A New Addition to the R1a Frazer BigY Tree

I wa s surprised to find a 111 STR match to our R1a Frazers of Roscommon last Summer. I wrote one Blog which wrongly supposed that Dingman’s common ancestor with our Frazers predated our common Frazer ancestor who we believe to be Archibald Frazer born in 1690 and probably lived in North Roscomon County, Ireland. Working with Frazer genealogist Joanna, we put together a tree for Dingman. I wrote another Blog on August 4, 2021.

Part of the reason (aside from the apparent genealogy) that I put Dingman in the Archibald Frazer Branch was his value of DYS710. I made a STR tree in that same Blog:

Here, I supposed that DYS710 = 33 was ancestral and that a value of 34 defined the Archibald Line and that a value of 32 defined the Frazier Line. Here are some values for DYS710 at the FTDNA R1a Project near the Frazers within a green grouping:

.The values in the boxes are Max, Mode, Minimum numbers. It looks like I went too far as the last three numbers are under an orange group.

  • 31 – 2
  • 32 – 2
  • 33 – 5
  • 34 – 6

This shows that the value of 34 appears most often, so would be the mode. However, I still like my STR tree. I believe that there is something called the rule of parsimony when building these trees. That means that you shouldn’t build these trees in a more complicated way than you have to.

Dingman and the Current R1a Roscommon Frazer BigY Block Tree

That is quite a mouthful. I am represented by my 2nd cousin once removed Paul, so I will look at the Frazer Block tree from his viewpoint:

My Previous Prediction for DIngman

In my previous Blog on DIngman, I wrote:

Assuming the chart above is correct, Dingman will be positive for FT421618 as he descends from Archibald Frazer born 1690. He will be negative for Y151390 which is in the James Frazer Line.  We don’t know if  Dingman will be positive for Y58652 even though he is from the Archibald Frazer Line

In the reference above to the chart, I meant my STR tree. It’s fun to predict how BigY testers will turn out. My prediction was right. Dingman was neither Y151390 (James Frazer Line) nor Y85652.

What Else May We Gather from the Frazer Block Tree?

One thing that I gather by the placement of the Frazier tester is that the Frazer name is old and that our Frazer name has likely come down through the ages relatively unaltered. Assuming that the line above the five Frazer testers is 1690, the connection to Frazier goes back an additional three SNPs. If we take a SNP to represent 83 years, then that would go back to the year 1441. Then there are three SNPs above Frazier. At that time, there are many different surnames that match our Frazers. However, these surnames seem to be located around Inverness in Scotland. This brings us back to around the year 1192. At that time most people only went by their first name. That means that our match with Frazier is fortunate as it could represent close to the beginning of the use by our ancestors of the Frazer surname.

One way to check my dates is by using SNP Tracker:

This is the map for the James Frazer Line. Here are some of the dates from SNP Tracker:

These are close to the dates I came up with.

How Does Dingman Fit In?

I can re-draw the genealogical chart with the SNPs added on:

Here is what I gather from this tree:

  • Although it appeard that Y85652 defined the Archibald Line of the Frazers, it only really defines the Philip Frazer or James Frazer Line (born abut 1804).
  • In this case, the Archibald Frazer Line is better defined by the STR DYS710 = 34. This STR mutation must have first appeared in Archibald Frazer born about 1715 or his son Archibald born about 1743.
  • Dingman’s line is defined by his four Private Variants. These formed in his line between John or Richard Frazer and Dingman. These could be defined if Dingman tests a close relative for the BigY. It would interesting information. However, it is probably not necessary.
  • On the James Line, R-151390 formed sometime between James Frazer born about 1720 and Thomas Henry Frazer born 1836
  • Dingman is a welcome addition to the Frazer of Roscommon BigY tree and provides the earlies branching so far on the Archibald Line of North Roscommon Frazers.

 

My New Clarke/McMaster DNA Match at 23andMe

I get notifications from time to time from 23andMe about new DNA matches and I don’t usually know how we match up. Recently I had such a notice of a potential 3rd cousin and I did know how we match.

How Zoë and I Match by Genealogy on the Clarke Side

Zoë and I match by McMaster and I later found out Clarke. I’ll start with the Clarke side. This is the tree that I have so far of DNA relatives on my Clarke side:

Zoë descends from Catherine Clarke and William McMaster on the right side of the tree where I am. It turns out that this is an important DNA match, as I have one DNA match on that side who is Melissa. However, she tested at Ancestry which does not show detailed DNA information like 23andMe does. Zoë  tells me that Violet McMaster is a many times great grandmother to her, so I’ll build down her tree from there.

From what I can figure out this is how we connect:

So it turns out that we are third cousins, but it looks like third cousins twice removed. Our common ancestors are Thomas Clarke and Jane Spratt. When I look at my common DNA relatives with Zoë, Stephen shows up from the left side of the tree. He tested at 23andMe also. Ron from the left side of the tree shows up at MyHeritage.

These two are Zoë’s ancestors William McMaster and Catherine Clarke:

Probably taken around 1882. Reverse of picture indicates that they were engaged “about 1881” and married October 5, 1882.

How Zoë and I Match by McMaster Tree

Here is my existing McMaster DNA Tree:

This tree is larger and needs a road map. I don’t need the left side of this tree for Zoë. The left side of the tree is for a branch of the McMaster family that ended up in Canada. The down arrow is where I need to add Zoë’s ancestor William McMaster.

Zoë and I are at opposite ends of this DNA McMaster tree. We appear to be 4th cousins once removed. Our common ancestors are Fanny McMaster and James McMaster. That means that I am related to Zoë by four ancestors and three out of those four ancestors are McMasters.

Adding Zoë to My DNA Painter Profile

This is my DNA map of known matches:

This shows that I have identified 51% of the available spaces on the two copies of my chromosomes (paternal and maternal). Here is my paternal side where I match Zoë:

On this side I am 57% painted or identified. I’ve checked ahead and saw that Zoë adds new information to this map. That is probably because she represents a new relative on my family trees also.

Here is how I match Zoë at 23andMe:

We match on Chromosomes 3 and 17 and twice on Chromosome 7. the question now is which DNA goes with which pair of ancestors? Chances are slightly higher that I match Zoë by Clarke and McMaster than the second McMaster and McMaster relationship. It is also possible that each of the four DNA segments could represent one of our four common ancestors. The easiest way to identify all the DNA would be to create a new category on my DNA map called Clarke 1823 or Mcmaster 1829.

Here is how Zoë shows up on my Chromosome Map on Chromosomes 3 and 7:

On Chromosome 3, Zoë is a new match. On Chromosome 7, she overlaps with Ron. On Chromosome 3, my match with Zoë has no overlap with other matches. Here is my phased map of Chromosome 3:

This is the portion of my Chromosome I got from my Frazer grandmother shown by the red arrow above. She is the one with Clarke and McMaster ancestors. So it would make sense that I would match Zoë on the right side of the paternal copy of Chromosome 3.

On Chromosome 7, I match Zoë in two areas that are close to each other. The first segment overlaps with a match with Ron. Ron also has Clarke and McMaster Ancestry. It is my guess that that segment triangulates between Zoë, Ron and me:

One More Scenario and Another McMaster Tree

Ron is also related to Zoë and me on the McMaster side, but that brings up another McMaster tree:

I must have planned on meeting Zoë or one of her relatives as I left a space (outlined in an orange box). Here I have added in Zoë:

This connection goes back 7 generations for Zoë. So while this connection is less likely than the Clarke connection, it is still a possible connection. I have a quick fix:

I added 1764 to the possible place that this DNA could have come from. Even that designation is not totally correct as the triangulated  match with Ron could not be from the McMaster born in 1829. Even these designations are simplifications as the DNA could have come from the wives of these two McMasters and one Clarke.

