Category: DNA General

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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This chart is quite out of date.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

 

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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.

 

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Irish Petty Sessions for Some Frazers and McMasters: Part 2

In my previous Blog, I looked at the Irish Petty sessions for my ancestor James Frazer and some of his relatives. This was helpful in sorting out some of these relatives as to where they lived during a time whcih has few or no Census records.

Alexander Frazer of Carrowncully

Here is the defendant, withnesses and charge:

I believe that this is this Alexander Frazer:

Doctor J Frazer 1899

This doctor had the same charge against him that my 3rd great-grandfather had:

This has me a bit stumped, but is most likely:

I suppose that Riversdale could have been mistaken for Riverstown. The 1901 Census is not much help as it shows Edward King living in County Meath at the time:

Richard Frazer of Derrycashel

This is of interest to me as my ancestors lived in Derrychashel:

I had my relatives show me the old Derrycashel Frazer House when I visited Ballindoon in 2004:

It looks like a few things were happening. Nixon Johnston of Kilmactranny trespasses on Richard Frazer’s land and refuses to leave. I don’t know which happened first but in an apparently related incident, Richard Frazer assaults Archibald H Johnston of Cloughmine (County Sligo).

Here is my guess for Richard Frazer:

This is probably Archibald Johnston in Griffith’s Valuation:

Richard’s father Archibald appears to have lived in Derrycashel at the time of Griffith’s Valuation, but died in 1863:

That means that Richard, the son of Archiabald was living in Derrycashel in 1881. Here is where these people likely lived:

Here are two Frazer/Johnston marriages:

Mary had a son named Archibald Johnston. I’m sure that my 3rd great-grandfather James Frazer knew about what was going on between the Frazers and the Johnstons, but I don’t. Also this Archibald H Johnston was from Cloughmine and not Derrycashel. Here is Cloughmine – next door to Kilmactranny in County Sligo in the heart of McMaster territory:

In 1877, Richard Frazer owed Boyle shopkeeper Michael McDonald:

Richard was looking for wages due in 1890:

Mary Frazer Derryvanny

 

This is one of those famous assault cases:

Both sides had the same witnesses. Mary was a spinster. This fact is very important as I assume Frazer is her maiden name. Here she is in Griffith’s Valuation:

John Peyton Frazer had some property there also. Here is a guess as to who Mary is from the James Line:

If I have identified Mary correctly, this would be her in County Sligo with her unmarried sisters in 1901:

Here her age would have been understated.

The McMaster Family

This family had their epicenter in the Parish of Kilmactranny in County Sligo. This was not very far from where the Frazers of North County Roscommon lived. My ancestor George William Frazer moved to Ballindoon, County Sligo from Derrycashel, County Roscommon. This must have been around the time that he married Margaret McMaster. They married at the Kilmactranny Church in 1866. My great-grandfather was born the next year in 1867 in Ballindoon. I have had some trouble in connecting the different branches of the McMaster Family.

This chart, which I made for DNA matches, starts to get at some of the complexities:

I believe I have the correct tree here. However, William McMaster at the top married a Frazer. My second great-grandmother Margaret McMaster married a Frazer. Her parents were both McMasters. I’ll start by searching for McMasters where the Court was in Roscommon.

Arthur McMaster of Dromore

Here is a map for reference:

Apparently Arthur was assualted in Deerpark by Thomas McManus:

Thomas also assaulted James Boyd of Carrigeenboy the same night. Here is my best guess for Arthur:

Just to make life compicated for genealogists, he married Catherine McMaster.

Hugh McMaster Derintunny, Kilbryan, Roscommon

Here is another early case from 1853. This must be Dereentunny in the heart of Frazer Country:

Here is Hugh and family:

Apparently Hugh had a maid named Margaret Kelly who took off:

So far, this is the earliest case I have found:

My Ancestor James McMaster

Here is what I have for James:

From what I understand, my 2nd great-grandmother was from Cuilnaghleragh. This was also known as Clarkwood. Here is Griffin’s Valuation for Cuilnaghleragh:

There is a James McMaster senior and junior. They both had a house in Cuilnaghlerah. Abraham looks like he had a house there also if I am reading the above corretly. I descend from the senior, I believe.

The first court case has no image:

In 1865, James didn’t want gravel on the public road:

I’m sure my ancestor had his reasons. In 1866, James was in trouble for his wandering pigs:

So pigs like mud, right? Perhaps that is why James didn’t want gravel on the road.

