Category: DNA General

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Lentz ThruLines and DNA Tree

I thought that it would be a good time to update my Lentz DNA and genealogy. Here is what I have on my laptop:

The right side of the Tree is just Lentz. The left is Lentz and Nicholson. Sometimes the Nicholson side overshadows the Lentz. Here is the right side:

The green boxes are the matches where I have specific information on where on the chromosome the mathes are.

My Mother’s Lentz ThruLines at Ancestry

My Lentz DNA Tree has 7 matches. Ancestry has 8 matches. When I look more closely, I see this:

Both my Lentz DNA Tree and my mother’s Lentz ThruLines have 8 matches but they are different matches. I need to add Rachel and Dave to my Lentz DNA Tree – assuming the genealogy checks out.

Rachel

Rachel also has a blue dot by her name which means that I have not looked at her. This appears to be the maternal side of Rachel’s tree:

Rachel should also be John’s second cousin. This checks out withh my mom’s and Rachel’s shared matches:

That means that if I was right with John, I should be right with Rachel. Here is my previous Blog on the Lentz Family.

I just need to build a floating tree for Rachel and then attach that floating tree to mine if it checks out. Here is the start of that tree:

Here is Clifford in 1930:

Clifford’s father is an engineer for a chemical shop.

Here is Dittman Street where they lived.

Looking for Sydney’s Mother

From here, the trail goes to Sydney’s mother. There is a lot of information on Sydney’s death record:

Sydney is only 45 when he dies. Sydney’s mother is listed as Clara V King.

Clara V King’s Mother

Clara’s mother is Anna E Glenn, though it looks like it could be Blenn. The G in Gavin is similar to the G in Glenn. Ancestry transcribes it as Slenn.

Here is my floating tree back from Clifford Wilson:

It is here where I have caught up with my main tree:

However, I should have Ann Eliza’s maiden name in my tree. I merged the two people and now Rachel’s line is in my tree.

Updating My Lentz DNA Tree

This helps fill out the Eliza Lentz Line. Rachel is my mother’s fourth cousin twice removed:

All this work goes to reinforce the genealogy by using DNA matches.

Dave

If the ThruLines are correct, then Dave should aslo descend from the Eliza Lentz Line. According to the Palmer Cemetery records, Eliza Lentz Glenn was living on Palmer Street at the time of her death:

According to Google maps this was 1507 Palmer. Perhaps she lived in a house that looked like this:

Here is Dave’s paternal side tree:

The ThruLines want me to go through Dave’s father’s mother who should be Gladys Birch. Here is the obituary of Dave’s paternal grandfather:

When I entered this into Ancestry, it gave the name of the first male son as the father of Dave which I do not know to be the case.

Dave’s proposed connection really goes through a lot of maternal lines:

Here is Gladys Birch in 1940:

Due to the fact that Lewis Williams is listed as the father-in-law, I assume that great-grandmother Gladys was a Lewis. Here is the birth record for Gladys Lewis:

Here is 3609 Knorr Street:

Here is Ella King in 1880:

This brings us back to Eliza, who should be in my tree. Actually Ella King should be in my tree, so I will need to merge some people.

Another Lentz DNA Tree Update

Here is my Ancestry tree coming down from our common ancestors:

The line added was under Ella King.

Again, I am suspiciouis of Dolores. She shows in her tree that she died in 2011, but this was before Ancestry was doing DNA tests, so she may be the same as Radelle, or Radelle has her tree starting with Dolores.

Checking Dave’s Shared Matches

These are Dave’s three closest shared matches. We just looked at Rachel above.

F.S.

It appears that F.S. could be added to my Lentz DNA Tree. F.S.’s kit is managed by someone else who has this tree:

I am guessing this is Thomas Henry in 1920:

My guess is that FS is Florence in the tree:

That would mean that Dave’s DNA match which indicates a possible ast cousin twice removed would be correct. Here is Florence, or FS, who further rounds out the Lentz DNA Tree:

Summary and Conclusions

  • It was fairly easy for me to track down two matches that appeared in my mother’s ThruLines going back to John Lentz and Elizabeth Rihl
  • I also found a close relative of a ThruLine match that I was able to add to me Lentz DNA Tree
  • I have that John and Elizabeth only had three children. I have quite a few matches from the offspring of these three children.
  • I was previously worried about the lack of DNA matches on the Lentz side. Now I see that I have quite a few.
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Some New Sheffield Ellis ThruLines

A lot of what I do is look at Ancestry ThruLines and try to figure out if they make sense by genealogy. If they do, I put them into a DNA tree. I was using these DNA Trees before Anestry came up with the ThruLines, so I am very familiar with the concept.

An Ellis ThruLIne

Here is one I saw just recently with my sister Heidi:

Diane has a pretty good Ancestry Tree:

Diane has traced her maternal line back to Ellis and Roebuck.

In 2023, I see that I had this Ellis DNA Tree:

When I check my later mother’s ThruLines, I see Diane there also:

Then there is Russell who is not in my Ellis DNA Tree. I may look into him later.

I have started a floating tree for Diane. Here is Charlotte Ellis, her grandmother:

Charlotte’s father is listed as Henry. Here is the family in 1901:

Charlotte’s father’s occupation had something to do with the spring knife:

This looks to be Henry’s marriage record:

At this point, it would make sense to connect Henry to the James I have in my tree. This will merge Diane into my tree.

Next, I need to update my Ellis DNA Tree:

Rusell

I am surprised that I have not looked into Russell before. Russell’s Tree leads back to James Ellis:

However, his James was born in 1801 and married to Jane instead of Caroline. The James that Russell has as his ancestor was a scissors manufacturer born in Eccleshall and living in Hollis Croft in 1851:

The James in my DNA Tree does not show that he had a daughter named Elizabeth in 1851:

I can build a floating tree for Russell to try to figure out what is going on. Perhaps the connection goes further back.

Looking more closely into Russell’s Tree, I see that he has two Ellis lines:

I saw from shared matches between my Mom and Russell that the Lockwood name was coming up, so I looked further down the Russell’s Lockwood Line and found Charles Ellis. This must be the connection.

A Floating Tree for Russell

I will build a floating tree for Russell that most likely will be connected to my tree. Russell’s father makes it onto this 1939 Sheffield Register:

Here is the marriage record for Russell’s paternal grandparents:

Russell’s great-grandfather William Henry was a night watchman in 1911 at a silver hardware manufacturer:

Notice that the eldest son is Frederick.

Here is the family in 1891:

It seems our line of Ellises were pen and pocket blade grinders. I have Frederick’s mother in my Tree – Emma. I just need to add the Emma in my tree to the Frederick in my floating tree and that should connect the two trees.

According to my Ellis DNA Tree, the right candidate is the one born in 1831. It looks like I never added the right Thomas Lockwood to my tree.

This record closes the loop:

Here is the middle of Meadow Street, Sheffield on a modern map:

Emma Ellis lived there in 1851. For comparison, here is Morpeth Street:

Earlier in the Blog, I had Harry or Henry Ellis and his daughter Charlotte living there in 1901.

Adding Russell to the Ellis DNA Tree

Before I do that, I will look at the 1881 Census:

This shows that Emily was a year older than Fred.