Finally Chromosome 17

Zoë’s match is interesting here:

 

The place where the DNA changes from Barry to Zoe appears to indicate an old crossover from Barry. A crossover is where your DNA changes from one family to another. The simple explanation woudl be that this is a crossover from the Frazer DNA I got from Barry to the Clarke DNA that I got represented from the match with Zoë.

Here is where that split appears in my tree (see above). With the addition of Zoë’s matches:

That put me up 1% on the paternal side. Overall, I am still at 51% ‘painted’.

Summary and Conclusions

  • The ancestors that Zoë and I share belonged to the minority Church of Ireland in  Roman Catholic Ireland. They tended to marry within their faith, but that resulted in the intermarriage of lines.
  • The Clarke line was not related to McMaster as far as I know in Ireland. However, one Clarke sister married a McMaster in Boston (Zoë’s ancestors) and another Clarke sister married that McMaster’s nephew who was a Frazer (my ancestors).
  • I mapped out the different relationships in one Clarke tree and two McMaster trees
  • Due to the relationships involved, the assigning of the DNA to a patricular couple was not easy. There were a possible three couples that this DNA could represent except for the case where the DNA overlapped with Ron. In that case, the DNA could only be from a possible two couples.

 

Looking at AncestryDNA Match Jeff on the Frazer Line

I match Jeff at AncestryDNA by a small amount of DNA (8 cM).

Ancestry shows we have a common ancestor in James Frazer going back to about 1804. Here is the maternal side of Jeff’s tree where Ancestry thinks we should match up:

There appears to be a discrpancy already as Ancestry has Phylis Bowman and Jeff’s tree has Phylis Anderson. That is apparently from this Ancestry Tree which has Phylis married to a Kenneth Anderson presumably before or after she married Keith Huckle.

Adding a Suggested Frazer to Jeff’s Tree

Ancestry suggested that Teresa Frazer was the mother of Philis Bowman, so I added her in:

There are hints for Teresa. A good one is her marriage record:

This 1921 record has lots of information on it. Now the tree looks like this:

It is tempting to accept the hints, but I won’t unless I have to.  This appears to be the family in 1901 in Kinloss, Ontario:

However, if that is the case, Susan M must be the same as Teresa or Tressia May.

John Frazer Born in Ontario

Here is John in 1881 in Kinloss, Ontario – apparently with his parents:

Here, John’s father William says he was from Scotland and his mother from Ireland. This tells me also tha John married later in life.

William Frazer

William Frazer is a critical connection in Ancestry’s common ancestor depiction. That common ancestor tree has William as the son of James Frazer born in 1819. Here are the children I have for James Frazer and Violet Frazer:

If William was born in 1819, then Violet would have been 16 at his birth. I had that this couple was married on 23 January 1828. This tells me that there is something wrong with Ancestry common ancestry tree. Nonetheless, here is an interesting story of William’s life from Findagrave.com from 1884:

Other DNA Matches to Jeff?

At this point, it would be interesting to see if others have DNA matches to Jeff. I was unable to find any with my four siblings who have tested at Ancestry. I would say that, based on no other DNA matches and problems connecting the genealogy, that something is wrong with Ancestry’s common ancestor tree.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It appears that, although I have a small DNA match to Jeff, that match is not through my ancestors James Frazer and Violet Frazer.
  • It would have saved time if I had started with James and Violet Frazer and looked at the proposed connection to William.
  • I now know more about Jeff’s ancestry than I need to know!

 

 

An Update on Stan’s Frazer DNA at 23andMe

Last year I wrote a Blog about Stan. Here is how Stan and I are related:

Stan and I are second cousins once removed. At the time that I wrote the Blog, Stan did not have the option to share his DNA. He has since changed that and I can see how much DNA we share with each other:

This shows that we share a total of 53 cM on three different chromosomes. Here is how that works out between my match with Stan and his sister Brenda:

This shows that Brenda matches me a bit on Chromosome 5 where Stan doesn’t and that Stan matches me on Chromosome 10 where Brenda doesn’t.

Painting Stan

I use a utility to paint my DNA matches onto my chromosomes. The DNA that Stan and I share either came from George William Frazer born around 1838 or his wife Margaret McMaster. The DNA that I am most interrested in is on Chromosome 10:

On the right hand side, Stan fills in a missing gap. Here is the key:

In general, the maroon is DNA from my Frazer grandmother. The green is the DNA from my Hartley grandfather. They were married. However, the right side shows more detail. The red match on the right with Michael goes back another 2 generations:

Now this gets into how much we want to assume. Unfortunately, I don’t have a wife’s name for Richard Frazer at the top. However, we know that his daughter was Violet Frazer. She married James Frazer who we believe to be Violet’s first cousin. That means that for me, this red DNA would have come from Violet Frazer. Then before that, it either came from Richard Frazer or his unknown wife – we don’t know which.

Then at the very end of Chromosome 10, I have a match with Ron. That is a match on my Clarke side. Clarke is believed to be unrelated to Frazer, but married my Frazer great-grandfather.

So how does Stan fit in? It is possible that Stan and I share the DNA from James Frazer. He married Violet Frazer and was his first cousin. Confusing, isnt’ it? However, this is interesting to me as the James Frazer genealogy is more difficult to document than the Violet Frazer side. I believe that the father of James Frazer was Philip Frazer. I will keep that in mind in case I find another descendant of Philip Frazer who matches in that same segment of Chromosome 10. The reason why I think that Stan’s DNA may come from Violet’s husband James is because there is no overlap with the DNA that came from Violet.

How Much Am I Painted?

I don’t know if Stan’s DNA match brought my numers up, but here are the current numbers:

It would be nice to be up to 50% identified. To do this I will likely need to find more maternal DNA matches. Here is the percentage of my paternal paintedness:

Stan matches me on my paternal side.

Chromosome 6

Here is just the beginning of Chromosome 6 where I match Stan:

Brenda and Stan overlap with Ken and Doreen. Ken and Doreen descend from the brother of my 2nd great-grandfather. That means that the DNA that Stan and I share must come from my 2nd great-grandfather who was George Wiliam Frazer born about 1838.

 Chromosome 7

Here I have the whole Chromosome represented. Stan shares DNA with Marilee. One great thing about DNA Painter is that it can handle matches with different companies. Marilee tested at MyHeritage and Stan at 23andMe:

That means that Stan and I likely share DNA from Violet Frazer on Chromosome 7.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Thanks to Stan sharing his DNA at 23andMe, I can see where I specifically match him, that is on which chromosome and on which part of which chromosome
  • The placement of the matches is important because they represent different ancestors. In this case, the different ancestors are likely different branches of the Frazer family. This is because my third great-grandfather who was a Frazer apparently married his first cousin who was also a Frazer.
  • Stan’s DNA match with me helps confirm both my Violet Frazer genealogy which seems more solid and my Philip to James Frazer genealogy which is more shaky.

A New Frazer DNA Match for Jane at Ancestry

I had an email from Jane recently about a new Frazer match she had. Jane’s match is with JD. His tree is private but searchable. That means that Ancestry can figure out likely common ancestors with his tree even though it is private. Here is how Jane and JD probably match up:

The Archibald above is from what I call the Stinson Line:

Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson had other children, but I only show one who was another Archibald who married Catherine Parker.

Evaluating JD’s Tree

Ancestry suggests I evaluate JD’s tree, so I will. I created a tree for JD. I assume that he knows who his mother is. I have to further assume that the connection is on his mother’s side. In 1940, JD’s mother Mary was living in Bridgeport, Connecticut:

From here, we need to get the family back to Alexander Frazer who lived in County Roscommon, Ireland. So far, JD’s maternal side is checking out:

Carrie or Katherine?

Here is the 1920 Census for Bridgeport:

The one I have as Katherine in the tree appears to be Carrie. Her mother (also Carrie) is from Irish and speaks Irish. The 1900 Census has Carrie the mother immigrating in 1890, born in Ireland to parents who were born in Scotland. I seem to recall from Jane that her ancestors did move to Scotland and then back to Ireland, so this Census makes sense.

