Category: Frazer

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Painting Two of My Irish Frazer Relatives Paul and Gladys

In the early days of my DNA research, I had a lot of DNA matches with my Frazer relatives, but not as many with my more distant McMaster relatives. Here is the Frazer side of my family from my paternal grandmother:

I’m doing better with the top right of the tree than with the bottom right. There is an extra Frazer and McMaster at my 3rd great grandparent level. At the 4th great grandparent level, there is an extra Frazer and three unknown surnames on the upper half of the tree.

My Cousin Paul

I had my cousin Paul tested. We share the ancestors of George William Frazer and Margaret McMaster.  Paul’s results are at FTDNA, MyHeritage and Gedmatch. I have also painted some of Paul’s matches at DNA Painter.  Here is what I have painted for Paul so far on his paternal side:

From here I could try to find some more matches for Paul. the places to look would be FTDNA, MyHeritage and Gedmatch. Paul is not listed at Ancestry, and AncestryDNA does not provide the information to paint chromosomes.

Paul at Gedmatch

I see that Paul matches Michael at Gedmatch. He is related on the Frazer side:

Paul is in the same generation as my father, so I will show him:

Paul and Michael are 4th cousins. Here it says half 4th cousin once removed, but that is actually for me. Also, it probably isn’t half fourth, we just don’t know who the wife of Richard Frazer was at the top of the tree. Here is how Michael matches Paul on Chromosome 1;

What this tells us is that the matches Paul has with Susan, Lori, Emily and Gladys are actually with Violet. This is because Richard is the father of Violet Frazer born 1803.

Paul and Jane

Here is how Paul and Jane match at Gedmatch:

Here is a better view of how Paul, Jane and Michael are fourth cousins to each other:

I figured out I can share files on my home computers, so that helps.

Jane doesn’t add any new DNA to Paul’s profile, but adds some insight. It appears that the light pink DNA that Susan shares with Paul is actually from Richard’s daughter Violet Frazer.

Paul and Richard from the Philip Frazer Line

Out at the level of Philip, the records get sketchy as does the genealogy. Here is how Richard and Philip line up:

Too bad I don’t know who the wife of Philip was. I have this record from the Kilmictranny Church:

Nov 22, 1818    Philip Frazer  of Ardcarne parish

Jane Johnston  of Kilmactranny

Witnesses:  Edw. Johnston,   Edw. Johnston

If my tree is right, this was probably the elder Philip’s second wife. Perhaps his first wife was a Johnston also? If the birth date of 1802 is right for the younger Philip, then he would likely be too young to be marrying in 1818.

Here is how Paul and Richard match at Gedmatch:

This is getting interesting, because if I have my tree right, then part of this DNA may be from Philip Frazer born around 1776 and part may be from his unknown wife. I say may be because the genealogy isn’t certain and even if it is, it is possible though not as likely that all the DNA may be from the husband or the wife.

Next, I’ll paint Richard’s DNA match on to Paul. Here is Chromosome 5:

This is interesting as I have no other overlapping Frazer matches here. That could mean that this represents Philip’s wife.

Here is Chromosome 7:

This appears to show the location of the split from where Paul went from inheriting DNA from James Frazer to where he went from inheriting Violet Frazer’s DNA if I am interpreting this correctly. That is because Richard represents Philip Frazer the father of James and Jane Represents Richard Frazer, the father of James’ wife Violet Frazer.

Here is Chromosome 17:

Here this tells me that the DNA that Emily, Richard and Paul share is from James and not Violet Frazer.

Paul and Barry

I have that Barry is Richard’s brother, so let’s look at him also. Barry matches Paul on Chromosomes 12 and 15. Here is the already complicated Chromosome 12:

John in Blue represents McMaster, so Barry would represent Frazer. This is probably the split between George Frazer and Margaret McMaster.

Here is Chromosome 15:

This just shows that Susan has some old Frazer DNA here from the James Frazer side (born about 1804).

Adding My Other Siblings to Paul’s Chromosome Map

Here is how Paul matches my sister Heidi:

Heidi doesn’t add much new Frazer DNA for Paul, but my sister Sharon adds some new DNA on Chromosome 9:

This is interesting as Sharon is filling in blanks on Chromosome 9. These changes could be where Paul has crossovers. Crossovers are where the DNA changes from coming from one ancestor to coming from another. For example, they may represent where Paul was getting DNA from George Frazer vs. his wife Margaret McMaster.

What Did I Learn from Painting Paul?

Part of what I am interested in doing is separating out the Frazer and McMaster DNA. This is somewhat difficult due to intermarriage and unknown spouses in the late 1700’s. I have re-organized Paul’s key:

This points out some problems. I don’t have wives for Philip and Richard Frazer. The green for George Frazer/ Margaret McMaster could be Frazer or McMaster. William McMaster who was the father of Fanny McMaster had a wife Margaret Frazer, so they could technically be on the Frazer side.

There are three other fairly close relatives who are at the same generational level as Paul. These are Gladys, Emily and Susan:

Gladys is good, because she has no known McMaster ancestry. That means that most of her matches should be on the Frazer side. Emily is a good match because she has tested at MyHeritage. I have Paul’s results at MyHeritage also. Susan tested at MyHeritage also. However, Susan has potential to have more McMaster DNA and matches because her mother is also a McMaster.

Painting Gladys

I like the idea of painting Gladys as we should be looking at Frazer matches and not McMaster matches. That means that where Gladys’ DNA matches overlap with McMaster heavy descendants of George Frazer and Margaret McMaster, those matches should be on the Frazer side.

First I go to the DNA painter profile page. I see that I haven’t already painted Gladys there. I have my mother Gladys painted, so I’ll have to distinguish this Gladys somehow. Here is Gladys starting with a clean slate:

Back to Paul Briefly

Before I start on Gladys’ DNA Painter, I see a few relatives I missed for Paul:

I painted Doreen, Gladys and Susan, but I missed Ken, Pat and Bill. When I searched for these three, I didn’t see them on Paul’s match list down to about 11 cM, so Paul either doesn’t match these three or they fell off the bottom of his list.

Back to Gladys

First, I need to decide whether to include Bill’s results. This will give Gladys’ paternal side, so I guess I will. This brought Gladys up to 20% painted, so that must mean 40% of Gladys’ paternal side:

Next, I’ll add in Pat to get to Gladys’ paternal grandparent level:

I’m walking the DNA up Gladys’ Frazer tree. Now we are up to 48% painted on Gladys’ paternal side. I then added the tree siblings Susan, Doreen, and Ken:

This brought Gladys up to 58% painted on her paternal Frazer side.

The Next Step: Up to James and Violet Frazer 1803

This is actually two steps up the ladder. Gladys’ matches with Emily represent the shared DNA they bother received from James and/or Violet Frazer:

Now the places where Emily’s matches overlap Gladys’ family’s’ DNA will represent Richard Patterson Frazer on Gladys’ side.Here is Chromosome 2:

Emily’s match is on the right in the greenish yellow color. There is no overlap there, so the blue could represent Richard’s Hassard wife.

Chromosomes 5 and 9 have overlap:

Also on Chromosome 18:

Gladys and Jane

The next match for Gladys that comes up at Gedmatch is with Jane:

Now my simple plan is out the window. Jane is a double fourth cousin to Gladys. I circled Bill’s mother as she is at Gladys’ level. However, if Jane is matching Gladys on her Hassard side, that shouldn’t make a difference for my side of the Frazer family.

Here is how Jane matches Gladys. There are a lot of matches, but none of them are too high. That makes sense as the connections are distant but in more than one way.

Here Jane is in a brighter color. I had to put an or in the key as the  connection could be in one of two ways. This may resolve somewhat after I add some more DNA matches.

Gladys and the Descendants of George Frazer and Margaret McMaster

Here are the next 10 in Gladys’ DNA match list at Gedmatch:

Of these, all but Martha and Richard are descendants of George Frazer and Margaret McMaster. However, my assumption is that these matches with Gladys will be on the Frazer side. I don’t need to map Heather as she is my daughter and Mel as she is Emily’s daughter.

So I better get mapping. I am surprised that Gladys matches Richard and Martha at the same apparent level as my family as the common ancestor Philip Frazer is one generation further away. I say apparent because sometimes the lists above are not accurate. They need to be checked by the one to one matches.

Gladys and My Sister Sharon

Sharon seems to answer some questions on Chromosome 12:

Before we were unsure about Jane’s matches. However, here the match is likely on the Richard Frazer side. That is because Sharon descends from Violet Frazer the daughter of Richard. This also tells us that Sharon’s DNA here is from her Violet Frazer side and not James Frazer. Further, it tells us that for Gladys, Ken, Susan and Bill, the DNA is from their Richard Patterson Frazer side and not their Amelia Hassard side.

James and Gladys

My brother James also straightens out Chromosome 1:

He does what Sharon did at the right side of the Chromosome where he overlaps with Bill and Jane. In James’ next to the last segment, it is not as specific. We just know that the common ancestor shared between Gladys, Bill, James and Doreen at that location is from either James or Violet Frazer from around 1803.

Paul and Gladys

Paul Shows Bill and Gladys that they are getting Frazer DNA on that segment on Chromosome 8 from James or Violet Frazer. Paul finds out that this DNA is likely Frazer DNA on his side from George Frazer and not from Margaret McMaster.

Gladys and My Sister Lori

On Chromosome 4, just Lori and Gladys match. However, that defines bother Gladys and Lori have Frazer DNA at that location.

Lori does the same thing on Chromosome 14, but this time it applies to Gladys’ nephew Bill also.

Gladys’ Matches on the Philip Frazer Line

Let’s Paint Martha and Richard:

I have Philip Frazer in a darker blue. The matches were between Chromosomes 3 and 20.

Chromosomes 3 and 4

This is interesting because Richard filled in for Gladys what appears to be some ancient Frazer DNA from Philip Frazer in the late 1700’s or his wife.

Richard does something similar on Chromosome 4:

Richard supplies information that his sister Martha did not and Martha supplies information that Richard does not.

