blocked out the bottom, but this shows that Michael and Heidi are now 5th cousins, once removed. Well, we knew that, but in case we had missed it, Ancestry didn’t. Now, we know that this Archibald is one generation older than Richard. And that is the way he is shown. Of course, this is just a dumb computer program with an algorithm. If you put a garbage tree into the system, you will get garbage out.

Shared AncestryDNA Matches

There is a relatively new feature at AncestryDNA called Shared Matches. When I choose the match between Michael and my sister and then choose Shared Matches up pops Jane from our Frazer Project. This means that AncestryDNA has figured out on their predicted 4th cousin or closer level, that Jane matches both Michael and Heidi by DNA. Well, we already new that and were looking at that. In fact, we already knew that Jane was in a triangulation group (TG) with Michael, me and my 2 sisters. See How I Added 2 Frazer Lines by DNA. Also Bill is in this TG, but he didn’t test at AncestryDNA, so Ancestry wouldn’t know about him.

So why doesn’t AncestryDNA show Jane as having a shared ancestor with Michael? They show that they both have shared DNA matches. The shared ancestor has to do with the family trees. For some reason, AncestryDNA’s computer program isn’t picking up that Jane and Michael have common ancestors even though they do. Perhaps Jane’s Frazer ancestors weren’t entered in a way that Ancestry recognized.

[Note: end of October 2015 blog and start of the February 2016 blog]

I recently wrote “Mapping All My Frazer DNA” and was reminded of my sisters’ and my matches with Michael. One of my favorite ways of looking at matches is using Gedmatch’s

People who match one
or both of 2 kits Updated

I’m usually interested in the part where someone matches 2 different people. In this case it would be between Michael and my family. I will match Michael with my 2 sisters and myself and see what shows up.

Michael and Heidi’s Matches

I have discussed the Chromosome 1 Triangulation Group (TG) before. Here it is with others that match Michael and Heidi:

On the right hand side is the TG. The first 3 are Jane, Paul and Heidi of the Frazer DNA Project. This group has a common ancestor of Richard Frazer, b. 1777. The 2 groups of people below that are people that are not in the project and mostly not contacted yet. They may have the same common ancestor or one further back.

The next interesting Chromosome showing Michael’s matches in common with Heidi is #10:

This also looks like a TG. Those in our Frazer DNA Project are #2 and 3 (my 2 sisters). Then Jane is in pink with a tiny match and I am in blue. Note that Jane and I don’t overlap, so could not be in a TG. Let’s take Jane’s match level way down at Gedmatch to see if she matches Sharon or Heidi, my 2 sisters. Well, I tried it and it didn’t work. Jane matches neither of my sisters on Chromosome 10. She does match me which was unexpected. However, where she matches me is on my non-Frazer side. So perhaps Michael, Jane and I match somewhere in the past on a non-Frazer line. However, the other larger matches of 1-8 are likely in a TG. One has been contacted with the name Haslett.

Finally, here is my lone 22 cM match with Michael at Chromosome 17:

No TG here.

Michael and Sharon’s Matches

In order to be thorough, I checked, though I expected similar results. Heidi and Michael had 26 shared matches. Michael and Sharon had only 12. All of Michael and Sharon’s shared matches were the same as Heidi’s, except for one.

Michael and Joel’s Matches

Now we are down to only 8 matches. However, Michael and I have 2 unique matches and one that only matches with my sister Sharon. One of the unique matches that Michael and I had was with Pat who is in the Frazer DNA project. It makes sense that we would both match her as the 3 of us are believed to descend from Violet Frazer b. 1803.

Michael’s Frazer Ancestry

These are 2 brothers who lived near the Northern border of County Roscommon, Ireland: Richard Frazer and Archibald Frazer. Michael descends from both lines shown in peach color. He is 2 generations below what I show below.

Michael is in one Triangulation group for each one of these brothers. Those two TGs include just people in the Frazer DNA Project. There are additional TGs if we include outside people. In addition, Michael matches others in the Project outside of TGs that indicate his ancestry in these lines.

Summary

It has been interesting sharing ancestors, genealogy and now DNA with Michael
Most of the best DNA leads appear to be from Triangulation Groups (TGs). TGs provide some surety of where the DNA is coming from based on common ancestors of the group.
However, there are some individual matches that may be worth investigation also
AncestryDNA has worked well for Michael. He overcame the universal complaint that they don’t have a chromosome browser by uploading his results to Gedmatch.
I neglected to mention that Michael has uploaded his DNA results to FTDNA, so he will have matches that may not be at AncestryDNA or Gedmatch

February 21, 2016February 21, 2016

Mapping All My Frazer DNA

Thanks to a technique pioneered by Kathy Johnston, I have been able to map my DNA to my 4 grandparents. In the process of doing this, I can see where my 2 sisters got their DNA from also. One of those 4 grandparents is my father’s mother who was a Frazer. Both her parents were born in Ireland, so that helps in finding matches. I thought that it would be interesting to look at each of the Frazer DNA Project member’s matches to my family to see where they are on my family’s DNA maps.

The larger Chromosomes are the most difficult to map, as there are more potential segments and crossovers. The segments are the chunks of DNA we got from each grandparent. The crossovers are the vertical lines between the segments where the DNA we got crosses over from one grandparent to another.

Chromosome 1

I’ll spend a little more time on Chromosome 1 as it is the first.

The colors will not be consistent to a name between chromosomes. Also the position of the my and my sister’s chromosomes may not be the same
S and H are my sisters Sharon and Heidi. My bar is in the middle here (J)
The orange in this Chromosome is Frazer and represents my Frazer grandmother.
The numbers in the bars represent reference people. For Frazer, my reference is usually Paul, my 2nd cousin, once removed. However, I also used Jane above in this example
Note that if I had not tested my sisters, my chances for matching other Frazers would be very low for Chromosome 1. I couldn’t match a Frazer for most of this Chromosome. I would only be able to match another Frazer at either end.
When the 3 orange Frazer segments in my family are put together, we can potentially match a Frazer for the whole length of the Chromosome – except between 186 and 205.

The Triangulation Group (TG) in Chromosome 1

I’ve pointed this out before. The TG is to the right of the Chromosome and only my sister Heidi is in this TG.

Note that the first match in the TG above between MFA and Jane goes beyond where my sister Heidi could match a Frazer (198-205). This is fine as MFA and Jane have their own crossover points that are different than those in my family.

Chromosome 2

Here I’ll start with my spreadsheet matches.

What might I expect here? Note that the matches are only with my 2 sisters. My guess is that I won’t have Frazer mapped on my Chromosome in these 2 areas (196-222). Also note a match with Jonathan who is on the more distant James Line of the Frazer Project. In addition, my sister’s matches with PF overlap by a small amount her match with Jonathan. This could be significant if this forms a Triangulation Group.

Here’s my family’s Chromosome 2

I had a little problem with this one, but it’s mostly right. Here the colors are switched, so Frazer is now green.

Notice that my 2 sisters, S and H have Frazer segments from at least half way through their Chromosomes to the end. This is where the matches are (195-221).
Notice that between me and my sisters, we should have good coverage for Frazer ancestor matches.
I (J row) cannot match any Frazer where my sisters matched as I have orange Hartley DNA in the area of 195-221.

Here is Jonathan’s family mapped out. He is on the horizontal line 1. Only Jonathan can match my 2 sisters from 142 to 221. His 2 sisters are on rows 2 and 3.

Any Triangulation Group?

It would be interesting if there was a triangulation group between these 2 distant lines. So far, we have not had much luck in finding one for Jonathan’s James Line. Perhaps we have one here. This is what Gedmatch shows for Sharon’s match with Jonathan in yellow and Paul in blue:

In numbers, Gedmatch also shows where the small overlap is with these 2 segments:

The overlap is shown in the last column. The yellow (Sharon’s match with Jonathan) and blue (Sharon’s match with Paul overlap from 205 to 207. Let’s see what Heidi’s matches show:

Here the overlap is pretty much the same, but is a bit shorter for Heidi.

So for a Triangulation Group, Jonathan would also have to match Paul. I would expect this to be a small match, so I bring down the gedmatch numbers. This is a bit controversial, by the way, but I think I’m on fairly solid footing here. I took the limits way down to 3 cM. Here are all the results of the match between Jonathan and Paul, but I’m really interested in Chromosome 2:

To me, it is more than mere coincidence that Jonathan and Paul match at the exact place where they have an overlap in my 2 sisters’ matches. In all 3 cases, the match is between 205 and 207 on Chromosome 2.

