Category: DNA Painter

Posted on

Visual Phasing My Father-in-law’s Butler Side: Part 3

Here is where I am with visual phasing of my father-in-law’s Butler side:

I started about four or five years ago and recently have been updating their visual phasing. Visual Phasing maps out in what way three siblings got their DNA from their four grandparents.

I’ll look at the chromosomes that I haven’t completed and see if I can complete or improve on any of them.

Chromosome 1

I’ll update this to Excel and start over. The crossovers seem straightforward until we get to the right end. Then there are three in a row:

Here is my attempt at visual phasing:

When there are two crossovers in a row for the same person, it means that there is usually a Half Identical Region (HIR) which goes unidentified.

If I add some more Pouliot to Virginia’s DNAPainter map, it will help. I will also add more LeFevre:

This brings Virginia up to 18% painted.

Next, I’ll add the LeFevre matches to Lorraine’s map:

This doesn’t add any new LeFevre information for Lorraine, but may be helpful for other chromosomes. Next, I put the DNAPainter maps below the Visual Phasing Chart. This will tell if the theoretical and actual matches agree:

The scales may not match here. For Lorraine, it is clear that there is a crossover from LeFevre (blues) to Pouliot at 205:

:

I checked Richard vs. Virginia and that crossover is actually 204, not 202.

Virginia has a crossover from Pouliot to LeFevre at the same location:

That likely means that Richard does not have a crossover at 204. That is good to know.

Now Chromosome 1 is starting to come into it’s own. I see that Richard has a crossover here:

At 217, the crossover goes from Pouliot to LeFevre. I also see that Richard matches a LeFevre here:

I now have Richard and Virginia’s maternal sides finished and identified:

I think that this is as far as I can get, unless I find more matches between 0 and 70:

Chromosome 5

I had that this Chromosome was not started.

I recopied these comparisons from Gedmatch as he previous ones didn’t seem right. This is what I get without looking at Half Identical Regions (HIRs):

When I add my one allowed HIR, I get this:

Next I added in matches from DNAPainter:

Virginia has a large match that Lorraine and Richard do not have. This match is from 75 to 118. Michelle represents LeFevre, so green must represent Lefevre. Dark blue on Lorraines bar is also Lefevre, so that would support salmon being Lefevre.  Then there are the three Michelle matches near the beginning of Chromosome 5.

  • Lorraine: 18-31
  • Virginia: 28-34
  • Richard: 18-34

This suggests that Lorrain has Lefevre to Pouliot crossover at 31 and that Virginia has a Pouliot to Lefevre crossover at 28. That is good, but it means that I have to adjust my crossovers. Instead of two Richard crossovers, there is a Virginia crossover and then a Lorraine crossover. I think the problem is that I didn’t add enough detail to the comparisons. For that, I will need to lower the match level to 3 cM:

This shows another segment from 35 to 38. I may have to come back to this Chromosome as it seems quite complicated – especially in the region around the 30’s.

Chromosome 8

Here is the work I had done in 2016:

I redid Chromosome 8 in Excel:

This time I saw an R and L crossover where I saw a V crossover previously on the right side of the Chromosome. This is what I get this time:

The small blue segment on Lorraine’s top bar looks ridiculous, so I will take that out. Next, I add information from DNAPainter. However, these matches are Lefevre only:

This tells me that Lefevre is salmon and Pouliot is green.  This completes the mapping for Lorraine and Richard, but it does not identify and paternal segments. The arrows point out where the crossovers were for Richard and Lorraine, that I had previously identified as a Virgininia crossover:

It may look like Virginia should have a maternal crossover, but that is only because I did not map one of her segments. I just did that and here is here extra segment:

Joseph Methot was the father-in-law of Edmund LeFevre, so on the LeFevre side.

Chromosome 13

Here is what I had done with Chromosome 13 in 2017:

An identifying match for Virginia would help between 39 and 59.

 

It turns out that Virginia’s match with Philip that I just added is helpful. The match was between 40 and 60:

It appears that there was a match to a Rooney descendant which is on the Kerivan side. That helped identify the maternal side of Chromosome 13. While I’m at it, I’ll add Philip to Richard’s DNA Painter Map:

Richard’s match with Philip starts at 36, so it defines Virginia’s crossover from Pouliot to Lefevre at 39 or 40.

Chromosome 16

I had origingally worked on this Chromosome in Word. I redid the work in Excel and came up with the same basic results:

Next, I look at DNA Painter. Here is what I have for Richard:

He shows Pouliot at the start and near the end. then in the middle, there is some really old Lefevre DNA going back to 1715. This is from a match from Christine, that I found at Gedmatch. She had uploaded from Ancestry, but I can’t find her at Ancestry right now. However, I assume that I had the common ancestors correct. I see that Richard also has a match to Doris at MyHeritage. This common ancestor is on the Pouliot side:

This should define a Pouliot to Lefevre crossover at about 50. The problem is that I haven’t identified a crossover for Richard or any crossover at the 50 location on Chromosome 16.

One thing that I do know is that all three Butler siblings match on the Pouliot side at the beginning of the Chromosome:

 

Virginia and Lorraine do not match on the Pouliot side near the end of the Chromosome, so I came up with the above map. I think that French Canadian intermarriage may have messed with the middle of the Chromosome, so I may have to change this at some point.