Chromosome 18 and 20

I won’t do all the chromosomes:

This shows that Martha and Gladys matches don’t have any places where my family and Gladys matches overlap. That would result in triangulation. That doesn’t mean that Richard and Martha don’t match my family – just that they don’t match n the same areas.

Gladys’ Matches with Jean and Vivien

It looks like Jean is the daughter of Vivien, so I’ll skip Jean. Here is how Vivien matches Gladys, Bill and Paul on Chromosome 8:

This is interesting because Paul does not descend from the Stinson line where Vivien is. Vivien is in the purple group and Gladys in yellow:

That means that this match goes further back on the Frazer line:

The common ancestors are Archibald Frazer and Mary Lilly. However, I don’t know if the DNA goes through James or Violet Frazer. Chances are it is Violet as Bill and Gladys are on the Richard Frazer Line. Confusing.

Summary and Conclusion

  • I started out thinking I would be looking for new matches for Paul. Instead, I decided to paint in the existing matches.
  • I then decided to paint in Gladys’ DNA. I picked her because she didn’t have any known McMaster DNA.
  • Painting in Gladys was fairly straightforward. However, it shed more light on her Frazer line than on mine.
  • Next, I will try to tackle Painting of Emily and Susan. Emily is at the same level as Paul. Susan is also at the same relative generational level but she has more McMaster DNA due to her McMaster mother. This next Blog will likely shed some more light on McMaster connections.

 

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New DNA Results for My Frazer Cousin Susan

I recently heard via the Frazer Facebook Page that my cousin Susan had her DNA tested at MyHeritage. That was good news for me as I am interested in DNA – how it shows where we are related and how we share parts of our common ancestors.

How Susan Fits In On the Frazer DNA Tree

I create trees of people who have had their DNA tested. Here is a partial Frazer Tree:

Earlier this year I wrote a Blog about Brenda.  She, like Susan and Paul, is my second cousin once removed. She tested at 23andMe. Brenda is also Paul’s first cousin. Susan descends from William Frazer and James Robert Frazer. That section of the Frazer DNA tree is spreading out:

This part of the Frazer tree is interesting to me because I have met many of these people. They would be most familiar with the farm where my great-grandfather James Archibald was raised.

Here is a photo of the family in front of the old family house in Ballindoon. MyHeritage has a new program that colorizes old photos. My great-grandfather James Archibald, Susan’s grandfather William and another brother Richard were in Massachusetts at the time this photo was taken. Brenda’s grandfather Hubert is probably the first one in the back row in the photo above. The girl on the right is Susan Frazer. I wonder if the Susan of this Blog was named after her?

Here are five Frazer Brothers in Boston, Massachusetts:

Susan’s grandfather William is sitting on the right next to my great-grandfather James Archibald Frazer. James was a year and a month older than William.

My DNA Match with Susan

Here is where I match Susan:

I should note that MyHeritage has some matches that are under 7 cM. The first match on Chromosome 1 and the match on Chromosome 5 are in this category. Matches under 7 cM can have a lower probability of being actual matches.

Painting Susan’s DNA

I use an online program called DNA Painter to map out my DNA matches when I can identify the common ancestors. DNA Painter has a default of 7 cM for what it paints, so these two segments would not be painted under normal circumstances. Here is the paternal side of my existing Chromosome 1:

 

The green part is already taken up by Hartley matches. That means that the small match that I have with Susan on Chromosome 1 cannot be real. The maroon section is a match I have with Kat, so that represents Frazer/McMaster.

Here is my existing mapped Chromosome 5:

Again, my Chromosome map didn’t leave much room for Frazer matching. My siblings have different configurations, so they probably have better matches on Chromosomes 1 and 5. The small maroon match I have at the end of Chromosome 5 is with Brenda from position 173 M to 175 M. My match with Susan above is between 175 M and 177 M. I take that to mean that the match I have with Susan is real, but the reason that it is small is that it is clipped off on the end of the Chromosome. That means that I will want to add this match in.

In order to paint Susan’s results onto my tree, I first download the matches. They look like this:

The Location numbers are important. This shows what I was calling the position numbers above. So rounding off, Chromosome 5 starts off at 175 million and ends at 178 million.

At DNA Painter, I choose paint a new match. Then I am changing the default from 7 to 6 cM:

I copy the results into the blank space and save the information. I choose Frazer/McMaster for the common ancestors.

Next I have to delete the Chromosome 1 match as that doesn’t fit.

 

Percent Painted

One thing I like to look at is my percent painted. This is overall:

This is just my paternal side:

My numbers are creeping up. In my Blog about Brenda, my overall percent painted went up from 41% to 42%. Now I am at 43%. When I was mapping Kat, she brought be up from 50% paternally mapped to 51%. Now I am at 52%.

More About Susan’s DNA

There are a lot of different directions I could go from her. I could look at my siblings’ DNA matches to Susan. Or I could look at my cousin Paul’s matches to Susan. Or I could look at shared matches to Susan.

My Siblings and Susan

Here is how I matched Susan at MyHeritage:

This is a pretty good match for a second cousin once removed. Actually, there is a new report out:

122 cM is typical for a second cousin once removed. In my previous Blog, I mentioned my Frazer third cousin Karen. I didn’t match her at all which is within the possibilities but below the average of 73 cM.

Here are how my other siblings match Susan:

  • Heidi – 202 cM
  • Sharon – 143.5 cM
  • Jon – 113.0 cM
  • Lori – 154.0 cM
  • Jim – 139.7

These are all above average – except for Jon.

My Second Cousin Once Removed Paul

I manage my cousin Paul’s DNA also. He has a huge match with Susan:

This is about 200 cM above average. Susan is Paul’s top match at MyHeritage. As this is as good as it gets, let’s take a look:

All of Susan and Paul’s matches are between Chromosomes 1 and 15.

Painting Paul

Here is what I have for Paul so far:

I was only interested in Paul’s paternal side as that is where we match. Paul is about 12% painted on his paternal side. The key shows that George Frazer and Margaret McMaster DNA are in green. That is the DNA that Susan and Paul share.

After I paint Susan’s matches to Paul’s profile, this is what I get:

That is quite a jump.

Here is Paul’s new profile:

Some More DNA Detail

Susan and Paul have a huge match on Chromosome 7. Here is the detail:

There is another Susan who matches Paul there also, but a smaller match. Here is what happened:

Susan, Susan and Paul (sorry left out Paul in the diagram above), get their Chromosome 7 DNA from James and Violet Frazer. However, because Paul and the Susan of this Blog share overlapping Chromosome 7 DNA, that DNA must have come from George Frazer and not Margaret McMaster. The one catch is that the three must triangulate. That means that the Susan in the yellow box needs to match the Susan in the blue box. I assume that to be true, but because these two Susans tested at different companies, I don’t know for sure.

I’ll do that in DNA Painter:

A Complicated Chromosome 12 for Paul

On the left, Paul matches Emily and John. John has McMaster ancestry:

Paul and John from Australia show as 4th cousins.

MyHeritage shows that Paul, Emily and John triangulate:

The yellow match is between John and Paul. The red match is between Paul and Emily. The circle around the two indicates triangulation, so John must match Emily. That also means that the DNA match that Emily and Paul share must have come from the McMaster side:

Even more speificially, the DNA came from James McMaster as opposed to his wife Fanny McMaster.

Joanna, Susan and BV

Here is another case where it would be helpful if Susan was to upload her DNA results to Gedmatch:

I have written many Blogs about BV as the match is very interesting.

BV and Paul have the common ancestors of William McMaster and Margaret Frazer. This couple left Ireland for Canada with their children. Except for Fanny McMaster. She stayed back in Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo and married James McMaster.

So where does Joanna fit in? It appears that she could triangulate with BV. Unfortunately, I don’t see BV at Gedmatch anymore, so she may not have re-signed when the ownership changed hands. My previous note says that Joanna does not triangulate with BV:

That would probably make sense as Joanna has no known McMaster ancestors.

John, Keith and Susan

Here is an even more confusing situation on Chromosome 12:

Susan overlaps with both John and Keith. John and Keith both have McMaster ancestry, but from different lines. The other problem is that I have never figured out how the two McMaster Lines fit together. I did make a guess here:

Probably the confusion is on the McMaster side. The matches John and Keith above are both McMaster matches.

Summary and Conclusion

  • I have been hoping for quite a while that one of my Irish Frazer relatives would have their tested. Susan did this and I am glad to see the results.
  • Susan matches most of my family above average as well as my cousin Paul. This may partly be due to the extra McMaster connections
  • I was able to narrow down from which of our ancestors our DNA matches come from based on matches with other Frazer or McMaster relatives.
  • Some aspects of the DNA matching was confusing. This is probably due to the fact that we don’t know who all our ancestors were and the ones that we do know tended to marry relatives in several cases.
  • If Susan uploads her DNA to Gedmatch, it would be possible to compare her matches with other Frazer relatives who tested at different companies.
  • I like seeing how the old Frazer photos look with added color.
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Looking for Frazer DNA Matches: Karen

Recently I was looking at some of my Shared Clusters on Tier 1 of Gedmatch. These Shared Clusters show groups of your DNA match that match each other. That means that this would show my Frazer relatives who match me by DNA and who match each other.

Here is a Shared Cluster that I ran on myself. I had the upper limit set at 27 cM and the lower limit set at 250 cM:

The orange cluster is my mother’s father’s side. The green cluster is my mother’s mother’s side. The red cluster is my Father’s mother’s side (Frazer).  The rest may be my father’s father’s side, going back to Colonial Massachusetts.

The Red Frazer Cluster

The first two in Cluster 3 are Emily and her daughter Mel:

Emily is my second cousin once removed and Melanie is my third cousin. Also Paul is the fifth person in Cluster 3. I didn’t circle him above. Emily and Mel tested at MyHeritage and Paul tested at FTDNA. Having them at Gedmatch gives some common ground for comparisons. Others in the Cluster go back another generation:

There is another Gladys on the list that goes back a further generation.

