Category: DNA General

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A New Mawdsley BigY Test Also Defines a Hartley Haplogroup

I have been eagerly awaiting a new Mawdsley BigY test. The results just came in on 26 January 2022. I had expected that the new test would break up the A11132 Block. Previously, only Hartleys had tested positive for A11132.

Here is the current A11132 Block as seen in my view:

Above the A11132 Block is A11138. A Smith has tested positive for that SNP. The dates for the A11132 Block are approximately 900-1500 AD. Because it was believed that the connection to Mawdsley was before the time of surnames, it seemed like this test would break up the A11132 Block. That has not happened yet as FTDNA is still analyzing the test.

Breaking Up the A11132 Block

If Mawdsley is positive for one or more of the SNPs in the A11132 Block AND negative for one or more of the SNPs in the A11132 Block, then the Block will be broken up. Let’s look at Mawdsley’s results:

  • A11132 – Positive
  • A11134 – Negative
  • A11135 – Negative
  • A11137 – Positive
  • A11139 – Positive
  • A11140 – Positive
  • A16716 – Positive
  • FT22040 – Positive
  • FT226983 – Positive

Because Mawdsley is negative for two of the SNP (A11134 and A11135), then the old A11132 Block is broken up. I was expecting the Block to be broken near the top of the Block, but it appears to be broken near the bottom of the Block. There are other things that could happen, but the above is the simple explanation.

Hartleys Will No Longer Be A11132

Here is a simplified view of pre-Mawdsley BigY testing:

Here is a simplified view of what should happen soon:

Here I have started to add more SNP information. Mawdsley will take on the A11132 SNP designation which will now represent 8 SNPs as opposed to a previous 10 SNPs. Hartleys other than my branch will be given the name of either A11134 or A11135. The yellow box above represents three branches of BigY-tested Hartleys not including my branch.

Dating the Common Ancestor of Hartley and Mawdsley

I had previously estimated the common ancestor of the Hartley BigY testers at about 1550 AD. Jared Smith has estimated that in general, the SNPs in this region of the YDNA Tree could form at about once every 71 years. That would put the common ancestor of Mawdsley and Hartley at about 1408 or rounded to the year 1400.

The Adoption of Surnames

I have read different things about the adoption of surnames. Here is a quote from https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Surnames/

The introduction of parish registers in 1538 helped establish the idea of hereditary surnames. However it was still common in some parts of the country to find a person entered under one surname at baptism, married under another name and then buried under a third.

According to Wikipedia:

By 1400, most English and some Scottish people used surnames, but many Scottish and Welsh people did not adopt surnames until the 17th century, or later.

For a third opinion, I will quote FamilySearch:

Learning about the possible origin or origins of your surname is fascinating, but as surnames were established in England by 1450 and their parish registers only go back to 1538 at the earliest, most of us cannot establish our surname origin with certainty.

At any rate, at the possible time of the common ancestor between Mawdsley and Hartley surnames could have been when surnames were still in flux. It is interesting that the YDNA dating for the Mawdsley/Harltey common ancestor seems to point to that very time when surnames were likely used but perhaps not consistently.

Summary and Conclusions

  • A New Mawdsley BigY tester has broken the existing A11132 Block
  • BigY testing has nestled Mawdsley between Smith and Hartley on the YDNA Tree
  • A11132 formerly held by only Hartley testers will now become a Mawdsely SNP
  • The Mawdsley tester moves the Hartleys down the SNP tree about 8 SNPs.
  • The new Hartley SNP is narrowed down from a block of 10 SNPs to a block of two. The new Hartley SNP name will be A11134 or A11135
  • The common ancestor between Hartley and Mawdsley could be around the year 1400 AD
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An Updated Look at Hartley STRs

Presently, I am waitng for two Hartley BigYs to complete. One is for John and one is for Lawrence. The BigY for John so far has resulted in an upgrade from his previous 67 STRs to 111 STRs.

Summary of A11132 Hartley YDNA Testing

One of the best places to look at YDNA testing for Hartleys is at the FTDNA Hartley Project YDNA Results Page. The Hartleys on that page that are grouped as A11132 are under blue headers:

The last two on the list are my brother James and my results. We have both taken the BigY700 test. The other two that have a green A11132 under Haplogroup have taken the BigY test. Michael has for his ancestor Samuel Edward Hartley born 1666. Michael took the older BigY 500 test. The other three testers have taken the BigY700 test.

Looking for STR Alliances or Patterns

I shuffled the STR results around a bit and then took a look at them:

When there were multiple markers, I didn’t separate them out totally. For example, for CDY, most of the differences were on the second number, so I did separate that out. Also for DYS464, only the last of the four values changed, so I made a separate column for that last value.

This image adds in some relative speeds of mutations:

Red indicates slower mutating and green indicates faster mutation STRs. I didn’t color the last columns as FTDNA doesn’t make a distinction for these STRs. I put boxes around the values where I think that there are groupings.

The Michael and Lawrence Group (Edward Hartley Born 1666)

The first group that seems to be allied consists of Lawrence and Michael. They share the same markers for 449 and 534. I have 534 as a slow marker. I have that marker of 16, but that apparently happened in my birth as my brother does not have that marker. When two not closely related people have the same STR mutation, it is called a parallel mutation. I am prejudiced a little for these two as they show a common ancestor going back to Edward or Samuel Edward Hartley born in 1666:

This also seems to show that Michael had 6 mutations in his line since Roger Hartley born 1703. That would be 6 mutations in 8 generations which is unusually high. Lawrences line only shows one mutation during his 8 generation descent from Thomas Hartley. Ross also had his STRs tested and is a close match to Lawrence. However, I don’t have his detailed results as he is not in the Hartley YDNA Project.

The Second Cluster: John, James and Joel

This cluster is of interest to me because I am in it. It seems more than coincidental that these three share the same values for four different STRs. It is obvious that my brother and I would be in the same grouping, but it seems like John should be added also.

A Possible Third Cluster: Tim and Steve

After much gazing, it appears that Tim and Steve may be in a group also:

This connection is shown in the blue values of STRs. There is also a possible connection between Tim and Steve and John, James and Joel. Perhaps the branching of Tim and Steve occurred earlier than the branching of Steve, James and Joel.

What Do the SNPs Say?

The SNPs should be much less ambiguous than the STRs.  Here is the simple interpretation:

This shows that these four people are all A11132. Roger Hartley is the ancestor of Michael. Thomas Hartley is the ancestor of Steve. As shown, if I draw I STR tree, it should have the ability to show that there is some equality going back to A11132 for these three groups.

Building a A11132 Hartley STR Tree

This is what I was thinking for a Hartley STR Tree:

  • It looked to me like Tim and Steve were associated with John, James and Joel, but not as closesly as John, James and Joel seemed to be associated with each other.
  • Also it appeared that additional branching occurred in the John, James and Joel group after the pre-branching that Tim and Steve were in
  • In order to keep what appears to be the genealogical connetion between Lawrence and Michael and to keep the grouping of the two STRs they had in common, I put these two in a separate branch
  • The second blue row is meant to indicate, that it seems like we are all A11132 at this point.
  • Mervyn and Gary don’t appear to have close connections with each other or the other two groups, so I have them each in their own separate lines
  • I kept Tim in, even though he only tested to 37 STRs as he seemed to have a connection with Steve. I left out the two other Hartley 37 STR testers to simplify the tree.