Is This the First James Line Triangulation Group (TG)?

Yes and no. What I mean is that this is not strictly a James line TG but a TG between the James Line and the Archibald Line of the Frazer DNA Project. We have what we need for a Triangulation group. Paul matches Sharon and Heidi. Jonathan matches Sharon and Heidi, and Paul matches Jonathan on the small segment where he needs to match him in order for there to be a TG.

A triangulation group should represent a common ancestor. But who is the common ancestor? I can think of 3 possibilities:

The common ancestor of the Archibald and James Lines. This is based on the known genealogies. This common ancestor probably goes back to the late 1600’s.
A more recent unknown James Line ancestor. I have an additional line of Frazers that I haven’t placed that may be part of the James Line. This would be a good candidate.
A common collateral family. That is, a common family that married into both of our families with a common ancestor. This would be the least known option.

Chromosome 3

Chromosome 3 should be simpler. There is one Frazer match with my family. That is between Heidi and Cathy. Cathy is a a descendant of Archibald Frazer b. 1802 and Catherine Parker.

This is a small single match, so possibly not even a valid match. Let’s look to see if this match is in a spot where Heidi got Frazer DNA from her grandmother:

It looks like this match is in the about the only area where Heidi (row H) could’ve gotten any Frazer DNA match. Recall the match is from 15-21. But shouldn’t Sharon in the S Row also match Cathy in her purple Frazer segment? Actually, she does. I’m working from 2 spreadsheets and only had Sharon’s match on one of the 2 spreadsheets.

See, the DNA corrected my oversight!

Chromosome 5

There weren’t any Frazer Project matches to my family on Chromosome 4 that I had recorded. Here is the match between my sister Heidi and our 2nd cousin once removed Paul. He also matches my sister Sharon at the same spots.

My prediction is that the map should look like the one for Chromosome 3 in the first part of the Chromosome. Chromosome 5 is another Chromosome that I found difficult to map:

Note that I didn’t get a lot of Frazer in my Chromosome 5 (last row J). There is also a section from 107 to 173 where there would be no Frazer matches with me or my sisters. Perhaps if I tested another sibling….?

Chromosome 7

Here I see a smattering of matches. I included my fairly close Frazer relative Paul as a reference even though he doesn’t match my family on this Chromosome.

Here, none of these matches come together. What does the Chromosome map show?

As with many of my maps, I have different version as I have tried to perfect them. But something looks wrong here. Either the map is wrong or my matches above are wrong. Sharon should have a Frazer match with Jane at 99 to 107, but that is showing as blue which in this case is my non-Frazer Hartley side. I had one other case where one of the Frazers matched on my mother’s side. After lowering the thresholds a bit, I got this match between my non-Frazer mother and Jane:

That means that Jane either matches one of my mother’s ancestors way back or is identical by state or by chance in this area. But what about the match between my sister Heidi and MFA of the Frazer DNA Project? I lowered the thresholds a bit again at Gedmatch and checked to see if MFA also matched my mother.

Oh, my. It seems like everyone is related to everyone! Welcome to the family. Actually, if MFA and Jane were to be related to my mom, it would make more sense on her orange Lentz side (which is where they do indeed match). That is the side where my mom has a grandmother from Sheffield, England. The green side would make less sense at that is primarily German and specifically Germans that lived for many years in a colony in Latvia. Well, at least I don’t have to revise my Chromosome 7 map.

Chromosome 9

I see one lone match between my sister Sharon and my cousin Paul.

That makes sense. Sharon is the only one with Chromosome 9 Frazer DNA in my family. As no other Frazers in the Project appear to match here, I can assume that this match is on my McMaster side. Paul and Sharon share a Frazer ancestor that married a McMaster, so half our shared DNA could be on the McMaster side coming down through our respective Frazer lines.

Chromosome 10

Out of curiosity, I checked to see if my sister Sharon would match Paul on the first bar (S) if I lowered the Thresholds. She did between 6 and 9 (top left green segment). Again, this could be McMaster DNA.

Chromosome 12

This Chromosome has been discussed before as it is part of a TG.

Here are few more [probably McMaster] segments that are matches between cousin Paul and my family:

Chromosome 14

My sister Heidi has a small match with Charlotte of the James Line.

I don’t know if it is a valid match, but it falls in the right area of Heidi’s chromosome.

Chromosome 17

Here I have a lone match with MFA

Looks like I’m the only hope for Frazer matches in this Chromosome. As the chromosomes get higher in number, they get shorter. The shorter chromosomes have fewer segments and are simpler than the longer lowered numbered chromosomes.

Chromosome 20

Here I am again with Bonnie from the James Line:

I wrote a whole blog on this Chromosome on January 12, 2016.

I have a bit to finish on this Chromosome. Note that Bonnie’s match with me on the bottom bar fits in from 47 to 54. It seemed like Sharon should match Bonnie also. I looked more closely at my spreadsheet and she was there. Here is what gedmatch shows.

Chromosome 21

My sister Heidi matches Cathy. These 2 also matched at Chromosome 3 above.

Here I have a problem.

I have some nice colors but no grandparents named. I don’t have enough cousins that match me on this short Chromosome to identify which grandparent is which. But maybe that’s OK. When I check to see if Cathy matches with Heidi’s paternally phased DNA (that is, her Frazer side) there is no match. Cathy matches Heidi’s maternal, non-Frazer side (or is Identical by Chance).

So either way, this is not a good match for the Frazer project. However, this is a good thing to know. This does not invalidate the match Cathy did have with Heidi at Chromosome 3.

Chromosome 22 (Last One)

There are just a few small matches in our family with cousin Paul left. They are small, and likely to represent the McMaster side of our ancestors. These McMasters apparently lived parallel lives to the Frazers in bordering County Sligo. Perhaps they came to their particular area of Ireland for the same reasons as the Frazers and stayed or left for the same reasons.

Finally, the last map.

Summary

I have listed every known Frazer match to myself and my 2 sisters in the Frazer DNA Project
These matches were checked against my Chromosome maps to make sure they mapped to the correct Frazer grandparent
In some cases, the Frazer matches were found not be Frazer matches at all because they matched my non-Frazer mother
One pleasant surprise was finding an additional Triangulation Group at Chromosome 2. This TG was between the 2 main Frazer Lines in the DNA Project: The Archibald and James Lines.

February 15, 2016February 15, 2016

An Old Frazer Triangulation Group and a Young One

I was happy to learn of a new Frazer DNA Tester from Australia. Even better, she had the foresight to have her mom tested. This makes 13 testers for the Archibald Line Branch of the Project and 12 testers for the James Line Branch of the Project. In addition, there are others who have tested and we are quite sure they belong to the project where they didn’t know this previous to testing.

Jean and Her Mom

In this blog, I will be using Jean’s mom’s DNA results. This is because in every generation, we lose some our parents’ DNA. Jean’s mom is from the Frazer line, but Jean lost some of that DNA to make room for some her dad’s DNA. So Jean doesn’t have any Frazer DNA that her mom doesn’t have or have more of.

Gedmatch Comparison

First, I used the Gedmatch feature where you can compare a bunch of people to Jean’s mom. I used our Frazer DNA testers as the bunch of people. This turned up some interesting results on Chromosome 8, that I hadn’t seen before.

#1 and #2 matches to Jean’s mom are BR and PW. PW is my second cousin once removed and BR is my third cousin once removed (though he has 3 Frazer ancestors – so this relationship is not consistent for all lines!). Note how the yellow match and green match overlap for a way. Here I was suspicious of a Triangulation Group. All that is needed in addition to what is shown above, is for BR and PF to match each other. Then they will be a TG. I checked, and sure enough, BR and PF did match each other. In fact, they matched twice:

Here, VO is Jean’s mom. Notice above, that BR and PF match in 2 spots. I had to lower the Gedmatch levels for the lower match to show. Even without the lower 6 cM match between BF and PF, there is still a Triangulation Group (TG).

Who Does This DNA Come From?