Finding More Frazers By DNA

I found a Frazer last night at AncestryDNA using these Shared Clusters and then using Shared Matches at AncestryDNA. I can shortcut that by looking for Shared Matches with Rebecca from my first Frazer DNA match tree above. She tested at AncestryDNA. I wrote a Blog about Rebecca here. Rebecca is my third cousin. When I check the shared matches I have with Rebecca, I don’t see any obvious Frazer relatives. However, I have 4 more siblings who have tested at AncestryDNA I can check on.

The easy way to do this is to go to Rebecca’s Account Profile at Ancestry. This shows her match with me. But there is also a down arrow where I can choose other DNA kits that I manage:

When I scroll down I see my four siblings and my son JJ. I’ll start with Heidi at the top and look at the shared DNA matches she has with Rebecca. This list will be different than mine due to the way we inherited our DNA differently from our parents.

In Heidi’s list of matches with Rebecca, I find Karen. She is the one I was looking for:

Karen shows as a potential 4th to 6th cousin. However, anything over 20 cM could be a 4th cousin according to AncestryDNA. The blue dot means that I have not found Karen yet. This is not totally true. I found her last night, but it must have been under a different sibling match.

Here is the paternal side of Karen’s family tree:

I recognize Karen’s great-grandfather William Frazer as the brother of my great-grandfather James Archibald Frazer. James was born 1867. That makes Karen my 3rd cousin along with Rebecca.

MyHeritage has a new photo coloring software, so I’ll try that out on William and his four brothers:

My great-grandfather is sitting down on the left next to William who is sitting down on the right.

Karen and Susan

Here I have added Karen and Susan to the James Robert Frazer DNA Tree:

One interesting thing about Karen is that she matches my three sisters at Ancestry, but not me and my brother. It may be that if Karen uploaded her AncestryDNA results to Gedmatch, that we would show a match.

I’ve been in touch with Susan on the Frazer Facebook page and have met her in Ballindoon in the past. Susan has tested her DNA at MyHeritage and is waiting for her results. I will certainly have a Blog for those results as Susan is my second cousin once removed. Also of interest is that James Robert Frazer married a McMaster. My second great-grandfather also married a McMaster. That means that I am related to Karen, Kat, Rebecca and Susan on two different McMaster lines.

Shared DNA Between Heidi and Karen at AncestryDNA

The next step is to look at the shared matches between Heidi and Karen and see if anything jumps out at me. I already did this last night and came up with Sid. Sid has a tree showing her two parents. Of the two, the mother’s last name of Craig sounds familiar. I’ll look into that side of Sid’s family.

However, as I look into the Craig name, I see that it is a collateral family. That means that the Craig family married into the Frazer family. That means that the Craig I am thinking of would not be closely related by DNA. In fact, when I look at shared matches between Sid and Heidi, I see Keith who is related on the McMaster side:

The shared match is Keith. The common ancestor is James McMaster who married Fanny McMaster. It gets confusing. I’ll try to build out Sid’s tree. This looks like Sid’s mom Elizabeth Jane in 1911 when she was 5 years old:

I may come back to Sid later as it seems that there may be a distant McMaster or Frazer connection.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Based on my own DNA matches, I would have missed my Frazer third cousin Karen.
  • I found Karen as a result of DNA matches with my sisters.
  • Karen helps fill out the DNA profile of James Robert Frazer, the son of William Frazer. This family is also interesting as James married a McMaster. That gives me at least a double connection with McMaster between myself and Karen.
  • I started to look into a shared match Sid and her ancestry, but I decided to save that exercise until a later time.
  • Next I want to look into my DNA match with Susan at MyHeritage. Her results just came in.

Update

Karen must have been a new match because now I see that she does match me:

 

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Finding My DNA Cousin Brenda at 23andMe

In my previous Blog, I figured out who my 23andMe cousin Kat was. I have another DNA cousin at 23andMe Brenda. I’d like to figure out where she fits in. 23andMe thinks that Brenda could be my third cousin:

Brenda and I share some DNA on 4 different chromosomes.

Here is another hint:

Brenda and I also have DNA matches with Kat and Stephen. The match with Kat is more important, because if it is right, then Brenda is a 2nd cousin to Kat. Here is a DNA matching Frazer tree that I have:

If I am a third cousin to Brenda and she is on the Frazer tree, then our common ancestors would be George Frazer and Margaret McMaster. If Brenda is a second cousin to Kat, then Kat and Brenda’s common ancestors should be William Frazer and Amanda Skoog. There are other possibilities, but that seems the most likely.

A Look at Stephen

Actually Stephen’s match is interesting also:

Stephen is on the lower left. If I’m right, Brenda is in the Frazer section in the middle. Steve and Brenda would be 5th cousins on the McMaster side. I am a closer match to Stephen on our Clarke side.

Painting Brenda

Using DNA Painter, an online utility, I can put Brenda’s matches next to my other matches. Here are some of Brenda’s details:

Here are a few possible surprises. I painted Brenda to George Frazer and Margaret McMaster based on Brenda’s match to Kat and me. However, DNA Painter has hints that Brenda is related further out at the level of James Frazer, Violet Frazer and Richard Frazer.

When I choose “show overlapping segments”, I get this:

When I look at my larger DNA map, I see this:

My cousin Paul and Brenda have a small overlap, but not enough to be picked up by DNA Painter as being significant.

Pro’s and Con’s of Putting Brenda on My DNA Tree Where I Did

I put Brenda as having the common ancestors with me of George Frazer and Margaret McMaster.

Pro’s:

  • At third cousin to me and 2nd cousin to Kat, it seems like Brenda should be a great-granddaughter of William Frazer.
  • William Frazer had three sons. Kat descends from James Robert Frazer. That means that Brenda could descend from Albert William Frazer or Walter Stanley Frazer. I don’t know much about Walter Stanley, so that is a possibility.

Con’s

  • I would expect Brenda to have more overlap with other descendants of George Frazer and Margaret McMaster. Instead Brenda overlaps with more distant Frazer relatives.
  • With Margaret’s double McMaster parentage, I would have expected more matches with McMaster descendants – though she does match Stephen.

Walter Stanley Frazer 1924-1996

On October 10, 1937, Walter was 13 and sailing out of Galway – apparently on his own:

This stone at the National Cemetery in Culpepper, Virginia gives a very short summary of Walter’s life:

The affidavits for Walter’s Petition for US Naturalization were taken in London in 1944:

Here is some more personal information from the same document when Walter was 20:

Here is some information on Walter’s wife:

Julia was flying from Paris to New Jersey with her husband and three young children in 1959. They lived in Miami. If Brenda was part of this family, perhaps she was too young to take this trip.

I did find one of the daughters. I think that this is her school photo from Vienna Virginia, but I’m not sure. The other information would be right.

Findagrave.com mentions her two brothers but not a sister. So this may not be the family for Brenda.

One Other Possibility for Brenda

I have that my great-grandfather’s brother Hubert Alexander Frazer had a son named Calvin Coolidge Frazer and Calvin had a daughter named Brenda. I will try to get in touch with at least the most likely candidate I find on Facebook. The problem with this possibility is that Brenda should be a first cousin once removed to my second cousin once removed Paul. Brenda only shows a small overlap with Paul. That may be because I show a smaller than average match with my cousin Paul.

At some point Calvin Coolidge Frazer ended up living and dying in Sacramento. That is interesting as some Frazer’s from other branches ended up in that city also.

Summary and Conclusion

  • After figuring out one of my Frazer DNA matches at 23andMe (Kat), I tried to set out to figure out how I matched Brenda. Based on how Brenda matched Kat and me I guessed that Brenda might descend from a Great Uncle of Kat. There was one person who fit that category: Walter Stanley Frazer. I looked up some information on Walter, but I couldn’t find any record of Walter having a daughter named Brenda.
  • I painted Brenda’s match to me with DNA Painter and found that she did match me on my Frazer side. However, I was expecting some more matching on the McMaster side.
  • I looked into a Brenda Frazer who was the granddaughter of Hubert Alexander Frazer. She is a good  candidate as she has the right first name. I’ll give a shot a contacting her through Facebook. I’m pretty sure given the level of match Kat and I have with Brenda, that our common ancestors were George Frazer and Margaret McMaster. However, I am still interested in confirming that belief.
  • I thought this exercise would be easier than it was. Due to the randomness of DNA inheritance, matches do not always match up with each other at the same place.
  • Even if I don’t figure out who Brenda is, I have found out some more information about two branches of the Frazer Family.

Addendum

I did hear back from Brenda through 23andMe. She said I was right in my guess:

Brenda and I are at opposite ends of the tree. Brenda is also a first cousin to Paul. I had Paul’s DNA tested at FTDNA and uploaded his results to Gedmatch.com for analysis. Brenda got my painted chromosome up from 41% overall to 42%:

I changed my matches with Brenda to gold colored for those matches where DNA Painter showed we had an overlap with another Frazer match.

 

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A 23andMe DNA Match with Frazer Relative: Kat

It took me a while to figure who Katherine was at 23andMe. Here is how Katherine and I match by DNA at 23andMe:

Here is what 23andMe says:

Katherine and I should be in the range of third cousins. Fortunately, Katherine posted a photo at 23andMe. After looking at Facebook photos, I found some that were the same as Katherine’s photos at a Frazer Family Facebook page we are both on. The mystery is solved.

Here is how I show Kat on our Frazer tree:

I recently wrote a Blog on Rebecca and our match at AncestryDNA. So it has been good to find these Frazer DNA matches. My blog on Rebecca showed that I matched her more on the McMaster side than the Frazer side. This was not surprising as our common ancestor Margaret McMaster had two McMaster parents. Also Kat’s grandfather James Robert Frazer born 1927 married a McMaster. The advantage of Kat’s test compared to Rebecca’s DNA test is that I will be able to see how Kat and I match on specific chromosomes.