ThruLines for Jane

I see that Jane has many matches to the children of Alexand Frazer:

JD is right in the middle along with descendants of five of the children of Alexander Frazer. This seems to fill in where some of the records are missing for Carrie Frazer Ember. I like these ThruLines as they tie together many families in one image. Here is what I have for children of Alexander Frazer:

Apparently Alexander Frazer had 12 children.

Actually, I now see the marriage record for Charles Ember and Caroline Frazer after searching some at Ancestry:

This is the passenger record for Caroline from the Ellis Island records:

I found this once I typed in Fraser instead of Frazer in my search. What makes me sure about this record is that Thomas John Frazer, her older brother, is listed on the passenger record above her. Ancestry has some more information:

Adding JD to the Frazer DNA/Genealogy Tree

Here I have Anne Caroline born 1868 which is probably more accurate than Jane’s ThruLines show.

Adding in Jennifer

I still have one person missing from Jane’s ThruLines. This is Jennifer:

She descends from Elizabeth or Eliza Jane Frazer. I won’t go through the genealogy, as I think the genealogy is OK.

That now accounts for DNA matching of the descendants of six of the children of Alexander Frazer. Turns out that Jane also matches Jennifer’s father Larry by DNA. Apparently many of the children of Alexander Frazer settled in Connecticut Including Eliza Jane Frazer.

Jane doesn’t match Brenda by DNA. So the match must have been to someone else. Brenda descends from the older brother of Anne Caroline who was Thomas John Frazer. These two travelled to the US together as mentioned above.

Summary and Conclusions

  • DNA matches and ThruLines help in checking on genealogical lines. Because there are matches, it means that the records must be there to support the genealogy.
  • I was able to find the interesting shipping record for Carrie (Anne Caroline Frazer) and her older brother Thomas Joyn Frazer.
  • Because Alexander Frazer had many children, that resulted in many descendants, many of whom took DNA tests.
  • ThruLines at Ancestry continue to be a helpful tool in validating (in this case) Frazer genealogical trees. DNA matches coupled with genealogy is a powerful tool and ThruLines is good representation of the intersection of DNA and genealogy.

 

 

 

 

Playing with Phased Grandparent DNA at Gedmatch

Some kind person worked on my DNA to phase it to my four grandparents and uploaded the results to Gedmatch. One of those 4 grandparents was my my maternal grandmother Frazer side. This is exciting territory as this is an area of genetic genealogy that I haven’t looked at before in over 500 Blogs that I have written.

My Top Frazer Match at Gedmatch

I can run this kit which would be equivalent to my siblings’ Frazer matches at Gedmatch. My top match at Gedmatch is Tony. Let’s see if that match pans out. The phasing was not perfect, so there could be some errors.  The largest match with Tony is 193 cM, but when I run the details, it is only a small match:

My guess is that other matches with large largest segments are not correct. My first real match appears to be my second cousin once removed Paul. Here is what the match with my composite Frazer kit looks like:

Matches in Common with Paul

I ran matches in common with Paul and the composite Frazer Kit and then put those matches in a matrix:

I recognize at least half of these matches.

Painting My Frazer Matches

It occurs to me that I can paint my Frazer matches. As this DNA painting represents my grandmother, I’ll say that the person is female:

The first person on the match list under Paul is rosco. This is actually Keith:

Keith is in the last green box on the right next to Paul. I put that Keith is on my grandmother’s paternal side:

DNA Painter has my grandmother <1% painted. The next question is how closely should I ‘paint’ my grandmother’s DNA? In the past I have only gone to grandparent level. I think I’ll change and go to 1st cousin level. A first cousin shares two grandparents.

Adding Paul

Paul would be a first cousin once removed to my Frazer grandmother:

This gets my grandmother up to about 2% painted. I next added Emily. Emily’s common ancestors with mine are the same as Paul’s: George Frazer and Margaret McMaster.

Adding Gladys

Gladys’ common ancestors go back a generation to James Frazer and Violet Frazer:

Here, I changed the dark green to a lighter green, so it wouldn’t blot out the older DNA. So far, I have been only painting the Frazer paternal side. The maternal side is Clarke and I know less about Clarke genealogy than Frazer genealogy.

Painting Michael: Common Ancestor Richard Frazer

Notice Chromosome 1. The blue segment shows as all Richard Frazer. However, this is how it breaks out:

That means that the green segment is really Frazer and not McMaster. The Orange segment under the blue is Violet Frazer as she was the daughter of Richard Frazer.

Clarke DNA

My grandmother’s mother was Margaret Clarke. However, Margaret died when my grandmother was young.  I have a few fairly good DNA matches on the Clarke side, but the best matches are not at Gedmatch. Stephen is probably the closest match. Here is Stephen:

Stephen is also related on the McMaster side which confuses things. However, the closer match is on the Clarke side.

Now my grandmother is about 6% painted. Yellow is her first maternal DNA. I haven’t looked at X Chromosome matches as those are treated separately at Gedmatch.

Next, I looked for matches in common with Stephen and my phased Frazer kit:

The problem is that some of these matches are the same that were in common with my cousin Paul. Paul has no Clarke relatives. That means that this comparison is probably picking up the McMaster connection also. However, it may be possible to tease the two apart.

Grandmother Frazer AutoCluster

I thought that I had done these before, but perhaps not. At standard Gedmatch defaults, I get 19 clusters for my Frazer Grandmother:

There are a narrow range of DNA matches. They range from about 19 to 23 cM. I recognize matches from the last three clusters. Cluster 17 has Jonathan. Our common ancestor goes back to about 1690, but I have a feeling that there is a more recent match – probably on the James Line. James Frazer was born around 1717. Here is where Jonathan matches:

There appears to be a small overlap between Paul and Jonathan.

Pat and Bill are in Cluster 18. Here is how Pat and Bill fit in:

Our common ancestors are James Frazer and Violet Frazer.

In Cluster 19, I recognize Marilee who is related on one of my Frazer lines also.

I changed the limits to between 22 and 250 cM and got this autocluster:

In this AutoCluster reiteration, Clusters 11-14 are the Frazer Clusters. The good news is that I can identify 4 clusters. The bad news is that there are 16 clusters which I cannot identify. Actually, Jonathan is in Cluster 2, so that is one more Frazer cluster that I am aware of. However, the match for this Frazer Cluster ois probably through my McMaster side:

This is the ancestry of my 2nd great-grandmother Margaret Frazer. Turns out that she had a Frazer ancestor that went to a common ancestor with Jonathan. They were James Frazer and Katherine Fitzgerald, born in the first half of the 1700’s.

Barry is in Cluster 11. This is how I think I am related to Barry:

For some reason, I don’t see Barry on my DNA Painter profile. I’ll add him in:

This shows that Barry overlaps with Michael who I match on the Richard Frazer Line. Richard was a brother of Philip. We are showing we match on the common ancestor of Archibald Frazer who was born about 1720. Some of these dates are relative. I have a chart showing Archibald born in 1743. Also many charts have Philip and Richard born earlier than the 1770’s.

Charles in Cluster 12

Charles is in Cluster 12 with Shelly and Martha. Charles has not been on my radar before. His tree is helpful in that he has a shamrock for his Irish ancestors:

The red symbol indicates Scotland. Shelly has a match in common with Gladys. I’m related to Gladys on my Frazer side. Martha from Cluster 12 is here:

One guess is that Charles could be related from this Philip tree or from the wife of Philip.

Cluster 13

I recognize three out of four in Cluster 13. They are Jane, Doreen, and Susan. Here is how they match my family by genealogy:

These families go back to Richard Frazer. The one I don’t recognize if Elizabeth. I can’t figure out how she fits in.