Up to now, the TGs in the project have all been around the 1777 to 1778 date range. This TG appears to come from one generation earlier than that – to Archibald Frazer who was b. about 1743 and Mary Lilley. If this is right, this would be the oldest TG the Frazer DNA Project has had so far. Here is a partial chart showing some descendants of Archibald Frazer and Mary Lilley:

This is small and a bit difficult to see. Here is how the 3 Frazer DNA Testers in the TG fit into the above chart :

PF descends from James Frazer (blue line) and Violet Frazer (first yellow line). James and Violet were believed to be first cousins
BR descends from the same James and Violet as well as from Jane Frazer (the yellow line on the far right)
VO descends from only one Frazer line. This is the darker purple line to the left of the orange line.

The only common ancestral couple for these 3 testers is Archibald Frazer and Mary Lilley at the top of the chart. Now please endure a little wild speculation on my part. BR and VO have a fairly large match. This could indicate that this match is on the Archibald Frazer/Ann Stinson Line to the right of the chart. The 2 matches between BR and PF must mean something, but due to cousin marriages, it is a bit baffling. As PF is in 2 of the above lines and BR is in 3, there should be at least 6 combinations of ways they could match!

The Younger TG

Here is what I found on Chromosome 18:

There is a lot going on for VO’s matches on the left side of the image above. This is where the TG is. I’ll ignore the pink matches, as they are under 5 cM. #1 match is RF who is VO’s 1st cousin once removed. Here they are showing off their largest autosomal match of over 60 cM. This gave plenty of room for a TG. #2 is Janet from the far away James Line. This match is 5.2 cM, so likely to not be Identical By Descent (IBD). Just to make sure, I checked to see if Janet matched RF and got no match down to 5.0 cM. VO’s green #6 match is Jane. She is the one I wrote my last blog about. She was in 4 TGs and now in 5. The last blue match under Jean’s orange match with RF is #8 who is CR. However, she doesn’t match RF or Jane here. In chart form, the Chromosome 8 results look like:

Above, the TG consists of the middle 3 matches. Note that CR is on either side of the TG. Also on paper, CR descends from Archibald Frazer and Catherine Parker. So perhaps something went wrong with her test, or that middle section of her DNA dropped out.

Introducing the Youngest Frazer TG

Yes, this TG is a mere 200+ years old:

The first line above represents VO’s ancestors. The second represents RF’s. The third represents CR’s (who is almost, but not quite in the TG) and the last represents Jane’s ancestral family.

The Impossibility of Triangulation

There has been a lot of writing about Triangulation recently in the internet. One theory is that it is so unlikely to happen, that it should not happen. Or that, if it did, a TG would indicate common ancestors so ancient that they would be beyond the scope of normal genealogy. I can see the point. How likely is it that DNA that drops out randomly and is inherited randomly could come together over the ages at the same segment of DNA to form TGs? Many matches are of just one segment. That segment is one portion of 22 Chromosomes. That one remaining segment must be at least 3 people’s same last remaining segment to form a Triangulation Group. It doesn’t seem likely to me. Yet, how is it, that a small DNA project like this with 13 testers has had 6 TGs? 11 of the 13 DNA testers on the Archibald Line of this project are in at least one TG. One person is in 5 TGs. Perhaps it is like the story of the bumblebee which is not theoretically supposed to fly. Yet it does.

For the theorists who point to the unlikelihood of Triangulation, we can point to the James Line which has yet to find a TG. Still, I am hoping to see one there also.

February 11, 2016February 11, 2016

Jane’s Frazer Triangulation Groups

This is part of my series on the DNA of the Frazers originating in North Roscommon. This project is further split between the 2 main Irish Frazer lines of County Roscommon. The 2 brothers from the early 1700’s were Archibald and James. As of now, there are 4 Triangulation Groups (TGs) for the Archibald Line. Unfortunately we have not yet found any TGs for the James Line. I remarked to Jane, one of the Frazer testers, recently that she was in all 4 TGs. So I thought that I would run the Gedmatch Triangulation Utility for her to see what showed up in the TGs she was already in.

A Summary of Jane’s Archibald Line TGs

This chart is a relative chart showing the various TGs. It is not from Jane’s perspective, but includes how everyone matches everyone else in the project. Under the column labeled ‘Match’ it shows who is matching whom.

There is a lot of information in the above chart. Here are a few observations:

These TGs are on Chromosomes 1, 4, and 12
The Most Recent Common Ancestors (MRCAs) for Chromosome 1 and 12 are Richard Frazer (and his unknown wife)
The MRCAs for Chromosome 4 are Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson
JH, SH and HHM are myself and my 2 sisters.
The ancestors shown in pinkish colors are those specific to a closer relationship. For example, BR and my family have common ancestors in the early 1800’s. They are Violet Frazer and James Frazer (believed to be 1st cousins). However, as Violet descended from Richard Frazer and James Frazer did not, this DNA had to have come down through Violet Frazer.
There are 2 TGs on Chromosome 4
Note that Jane is in each TG
On Chromosome 4 note that Pat and BR are 2nd cousins. Their match with each other extends to both TGs in that Chromosome, but they do not match with Jane, MFA or DV on the second TG.
The most distant relationships represented in the above TGs are fourth cousins once removed.

Running the Gedmatch Triangulation Utility

This utility looks at least three people that match each other three different ways. The utility is not infallible. The best way to do triangulation is by hand, but the computer is good at doing tedious things and this is one of those tedious things. The results of the triangulation in the 4 areas shown above:

Jane has TGs in Chromosome 1
Gedmatch showed no TGs in Chromosome 4 for Jane
Gedmatch showed TGs in Chromosome 12

First, Why No TGs in Chromosome 4?

There are a few reasons. The main reason is that the Gedmatch utility can only handle so many TGs. The ones in Chromosome 4 are small. They only have 3 people in each TG. That is the minimum. Also the matches were on the lower side. Because Gedmatch can only handle so many TGs, the smaller ones are not included. So I believe that the TGs are there, but just below Gedmatch’s radar, so to speak. Here is what Gedmatch’s Triangulation Utility results looks like for Jane in the area of Chromosome 4 that we are interested in (134-174,000,000):

Above we see portions of TGs before and after the area we are interested in on Chromosome 4. To the left of the image above, I left out two columns. In those 2 columns are the 2 Gedmatch numbers that match with Jane to form a the TGs.

Jane’s Chromosome 1 TGs

This is a TG with Richard Frazer b. 1777 as the MRCA. Interestingly, Jane didn’t know she was in this line until after she took the DNA test. She triangulated with others that did know they were descended from Richard and was added in based on that. Part of the reason for this exercise is to go on a fishing expedition. We are looking for others that are related. They may be related on Richard’s side or his unknown wife’s side. What if none of the others in the Chromosome 1 TG were related to Richard Frazer, but another common name came up? This could mean that that surname could be the surname of Richard’s unknown wife.

The area that we are interested in at Chromosome 1 is from position 198 to 231,000,000. Here is what Gedmatch shows for some of the first TGs on that section of Chromosome 1. The previous small TG is added for reference.

The 3 large green bars above are from the Frazer DNA Project. They represent Jane’s matches with:

MFA and PF (my second cousin once removed)
MFA and HHM (my sister) and lastly,
PF and HHM

So these 4 make a TG of very large size. It is somewhat unusual that such large segments would make it to us from 1777! The first 3 shorter green segments represent someone that we likely don’t know. This person is also a match and in a TG with Jane, MFA, PF and HHM. That means we should all share a common ancestor with this person. It could be Richard Frazer, his unknown wife or and ancestor of either Richard or his wife. I’ll call this first short TG TG1A.

TGs Within a Larger TG At Chromosome 1

Next, there is a long line of shorter green TG matches below the 3rd longer bar. Notice that this shorter bar is to the right of the shorter bar above that had our first unknown TG person. In this group there are 5 new people. I’ll call this second short group of matches TG1B. Perhaps I will contact them to see if they know about their Irish ancestors. Here is that group as represented at Gedmatch:

These 5 new people match Jane and the other 3 in the long green bars, but not the people in the shorter bars above or below them. Perhaps one these 5 people will have excellent records reaching back to their ancestors in Ireland.

If you catch the progression, the next group will be TG1C. Again, these are all contained within the larger TG. TG1B ended around 221 (million). TG1C starts at 223. In TG1C we have BR. We know him as he is in our Frazer DNA project already with more than one known Frazer ancestor. The next image picks up at BR’s 3 short segments. It will be (you guessed) TG1D. There is some overlap with BR, but not enough for a significant match:

The next 3 matches after BR are all over 20 cM. This could be a hint, but, as it turns out, this person was adopted. I have been in touch with him before due to the size of the match. This person is, however, very interested in the Frazer DNA project. In TG1D, there are 4 new people. However, 2 have the same last name. The list looks long, but one person seems to be in twice.