Painting Kat’s DNA Match

There is a web tool called DNA Painter that I use to show where my DNA matches are. Here is my current DNA Map:

This shows my paternal and maternal sides. My Frazer matches are on my paternal side. This shows I am 41% painted overall. I circled some of the areas that Kat could match me.

Here is just my paternal side where I am mapped at 50%:

I have a lot of green as I have a lot of Hartley 2nd cousins.

Adding Kat to the Mix

Kat got my DNA mapping up a percent from 50% to 51% on my paternal side. I mapped our DNA matches to “Frazer McMaster 1838” because that is where our shared DNA comes from.

Next, I’ll expand Chromosome 19 as that is where our largest match is:

Kat’s match with me in maroon overlaps with Keith’s match with me in blue. Keith has McMaster ancestry. That means that my match with Kat on Chromosome 19 is from the McMaster side. But which McMaster? For that we have to look at Keith’s genealogy.

Keith descends from Fanny and James McMaster. That means that the DNA that Kat and I share on Chromosome 19 must be from Margaret McMaster. For simplicity, I didn’t make a new box for Kat as Kat and Rebecca both have similar genealogy. Here is Margaret McMaster on the left who married George Frazer :

 

Because I know something more specific about this DNA, I’ll make a new category for Margaret McMaster’s DNA.

I added a dark green for Margaret McMaster’s DNA.

Emily’s McMaster DNA

The reasoning is the same for Emily who matches me on Chromosome 19, but the common ancestor goes back another generation:

This match with BV seems to indicate that the DNA is coming down from the McMaster side. BV also has Frazer ancestry, but that Frazer connection is too far back in time to consider.

My Chromosome 1 Match with Kat

Most of my paternal Chromosome 1 matches are on my Hartley side:

That explains why I don’t have room for a larger match with Kat. I can’t tell if my match with Kat is Frazer or McMaster, so I’ll leave it maroon which means it could be either.

Chromosome 7

Here I have a pink arrow pointing to my match with Kat. Right below Kat is a match with my cousin Paul and I have that as a George Frazer DNA segment in yellow. If I did that right, then my match with Kat also came from George Frazer. My reasoning is based on the two blue matches. They are from Susan and Ken:

Susan and Ken are related on the Frazer side. That means our overlapping segments came from the Frazer and not the McMaster side.

Here I have turned the match that I have with Kat from maroon to gold to indicate that it is a Frazer match. Right after that I have two blue matches. That represents a crossover that my father had from his mother. My dad’s mother had a Frazer father and a Clarke mother. Where I have the arrow pointing represents the change from Frazer to Clarke in the DNA that my father got from his mother and passed down to me.

Chromosome 10 – More Frazer DNA

I have a small match with Kat on Chromosome 10 that is right below a match I have with Michael in red:

Here is Michael:

This DNA comes down from Richard Frazer to his daughter Violet Frazer. I don’t want a new entry for Violet, so I’ll say that this DNA is from George Frazer. However, the DNA Kat and I share is actually from George’s mother Violet Frazer.

Chromosome 12

Chromosome 12 gets a little tricky, but it looks to be McMaster DNA for sure:

The first maroon match is with my cousin Paul. The second maroon match is my match with Kat. The purple match is with BV. BV had that small match with Emily on Chromosome 19 above. I have the other two pink matches going back to Abraham McMaster born in 1764. There is a lot of confusion about McMaster genealogy and how all lthe McMasters fit together. This cluster of matches may be a hint to unravel that confusion.

For right now, I’ll sign over to the two maroon segments to Margaret McMaster DNA (green segments):

I also showed some of the detail of my match with Warwick and our common ancestor of Abraham McMaster.

Here is Kat’s summary from DNA Painter:

  • The maroon is George Frazer or Margaret McMaster DNA
  • The yellow is George Frazer DNA
  • The green is Margaret McMaster DNA

Kat and I have a lot more McMaster and Frazer DNA, but this is just where our DNA intersects or matches.

Summary and Conclusions

  • The fact that Kat tested at 23andMe made it easy for me to see where we matched, and by how much on each chromosome
  • Once I added Kat’s matches to my other matches using DNA Painter, I could see whether our match was on the Frazer side or McMaster side for each segment where we matched.
  • One match that I had with Kat and descendants of Abraham McMaster may be a clue as to how Abraham McMaster fits in with the other McMaster genealogy.
  • If Kat uploads her DNA results to Gedmatch.com, she will be able to see how she matches other Frazer descendants by DNA.

 

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A New AncestryDNA Match with McMaster and Frazer Ancestry and My Sister Lori’s Shared Clusters

I was checking my new matches at AncestryDNA and came upon a match named Rebecca who has a Frazer ancestor from Sligo. This got me interested.

Rebecca’s Frazer Genealogy

Rebecca has a small tree. Here is Rebecca’s maternal side:

I sent a message off to Rebecca, but I’ll also try to build out her tree. It seems like this James may be the James Robert Frazer I have in my tree:

The death date is close.

My guess is that here is how I am related to Rebecca:

That makes us third cousins. She is also the first DNA match that I know of from the William Frazer Line. I did hear back from Rebecca who confirmed that James Robert Frazer was her grandfather.

My DNA Match with Rebecca

Rebecca and I match at 64 cM over 6 segments. Rebecca shows on my list as a 4th cousin, however, the AncestryDNA table for a match of 64 cM shows this:

We have a 37% chance of being third cousins and a 4% chance of being fourth cousins. Rebecca and I don’t share Whitney as a DNA match. Whitney also tested at AncestryDNA:

It gets complicated because Rebecca’s grandmother was also a McMaster. Here is Rebecca’s grandmother’s McMaster side:

I also descend from James and Fanny McMaster. Here is another way to show this:

 

This shows that Rebecca is Keith’s 1st cousin once removed. Also Rebecca is both my third cousin as well as my fourth cousin. This shows how Rebecca would be related to me on my McMaster side. Rebecca descends from Margaret and Hubert McMaster who were the children of Fanny and James McMaster. The people in green have uploaded their DNA results to Gedmatch.com. If Rebecca did this, I should be able to tease out the Frazer DNA from the McMaster DNA. A further complication is that Fanny McMaster who is at the top of the tree is the daughter of Margaret Frazer. However, this Margaret Frazer is from a different Frazer line than George Frazer who is in the tree.

Shared Matches With Rebecca

Here are my shared DNA matches with Rebecca in addition to the shared matches of my siblings and Rebecca at AncestryDNA:

I have information on how I match BV:

BV is a third cousin, twice removed to me, my siblings and Rebecca. This seems to indicate that the DNA connection is on the McMaster side.

Lori and Marshall

In doing the shared matches, with Rebecca, Lori and Rebecca have a shared match with Marshall:

Here is what Marshall has about George McMaster – his 2nd great-grandfather:

It would be nice if I could fit George into the William McMaster/Margaret Frazer Tree above. Margaret Frazer moved to Ontario with most of her children. The best way I know to review Marshall’s tree is to create my own Marshall Tree.

Here is Frederick McMaster with his family in 1911:

Father George was a farmer and Frederick Herbert appeared to be a young twin.

1871 Census

Here is Abraham McMaster and probably his father George in the 1871 Census:

1861 Census

I am finding the 1861 Census difficult to interpret:

There is a note by Abraham which appears to say married. These appear to be the same people as in the 1871 Census. However, the last name is spelled McMastrin. Also Jane shows an “m” for married but also appears to be only 10 years old! I assume that this is the same Jane who shows as 27 in the 1871 Census. A little squiggle in the 10 could be interpreted above as an 18. Here, at least George and Catherine are the same age.

1851 Census

The 1851 Census is stranger still:

Here are 5 McMasters and the oldest is 12. Did the family leave them temporarily? I assume that this is the same family, but I am not sure. If this is correct, and two year old James McMaster was born in Ireland, then that means that they must have moved to Canada around 1850.

The assumption is that Abraham was born about 1837. This seem born out by this grave marker from St. Mary’s Anglican Cemetery in Osprey, Ontario:

Getting from Abraham Back to George McMaster

If Abraham was born in Kilmactranny Parish, that would have been during the time when records were missing. Here is one George shown in the Kilmactranny records:

William son of George and Jane McMaster

Born                                      Bapt. Aug 18, 1843

However, the timeframe is off for the William above unless he was born a while before he was baptized.

Here is where Osprey or Ospry is:

Another George McMaster?

I mentioned another George McMaster in this Blog. This George was married to a Jane and had a son named George Arthur McMaster:

This George was in Vaughan as early as 1847 when his son George Arthur was born:

Vaughan is in York County a little above Toronto.

The question is, was this George, the same as the father of Abraham above? Or put another way, did this George and Jane McMaster have a son named Abraham? The George from my previous Blog married Jane McMaster. The Jane above is believed to be Jane McMaster who is a sister of my ancestor.

Just to confuse things further, Ancestry gives this hint for the George in my Tree:

That hint was based on this tree:

I put a box around my ancestors.

Any Conclusions?

From the above, I would say that the George McMaster who married Jane McMaster is most likely not the same as the George McMaster listed above in the 1861 Census along-side of Abraham McMaster. Two trees at Ancestry have the George who married Jane McMaster dying in 1847. This is likely right as Jane marries William Thompson in 1851.

The fact that Abraham was living in the same or next house as George McMaster in 1861, implies but does not prove that George was the father of Abraham:

My further guess based on the genealogy and DNA is that the shared match between Lori, Rebecca and Marshall goes back further into McMaster history. I have been unable to connect all the McMasters, but the DNA seems to be pointing in the direction of that connection.

More DNA

It seems I have made this simple match with Rebecca into a complicated Blog. That is because Rebecca’s DNA match with my family seems to point to the McMaster side of my genealogy which is a bit convoluted – not unlike the Frazer side.