All this makes me wish I knew who the father was for Charles Ellis. I checked the Sheffield Indexers Website and didn’t see any baptisms for a Charles ellis around 1795. I believe that he was from Thorne. Also they may have been non-comformists which complicatetes matters. This seems like a possibility from 14 June 1795:

The other option appears to be in Snaith;

So Charles could have been the son of a farmer from Snaith or the son of a cutler from Sheffield. In the Ellis DNA Tree above, it appears that Thorne refers to Charles’ wife. So I would go with the cutler parents from Sheffield.

I probably have not added a new ancestor in quite a while.

This would make sense for the parents:

Here is Rotherham:

I’ll take a guess at this baptism for Sarah:

Here, I have built out a family for Charles and Sarah Ellis:

The Banns for the marriage indicate that Charles was also from Rotherham:

Summary and Conclusions

  • Both Ellis matches from Thrulines worked out as far as the genealogy
  • I added both matches to my Ellis DNA Tree
  • I was able to add two likely parents to my oldest known Ellis ancestor.
  • I was also able to add two parents to the mother of my previoiusly oldest known Ellis ancestor. These were John and Sarah Wainwright of Rotherham
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A Sligo Fraser Family – Related to Our Frazers?

I recently had a request from Frazer researcher Joanna. She has been in touch with a person who thinks his branch of Frasers from Sligo may related to ours. Joanna wants me to look at the DNA matches to see if this may be true.

A YDNA Match

This person has taken a YDNA test and according to Joanna he tested as R-R152. Joanna could not find this group and thinks he may have meant R-U152 which sounds like a Haplogroup I have heard of.

Here is the overview for the Fraser YDNA Project:

I do not know if Ian is on this web page, but I see 6 mentions of R-U152 on that page:

I went through all 6 mentions of R-U152, but none of them had the Fraser/Frazer surname. That could mean that the Haplogroup is wrong or that Ian is not part of the Fraser and Septs Project.

Here are my Frazers:

This is a fairly small group under R1a1. I count 10 Frazers in this group. However, a good percentage have taken the BigY test. The header for the group says there are 2393 members, but I only see 1634 Lines of data and many do not have the Frazer surname. For example:

  • Fraser is mentioned 261 times
  • Frazier is mentioned 114 times
  • Frazer is mentioned 43 times
  • Frasier is mentioned 14 times

Keep in mind that these numbers may be a little high if you have a Frazer name and a Frazer ancestor listed, that would make for two mentions of the name. However, that could be somewhat offset as there is a Fraser, Dingman and Barker in our project and all of them we know to be in the Frazer group.

R-U152

AI Overview

Adventures in Ancient YDNA: R1b> U152>L2 to Celtic FGC22501 ...

Haplogroup R-U152 (also known as S28) is a major Y-chromosome paternal lineage. It formed roughly 4,500 years ago during the Bronze Age, descending from R-P312. It is strongly associated with the Alpine Celts, ancient Italo-Celtic peoples, and Roman expansion, with high concentrations today in Italy, France, Switzerland, and parts of the UK and US. 

Further, our Frazer group is:

R-U152 is from the R1b family which is vastly different. According to AI, R1a and R1b had a common ancestor between 20,000 and 25,000 years ago.

Hugh’s YDNA

Joanna also asked about Hugh. He had taken a YDNA test in 2017. Although his ancestors lived in County Sligo, he is believed to be from a separate branch of Frazers also. Here are Hugh’s 111 STR results:

Here is the Nevgen predictor. All I have to do is to add in the 111 values:

I hope I got the numbers right:

Now I hit the calculate button:

This is not very helpful. The top tells me R1b and I don’t know how to read the bottom.

Here is another prediction, but it is valid only for 67 STRs:

Here is what FTDNA shows:

Here is what YBrowse shows:

Assuming that FGC9798 is correct and that the yfull_node is FGC9780, I see this at the Big Tree web site:

Some of those Haplogroups, I recognize from my own Hartley YDNA.

Here is where I am at FTDNA:

I am at the bottom and apparently diverged from Hugh at Z16357.

Summary and Conclusions

  • While reviewing FTDNA Fraser and Septs group, I found out some interesting things. For one, not as many Frasers/Frazers have tested for YDNA as is shown in the summary.
  • The person my friend mentioned cannot match our small branch of Frazers. Our Branch is associated with Scandinavia until around the time of Christ. Ian’s branch is more associated with Celtic people.
  • I also looked at Hugh who has Sligo Frazer ancestry. He is not related by DNA to my small North Roscommon, South Sligo Frazer group.

 

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Anastasia and Adam Butler Born Around 1800 Wexford, Ireland

I have interest in Anastasia and Adam Butler based on my wife’s Butler genealogy.

Anastasia ThruLines

One Butler researcher supposed that the father of Anastasia was George Butler. This is reflected in the ThruLines for my wife’s late Aunt Lorraine:

I am not sure how my Butler researcher friend came up with George as the ancestor. However, it appears that Henry Butler named his first son George. Adam was also a popular name. Henry mentions that George is also known as Adam in the baptismal record:

We know Adam better as George who moves to Cincinnati, Ohio.

Here is Lorraine’s late sister VIrginia’s ThruLines:

Adam Butler’s Connection

Here is part of my Butler DNA Tree:

Again, I am not sure of the George at the top. That could also be an Adam Butler.

I found James as a shared match with someone on the right side of the tree (not shown) named Patty. I found Marie from a match at MyHeritage. Now, if I know the first male child of Adam and the second male child of Anastasia, I may have a good guess as to who the father of Adam and Anastasia were.

The Genealogy – Patrick and Will Back to Anastasia Butler

It looks like I may have not connected these trees in my Ancestry Tree. I will need to do this properly. I will create a floating tree for Patrick. Here is his tree on his paternal side:

The Hanrahan (nee Butler) should be Anty or Anastasia. Perhaps the tree has been changed. I will start with Patrick’s father Will as he is a match also. I suspect the jump from England back to Ireland could be difficult. I am not easily finding records for Will’s father, so I will assume that Will knew who his grandparents were. I will accept the Ancestry hints as they are what Will has. Here is a bit of detail from the Evening Express on Adam dated 20 December 1934:

Poor Adam died at the age of 49. Here is Bootle:

Here is the marriage of Adam and Bridget:

In 1901, Adam is living with his Uncle William who was a widower:

Here is the previous page of the 1901 Census:

This Census leads me to believe that Richard and William were brothers and Uncles of Adam, but that also seems to contradict Adam’s wedding record.

However, Will’s tree has William as Adam’s father. Here is an 1891 Census that has a William Hanrahan with a Thomas as a father:

I do see that the Adam’s marriage record has his father as William and his mother as Margaret.

In 1911, Adam is in a Royal Naval Hospital:

Here is Adam in 1921:

Now Adam is out of work and living in the house of his Aunt Anastasia who was born in Wexford, Ireland.

Here is a birth for Adam William Hanrahan in the 2nd quarter of 1887:

The three likely siblings are:

  • Anastasia – 64 in 1921 (widow) so likely born in Wexford in 1857
  • William – 37 in 1901 (widower) so likely born in 1864 said to be Liverpool
  • Richard – 40 in 1901, married to Margaret so liikely born in 1961 in Liverpool

I see the mistake I made. Adam is listed as Anastasia’s nephew which does not rule out his being William’s son. In fact as Adam is listed under WIlliam, that likely indicates that he is William’s son. Good.