Chromosome 1 Summary

All of these TGs are based on Jane’s results so she matches all of these. Also TG1A-D are all contained within TG1

TG1 – MFA, PF, HHM – all in the Frazer DNA Project. These are the big matches
- TG1A – One new person
- TG1B – 5 new people
- TG1C – BR – Already in the Frazer DNA Project
- TG1D – 4 people. One I’ve contacted previously who was adopted.

Chromosome 12 TG

This is fortunately a smaller TG. I have the previous TG in for reference.

This TG is pretty much as I had it. However, there is a new person. The last 2 small matches represent that new person and how s/he matches with Jane, myself and one of my sisters. So what we have above is a larger TG in the middle. Then before is a smaller TG of 4 bars. After there is another small TG of 2 bars positioned to the right of the 1st small group. The Triangulation Group in the middle ties the other 2 together.

Summary

This exercise was to look at the Gedmatch Triangulation tool to see if it would result in unknown cousins
The goal is to start with the known genealogy and known TGs and add some unknown people to the genealogy and TGs
I’ve written all the new people I found in the Gedmatch TGs. Now I just have to wait and see if anyone replies.

January 19, 2016January 22, 2016

Frazer DNA Project: James Line Update

The Frazer DNA project looks at descendants of two Frazer brothers that lived in North Roscommon in the early 1700’s. These brothers were Archibald and James Frazer. They are both presumed to be descended from another Archibald Frazer who lived in that area prior to 1749 where we find a widowed Mary Frazer, presumably his wife.

Frazer Project Testers

Here is an overview of the descendancy of the Frazer line showing links to those who have tested their autosomal DNA. One person on each of the 2 lines has also tested YDNA to ensure the relatedness of the Lines of Archibald and James.

Due to cousin marriages in the Archibald Frazer Line shown on the left, there are repeat lineages. There is at least one more repeat lineage that is not shown to save room. Partially due to these early 1800’s cousin marriages in the Archibald Line, there has been additional DNA that has come down to many of the descendants and resulted in Triangulation Groups which have given good confidence to the existing genealogies and added new people to some of the lines.

James Line Testers

Here are the 13 James Line testers shown in red. Just like the Archibald line above, there are more lines, but these are ones we currently believe these testers descend from. If we call James at the top Generation I, then there are 2 lines shown at Generation II, 3 lines at Generation III and 6 lines at Generation IV.

As there have been 2 new testers since I last wrote about the James Line, I thought that I would take a new look at the James Line DNA results to see if we can conclude anything new. Based on this chart, there are about 50 different relationships. I hid some, though, as Betty only tested at FTDNA, so it was not possible to compare her with many of the testers.

Second Cousins to Fourth Cousins

Here the green represents when a Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) was in the Michael Line on the right of the chart. Yellow was when there was more than one segment matched at a level of 3rd cousin or further out. The first Average DNA column was based on a survey but doesn’t go below 3C, 1R. The second average DNA column is based on older more theoretical information. NM means ‘no match’ at the gedmatch thresholds.

Anything Unusual?

Well, yes. Many of the matches between Charlotte and Joanna’s family were much lower than would be expected. Also the match between Beverly and Judith was quite low for third cousins. However, the match between Bonnie and Judith was above average for second cousin. I’ll have more on Judith later. Basically, the numbers were right for the second cousins, but something seemed to go wrong after that point.

Fifth Cousins – Way Out There

At the fifth cousin level, not many matches would be expected. And that is what we see with a few notable exceptions:

Anything Unusual with the Fifth Cousins?

I think so. Remember Charlotte who wasn’t matching Joanna’s family as expected? Now she is matching Bonnie who we had on the Michael Line. Judith and Janet match at 37.5 cM and match on more than one segment. This is usually indicative of a closer relationship. So we have relatively close relationships with low DNA matches and futher out relationships with some higher DNA matches. How is this possible? I have a few ideas:

The DNA may be messing with us. This is always a possibility. But, less likely for the closer relationships with no matches.
The genealogy could be off, or there my be half relationships we are not aware of. For example, a husband’s wife could have died, and he may have other children by a second wife. This would result in roughly half the match.
For the further relationships with the higher expected DNA matches: sometimes the DNA just carries down well; or there may be cousin marriages we are not aware of or matches on other collateral lines we are not aware of.

The Janet-Judith Connection

I was curious about this match that Janet and Judith had. We have Janet on one side of our chart and Judith on the other. So what is the connection? Is the genealogy wrong, or are both these Frazer Lines related to another family? So I ran a report at gedmatch called People who match both kits, or 1 of 2 kits. But I am just interested in the first part. That it, those who match both Judith and Janet. I ran it and then chose all the people that matched each other. Then I looked at the people in the gedmatch chromosome browser. Chromosome 14 caught my attention.

The first row is just Janet matching herself as she is in Gedmatch twice. The second row is Janet’s match with her brother Jonathan. The third line is Janet’s match with Judith from the Michael Frazer Line. We can see the 2 segments where they match. It was the second segment that I was interested in. Notice how there are matches stacked up over other matches on the right hand side of the Chromosome.

James Line Triangulation Group

I’ve been disappointed in not finding a James Line Triangulation Group with the testers we have. So this fishing expedition is a way to manufacture one. Row 4 above is someone new (to me anyway) who is MW. Row 5 appears to be a child of MW. Row 6 didn’t match MW, so I didn’t include Row 6 (or Row 5). Here is the new Triangulation Group (TG).

Here note that Judith (JFS) matches Jonathan and Janet. MW matches JFS, Jonathan and Janet. That make a TG. Also note that I added Betty (BZ) in also. She is the one who only tested at FTDNA (without uploading to Gedmatch), but it appears that she could be included also in the TG based on where the match occurred and based on the fact that she matches Janet and Jonathan at this location and not Joanna.

What Does It Mean That We Have a Triangulation Group?

This means that MW, Judith, Jonathan and Janet share the same segment of DNA. This segment had to come from the same ancestor. This ancestor may be a Frazer or it may be a Frazer spouse. Or it could even be from a third family. Now if Jonathan or Janet check and MW has a good ancestral tree, we could be in luck and have the answer right away. If not, it may be possible to build out MW’s tree to find a connection.

Summary

Despite quite a bit of testing, the James Frazer Line descendants have had some DNA matches that don’t seem to confirm some of the predicted genealogies
Explanations to the inconsistencies between DNA results and genealogies include: DNA randomness; inaccurate genealogies and/or; unknown cousin marriages, or; other unknown ancestral connections.
Using a Gedmatch utility, I compared an unexpected match between 2 of our James Line Testers. This comparison resulted in discovering at least one previously unknown person that formed a Triangulation Group (TG) with these other known James Line testers
This TG may lead to a common ancestor which will clarify some of the other confusing results
This process may be repeated to find other TGs and other Common Ancestors

Notes:

There are other matches between the Archibald Line and James Line. For simplicity, they have not been included here.

January 14, 2016November 28, 2016

Analyzing Chromosome 15 of a James Frazer Line Family

This is part of the Frazer DNA Project. For those descending from 2 brothers who were in North Roscommon in the early 1700’s. The younger brother was James and the older was Archibald. Joanna has 2 of her siblings tested for autosomal DNA. That means we should be able to figure from which of her 4 grandparents most or all of her family’s DNA comes from. This is using a methodology developed by Kathy Johnston. I previously looked at Joanna’s family’s Chromosome 22 in How a Maternal DNA Match May Shed Light On a Paternal Match. These Chromosomes were chosen for 2 reasons:

They are Chromosomes where Joanna recently got a known relative’s matches on one of her non-Frazer grandparent’s side.
They are Chromosomes where there were already matches in the Frazer DNA Project to at least one known Frazer relaive.

Rather than do this analysis and email the results to Joanna, I thought that I would do the analysis in a blog.

Joanna’s Chromosome 15: Three Siblings Compared

First, I go to gedmatch and compare Joanna’s three siblings to each other: Jonathan (1), Janet (2) and Joanna (3).