Here is some more detail on Rebecca’s shared DNA matches with my family:

 

Here I have added my match numbers with Rebecca as well as my siblings’ match numbers. I have also add match numbers where they appear with shared matches. In scanning from left to right, it appears that Lori has the most shared matches. After that, I added whether the match had an Ancestry Tree. CA means that they have a tree and Ancestry indicates that we share a common ancestor. I share common ancestors with Rebecca, but either Ancestry hasn’t picked up on that yet or Rebecca’s tree is not detailed enough. There are few directions I could take at this point. I could look at more trees or at more DNA. I’ll try the DNA route.

My Sister Lori’s Shared Clusters

Jonathan Brecher has a utility called Shared Clustering. I’ll run Lori through that program as she has the most shared DNA matches with Rebecca. Here is how the Lori’s shared clusters look at a limit of 40 cM:

At that level, Lori has 4 clusters. Cluster 1 represents her paternal grandfather side. Cluster 2 represents Lori’s maternal side and Clusters 3 and 4 on Lori’s paternal grandmother’s side. Rebecca’s match is right in the middle of Cluster 3. Right above Cluster 3 is a match with Michael. He and Lori have a Frazer common ancestor, but because Cluster 3 appears to be a McMaster Cluster, Michael is not in Cluster 3.

I have circled the different Clusters in green.

Whitney also shows up in Lori’s Cluster 3:

Melanie, Emily and Paul don’t show up because they had their DNA tested at different companies. Melanie doesn’t show up on Lori’s shared match list with Rebecca. However, because both Rebecca and Melanie match other who are in the Cluster, they are included in Cluster 3.

Bringing Lori’s Shared Clusters Down to 30 cM

I’ll try Lori at 30 cM to see who we pick up along the way. At this point, I’m just interested in the Cluster Rebecca ends up in:

Now Rebecca is in Cluster 1. A new Cluster for Frazers has appeared in Cluster 2. A few matches who were previously in Rebecca’s cluster jumped ship to the new Cluster 2 at this level. The last two members of Cluster 1 appear to be fairly closely related to Cluster 2.

Here is a summary of Lori’s clusters so far:

Bringing Lori’s Shared Clusters Down to 25 cM

At this point, Lori has gone from 9 clusters to 19:

Rebecca is now in Cluster 9 with a Frazer Cluster 10 right below.

Bringing Lori’s Shared Clusters Down to 20 cM

At this level, I should see Marshall. I had looked at his Irish/Canadian McMaster ancestry earlier.

Believe it or not, I find this cluster detail very interesting.

Clusters 27 – 33

Here is my markup:

There is a connection between the two pink squares. These represent Lori’s Frazer ancestry.

It appears that Violet Frazer and James Frazer were first cousins. The second pink chart above Represents Richard Frazer and his daughter Violet. That leaves the first pink box in the Shared Cluster Chart which should represent the James Frazer side.

However, notice that the second pink square is split into two. A possible explanation is that one of the two clusters could represent the unknown spouse of Richard Frazer born about 1777. I would assume that Cluster 30 could represent Richard’s unknown spouse. Whitney is in this cluster, so I am proposing that Whitney may have gotten more of the DNA from Richard Frazer’s wife:

It’s a theory.

A Clue to Marshall’s Ancestry?

Marshall is in Cluster 29 which subtly separated from Cluster 28. However, notice that Cluster 28 has more matches with other clusters. Cluster 29 has fewer matches. That leads me to believe that Marshall’s genealogy goes back on the James McMaster Line.

This leads me to another observation. That is that Cluster 29 appears to match up better with Cluster 33:

I had that Clusters 32 and 33 probably represent William McMaster and Margaret Frazer. So that tells me that William McMaster could be represented by Cluster 33.

Lori’s Final Shared Clustering

Lori’s final shared clustering should look the same as the 20 cM clusters. The difference is that small matches are added in down to 6 cM. My understanding is that these matches will generally be outside the clusters but associated with the clusters. Let’s take a look:

Here is the detail for Rebecca and Marshall. They are now in Cluster 40 and 41. In the past two runs Lori had 46 clusters. However, in this final run, the clusters got shuffled around – I suppose due to the smaller matches being added in.

Well, I could keep on going, but I’ve gone on too long already.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was happy to find a DNA match with Rebecca. We are third cousins through our common ancestors of George William Frazer and Margaret McMaster.
  • Based on the DNA, Rebecca and I are more related on the McMaster side. That is not a surprise as our common ancestor Margaret McMaster had two McMaster parents and Rebecca’s grandmother is also a McMaster.
  • I also looked at some more distant DNA matches going back William McMaster born about 1790 and his wife Margaret Frazer. They left for Ontario in the 1800’s with their children but left one daughter Fanny stayed behind in Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo, Ireland.
  • I then did a somewhat complicated cluster analysis focusing in on my sister Lori, her match with Rebecca and their common matches.

 

 

 

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Figuring Out a Frazer Photo From Ballindoon, County Sligo

Recently I posted a photo at the Frazers of Roscommon, Sligo and Leitrim Facebook Page. Joanna who started the Page asked me if I could identify the people in the photo. That is a fair question, so I thought that I would give it a shot in the Blog. Also other may chime in. Here is the photo:

I got this photo when I visited Eileen McMaster Frazer in Ballindoon in County Sligo. She generously loaned it to me so I could make a copy.  It looks like the photo has been folded in the past and that someone scribbled on the face of George Frazer, the father. Here is what I have at my web page:

For some reason, these children are out of order.

The Two Girls in the Photo

I show above that there were only two daughters in this family and the rest were boys. That means that it should be easier to start with the girls. My assumption is that as the family had two girls and that there are two girls in the photo that these two girls are:

  • Violet Frances born 1872 and
  • Susan Jane born 1887

That tells us that Violet was about 15 years older than Susan. First, I need to get the Frazer children in chronological order.

Fixing My Frazer Ancestry Tree

Fixing trees is always good:

This is better, but I have no date for George Frazer. I suspect that George Russell Frazer died in 1875:

Perhaps George Russell was named after his uncle:

George William’s older sister Sidney or Sydney married John George Russell in 1869.

Here is a better list:

I’m just missing death dates for William and Susan. So far, this tells, me that out of the six children in the photo, I know that George Russell Frazer had passed away and that my great-grandfather was in the US. He arrived in the US in 1887.

Back to Violet Frances and Susan Jane Frazer

This is my top choice for Susan:

Joanna’s tree has Susan born 27 Oct 1886.  How old is Susan here? If I guess 12, then Violet would be 27. That would also date the photo at about 1899. But then there is a younger person with George and Margaret. I have that Susan was the youngest. If she is the youngest, then is that a grandchild with George and Margaret?

This appears to be a boy to me.

Violet Frances Frazer 1872-1934

I was told by a relative that this is Violet on her wedding day:

Violet married on 7 Jan 1901. That would mean that Violet was 28 in the above photo.

In the other photo, the person who I assume to be Violet is on the crease:

So I’ve gotten myself into a pickle.

Where Were the Frazer Children in 1899?

One guess is that the photo I’m looking at was taken in 1899. Where were all the children around that time? There was a Census in the US in 1900 and one in Ireland in 1901, so that might help. I know that my great-grandfather James Archibald Frazer was in the US at the time. Here is James in the 1899 Boston Directory:

William Frazer

William Frazer married Amanda Skoog in Boston in 1910:

He must have been living with my great-grandfather James then as James had a house at 35 Alaska Street in Boston. It looks like William and Richard made their way to Boston in 1896:

They planned to stay with their brother in Boston:

So that makes me think that neither William nor Richard were in the photo in Ballindoon.

Frazers in Ireland

So that leaves these potential children in the photo:

We know that Violet was in Ireland as she married there in January 1901. Next is Hubert.

Hubert Frazer 1878-1954

Hubert made his way to Boston in 1901. So he could be in the photo. It looks like William and Richard went to Ireland to bring him to Boston:

Both these ships left from Queenstown which is current Cobh, Ireland:

Which One is Hubert?

That leaves me with these two choices for Hubert:

Then that leads me to this photo:

I’m not sure who labelled this photo, but if they were right, it would appear that Hubert is in the upper right. Here is my version of the same photo:

 

My vote for Hubert is on the left in the photo of this Blog:

Because Hubert and George were close in age, I guess the the brother on the right was George:

If the photo was in 1899, then George would have been 20 and Hubert would have been 21. That seems possible to me.

John Edward Frazer 1882-1870

Here is where I run into a problem. If the next boy was John Edward and the photo was taken in 1899, then John Edward would have to be 17 years old. The boy on the left doesn’t look 17 to me.

According to the 1911 Census:

Edward is 21 so he would have been born about 1890. The 1911 Census further indicates that Edward is younger than Susan:

This is consistent with the 1901 Census:

That means that I need to adjust the birth date for John Edward. The findagrave.com website agrees with a later birth date:

That gives me a revised birth order:

My Current Guess

I have tried to identify these six children previously. This time I went into a little more depth in identifying them.

Hopefully, I came up with the same answer last time.

More on the Dating: 1897?

Now that I have identified John Edward, I would like to date the photo on him. My original guess for the photo was 1899 on how old I thought Susan Jane might be. Here is a chart using 1897 as a possibility:

John Edward looks fairly young. He seems sort of clingy. I’m not sure a 10 year old would be that way. That would put Susan at 10. She looks fairly tall, though girls can can tend to grow faster than boys. David is looking to me like a young 13. George and Hubert at 18 and 19 doesn’t look wrong. Violet at 25 could be right also. One temptation would be to say that everyone was dressed up for Violet’s wedding. However, that doesn’t seem to make sense given the look of  the age of the children.

More on David Frazer 1884-1953

Violet Frazer married James Fairbanks in January 1901. That means that David would have been about four months short of being 17 years old:

Also David is wearing the same style of boots tucked into his pants as in the earlier photo. According to this ship record, David made his way to Boston in November 1912. David is the second person on the list.

This record shows that David had previously been in Boston in July of that year.