This record gives the family name of William’s wife:

Here is the family in 1881:

William is now born in Ireland.

This is an update on my floating tree:

The proposed father ot Adam is Richard and I did find a Richard on one of the Census records above.

The death record for Adam broadens his birth range:

This looks like Adam’s Marriage in Wexford:

Here is an interesting birth record:

I don’t imagine that Sidon is a proper name, so Adam could be correct.

The writing is quite poor. The A of Adam is going into the crack of the page. Here we are, finally to Anty or Anastasia Butler.

This is the information I can easily glean from Ancestry:

Anastasia has a son Adam which may or may not reflect her father’s name. I am interested in when Anastasia was born, but that information appears to be missing:

Perhaps Anastasia married around 1825.

Catholic Parish Registers at the NLI

I found this:

I’m not sure if Anne Butler is related. Mary Sinnott is standing in for her. Recall that George Butler of Cincinnati married a Margaret Sinnott as his second wife after first having a child with her out of wedlock before his first marriage.

More importantly on the same page, I found on the same page:

Anty’s maid of honor or whatever was Eleanor Lambert and Richard’s was Adam – perhpas his brother?

Here is my Butler DNA tree again:

Notice I have an Adam Butler married to Magaret Lambert.

Not too long after:

Henry’s best man is Martha? Well, witness.

A possible relative:

Going back to 1821:

How Does Neil Fit In?

Neil is a perfect match at 37 STRs on a YDNA test:

However, the 37 test is a low level test and not very accurate. Neil lists his ancestor as Richard Butler born in 1817 in Wexford.

In an email from 2 years ago, Neil says he has a match to Marie at 23.2 vM. Marie also matches my wife’s late Aunt Lorraine:

Here is Marie on my Butler DNA Tree:

Marie has this paternal side tree:

Marie has a shared match with Lorraine named Kerrie. Here is Kerrie’s maternal side tree:

Kerrie’s great-grandmother is listed as Mary Butler. Now I need another floating tree for Kerrie. Here are Kerrie’s grandmother with parents and siblings in 1926:

Here is Mary in 1901 with her parents and siblings:

This Walter is in Marie’s tree. Unfortunately, I do not have Marie’s tree in my tree. Poor Walter gets squeezed to the bottom of the page in May of 1854:

I would not like to make a guess as to the sponsors.

Some nice person posted a photo of Wexford:

I don’t know how many Walter Butlers were roaming around Wexford at the time, but this is likely Walter:

Here is Walter Butler’s father’s marriage:

Catherine is born in November 1856:

I have seen the name Wade around.

Richard’s baptismal record is not clearly written:

The Ancestry hint does not match my Butler DNA Tree:

However, this hint appears to be from County Roscommon.

From here, I can add in children:

This is George born 1822. I did have an Anne Butler marriage shown above in this Blog.

Adam and Margaret make the bottom of the page for their June 1815 wedding:

At this point, I have two Adam Butlers in my tree, so I need to combine them.

This appears to be a mistake:

I take this to be Margaret, not Mary Lambert.

I don’t know how old Adam was when he got married, but if he was 25, he would be born in 1790.

I was trying to show that Adam, Anastasia and Henry named their children a certain way to show who their father was:

Adam’s first son appears to be Richard, which favors the name of Richard for his father. Also recall that there are gaps in the Baptismal Records for Wexford Town during this time period:

That means that it could be difficult to trace Adam further back. That being the case, it will be necessary to infer the parents names by the naming patterns of the children and by DNA matches. Once likely parents’ names are found, then it may be possible to find marriages for those names.

Normally, I would add Kerrie to my Butler DNA tree, but that tree is on my desktop and I am on my laptop which only has an older version of that tree.

Kerrie descends from Mary Butler.

Kerrie is three generations down from Mary Butler born in 1886, so would be on a level with James.

Kerrie’s DNA

The DNA that Lorraine and Kerrie share should represent their two common ancestors. These, right now would be George Butler and his wife. However, I believe that George could have also been an Adam.

The DNA that these two share is on Chromosome 4:

Here is the match that I have between Marie and Lorraine currently believed to represent the DNA of George Butler or his wife:

Next, I will add in the DNA from Kerrie:

Notice that the matches between Lorrain and Kerrie and Lorraine and Marie do not overlap. However, Lorraine’s matche with Kerrie overlaps with her match with James who I have descending from George Butler (identified in green on DNA Painter). The overlap in DNA matches is significant as it shows triangulation. Triangulation is virtual proof that these matches share a common set of ancestors.

Summary and Conclusions

  • From previous DNA and genealogical research, I have proposed that Adam, Anastasia and Henry Butler are siblings
  • I had this relationship represented in my Butler DNA tree but not in my genealogical tree at Ancestry
  • I added the Adam Butler Line to my Tree at Ancestry
  • I focused on a match that I did not have in my Butler DNA tree. Kerrie shared a DNA match with my wife’s late Aunt Lorraine.
  • I added that match to Lorraine’s DNA profile as DNA from their common ancestor believed to be George or Adam Butler.
  • The Match between Lorraine and Kerrie overlapped with a match Lorraine had with James from the same Adam Butler line. This represents a sure sign of a pair of common ancestors. It also indicates that DNA would be from one of those two ancestors but does not indicate which one.
  • More work needs to be done identifying DNA matches and cataloguing the genealogical connection between those matches.
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The Civil War Pension Application for Mary Crowley Butler

Recent research by my wife’s Butler family has uncovered an interesting 41 page document with a lot of information from the National Archives. This is for Mary Crowley Butler’s Civil War Pension application following the death of her husband Edward Butler.

I had left of my last Blog with an Affadavit by Mary Crowley Butler’s sister and cousin.

Page 14

This appears to be an application for a disability for an injury that Edward Butler sustained on the USS Rose resulting in Rheumatism. It appears that this was issued on October 15, 1891. However, Edward died two months later on December 16th. This appears to be signed over to his widow.

Page 15

Following Edward’s death, Mary is living at what looks like 294 – 4th Street in South Boston.

Page 16

More paperwork:

Of interest to me is that Mary is living with her sister Julia Lahey. Here is Julia in 1900, but I have not found Mary in 1900.

The family is at 72 Dorchester Street in South Boston.

Page 19

Proof of Edward’s death:

I do not think his age of 51 would be correct. Edward states elsewhere in the application that he enlisted in the Navy in San Francisco and served around the years 1851 to 1852. If Edward was 51 in 1891 he would have been born in about 1840 and about 11 when he joined the Navy.

Page 21

A letter was submitted from St. John certifying Edward Butler and Mary Crowley’s marriage:

Page 22

Edward is awarded a disability of $6 in August of the same year he died.

The address given for Richard is where his funeral service is held at the end of the year. His sister Anna owns the building at 220 California Street, Newton at the time.

Page 23

This Declaration for an Original Disability Pension has a few iteresting features. It gives a more reasonable age of 60 for Edward. A physical description is given of Edward. Edward does not write as he signs his name with an X.

A witness is Walter Cody. This is interesting as a Walter Coady was a witness at his wedding. I think this is Walter’s baptismal record from Wexford, Ireland:

Here is Walter’s Naturalization record fro 1889:

I imagine that Walter could have been a childhood friend of Edward. He is not obviously a close relative, though we would need to know the names of his grandparents for that.