In 1859, James was a witness:

It looks like James was a witness for George Thompson. Apparently Thomas Boyd was putting a fend on George Thompson’s land.

Martha McMaster Cloghmine 1876

The complainant appears to be Thomas Conners:

I don’t have many guesses for this Martha, but here is one:

If I have this right, then Martha was a Rockaby and her second wedding had two witnesses named Archibald McMaster.

Here is a McMaster from Cloghmine:

Martha could have been the wife of William McMaster. I don’t see a Conners listed in Cloghmine on Griffith’s Valuation.

The Widow McMaster – Probably Anne Jane McMaster

I wonder if the Widow McMaster also in an 1876 case was Anne J(ane) McMaster:

I see that Ann J McMaster was a witness. Was she the widow McMaster? I mentioned Anne Jane McMaster in my previous blog. She was also a widow as of 1874 and was living in Aughrefinegan, Roscommon in 1886. However, in 1883, she was listed as living in Clarkewood aka Cuilnaghleragh:

Anne Jane is linked to Clarkewood and Aughrafinegan here in case there is any doubt.

William McMaster 1876 Cloghmine

When I filter by McMaster on my spreadsheet, I get this:

If William was Martha’s wife and she was a widow in the 1876, then William would have had to have died in 1876.

William McMaster 1857

I think that this is the same William McMaster in 1857:

Based on this entry, I would assume that William had land in Cloghmine but was living in Ballinlig:

 

Ballinlig is to the West of Highwood and Kilkere. So, I don’t know what it means that William lived in Ballinig but had land in Cloghmine. Was the family originally from Ballinig or Cloghmine? I see no McMasters in Ballinlig in the Griffith’s Valuation:

Hubert McMaster of Clarkewood

This name was transcribed as Herbert, but I see Hubert:

Apparently George Thompson and Hubert McMaster were not happy with John Boyd. I have this for Hubert:

It appears that in the 1901 Census, he was called Hugh:

In 1918 Hubert had an unlicensed dog:

Archibald McMaster

Archibald had fence problems in 1872:

I assume that Archibald (or Archable) lived in Kilkere. This 1876 case has Archibald in Kilkare:

According to Wiliam Johnston, Arhcibald’s man and animals tresspassed on his land, pulled down his fence and took turf. I see that Archibald filed even more charges against William Johnston at the same time.

Robert McMaster Dromore 1882

I see I mentioned an Arthur McMaster from Dromore above. Dromore was to the North of Highwood. This Robert is designated as Senior, so there must have been more than one Robert McMaster. This may be Robert McMaster Senior born in 1803:

McMaster Summary

One of the earliest cases involved Dereentunny which is in Roscommon. Here are the names on a map:

The map stops near the Roscommon border to the South, so the red arrow shows where Hugh and Anne were. Anne Jane was in Aughrafinegan, Roscommon.

Frazer and Roscommon Summary

Here is how that looks on a map:

 

From above, Hugh McMaster was in Derreentunny to the West of Derrycashel and Anne Jane (Frazer) McMaster in Augrefinegan. This shows how closely these early Frazers lived to each other. The three with the arrows go off the map. Archibald Frazer moved from Shanvoley aka Oldbrook to Drimatybonniff. Recall, this information is just from the Petty Sessions. I’m sure there were more Frazers not mentioned in these sessions.

Summary and Conclusions

  • The Irish Petty Sessions give some interesting background on the day to day lives of my ancestors and their relatives from the 1850’s to the time of the 1900 Irish Census.
  • It appears that livestock getting into your grains was an important issue as it could result in loss of revenue or even hunger.
  • My main purpose in looking at these Petty Sessions was to see where these people were living at the time. As there was no Census at this time, it puts these people in a particular place.
  • If these people were living in the same place as others of the same name, it could imply that they were from the same family. There were many people with the same names and similar sounding place names. The court cases tried to distinguish these people to make it clear who they were by saying where exactly they lived.
  • I summarized these cases in a spreadsheet and put these people on a map. The map shows the epicenter of where the McMasters lived in Kilmactryanny, County Sligo and where the Frazers lived in North County Roscommon.