A Frazer Chronology

With all that was going on with this family, it would be interesting to do a chronology. This may tell an interesting story. It appears that George moved to Ballindoon in 1866:

Charles Sproule was living in Lot 5a. His name is crossed out on the sheet and George Frazer’s name is added. In the right column titled Observations is 66 which I take to mean 1866. This was probably right around the time he married Margaret McMaster who was from the area and before my great-grandfather James Frazer was born. I was told that the previous person occupying the house could not afford to live there. The Immediate Lessor is listed as John Gethen.

George Frazer 1879-1960

For some reason I am having trouble finding some records for George Frazer in the Irish Census and for his marriage.  However, Frazer researcher Joanna has these records in her tree:

George helped out his Aunt Isabella Frazer at the Derrycashel farm:

George took over the Derrycashel farm in 1917. He had five children that were presumably born at that location.

David Frazer 1884-1953

I seem to be missing some information on David Frazer also. We have two photos of David. The second was taken around the time of the 1901 Census:

According to this record, David married in 1915 in Norwood:

Here is David’s petition for naturalization:

Here he says he arrived in the US in 1908. David’s petition was signed by his brother James and Robert McMaster:

I’m curious as to who this Robert McMaster is. Here is a Robert McMaster who is a Chef in Boston on 1910:

Here is Robert on one of my web pages:

Here is Dereentunny in Roscommon near the County Sligo border:

Ballindoon is to the NE of Lough Arrow. Another interesting thing about Robert is that he stated his intentions to be a citizen in the State of Michigan:

This next record shows that Robert went back to Ireland and traveled with some of his Johnston relatives in 1912:

Robert lists a John McMaster in Ireland that he visited. This was probably his brother John James McMaster born 1858.

Back to David Frazer After a McMaster Detour

David had a daughter named Eleanor Maude Frazer. One reference has her mother as Annie Gray which doesn’t seem right:

I believe that David death certificate also has Annie Gray as David’s mother, so there is some confusion. Eleanor’s mother should be Eleanor Taylor Frazer:

David is shown on the previous page of the 1920 Census. Here is a definitive record:

More on John Edward Frazer 1889-1970

John Edward was the little boy in the photo. He married Margaret Lillie McMaster in 1917 and had a daughter Lily Margaret Frazer in 1918 in Ballindoon. That same year, John Edward’s wife died. John Edward married Waitie Covell in New Hampshire in 1931. John Edward who usually wend by Edward died in Marlborough, Massachusetts in 1970.

Here is Edward in 1940:

Edward was a cook at a private school in 1940. I’m curiouis who Walter Stanley was. In 1935, he was living in Ballindoon. This was actually Walter Stanley Frazer, son of William Frazer and Amanda Skoog. According to the 1940 Census, Edward was naturalized.

At 5 foot 11 inches, Edward is no longer the little boy standing between his parents. Edward is living at 38 Batavia Street. That sounds familiar. I’m guessing this was Edward in the 1923 Directory:

Unfortunately, I can’t find Dover or Batavia in a current Google search. Here in 1926, Edward was in Roxbury:

There was also another Edward Frazer who was a fireman in East Boston at the time.

Apparently Batavia Street is now Symphony Road:

Apparently Dover Street is now East Berkeley Street:

However, there was an Edward Frazer who was a cook at Dover Street in the 1920 Directory. Edward’s petition says he showed up in the US in 1922. Here is the other cook Edward Frazer who was born in Rhode Island shown in the 1920 Census:

Forest Street in Roxbury would have been near where my great-grandfather James lived:

Here is more Naturalization information:

Edward is listed as a chef living at 26 Montrose Street, Boston in 1928. The affidavits were signed by Edward’s brother, my great-grandfather and Edward’s nephew George Frazer:

James’ son George Frazer was born in 1896, so he was actually a little less than three years older than his Uncle Edward. This shows that Edward had a close relationship with my great-grandfather’s family.

In fact, James lived at 26 Montrose Street in 1927, so Edward must have been living with him at the time.

I believe that was this house that I have a photo of:

This looks to be the same house today:

In the older photo there was a porch over the entranceway. Here is another view:

When Edward arrived in New York City from Ireland, he was 33 years old. Edward gives this for his nearest relative in Ireland:

He also knew that he was headed for Roxbury in Boston.

Edward appears to have a lot more money than the average traveler if the handwritten amount is right The story I heard was that my great-grandfather was sending money back to help get his brothers to the US. Interesting to note also that Edward intended to stay in the US for 10 years.

The Chronology

Here is what I have up to 1900:

1900-1920:

1920-1975:

The last entry was meant to be 1975. I have something in every decade except for the 1850’s. This would have been during the height of the potato famine. Margaret McMaster had these siblings born around that time:

Summary and Conclusions

  • They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, and I have proved that to be true in this blog two times over.
  • I feel as though I have been able to identify each person in the photo.
  • This lead me to identify David Frazer in the Frances Violet Frazer wedding photo.
  • I also updated some information on each of the children of George William Frazer and Margaret McMaster
  • I came up with a timeline of what was going on in Ireland and in the US.

Here is a color-coded timeline:

Addendum – William Goes Back to Ireland

This was an important event. On the 8th of February 1919, William and his family arrived in Liverpool on their way to Ballindoon with his wife Amanda and three children after sailing from Portland, Maine:

This brings up another point. I don’t have Elsie in my tree. She was born 30 Jun 1914 in Mansfield, Massachusetts:

The William Frazer story is quite compelling. William moved to the Boston area in 1896. After living in the US for 18 years, he decides to go back to Ireland with his now American family. In a sense, he went against the trend and against those staying in the US for economic improvement. He left his new friends and family in the US for his parents and family in Ireland and a simpler but more difficult economic situation.

Addendum #2 – Telling the Stories

  • George William Frazer and Margaret McMaster – They remained on the farm in Ballindoon. In 1901, they have David, Susan and John Edward at 16, 14 and 12 helping out on the farm. In 1911, George William is listed as 75 and Susan and Edward are with them listed as 23 and 21. Susan and Edward each married in 1918. Edward has a daughter born May 1918 but Edward’s wife dies less than a month after the birth of their daughter. In February 1919, George and Margaret’s second oldest son William returns to the farm in Ballindoon with his wife and young family. Edward’s infant daughter Lilly dies within days of the return of William Frazer and family. Edward leaves Ireland for Boston in 1922 two months after the death of his mother. George Frazer the father lives to an old age until 1928.
  • Violet Frances (1872) She married James Fairbanks in 1901. After marriage, she went to live on James’ mother’s farm in Drumvoney, County Sligo. I have that she had four children and died in County Sligo in 1934. Violet’s husband James died in 1912.
  • Hubert (1878) – He came to the US in 1901 shortly after his sister Violet married. He married Annie McKinnon in 1917. He had three boys and two girls and became a store owner in Squantum, Quincy, Massachusetts.
  • George (1879) – He moved in with his Aunt Isabella and worked his grandfather’s farm in Derrycashel, County Roscommon. He married Annie Craig in 1915 and had one girl and three boys and died in 1960.
  • David (1884) – He arrived in the US in 1908. He married Eleanor (Elsie) Taylor in 1915 and had a daughter born in 1919 in Boston. David’s wife died in 1927. He married Annie Gray in 1931 in Milton, MA and died in Milton in 1953. David was a cook in 1920 and also have that he was a grocery clerk, but I am missing some information about him.
  • Susan Jane (1887) – She married Edward Crawford in 1918. He was likely the son of Joshua and Kate Crawford from Derreenasoo, County Roscommon.  Edward was present at the death of his mother there in 1931. My notes say that they moved to Northern Ireland. Edward, also known as Stuart Edward died in Linaskea, Fermanaugh in 1963. Susan died there at the age of 85 in 1972.
  • John Edward (1889) – I mentioned some of Edward’s earlier life surrounded by tragedy above. After moving to the Boston area, Edward married Waitie Covell in 1931. Edward was a chef. He died in Marlborough, MA in 1970. I don’t have any record of surviving children of Susan Jane or John Edward.
  • I don’t mention the three older Frazer brothers directly as they are not in the photo. However, I have already mentioned James and William Frazer. The other brother Richard has a son who marries David’s daughter.
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A DNA Review of Joanna’s Paper on Her Ancestry

In this Blog, I’ll do something that I don’t usually do. I’ll be looking at the DNA aspects of Frazer researcher Joanna. Here is the title of Joanna’s paper:

I feel I’m in a bit over my head on the land deeds as well as the surnames other than Frazer, but I’ll look at some of the paper’s DNA aspects.

Joanna’s Family Tree

Here is Joanna’s tree on her paternal side:

We see Joanna has Frazer and Fitzgerald in her tree. I don’t see McDermottroe or O’Farrell in her tree, so those must be collateral lines. As such, I won’t need to consider them while looking at the DNA aspects. That should simplify matters.

Joanna’s DNA Match of Concern

Joanna’s sister Janet matches a Marcas which Joanna finds significant. Here is a depiction from Joanna’s paper of Janet and how she matches Marcas and other Frazer relatives by DNA on Chromosome 14:

Janet and Shared Clustering

Before I look into Chromosome 14, I will look at Janet’s Shared Clustering at AncestryDNA. Shared Clustering is a program developed by Jonathan Brecher that is similar to AutoClustering. First I download Janet’s matches and shared matches at AncestryDNA. This is what Janet shows for DNA matches at Ancestry DNA:

In theory, the shared clusters should break down into four categories. Those would represent matches for Janet’s four grandparents. I don’t have Janet’s grandparents memorized, so I’ll have to look them up:

They are:

  • Frazer
  • Seymour
  • Dickins
  • Williams

Here is Janet’s match with Marcas at AncestryDNA:

Marcas shows as a distant cousin at 16 cM. Here is Marcas’ McPartland side:

Marcas and Janet have one shared DNA match who is Gail. Gail is Janet’s second cousin:

Starting Janet’s Shared Clustering

Picking a level to start Janet’s shared clustering is a bit of trial and error. I’ll try 40 cM:

This results in four clusters. However, this does not necessarily mean that these four clusters have a one to one relationship with Janet’s four grandparents. Clusters 1, 2 and 3 seem to indicate that they are related to each other. However, part of the reason for this is that Shared Clustering includes Janet’s two siblings.