Page 24

This is a continuation of Page 23 introducing a new character witness, William Harrigan.

William has known Edward for only 10 years, so perhaps not a relative. Here is where William lived in 1890:

Salem Street is a main street in the North End of Boston.

Page 25

Edward seems more sure about the ship name and travel to Japan than he does of the time frame. Here is an AI overview of my question about this Affidavit:

This would have been about 40 years prior to Edward’s Affidavit.

Page 27

This appears to be a medical analysis:

Seems a shame all this was happening so close to when Edward died, but I think it was good they were doing this for the sake of his wife Mary.

Page 28

Kind of a funny form. I think there was supposed to be a mark where the problem was, but I don’t see any.

Page 29

Here is a rejected application. This gives some detail about his accident aboard the USS Rose. This also gives his address as of July 25, 1885. This also seems to relate to Page 5 from the previous Blog.

Page 31

Here are some more details of Edward’s inury, recuperation and ship mates. These are some of the people that Edward must have remembered from the Milwaukee and Tug Rose:

  • Captain Maddox
  • Andrew Strugler?
  • Geo. Hannum?
  • James Toles
  • John Slater

The last four were on the Tug Rose and could corroborate his fall if he knew where they were in 1885. We also found out he was treated on a hospital ship for six weeks he calls tin clad but he does not know the name. He also was treated in Pensacola:

He was also treated at Itasca? between Mobile and Pensacola.

Page 32

There are two more witnesses – William Norie and William Harrigan from Charlestown.

Page 34

Here is a letter from 27 October 1885 to the Commissioner of Pensions from the Treasury Department:

Next Page:

This auditor was asked to look into Edward’s service in the Civil War and this is what he came up with:

  • August 16, 1864 – enlisted and served as landsman on the Grampus until August 21, 1864
  • August 22, 1864 – served on the Great Western until August 27, 1864
  • August 28, 1864 – Served on the Milwaukee as landsman until August 31
  • September 1, 1864 – Served as Bos’n Mate on the Milwaukee until April 13, 1865
  • April 14, 1865 – Served as a landsman on the Rose until April 30, 1865
  • May 1, 1865 – Served as Bos’n Mate on the Rose until July 30, 1865
  • July 31, 1865  – Served as landsman on the Portsmouth
  • August 1, 1865 – Served as Bos’n Mate on the Portsmouth when he was discharged

This is very detailed. I am struck by how short some of his times of service were. He served two days on the Portsmouth and one day each as landsman and Bos’n Mate!

Page 37

There were no journals found for the ships mentioned in the previous letter. I assume that this was the problem with the application and why it was denied.

Page 38

More problems for the application. While the Navy does not deny that the fall occurred and that Edward broke two ribs, they cannot find any present evidence of it. He is a healthy, strong, flexible man. Here, Edward is said to be 51. I believe he was born in 1832, so he should have actually been 53. Page 38 seems to be the last important page of the Widow’s Pension Application.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Edward’s 1885 application for a disablity is denied
  • By 1891, he has developed rheumatism and gets a disability approved
  • This works out good for his widow as she then recieves a pension
  • Much detail is known about Edward’s on year of service in the Civil War between August 1864 and August 1865.
  • The record confirms Edward’s marriage to Mary Crowley in St. John, New Bruswick.
  • The record has some interesting information on Edward serving in the Navy around 1851-2 on the St. Lawrence on a trip from San Francisco to Japan> None of this has been substantiated, but it appears tha the St. Lawrence ship did not sail to Japan.
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My Wife’s Aunt Elaine’s Ancestry Ellis DNA Matches

I am the administrator for my wife’s Aunt Elaine’s DNA at Ancestry. Recently, I got notifications that she had close matches, so I thought that I would take a look. I am not sure who the close matches are, but I can look at her ThruLines.

The Genealogy

Here is Aunt Elaine’s Tree:

The major lines are:

  • Ellis – Prince Edward Island roots
  • Rayner – also PEI
  • Uphsall –  Newfoundland
  • Daley – Nova Scotia

She has Canadian Maritime ancestry.

Elaine’s ThruLines

from Elaine’s grandfather siblings’ descendants, Elaine has 27 DNA matches. That is a lot. Actually, I missed some matches off the right:

Here are 14 more matches for a total of 41 matches.

Here is what I have for an Ellis DNA tree:

This tree is from 2022, so it must be outdated. Here is the part that corresponds with the ThruLines above:

 

Note that in this tree, I have George’s siblings: Richard, Eva and Bertha. In the ThruLines, I see Richard, of course, with 20 matches, but then Marianne, John and Ellen. Then there are Sarah, Reubin, Bertha, Eva and Serena. It appears that we have some low hanging fruit to update this chart.

Now I need more genealogy. Here are the children of James Henry Ellis and Clarinda Gorrill:

I would like to at least add Marianne, John William and Ellen.

Marianne Ellis born 1875

Ancestry wants me to evaluate Evelyn and Erma Ruby Williams. They do not appear to be in my tree right now:

Also Marianne’s children are shown in grey, which means that I have not assign male or female to them. I can at least do that based on their names. For Evelyn, I need to look at the 1911 Census:

Marianne is Mary E. here. E. is for Ellis.

Let’s look at the 1921 Census:

Marianne’s mother was living with them. Ancestry transcribes Erma as Emma, so I chose Erma as per the ThruLines. Marianne had a lot of daughters!

Unfortunately, I ended up with two sons which I believe should be one. I can merge these two back together where they belong. I do not see much information on the trees of Karla or Kelton, but I assume due to the close 2nd cousin match that they are related. I do see this for Evelyn Williams:

One way to make sure that these two are right is to see if they match each other:

Yes they do by 34 cM.

So I didn’t add these two to my Ellis DNA Tree due to lack of availability on their Ancestry Trees, but I did go one generation down from Marianne Ellis in my tree.

The John William Line

I would be surprised if these four matches were not in my wife’s Ellis Tree. Here is EE’s paternal side tree at Ancestry:

In 1931, I see John William as a grocery store merchant, but where is his wife?

Here is the family in 1921:

Enid is transcribed at Mannie Ernst, but I think it should be more like Minnie Enid. I missed Enid in the 1931 Census:

Enid apparently marries young, but where is her husband? The Ellises are listed as Church of England and Enid is Presbyterian. Enid’s obituary fills in some details of her life:

Finally, I check EE’s shared matches and I find Shane as expected:

I have to have a separate Ellis DNA Tree for James Henry Ellis:

Here I have Shane who also has MacArthur in his line  – a likely additional relationship to Elaine.

This tree will likely grow quite a bit.

Ellen Mary (Ella May) Ellis

Here is my current tree:

Kent has a small DNA match with Elaine:

Kent’s Ancestry Tree is a bit different:

He has Ellen Gillis instead of Ellen Ellis. I will leave Kent off my tree right now, even though it seems he should be there.

Reubin Ellis 1890

ThruLines has changed it’s look – perhaps to fit more people in. I’ll try to add TM to my tree in the conventional way adding him as a floating tree. T.M. has an Ancestry Tree:

However, it is difficult without T’s father’s or grandfather’s name to go backwards in time.