One Last Frazer Cluster Between 23 and 250 cM

By just shifting the lower number up to 23 cM, I go from 20 clusters to 13:

Now my Frazer Clusters are 1 and 2. Cluster 2 is interesting, beause it includes both my Frazer and McMaster Lines. Those are both double lines because two Frazer cousins married in that Cluster and two McMaster cousins married. The 145 cM match has a common ancestor with my family of James McMaster and Fanny McMaster. They had Margaret McMaster who was my 2nd great-grandmother. That match matches my closer matches in the cluster – those who descend from Margaret but not my more distant Frazer relatives. The only one in the green Cluster 2 who I don’t recognize is Nicolas and I have written to him. He appears to be a fairly close relative of Emily who my Frazer kit matches at 125 cM.

In Cluster 1, I know how I am related to all but Gary at 26 cM. However, I have been in touch and he knows my Frazer relatives in Ireland. In the above analysis, I went from further out clusters to more closely related clusters. It probably would have made more sense to start with the more recognizable clusters, but I had to start somewhere.

The last cluster is the false one I mentioned further up in the Blog.

Downloading Frazer Segment Data from Gedmatch

This could help in identifying other match groups or clusters. Roberta Estes has a helpful article on how to do this. Once I get the data from Gedmatch, I like to put it into my own format in an Excel spreadsheet. For example, I should be able to look at the region where I have Clarke matches to identify other potential Clarke Clusters. Unfortunately, when I got to the Download button at Gedmatch, it didn’t work.

I guess I’ll have to explore these matches later.

Grandfather Hartley DNA

This is all exciting and new territory for me. This time, I will start my grandfather Hartley Cluster with the range of 23-250 cM:

Even at this level, I get a lot of unrecognizable clusters. Cluster 11 has Lee in it. He has Hartley ancestry in the area of Colne where my Hartley ancestors were from, but I was unable to make a connection.

Hartley Clusters 25-1,000 cM

This brings in some of my 2nd cousins and 1st cousins once removed. Here Cluster 2 is Lee again with the Hartley ancestry. He has a shared match with my 1st cousin once removed. That shared match has Shackleton ancestry, so that is a possible connection.

For some reason, the AutoCluster at Gedmatch does not work as well on my Hartley side as it did on my Frazer side. This is possibly because I have worked to have a lot of my Frazer relatives out to the level of clustering upload their results to Gedmatch.

My Maternal Grandfather: Rathfelder

My maternal grandfather was German but grew up in Latvia. Here are some of the clusters for that side. The limits I set were between 20 and 1,000 cM:

The purple cluster has some relatives that are still in Latvia. The top match in red Cluster 3, Otis, has Schwechheimer ancestry in common with my mother’s side.

My Maternal Grandmother’s AutoClusters

This should finish off the Blog. My maternal grandmother was a Lentz. However, I get many matches to her Nicholson mother’s side. This run is between 19 and 500 cM:

Many of these names and clusters are identifiable. Cluster 3 is Nicholson. Cluster 4 has my mom’s relative who is both Nicholson and Lentz.

Sadie, Joan, Linda and Carolyn are in the red Cluster 3. The largest match in Cluster 4 is with Judy who is a first cousin once removed to my mother. As such, she is related on the Nicholson and Lentz side.

Father and Daughter in Different Clusters?

Yes it happens:

Robert is in brown Cluster 5 and his daughter Sadie is in red Cluster 3. As these both have the common ancestors with me of Nicholson and Ellis, my guess is that one cluster could favor Nicholson DNA and the other Ellis DNA.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I took one of my first looks at my four synthetic grandparent kits at Gedmatch
  • I had the best luck with my Frazer side. This is probably because I’ve spent a lot of time working on getting Frazer relatives to upload their results to Gedmatch.
  • I started a DNA Painter map for my paternal grandmother’s Frazer side.
  • I tried clustering my four grandparent results. I recognized the fewest clusters on my Hartley side.
  • I found an interesting match with Elaine on my Frazer side using clustering. However, I couldn’t find further information on her family tree and couldn’t find her Ancestry account.
  • I tried downloading segment information for my grandparents, but I couldn’t get that utility to work at Gedmatch
  • There is still a lot of work that could be done with these four Gedmatch kits that represent the DNA for my four grandparents.

 

 

My Frazer DNA Relative Suzzanne

I was recently informed by another Frazer relative, that she had a new match at AncestryDNA named Suzzanne. I checked and saw that AncestryDNA had matched Suzzanne to me via ThruLines:

We show as 6th cousins which is pretty remote. Jane who mentioned Suzzanne descends from Richard P L Frazer above so they would be in the third cousin range. Here is Jane on my ThruLines:

However, something seems off as there shouldn’t be two Archibalds as son of Archibald. When I expand the tree, I see that Jane and Suzzanne should be 2nd cousins once removed:

The DNA match amounts of 15 and 11 cM are how much these two match me. They must match each other by quite a bit more. From Jane’s view, the relationship looks better:

I have one shared DNA match with Suzzanne at AncestryDNA:

That match is with Rebecca who is my 3rd cousin. This is my own DNA match chart as Rebecca does not show on ThruLines. Also, based on my own chart, I should be closer than a 6th cousin to Suzzanne. When I add in Suzzanne to my chart, I see we are actually 5th cousins:

In both our trees we have Frazers who married Frazers. Also we don’t know the wife of Richard Frazer who was born in 1777. She may be related to us in more than one way. This was all a bit too complicated for AncestryDNA apparently.

More on Suzzanne’s Frazer Ancestry

Here is what I have on my website:

Suzzanne descends from Anne. Anne apparently went with her father to Scotland. It looks like Anne went by Fannie in 1891:

Suzzanne and Shared Matches at AncestryDNA

I mentioned above that Suzzanne and I have a shared match with Rebecca. Rebecca and I are third cousins:

I checked my four siblings who I have tested at AncestryDNA and they do not have a match to Suzzanne. This is not unusual for 5th cousins.

Suzzanne and Jane’s Shared Matches

These two have a lot of shared DNA matches. One that I am interested in is Gary. Gary is Jane’s third cousin:

AncestryDNA suggests evaluating Gary’s tree. I want to devote a later Blog to Gary.

Suzzanne at MyHeritage

I see that recently Suzzanne has also showed up as a DNA match to me at MyHeritage. That is good because that will give more detail as to which Chromosome we match on.

We have a small match on Chromosome 14, but mostly math on Chromosome 17:

That would most likely be the DNA that came down to both of us through Richard Frazer born around 1777 or his unknown wife. I already have a lot of my DNA mapped by DNAPainter. Here is my Chromosome 17:

The area where I match Emily in the middle is where I also math Suzzanne. According to MyHeritage, Suzzanne, Emily and I triangulate:

That means that this segment of DNA points to a common ancestor. We already identified that common ancestor as either Richard Frazer born about 1777 or his unknown wife. I had previously mapped my match with Emily to our common ancestors. They are my 2nd great-grandparents George William Frazer and Margaret McMaster. I now know that this match is on my Frazer side, going back to the late 1700’s.

Here I have painted Suzzanne’s match to my DNA Map:

Notice that Suzzanne’s match overlaps with Emily’s. That means that my match with Emily is actually an older match and I can change her match from maroon to red to represent Richard Frazer’s (or his wife’s) DNA.

Suzzanne and My Cousin Paul

I have my 2nd cousin Paul’s DNA at MyHeritage and Suzzanne matches him also:

The match on Chromosome 9 is under that threshold that DNAPainter uses, but the one at Chromosome 12 is not.

Here, Paul has a lot going on on his paternal DNA side. We see Emily again. This is the first yellow mapped DNA. This will represent either Richard Frazer or his wife.

Suzzanne and Paul Triangulate with Lorraine

This is potentially important as this DNA points to a common ancestor.

Next I look at Lorraine’s tree, to see if there are matches:

This tree does not go back as far as I would like. However, Paul, Lorraine and Cindy triangulate:

Cindy has a good tree. Her paternal tree has some Irish lines:

 

I see the Tighe name come up. This name has come up before in DNA matches. Perhaps Richard Frazer married a Tighe?