Here green is a Fully Identical Region (HIR), red is no match, and yellow is a Half Identical Region (HIR). Janet and Joanna match as a HIR for the whole length of Chromosome 15 That means they will share one granparent’s DNA for the whole Chromosome 15. Next I add the crossover points for all 3 and assign one person to each. This is the person that appears in 2 out of 3 of the crossovers. Well, here is something I haven’t run into before. All the crossovers belong to Jonathan (1):

There are 3 crossover points. They are between Jonathan and Janet and Jonathan and Joanna. The one in common with those crossover comparisons is Jonathan. That is complementary to the fact that there are no crossovers in the comparison between Janet and Joanna. Next we change this comparison into a Chromosome 15 map where we will look at the 4 grandparents that contributed DNA to this family. The 1, 2, and 3 below on the left stand for Jonathan, Janet, and Joanna. Jonathan and Janet have an FIR in the first segment. That means that they both got the same DNA from the same 2 grandparents – one on each side of the maternal/paternal split. That split is represented by the horizontal line between the 2 colors. So for Jonathan’s Line 1 and Janet’s Line 2 we add two colors representing these same 2 grandparents’ DNA that Jonathan and Janet inherited:

Jonathan has all the crossovers here. Janet and Joanna don’t have any. The crossovers are where the grandparents change. As Janet has no change (crossover), we’ll say she got her DNA from the same 2 grandparents along her whole Chromosome 15. Then I added numbers at the bottom. These are where the matches start and stop (rounded to the nearest million) between the 3 siblings as shown in the gedmatch comparisons above:

Joanna (3) will be feeling left out by now, so let’s see what we can do. Janet and Joanna have that HIR that we talked about. That means they will match on one grandparent and not the other. Let’s pick one for them to match. It doesn’t matter whether it is the green or blue grandparent at this point, because the colors are only relative now and not locked in. I pick green as their match and purple will be the grandparent that Joanna has that doesn’t match Janet’s blue DNA-contributing grandparent. All these decisions!

Now we can try to fill Jonathan in. This should be easy:

Jonathan and Joanna have no match in segment 2 and 4
Jonathan and Janet have no match in segment 3

Joanna and Janet both have green grandparents the whole way. For Jonathan to not match them in all those places, there has to be a different color. I have been using orange for the 4th color representing the 4th grandparent’s DNA.

Next, I said that Jonathan and Joanna (1 & 3) have no match in the second and fourth segments. The non-purple in the lower half is blue. Jonathan and Janet are non-blue in the 3rd segment as they don’t match, so that is purple.

And that was probably the easiest chromosome I’ve ever looked at! Now to add real life actual grandparents. The new matches that Joanna’s family got in were with their maternal grandmother – Miriam Williams. Jonathan matched her, but Joanna and Janet did not. This match rounded in millions is between 90 and 97. I like how gedmatch has the commas; it makes life easier.

This is on the right side of the Chromosome 15 segment map. I will say that Grandmother Williams is orange, as that is the one that is different from the 2 sisters on the right. Next we will look at Frazer DNA Project matches that Joanna’s family has. I have good matches and sketchy ones that are small.

We decided above that Williams (Maternal Grandmother) should be orange on the top of the maternal/paternal split. That means that Frazer (Paternal side) will be below that maternal/paternal split line. Janet and Joanna have a large Frazer match on the right hand region, so that would be – uh oh, it looks like I made a mistake. Note in the above spreadsheet that Joanna and Janet both have large matches with BZ. BZ is a Frazer (paternal grandfather) relative. The only places that Joanna and Janet (2 & 3) can have the same grandparent (color) on the right hand side last segment is at the green location. That boots Granny Williams down to blue.

Where Did I Go Wrong?

I went wrong above when I assigned Miriam to orange. This was based on Jonathan having a match with a Miriam relative and Janet (2) having no match with that same relative. I did have a little qualm about doing this but reasoned thusly: “If Jonathan had a match and Janet didn’t, then it had to be orange.” Also why wouldn’t Janet have a Williams relative match? She has all that blue area to match. So I’ll have to take note not to make that assumption again. I suppose it’s one of those situations where absence of proof is not proof of absence. Fortunately, the Frazer matches bailed me out of my bad assumption.

Adding the Other Grandparents

One More Correction

After coming back to look at this after many months, I see a mistake I made. It was Joanna (3) that had a match with a Williams relative not Jonathan. This version is done in Powerpoint which is easier to use. I now have Joanna at the top and Jonathan at the bottom.

This has to be right. Purple is Joanna’s only unique color in the 90-97 area. And only Joanna had a Williams relative match. Likewise, Joanna and Janet had Frazer matches from 67-92. Green is the only color those two sister have in common in that area.

Summary and Conclusions

Powerpoint is a better software for visual phasing
It is best to use names for identification, not numbers
With just one maternal grandparent and one paternal grandparent, I was able to fill in the missing grandparents.

January 12, 2016November 22, 2016

How a Maternal DNA Match May Shed Light On a Paternal Match

Uh oh, this sounds like a boring topic. I have been blogging about Frazer Segments and Crossovers, and this is a continuation on the subject.

How To Find Frazer DNA Using Non-Frazer DNA

I suppose this is another way to say it. Joanna has just gotten in a match from her non-Frazer maternal side. How could this possibly give information on her Paternal Frazer side?

My Understanding of the DNA Facts of Life

When your (or my) parents procreated you, those 2 parent’s DNA combined to form your 2 sets of 22 Chromosomes. [We’ll leave the X and Y out of it for now.] But remember, your parents already had 2 sets of chromosome from their parents – your grandparents. When the DNA combined it was really the four grandparent’s DNA that was twisting and combining in different ways to form you and give your your maternal and paternal pair of chromosomes. When the twisting and recombining sorted itself out there were alternating segments of your 2 maternal grandparents on your maternal chromosome and alternating segments of your 2 paternal grandparents on the other paternal chromosome. The places where the segments changed from the DNA of one grandparent to the other is called the crossover point. This can be seen when the DNA of 3 siblings are compared.

The Gedmatch.com Comparison – One to One

Let’s take a peek at Joanna’s family’s Chromosome 22. This is the shortest of the chromosomes, so theoretically, it will have the fewest amount of segments and crossovers. Here we have 3 comparisons from gedmatch.com of Joanna’s family. The comparisons are stacked up on top of each other.

Now we need to know how Joanna’s grandparents’ DNA combined in her and her 2 sibs. The matches are in dark blue, but we want to know more than that. Let’s start with the comparison of Jonathan to Janet in the first row. From about 14 or 15 million to 36 million there is a half match also called a Half Identical Region (HIR). Then there is no match. After that there is a full match – technically called a Fully Identical Region. Now look at Jonathan compared to Joanna. Those two match the whole length. But there are still crossover points. From about 14 to 16 there is an HIR. Then there is an FIR in solid green. At the point where the HIR changes to a FIR is called a crossover point. That is where there is a change from one grandparent to the other.

Adding Crossover Points as Lines

Now I put in the crossover points as vertical lines. The person who has 2 crossovers in a line gets to own that crossover point. So along the first vertical line, there is a change from Jonathan to Joanna and from Janet to Joanna. Joanna is the one I see most often there, so she owns the first crossover. Here, I assign Jonathan a 1, Janet a 2 and Joanna 3 as having 3 J’s would be too confusing.

Maternal and Paternal Split In Joanna’s Family

Next we take what is shown above, and make it look more like a chromosome browser, except one that shows both maternal and paternal sides. It will look like a chromosome map. Let’s look at Jonathan compared to Joanna above. There is a FIR for segment 2-4. That means Jonathan and Joanna match on both their maternal and paternal side. That further means that they share the same maternal and paternal grandparent’s DNA at those locations. Seeing as we may not know which grandparents they are at this time, we give them a color. In this case, we’ll say that those matching grandparents are green and blue. Blue will be either a maternal or paternal grandparent and green will be the opposite. We don’t know this yet either. The green on Jonathan’s chromosome matches Joanna’s green and his blue matches Joanna’s blue on the other chromosome:

Above is the DNA from Jonathan’s and Joanna’s grandparents. One maternal and one paternal. Next according to Kathy Johnston, we can move 1 (Jonathan’s) grandparents to the left and 3 (Joanna’s) to the left. That is because there is no crossover point blocking them.

Note that from my first image above from gedmatch, Jonathan and Janet have no match in the third segment. This means Janet has to have the opposite 2 grandparents at this segment.