Here is Reubin in my tree:

Here is the family in 1931:

Reubin was a farmer in 1931. Here is some basic information on Jean:

I would say that and the large DNA match are enough to put these two into my Ellis DNA tree. I’ll just check the shared matches. These are shared matches between T4 and Elaine sorted by closeness to T4:

I see that T4’s father is listed. I wonder why he does not show up on Elaine’s ThruLines? I also see T4’s brother Kirby on the list. From shared matches, genealogy and DNA matches, this is what I get:

Sarah Ellis 1886

I will look at Sarah and then take a bread from the extensive Ellis family.

Elaine shows two matches on this line. I already have two children of Sarah in my Ancestry tree. Here is Shelley’s Ancestry Tree:

Ancestry conveniently outlines the common ancestors of Shelley and Elaine. I assume that Shelley knew who her grandfather was, but I can put Shelley in as a floating tree and then connect her.

It is clear from much information at Ancestry on Sidney that she connects, so I will add her in to my tree.

Sadie fits in between Richard and Reuben Ellis.

Next, Rebecca has her maternal grandmother as an Enman:

We find out quite a bit about Wilma in the Portland, Maine, newspaper;

I will add in Rebecca to my tree. I do note that Wilma’s mother was a MacArthur which likely adds to the DNA matching.

Summary and Conclusions

  • DNA matching at the 2nd cousin level is pretty much a sure thing
  • Some people had insufficient genealogy at Ancestry or private trees. This kept me from adding a few people. However, it it likely the connection is correct
  • The only thing that confuses the DNA matching is that many people from PEI are related on different lines. This could cause a higher match than expected.
  • Due to the large Ellis families and many Ellis descendants taking DNA tests, it would take a long time to review all the matches and add them to my Ellis DNA Tree.

 

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The Philip Frazer Line of North Roscommon Part 2

In my previous Blog, I started to look at some aspects of my Philip Frazer Line. I had a request to look into matches of the Taylor Line from Jeannette.

Here is Mary Taylor in my Ancestry Tree:

I believe that she married Philip who was the son of my 4th great-grandfather Philip Frazer born some time in the 1700’s. That means that Taylor is not known to be one of my own ancestors.

Here is Jeannette’s Tree:

It looks possible that the Mary in  my tree could be the daughter of Edward Taylor and Catharine. In fact, Ancestry is suggesting that couple. Here is a screen shot from that Jeannette’s tree:

If my dates are correct, then Catharine would have been 14 when she had Mary. That is not likely. Another possibility is that Edward had a wife before Catharine? Or Mary could be a cousin of the family above. Or some of the dates could be wrong.

Looking at the DNA

I think that I am better at the DNA than the genealogy – though both can be confusing. Jeannette had contacted me two years ago about a match that she had with my brother Jon. Actually, the match was between my brother Jon and Jeannette’s mother Dora. Here is what that looks like at Gedmatch:

These are two small matches. The matches are about 7 generations away. That would probably be in the mid 1700’s. Next, I can look at Jon’s DNA Painter Profile:

Unfortunately, I only have Hartley DNA painted on Chromosomes 3 and 15 for Jon. That means I would have to do some work to add some Frazer side matches for Jon. I do have an outdated spreadsheet of Jon’s DNA matches from 2018:

On Chromosome 3, Jon matches me on the paternal (blue) side, Jason on the maternal (pink) side and someone named Gloria. I couldn’t find Gloria at Ancestry. Perhaps the match did not make the cut.

Jon has some larger matches on Chromosome 15:

Unfortunately, none of these names sound familiar.

I can run at report at Gedmatch to find matches that are in common with Jon and Dora :

I recognize the first two people at least.

Barry and Ken both descend from Philip born in the 1700’s. I think that that Barry descends from Philip Frazer born about 1800. Barry’s brother Richard thinks that the elder Philip’s wife was a MacDonald. I am not so sure about that. However, it may be that Dora, Barry, Ken and Jon are related through the wife of the elder Philip.

However, there is a complicating factor in this in that Barry and I are also related on another Line:

This goes back even further to Archibald Frazer born 1720 and Mary Lilley. So that is possible, though less likely as a common ancestor couple.

I can add Jon’s match with Barry to DNA Painter:

I put the match in under Philip Frazer as the more likely common ancestor. Also, this match is to the right of Chromosome 15 where the match with Dora was on the left side of my match with Beth who matches me on my paternal side. .

Next, I add Ken’s match to Jon’s profile:

This match goes back to James Frazer born about 1804:

The fact that these matches do not overlap with the DNA match Jon has with Dora says we cannot prove a particular common ancestor.

My Sister Sharon and Clusters at Ancestry

Last year, I wrote a Blog on my sisters’ DNA Clusters. Here are some clusters between my sister Sharon and one of her Frazer cousins:

The second arrow is pointing to a small cluster. The second person in that Cluster is Alannah. She shows ancestry with a Johnston who married a Taylor. However, as I have many Johnston matches, the connection may be on that side. This is from Alannah’s Ancestry Tree:

Alannah shows Mary Frances Taylor born in Ireland and died in Perth. One shared match with Sharon and Allanah goes back to my McMaster Ancestry in the Kilmactranny, County Sligo area. So the connection may be on my McMaster side.

More on Richard

Here are Richard’s ThruLines up through the Philip who married Mary Taylor:

I have access to Richard’s DNA results at Ancestry which make me able to do this comparison. These matches are just Richard’s brother and his third cousin twice removed. Actually, when I expand the ThruLines, I see more connections:

When I create cluster between Richard and Fraser, I get this:

Here I see two major clusters. Then I see two clusters perhaps, within the first cluster. So what we are seeing here (in my opinion) is the double Frazer relationship that Richard and Fraser have.

Here is an old basic Frazer DNA Tree:

Richard and Fraser descend from what I can tell from the Philip and Archibald Frazer LInes. I descend from Philip and Richard Frazer. Archibald married Ann Stinson.

Interestingly, Patricia who is in the Cluster above has a Stinson from Roscommon in the maternal part of her tree:

That means that the Cluster 1a is likely Archibald Frazer, Cluster 1b is Stinson and Cluster 2 is Phlip Frazer.

Richard and His Taylor ThruLines

It would make more sense to look at these:

Richard has a nice network of Taylor descendant matches coming down from John Taylor.

Of course, this is based on Richard’s genealogy. Richard has that Mary was born when Edward Taylor was 36 and Edward would have been 52 when John was born.

For some reason, I get more ThruLines for Richard when I choose Edward’s wife Catharine:

This could be due to the way that Richard has his family tree set up. Here is what Richard has for Edward Taylor:

Usually when I evaluate ThruLines, I am evaluating them against my own tree. However, in this case, I would need to evaluate both trees.

Richard’s largest DNA match is with Cheryl. Richard and Cheryl have many shared matches. Other than Richard’s brother, there are 6 shared matches that have common ancestors:

  • Judith – shows as descending from John Taylor
  • Gerry – shows as descending from John Taylor
  • Jenna – shows as descending from John Taylor
  • Judy – shows as descending from John Taylor
  • Dana – Dana, child of Judith
  • Christina – shows as descending from Rebecca Taylor

Without doing all the genealogy, the DNA appears to tie this famiy together with Richard.