Here is another match that is closer to Suzanne:

Here, Paul, Suzanne and Douglas triangulate on Chromosome 12. Also Douglas shows a McMaster in his tree:

Douglas has that Catherine was from County Sligo:

Summary and Conclusions

  • Because Suzzanne has tested her DNA at Ancestry and is also at MyHeritage, we have a lot of information about her DNA matches.
  • From what I can tell, Suzzanne descends from the two brothers: Archibald and Richard Frazer born in the 1770’s. This is not unusual in Frazer genealogy
  • I am a 5th cousin to Suzzanne, but we are still a DNA match
  • Suzzanne’s Frazer ancestor Annie ended up in Scotland
  • I looked at some DNA matches from MyHeritage. They may give some hints as to who Richard Frazer’s wife was.
  • I was reminded of another common DNA match, Gary, who I would like to write about.
  • Bottom line is that Suzzanne fits into the Frazer genealogy and DNA matching just as she should.

 

Irish Petty Sessions and My Frazer Ancestors and Relatives

I recently came across Irish Petty Sessions at Ancestry. These could be helpful in sorting out relationships and/or adding some interesting information to my family history.

Let’s look at some of these records.

Let Your Light Shine in 1918

Here is the simple case of George Frazer of Derrycashel who was operating a vehicle at night without a light.

This actually happened on March 16th at 8:20 p.m. George was fined one shilling. Here is George (#27):

My great-grandfather’s brother George was born in 1879 and lived in the old family house – the one his father George grew up in in Derrycashel, Roscommon before moving to Ballindoon, Sligo.

Wild Times in Augrafinegan on 12 May 1886

I get the impression that Catherine Frazer and Anne Jane McMaster were not getting along. The first column is the complainant, the second column is the defendant and the third column contains the witnesses. It appears that Anne Jane was charged:

Who are these people? Here is the charged Anne Jane Frazer (wife of James McMaster):

James McMaster died in 1874. Here is Anne Jane’s family:

That means that in 1886, Anne Jane was about 57.  That means she low-balled her age in 1901 when she was probably 72. Under this scenario, Richard could have been her brother.

Who Were the Other Frazers in This Court Case?

We may never know why Anne Jane Frazer McMaster and Catherine Frazer were assaulting each other. But who was Catherine Frazer?  We know that in 1886, she was living in Aughrafinegan:

Also, I would assume that Anne and Richard Frazer could also have been living there. One guess would be that Catherine Frazer was her mother. However, Anne Jane’s mother could have been around 77 years old at that time (if she was even alive then). It does seem from the record above that that Catherine was a widow. Another guess would be that Catherine and Anne the witness would have been daughters of Richard:

For some reason, animosity between mother and daughter seem more likely to me than between Aunt and niece. Perhaps someone else will come up with a different possible scenario.

Who Was James Hartley of Oldbrook?

My third great-grandfather was James Frazer of Derrycashel, so this entry interested me:

Acconrding to this research from the mid 20th century,  Oldbrook is another name for Shanvoley (or Shanwilly).

This list has Oldbrook in County Leitrim. However, other references to Leitrim should be County Roscommon. I believe Oldbrook should be in Roscommon here also. Oldbrook or Shanvoley was not from from Derrycashel.

I notice that I have a document of transcriptions – I believe from a fellow Frazer researcher:

James Frazer Complainant April 19, 1867: Defendant [Thaddy Devauny of Fermoyle] allowed his three cows to trespass on the Complainant’s lands at Fermoyle on 14 April 1867. “To pay 1/6 costs to Court”

James Frazer of Derrycashel in 1867 owned one black sheep dog and one black and white sheep dog and paid the due fees for its license.

James Frazer of Oldbrook in the Parish of Kilbryan shopkeeper Complainant June 1868: Civil Bill: An action for the sum of 3..0 for that the defendant [Patrick Rorke from Cornacwita in the Parish of Boyle] is indebted to the said plaintiff in the said sum for shop goods sold and delivered in the year 1867. “decreed payment and 2/6 costs”

James Frazer of Ballymote labourer Complainant; Defendant Mark Connelly 27 July 1871; for following Complainant  into Catherine Dockry’s house and assaulting him there on 17 July 1871 at Ballymote. “No A”.  Same complaint against Margaret Connelly of Barrymote married woman; Mary Morrison of Barrymote married woman. The same day Mary Frazer of Ballymote [widow]; Defendant: Mark Connelly for assaulting Complainant and making use of scandalous and abusive language towards her at Ballymote on 17 July 1871.  “No Ap”.  Same day James Frazer of Ballymote Defendant – assault of Complainant [Mary Morrison] on 17 July 1871.  “No Ap”

James Frazer of Ballymote letter carrier Complainant 22 June 1876; the Defendant John Cawley assaulted and violently threatened the Complainant and challenging him to fight on the night on 15th inst at Ballymote.  “No appearance.”

James Frazer of Ballymote Defendant: Defendant did unlawfully and violently assault the Complainant [his wife Marion Margaret Frazer] at Ballymote, Sligo on 3rd July 1888.  Knocked her down abused and blackened and injured her and did so abuse and beat.  Kick, knock down and injure and did endeavour to take her life within the last two months several times.  Complainant claims protection. “No app”

James Frazer of Derrycashel owned a black & white sheep dog March 1875 and paid the required fee.

In March 1878 he had a black spaniel.

James Frazer Complainant: the defendant [Thomas Coyer] on 22 June 1878 at Athlone Roscommon did leave his horse and cart on the public street without anyone in charge of the same. ‘Fine 5/- costs 1/-“

James Frazer Complainant 14th June 1875; that the defendant [Michael Higgins of Kilmactranny] did refuse to pay the sum of 17/-  for a pig sold and delivered purchased on 3rd January 1875 at the Boyle fair the property of the Complainant. “No appearance”.

Here is Shanvoley. It is to the SE of Derrycashel:

Archibald of Shanwilly (aka Shanvoley) had a son named James Parker but he moved to Australia before this time:

Here is another case from 1875 involving James Frazer of Oldbrook:

When I Google Oldbrook, Roscommon, I see this MyHeritage record:

This George Robert Frazer was said to have a father named William James Frazer from Oldbrook. Was this William James the shopkeeper?

Here is another possibility from the tree of fellow Frazer researcher Joanna:

If this is the right James Frazer, he would have been a shopkeeper at age 21 in 1868. This must be the same family in Edgbaston, Warwickshire in 1811:

John W and Margaret would have been the children of Archibald Frazer. Archibald was the son of Alexander and the Mary Frazer of the above Census (though Alexander had died before this Census). Archibald Frazer is the one who lived in Shanvoley or Oldbrook and moved to Drumatybonniff Farm in the Parish of Tumna, County Roscommon (see below).

While I’m At Old Brook

Here is an early case:

This is no doubt, the same Alexander:

My guess is that this person was renting property from Alexander and deserted his wife. That meant that she had to end up in the work house. Of course, Alexander would have lost the rent of his property by this man deserting his wife. These were very difficult times.

Apparently, there was a different James Hartley from Ballymote:

I hope he was not related as he was a wife beater. His wife had the same name as my grandmother’s maiden name, though my grandmother was born in the US in 1894.

Other Mentions of James Frazer, My Third Great-grandfather

There are two other mentions of James Frazer in Derrycashel. He was supposed to license his sheepdog, but he didn’t until he was caught. This suggests that James was raising sheep. My relative in Ireland said that the Frazers butchered some of their sheep to help feed the neighbors during the potato famine. This also suggests that he didn’t like to pay to license his dogs.

My guess is that James also raised Pigs as there was mention of him selling a pig to Michael Higgins of Kilmactranny at the Boyle Fair and not receiving payment.

When I put these together in a spreadsheet and sort by date, I get this short Frazer history over a period of 59 years:

These people were almost certainly all related and assuredly knew about these events as they also lived in fairly close proximity to each other.