Adding the STR Values

For simplicity, I’ll leave out the multi-value markers of DYS464 and CDY:

Here I have just added what appear to be the ancestral Hartley STR values. I didn’t indicate those ancestral or modal values for the multi-marker STRs:

A Problem with DYS455

In my scheme, I saw Tim and Steve being ancestral to my line and the Samuel Edward Hartleys as being parallel with TIm and Steve. However, for this to happen would mean thatLawrence had a parralel mutation and that John would have a back mutation from 11 to 12. This could have happened, but it would not be the simplest of scenarios. One method in creating STR trees is to try to come up with the most direct solution. However, that is with all else being equal and not knowing other information such as genealogy and SNPs.

Here is the STR Tree I have:

I have bolded the 445 STR. Michael would have a parallel mutation with the Tim and Steve Group. Then John would have a back mutation to 12. This seems to be asking a lot of this slow mutating STR. Under this scenario, John and Michael have a lot of STR mutations. If the genealogical connection between Michael and Lawrence is correct, then I think that what I have is a good solution to the STR tree – at least for Michael and Lawrence.

New 111 STR Results Just in for Lawrence

While I am pondering the above tree, I notice that Lawrence’s 111 STR results are just in.  Here are Lawrence’s new results:

 

I don’t see anything earth shattering here. If Michael had his 111 STR results, this may have made more sense. Lawrence has new STR mutations at the point of the arrow that others don’t have (DYS504). He also shares a STR of 36 with John, James and Joel at DYS710.

I won’t bother updating my SNP tree based on these new results. It will be more important to see how the SNP results come in before refining the STR tree. Unfortunately, the STR results come in first, but it would make more sense if the SNPs came in first as far as interpreting the STR results.

Another Look at STRs with Mawdsley Added

This may be in slightly different order than before. I also used conditional formatting which should be more accurate. Mawdsley is a new BigY tester awaiting results. Mawdsley believes that the connection to the Hartleys is before the time of surnames. That appears to me to be correct. Another thought is that I had linked Steve with Tim based on an 11-26 combination. That is a sort of flimsy connection as Tim has only tested with 37 STRs. I also see a possible connection of 35-21 with Mervyn and Steve. I have a lighter box around this pair as not many of the other STRs seem to match between Mervyn and Steve.

Another interesting thing is that with the addition of Lawrence and Mawdsley, the mode for DYS710 has changed from 35 to 36. This would be an improvement as more testers will improve the modal values.

GDs

The GDs are the STR differences from the Hartley Mode:

All the GDs are fairly distant from the Hartley Mode. This means to me that this Hartley tree is ancient. Mawdsley has the highest 111 STR GD from the Hartley Mode which would be expected as they don’t believe that they descend from the Hartleys. Michael has a high 8 out of 67 GD. This either indicates that he and Lawrence are not related as believed on the Samuel Edward Line or that Michael has had more than the average mutations in the 1 to 67 STR test.

Summary and Conclusions

  • While awaiting John’s BigY results, I took a look at a revised STR using his upgreaded 111 STR results, genealogy and existing SNP results
  • I looked at a possible STR tree which included a Tim and Steve group. The problem with this grouping is that TIm only tested to 37 STRs, so all the information is not there.
  • Steve also has a possible connection with Mervyn, though they also have many differences. I didn’t make a tree for that possibility
  • The tree also included a Samuel Edward Hartley branch based on what appears to be a genealogical connection. There was justification for the connection also based on the same values that Lawrence and Michael had for two STRs. The connection is confusing as it appears that Michael has had more than the average number of STR mutations.
  • While I was writing the Blog, Lawrence’s STRs were upgraded from 67 to 111 markers. This made no difference in the analysis other than a change in the mode of Hartley ancestral value from 36 to 35 for DYS710. If Michael had tested to 111 STRs, I may have been able to see more connections between the two.
  • I added in the 111 STR results for Mawdsley as he has many Hartley STR matches. The results appear to confirm that Mawdsley does not descend from Hartley, but the families may be closely related prior to the time of surnames.
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Updating My DNA Match Spreadsheet

It has been a while since I have updated my match spreadsheet with FTDNA matches. To see what I have on my exising match spreadsheet in Excel, I sorted by match date:

Where there is a blank in the Kit# column, that usually means FTDNA. The newest date I have on my list is 11/21/2019.

Sorting My FTDNA Matches

I’ll try this option:

Under the Export CSV, there is a filtered option, but that is grayed out. That means I must have to filter my matches first. I’ll choose filter by match date:

I’ll choose 11/22/2019. It turns out that these dates don’t work as all the match dates at FTDNA have been updated. For example, FTDNA shows that I match my mother as of April 18, 2021. I know that I have matched her for much longer than that. If I download my FTDNA match list, I will have many duplicates. In addition, I will be missing email contacts. Also I will be missing detailed Chromosome information:

As I recall, I need to go to the Chromosome browser to get the detailed information. On the Chromosome Browser screen, I didn’t choose a particular person, but chose Download All Segments:

That gave me a spreadsheet like this:

I guess that FTDNA decided to make it not so easy to get people’s emails at some point. Next I need to brush up on my MS Access skills and combine these two tables.

Combining the Two Downloaded Tables with MS Access

First I save the two tables and open Access. I have a lot of databases, but the one called AutosomalDNA looks good:

I need to get my new tables into the Tables section above. I can’t remember if Access is OK with csv files. When I looked for Excel tables, I couldn’t find the csv files, so I’ll convert the files. That involved opening the csv files and saving them as Excel files. Before I could import these files into Access, I had to close them in Excel.

It appears that I am having trouble telling if I imported correctly due to the truncated Table names. I deleted my old files and used the help feature to import the new files. I let Access choose a unique number for each row:

Next I choose Create>Quesry Design and add the two tables to my new Query:

I would like the ouput to look somewhat like my master spreadsheet. Here is my first shot at a query:

This query was not very good:

It looks like there could be more than one person with the initials ‘AB’. Also the query gave me 8168 rows. The Chromosome Browser results gave me 9126 rows. Also I need a total cM column. It appears that FTDNA has taken too much information away, making it difficult to reconstruct a spreadsheet.

My easy fix is to create a right hand join:

 

When I hit the view button, I get 9,528 rows which is about right. Actually there are 9,326 rows in the Chromosome Browser spreadsheet, so I have some extra rows. This is likely due to ambiguous names or initials in the database.

Second Try

I will try to use just the new Chromosome file and match it with my existing master spreadsheet. Actually, I want the names that are in Chromosome Browser file that are not in my master file. As I recall, there is not a simple way to do that in Access. I think that it takes two queries. Actually, according to Google, there is an easier way:

I tried that and got this query:

This gives me 6898 lines, so it will have to do. Some names seem to be repeats of what I have.  I copied the results of this query to the bottom of my spreadsheet:

I added today’s date for the match date. Then I sorted by Chromosome and Start Position.

Maternal or Paternal Matches?

It would have been nice if I could have combined the two tables from FTDNA because there is information on some of the matches as to whether they are maternal or paternal matches. I can go through the new matches one by one and add them to my master match list, but that will take a while.

23andMe Matches

At the bottom of the DNA Relatives list, there is a blue button that says “Download DNA Relatives Data”. After pushing that button I get an email with options:

There are many more options, but I chose “Download DNA Relatives Data”. That gave me a large spreadsheet with a lot of good information. Here are some of the fields I added to my spreadsheet:

Then I re-sorted to integrate the data. I needed to add two new headers at the right of the spreadsheet. These were for Sharing Status and Family Tree. These two items seemed important.