Pros and Cons

While it looks like Richard’s ThruLines connnects him with the Edward Taylor family, consider this. At the 5th cousin level, there are many possibilities for ancestors:

  • 1st cousins represent 4 ancestors
  • 2nd cousins – 8 ancestors
  • 3rd cousins – 16 ancestors
  • 4th cousins – 32 ancestors
  • 5th cousins – 64 ancestors

Edward Taylor and Catharine represent an ancestral pair, so at the 5th cousin level, Richard would have 32 ancestral pairs to consider. Here is Richard’s Family Tree from Ancestry:

Here are 16 ancestors, so this is at the third cousin level. Third cousins to Richard should have one of these 8 couples as common ancestors.

In Richard’s next generation out, the paternal side appears to be primarily or all Swedish:

That makes sense with what Ancestry has for Richard:

I see that Richard matchs Cheryl at the 4th cousin level:

So Cheryl would be Richard’s closest match on his ThruLines. Cheryl’s paternal side is Ireland and Englnad. Her maternal side looks to be Russian:

I do not see any Swedish sounding names.

Here is Richard’s maternal side at the fourth cousin level:

A cursory review seems to show that the best match is on the Taylor Line. However, Cheryl does not have her family tree past John Taylor, born 1821 in County Sligo, Ireland.

Erin from the Rebecca Taylor Line

Erin’s tree shows that she believes her ancestor to come from County Sligo also:

This is from Erin’s maternal side.

All this to say that it appears that Richard’s ThruLines for his Taylor side seems to be right:

Here is David’s Ancestry information on Catharine and the Taylor family:

He has Catharine giving birth to children when she was between the ages of 17 and 43. I believe that Richard has matches to distant relative descendants of Edward Taylor due to the fact that it was a successful family. By that I mean that there were a lot of descendants for Richard to match DNA with.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Based on Richard’s ThruLines, it would appear that he descends from the Taylor family.
  • Richard has proposed a reasonable timeline for Edward Taylor’s wife Catharine in which she could be giving birth to children.
  • My proposed genealogy does not show that I am descended from the Taylor family. I do have a match with Dora. That means that I could descend from a Taylor further back that I know of or that I am related to Dora somehow on another common line (also pretty long ago).
  • Unfortunately, I do not think that I she much light on Jeannette’s question. I suppose that there are two issues. One is whether Jeannette can show that she is related to the Taylors that Richard shows in his ThruLines. The other is whether Jeannette is related to the Frazers. I think that the answer in both cases could be yes. Unfortunately, the further one goes back, the more difficult it is to sort out the autosomal DNA. In addition, the effect of Protestants marrying within a relatively small gene pool in Ireland makes the DNA and genealogy confusing.

 

 

 

 

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Looking at My Philip Frazer Line

I recently had an some emails from two people who are on the Philip Frazer Line. This first email was from Jeanette:

Hello dear you both. I and my sister are matched with Kay from Australia. She and ourcommon matches show DNA on our third and seventh chromosomes. Estimated fourth or fifth Cousin.
There is also a Donald Hartley match.
Another match is with Janet Susan Fitzgerald (born Frazer). Her tree has Archibald Frazer born 1751 to 1835 whose father is James Frazer of Clerragh 1720 to 1835.
His father was Archibald 1690 to 1749.
I hope this is helpful in our quest to link Mary Taylor to the Frazer family.
I have written to Kay.
Sincerely Jeannette 

The second email was from Richard:

Hi Joel,

In light of Jeannette’s message advising of DNA linkages between her Taylor family and people in the Frazer line, I am forwarding my Frazer/Taylor conclusions for your consideration.  My conclusions are supported by immigration, settlement and naming information. I was launched on this path by a letter sent 50 years ago from my second cousin 3x removed, Muriel Lewis: “My grandmother, on my Mother’s side, Rebecca (Reba) Taylor married John Elliott.  This is why Myrtle [Muriel’s sister] was named Myrtle ‘Taylor’ Lewis.  My grandmother’s sister, a Taylor, married a Fraser, or Frazer [Mary Taylor m. Philip Frazer c. 1822??]”  

Based on that information, I looked into Rebecca Taylor and her relatives who immigrated in 1830 to North Elmsley Twp, Lanark County in what is now Ontario.

    • Edward Taylor (b. Sligo in 1764, d. 1845 in Lanark County ON) was the father of John Taylor (b. 1821 in Sligo) and William Taylor (b. 1829 in Sligo) and all of them immigrated in 1830 and settled near one another in Elmsley Twp, Lanark – includes Perth Ontario).  Edward’s wife was Catharine** (b. 1786 in Sligo, d. 1860 in Lanark ON, maiden name unknown).  I haven’t located their marriage record from Ireland.  In the 1851 Canada Census, Catharine, a widow, lived with John Taylor and his wife Elizabeth and their children Sarah and James.  William Taylor and his wife Margaret lived either in the same log house or next door.  John and William are both listed as farmers.  ** NOTE: most of the census records spell it as Catherine (the normal spelling) but her tombstone reads ‘Catharine.’ Jeannette advises that the Taylor descendants have spelled their Catharines with an ‘a’ in recognition of Edward Taylor’s wife Catharine
    • Rebecca Taylor (b. Sligo c 1814-1816, also immigrated to North Elmsley in 1830) married John Elliott in 1831.  Among their children in the 1851 Canada Census were Catherine Elliott (named after Rebecca’s mother?) and Edward Eilliott (named after Rebecca’s father?).  My conclusion is that Edward Taylor and Catharine _) were Rebecca’s parents – with John Taylor and William Taylor as her brothers.
    • Mary Taylor (b. Sligo in 1805) married Philip Frazer in 1822.  By 1830 they had at least three children and presumably were not interested in emigrating to Canada then.  They had at least two other children after 1830.  Since Mary Taylor is the only Taylor woman who married a Frazer in this family, I conclude that Mary Taylor and Rebecca Taylor were sisters, and that Edward Taylor and Catharine _ were Mary Taylor’s parents.
    • One of the daughters of Philip Frazer and Mary Taylor, Eliza Frazer (b. 1826 at Kilmactranny, Sligo) emigrated to Canada in 1842 (aged 16) but I don’t have any information on who she came with (no immigration records to Canada at that time).  In 1845, she married Courtney Colter in Smith’s Falls (Bathurst District, later Ontario) which is near North Elmsley.  Quite possibly Eliza Frazer stayed with her aunt Rebecca until she was married.  One of the witnesses to her marriage was John Taylor, presumably her uncle.  Eliza and Courtney’s children included Philip (b. 1848), John (b. 1850), William (b. 1852), Mary (b. 1856) and Rebecca (b. 1858), which reinforces the apparent connections to the Taylors.  The family relocated to Brant County, SW Ontario before the 1851 Canada Census – by the way, George Frasier, age 12, was living with Courtney and Eliza in 1851 – potentially our George James Fraser (?) who identified his parents as Philip Frazer and Mary Gray [either a later wife of Philip Frazer or a deliberate ‘error’ as George’s name is stated on the marriage register as John G. Frazer.  His bride, who was pregnant, misstated her parents’ names and they married in another town].
    • My gggrandmother, Ann Frazer (b. 1822 at Kilmactranny, Sligo) was the fourth child of Philip Frazer and Mary Taylor.  I don’t know when she immigrated to Canada but by 1851 her sister Eliza and family were living in Brant County, Ontario. Ann Frazer married Robert Johnston in Oxford County, Ontario (next door to Brant County) in 1853 (according to a Family Bible – no marriage record located yet). Among the children of Ann Frazer and Robert Johnston were Philip Frazer Johnston, Mary Jane Johnston, Rebecca Annie Johnston and Edward Taylor Johnston, providing additional reinforcement of the family relationships with the Taylors. 
    • Another Frazer sister, Rebecca2 (b. c 1837 in Ireland and perhaps named after her aunt Rebecca Taylor), later immigrated to Canada. In the 1861 Ontario Census, Rebecca (daughter of Philip Frazer and Mary Taylor) was living with her sister Ann Frazer, brother in law, Robert Johnston and family.  Rebecca Frazer married William Geddes in 1865, listing her parents as Philip and Mary (Taylor). Rebecca Frazer died in 1877 without children.