Looking for Paternal Matches

I went to Gedmatch to download 1,000 of Richard’s newest matches. Most of these should be from Ancestry. As Richard tested at FTDNA, I would be better off downloading VIrginia and Lorraine’s results. They tested at Ancestry. However, I did find something interesting on Richard’s old spreadsheet:

Here is a match James who I have on Richard’s maternal side. My note says he has Cincinnati roots. Here is  the maternal side of his tree at FTDNA:

The least documented side is Branch where I think the connection is. Alma’s mother was Rebecca Butler based on Alma’s marriage record:

Here is Rebecca in the 1870 Ward 17 Cincinnati Census:

My working theory is that my wife’s Butlers are related to these Butlers. That helps me solve Chromosme 16:

Here is how Richard and James match:

This is how I have connected the two trees, but I don’t have the genealogy to do it at the top level.

Lorraine Matches James Also

Lorraine matches James here on Chromosomes 4 and 16:

Virginia  matches James on Chromosome 4 only.

Summary and Conclusions

  • 9 out of the Butler sibling’s chromosomes are believed to be completed
  • While looking for paternal matches for Visual Phasing, I found one that I had discovered in 2015. It turns out that this match was a descendant of the Cincinnati Butlers who are related to my wife’s Butlers by DNA.
  • DNA Painter has been helpful in identifying matches also and I have been adding to these three Butler siblings’ maps
  • The only cousins on the Butler grandparent side used to check the visual phasing are those that have not been proved by genealogy, but are certainly cousins by DNA.
  • I will continue on with Chromosomes 17 through 22 in a subsequent Blog

 

 

 

Posted on

Updating the Visual Phasing of My Father-in-law’s Butlers: Part 2

In my previous Blog, I was successful in updating the visual phasing for the four grandparents of my father-in-law. I was able to complete several of the 23 chromosomes. This was my previous summary:

Chromosome 11

It appaears that I should be able to find some maternal matches to complete Chromosome 11. This is what I had come up with in 2016:

Here is what I have for Richard on his Chromosome 11 in DNAPainter:

I found this match for my wife from a previous Blog:

This indicates that Kbou would be on the Pouliot side for my father-in-law. From the key for Richard’s DNAPainter map, it appeared that Gagne/Girard was improperly put in a group with LeFevres, so I will move that down:

That means that Richard’s crossover at position 117 is his change from Pouliot to LeFevre:

Here is the finished Chromosome 11:

Kbou is also an X Chromosome match.

Marie Girard was my father-in-law’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother. If Richard or one of his sisters were to have the mitochondrial DNA test, that would pass to the mother’s only side also.

Chromosome 17

This was some of my early work in Visual Phasing as it is in Word:

As paternal matches are very scarce, it is difficult to identify whether blue or purple is Butler or Kerivan.

Chromosome 22

Unfortunately, I could find no paternal matches on Chromosome 22.

Chromosome 5

The crossovers were complicated in this Chromosome which is perhaps why I did not pursue this Chromosome previously:

I’ll give this a shot now. I’ll start in the middle:

Things seem clearer there. The confusing par is around 30 to 40. I’ll work on solving the right side and hope for good matches on the left side. Here is a partial solution:

Lorraine and Alan have a small match on Chromosome 5:

Lorraine has a better match with Yvonne:

This would be a good match to compare with Richard and Virginia. Here is Richard’s match with Yvonne:

I don’t see a match for Virginia.

Unfortunately, Richard and Lorraine have a Fully Identical Region from 77 to 116:

That means that this hint does not help.

Back to Alan

Virginia and Richard show no match with Alan on Chromosome 5. If Lorraine’s match is valid, I show this:

That match identifies the top bar as maternal and the bottom as paternal. That would also meanj that Lorraine and Richard would have LeFevre DNA between 77 and 116 which corroborates with the Yvonne match. I’ll leave Chromosome like this for now:

Chromosome 1

I worked on this Chromosome in 2016:

On Richard’s DNAPainter map, he has this second green match with KK:

Thjat match represents LeFevre which I have a purple:

Chromosome 2

This Chromosome is interesting as it has some Butler DNA from an unidentified Butler ancestor. I will re-do this Chromosome in Excel. Richard’s DNAPainter map shows that he has Kerivan DNA on the right side of his paternal copy of Chromosome 2:

Light blue represents Kerivan and dark blue is unknown Butler DNA.

It would be helpful to ‘paint’ Lorraine’s paternal Chromosome 2 as well as Virginia’s.

Here is Lorraine:

As a bonus, Lorraine’s match with Kim shows a bonusk segment of unknown Butler in Chromosome 4.

I don’t have anything mapped for Virginia yet. I’m not showing a match between Virginia and Kim. Here is Virginia’s matches with Jack who has Kerivan ancestry:

This mapping is not necessary, but it is helpful to see where Virginia’s Kerivan matches are. At the right side of Chromosome 2, I also see the possibility of a double crossover:

Instead of two Virginia crossovers, the last Virginia may be a Richard and Lorraine crossover. Here is what I get for the right side of Chromosome 2:

Next, I need some more maternal side for Lorraine. I unlocked something at FTDNA so I could get a good match. This is with Michelle – on Lorraine’s LeFevre side:

Next I unlock Virginia’s FTNDA results. Here is how she matches Michelle:

I have not been consistent with the colors between siblings. From just cousin matches, the Chromosome 2 Map looks like this:

I can expand some of the segments like this:

That leaves the left side of the chromosome undone. I can pretend I don’t know the results for the right side, solve the left side and then add in the right side.