Next, I like to open up the Common Ancestor column:

I blurred some common ancestors out, because they are still living. It looks like Cluster 1 could be Edmonds, Cluster 2 Dickins and Cluster 3 Frazer/Palmer. Cluster 4 is not identified. As Janet’s Seymour side is missing some ancestry, that is a possible area for Cluster 4.

Summing up the first run, I have this:

Putting Cluster 4 on the Seymour side is a guess. Fortunately, Dickens had more than one wife, so we can trace the common ancestor to him specifically in at least one case.

Janet’s Shared Clustering at 30 cM

This brings Janet up to five clusters.

I was able to trace four of the five clusters. Cluster 5 is now the Frazer Cluster.

Two identified common ancestors go back to Archibald Frazer in 1795:

The fact that both these matches are in the same cluster seem to support the genealogy.

Janet’s Shared Clustering at 25 cM

Now the Frazer Cluster is #11. There are 12 Clusters. Cluster 12 seems like it could be related to the Frazer Cluster:

Janet’s 23 Clusters at 20 cM

Now the Main Frazer Cluster seems to be Cluster 10. Janet’s close relatives are in Cluster 11:

The Correlated Cluster column is important. Cluster 10 has some connections with Clusters 2, 4, 17 and 19. However, there is only one connection with Cluster 2.

Here are Clusters 17 through 19:

These are interesting because Cluster 19 is the McPartland Cluster.

Here Cluster 10 is at the top left and Cluster 19 is at the bottom right.

Janet’s Clusters Down to 6 cM

At this level, Janet won’t have any more clusters than at 20 cM, but she will have more matches, such as Marcas. However, when I look for Marcas on the 6 cM, he doesn’t show up. So what does that mean? At the top of the Blog, I mentioned that Marcas and Janet only had one shared match who was Gail. Gail is in Cluster 10. The McPartlands broke away from Cluster 10 to form their own McPartland Cluster 19. However, Marcas doesn’t show obvious affinity to either of those clusters.

Marcas’ McPartland Genealogy

Marcas has his ancestor Thomas or Hugh or Michael McPartland being born in the early 1800’s and coming from Arigna, County Roscommon:

The McPartland Cluster 19 Group have their earliest ancestor as Patrick McPartland:

Here is a map of Derreenargan:

This is not far from Arigna. However, I believe that this McPartland family actually lived in Dereenagan:

These were ancestral lands of the Frazers and would explain why Owen McPartland born 1813 would have married Ann Frazer.

I see one problem with the McPartland connection. The first, is that there is no obvious connection between the two McPartland families. However, even if there was it wouldn’t matter, because the Cluster 19 connection to Janet and other Frazers is through Ann Frazer and not the McPartlands.

What all this means is that Marcas’ connection to Janet and Gail is likely not on the Frazer side like Cluster 19 connection is. It is likely due to a McPartland marriage into a non-Frazer family.

Back to Shared Clustering

I notice that Judith who was not in a cluster previously is at the level of 20 cM:

Judith is found here in the Frazer tree:

Cluster 7 appears to represent the whole Michael Frazer Born 1764 Branch of Frazers. It might be interesting to try to build out the trees of the other Cluster 7 matches to see if they lead back to the Michael Frazer Branch.

Janet and Marcas at Gedmatch

Here is how Janet and Marcas match at Gedmatch:

When I run who is matching Janet and Marcas at Gedmatch, I recognize Betty, Kim, and Rodney:

As there are no other shared matches from known Frazer descendants, it makes me wonder if the match between Janet and Marcas could be happening on Janet’s Palmer side.

Janet and Marcas at MyHeritage

The first person that Janet and Marcas triangulate with at MyHeritage is Gerry:

Gerry also shows up at Gedmatch and Ancestry. My suggestion would be to try to triangulate between Gerry’s, Marcus’ and Janet’s family trees to see if there is a connection between the three – either in name or location. That may give a clue as to where the common ancestors came from.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I ran shared clustering for Janet hoping to figure out in which cluster Marcas fit in.
  • It turned out that Marcas didn’t fit into any of Janet’s clusters. However, the fact that he doesn’t fit in could be significant.
  • I looked at Janet’s and Marcas’ McPartland genealogy. Janet has no known McPartland ancestry and her connection to them on another McPartland Line is only by marriage. That means that Janet’s match by DNA to Marcas should not be on the McPartland side. In addition, it is probably not on the Frazer side as other known Frazer descendants would probably be matching also.
  • I then looked at Janet and Marcas’ shared DNA matches at Gedmatch. Those known shared matches were only within Janet’s known second cousins. Because other Frazers were not involved with this match, it seemed possible that the match could be somewhere down the ancestry of Janet’s Palmer side.
  • I then looked at Janet and Marcas’ DNA match at MyHeritage. Janet and Marcas triangulate with Gerry there. Gerry also has his DNA at Ancestry and Gedmatch. It may be possible to triangulate between Marcas’, Janet’s and Gerry’s tree to find a common ancestral location and/or ancestors.

 

 

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Looking at Stuart’s Big Y-700

I told Stuart (his last name for privacy) that I would look at his Big Y-700. I hesitate to write this Blog, because I am not an expert on Big Y-700 and describing the differences between Stuart’s Big Y-500 and Big Y-700 is likely to be difficult. Stuart is not part of the Frazer YDNA Project that I am part of, but he is in a line that has had a common ancestor with the Frazer’s before the Frazer were Frazer’s. I am also interested in learning about the Big Y-700 as none of the Frazer testers have tested to that level yet. That makes Stuart a pioneer in this area of YDNA testing.

Stuart at YFull

Stuart has uploaded his Big Y-700 and previous Big Y-500 results to YFull. This is helpful in giving probable dates on when the different family lines had their origin. In the big picture, Stuart is R1a.

I see one difference already due to Stuart’s Big Y-700 test. Here are Stuart’s pre-Big Y-700 results:

Before, the number of years to Stuart’s common ancestors were lower. Stuart’s common ancestor with my Frazer relatives used to be 700 years ago. Now it is 800 years ago. Stuart’s common ancestor with his closest group of R-BY26344 used to be 225 years ago. Now it is 425 years ago. That has implications as there is a Stuart and a Grant in that group. The obvious implication is that the mixup in names could have happened up to 200 years further back in time than previously thought.

Stuart’s Big Y at FTDNA

Here is the same tree shown as a block tree at FTDNA but only up to the YP6479 level:

The thing I don’t like about the FTDNA tree is that it filters out too much. For example, I had my Frazer cousin tested shown as YF09981 at YFull above, but he doesn’t show as a match to Stuart at FTDNA. FTDNA shows a stingy 4 Big Y matches for Stuart

By comparison, YFull does a better job at matching SNPs and gives Stuart 71 matches:

More is better. My 2nd cousin with the Irish Flag shows correctly above, ahead of Hayes who has a common ancestor with Stuart of 1150 years ago.

Stuart’s Private Variants at FTDNA

Stuart shows an average of 13 Private Variants with his match Grant above. I would expect that Stuart would have more private variants than Grant as the Big Y-700 is supposed to pick up more than the old Big Y test.

 

This is the first page of Stuart’s Private Variants. He has 19 altogether. These Private Variants are shown above as position numbers. Once they find a match in another Big Y tester, they will be given a name. In order for Stuart and Grant to have an average of 13 Private Variants, Grant must have 7 Private Variants. As there are two in this YP6488 group, it would be helpful to have a third Big Y tester. This additional tester should refine the results in make a new branch for Stuart or Grant.

Tie-Breaking Candidates

Here is a group from the R1a Project:

The two testers with the green R-YP6488 results above are the ones who took the Big Y tests. The other two testers with the red R-M512 results would be the best bets for an additional Big Y test to match with the existing 26 Private Variants to form a new YDNA Branch on the tree of all mankind. I note that the one with the ancestor of Arthur Grant has genealogy that goes back the furthest. However, this is still within the 425 year timeframe for the common ancestor. In other words, there could have been an adoption or other name-changing event before the time of 1683 which separated Stuart from Grant.

Stuart At YFull

Stuart has two kits at YFull.

Big Y-500

I assume the shorter numbered kit is the Big Y-500. Here are Stuart’s 3 Private Variants:

 

This shows on Stuart’s original Big Y-500 test, he had one best quality Novel SNP and two that were acceptable. This SNP has two different position numbers based on the old system (HG19) and the new system (HG38). Due to newer technology and new SNPs being found, there had to be a new numbering system. It appears that this Private Variant already has the name of Y14660. However, different companies may have different names.

Here are the other two  private SNPs or Novel SNPs as YFull calls them:

 

They are of Acceptable quality. The last Novel SNP has a check by it:

It says that someone did a single test for this and it came up negative. Apparently the person who tested for this was someone other than Stuart.

Big Y-700

I’m curious to see any differences here.

Here are some huge differences. Now Stuart is up to 13 Best quality Novel SNPs. I can see the checked SNP from the previous Big Y-500. This has moved up from Acceptable to Best Quality.

Note that 6 Novel SNPs are marked as Homologous. I’m not sure what this means. I think it means that there is a SNP in a totally different haplogroup that looks the same.

One other difference is that YFull used the VCF analysis for Stuart’s Big Y-500. I checked the Big Y-500 test I had done for my Frazer cousin and the BAM file was used for that. My understanding is that the BAM file should be the one to use if possible.

Note that at FTDNA, Stuart had 19 Private Variants. At YFull, Stuart has 13 Novel SNPs of best quality and three of acceptable quality. This seems to be due to differences in how FTDNA and YFull choose which SNPs they should use.

Here is the side by side comparison between YFull and FTDNA:

For the YFull list, I only used the best quality list. That means that there were 7 Best Quality SNPs that YFull found that weren’t used by FTDNA.