So that’s the plot line.  The more I think about it, the more likely it sounds.  If there is any documentation, it might be in Irish records but we know how scarce those are.

Jeannette and I would welcome your thoughts.

Richard 

Here is Richard in my Philip Frazer DNA Tree:

Now, I have that Philip above born about 1800 was the son of another Philip. He had two known sons who were Philip and James Frazer. I have that James Frazer married his first cousin Violet Frazer and that was the line I come from.

Confusingly the Jeanette in the tree above is a different Jeanette. The Jeanette that wrote has Taylor ancestry. I have that at least one Taylor married a Frazer.

The confusing part about this record is that there could be different interpretations. It could be that Philip born around 1800 or likely before married first Jane Johnston. She may have passed away and then Philip married secondly Mary Taylor.

I do have this transcribed record:

This is from a chronological compilation of Frazer records that were available several years ago. JDH is me and MFA is Michael, a Frazer descendant and researcher living in England.

The interpretation from that time appears to be that Jane Johnston married Philip, son of Philip in 1818, had one daughter with that wife named Jane in 1819.

I should note that Richard and Jeannette are looking at the Taylor family. I do not have any known relation to the Taylor family. However, the way the people intermarried, it would not be surprising if I was related in some way. That also means, that as I have no known connection to the Taylor line, it would not be surprising if my family had no matches with Taylor descendants who were not also Frazer desendants or related in some other way.

Also David

I also wrote a Blog about David recently as he shows at Ancestry as being related through the Philip Frazer Line:

David matches my sister Sharon at Ancestry. I notice that David also matches my brother Jim at Gedmatch. Jim tested at FTDNA but not at Ancestry. David is quite sure of his ancestry up through George James Frazer born 1841 in Sligo, but is not convinced that George James was the son of Philip. I had written a Blog about David recently here.

So What Is My Goal?

As I see it now, I have two goals. One goal is to see if Jeanette is related to the Frazers. The other is to see how David is related to the Frazer Line. Both of these goals seem to hinge on whether Philip Frazer who married Mary Taylor at the Kilmactranny Parish was the father of Ann Frazer and George James Frazer who moved to Ontario. I suppose a third goal is to improve my confort in the theory that Philip Frazer born some time between 1758 and 1776 was the father of Philip, George and James. James was my ancestor and Philip Junior the ancestor of the green tree above.

The Genealogy

It is well documented that Philip married first Jane Johnston and secondly Mary Taylor. These are recorded in lists of marriage license bonds and also Philip’s first marriage is recorded in the Kilmactranny Parish records. Here is Kilmactranny:

The dotted line is the border between County Sligo and County Roscommon.

That was Philip Junior and his marriages. Secondly, I have this genealogy from about 75 years ago:

Unfortunately for me, this does not show that James was a son of Philip. However, I believe that he was and the person doing the research was not aware that he was a son of Philip or did not want to empasize that as it would have shown that James married his 1st cousin Violet Frazer.

Third, I have the Tithe Applotment. These were taken probably in 1933 in Derrycashel. I have this from my Frazer Website:

My belief is that Georg, Philip and James Frazer were all the sons of Philip Frazer. In fact, the order may even indicate the birth order. I have these two Frazer  burial records from 1831:

My guess is that the William and George could be the same two listed in the Tithe Applotments above. One problem with that is that I have that the Tithe Applotment was in 1833 and these two deaths were two years earlier. This could be explained if:

  • The Tithe Applotment was taken earlier (say 1831) not published in 1833.
  • The Tithe Applotment knew these two were dead but still named William and George as the properties were still in the family.

Interesting, my 2nd great-grandfather was named George William born about 1838. I think that he could have been named for the George and William who died in 1831.

I know that my 2nd great-grandfather lived in Derrycastle. My Irish relatives even brought me to the property and showed me the house in 2004:

This may even have been the house of James’ father Philip.

Further I have that my ancestor James named his first son Philip. It was often customary for the father to name his first son after his father:

Here is the Philip Frazer genealogy from my Ancestry Tree:

YDNA Proves One of My Theories Wrong

I had written a Blog recently of how I felt that David fit into the Frazer tree and mentioned David above. It turns out that David tested at 23andMe and that company does a rough estimate of your YDNA. I found out very recently David’s YDNA haplogroup. The YDNA is very good at telling you what branch of mankind you are not in along with telling where you fit in. According to AI, there are now over 107,000 branches of YDNA.

David’s 23andMe estimate has him at R-S845. Here is what YFull, a YDNA analysis company shows:

This starts at the top right at “Genetic Adam”. Of importance along the way is the R1b Branch. R1b formed about 22,000 years ago according to YFull. The Frazer group that I belong to is from R1a which formed around the same time. That means that on the paternal only line, David and the North Roscommon, Ireland Frazers have a common ancestors also around that time – not closely related!

Here is SNP Tracker:

This shows that David’s paternal ancestors were likely in Ireland during Roman times.

Another interesting Haplogroup that David has is L21. This Haplogroup has been roughly associated with the Celtic peoples especially of Ireland, England and Scotland. If David was to do more YDNA testing, he would find out more about his paternal line.

For comparison, here is my known Frazer 2nd cousin at 23andMe:

Stan is my 2nd cousin. I am a Hartley and I come out as L21 (a closer match on my Hartley Line to David). Here is what YFull shows for R-L664:

The important difference is that my Frazer Line is from R1a as mentioned above. This R-L664 is still a pretty old Haplogroup going back 4,000 years or more. However, based on BigY testing at Family Tree DNA, we have Haplogroups that are much more recent:

At the bottom right is my second cousin Paul who I had tested and his 3rd cousin Rick. Their common ancestor is James Frazer born about 1804. The Haplogroup of R-Y85652 shows a common ancestor at about 1799 based on the YDNA testing alone.

Correcting the Frazer DNA Tree

When I had added LSW in 2020, I had noted that LSW did not have matches with the rest of the Philip Branch:

I also note that David has a good match with LSW, so for now, I will take off the George James Frazer Line from the Philip Branch.

I am now left with just the Johnston branch of the Philip Line.

Other Corrections

I can disconnect George James Fraser from my Ancestry Tree like this:

In Edit Relationships, I can just X out his mother and father. He will still be in my tree but not connected to my Frazer Line.

It does not look like I had added David’s matches to DNA Painter, so I do not to make any changes there.

Richard’s ThruLines

When I look at Richard’s ThruLines going back to his and my common ancestor of Philip Frazer, I see this:

Richard has his brother and Jeanette that he matches on the Philip Branch. Then he matches 7 people on the James Frazer Line where I am:

Richard matches sm and Gladys on the Richard Frazer Line.