The bottom three pairs of bars were visually phased.

Michelle’s DNA Matches with Richard, Lorraine and Virginia

I am hoping that key to solving Chromosome 2 lies in Michelle. Michelle matches:

  • Lorraine 31-69
  • Virginia 37-115
  • Richard 38-75

The key appears to be in the beginning of the matches. My guess is that Michelle who represents LeFevre is the salmon color:

That also means that the map would be the same except that the colors for LeFevre and Pouliot are switched. Virginia will still have the blue Kerivan on her paternal side. Green will be Butler and orange will be Pouliot.

And the answer is:

The key to solving this Chromosome:

  • Matches with Michelle and Jack
  • Solving the left side as if I didn’t know about the other DNA matches and then adding them in.
  • A double crossover for Richard and Lorraine at position 227.6.

The Importance of Chromosome 2 for Butler Genealogy

The green Butler segments of Chromosome 2 are where Richard and Lorraine match Kim and Nathan. This is my best guess of how the Butler families tie together:

Kim and Nathan descend from George Butler who lived in Cincinnati . My wife’s 2nd great-grandfather Edward Butler also lived in Cincinnati for a while – not too far from George Butler. Here is how Nathan and Kim match each other:

This is the DNA that Kim and Nathan share that came down from George Butler who was born in 1826 in Ireland.

Summary and Conclusions

  • 12 of the chromosomes have been completed.
  • It takes time to get matches to confirm and improve the work
  • As Butler matches are scarce, it would be better to try to get some Butler matches from AncestryDNA to upload to Gedmatch, MyHeritage or FTDNA.
  • It takes a long time to figure out who matches you on a specific chromosome. If you have a profile on DNAPainter, that makes the job easier.

 

 

Posted on

My Mother-in-Law’s Ellis DNA Match Virginia

I manage my mother-in-law Joan’s DNA at Ancestry and saw not too long ago that she had a 2nd cousin DNA match in Virginia:

This is not too surprising as I have that James Henry Ellis had 13 children. I’m not sure how well George Ellis knew Eva Ellis he immigrated to the US from Prince Edward Island the year before his sister Eva was born.

Virignia also uploaded her DNA to Gedmatch which means that we can see how Joan and Virginia match by DNA:

They match by quite a bit.

DNAPainter

I can ‘paint’ this match onto Joan’s Chromosome match using DNAPainter. This is what Joan has so far:

I have 30% of Joan’s DNA identified. Most of that DNA is on her maternal side which is the second bar of each chromosome eabove. Joan only has 19% painted on her paternal side:

Joan and Virginia have the common ancestors of James Ellis and Clarinda Gorrill, so that will bring the green DNA way up. When I add Virginia in, Joan is now 22% painted on her paternal side:

Overall, Joan is now 32% painted:

That’s a good increase. Here is the DNA passed down to Joan from George Henry Ellis and Clarinda Gorrill, as shared by four DNA 2nd cousins on Joan’s paternal chromosomes:

Virginia filled in some important missing gaps on Chromosomes 11, 18 and 20 as well as smaller gaps elsewhere.

Some Genetic Genealogy

I have a chart of Ellis DNA matches on a tree:

This chart is quite out of date. Joan only shows one 2nd cousin. Mariann was noted above on the DNA map. Here is Virginia added:

I need to add Melissa and Ronda. Here is Ronda:

Turns out Ronda is Virginia’s 1st cousin once removed.

Here is Melissa, the daughter of Mariann:

Melissa is at Gedmatch, so I was able to map her DNA. Her mother’s DNA is not there, but she tested at FTDNA which is where I found here DNA results. that means that Melissa’s DNA didn’t add anything new to Joan’s DNA map.

Debbie’s DNA Match at MyHeritage

Melissa is also at MyHeritage. She has a shared match with Debbie. Debbie had enough of a tree at MyHeritage, that I was able to trace her line back to James Henry Ellis also:

This brings in one more of James Henry Ellis’ 13 children:

While I’m adding to Joan’s DNA map, I’ll add Debbie’s Ellis/Gorrill DNA. Debbie brings Joan up to 25% painted on the paternal side:

That is a milestone. Joan is now one third painted overall:

Here is Debbie’s contribution in gray:

Debbie added significant portions of DNA on Chromosomes 1, 7 and 17. It is perhaps a bit unusual that Debbie’s match does not include any overlap with the other three Ellis/Gorrill DNA. Altogether, James Henry Ellis and Clarinda Gorrill account for one quarter of all of Joan’s DNA or one half of all her paternal DNA.

Here is Joan’s DNA map – now at 33% overall:

The paternal side where Ellis and Gorrill are are the top bar of each chromosome. Second cousin level is an ideal level for mapping. I don’t like to map 1st cousins as they include two grandparents as common ancestors.