I had been adding a few matches at a time from 23andMe. Now I have the whole list. My spreadsheet now has over 19,000 lines. Some of this information is not important or duplicative, but still it is an improvement.

Adding MyHeritage DNA Matches

While I am at it, I might as well try to add MyHeritage Matches. I made a request to MyHeritages and got my matches. The information from MyHeritage is pretty basic:

The above is for my mother. It gives her ID#, my name, her name, and Chromosome information. I don’t think that I need the RSID numbers. Also, I don’t need the information for my close relatives as they are already on my spreadsheet.

I tried this to copy large amounts of information from this spreadsheet to mine:

I also added test company and the match date (though this would be the download date). My spreadsheet now has over 58,000 rows.

Some Applications

By looking anew at my 23andMe list, I was able to add a person to my Hartley DNA Tree:

Simone is on the Robert Hartley branch which I didn’t have on my tree before.

Lee is a person that I am interested in. He has at least one Hartley in his ancestry and some of his ancestors are from the area that my Hartleys were from.

If I can triangulate his genealogy with other matches on my paternal side near where I match Lee, I may figure out where our common ancestry is.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I downloaded detailed Chromosome match information for my DNA matches from FTDNA, 23andMe and MyHeritage
  • I had not downloaded 23andMe and MyHeritage matches in the past
  • I wish that I had downloaded information on maternal and paternal matches from FTDNA
  • I found that FTDNA matches had less information than previously
  • I need a way of mining the information that I have.
  • The MyHeritage downloads were interesting as they often will have trees attached to the matches.
  • I now have over 58,000 rows of DNA matches – though many are duplicates or small matches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Updating Some Hartley ThruLines and AncestryDNA

Although Ancestry is a bit expensive and does not provide a chromosome browswer, it is still one of the most user-friendly platforms to review DNA matches and genealogical connections. I like to go through the kits I manage to see if there and any connections. When I am looking for matching, my two favorite filters are ‘Unviewed’ and ‘Common ancestors’.

My Sister Lori’s Match with Linda

Here I have chosen those two filters for my sister Lori:

If there is anything under this category, it could mean a new match on a ThruLine:

Normally, there would be a blue dot near Linda’s name showing that she is a new match, but I just clicked on her name and once I did that, the blue dot goes away. Here is how Ancestry thinks we connect:

Here there is a new designation on Linda. When I go back an do a sort for Linda, I see that her results came out in the last 7 days. I also see that the two lines seem pretty sure. In other words, Ancestry is not asking me to evaluate Linda’s line. I have my own spreadsheet of Frazers and how they match by DNA at Gedmatch. Let’s see how Ancestry matches up those who have tested there:

Ancestry’s ThruLines tells me that this couple has been updated which is helpful:

It turns out that Linda is an important match on Lori’s ThruLines for James and Violet Frazer. Lori has now four matches, but I don’t think that Jess was placed in the correct tree. I suppose it is possible, but if William Frazer was born in 1819, it would have been when Violet Frazer was about 16 years old. I have five siblings (including myself) who have tested at Ancestry and all but Sharon have ThruLines for Linda.

My Frazer DNA Tree

Here is one of many trees I am maintaining for Frazer DNA matches:

The yellow line is Richard Frazer’s line:

Linda was fairly easy to add in. I only added her in under my Philip Tree. Technically, she belongs under my Richard Frazer Tree aslo as Violet Frazer was the son of Richard Frazer.

Hargreaves ThruLines

I’ll start with my sister Sharon:

This couple shows up as potential ancestors. Here are some of the matches:

If I agree that our genealogy matches up, this would be one way to extend my known ancestry. These matches are shown as half cousins, but they may be full cousins.  Here is the collapsed version:

The questions would be: why would there be two daughters named Mary 21 years apart. That could account for the assumption of the half cousin relationship.

Sharon’s match Arthur has an extensive tree:

All four matches go back to Jane Creer.

As far as my ancestor James Howorth, there would be my top candidates for his wife:

My selection is based on the spelling of the Howorth name, where the family lived and the 31 January 1789 birth of their daughter Betty.  Right now I see no clear connection to this Hargrea ThruLine.

Lori’s Other Updated ThruLines

Here is one for McMaster:

The upper level view isn’t perfect asa James McMaster is listed twice.

William McMaster Branch

For some reason, I have that William was born in Scotland, but I don’t think that is right. I’ll change that to the more likely Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo in my Ancestry Tree. Corrinne is the new match here. I can’t verify the ThruLines from her tree, but I assume that the ThruLines are right

This is probably William McMaster in Griffith’s Valuation:

Here is Cloghmne:

I have not added the William Branch to my McMaster DNA Tree:

 

Here I added the William Branch on the left:

I put my family in gold. It would be nice to have more detailed chromosome information on this line. I see that I can spruce up the right side of the tree using Lori’s MyHeritage results:

Now there is a proper tree. I have the two matches from the Archibald Line on the right in green because MyHeritage supplies detailed information on the DNA matches.

Here is how Lori matches Warwick on Chromosome 11:

Warwick represents older DNA from the 1760’s and the green matches represent DNA from the 1830’s.  Here is John added in to Lori’s DNA Painter map:

On my own Chromosome 12, I have a more complex picture:

That configuration appears to support this theory:

I have had trouble connecting the McMaster families by genealogy. This is my best attempt using DNA and guesswork.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I looked at a few paternal ThruLines
  • One potential Hargraves/Hargreaves Line seems wrong or at least not the best choice by far
  • I was glad to find a new match on my double Frazer Line
  • I spruced up my McMaster DNA Tree and solidified genealogical connections with DNA connections there.

 

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Some Thoughts on a New BigY Test for a Descendant of Samuel Hartley Born 1666

Not too long ago, I got in touch with Lawrence to ask him if he would be willing to complete a BigY test. I was interested in Lawrence because I match two other Hartleys (other than my brother) who have done the BigY. One of the intersting matches was Michael who believes that his ancestry goes back to Samuel Hartley born in 1666. In doing BigY or other DNA testing, it is important if one of those testers has genealogy that goes back many years.

A Possible Genealogy for Lawrence and Michael

Here is the connection that seemed to be right between Lawrence and Michael:

Michael has taken the BigY 500 test which is 50% less comprehensive compared to the newer BigY 700 test. My brother, Steve and I have all taken the BigY 700 test. Because some areas of Michael’s test were missing, I thought that Lawrence would fill in the missing SNPs.

Based on the Current YDNA Testing, Is the Genealogy Right?

After looking a lot a the YDNA matches, I am wondering if the connection above is correctly displayed. Right now, Ross has tested to 111 STRs. Michael has tested to 67 STRs – even though he has taken the BigY test. Lawrence has tested to 67 STRs, but his pending BigY test will upgrade him to 111 STRs and more.