On the George William Frazer Line, Richard matches me, my daughter, my sister, Karen and Mabel.

Richard’s Genealogy

One complicating factor is that Richard and I both have more than one Frazzer Line. Here is Richard’s Ancestry Tree:

Richard’s fourth great-grandfather was Philip Frazer born around 1776. This Philip is our common ancestor making Richard and me 5th cousins.

Richard also shows that he descends from Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson:

However, I do not believe that I descend from that Line, so Richard and I would go back to the common ancestors of Archibald Frazer born about 1720 and Mary Lilley making us also 6th cousins.

Summary and Conclusions

  • The Blog was a bit long, so I need to break it up
  • I wrote a summary of where I see myself fitting into the Philip Frazer Line.
  • I was surprised to see that David is not a direct Frazer descendant. At least, not on the the line that I am looking at from North Roscommon. However, having said that, there is still some DNA connection.
  • One of my goals was to find out how David fit in to the Frazer Line. I found out based on his 23andMe YDNA Haplogroup that he does not fit in with my Frazer Line. David still may be interested in testing further on his YDNA Line to find out where his paternal line does fit in.
  • Even though I had thought that David should have fit into the Frazer Line, it is good to have certainty in knowing that he does not fit in rather than wondering whether he does or does not fit in.
  • I still have not looked closely into the Taylor Line. That will have to be in a later Blog.

 

 

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Checking a Nicholson Common Ancestor from My Sister

My sister has an interesting possible Nicholson common ancestor with a match at Ancestry. This is how it looks:

Maybe I have looked at this before as it appears I must have Edward Percy Fenn in my Ancestry Tree. However, I do not see this in my Nicholsono DNA Tree:

My DNA Tree only shows descendant from three children of Matthew Nicholson born 1798. Those are Henry, Lydia and William.

I was able to find a better Nicholson Chart on my laptop which I emailed to my home computer:

In addition to William Nicholson, this Tree has the Matthew children Henry, John, Sarah and Lydia. This probably explains why I was researching the John Clayton Nicholson Line in the past.

Working on AE’s Genealogy

Here is the paternal part of AE’s tree:

One of AE’s great-grandfathers is listed as Edward Penelope Fenn. I’m not sure the Penelope part is right as I have Percy as a middle name. At this point, I have a two generation gap between AE and Edward Fenn. I would recommend finding out more about Edward Fenn. This is what I have now in my tree:

Death records would be helpful:

As the mother and father information mathces with what I have, I feel like I am on the right track. This seems to be about all I can find easily.

Updating the Nicholson DNA Tree

This is how I see it:

When I check AE and Lori’s shared matches, I don’t see MR but I do see someone who has no tree with the surname of Colton. That shows up a typo on my Nicholson DNA Tree. George Cotton should be George Colton.

Summary and Conclusions

  • AE’s two missing generation of ancestors between him and Edward Fenn made the analysis a little difficult
  • However, I did not have to go back many generations. I already had the genealogy up to Edward Fenn but with not many details.
  • The more branching I have, the more likely the Nicholson DNA Tree is right.
  • The tree is also supported by shared matches.

 

 

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My Brother’s Potential Hathaway Common Ancestor at Ancestry

I like looking at Ancestry’s potential common ancestors at Ancestry. In this case, my brother Jon’s DNA match is with Anita. The part which is less sure is the genealogy. Even if the genealogy is right, there is a chance that the DNA/genealogy connection could be with another ancestor. However, the fact that there is a DNA connection makes it more likely that there is a discernable genealogical connection.

Anita and Jon

Anita and Jon are shown as 6th cousins. This is as far out as these Ancestry connections go.

Shared Matches

Next, I like to check shared matches:

Dawn is a shared match. She also has a Hathaway common ancestor as Harvey Bradford married Wealthy Hathaway. This is what one genetic genealogist called walking back.

Here is the Meribah Hathaway Line from my Hathaway DNA Tree:

Jon’s ThruLines

This gets a little confusing becuase Holly, MM, and Eric are also 2nd cousins on my Hartley side. Even more confusing, if I go back far enough we are again related on the Jenney side.

John Jenney is my 10th great-grandfather and I think that this couple would be another distant pair of common ancestors.

Anita’s Genealogy

Here is Anita’s tree at Ancestry:

According to Ancestry, I should look at the Morse to Shaw Line. I can create a floating tree for Anita and then connect it to my tree assuming the genealogy looks good.

Anita already has found her dad in the 1920 Census:

I

Foster L’s father was a farm laborer in 1920 and the family lived in Acushnet. Here is Wing Road, Acushnet, though Wing may have gone further down where Hathaway is now:

It would make sense to find a wedding record to confirm Anna’s maiden name.

The couple get married in Rochester, MA in 1913 even though they live in Marion, MA.

Anna is born in North Carver.

Marion has a record of the marriage also, so perhaps the marriage did take place in Marion:

Annie was born in 1890 in Carver:

 

Annie’s mother was born in Mattapoisett:

Betsey Nye marries in Carver in 1890:

The marriage is said to be the first, but the fact that Betsey’s maiden name is given tells me otherwise:

Here is Betsey’s death record:

This information from findagrave.com seems to clarify thing:

Aged 49 yrs. 9 mos. & 21 d’s

1st married to Manuel Gonsalves on Aug. 23, 1881 in Mattapoisett, MA.
2nd married to Ezra Shaw [son of Samuel Shaw and Fanny Borden] on Sept. 21, 1890 in Middleboro, MA. He died Aug. 15, 1893 in Carver, MA.
3rd married to Francis L. Nye on Sept. 9, 1899 in Mattapoisett, MA.

Here is what I have starting with Anita’s grandmother:

Another confusing point is that I am looking for the Hathaway line and Mary J Nye was a Hathaway. She was the daughter of Betsy Hathaway:

Mary did not name a father on the marriage record in Mattapoisett in 1857. Joseph Nye was listed as a mariner at the time of marriage. This is the page for Hathaway births in Rochester:

I wonder who Betsey’s parents were and what happened to her?

Mary Jane’s death record gives little information:

As far as I know, I am not as closely related to the Mattapoisett Hathaways. My Hathaways lived in Wareham.

Connecting Joseph Nye to Mother Anne Jenney

This would connect my floating tree to my Ancestry Tree. Here is Joseph’s birth:

Here is Anne Jenney from my Tree:

I am pretty sure it is OK to connect the two, but I will look for some more evidence. This 1872 death record for Mattapoisett is enough to convince me:

The Hathaway DNA Tree

Here is my Ancestry Tree in vertical view:

According to this view, Mary Jane has her first child when she was 17:

Technically, Mary Jane was 16 when she married:

Here is part of my Hathaway DNA Tree showing that Anita and I are 6th cousins:

Summary and Conclusions

  • This was an interesting excercise going back to Mattapoisett. A single parent child marries young, has a child young and her husband is a mariner. Hopefully she had otherh family and/or community support
  • Anita and I have quite a bit in common. We both had parents born in 1918.
  • We descend from siblings born a year apart: Meribah Hathaway in 1770 and Joseph in 1771 – both before the Revolutionary War.
  • Both Anita’s family and my family seem to have stayed in SE Massachusetts.
  • These common ancestor excercises are good in that they do not take too long and they improve my understanding of a family line’s genealogy as well as local history.