Unfortunately Janet’s segment (i.e. grandparent’s DNA) is trapped between her two (#2) vertical crossover points, so we can’t expand those segments. Next, we need to add the HIRs. But should we go the right, or to the left? Here is where I’m tempted to cheat a little. Joanna and family have Frazer cousin matches here:

So in what we are doing, that would be the paternal grandfather’s side.

On the maternal grandmother’s side there are 3 new matches.

As we don’t have anything for Janet in this area (15-25), I’ll choose to go that way, to see if it helps us at all. Jonathan and Janet are HIR for the 1st two segments, so on Janet’s bar (#2), we will extend one segment (randomly orange) to the left and change the other (from purple to green). Now you can see between bar #1 and #2 on the first 2 segments, they match on the top and not on the bottom. That is a HIR or half match. This meets what our gedmatch comparison was telling us was happening between this 2 siblings.

Then Janet and Joanna had no match in the lower left, so I made the Joanna (3) opposite to Janet (2). Choosing Janet’s half identical region sets a few things in motion. Recall that Joanna and her siblings each had a match to a maternal grandmother relative on this Chromosome 22. They were all around 15 or 16 to 25. Looking up and down to the right of the #3 crossover, the only color in common in that area is green. This gives us 3 important new pieces of information:

Green has to represent Joanna’s family’s maternal grandmother.
That also sets purple as the maternal grandfather (Henry Dickins)
blue and orange now have to be Joanna’s family’s paternal grandparents.

Now we have gone from relative grandparents to actual maternal grandparents. But there is still more to fill in. We know from the Frazer DNA Project that Joanna’s family has 3 paternal grandfather (Frazer) matches here:

Too bad I don’t have them in the same order as the segment chart above. I think that the Frazer will be blue. Let’s guess that the last vertical crossover line is at position 45. From the area of 42-45, there are 3 of Joanna’s family who have matches with a Frazer. We already have 2 out of 3 blues available for these Frazer matches, so Frazer has to be blue. The last blue can be added on Janet’s row #3 in the small segment area of 42-45. We know from our first gedmatch comparison that Janet and Joanna have HIRs for the last 2 segments. I made Janet (2) have her paternal side blue so it matched with the other 2 Frazer matches. Then I made sure that between Janet and Joanna (2 and 3) their last segments didn’t match maternally on both sides. They had to match only one side. That was the Frazer side. Then the maternal side had to be purple for it to be a half match. Here is where Joanna’s family got their DNA from each grandparent. This was the beginning of Joanna and her siblings for Chromosome #22. It is pretty interesting that we can find out their grandparents’ contributing DNA considering these grandparents were all born in the 1800’s.

Now back to the original comparison:

I think everything holds together. Note that Joanna had only one crossover near the beginning. Janet has 2 in the middle and Jonathan has one at the end. This is portrayed in our Chromosome map in 4 colors also.

I had mentioned how some of my earlier analyses were using the longest and most difficult chromosomes. This should be a more simple and clearer example.

One Side Helps the Other

These 4 grandparents were determined using just 2 known matches to Joanna and her 2 siblings. One match was on the maternal side and one was on the paternal side. Once the maternal side was set, that made it easier to determine where the paternal match went. This process works because: 1) Joanna and her 2 siblings all tested their DNA and they can compare to each other using gedmatch.com; 2) There are known matches to Joanna and her siblings – one on the maternal side and one on the paternal side. These act as a reference to set where the 4 grandparents fit in for this analysis. It also helped that these matches matched all three siblings.

Applications

Jonathan and Joanna cannot have any matches on their Seymour Line on Chromosome 22.
Likewise, Janet cannot have a Seymour match above the region of about 42 million.
Joanna will probably not have any meaningful matches with her Dickins Line on Chromosome 22.
The family does not have parents available for DNA testing, so a match at any point for each of these siblings will still have to be checked to determine whether it is on the maternal or paternal side.
Triangulation Groups will also follow the segment lines for each sibling
Each of these 4 grandparent segments are made up of other smaller segments from their ancestors.

January 8, 2016August 8, 2016

More James Line Segments

In the last 2 blogs, I wrote about segments and crossovers. In this one I am continuing on with James Line Segments. The James Line is from James Frazer b. in the early 1700’s from North Roscommon, Ireland. I am looking at Chromosome 14, because there seems to be a lot going on there. Here are some of the Frazer matches from my master list of matches from testers in the Frazer DNA Project:

Not all of these matches will come into play, because we are looking at the family of Jonathan, Janet and Joanna. Here Jonathan matches JFS on the Michael Frazer Line b. 1764 (a branch of the James Line). Janet matches the same person at 2 different places. Janet and Jonathan match BZ their 2nd cousin at differing levels. Also Jonathan matches BR from the Archibald line (brother of James Frazer) at a smaller amount. This may or may not hold up.

Remember, we can do this analysis because siblings have what are called Fully Identical Regions (FIRs). This means that they match their same paternal and maternal grandparents (but we don’t know which initially). Then by comparing the Half Identical Regions (HIRs) and places they don’t match, it is possible to map out all 4 grandparents. With matches to known people, it is possible to fill in which grandparent is which.

Chromosome 14 appears to be more simpler than my earlier examples:

Here, there are only 5 crossover points. The crossover is where the DNA recombines. Janet has only one crossover point and Jonathan and Joanna each have 2. Note above that Jonathan (1) and Joanna (3) have a FIR in the first segment indicated by the green bar in the middle row. That means they have the same Paternal and Maternal grandparents. I’ll give those grandparents a green and blue color for both Jonathan’s (1) and Joanna’s (3) DNA segment below.

The crossover point is where something is going to change due to DNA that got recombined from Joanna’s family’s grandparents via their parents. I suppose you might say we are recreating how this family was formed by the different combinations of their grandparents’ DNA. I can’t extend Jonathan’s grandparents at this point (at crossover 1). I can extend Joanna’s as her crossover point doesn’t occur until line 3 (which is her crossover or recombination point).

Now note in the gedmatch browser comparison above that Janet and Joanna have no match in the first 2 segments. That means that Janet will have the opposite grandparents in those segments shown as being orange and purple.

Next, I see that in the 3rd segment, Joanna matches Janet perfectly (FIR). We will note that and extend Janet’s segments to the right hand side as she only has one crossover point.

Next I filled in some opposite regions between Janet and Joanna and Jonathan to Janet.

However, note that in the comparison between Jonathan and Janet, there is something odd.

In the third segment, there is no match as shown by a grey underneath (no blue). However, on the top there are no red marks. I though that it was too easy. Next, I will add an HIR from Jonathan to Janet in the last 2 segments.

Next Jonathan and Joanna have a no match on the last chromosome, so they are opposites. There seems to be no easy solution for the middle part of Jonathan’s Chromosome 14 – or rather there could be more than one solution, so I’ll just pick one for now and see how it fits with the matches.

And there you have my version 1 of Jonathan and his sisters’ Chromosome 14. It doesn’t look that great. Janet’s chromosome looks too symmetrical. Also Jonathan has one of his crossovers on Joanna’s crossover point (3).

Now for the Frazer DNA Project matches to Jonathan and family.

Here’s where the puzzle begins. We don’t know which of the 4 colors that the Frazer could be. That could be either

Janet has matches from 32-50; 59-100; and 92-101. This means I drew Janet wrong. I have her with a break in the middle of these. That is, unless, the match with JFS is a false match.

Jonathan has matches from 80-99; 92-101; and 99-102. That could either be green or purple, but his first match at 80 would make it look like the green. I’ll give it another try with Janet having her green be the Frazer for the whole length. This is what I came up with:

Joanna and Family Version 2 Chromosome 14

That looks better. Now Janet’s segments are not so symmetrical and Jonathan’s crossovers are at his own crossover points. Joanna has a crossover on Janet’s crossover point, so maybe she should have solid orange, but that would cause other inconsistencies.

Now I’ll add the Frazer to the green areas and Seymour grandparents in orange showing where some of our Frazer DNA testers match.

I know that Joanna is looking for other relatives to test on her mother’s side. So once those DNA results are in, that will further confirm which maternal grandparents the blue and purple segments belong to.

This was not as easy as I thought it would be.