Here is Lawrence’s match with Ross by 67 STRs:

This shows that Lawrence and Ross have a perfect match of 67 STRs. This seems to validate the tree above between Lawrence and Ross up to Elisha Hartley. That would make me believe that Lawrence should have a close match also with Michael. However, Lawrence matches Michael at 7 steps. In addition, if the tree above was right, I would think that Lawrence’s next match by STRs would be Michael. However, there are four people more closely matched to Lawrence than Michael. Ronald, at 5 steps is not a Hartley. The other matches are Hartleys

Here is the TiP report between Lawrence and Michael:

I generally use the 90% results which would imply a connection between Lawrence and Michael 19 generations ago. By this chart, the connection should be 8 generations ago:

Here is the TiP Report between Lawrence and Ross:

Using the 90% range, I get the common ancestor should be 4 generations away. In this case, Elisha Hartley born 1801 is 4 genrations back from Lawrence and Ross.

This does not prove that the above genealogy is wrong. It just suggests that it may be wrong. I can look at this tree the lazy way by looking at trees that other people have made.

The Edward Hartley 1666 Tree at Geni

This tree does not have mention on Michael’s line of Thomas Hartley son of Norton Daniel Hartley:

However, it is possible that the person creating this tree was not interested in this branch and didn’t include all the details. A Findagrave.com record seems to fill in the blanks:

I did find this interesting Quaker record for Roger, son of Roger on Michael’s side:

After searching around, I don’t see any obvious holes in the tree connecting Lawrence, Ross, and Michael.

Summary and Conclusions

  • My assumption had been that Lawrence’s BigY 700 test would augment some of the missing SNPs in Michael’s BigY 500 test.
  • My further assumption was that Lawrence and Michael had the common ancestor of Edward or Samuel Edward Hartley born 1666
  • Some of the STR matches make it look like Michael and Lawrence may not have a common ancestor in 1666.
  • A quick review of the genealogies didn’t show any glaring errors.
  • I will want to keep my mind open concerning Lawrence’s BigY results when they come in.

 

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My New Clarke/McMaster DNA Match at 23andMe

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

How Zoë and I Match by Genealogy on the Clarke Side

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Zoë and I Match by McMaster Tree

Here is my existing McMaster DNA Tree:

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

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

Adding Zoë to My DNA Painter Profile

This is my DNA map of known matches:

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

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

Here is how I match Zoë at 23andMe:

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

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

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

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

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

One More Scenario and Another McMaster Tree

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

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

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

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

Finally Chromosome 17

Zoë’s match is interesting here:

 

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

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

 

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A New Hartley BigY Tester

I recenly saw an interesting post from Tiger Walsh. Tiger is an expert in the YDNA line that my Hartleys are on and posted two interesting images at the R1b-L21 Facebook site. Here is the first:

This image is meant to show that BigY testing is no longer just for pre-surname branches of mankind and that it is useful for genealogy. Here is the second image:

It took me a while to find the larger list of surnames. I was disappointed to see that the Hartley name was not on the list. The reason is stated in the middle of the image above. The Hartleys need three subclades and we only have two. Here is my BigY block tree at FTDNA:

This view is taken from my perspective. James is my brother, so the R-FT225247 brach has as many SNPs as we are likely to find right now. Steve and Michael are R-A11132. They only show an average of 2 Private Variants below the line of the common ancestor of the four testers. This could be partially because Michael took the older BigY 500 test which did not cover as many SNP as the new test. That seems to be the case, as when I look in my old emails, I have that Steve has 5 Private Variants. That must mean that Michael has zero and that they averaged the 5 Variants down to 2 between Steve and Michael.

John the New BigY Tester

After seeing the Surname Hall of Fame, I decided to get over my aversion of asking people things and ask John if he would take a BigY test. John is a good candidate for at least three reasons:

  1. John has already taken the 67 STR test (where he matches me at a GD of 4), so he can upgrade to the BigY test for less money.
  2. John is from England, unlike the other four testers who are from the US
  3. because there are two testers under R-FT225247 and two under A11132, John should break one of these ties and create at least one new Hartley descendant subclades (using the Hall of Fame terminology above).

Lots of Hartleys in the World

I’m looking forward to John’s results. His ordering the BigY test is big news among the A11132 Hartleys. According to forebears.io there are over 87,000 Hartleys worldwide:

I don’t know how many Hartleys are represented by A11132. I see that the Hartley YDNA Project webiste shows 9 branches of Hartleys, so it is possible that there are 10,000 A11132 Hartleys. My bias is that A11132 is one of the larger Hartley groups, so 10,000 A111132 Hartleys could be on the low side. On the Hartley Family Tree Genealogy Facebook Page, Administrator Wiliam Hartley says that the two main Hartley groups are A11132 and A21269.

Breaking the Tie

There are four possiblel outcomes that I would expect from John’s BigY testing:

First, I should say something about the position of #4. It is controlled by the genealogy of Michael at this time. He has the oldest known genealogy. His ancestor Edward Hartley was born in 1666. He came to the US around 1700 or before. That means that Edward cannot be the common ancestor between me and Michael. That is because my Hartley ancestor was in England up until about 1869. The earliest common ancestor that I should have with Michael (assuming Edward left no children in England) would be with Edward’s father Roger John Hartley:

He was born in 1628. Therefore, I would put the number four in the block tree at 1628 at the latest.

The Four Choices on the Block Tree

  1. If John tests and ends up in this area, it means that his connection to the other BigY tested Hartleys is really old. By really old, I would say some time around the 1400’s
  2. If John tests in this area that means that he is more closely related to my Hartley line than to Steve and Michael.
  3. If John tests in this area, then he is more closely related to Steve and/or Michael than to me.
  4. If John’s BigY test puts him here, it could mean that there are three equal lines that descend from a common or near common Hartley ancestor

We will know more when John’s results come in.

Hartley BigY Geneaology and Triangulation

My own genealogy is the simplest as it doesn’t go back very far. I’ll start with my great-grandfather:

James Hartley, Greenwood Hartley and Mary Pilling all came to the US from Lancashire, England. I am certain of Robert Hartley born about 1803. However, I am not so sure about James Hartley. Someone added another ancestor of John Hartley and Anne Bracewell. I seem to get a lot of DNA matches with people who have Bracewell ancestors, but that may be coincidence.

The triangulating part comes in with the YDNA testing and with locations. The location of my Hartley ancestor was Trawden, Lancashire.

Trawden would be about where I have the red arrow in the 1577 map above. Trawden was part of the Parish of Colne.

Steve’s Genealogy

I’ll look at Steve next in order of most recent to most distant Hartley ancestor. I’ll start with Steve’s great-grandfather who was born in Todmorden, England> Todmorden appears in the lower right hand part of othe old map above.

If Steve and I have the genealogy right, then Thomas Hartley was also born in Todmorden:

Steve and I have that Thomas’ wife was Betty Barker. This couple lived in this place at the time of the birth of their son Barker in 1805:

It looks something like Rodmillend in Stang. I’m not sure where this is. This is probably Thomas in 1841:

However, Birtall is about 16 miles from where he was supposed to have died in the Todmorden area:

Steve has this burial record from Christ Church in Todmorden:

Steve has John and Ann as the parents of Thomas. That information is from this record:

That record is from 17 Mar 1766 from St. Chad in Rochdale. We further see that John was a weaver and that they were of Weurdle. If I have the right place, it seems possible:

This does not seem very far from the area of Todmorden. I”m not sure if I’m ready to accept these parents for Thomas. I don’t see any of Thomas’ children having the names of John or Ann and it would have been normal practice to name your children after your parents.

In summary, here is where my ancestors lived around 1800 and where Steve’s ancestor’s lived around 1766 as far as we can tell:

John’s Genealogy

John is in the process of having his YDNA tested with the BigY 700 test. Based on that, we may be able to find out more about our Hartley shared genealogy.