 

 

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More on Mayflower White YDNA

In my previous Blog on Mayflower White YDNA, I was surprised to find out that my friend’s YDNA test supported his direct descent from William White of the Mayflower. My friend always believed that he was descended from William White, but most recent genealogical scholarship seemed to put that into doubt due to an illegitimacy in his White line in early Plymouth Colony hisory. In this Blog I would like to see if I could find out any more about my friend’s Mayflower YDNA. He took the 37 STR test which is what I recommended. I had recommended that as it would have been enough to show that he didn’t match other Mayflower Whites. As it turned out, his test showed that he matched almost all Whites and one White who had a proven ancestry back to William White of the Mayflower.

Predicting the Mayflower White YDNA Haplogroup

The easiest way to predict the Mayflower White YDNA Haplogroup would be to join the R1b – All Subclades FTDNA YDNA Project and have them figure it out. I joined my friend to this group, but it is a large group, so difficult to figure out on my own where he would belong based on his limited test. My friend is R-M269 which is one of the most popular Haplogroups for Northwestern Europeans – sometimes referred to as Northern Atlantic Europeans. I joined my friend to the R1b – All Subclades Group, but it could be a while before his is put in a more specific Haplogroup. Here is the tip of the iceburg view for R1b:

M269 is near the top of this tree in the pink or red area. My own Hartley YDNA is somewhere on the bottom left in the green area under L21. I am also under L513 which has its own group and two page tree. When I say this is a large group, there are over 26,000 members. That means that to download the results takes a long time. The results go out to 111 STRs, so that means about 3 million bits of information.

One cut is whether my friend is L21 or U106, or actually P312 or U106. According to ISOGG:

Here is what my friend has for DYS390:

That looks like R-P312 so far.

Hmm, split decision.

CDYa is 37, so that favors U106. The difference between P312 and U106 is that P312 is believed to be an older YDNA from Great Britain and U102 would be from the Anglo Saxons who were originally from Germany. The name England comes from Anglo. While Britain refects the earlier P312 people. Here is a map showing where the Britons and Saxons were around the year 600:

Here is some more information:

Of the three markers, it appears that DYS390 is the most important and that would more likely put my White friend in R-P312.

YSEQ Predictor

I tried this predictor:

I downloaded the White YDN37 STRs and put them here and got these results:

This seems to be getting somewhere. My Mayflower White desendant friend is pretty sure to be R1b-DF49. The YSEQ site also has this map:

The good news is that there are fewer than 1,000 members in the DF49 FTDNA Haplogroup Project:

I was able to find DF49 on the ‘iceburg’ tree above. Here is a closeup of the L21 section of that tree:

My Hartley YDNA is under L513 in the bottom left. That is a pretty big group which has two pages of trees now. My White friend appears to be under DF49 which is under Z3+589. If this is right, that puts White under the older British people (vs the newer Anglo Saxons).

Dating Mayflower STRs

Dating these STRs is not a precise science. In the YSEQ map above DF49 is shown at 2500 BC. in the green tree above, its predecessor L21 is shown at 2300 BC, but that is in the ball park. The point is that the M269 which is what my Mayflower friend and his proven match show are actually DF49. That brings them from about 4500 BC to around 2500 BC:

That’s an improvement of about 2,000 years.

Here is some further branching for DF49:

Mayflower White is DF49 > M222?

Based on the YSEQ Haplogroup Predictor, Mayflower White is DF49. I found this at mayflowerdna.org:

From this aricle, a different predictor was used (the Nevgen.org R1b clade predictor). This Predictor came up with the M222 which is five SNPs under DF49. I don’t necessarily agree with the stated view above that the White family came from Ireland and Scotland. I don’t think that conclusion is supported by the YDNA testing. That article had this footnote which I could not find:

This article probably refers to the person at the Mayflower YDNA FTDNA Project who is listed as a proven Mayflower descendant.

M222

FTDNA also has an M222 Haplogroup Project:

This group is larger than its parent DF49. I like trees and the one they have at the M222 Project Page:

This brings us into Roman times (100 BC). However, there is some confusion on the dating. This branching is determined by BigY testing which has not been done yet for the Mayflower White families. Not all branches are created equal. There are six branches. The most popular is S658 on the right. This is good news as it brings the Mayflower Whites from 4500 BC to 100 BC, an improvement of about 4500 years. The tree above is also called a tip of the iceburg chart as not all the branches are shown.