Kerri at Ancestry

I would like to figure out how Kerri fits in at Ancestry as she is also at Gedmatch. Here is her tree:

I need it to get back a bit further to 1846. Kerri’s maternal side seems to favor Ireland, so I’ll take a look at her paternal side:

That means I need to build my own tree to try to get her family back to Prince Edward Island. I wasn’t able to do this easily, so I pulled the plug on Kerri at this time.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Virginia tested at AncestryDNA and uploaded to Gedmatch. To me, that is the best of both worlds. She has good tree matching and DNA matching at AncestryDNA and DNA details at Gedmatch.
  • I was able to update my mother-in-law’s Chromosome Map using DNAPainter
  • I was also able to update my Ellis DNA/Genealogy chart. I hope to find more Ellis relatives as James Henry Ellis born 1846 in PEI had 13 children

 

Posted on

My Frazer DNA Relative Suzzanne

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

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

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

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

I have one shared DNA match with Suzzanne at AncestryDNA:

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

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

More on Suzzanne’s Frazer Ancestry

Here is what I have on my website:

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

Suzzanne and Shared Matches at AncestryDNA

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

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

Suzzanne and Jane’s Shared Matches

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

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

Suzzanne at MyHeritage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suzzanne and My Cousin Paul

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

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

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

Suzzanne and Paul Triangulate with Lorraine

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

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

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

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

 

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

Here is another match that is closer to Suzanne:

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

Douglas has that Catherine was from County Sligo:

Summary and Conclusions

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

 

Posted on

More Painting of My Wife’s DNA

I call this painting my wife’s DNA because I use a program called DNA Painter. But really, it is a DNA map of my wife’s identified DNA matches. Here is what I have so far for Marie:

The top row of every one of Marie’s chromosomes is what she got from her father and the bottom row is what she got from her mother. Likewise on the key to the bottom right of the image, the top part shows the shared paternal ancestors represented in different colors on Marie’s map. The bottom part of the key has Marie’s maternal ancestors represented as colors that she got from her DNA matches.

Marie is About One Third Painted

Actually a little less:

Marie is actually doing the best as far as DNA matches go, on her paternal side:

Now that I think of it, that makes sense as there a lot of French Canadian matches on that side. That must mean that Marie is less painted on her maternal side:

Marie only has 57 DNA segments painted on her maternal side. My goal in this Blog is to get Marie’s numbers up somehow. It is not easy as there has to be a link to a common ancestor and they have to have had their DNA tested at a place that gives detailed DNA match information. AncestryDNA is the biggest tester and they don’t give detailed information on their DNA matches.

Searching for More DNA Matches for Marie

The easiest place to search would be at MyHeritage. They have an option called Theories of Relativity where they match up DNA matches and common ancestors. One of the first matches I see at MyHeritage that I haven’t mapped yet is with Ivan:

Ivan has two paths to Marie and Ivan’s proposed common ancestors of Peter Upshall and Margaret Burton.

Here is the DNA that Marie and Ivan share:

By default, I don’t think that DNA Painter will map Chromosome 11 as the match is 6.9 cM and DNA Painter has a 7.0 cutoff. That is sort of too bad because here is Marie’s Chromosome 11:

Marie’s matches with Esther, Anne and Edward are with ancestors on the Upshall side. But I don’t want to change the default either. Here is what the data looks like that will go into DNA Painter:

Unfortunately, Ivan’s areas of matches were already taken up with others for the most part. There was a small exception on Chromosome 1:

Here Ivan’s match with Marie in green was a little longer than Marie’s match with her half great Aunt Esther.

Marie’s Theory with James

Here is what MyHeritage shows:

James Ellis and Marion (with variations) MacArthur (or McArthur) are Marie’s third great-grandparents. Marion MacArthur was James Ellis’ second wife:

I show Thomas Birch Ellis as James Heny Ellis’ brother so that is good.

I’ll paint this match onto Marie’s map:

The parts of James’ DNA matches that were over 7 cM were on Chromosomes 1 and 2. They are in Ellis regions. There is no overlap, so they constitute new unmapped areas for Marie. This gets Marie up a percent overall from 31% to 32% mapped. On Marie’s Maternal side, she went from 24% to 25% mapped. Progress. I see that Marie also matches Stephen who may be James’ brother. However, Stephen does not appear to add any more DNA than James added.

Marie and Glenys

Glenys shows as a third cousin to Marie:

MyHeritage has her descended from Alexander Upshall. The record I have for him says he died at a lunatic assylum:

Let’s map this match out using DNA Painter. DNA Painter gives a hint:

I’m not sure if this is helpful or not, but it seems like the bottom hint is right. Glenys’ matches with Marie on Chromosomes 9 and 11 are already taken up:

The match on Chromosome 22 is Marie’s first on her maternal side:

This small match is not enough to increase Marie’s percantages, but it helps.

Keep Going with Marie’s DNA Match Caroline?

Caroline is supposed to match Marie on the LeFevre/LeFebre Line:

The connection looks legit. LeFebvre is the older way of spelling LeFevre. Someone left out the b along the way. Hopefully the 1891 for the Charles in Caroline’s line isn’t for his birth as that would to make sense. 1841 would make more sense. At this point, I can either assume that Caroline has the right tree or check on it myself. As I’m feeling lazy today, I’ll just check the DNA to see if it is in the right vicinity.

Turns out I already have Caroline mapped. Here is her bigger connection to Marie on Chromosome 12:

That match is solidly in LeFevre territory, so the connection is likely right.

Marie and Alan

This time I’ll go right to the DNA:

Alan overlaps other DNA Matches except for Chromosome 13:

Alan also adds a new French Canadian common ancestor to Marie’s DNA match who are Joseph Methot and Marguerite Anger.