This is the tree I have built for John. John tells me he is confident of the tree up to William Hartley who was born in 1745. Ancestry want me to pick William’s parents.

William Hartley Born 1745

I have William Hartley as being from Tadcaster in North Yorkshire:

Here is the hint that Ancestry wants me to take for the father of William Hartley:

Gisburn fits in with my assumption that our earliest Hartley ancestors were from the Colne area:

However, I cannot accept the hint based on a location that I like. One of the best documented trees at Ancestry shows Thomas Hartley marrying Grace Lee in 1741:

Here is Healaugh near Tadcaster:

That same tree has that Thomas Hartley was born in Healaugh (but without reference) and has this Thomas Hartley will from October 1766:

I’m not seeing right now that Thomas was necessarily born in Gisburn. I wonder who arrived at that conclusion and why?

Michael’s Genealogy

Of the four Hartley families I am looking at, Michael has the oldest genealogy. Michael’s ancestor Edward or Samuel Edward Hartley emigrated at an early date to Pennsylvania. One account from the Geni website has this:

Edward and his brother Henry emigrated to Pennsylvania sometime between 1693 when Edward married in Yorkshire, or perhaps after the birth of a first child in England, and 1700 when he purchased land in Solebury. John M. Freund wrote that Edward was “said to have come to Solebury from Maryland” but neither of us have any documentation for this. Edward was apparently not a Friend at the time, although two of his sons later joined, and his mother was a Vipont, a family that became well-known in British Quaker circles. One source claims, without any primary source justification, that Edward was a Friends’ minister.

Roger Hartley from Trawden or Marsden?

The connection from Roger Hartley to Edward Hartley is based on history more than records. Although Edward Hartley did not appear to be active in the Quaker movement in Pennsylvania, he does appear to be one of the early Quakers in this record:

Geoge Fox who began the Quaker faith had a vision on Pendle Hill in 1652, so this was only 11 years after Fox’s vision. This record is from the Monthly Meeting of Marsden:

Here Roger at the time of his death was said to be of the Forest of Trawden. That is interesting as the Quaker Meeting was at Marsden. If Roger was from Marsden, I think that would have been recorded at the time of his death. From what I understand, Marsden is not included within Trawden. Trawden may just refer to the area of Trawden or it may include Winewall and Wycoller, but I don’t believe that it includes Marsden.

I found three trees for Roger Hartley at Ancestry. They all show a birth date of 1628. I am not sure why that Roger was chosen as there are many other Roger Hartleys in the area at the time:

I also don’t know where Chamber is.

Summary of the Genealogy and Geography

Obviously, in order to have a common ancestor of the Hartley Line, the genealogies have to come together in one person and in one place. We have:

  1. From Michael’s Line – Roger Hartley 1628-1715 – Marsden or Trawden
  2. from John’s Line William Hartley born 1745 – Healaugh near Tadcaster, Yorkshire
  3. from Steve’s Line  – Thomas Hartley born 1774 – Todmorden
  4. from my line – Robert Hartley born 1806 – Hollin Hall, Trawden

This shows that Michael has by far the best Hartley genealogy as he goes back to over 100 years before and of the other Hartley genealogies.

Next I gave Roger Hartley a score of 4 as his is the oldest genealogy and Robert a score of one. I added these two together as they are pretty much from the same area. I gave William Hartley a 3 and Thomas Hartley a 2:

Obviously Trawden/Marsden gets the highest score. John’s genealogy (of the BigY testers) is the outlier at this point.

Back to the YDNA

Here is another way to show the Block Tree:

I wasn’t consistent in my chart above. For it to be consistent, I should have had Robert Hartley 1803 in the first box. However, it is accurate as Robert Hartley may not have had this SNP. It may have formed after his time. Earlier in the Blog, I mentioned 4 different possible outcomes for John’s BigY testing. Option 4 would be the easiest to represent. In that scenario, John’s ancestor would be another equal branch coming down from A11132. I would be a little surprised if that happened. That would mean that there could be four 500 year old branches of Hartleys with no common ancestors more recent than 500 years ago.

The question is, what is the date of the line between all the testers and A11132 based on the BigY testing? I’m thinking of a rough number of about 500 years ago:

It seems like I come up with a different number each time I do this. The outlier is Michael’s test. I believe that Michael has no Private Variants.  I feel like his BigY 500 test may not have covered some of the SNPs or variants that the other BigY 700 tests covered. Assuming 500 years is correct, it would be unusual for Michael to have no Private Variants in that time. For BigY500 testers, 144 years has been used for the formation of a Private Variant or SNP. That means that Michael should have had 3 or 4 Private Variants during that time.

I just looked at the BigY 700 testers. Jim and I had 7 SNPs. I believe Steve had 5 Private Variants. That averages to 6 Private Variants or SNPs. A number of 83 years per BigY 700 SNP has been used. 83 X 6 = 498 or about 500 years. The YDNA is suggesting that the three lines shown in my simplified view have not had a common ancestor in less or more than 500 years or since the year 1500. While that seems like a long time ago, the interesting thing is, if that number holds up, is how many Hartley Lines have remained intact for that period of time and longer. Interesting.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I took a skeptical look at the genealogy of three current branches of A11132 Hartley BigY testers. I am not an expert on these lines, but I did the best I could with the time that I had.
  • The oldest genealogy is for Michael who I believe took the BigY 500 test. His ancestors were early Quakers who emmigrated to Pennsylvania around the year 1700 or before.
  • The date for the common ancestor of the three Hartley families by genealogy cannot any more recent than 1628. The place of that Hartley ancestor was likely in Trawden. Many genealogies have Roger Hartley from Marsden. I found one record showing that he was in the “Forest of Trawden” at the time of his death. These two places are close but different.
  • The date for the common ancestor by YDNA could go back to 1500
  • John is a new BigY tester who is awaiting his BigY 700 results. These results will further clarify relationships between the three existing Harltey BigY branches. In addition, they will put John’s genealogy into context of those three Hartley branches
  • John’s genealogy could use further clarification. One suggestion is that his genealogy goes back to Gisburn which would be closer to Trawden, Lancashire where my genealogy and Michael’s genealogy starts. However, another suggestion is that one generation back from where John has researched could be in the same area which is Healaugh to the North of Tadcaster, Yorkshire.
  • I estimated that there could be about 10,000 A11132 Hartleys in the World today.
  • I will be eagerly awaiting John’s BigY 700 results.

 

 

 

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My AutoSegment Report

There is a new report on Gedmatch called AutoSegment. From my understanding it clumps together triangulated matches into clusters. If I were creating this report, I might have called it AutoTriangulator or something similar. I figured it was worthwhile putting down $10 to get one month’s worth of Tier 1 Subscription at Gedmatch

Running My AutoSegment Report

I ran it and was not sure if I was supposed to get an email back with the results. The first time I didn’t get any results, so I ran the report again and got results on the same page where I ran the report. I was asked to download files, so I did. My downloaded file looked like this:

I opened up the file and got this:

 

The first html file is the one to open:

That gave me 26 clusters of triangulated matches. I am quite sure that the purple cluster is my Chromosome 20 matches. That chromsosome is out of control for some reason. I have written about this before in 2016.

Chromosome 20

There is a more detailed report below:

The purple Cluster is # 24. This Cluster involves three chromosomes. Chromosome 20 has a part to play in four clusters. That makes sense as Chromosome 20 has a paternal component and maternal component.