M222 and STRs

The “About Us” Page for the FTDNA M222 Project says this:

THE MODAL STR VALUES THAT COLLECTIVELY INDICATE R-M222 STATUS

DYS390 = 25
DYS385b = 13
DYS392 = 14
DYS448 = 18
DYS449 = 30
DYS464 = 15-16-16-17
DYS456 = 17
DYS607 = 16
DYS413 = 21-23
DYS534 = 16
DYS481 = 25
DYS714 = 24

In some to most cases the first three STRs in the list above are adequate to establish possible membership in this group. If you have at least two of those three values and differ by only one at the mismatching marker, you may (though not certainly) a member of the R-M222 Haplogroup. A SNP test for the R-M222 marker could establish firmly.  If you are uncertain about whether you belong to Haplogroup R-M222, please contact a project administrator for advice.

My friend Gary has:

  • DYS390 = 24
  • DYS385b = 13
  • DYS392 = 15

This is interesting because Gary has only one out of three of the STRs that are supposed to define M222. Further:

  • DYS448 = 18
  • DYS449 = 30
  • DYS464 = 16-16-16-17
    DYS456 = 17
    DYS607 = 15

I bolded the values where Gary matches what would be expected of someone with M222. The additional STRs must be in the 67 STR test.

I added this kit to the M222 FTDNA Project:

The administroators think that my friend is M222 but would like him to take the BigY test to be sure and place him in the appropriate subgroup.

The White Family FTDNA YDNA Project

I added Gary to this group:

Gary is on the bottom line. He has no colored results which means he has no variations from the mode. This was discussed also in my previous Blog. The other confirmed Mayflower descendant has not joined the White Family FTDNA Project, so his results do not show there. Here is the caption for this small group of Whites:

It appears that these two other White testers with roots in Vermont may also go back to William White of the Mayflower.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Based on the YSEQ Haplogroup Predictor, my Mayflower White descendant is in the Haplogroup of DF49
  • This group is about 4500 years old and represents the older Britannic inhabitants of the present-day United Kingdom
  • I found one web site which linked the William White Line to M222 which is the largest group under DF49.
  • Based on my friend’s close STR match with a proven William White Mayflower descendant, that proven descendant must also be M222.
  • If these two were to do additional YDNA testing – especially the BigY 700 test, they would likely get their YDNA Haplogroup into the genealogical timeframe.
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Cousin Rusty and Our MtDNA Match

I had written a draft of this post in February 2021, but had not posted it. I want to post this now as an update. Here is a link to my previous post on mitochondrial DNA (also posted after a hiatus).

I recently had a nice email from my first cousin Rusty. He told me he tested for MtDNA which is mitochondrial DNA. This is the type of DNA that goes from mother to mother to mother. As we are maternal cousins, we have a perfect match. Our common ancestor is our mother’s mother who was Emma Rathfelder born in 1900. Here is Emma holding her youngest:

Looking at the photo, Rusty’s mom is on the left of Emma and my mom is on Emma’s right. My Uncle Bobby in my grandmotheHere r’s arms was born in April 1933, so the picture must be in the Summer of 1933. My mom was born in December 1921, so she would be 11 years old here. Rusty’s mom, my Aunt Muriel was born in September 1924, so she would be close to 9 years old.

The MtDNA – Haplogroup H5’36

Here are all my MtDNA matches at a genetic distance of zero:

Rusty is the first person with whom I have a MtDNA match and I know our common ancestor. Looking at the last name of my matches are not much help, because with the maternal-only line, the surname generally changes every generation. Even looking at the Earliest Known Ancestors can be misleading. I’ll look at some of thse matches earliest maternal line only ancestors.

Rusty and Me

We go back to the Shefield, England area on our maternal side. I have my first known female line ancestor as Ann Scott:

Ann’s mother Ann Roebuck was born in 1795, so we’ll say Ann Scott was born around 1770. That is fairly early. Russ has Sarah Staniforth which cannot be right as she has two male Nicholsons in her line between her and us. Men are not allowed in the MtDNA line. They are only allowed at the end of the line where Rusty and I are.

Other Matches: Gallagher 1833

I can’t figure out this tree, so I’ll try to recreate it at Ancestry. I actually started one previously:

In doing these matches, I am intersted in where these maternal ancestors lived, because I am trying to match ancestors and places those ancestors lived. Margaret Campbell lived in Ireland. It appears from a preliminary review that this maternal line came from County Tyrone in Ireland.