Marie and Edna

This could be a long Blog. I see that Marie has at least five pages of Theories of Relativity. Edna is Marie’s first Theory on Page 2.

Edna adds some old Christopher Dicks DNA from 1784 on Chromosomes 1, 9 and 12. Here is the connection:

I’m not sure if Planter is the right last name for Margaret. One problem is a DNA overlap on the Ellis side at the end of Chromosome 1:

It could be that Edna’s small match with Marie there is a false positive.

Marie and Marilyn

I think that I have been in touch with Marilyn before as I have done some work on the Dick’s Line:

Marilyn doesn’t add new DNA, but shows that the match Marie has with Esther and Anne goes further back than the 1870’s or 1812. I’m still trying to get Marie’s painted DNA up to 33% but I’m not there yet.

Marie and Andre

Now we are up the 5th cousin level for Marie. As you might expect, the match levels are smaller:

Andre adds a little DNA to Chromosome 15 at the end and gives older DNA bac to 1773 on the LeFevre Line. I’m still not up to 33% painted for Marie:

However, we have 200 segments painted.

Marie and David

This match goes back to Gorrill:

As I don’t see this couple in my DNA Painter Key, this must be a non-painted match.

David provided Marie’s first maternal mapped DNA match on Chromosome 14:

This match got Marie up to 1/3 painted or 33% overall:

That got Marie from 25% to 27% painted on her maternal side.

Reorganizing Marie’s Key

At this point, it would make sense to reorganize the Key in Marie’s DNA Painter Map. Right now I have a line separating Marie’s paternal and maternal matches. Marie’s four grandparents are Butler, LeFevre, Ellis and Upshall. I can organize Marie’s key that way. Unfortunately, I only see one Butler match right now.

The LeFevre matches I just organized by date.

Marie’s Ellis and Upshall matches split out more evenly:

I see a mistake as I left Richard Gorrill up with the LeFevre’s.

Marie’s match with Robert on the Ellis Line

 

Robert adds some new DNA on Chromosome 3 and gives corroborating evidence on Chromosome 4.

Nathalie: A Fifth Cousin Match on the LeFevre Line

I’ll paint in Nathalie’s DNA as I don’t want to take the time to check every tree:

Nathalie provides new DNA mapping for Marie on her Chromosomes 14 and 19. Now Marie is 40% mapped paternally:

Marie’s Progress Update

Marie has DNA mapped on every chromosome. However, she is missing paternal DNA on Chromosome 5 and 17 and she is missing maternal DNA mapped on Chromosome 16.

Marie and Charolette

I am a little suspicious of this match as there may be a connection on Charolette’s MacArthur side also.

So whether Marie and Charolette connect on the William Ellis Line, MacArthur line or both is a fine point. This could be resolved possibly by further looking into Charolette’s ancestry. Marie is now 34% mapped or painted overall.

Marie and Agnes

Marie and Agnes have several potential connections:

This is the closest theory, so I would go with this one. The other theories are further out:

I don’t show an Edward Rayner in my tree, but I do show that the John Rayner at the top of the tree was the son of Edward John Rayner, so it would make sense if he named a son after his father. Here is where Agnes sorts out on Marie’s map:

 

Marie and Barbara – Still at MyHeritage

I made a mistake with Barbara at DNA Painter. I put down that she descended from Ellis/MacArthur:

She actually descends from Ellis/Ramsay. That should be easy to fix in DNA Painter. I can edit Barbara in DNA Painter:

I thought that I had an entry for just James Ellis 1801, but I don’t. So I’ll create a new group.

I’m getting there, but it says that James Ellis is not a known ancestor. I need to change that. I go back to the edit section for Barbara and check the known ancestor box:

Barbara fills in some new areas on three chromosomes:

This is turniing out to be a long Blog, but I am getting a lot of mapping done.

Marie and Gilles

As expected, Gilles matches Marie on her French Canadian side. This is on her Fortin/Tremblay side where Nathalie matched earlier in the Blog:

Under Nathalie, the common ancestors were Eustache Jacquies and Marie Judith, but these must be the same ancestors. Gilles adds some more DNA on Chromosome 1. His matches on other segments were below the 7 cM threshold.

I changed the Fortin/Tremblay mapped color to light blue as the previous color was too close to the pink LeFevre color. This match with Gilles maps some older DNA from the latter part of the 1700’s.

Two Possibilities for Jason

I am leaning away from Theory 1:

My tree shows that Marie descends from John Rayner, not James Rayner. However, Jason and Agnes triangulate on Chromosome 4:

I had mapped Agnes to Rayner. I think I’ll skip Jason for now.

Let’s Try Richard

Richard is on Marie’s MacArthur/MacDougall Line.

Richard added DNA to Marie’s map in previously unmapped areas on Chromosome 1, 9 andd 17:

This finally gets Marie mapped overall up to 35%. If I mapped this right, Richard’s match to Marie on Chromosome 17 points out a crossover. The green and light blue are from Marie’s Upshall side and the dark blue is from Marie’s Ellis side. This shows about where Marie’s maternal DNA went from Upshall, then to Ellis and Back to Upshall.

Marie’s X Chromosome

I don’t think that MyHeritage covers the X Chromosome. That is covered at Gedmatch and FTDNA. Here are Marie’s X Chromosome matches at Gedmatch:

Marie’s top two matches are her Aunts. They would be too closely related to map. The third match has a large X Chromosome match, but no autosomal match, so I would not be able to locate that match at Ancestry.