December 7, 2015April 13, 2017

Moving the Frazers Down the YDNA Tree

We have new YDNA results in for Jonathan and Paul. That’s good news. As you may recall, Jonathan had his YDNA tested about a year ago. He represents the James Line of Frazers. Then this year, Paul from the Archibald Line of Frazers tested. The tests were for 37 markers. The new tests are for 67 markers. Here is a tree that I sent to my cousin Paul who is not on the internet. Archibald, born around 1690 is believed to be our common ancestor and the husband of Mary Frazer at the top. Paul and Jonathan are 6th cousins, once removed based on our research. Paul is 2 generations below Hubert Frazer on the Archibald Branch and Jonathan is one generation below Walter Frazer.

Some Unexpected Results

Jonathan and Paul both showed a type of YDNA called R1a. I expected they would be R1b which is one of the most common Haplogroups in Europe. R1b is especially prevalent the further Northwest one travels in Europe.
Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) showed 3 mutations between Jonathan and Paul. I was expecting about zero to one. It turns out that all their mutations were on relatively fast moving markers.
Based on the markers, FTDNA puts people in a rough Haplogroup. Jonathan was put in R-M458 and Paul in R-M198 which is an even more broad or general category. With the new results, FTDNA has apparently backtracked and put Jonathan back into the more broad R198 Haplogroup. Usually, with more STR testing the Haplogroup should be more refined, not less.
At the different levels that FTDNA looks at (12, 25, 37 and 67 STRs), Paul matches on 4 people each. Normally there are many matches at the 12 level and the matches drop down to the 67 level. The apparent answer for this is that Paul has had more than the expected mutations in the earlier testing compared to Jonathan.

Genetic Distance

The Genetic Distance (GD) is the measure of how many differences there are in the STRs of 2 people. In the case of Jonathan and Paul, the GD was 3 for the 37 STRs and also 3 for the recent 67 marker test. That means all the differences were in the first 37 markers. Here are Jonathan’s results for the 37 STR test. The results of this test are also called a Haplotype.

Here is what Paul has for STR results with the differences from Jonathan highlighted.

Note that the there were 2 changes in the CDY marker. FTDNA informs me that they count this as one change as the markers represent a relatively fast mutating section of the YDNA. So in the roughly 260 years or 7 or 8 generations, there have been 4 mutations or a GD of 3 between Jonathan and Paul, assuming our genealogy is correct.

Refined TIP Report

FTDNA has a TIP Report that estimates the relationship likelihood of 2 YDNA matching people. For the previous 37 STR marker test, FTDNA thought that there was about a 44% chance that Jonathan and Paul were related at 8 generations apart. Now with the 67 marker test, that has gone up to about 65%. The percentage went up, because the GD was the same for 67 markers as it was for 37 markers. So it is more likely that these 2 are closely related. It is all based on statistics and probability.

Haplotypes and Haplogroups

The STR signature for Jonathan and Paul now consists of 67 markers. The combination of these markers is called a Haplotype. A Haplogroup is based on SNPs and is found one of 2 ways. The most accurate is by testing of the SNPs. The other way to estimate a Haplogroup is by the Haplotype. Jonathan and Paul have not had their SNPs tested, but have their STRs tested resulting in a Haplotype. Based on these STRs, people who are experts in looking at results can tell what your Haplogroup likely is. In our case, the L664 administer for the R1a project knew that if a DYS338 was 10, then it was veritably inevitable that if the SNP test for L664 was taken, then the tester would be positive for that SNP.

Climbing Down the YDNA Tree

FTDNA has Jonathan as R-M198 Haplogroup. This was from 6,500 B.C. Not good. Our astute L664 Dutch Administrator Martin got us down to 3,000 B.C. by noting that the Frazers are in the L664 Haplogroup. We appreciate him getting us an extra 3,500 years, but that still leaves us quite a way back in time. In my previous blog, Martin at first thought that the Frazers would not be in a SNP called S3477. Subsequently, Martin reasoned that we may be S3477 based on some similarities that he saw in the location of the Frazers and Prendergasts in Ireland. I made a prediction that the Frazers would be negative for S3477. The proof would be in the 67 STR test. If the Frazers did not have a value of 13 at DYS617, they would not belong to subgroup S3477. Let’s look at those results.

It looks like I was right this time. Put another win in my win-loss column. The Frazers are not S3477. Speaking of SNPs, FTDNA recently came out with a new R1a panel for testing.

All the grey hi-lighted SNPs above would apply to L664 Frazers. FTDNA boasts of over 40 L664 SNPs that they test for just under L664. This is a good introductory deal for $99 as it costs $39 to test a single SNP at FTDNA. To put these SNPs into context, here is how they look below our L664 Frazer Group.

The way it works, FTDNA doesn’t have to test 40 SNPs. For example, once they test S3477 and find it to be negative, they would not need to test the 10 SNPs below it. Remember, we were told that if the DYS617 STR marker was not 13, then we would be negative for S3477. In my previous blog, I mentioned that the L664 administrator didn’t think we belonged to the popular YP282 SNP. If that were true, then that would eliminate 13 SNPs. Likewise, Martin didn’t think we were part of the YP358 Haplogroup. It would be nice to know which branch the Frazers are on.

YDNA Matches

I had mentioned in an earlier blog that Paul had 4 matches at all of his levels of testing. This is quite unusual. Usually people have a large number of matches at the lower level of STR testing and fewer at the higher level. Apparently all of Paul’s mutations happened at these lower level of STR testing and wasn’t spread out over the 67 STRs. Here are his matches:

These 4 matches are different than all the other levels of STR matches. At this level, Mr Frizelle drops out. This is not because he is not a match, but because Mr. Frizelle only tested up to the 37 STR level. Mr Latham was in the same category. Replacing those 2 are a Stuart and a Grant. However, the GD for these 2 are quite high and the relationship could go back to before the use of surnames. Jonathan’s matches appear to be with the same people that he matched at the 37 STR minus those who didn’t test at the 67 STR level.

Here we see all of Paul’s YDNA relatives are on Jonathan’s list. So the YDNA relatives are starting to converge at this level – give or take 300 years! The Grants seem to be the most common name. It is possible that all these people came from the same area of Scotland and were related many years ago.

Summary and Future Considerations

A Genetic Distance of 3 at 67 STRs is closer than a match of 3 at 37 STRs for Jonathan and Paul. This was expected and supports the assumptions of our Frazer genealogy.
We are no further down the YDNA tree than L664 at this point. We know which part of the tree we are not on (S3477). To get further down the tree will take further analysis of the recent 67 STR test or additional SNP testing.
We may want to look into the SNP panel for Jonathan and/or Paul to see where they are further down on the YDNA tree. I would assume that they both would have the same terminal SNP, so only one person would need to test for the panel of SNPs and the second could verify the terminal SNP with a single SNP test.
I will check with the L664 Administrator to see if he has any other analysis of the 67 STR results that would fine tune our Frazers’ place in the R1a Project

November 25, 2015April 30, 2020

More On Frazer DNA

In this blog, I’d like to finish a few thoughts on Frazer YDNA and look at some new Frazer autosomal DNA Results.

YDNA Thoughts and Summaries

The 2 Frazer Lines have now successfully tested their YDNA. The YDNA test Jonathan and Paul took is called a 37 STR (Short Tandem Repeat) test. This test has indicated a common SNP Haplogroup for the 2 lines called R1a-L664.
As the 2 Frazer Lines indicate a match, this gives us confidence in our genealogy and in the autosomal DNA matches testers have between the Archibald and James Frazer Lines.
These 2 tests have resulted in a unique STR signature for each line. This STR signature is called a Haplotype.
The difference in the STR values between the 2 Frazer Line YDNA test results is called the Genetic Distance (GD). The GD between the 2 lines is 3 by FTDNA.
When I count the GD by hand, I get a difference of 4, but FTDNA tells me this about the CDY marker: “CDY is counted using the infinite allele method. Basically this marker is so volatile we can see multiple numeric value jumps in a single mutation. So even if it is off by five it would still only be counted as a genetic distance of 1.” So that explains the anomaly.
I had expected the GD to be lower between the 2 lines. The 2 testers should have a common ancestor 7 generations from present if our genealogy is correct. This person is believed to be Archibald Frazer b. about 1690.
Some STRs have a rate of change much faster than others. The markers that have changed between the 2 lines are the faster moving markers.
The haplotype for the YDNA test representing the James line appears to me to be more likely to be the haplotype of the Archibald Frazer b. about 1690. This is difficult to determine based on only 2 YDNA tests. However, I base my theory partly on the fact that the haplotype representing the Archibald line has many fewer matches to other testers than the one representing the James Line. My theory is that the Archibald Line YDNA has mutated to a more distinct state from that of the original YDNA and thus has fewer matches.
More STR testing has been ordered to further refine the 2 Frazer Line Haplotypes. These results should be out by the latter part of January 2016.