McLaughlin

My fourth match has Helen McLaughlin with no date. When I build out this tree, there is also a Campbell from County Tyrone. Coincidence?

Bridget McKelvey

This is from my sixth 0 GD match. This family was also from Ireland. My MtDNA match’s tree is missing Bridget:

I think that the box marked ‘Private’ is meant to be my match’s grandmother Bridget, but he may have left out her death date, so the program decided to keep this person private. I see another tree at Ancestry which I will borrow:

This gets us one generation beyond Bridget or Biddy reto Ann/Nancy McGee.

So far, all road lead to Ireland (except for my ancestors). Here is Drumnaha:

Here is Ann or Nancy:

Elizabeth Jennings

My last zero GD MtDNA match has as his most distant female line ancestor Elizabeth Jennings. Unfortunately, he has posted no tree. He does post this information:

I assume that Elizabeth Jennings was his maternal grandmother and that she was from Ireland.

MtDNA Results at FTDNA

Here is one page of my results:

I am supposed to be able to download my results using the FASTA file buttom in orange. However, I’m having trouble doing that. Apparently FTDNA has an issue with this. Someone on Facebook corrected the error that was on the FTDNA site, so I was able to get the FASTA file. I uploaded this to YFull and to something called James Lick’s web page.

This is what I get at the James Lick MtDNA page after uploading:

Dating mtDNA Results

This is a topic that confuses me. I see this graphic at FTDNA:

I can make a few assumptions based on this graphic. One is that this applies to perfect matches only.

I can build a very simple tree that has Rust and me and our grandmother:

Even though this is a simple tree, it useful nonetheless. We have two generations to our common ancestor. I was born in 1956, so I’ll round that off to 60 years. The next most recent perfect match was frorm 2019 and this person has the maternal ancestor of Annie Gallagher born 1833 in Tyrone, Ireland.

Here is what I see at YFull:

The only number that matches FTDNA is the 125. I posted a question at the mtDNA Facebook Page, and got this answer from Rosario:

First, in order for you to have any verifiable and substantive genetic matches with mtDNA, one MUST have results from the FMS. Anything short of that is useless from a practical sense as full haplogroups and mutations can only be defind through FMS.

Second, once FMS results are obtained, a match with a genetic distance of 0, will lead you to a possible shared ancestor within 2200 years. Yes, you have read that correctly.
I have matches with a gd of 0 from all over the place and there is no way that we can all connect within a genealogical time frame, it simply isn’t possible. Why the company would choose to mislead us with this chart boggles the mimd.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was glad that my first cousin Rusty tested his mitochondrial DNA as that gives me a match that I know
  • I looked at a few other mitochondrial DNA matches.
  • I noted that generally, mitochondrial DNA matches could be very distant – within 2200 years.
  • My mitochondrial roots (maternal only ancestry) appear to be in the Brithish Isles over the past several thousands of years.

 

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An 1887 Trip from Fall River to the Hartley Farm in Rochester

Abel Burrows was the husband of my great-grandfather’s sister. My great-grandfather was the father of many Hartleys, so many descendants may be interested in this Fall River Newpaper article. James’ sister was Mary Ann Hartley. She married Abel Burrows who owned a Jewelry shop in Fall River. At the time of the visit James’ parents Greenwood and Ann were still alive. James had married Annie Snell two years previous to Abel’s visit in the Summer of 1887. At that time Annie was 21. She had her first son Daniel who was one and was 7 or 8 months pregnant with her second son who did not survive infancy.

Here are Greenwood and Ann Hartley:

Here is James Hartley later in life:

Here is his wife Annie, probably close to how she looked in 1887:

Fall River Daily Herald 12 August 1887

I originally wrote about this article in a Blog about Abel Burrows. The writer of the article was John Slinn, a friend of Abel’s who worked in the insurance business. Abel’s wife is mentioned in passing. I assume that the place where they go fishing is Snow’s Pond. The place they visit is no doubt the Hartley Farm at the beginning of Snipatuit Road near the Mattapoisett River where the Memorial Day Boat Race starts.

Two days prior to the article (10 August 1887), I found this bit of news in the Fall River newpaper:

Here is the main article. August 10 was a Wednesday. The article mentions a Monday – two days previous:

This appears to be the only mention of Mary Ann Hartley Burrows. Mary Ann was 32 in 1877. Here is Mary Ann about 34 years after her trip to Rochester in 1887:

9-1/2 hours from Fall River to the Hartley Farm.