Marie and Lise

The fourth match is with Lise at Ancestry. Perhaps I can find her. I found someone who looks like Lise at Ancestry, but she does not have a maternal line given.

Marie and Muriel

After some dead ends, I came across Muriel. She is at Ancestry and Gedmatch and shows a common ancestor:

Here is where Gedmatch shows the X Chromosome (or 23) match:

This mapping was in a previously mapped area with Marie’s 2nd cousin. It does show that this is old DNA going back to the early 1700’s if Ancestry is right:

I also added Muriel’s matches on Chromosome 14:

Although I didn’t add much new information, I did show that I could add X Chromosome information.

Marie’s New Chromosome Mapped Update

 

Summary and Conclusions

  • My primary goal for this Blog was to update Marie’s Chromosome Map which I did.
  • The secondary goal was to get Marie at least 33% mapped and I did that also. I was able to get Marie mapped overall from 31% up to 35%
  • I also looked into Marie’s X Chromosome but that was more difficult as MyHeritage does not include information on the X Chromosome.
  • I also improved Marie’s Key and changed some of the colors on Marie’s map
Posted on

A 23andMe DNA Match with My Daughter’s Namesake

I recently was contacted by a DNA match at 23andMe and she had the same name as my daughter. As 23andMe gives birth dates, I knew it was not my daughter but a second cousin of mine who was born before my daughter. As my great grandparents had 13 surviving children, I have a lot of 2nd cousins.

Heather’s DNA Match

Heather and I have a large DNA match. Heather shot to the top of my 23andMe match list:

Heather shares more than twice the amount of DNA with me compared to my other 2nd cousins at 23andMe. This had me concerned at first as I originally thought that Heather was a 2nd cousin once removed. At that level, her DNA match with me would have been off the scale. This had me going back to my online genealogy to check where Heather was on the family tree:

This tree shows my Hartley second cousins who have tested for DNA at different companies. I am missing some testers. I know there are more under Grace Hartley and I didn’t include my children or nieces and nephews. There are also other lines I have missed, so I should update this tree.

Heather is on the Greenwood line:

That brings me to a match with Heather who is two generations closer to Greenwood Hartley compared to Charles.

Heather Shares About as Much as DNA with Me as Possible:

The 7.84% DNA that we share is 584 cM. Blaine Bettinger has a shared DNA project. He gets people to tell him how much DNA they share with each relationship and he puts that in a chart:

When I thought that Heather was my 2nd cousin, once removed, I thought that something was wrong as our match would be off that chart. As it is, our match of 584 cM is very near the top reported 2nd cousin match.

23andMe Thought That Heather and I Were 1st Cousins

That was a bit of surprise. I suppose that was based on average shared DNA. But your mileage may vary as the saying goes. Here are some more numbers from the Shared cM Project:

Based on that study, our DNA match would indicate that we would be closer to 1st cousins once removed. Here are my two first cousins and three first cousins once removed at Gedmatch.com:

The first two in the orange box are 1st cousins on my mother’s side. The second three are 1st cousins once removed on my father’s (Hartley) side. The last is the highest 2nd cousin match at Gedmatch. That means that Heather at 584 cM has a higher match than my three 1st Hartley cousins once removed. These are my father’s cousins. I find that interesting.

The DNA that Heather and I share is from our two great grandparents. They are James Hartley and Annie Snell. Here they are with some of their children:

In fact, roughly half  of Heather and my shared DNA is from James Hartley and half is from Annie Snell. It is possible to figure out exactly which is which, but it takes matches with descendants of older common ancestors to figure that out. I’ll give a few examples later in the Blog.

23andMe Family Tree

23andMe has a Family Tree. They try to figure out your tree by the DNA, but that isn’t always precise. So they want you to add known relatives to that tree. Here is my tree:

Normally a family tree would have the paternal ancestors on the left, but this one does not. My Hartley ancestors are in blue on the right. Here is more of a close-up of the Hartley side:

One, person, DL, I don’t have matched up to a named line. Heather is on the Greenwood line and her father is Sonny’s brother. You don’t know the players without a program. My line goes off to the left where it matches up with my mother’s ancestors. It took a bit of trial and error to get Heather into the tree correctly at 23andMe, but I have her now:

This shows that Heather is 1st cousin to my 2nd cousin Woody.

DNA Painter

I have my Chromosomes painted or mapped by my various matches. I’d like to see if Heather adds any new information to that map. I already have a lot of Hartley 2nd cousins mapped. Here is what I have mapped so far:

My paternal DNA is on the top row of every chromosome and my maternal DNA is on the bottom row of each chromosome. The predominant green is where I would match Heather as that color represents James Hartley and Annie Snell our common 2nd great grandparents.

This shows up better when I choose my paternal-only side on the Painter:

It would be easier to say which chromosomes that Heather and I share no Hartley matches on. Those are Chromosomes:

  • 6
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 21
  • 22
  • X

Part of the reason that I may not have Hartley on a chromosome is that my chromosomes may have recombined or not recombined more likely to exclude Hartley on a certain Chromosome. The only two choices on my paternal side are Hartley or my father’s mother who was a Frazer. So if I got all Frazer DNA on a particular Chromosome, I will not have any Hartley matches on that Chromosome. I would not match Heather on the X Chromosome because men only recieve one copy of that Chromosome from their mother. That means I have no Hartley X Chromosome DNA. Heather doesn’t really have any Hartley X Chromosome DNA either. She did get an X Chromosome from her father, but that X Chromosome was the same that he got from his Gifford mother. So she got Gifford DNA from her father on the X Chromosome, not Hartley.