Identifying My Triangulated Clusters

I recognize the first two matches in Cluster 1. They are two of my Hartley second cousins: Beth and Mike. That relationship goes back to my Hartley/Snell great grandparents. It looks possible that those connections could carry down through Cluster 11.

The other matches are:

  • Charles – He shows up twice and tested at 23andMe
  • Lori and Phyllis – These two are at Ancestry and are administered by the same person.
  • Edith – Administered by the same person who administers Lori and Phyllis but Edith tested at FTDNA.

Lori has the best tree at Ancestry, but I don’t see any obvious connctions. It is possible that building out her tree would give some clues as to the connection.

Pat in Cluster 4

Pat is related to me in two ways. One is as a second cousin in my Hartley/Snell side. The other is Bradford/Hathaway as 4th cousins:

So from Pat’s point of view, she is related to me as a 2nd cousin on her mother’s side and 4th cousin on her father’s side.

A Cluster Spreadsheet

Here I put some of the information into a spreadsheet:

The matches are 2nd cousins except for Jim. These matches go back to Hartley. This family was from England. Or they go back to Snell who were Colonial Massachusetts. Cluster 5 is interesting as at least one match (Matt) is recently from England.

An Out of Place Cluster 8

Cluster 8 is between my paternal clusters but I believe that it is a maternal cluster:

Joshua is the first person in the light green Cluster 8. He matches with Mike in Cluster 1 and his sister Tracy in Cluster 6. Here is where I have Joshua on my mother’s side:

That fact that Joshua matches Mike and Tracy was a bit misleading. The other person in Cluster 8 is Brittany. It is possible that if I built out her tree, I would get back to Nicholson or Lentz.

Lee in Cluster 11

I would like to connect to Lee in Cluster 11:

Lee has Hartley ancestors from the same part of England where my Hartleys are from. That does not necessarily mean that the connection is through those Hartleys, but may be through another set of ancestors. This appears to be the end of the Hartley Clusters for now:

Martin in Cluster 12

Martin is on my mother’s side. His ancestry is from Latvia, so that goes to my mother’s father who was also from Latvia. The connection is on Martin’s paternal side, but his genealogy stops with his father who was born in Latvia.

Cluster 17 – Rathfelder

Cluster 17 is easy as I can identify all Rathfelder relatives there:

Martin was in the green cluster above. I find it interesting that this group contains triangulation in the X Chromosome:

Clusters 18 an 19 – Nicholson

The light green and light blue clusters above are both Nicholson Clusters. I am not sure why they are separated:

Without getting into the specifics, my guess is as follows. Matches and triangulated matches go back to one of the two common ancestors. That means that for each segment where I match any of these people, the DNA we share is actually either from William Nicholson or Martha Ellis. Let’s say that my match with Carolyn favors the Nicholson side. That would mean that the other matches might favor the Ellis side. That would also mean that one cluster is a Nicholson Cluster and the other one an Ellis Cluster.

More on Cluster 19

Cluster 19 has Carolyn, Joan and Iain. Iain has contacted me and I told him the general direction of where the DNA was leading (to Nicholson in Sheffield). The other match tested at FTDNA and appears to be Joan. Joan has a tree at FTDNA. However, it is very basic. I can build this out to see if there is a connection. Joan’s roots are in Alabama mostly:

I make my trees at Ancestry, and here is how Joan’s tree is shaping up:

According to the 1910 Census, Tilden’s father was from North Carolina:

My attempt to make a connection by building out Joan’s tree failed:

This is not unusual. If the connection with Joan is at the fourt cousin level, then the connection would be out one level beyond what I have above. If it is at the 5th cousin or perhaps 4th once removed, it would be out two levels from what I show. The other problem is that the female line identifications become more scarce the further out you go.

Steve in Cluster 22

The next person I recognize is Steve:

Steve (or Stephen in my chart above) is important, because his primary connection with me is on the Clarke Line. I’m a bit stuck on this line beyond John Clarke. Unfortunately, Steve connects on my McMaster side also further back. Steve is a fifth cousin on that line. When I hover over Cluster 22, I see this:

It looks like Susan is the next largest match to Steve.

Finishing the Clusters with Known Names

I mentioned Cluster 24 as the large cluster. Cluster 25 is on my Frazer side also:

Susan, Doreen and Ken are in the orange square and G is Gladys in the yellow area. Our common ancestors are James Frazer and Violet Frazer. Gary is from an area near the Frazers and Shelly has not shared her ancestry to my knowledge. This is what I have so far:

I have 7 clusters on the paternal side and three on the maternal side. I have Lee who seems to be on my paternal side.

Checking by Phased Results

I have some phased kits that a genetic genealogist Martin made for me, so I can tell by the matches at least what grandparent side these clusters should be in.

Joshua’s Confusing Match on Cluster 8

My phased Hartley grandfather kit shows to match Joshua. However, the genealogy shows that he matches my mother’s mother’s side. Here is some more detailed AutoSegment information for Joshua in Cluster 8:

This indicates that the two triangulate with each other and me. Next, I’ll check my paternally and maternally phased kits. These were generated at Gedmatch based on my mother’s DNA test. Joshua matches me there on my maternal kit. When I recheck, it appears that Joshua does indeed match on my mother’s mother’s phased kit. So I don’t know what I was seeing before. I keep these mistakes and corrections in my Blogs to remind myself how easy it is to get off track with all the information out there.

Here is a continuation of my spreadsheet:

Here I have also color coded the grandparents. Haretly and Snell are blue, Frazer/Clarke is green. Lentz/Nicholson is orange and Rathfelder/Gangnus is yellow.

Clusters 14-16: Frazer Side

Cluster 14 seems to favor the McMaster side:

The first blue line in each case is Marshall and the second is Craig.

The key is with Keith. My common ancestor with him is with James and Fanny Mcmaster. My common ancestor with Susan and Katherine are Frazer/McMaster. However, their overlap with Keith seems to mean that the connection is on the McMaster side. Marshall and Craig have a match overlapping with Katherine but starting at 15M, a little later than Katherine’s which starts at 7M.

Margaret is in Cluster 16. She has some ancestors near Enniskillen:

This location comes up a lot. This may be on my Clarke side or from an unidentified Frazer wife’s family. She also has a Henderson and MacGregor in her tree:

Henerson was a second wife of Clarke (though not known to be related to me). McGregor comes up as a possible ancestor on my ThruLines at Ancestry:

From what I can tell, the MacGregor name comes from a George MacGregor Frazer who is in some people’s Ancestry Trees:

Filling in the Rest of My Spreadsheet

Here I have under the GP column, blue for Hartley, green for Frazer, yellow for Rathfelder and orange for Lentz. It looks like I only have four clusters to go.

Cluster 20

Cluster 20 is on Chromosome 4. Another way to check on these clusters is by DNAPainter or Visual Phasing.

The match seems to go through a maternal crossover, so my guess is that this match is on my paternal Frazer side. The last of the trhee matches in Cluster 20 is Gabrielle. She tested at Ancestry. At Ancestry, her match is reduced to 18 cM. She shows no shared DNA matches, probably due to the low match level.

From DNAPainter, these Cluster 20 matches are probably from my Clarke side:

This is a side with a brick wall.

Cluster 21

Cluster 21 is from Chromosome 22.