John Frazer of Dereenargan

Here is a John Frazer from Derreenargan in 1890. I have written about a different John Frazer from Derreenargan here. The John Frazer I wrote about was living in Lockport, New York in 1870 and had a son, John Jr., who was born in New York

Here is Derreenargan in the heart of Frazer country, County Roscommon:

Here is the charge:

Here is the Complainant:

Based on other information these two were assaulting each other.

Is this the family in 1901?

The transcriber got the name as Frozier.

However this appears to be a different Derreenargan:

This John was born about 1856 in County Roscommon. I see that Frazer research MFA has a John born at Kilmactranny to Edward and Mary:

This was at Kilmactranny which is technically in Sligo. However, one may have lived in Roscommon and gotten baptized in Kilmactranny. Also, there was an Edward who was the son of John (circumstantial evidence).

Here is another John from nearby Shanvoley, but I don’t have any more information on him:

Edward Wynn Frazer

As I recall, there were two Edward Wynn Frazers. This always confuses me. This one lived in Derreenargan in 1862:

Notice this Edward from Derreenargan of Klbryan. The John above appears to be from Derreenargan of Ballyformoyle. Edward had a case against Michael Partlane for failure to pay rent:

I believe that Partlane was another name for McPartland. I have written quite a few blogs on this family. Who knew that Derreenargan was such a popular place in the day?

This is the Edward Wynn I have:

Here is the other Edward Wynn Frazer:

According to the Frazer tree of my researcher friend Joanna, this Edward Wynn’s daughter Kate Peyton Frazer was born in Derreenagan. That means that this court case would be for the Edward Wynn born in 1838 and he would have been about 24 years old at the time of this court case. The Edward Wynn pictured above is the second great grandfather of fellow Frazer researcher Kathy who lives in Massachusetts.

Here is a simplified tree of the Frazers based on YNDNA testing:

This tree goes back to about 1690. Edward Wynn Frazer from the photo is the brother of Thomas Henry Frazer on the right branch. James Frazer with the unlicensed dogs was born about 1804 and is on the left branch.

More on Edward Wynn Frazer

Here Patrick Gallagher claimed that Edward Wynn assaulted him:

This would have been about a month before his daughter Katherine Peyton Frazer was born. Here is some more background:

I appears that the Gallaghers were damaging and breaking Edward’s door with stones.

Edward Wynn brought Widow Jane Doyle to Court:

This is one tough dude. “Your chickens step on my property and we’re going to court.” I’m not sure how much damage chickens could do to “fattening grass”. Here is another complaint from Edward against Widow Doyle – apparently a neighbor:

In 1861, Edward Wynn was looking for rent from Bartley McKeon of Aughnasurn:

Here a shopkeeper is looking for money owed him from Edward Wynn:

Perhaps Edward couldn’t pay because people owed him money.

Edward M Frazer Aughnasurn

This Edward M Frazer was from Aughnasurn and was a Gentleman. He owed Jones Cuttle some money. This Edward appears not to be the same as Edward Wynn as he is not from Derreenargan.

Edward Frazer of Annagh died 8 March 1863, so that rules him out. This is leaving me stumped, unless this is the same as Edward Wynn Frazer. However, the Gentleman part and living in Aughnasurn seem to distinguish this person from Edward Wynn Frazer.

Archibald Frazer of Drumatybonniff Farm in 1876

There are a lot of Archibald Frazers, so perhaps this record will help sort things out.

However, finding these locations could be difficult. If John and Edward were under 14 years of age, that means that they would have been born 1862 or later. Here is one possibility by name but not by place:

More on Archibald Frazer

Here we see that this Archibald was from Tumna Parish. Here is a more standardized spelling:

From here, I can find them in the 1901 Census:

Archibald was born about 1840. He lived at the same place in 1866:

Thomas Malone who lived in the same Townland as Archibald was not doing his contracted work:

More problems in 1870 from Patrick Doran:

Edward Little was also listed as a compainant. I think that this is a hint that Archibald of Shanvoley was the same as this Archibald. Of course Frances would be Frances Little and Edward Little a likely relative of Frances. I assume that Mary Doran listed as the Defendant below was Patrick Doran’s wife:

There was a lot of assaulting going on in County Roscommon 150 years ago. She was not happy with Archibald. Mary Doran, married woman, charged that she was assaulted by Archibald Frazer on the same day.

More Assaulting in 1879

Let’s check Archibald for bruises:

I believe Toomna would be the same as Tumna.

Here is Frances Little Frazer from Doug Vaugh’s Web page:

That means that between at least 1866 and 1901, this couple lived at Drimitybonniff (or some variation of spelling). Here is Tumna:

Here is Drumatybonniff:

Here is another mention of Archibald Frazer in Oldbrook in 1862:

Said Archiald of Aughrafinegan to Archibald of Oldbrook, “Just put it on my tab”.

Here is my spreadsheet sorted by date:

Alexander, who was Archibald’s father was 53 in 1859. He could have passed away early in the 1860’s. Archibald marries in 1861 and becomes a shopkeeper in Oldbrook. Around 1868, the Archibald Frazer family moves from Oldbrook to Drimatybonniff where Archibald apparently farms the land. He is there for at least 32 years as he is there with his wife in 1901.

Archibald Frazer Junior of Aughrafinegan

This junior Archibald owed Archibald of Oldbrook money. Here junior does not imply that he was the son of Archibald, but just a younger Archibald. As Archibald the shopkeeper was only 24, we are looking for a younger Archibald in Aughrafinegan. Here is a guess for Archibald Junior:

If my guess is right, then this Archibald would have to have been born after 1838 and would have had to have left Ireland after 1862.

Summary and Conclusions

It’s time to bring this Blog to a close as it is becoming unwieldy.

  • It is important in Court cases to properly identify people. As such, detail is given to where these people lived to distinguish them from other people with the same names. This can be helpful in sorting out who belonged to which family.
  • Many of these cases involved assaults. Money was in short supply and neighbors did not always get along well. Other cases involved owing money. My own ancestor James was guilty of not obtaining three dog licenses and went to court when someone didn’t pay him for his pig.
  • I probably learned the most about the Frazers of Shanvoley. Due to the number of Petty Session cases, it was possible to monitor what was going on in the lives of at least some of these families  for about four generations.
  • I found out a little more about Kathy’s ancestor Edward Wynn Frazer. I was able to sort him (I think) from the other Edward Wynn Frazer. He was the only one I looked at from the James Frazer Line. He was in Derreenargan. I also looked at others in Derreenargan.
  • I looked at a John Frazer from Derreenargan. But this Derreenargan appears to be in Ballyformoyle and different from the one in Kibryan Parish. However, bother are in County Roscommon.
  • I started a spreadsheet of some of these cases noting the people and where they lived.
  • Times were difficult in Ireland. Looking at these Frazer lives through the lens of the Petty Sessions helps to keep us from romanticizing these times and lives. It seemed there may be a correlation between the number of Court cases and the families that moved out of Ireland. For example, I didn’t see my second great-granfather George Frazer listed in any case (yet) and part of that family is still in the Ballindoon area of County Sligo today.
  • I will likely be writing more on the Petty Sessions.

 

Big Y “Backbone Tests”

I recently noticed that a Backbone Test had been ordered for my late father-in-law. This surprised me as it was a bit dated.