Right now I am 45% painted overall and 53% painted on my paternal side. I’ll see if Heather adds anything or if I am already maxed out. Here is the data I need for DNA Painter:

One interesting thing I see already is that my match with Heather starts at position 1 for Chromosomes 2, 4, 13 and 15. That would be right at the start of these chromosomes. I already have a match painted at or close to the beginning of Chromosome 2, but not at the beginnings of Chromosome 4, 13, and 15. That is encouraging.

I choose, “Paint a New Match”.

I refreshed my percent painted:

This shows that I am up to 47% painted now overall or an increase of 2%. I also added 17 segments from my match with Heather. However, I’m sure a lot of those segements are overlapping other Hartley/Snell matches.

On my paternal side I am now at 56%. That is a increase of 3 percentage points or quite a bit at this point in my mapping.

Here is my new green Hartley/Snell mapped DNA:

One interesting thing is that the Hartley side is filled up now on Chromosome 13. Here are my second cousin matches on Chromosome 13:

I kept the names out for privacy, but Heather is the match at the top. I have also mapped my DNA to my 4 grandparents. My guess is that my Chromosome 13 is all Hartley. I need to find my Blog on Chromosome 13. Back in November 2018, I mapped out my Chromosome 13 and that of my 5 siblings:

This was one of the easiest chromosomes to map because there were not many crossovers. The crossovers are when you change in your chromosome from the DNA you got from one grandparent to the spouse of that grandparent. I am in the third row above and I have all the same paternal grandparent (Hartley) and the same maternal grandparent (Rathfelder). That means that it was not unexpected to have my Chromosome filled in with green Hartley DNA on the DNA Painter that I mentioned earllier.

So in the example above, if Heather uploaded her DNA to gedmatch where I have my siblings’ DNA, she would not match my brother Jim on Chromosome 13. That is because Jim got Frazer DNA in the first part of his Chromosome 13 where Heather matched me. Heather would match Jon and Heidi as much as she matches me. For Lori and Sharon, Heather would match on Chromosome 13, but not as much as she matches me as she would be matching in different/fewer regions.

Heather’s Older DNA

The DNA that Heather and I share came down from James Hartley born in 1862 and Annie Snell born in 1866. I mentioned earlier in the Blog that it should be possible to identify some older DNA. That can be seen at DNA Painter. The first example I see of this is in Chromosome 4:

On this Chromosome, Heather matches me at the beginning and end of the Chromosome. In the middle, I have some matches from my Frazer side. In yellow, I have a match with Anne whose ancestry goes all the way back to Abraham Howorth (or so we believe). This DNA goes all the way back to 1768. The Howorth family lived in Bacup, Lancahsire, England:

 

Beth, Jim and Joyce didn’t match Ann on Chromosome 4, but they did on Chromosome 8. When that happens, we call that triangulation which is a sort of check that the DNA really did come from where we think it did. In this case, Heather would extend that triangulation to Chromosome 4. If Heather  uploads her DNA to Gedmatch, she would likely match Ann through their common 4th great-grandparents.

Chromosome 9

An example of identified Snell DNA is on Chromosome 9:

I left out the names, but my match in blue is Celeste. Her ancestors were Otis Snell and Mary Parker. My match with Heather is right above the blue match. That means that Heather likely matches Celelste also.

Here are Mary and Otis:

Those are the only two examples I have right now of older DNA. I would like to find more examples. This would require getting some of my AncestryDNA matches to upload to Gedmatch. AncestryDNA has a lot of matches but they do not use a Chromosome Browser. That means I can tell how much DNA I share with a match there, but I cannot tell on what chromosomes I match them nor can I tell on what portion of the chromosome I match them.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was glad to hear from Heather
  • I was surprised at how much DNA we shared with each other. The amount is right near the top of the scale of likely DNA matching
  • Because Heather and I share so much common DNA that came down from James Hartley and Annie Snell born in the 1860’s, I was able to add a lot of DNA to my DNA Map using DNA Painter.
  • I showed a few cases where I could identify older DNA matches that Heather and I shared going back to Howorth, Snell and Parker.
Posted on

Painting the DNA of My Irish Relatives Emily and Susan

In my previous Blog, I finished painting in my second cousin once removed Paul and painted my more distant third cousin once removed Gladys. Gladys’ ancestry does not share my McMaster ancestry, but does share my Frazer ancestry. Emily shares the same McMaster ancestry that Paul and I have. Susan does also with the twist that she has extra McMaster ancestry as her mother is a McMaster. Here are Susan and Emily:

As Susan has tested at MyHeritage and not uploaded her results to Gedmatch, her results will be limited to those who tested at MyHeritage or uploaded their DNA results there.

Painting Emily

I’ve already started painting Emily.

I only have two of her ancestral couples painted. I only have painted Paul and Gladys onto Emily’s profile. Emily’s Frazer matches are on her maternal side. Emily is 14% painted now, but I hope to get that number up.