I hope that makes sense. Please email me if you need further clarification.

You Gotta Lovat

All this YDNA testing has created renewed interest in some of the Project Members concerning family lore of descent from the Lord Lovat Branch of the Frasers. YDNA can certainly reach to that era and beyond.

Part of Jonathan's YDNA Match Map — Part of Jonathan’s YDNA Match Map

These striking results show that 3 out of 4 of Jonathan’s YDNA mapped matches have their most distant ancestors located in NE Scotland. At least one part of the family lore has the earliest Frazers at Keith. Notice on the map above that Keith is located to the East of the middle marker. To me, this supports traditions of the Frazers being in NE Scotland at some time before being located in Stirling and Ayrshire to the SW of Scotland. The leap of faith part is believing that both these families were in that area about 500 years or more before our respective families’ earliest verifiable ancestors.

Back to the Autosomal DNA

While we’ve been pondering our Frazer YDNA results, the autosomal testing has been moving on apace. Patricia (or Pat’s) results have come in. I was interested in her results for the following reasons:

Her second cousin Bill had many matches. Some of these were also with the James Line Testers
Pat, Bill, Paul and I also share a pair of Frazer cousin ancestors who married. These were James Frazer and Violet Frazer. DNA representing Violet’s father has already been found by triangulation. However, James’ DNA and certain genealogy have been more difficult to nail down.

Pat’s Genealogy

In an earlier Blog, I touched on Pat’s second cousin Bill’s genealogy. I’d like to expand on that here. Bill and Pat have as their common ancestors, George Frazer b. 1858 in Martinsburg, New York and his wife Susan or Susanna Price. According to one Ancestry tree, the handsome family looked like this:

I mention this, because half of the autosomal DNA that Pat and Bill share would be from Susan Price. Now, again, according to Ancestry, Susan Price’s parents were John Price and Margaret Stinson both born in or around Enniskillen, Ireland. Perhaps this Margaret Stinson was related to this George’s mother’s grandmother Ann Stinson. If so, do you think that will complicate the DNA results?

Here is the DNA that Pat and Bill share in orange (representing George Frazer and Susan Price) as seen on FTDNA’s Chromosome Browser:

Frazers in Martinsburg, New York in the 1850s

Here on the bottom 3 lines of the New York State 1855 Census are George Frazer’s parents: Richard Frazer and Ellen Hassard or Hazard. As mentioned above, Ellen is also the granddaughter of Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson.

I have included the Johnston family above because the father William Johnston was married to Mary Frazer, daughter of Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson. So you are perhaps seeing a Stinson pattern here as well as a Frazer pattern. In fact, in the 1901 Census for Clanwilliam, Marquette, Manitoba, we see a William Stinson b. in Ireland living near the George Frazer family. Also living in the Frazer house was George’s mother, the (by 1901) widowed Ellen (Hassard) Frazer.

Then on the previous census page of the 1855 New York Census for Martinsburg:

Here is yet another Frazer. Ann Frazer is the younger sister of Mary Frazer Johnston. I have that Ann married a John Hazard on 24 Dec 1824 at Ardcarne, Roscommon, Ireland; by licence. John tried to confuse me by going by William in the US, but apparently he is one and the same.

Let’s go back 5 years to the US Federal Census of 1850 in Martinsburg:

and on the next page:

Here is a James Line Frazer. Patrick Frazer would be a second cousin once removed to Mary Frazer Johnston and Ann Frazer Hazard. We have this Patrick married to a Jane Lacy. However, other Ancestry trees have him married to a Jane Mostown. In the 1855 census, Jane appears to have a middle initial of M. However, the 2 Janes are either the same, or Patrick remarried a second Jane. Or, less likely, there was more than one Patrick Frazer! This sidetrack shouldn’t effect the DNA results, but it is interesting to see how these Irish families stayed together in the US.

Two Side by Side Triangulation Groups

When I started looking at Pat’s results, I noticed a new Triangulation Group (TG) right near an existing one.

The existing TG has Jane, Doug and Michael and clearly indicates that the DNA represents that of Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson. We know this because Doug does not to his knowledge have multiple Frazer lines – that is, Frazer ancestors marrying Frazer ancestors.

The newer TG is on the top and includes Bill, Pat and Jane. Note that Jane is in both groups. Also note that this could indicate the common ancestor the 3 have in Richard Frazer b. about 1777. Frankly, I’m quite puzzled and stumped as to who this TG represents. I have ordered a book on Endogamy by Israel Pickholtz. Perhaps that will help. Note also that Bill and Pat match each other to location 170,00,000 (say 170) This is the area where Jane, Doug and Michael match each other, but they don’t show a match with those 3 in that area. This will take some thought to decipher.

DNA Going Two Different Ways

In a previous blog, I noted difficulty in finding the DNA from my Frazer ancestor James Frazer. He was married to a Violet Frazer who I could find due to triangulation with her father Richard. Some matches with Pat may indicate additional DNA Pat and my family share that came down from this Frazer couple.

Here, I have Pat’s match with me (JH) on Chromosome 6. I included above that, Pat’s cousin Bill’s match with Cathy. See they are at similar locations. However, these 2 sets of matches indicate different ancestors. The Bill and Cathy match represent DNA from the Archibald Frazer Line. I am not related on that line. So even though this segments overlaps, it could never triangulate. The match I have with Pat is most likely with James Frazer and Violet Frazer. This is what I think the above means. Remember George Frazer who was born in Martinsburg. Also remember, on each Chromosome we get DNA from both our parents or rather 2 sets of Chromosomes (one Paternal set and one maternal set). George had on one Chromosome #6 DNA from his father Richard Frazer and and on the other Chromosome #6, DNA from his mother Ellen Hazard.

It looks like George passed on his father’s Richard Frazer DNA to Richard Price “Pat” Frazer. This is easy to remember because “Pat” is the ancestor of our Frazer DNA tester Pat. This is the line that would match with me, as Richard is the son of James Frazer and Violet Frazer. The maternal Hassard Line carrying the Archibald Frazer/Ann Stinson DNA went to George Harvey on our tester Bill’s line. This is the line that matches with Cathy. So in these 2 set of matches, we appear to be splitting out the related ancestors. Complicated. But at least I have an explanation for it, unlike the previous triangulation case.

Finally, here’s a match on Chromosome 9 between Pat and Sharon for about 11 cM. I take this to represent the DNA of my kissing cousin ancestors James and Violet Frazer.

A Triangulation Group with a Genetic Genealogist: But Who Are the Common Ancestors?

The next Triangulation group is with a genetic genealogist named Jennifer (JZ below). I mentioned that she was in a TG with Cathy and Jane in a previous blog about Cathy’s DNA results written August 2015.

This TG has Pat, Cathy, Jane and Jennifer. But wait. I don’t see a match between Pat and Jane. I lowered the levels a bit at Gedmatch.com and see that all four women match each other on Chromosome 5 and that they do indeed match and triangulate:

We know that Cathy and Jane have a Frazer ancestor born about 1802. Cathy and Pat share a Frazer ancestor b. about 1778. There is still a mystery as to how Jennifer fits in. She had a J. Frazer ancestor, that I guessed was a Jane Frazer. I further guessed that this Jane was a sister of the Archibald that married Catherine Parker. This theory still makes sense. Jennifer has subsequently found out that her ancestor was indeed named Jane Frazer/Frazier.

Summary on Pat’s Autosomal DNA Results

Pat didn’t seem to have as many matches as her second cousin Bill. This means that Bill just seemed to get extra Frazer DNA including from the more distant James Line.
Pat did shed some light on the common cousin Frazer ancestors that her family and my family share: James and Violet
Pat’s DNA resulted in a new TG. This will need more analysis as to where that TG is pointing to as far as in common Frazer ancestors
A comparison of Pat and her 2nd cousin Bill’s matches on Chromosome 6 helped to untangle some endogamy in the family (multiple Frazer lines due to marriages of relatives).
Pat’s DNA solidified a TG with a genetic genealogist who didn’t originally test to show any specific Frazer ancestry