I mentioned this at the BigY Facebook group and got an interesting answer from Bob:

I think you will find that this Y-HAP-Backbone was ordered as a part of a manual review process triggered by another user’s test results.
Originally, the Y-HAP-Backbone test was performed if FTDNA was unable to unambiguously predict a person’s high-level haplogroup from their STR test results. They would actually perform enough SNP testing to resolve the ambiguity.
In the case of somebody who has actually done a BigY test, there should be no necessity to predict a haplogroup from the STRs.
Normally, the automated caller will consider a result to be a no-call if there are not at least ten reads for that position. If a new kit has a result that might affect the haplogroup definitions, a manual review of the other kits assigned to the haplogroup may occur. The analyst doing the review will look at the raw data and may decide to override the no-call reported by the automated caller. To do this override, the analyst orders the Y-HAP-Backbone procedure. In this case, no actual lab work is involved. It is simply a database operation to report the new result for that SNP.
If you display the user’s Private Haplotree, you can scroll to the top of the page and click on the “SNP Results” link, you will see a list of SNPs. If there are any overridden SNP results, they should be sorted to the top of the list. The test type will be shown as Y-HAP-Backbone. The result may be positive or negative.
If you scroll down through the pages of this report, in addition to any BigY test results, if the user has done any other SNP testing, you will see those results listed. In the case of BigY test results only positive results are shown. (After all, you are negative for several hundred thousand SNPs.)
In my own surname project, until recently our haplogroup had one subclade. We had three men assigned to the main haplogroup and six men assigned to the subclade. Even though our BigY test results actually showed the three of us to be negative for the SNP defining the subclade, these negative results were not being shown in the SNP Results list in our Private Haplotree. During an early manual review, the analyst ordered the Y-HAP-Backbone procedure for the three of us. The result is that we now are shown as negative for this SNP. The color coding in the tree now indicates that we are “Tested Negative” instead of being indicated as “Downstream”. Since that time, a new kit was found to share an additional SNP with one of the three. This resulted in a second subclade being defined. The analyst creating the subclade did not bother to override the calls for the two men remaining in the main haplogroup, so we show “Downstream” for the new subclade.
By the way, the order status for the three of us with negative results for the Y-HAP-Backbone procedures for the SNP defining the original subclade still shows that order as pending. Apparently because no lab work was performed, they failed to mark the order as completed. We have other Y-HAP-Backbone procedures (with positive results) that did get reported as completed.
Does the entry in the SNP Results list for your member’s kit show negative results, or are they all positive?
I was happy to get this reply as it answered many questions I had for my Butler father-in-law’s test as well as a Frazer project I am working on. I posted this image of my father-in-law’s SNP results at the BigY Facebook  Page:
I asked Bob this clarifying question:
Sorry, though, still a bit confused. Are you saying an override does not involve SNP testing? So in this case, the Backbone means no test and the tested negative means that a test was done?
Bob’s response:
While it may be a little confusing, the answer to both is yes. FTDNA does not offer a single-SNP test for FT241245, so the backbone procedure did not involve a laboratory test. They just looked at the raw data from the BigY test. You should be able to do something similar using the chromosome browser. When looking at this user’s BigY Results (Named Variants tabs, change the Derived? filter to Show All and enter the SNP name in the SNP Name Search box.
I suspect that it will show a ? In the Derived? And Genotype columns. Click on the SNP name to bring up the chromosome browser. I suspect that you will have fewer than ten reads shown, resulting in a no-call.
By the way, the Y-HAP-Backbone procedure results in the line being added to your SNP Results list. However, it does not actually result in a change to your raw data or what is shown in the Named Variants tab.
In response, I posted this image of my father-in-law’s results for FT241245:
I wanted to memorialize Bob’s comments as they were so helpful. I have been looking at “Backbone Test” results in a Frazer YDNA Project that I am involved in and Bob’s response answered so many of my questions.

Butler and S23612

As alluded to above, S23612 shows on the SNP results as ‘tested negative’. Let’s look for those results:

 

Just as Bob predicted, this shows up as tested negative. However, I’m not sure why this particular SNP was chosen. I would think that I-S23907 would have made more sense or perhaps BY115420.

Here are my father-in-law Richard’s results for S23612:

He is already clearly negative. Plus this SNP appears to be about 4 or 5,000 years old.

Speaking of S23897

I see that I mentioned S23897 in a previous Blog on Butler YDNA.

This is for a Butler relative with common Irish roots, but we have not yet established a genealogical connection. Now, thanks to Bob, I know where to find this Butler’s secret testing results:

Well, perhaps not secret, but they were to me previously. This Butler has a surprising 7 Negative SNP results. What I am seeing is that this Butler relative must have ordered these SNP separately before he did his BigY:

Frazer Backbone Tests

I have been waiting for Frazer ‘backbone tests’ to complete. However, according to Bob, these could be manual overrides instead of actual tests. Also, confusingly, these tests may not have an end date if the reviewer forgot to put in a date.

Here is a view of the Frazer BigY testers from the view of one of the testers from the James Frazer Line who took the BigY500 test:

My labels didn’t come out too well. The first column represents the James Frazer line and the ‘Your Branch’ represents the BigY500 tester on that line. At the top of his SNP results, we see this:

From the comments from Bob, the Y-HAP-Backbone should represent a manual override for Y151390 which is the defining Haplogroup for the James Frazer Line. Here is the order history for that same tester:

This is confusing because of the batched designation which shows after the ‘completed’ designation. However, I assume that these three entries were for the one override for Y151390. Here are his test results:

Here, he only has 7 positive reads where FTDNA would like to see 10. However, the manual review said they were all positive, so let’s say he is Y151390.

BigY700 on the James Line

The same thing apparently happened for the BigY700 tester.

Here is the James Line BigY700 order history:

This takes some interpretation. I assume that the Backbone got entered twice by mistake and that only the one entry that was actually done shows as completed. Keep in mind here that ‘backbone’ means manual override of inconclusive test results. Here are the BigY700 test results for Y151390:

This is a bit surprising as the results show positive for Y151390, so there were no questionable results to override.

My guess is that the manual review took a look at these results and agreed with them.

Archibald Line Results and Frazier BigY results

The BigY500 tester had no overrides in his SNP results. The same for the BigY700 tester. That must mean that FTDNA had no questions about their results.

That leaves the Frazier BigY results. He also has no unusual results on his list of SNPs. That means that the review was completed for Frazer/Frazier BigY’s some time in early February.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It was a help for Bob from the BigY Facebook Page to show me where to find the SNP Results link at the top of the BigY Haplotree view
  • This gave more clarification to the manual review which FTDNA performed and explained why it looked like a Backbone test was outstanding
  • FTDNA has a confusing array of places where they store information and show the results of the work they have done. They also seem to do things inconsistently. However, with perserverence and help from others who have gone through the process, it is possible to get an idea of how one’s BigY test was reviewed and processed.

 

 

 

A Different Look at the Frazer YDNA Tree


In this Blog, I would like to look at the 5 BigY Frazier/Frazer testers looking at their FTDNA YDNA Trees. In the past, I have looked at the Block Tree. Here is the Block Tree from Rick’s perspective:

Starting from the left I first see Rodney. To find Rodney’s Y Tree (which FTDNA calls the Y-DNA Haplotree), I click on his YDNA Badge:

Here is Rodney’s Y-DNA Haplotree:

The difference between this tree and the Block Tree I showed earlier is that the Block Tree shows the tester and his matches. This Haplotree only shows the one tester’s results at a time. However, there  is more information on the quality of each SNP tested. Above, I show how Rodney descends all the way down from R-YP6483. The actual tree goes much further back. All the groups that he is positive for are in green and the groups that he does not belong in are in gray. Here is the heading for the tree:

The dots by Rodney’s SNPs are also either green for Tested Positive or gray for Presumed Negative. There are some SNPs within the green groups that have gray dots. I think that those should be yellow dots for Presumed Positive. That is because if you are in a group, you need to be positive for each SNP within that group.

Going back from his terminal Haplogroup, BY116270 is the first SNP that Rodney has that shows as presumed negative.

Also in the heading, FTDNA says ‘View by Variants’. These are technically Variants, but in order to not get mixed up with Private Variants, they could have called them SNPs.

Jonathan’s Y-DNA Haplotree

Jonathan’s tree must be the same as Rodney’s except for the gray dots. Jonathan had the older BigY 500, so he should have more gray dots:

Here, Jonathan does get a yellow dot for R-FT421618 and he gets yellow for the whole group which means presumed positive. To find Jonathan’s test results for FT421618, I need to get out of the Y-DNA Haplotree and look at his BigY Matches or Results. I usually look at the Matches and then choose the Named Variants Tab:

At the bottom of the list (not shown), Jonathan has 1051 Named SNPs. I’ll search for FT421618. I have to search under all results, because I won’t find this SNP under Derived. This SNP comes up with a question mark.