Painting Me and My Siblings Onto Emily

These should be the blue segments. The interesting places are where the blue and red segments overlap:

Here Emily’s match with Gladys overlaps with her match with my brother James but not with Paul. As Gladys does not have McMaster ancestry, my guess is that the place where she overlaps with James indicates that the DNA that James and Emily got there was from George Frazer and not Margaret McMaster. The fact that Gladys’ match above stops short of Paul’s match could mean that Paul’s match is McMaster.

Doreen and Pat

Next on Emily’s Gedmatch list of DNA matches I see Gladys’ relatives, Doreen, Ken, Susan and Pat. Some information was added for Emily here:

However on the other chromosomes, their matches were the same as Gladys’.

Jean, a McMaster Match

At least I think she is.

Here Jean is a 4th cousin to Emily. The common ancestors are technically McMaster and Frazer, but due to the children taking on the McMaster name, we tend to think of this as a McMaster match.

This gets us back to the 1700’s and tells Paul and Emily where that bit of DNA came from. For Paul, this DNA would have come down through Fanny McMaster to Margaret McMaster.

Emily and Jane

Jane is Emily’s fourth cousin:

Jane is also a 5th cousin to Emily, but hopefully most of the DNA sharing is at the 4th cousin level.

In the key, I have put both possibilities in for Jane’s match. However, the most obvious is for Richard Frazer. In Chromosome 6, the DNA for Gladys, Jane, Ken, Susan and Doreen is probably from Richard (or his unknown wife).

Emily and McMaster Relatives

Keith has McMaster ancestry:

Keith adds some new information for Emily on Chromosomes 12 and 14, but no overlap with any of Emily’s matches.

Here is Stephen:

Here, if I have it right, Stephen shows that my siblings James and Lori,  as well as Emily,have old McMaster DNA on Chromosome 13.

Emily and the Philip Line

These matches to Emily are on the green side.

On Chromosome 18, Richard appears to fill in a blank for Emily. On Chromosome 21, Emily’s match with Martha tells me that Paul’s match is on his James vs his Violet Frazer side.

Emily and Marilee from the John Frazer Line

Marilee shows on this chart as a 5th cousin once removed to Emily:

I notice the birth date for Philip is earlier on this chart. These dates seem to make more sense based on the John Line in pink.

Here is how Marilee shows up on Emily’s painted DNA palette:

Emily is helping to show that Paul’s DNA in this area is very old. It comes down from either Archibald Frazer or Mary Lilly to Philip Frazer to Paul and Emily.

For some reason, I don’t get that same distinction in Paul’s view of his Chromosome 5:

Quality Check

As this doesn’t make sense, I need to check my information. So forget what I said about Paul. I need to correct his matches on Emily’s profile. I’ll delete Paul from Emily’s profile and then add the correct information back in for Emily’s matches with Paul. Here is what it should be:

Note that Paul has no match with Emily on Chromosome 5:

The takeaway from this corrected view is about James. James or Jim was the last of 6 siblings (including me) to be tested for DNA. Gladys is the other one who had already been painted to Emily. I checked her results and they seem right.

Any More Matches for Emily?

I’m sure there are plenty. I have written three Blogs about Emily. This Blog from 2018 mentions some more matches. Those matches are on the Archibald Frazer/Stinson Line and also go back to Archibald Frazer of 1720 who married Mary Lilly.

Here are a few examples from that Line:

Here is part of the Archibald/Stinson Line:

Fishing for a New Match for Emily

I used a facility at Gedmatch that will find people that match two people. In this case, I used Emily and Keith who matches on the McMaster Line. One of the better matches was Rainah:

Rainah matches Emily by about 46.7 cM and Keith by about 17.3 cM. Rainah tested at FTDNA where I have also tested and I also have a small match to Rainah. Maybe I can figure out how we are all related.

She has a blue tree icon which means she has a tree, so that is good. Unfortunately, I can’t make sense enough of her tree to bring it back to where we might match:

This is why it is difficult to figure out new matches. Everything has to align perfectly.

Painting Susan

The painting for Susan will be very basic as it will just include those kits that I administer at MyHeritage. Those are me and my siblings, my cousin Paul and Gladys. I’ll start with Paul as he should be her most important match. I expect Susan will only have two colors on her map. Paul and Susan don’t have DNA matches after Chromosome 15:

 

I’ll go with Gladys next. Actually, I don’t see Susan on Gladys’ DNA match list. Gladys and Susan are 3rd cousins. According to FTDNA, there is a 90% chance that these two should match by DNA. Unless I missed something, then Gladys and Susan are in the 10% range. That means that Susan’s DNA map will just be one colored for now.

Summary and Conclusions

I was able to get some interesting results looking at the painted DNA for Emily. I had painted Paul, my second cousin once removed and Emily is at the same relative distance to me that Paul is. Emily’s matches fit in as expected and helped pull in the relevant matches from the other Frazer and McMaster Branches.

I was hoping to make a basic DNA map for Susan also. Susan is at the same relative relationship with me as Paul and Emily with the twist that he mother is a McMaster, so she should have more McMaster DNA than Paul or Emily. If Susan decides to upload her DNA to Gedmatch, then I will be able to match her DNA with many other Frazer and McMaster descendants.

Continue reading “Painting the DNA of My Irish Relatives Emily and Susan”

Posted on

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.
Posted on

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.

 

Posted on

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.