Upon further review, I see that FTDNA has a second page of SNP Variants:

 

Now the comparison is closer. FTDNA has 19 Private Variants and YFull shows 15 Novel SNPs that match FTDNA’s. YFull has 13 SNPs of best quality and 3 SNPs of acceptable quality. These private SNPs are measuring Stuart’s non-matchedness. In other words, these are SNPs that are waiting to be matched, so that Stuart can form a new YDNA branch.

When I look at SNPs under different categories at YFull, it adds one SNP that FTDNA had. This brings up the importance of YFull. It is not necessarily showing that FTDNA is wrong but gives a second independent opinion to the analysis of the results.

YFull STR Matching

Here are the results of Stuart’s STR Matching at YFull:

When I try to choose Stuart’s old Big Y test, I get no results, so these are based on the more recent Big Y-700 test. The results are interesting, though generally not as precise as SNP results. Stuart’s closest match is correctly with Grant with a distance 0.03. After that, there are two Frazer’s, a Hayes and another Frazer. The last Frazer with the Irish Flag is my 2nd cousin once removed. Clearly the Hayes connection is much further back than the Frazer connection:

Extended STR Matching at FTDNA

This is available, but not in one place like YFull has it:

Here are Stuart’s 111 STR matches. If they have taken the Big Y test, then those results will show also. YFull showed 5 extended results. These are all the Frazer results. The rest of the group can be found at Stuart’s 67 STR match page:

For whatever reason, my second cousin once removed seems to have more than the average number of mutations, or that STRs that changed were the faster moving STRs to begin with.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Based on YFull, Stuart had a large increase of Private Variants or SNPs between his Big Y-500 and Big Y-700 test. Based on the Big Y-500, Stuart had 3 Private SNPs. This went up to 16 Private SNPs with the Big Y-700 test.
  • Stuart’s original YFull analysis was based on his VCF file and his Big Y-700 YFull analysis is based on his BAM file. My understanding is that the BAM analysis is more detailed.
  • Stuarts dates for a common ancestor to his Grant match and to his Frazer matches increased. This is apparently due to the increase of Stuart’s newly found Private SNPs. The more unmatched SNPs you have, the further you have to a common ancestor.
  • The new date for the common ancestor of 425 years before present between Stuart and Grant has genealogical implications. That goes back to before the year 1600. That means that the mixup between Grant and Stuart could go back that long, or it could be that these surnames were less set in stone at that time.
  • I don’t know how to look at Stuart’s old Big Y-500 results at FTDNA. It doesn’t seem like the old results are kept separately like YFull does.

 

 

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The DNA of Effie Jean (Jane) McMaster Born Ontario 1861

In my previous Blog on Effie, I looked at some possible parentage. In this Blog, I’ll get into some genetic genealogy, looking at the DNA of Effie’s great-granddaughter, Jean. Jean recently uploaded her Ancestry results to Gedmatch for comparison.

Effie’s Possible Ancestry

Based on reasons I presented in my previous Blog, it seems like Effie’s grandparents should be William McMaster and Margaret Frazer. Here is a pre-Effie tree that combines DNA-tested descendants of William and Margaret McMaster with an ancestry chart:

I had guessed that Effie was the daughter of Isabel McMaster who should fit in on the second row above. I note that Jean told me that she matches Keith by DNA. So that is further evidence that Jean and Effie may belong on this chart.

Here I entered Jean’s line in a different color as we are still figuring this out.

Jean and Keith

It turns out that Jean is Keith’s fourth highest DNA match and my brother Jim is Keith’s fifth highest DNA match at Gedmatch. Here is how Jean and Keith match:

The DNA doesn’t tell who the common ancestor is, but suggests that Jean and Keith have a common ancestor. On the chart above, Keith and Jean’s common ancestors are 5 generations away. Gedmatch is guessing that the common ancestor could be as close as 4 generations away. By the chart above, if I am right, Keith and Jean would be 4th cousins.

By comparison, here is where Keith and my brother Jim match:

If Jim, Keith and Jean all matched on overlapping areas, then we could say that the three triangulate and share the same common ancestors. However, the fact that they don’t all match on the same segments doesn’t mean that they don’t share common ancestors. Sounds confusing, I know.

Jean and Emily

The next person I recognize on Jean’s DNA match list is Emily. Here is how they match:

Jean and Paul

Jean has a smaller match with my cousin Paul:

 

None of my family has DNA matches with Jean but that is not unusual for a 4th cousin once removed. However, one could say that we are related in the sense that Paul and Emily are related to Jean as my siblings and I are 2nd cousins once removed to Paul and Emily.

BV – Descendant of Mary Ann McMaster

BV had uploaded her results to Gedmatch, but now I don’t see them. It could be that there was a problem with the results or a private button was turned on. I wrote a Blog about BV’s DNA here. It’s too bad that those are missing as I would have liked to have seen how Jean matched BV. Right now the only DNA uploaded to Gedmatch is from Jean and descendants of Fanny McMaster. [However, see below in the Blog.]

Jean and the X Chromosome

Jean probably would be a good X Chromosome match with others, but her X Chromosome DNA did not get uploaded to Gedmatch. The reason that she would be a good match is that the X Chromosome is never inherited by a son from the father. So for example,

The places that I have red boxes, show where there cannot be an X Chromosome passed down. This means that BV can match Jean, my sisters,  or Emily by the X Chromosome. In order to show this, we would need to get BV’s DNA back up on Gedmatch and get Jean’s X Chromosome results to Gedmatch.

Jean’s Matches with Frazers

I have a Frazer DNA project, so I’ll check some of these people to see if Jean mathes any of them. Here Jean matches Cathy:

Here is Cathy’s tree as it relates to the Frazer family:

Jean and Cathy’s common ancestors could be Frazer, Stinson, Parker, Moore, or someone not even on this chart. Cathy is on the Archibald Line of the Frazer family. The best guess for Jean’s ancestor Margaret Frazer is that Margaret is on the James Line of the Frazer family.

Jean and Jamie

I found a small match here:

Jean and the James Line of the Frazers

Here Jean matches Toni:

Here is where Toni is on the DNA/genealogy chart for the James Frazer Line:

This means that if I Margaret Frazer placed right and Toni placed right, they would be on opposite sides of the James Line Chart. That means that Toni and Jean would be about 6th cousins, or something may be wrong in the chart. The other possibility is that they match on a  different line.

Rodney and Jean’s DNA Match

Here is Rodney on the Chart:

All the same caveats are in effect for this match that were in effect for Jean’s match with Toni above.

Frank and Jean

I’m looking for trends here. So far the trend is that Jean is matching more Frazers on the James Line side as compared to the Archibald LIne.

Here Frank shows as a closer relative to descendants of Margaret Frazer based on where I have her placed in the tree.

Keith and Jean

I already mentioned Keith above.

However, above, I was thinking about the McMaster side. The assumption is that Keith and Jean match on the McMaster and Frazer sides, so we wouldn’t know which side the matches above are on.

Barbara and Jean

It’s a good thing that I went through my list twice, as I missed Barbara the first time:

Finding BV

It turns out that the Barbara above is actually the BV I was looking for. If I search for BV at Gedmatch by her kit#, Gedmatch tells me that there is no such kit. But if I put in her kit number into Gedmatch for comparison, I can find matches. This is the missing information that I was looking for.

Based on the proposed tree, BV and Jean are third cousins, once removed.  Based on Gedmatch’s best guess, BV and Jean have a common ancestor 4.4 generations away. William McMaster and Margaret McMaster are 4 generations from BV and 5 generations from Jean. That averages out to 4.5 generations. Seeing as a common ancestor would never be 4.4 generations away, that is pretty close.

Triangulation, Crossovers and Chromosome 8

If BV, Jean and Emily each matched each other on Chromosome 8, that would be a strong indication that they each received that DNA from the same ancestor. However, look at what happened. BV and Jean match each other on Chromosome 8 between positions 57M and 71.  Emily and Jean match each other between positions 71 and 104M:

This could indicate a crossover. A crossover is where the DNA we inherited from one ancestor cross over to the DNA we inherited from the spouse of that ancestor. In this case, the crossover could be between William McMaster and Margaret Frazer. Our crossovers are inherited from our grandparents. So, if this is a crossover between William McMaster and Margaret Frazer it would be a crossover that came down to BV or Jean either through Elizabeth Shannon or Effie McMaster.

Here is Elizabeth:

Here is Effie:

Summary and Conclusions

  • Jean uploaded her DNA to Gedmatch for comparison. That comparison shows that she matches BV, Emily and Paul. These four descend from William McMaster and Margaret Frazer.
  • By a proposed chart, Jean would be third cousin once removed to BV. She would be fourth cousin to Keith, Emily and Paul. She would be 4th cousin once removed to me and my five siblings. Jean and my direct family do not show shared DNA, but that is not uncommon for that level of relationship. However, our family has matches to BV, Keith, Emily and Paul and the genealogical connection is more secure.
  • Jean’s X Chromosome results did not get uploaded to Gedmatch. A comparison of those results should give further evidence that Jean shares the common ancestors of William McMaster and Margaret Frazer with BV, Keith, Emily, and my direct family.
  • I was not able to triangulate Jean’s DNA matches. Triangulation would indicate a specific common ancestor. However, the fact that Jean’s matches didn’t triangulate does not mean that the proposed genealogy is wrong. I also looked at a possible crossover between DNA inherited from William McMaster and DNA inherited from Margaret Frazer.
  • In general, the DNA results support the assumption that Jean descends from William McMaster and Margaret Frazer. In order for that to be the case, Effie McMaster would have to have been the child of one of William and Margaret’s children. I had proposed Isabel as that child. However, I have no direct proof that Isabel is the child of William and Margaret and no proof that Effie is the daughter of Isabel. Having said that, there is a likelihood that Isabel could be the daughter of William and Margaret and that Effie could be Isabel’s daughter.
  • So what I am saying is that the DNA gives more evidence that William and Margaret are the grandparents of Effie, but do not supply additional evidence that Isabel is the mother of Effie. The evidence that Isabel may be the mother of Effie has to do with the fact that Isabel was in the right place at the right time and had the last name of McMaster.