That area between the two arrows is not well mapped on my Chromosome 22. Orange Cluster 21 is medium sized:

Although the are of Chromosome 22 is not well identified, I can identify that the connection is through my Frazer grandmother.

Cluster 23

This Cluster has two triangulated matches at the beginning of Chormosome 18:

The matches are with Patricia and Carl.

I’m leaning toward Patricia and Carl being in the Clarke/Spratt section of my DNA. I have Patricia on my paternal side so that means I must be right.

Cluster 26

That leaves one last cluster.

The first three matches are from Ann and her close relatives. From my spreadsheet of matches, Ann is on my Lentz side:

That match is around the red arrows and would be more specifically on my Nicholson/Ellis side.

The Completed Key

Based on Visual Phasing, my match spreadsheet and DNAPainter, I was able to identify all my clusters at least back to one grandparent.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Out of the 26 clusters, 6 were maternal clusters.
  • Of the remaining 20 clusters, they were split fairly evenly between Hartley and Frazer
  • It seems like I could have differentiated my Hartley clusters more.
  • Every tool seems to give some new understanding to my DNA matches
  • It would be interesting to look at other of my 5 siblings’ AutoSegments to see how they differ from mine
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An Updated Look at Hartley and Related Theories

In this Blog, I would like to update my Hartley Theories and beyond. I have about 10 DNA results that I have uploaded to MyHeritage. MyHeritage has Theories based on DNA matches that also have possible genealogical matches. Here is a chart I made and updated last August:

I highlighted 2 because of similar names that showed up. I also made a dstinction between paternal and maternal theories. I see that I did not include my cousin Paul’s results. This may be better sorted by common ancestors:

Looking for New Theories

Next, I need to add to the list. For me, that appears to be Jane. Jane shows a possible connection with Clarke and Bachelour:

The problem with this connection is that I have that the father of Thomase Clarke was John Clarke. That makes two matches that I have that show this apparently wrong common ancestors.

Heidi and Wolf

I previously had Wolf on my Biedermann tree and not my Gangnus tree:

This is more in line with Wolf’s tree:

The question is, which is the right Theory: MyHeritage’s or mine? I tend to want to go with my own analysis. I wrote a Blog on Wolf here.

Sharon’s Theories

My sister Sharon has the most Theories so far:

Go Sharon. I didn’t see any new Theories for Sharon.

Brother Jon’s Theories

Here is a new one:

Although the Theory seems wrong, I should double check MyHeritage’s reasoning. Also this could be a case of where there is smoke, there is fire.

I need to check the genealogy for Leonie, Jane and Susan. If they all truly go back to the same ancestors, then either:

  • Their genealogy is right and mine is wrong
  • Mine is right and theirs is wrong
  • We have a different common ancestor but near the place where it seems like our common ancestors are showing in this Theory

I think I’ll wait to analyze this later.

Lori and Jim’s Theories

I either missed Lori or had her mis-labeled as Jon. I deleted the extra Jon, so now I need to add in Lori’s Theories.

This Theory looks new for Jim. It is his last:

Ashley is from New Zealand and adds to the Clarke mystery.

Checking the DNA on Jim’s Clarke Match

Jim has 2 small DNA matches with Ashley:

These are Chromosomes 9 and 18. If these are truly Clarke or related DNA matches, then these DNA matches should be in areas mapped for Jim under his Frazer grandparent side. Here is Jim’s Chromosome 9:

Jim’s match with Ashley on Chromosome 9 is between 80 and 85M. I put an arrow where that would be. Jim’s map shows that he should have Hartley DNA in that area – assuming the match is on Jim’s paternal side.  That means that this match cannot be a Clarke match.

That match is consistent with Chromosome 18 where Jim has his paternal side mapped as all Hartley shown in orange:

Jim and Leonie

While I have Jim’s visual phasing maps out, I’ll look at his match with Leonie:

Jim shows a lot of Frazer in blue on his Chromosome 1:

On Chromosome 7, the formatting is off, but Leonie’s DNA maps to Jim’s Frazer side:

Checking Jon and Lori against Leonie

I checked Jon and he had no Theory with Leonie. That means that I had to redo Jon’s list. He has the fewest Theories of any of my siblings at 6 now:

Lori matches on the Frazer side on Chromosome 7:

Lori doesn’t match on Chromosome 1 even though that portion of her Chromosome maps to Frazer.

At this point, I’ll move on to people other than my siblings. Between my siblings, the average number of Theories we have is 12 if I have it right.

 

My Mom’s Theories

Right now, I have that my mom has 11 Theories based on my spreadsheet. When I check MyHeritage, she has 10. The issue is with matches with mulitple theories:

Wolf and Patrick have multiple Theories. It is possible that others do also. Here my mom’s theories are all on her father’s side. There are two with Lentz, but they seem off. There is another issue in that 5 Theories that my Mom does not have that at least one of her children do have. This seems a bit off. Also, it seems like my mom is the only one who seems to have the theory that I verified with Biedermann and Lautenschlager. I am not sure why her children didn’t include this theory, but they did include the Gangnus Biedermann connection that I have not been able to substantiate.

My Father’s First Cousins: Joyce and Jim

These two should help to push back further on my Hartley side. These two have many theories, but I will only look at the ones on their Hartley side. When I check Joyce, I see that I had three mentioned on my spreadsheet, but two of these I no longer see as theories. When I reviewed Jim’s results, he still had the one Theory on his Hartley side. Here is the chart so far:

Summary and Conclusions

  • MyHeritage’s Theories are worth looking at
  • The Theories seem to be in four categories:
    1. Those are obvious,
    2. those that are close to be being right, but the actual common ancestors are nearby,
    3. those that I can’t prove are right are wrong
    4. those that are obviously wrong
  • I think that some Theories have disappeared
  • I’ll keep looking at MyHeritage’s Theorys. Ancestry’s ThruLines seem better but Ancestry doesn’t show DNA segment information
  • Using other tools to test the Theories is a good idea. I used visual phasing in this Blog to show one Theory could not be right based on the DNA.
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Looking at Some New Theories of Relativity for My Wife’s Ellis Side

I had heard not too long ago that MyHeritage had developed some new Theories of Relativity. These are DNA matches where MyHeritage thinks there is a likelihood that the genealogies also match up. I thought that I would write a Blog while this ‘new’ designation was still new, but it took me a bit longer than expected to write this Blog.

My Wife’s Aunt Elaine

I’ll start with Aunt Elaine.

The New part doesn’t jump out, but it is there.

The Theory has Elaine and Isabel as 1/2 third cousins. I’ll check my Ancestry Tree to see if this makes sense. It doesn’t:

I have Abraham’s father as John Rayner. I had this tree in an earlier Blog on my mother-in-law Joan:

Unfortunately, I missed one of Isabel’s ancestors where the red arrow is. Elaine is Joan’s sister. I assume that makes Elaine and Isabel full fourth cousins. I suppose there could be another connection or connections. Here is a corrected tree:

Adding Isobel to DNAPainter

Here is the new Rayner/Watson DNA added to Elaine’s tree

Here is the same graphic for Elaine’s sister Joan who had fewer matches with Isabel:

This match gets Joan up to 41% painted overall from 40% previously.