As far as I know John Slinn never published the follow-up article. I think that John may have been influenced by Mark Twain based on his writing style.

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Big Y “Backbone Tests”

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

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

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

Butler and S23612

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

 

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

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

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

Speaking of S23897

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

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

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

Frazer Backbone Tests

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

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

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

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

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

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

BigY700 on the James Line

The same thing apparently happened for the BigY700 tester.

Here is the James Line BigY700 order history:

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

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

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

Archibald Line Results and Frazier BigY results

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

 

 

 

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Whetstone YDNA

I am the project administrator for the Whitson Project. The overview is that there are many branches of Whitsons who are unrelated to each other by YDNA – or so distantaly related in the range of 10’s of thousands of years to be considered unrelated. My wife’s Butler family is more closely related to one of these branches (or that Whitson branch is related to my wife’s Butlers). The Whetstones did not have their own surname project, so they asked if they could join the Whitson project even though they are not related.

Some Whetstone Genealogy

This is some genealogy that I received as a response to a Blog I wrote on an update on the Whitson project:

Hello. Just wanted to say that you have my4th. great Grandfathers
Y DNA. Absolem Whetstone. Kit # NI 26222. My BIOLOGICAL GRANDFATHER is Uthil Maynard Whetstone. B.1914-D. 2000 I was adopted by Grandfather and Grandmother. Next is his father William David Whetstone B.1893-D.1954.
Next his father William Wesley Whetstone B.1886-D.1934 Next is his Father Samuel Marion Whetstone B.1830-D. 1905. Next is Absolem. Next his father was Adam Whetstone Jr. B.1776-D.1815. Next his Father is Adam Gutler Whetstone Sr. B.1744-D.1782. Killed in the last battle at Eutaw Springs, SOUTH CAROLINA USA

Our Whetstone family located to land in Charleston
SOUTH CAROLINA,USA. in 1737 moved up the Edisto river to join Our Salley family that made the trip from Bern Switzerland two years earlier in 1735. Spelling is Felix Wetzsein B. 1633-D.1710 TO Change to Rev.(JOHN) D. Hans Johannes Wettstein B.1695-D.1754 next we have the start of spelling Adam Gutler Whetstone B.1744-D.1782

The short story is that the family had its roots in Switzerland as Wetzsein and moved to South Carolina. I assume that others in the Whetstone project are related to each other. At least they are in the same very general YDNA Haplogroup.

Whetstone YDNA

Currently there are 5 YDNA testers in the Whetstone YDNA Project:

R-M269 is a very general YDNA Haplogroup in the family of R1b. One Whetstone has taken the BigY test. BigY tests are better off taken in tandem. That means that if another Whetstone takes the BigY test, then that will create a Whetstone YDNA Branch on the tree of mankind. With one BigY test, the results show what other families Whetstone is related to and should give some background as to where those other families were from.

Whetstone BigY Test

The BigY is the best YDNA test available, so I’ll just start with that. The Whetstone with the ancesor Absalom Whetstone has taken the BigY and the result was R-BY56768. One way to get an idea of where this is on the YDNA tree of mankind is to look at the Whetstone BigY tester’s Block Tree. It will take two images to show this:

On the top of this Block Tree, we see how Whetstone descends from R-M269. Of the Haplogroups under M269, there are two major intersections or decision points (or subgroupings). These are P312 and U152. They can be seen at this Tip of the Iceburg Tree from the R1b All Subclades Project Overview:

I added a few arrows to show where Whetstone is. Here is an closeup of the same tree focusing in on U152:

U152 shows up in SE Germany in 2,500 BC. Next, let’s search this map to find the Whetstone path. L2 is another major branch point near the middle of the tree. BY31138 is the third Haplogroup down under L2. That is as far as the Tip of the Iceburg can take us.

Whetstone and U152

Eupedia has an L2 tree:

Unfortunately, I don’t see BY31138 on it.