Here are Jonathan’s test results for that SNP. He was positive for each of the four reads for a Variant there, but usually 10 reads are needed to prove that he was positive for this SNP. However, as Jonathan is positive for child SNP of R-Y151390, he must also be positive for the parent SNP of FT421618.

While I’m looking at Jonathan’s results, he (like Rodney) has a gray dot for BY116270:

Rodney shows 17 reads where there is a mutation from T to G. However, he also shows 10 cases where there is no mutation. FTDNA must use some formula to determine that this does not make the grade.

Let’s see what Rodney shows:

This shows the same funny pattern. I don’t know what the black means. I guess it may mean that there was no read there. Rodney had fewer good reads compared to Jonathan. However, because this is in a SNP group that is four levels above Rodney’s and Jonathan’s terminal Haplogroup, they shoul both be presumed positive for this SNP.

Bottom line is that Rodney and Jonathan are solildly in R-Y151390. Y151390 represents the James Branch of the Frazer family or more specifically the Thomas Henry Branch from 1836:

All the other SNPs that are upstream of Y151390 based on the testing of the other matches are less closely related.

Rick and Paul in the Archibald Branch of Frazers – R-Y85652

Y85652 has a shorter number. This should be an older SNP, discovered in 2017 – probably when Jonathan had his BigY done. Rick, like Rodney has the newer BigY 700 test. Here is Rick’s private tree:

I went a little higher on the tree this time, just to show tht the tree keeps going back. One interesting thing is that we see that Rick is presumed negative for Y151390 that Rodney and Jonathan had. That may be worth looking into. Looking up at Rodney’s and Jonathan’s trees, we see that they were also presumed negative for Y85652.

When I put the trees of Rodney, Jonathan and Rick together, this is what I get:

There are a lot more question marks than are ideal. However, the positive tests so far, are what are breaking the testers into their two groups.

Do Paul’s BigY Results Help?

Paul had the older BigY 500 test. I am a second cousin once removed to Paul. That makes me a fourth cousin to Rick.

Paul also has no negative for sure results. If he did, these would appear as red dots. Ideally, Paul would show negative for R-Y15130 and FT421607 as he is not in that group. The last verified negative result that I had found was in the Frazier BigY that I had discussed in my previous Blog:

The negative is shown in red above and we will get to that test later in the Blog. Above with Rick and Paul, they are presumed negative because Rodney and Jonathan are positive for Y151390. This is what I see for Paul’s test at Y151390:

I assume that this is the same as not being tested as no position number is given. Next I’ll look at FT421607 for Paul:

Here he had one read but it didn’t make it to that Position. I would say that Paul has not been tested for this SNP:

Rick’s Testing for Y151390

That makes me curious as to how Rick made out on the James Frazer Line SNPs. So far, there are different flavors of SNP testing:

  • Positive
  • Presumed Positive
  • Negative
  • Presumed Negative
  • Not Tested

Here I am a bit surprised:

Rick is definitely negative for this SNP. So I had the wrong information previously:

Here I have a red N for Rick for Y151390.

Next, I’ll look at FT421607. This shows why it is important to check the results and the Y Chromosome Browser.

This means the results are better than I thought previously:

This chart shows a clearer demarcation between the James Line and the Archibald Frazer Line. When defining Haplogroups, it is important not only to show that one group is positive for a SNP, but that the other group is clearly negative for that SNP.

Clearing Up the SNPs

Looking at the above chart, I should check all the question marks. The first is for Jonathan at FT421607:

Here, Jonathan was 100% positive for FT421607, but only had one read.

Here are Jonathan’s results for Y85652:

These results are different from what I had previously. Either I entered them wrong before or FTDNA has clarified by additional testing. I think that the results of the Backbone Tests have come in, because, I am seeing different results now. I checked all of Jonathan’s Archibald Line SNPs and he is now negative for them:

Now we can see a clearer border between what I call the J Line and the A Line.

The next logical step is to re-check Rodney’s results. Starting with Y85652, Rodney is now negative:

He doesn’t have as many reads but quite a few more than 10. The other two SNPs from the Archibald Line followed suit for Rodney:

It appears that the only questionable tests now are Jonathan’s test for FT421607 which only had one read and Paul’s two James Line SNPs which didn’t get tested. These results have me going back to Rodney’s Y-DNA Haplotree. The one that I started out looking at in this Blog:

Rodney should have red dots next to the SNPs to the right of R-Y85652. Red would mean tested negative which is what Rodney’s Y Chromosome Browser now show. However, Rodney’s Haplotree still shows gray dots for presumed negative. Perhaps FTDNA is in flux.

In addition, it appears from Rodney’s order history that his backbone test has not yet been completed:

There is a completed the same day as the order whcih does not make sense. Then there is a later ‘Completed’ with no date.

Frazier Y-Haplotree

So far, I have not looked at Frazier results in this Blog. He will have a shorter Haplotree as he has an older terminal Haplogroup of R-YP6489:

The difference in the Frazier Haplotree is that it has a blue SNP or Haplogroup in it. That is FT421618. Blue indicates downstream. Here is what I already had for Frazier:

This started out being a chart for Private Variants, but now includes more. I’ll change it so, in general, the older SNPs are at the top.

First, I’ll look at the Frazier results for FT421618. Frazier split the previous Frazer/Frazier block in two by his results.

Frazier has no letter within the dashed results which means that he is negative for this SNP. My guess is that that this Haplogroup was chosen to represent the three SNPs in it because Frazier was clearly negative for FT421618. Frazier has a gray dot by YP6491. Gray means presumed negative:

This single T in the G column is why this test did not get a perfect score. However, I question this later in the Blog and presume that this is a negative result.

While we are at it, I will also look at YP6492:

Frazier is clearly negative for this SNP, so I don’t think that FTDNA is reporting these correctly in their Y-DNA Haplotree.

Frazier’s YDNA Haplotree shows that he is positive for the three SNPs in R-YP6489. I checked out the other Frazier results and get this:

The split in the former Frazer/Frazier Block occurs in the Frazier results where the results go from green to red or from yes to no. The last ? could be a no, but I don’t understand FTDNA testing requirements well enough.

Here are the rest of the results from the Frazier test as far as I have tracked them on this spreadsheet:

Next, I should fill in the blanks. That would be 24 tests. But if I add in Paul and Rick, that will show where the changes are between the Haplogroups. Here are Paul’s results:

Above on Paul’s Y-DNA Haplotree, I showed that he was presumed postive for FT421618. Here are his results:

I would put those results in the sketchy category. Paul had two low quality reads neither of which showed positive results. However, based on the other testing he gets to be presumed positive.

Here are Rick’s results:

Rick’s results were straightforward. There was a Frazier result with a question mark, but the more I looked at it, the more I felt is should be a ‘n’.

As Jonathan had a presumed positive for FT421618, I would like to check that.

Jonathan seems clearly positive for this SNP, but didn’t have as many reads as needed for the best results. I added an extra SNP result for Jonathan on my spreadsheet, to make it look better.

Summary and Conclusions

I could write more, but I think that I have enough for one Blog:

  • I wanted to take a look at the four Frazer and one Frazier BigY tester from the perspective of their Y-DNA Haplotrees at FTDNA
  • I found while looking at another project, that the labels on the specific SNPs on these trees are not always accurate. For example, a red dot by a SNP should mean ‘tested negative’. I did not see any red dots on these trees. Yet there are many negative tests shown in my testing summary above shown with a red ‘n’.
  • Because many of the results seemed to have changed for Rodney and Jonathan compared to what I had previously shown on my spreadsheet, I surmised that their backbone tests may now be completed or in the process of being completed. Whatever the source of the results, what I have found make the results of the testing between the James Line and Archibald Frazer Line Haplogroups clearer.