Elaine and Mervyn

MyHeritage has this for Theory 1:

I can’t figure out how MyHeritage got this connection. Their Theory 2 and three match what Ancetry has:

The next connection is to Dicks also, but a generation further back from MyHeritage’s Theory 1:

 

I’ll assume that Mervyn’s connection is on the Upshall side. I’ve already added Mervyn to Joan’s DNAPainter Map. I’ll add Mervyn to Elaine’s map:

Mervyn doesn’t overlap with Barbara, but doesn’t conflict with other more recent Upshall matches.

Elaine and Leslie on the Reinhold Line

Next, I need to verify this connection. I see that Leslie appears on Elaine’s ThruLines at Ancestry:

I’ll assume that Leslie’s genealogy is right.

This match gets Elaine up to 28% painted overall from 27%.

Mapping Leslie to Joan’s Map

This gets Joan up another percent to 42% painted overall. Leslie adds some important DNA to Elaine and Joan’s maternal side:

A Reinhold Tree

I’m surprised that I haven’t built a Reinhold DNA/Genealogy Tree. I’ll do that now. In order to do it right, I’ll try building out Leslie’s tree. Here is a birth record for Leslie’s grandfather Leslie:

I got this far with a fast tree, and it seems OK:

Other Ancestry trees has Lydia’s husband as Frederick John Rhynold born 1792. Here is my Rhynold Tree:

I will expect more additions over time.

Back to the Upshall Family with Betty

I would like to check this Theory. There are a few ways to do this. The best way is to build a tree for Betty back to  the commn ancestors. Or I could build my tree down to Betty. Or I could check Ancestry ThruLines. I’ll start with the ThruLines as they are easiest:

Elaine has 4 matches with descendants of Alexander Upshall, so that is a good sign. Here is a late addition for Theodore from 1951:

It turns out I already had Theodore in my family tree.

Betty adds some Upshall/Dicks DNA to Elaine’s Chromosome 6 and confirms some matches on Chromosome 11.

Adding Betty’s DNA to Joan’s DNA Map

Betty’s match is similar in that it adds some DNA to Chromosome 6 and confirms other Upshall/Dicks DNA matches.

Joanne on Elaine’s Paternal Side

This relationship is supported by Thrulines at Ancestry:

Adding Joanne to DNAPainter

This added a new ancestral couple for Elaine and segments on Chromosomes 1, 4, and 12.

The next logical step is to add Joanne to Joan’s DNAPainter profile:

Joanne’s match gets Joan up another percent to 43% painted overall. This is what 43% looks like for Joan:

Edna on the Dicks Line

It took me a while to figure this one out:

Edna also has a Theory 2 with Christopher Dicks who was the father of this Christopher Dicks:

I haven’t been keeping up with my Dicks DNA Project and had Edna already but as per Theory 2:

Here I’ve added in Edna again:

Finally, I’ll add Edna to Joan’s DNAPainter profile. I turns out I had mapped Edna to the elder Christopher. She would be better mapped to the younger Christopher DIcks. I think I can fix that in this screen:

I searched for Edna on Elaine’s match list but could not find her.

Time to Start a Newcombe Tree

However, Alicia and JP are at Ancestry and I see this for JP at Ancestry:

For some reasons, MyHeritage did not pick up these other connections. I’ll go ahead and map Alicia as Newcombe:

Alicia’s results are very similar to Joanne’s. When I look at the shared matches at MyHeritage, I see that Joanne is Alicia’s mother.  That makes sense based on the results. Of course, that means that JP is Joanne.

Elaine and Diann

Diann has a Theory with Elaine on the headachey Dicks side:

 

This looks good on the surface, but I don’t have Susan so far on my DNA tree and I don’t see a Susan on the Ancestry ThruLines:

Diann would add new DNA to Elaine’s map, so this would be an interesting connection to track down in the future.

Jacqueline Shows a MacArthur Theory with Elaine

Are these charts faded-looking because they are Theories? My shortcut check for Jacqueline’s tree is by using Ancestry’s ThruLines. ThrulLines shows that Elaine has 155 DNA matches on the MacArthur Line, but 51 of those are on the marion MacArthur Line. Elaine has 20 matches on the Ellen Line.

I see that Jacqueline is actually on the ThruLines:

The ThruLines don’t prove the connection, but strongly suggest it to be right. Next, I’ll compare the DNA with other MacArthur matches:

MG is Jacqueline’s mother. Robert is also a theory with Elaine, but he is MG’s son, so would add no new DNA.

Elaine and Josh Have Three Theories

I am leaning toward this one:

The Harriet Rayner Line is well-represented by ThruLines:

I’ll add Josh to Elaine’s DNAPainter Profile:

It looks like there is a possible crossover between Josh and Josheph. That could mean a few things. One possibility is that Elaine’s match with Josh is on the Simmons side. That would be one explaination of why one match ends where the other starts.

Josh and Joan

These two match on Chromosome 4:

I had already added Josh to Joan’s profile, but I had the match from the older Hopgood/Yeo. I’ll erase this match and keep the one I just added.

David and Joan

While I’m on Joan, I’ll look at this Theory:

The good thing about this Theory is that there are not other proposed theories. Ancestry’s ThruLines gets down to David’s grandmother Evelyn:

I would say that is evidence enough for my purposes of mapping David to Joan’s profile:

It appears that I have already mapped David. When I check more on the earlier David, I see this:

I don’t know why David would have had more matches earlier and why they were mapped to MacArthur.

I tried to see if Elaine had a Theory with David, but I didn’t see one.

Joan and Margaret’s Theory on the Ellis Side

Ancestry’s ThruLines get down to John England:

Margaret adds to the confusion on Chromosome 2:

I could not find this match for Elaine.

Elaine and Ron on the Rainer Side

I have found this Theory to be wrong before.  Ron is the son of Isabel who I have mapped already, so I’ll skip Ron.

Elaine and Randy

He is also at Ancestry:

I have already mapped his father, so I don’t need to map Randy. I should be getting to the end of the new Theories. The smaller match Theories are often not as important as the bigger DNA matches.

Elaine and Rachel

Here is an interesting Threory:

A fifth cousin is pretty distant. I looked to see if there were any Ancestry ThruLines and there were not, so I will put this Theory on hold.  So that covers it for ‘new’ Theories for Elaine. There were others that I didn’t discuss as the genealogy didn’t look right. There is perhaps another connection than the one suggested.

Joan and Wendy

These next Theories should apply to Joan only as I am done with her sister Elaine:

This relationship appers to be supported by ThruLines:

In fact, Alicia is mentioned above in this Blog. Wendy looks to be a 2nd cousin once removed to Alicia. I already have Wendy in Joan’s DNA map:

I’ll need to sort out Joan’s Paternal Chromosome 2 at some point as it is quite a mess:

Summary and Conclusions

  • By now, the ‘;new’ designation is going away, so I was right in trying to look at these before that happened.
  • I assume that Ancestry has the largest DNA database. Because of that it is worthwhile to get a second opinion from Ancestry’s ThruLines, to see if these Theories make sense.
  • I was able to add to Joan and Elaine’s maps as to where they got their DNA from
  • There was some conflicting information such as in the paternal Chromosome 2 above. This is due to intermarriage, or incorrect genealogies or both.
  • The first Theories were the best. The Theories at the bottom of the less were less reliable and/or less helpful
  • MyHeritage has a good combination of genealogical trees and DNA matches with detailed DNA information (unlike Ancestry). This makes them ideal for use with the DNAPainter Program
  • Joan is now at 43% painted overall and Elaine is at 30%