Whetstone and BY31138

It is possible to build a tree from the FTDNA Haplotree. Here is the Whetstone BigY tester’s Haplotree:

The good news is that there is only one branch under BY31138. I need to go down further to get the whole tree:

Here is a start in Excel:

Whetstone is under L135. Here are two more levels:

Whetstone is still on the left. Here is where we are on the Whetstone BigY Block Tree:

That means that there are only three more levels to get to BY56768. Here is what I get:

The Rest of the Whetstone Block Tree:

The Whetstone tester is on the left. This shows no matches but two countries. There are actually matches, but FTDNA doesn’t show them due to the distance of the matches. One country must be for our tester as he had the United States as the country of origin of his most distant ancestor. Whetstone matches another family, but that match is up at BY56768 which is about 30 SNPs away. If we assume that a SNP forms every 100 years, then this could be about 3,000 years ago or 1,000 BC.

More BigY Testing Needed

If another Whetstone tested, then another branch would form in much more recent time – at the time of the common ancestor of the two Whetstones.

Whitson in the U152 and Subclades Project

I know that the Whetstone BigY tester is in the U152 Project. Are there others?

Here there are four Whetstone/Wetzstein/Wettstein surnames. The first tester with the oldest Wetzstein ancestor is not in the Whitson Project. Then there are two Whetstones in the Whitson Project that are not listed in the U152 Project. However, the first tester in the U152 Group only had 12 STRs tested.

Here are some others under BY31138:

The first group is generally under BY3508 but need further testing. The second group is BY111101. I left this out of my tree:

The common ancestor between Whetstone and B111101 is BY3508 which would be at least 2,000 BC, so we won’t worry about these people. It would be better to look at the closest matches to the Whetstones. They would be under FT292871:

Above, the closest match at the U152 Project is Schaal. I don’t know where this person was from  in the 1500’s- probably Germany or Switzerland. This match is in the right general area, but the common ancestor is still pretty ancient – perhaps around 1,000 BC. The bottom line is that there needs to be another Whetstone BigY tester.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I looked at some of the YDNA results for the Whetstone surname
  • The most important result is from the Whetstone who took the BigY
  • This BigY tester defines the Whetstone Hapalogroup and by implication the rest of the Whetstone family as R-BY56768 for now
  • This BigY defined where the Whetstone family is in general terms on the YDNA Haplotree
  • Right now the closest match to the Whetstone BigY tester is likely not a Whetstone and their common ancestor could be about 1,500 years ago.
  • To get a Whetstone YDNA haplogroup in the genealogical timeframe, it will be necessary to get an additional BigY test.
  • A good place to look for candidates for further BigY testing would be among the Whetstones who have already taken a YDNA STR test

 

 

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Taking a Different View of My Hartley Haplogroups: FTDNA’s Colored Dots

FTDNA has two major ways to view your Haplogroup. The most common is the Block Tree. The other is through one’s badge. Here is the Hartley badge:

This Haplogroup of R-FT225247 was obtained when I tested my brother’s YDNA using the BigY 700 test. This distinguished our branch from other Hartleys who were A11132. Here is the Block tree from the viewpoint of my test:

By getting my brother tested, that gave me someone closely related to match my Private Variants. Once they are matched, those Private Variants went up on the tree into our old branch. The other Hartleys are to the right of our Branch in A11132 where I previously was. The problem is that FT225247 is still an old Haplogroup. I’m guessing that it could go back about 450 years to 1570.

FTDNA’s Y-DNA-Haplotree

When I click on the badge above, I get this:

Actually, I get more, but this is enough.  Under R-FT225247, it shows the other SNPs that make up the group.  There are a total of 7. To the left of each SNP is a dot. Here is the key:

I don’t find the yellow dot accurate. It is only used when that is the SNP used for the tree. Actually, for every SNP on my tree, I should not have a grey dot. For example, I am part of A11132. BY16417 is part of that group. I should be presumed positive for that SNP, not presumed negative. The same should be true for BY4026 and BY4028 which make up Z16357.

For the SNP below me, I should have Tested Negative for those, but as the results must not have been clear, I was Presumed Positive. The advantage of the Y-DNA Haplotree is that it gives more information on the quality of the SNPs tested.

Looking At My Brother’s Y-DNA Haplotree

Here my brother had better results than me at Z16357. He at least test positive for that SNP.

SNP Testing Quality

Above, I was presumed positive for Z16357. This is how the test results for that SNP show up for me:

The results look good to me. There are twelve good reads of a mutation and one good read that shows no mutation.

Next, I’ll see my brother’s test:

My brother had 12 good reads, but no read showing no mutation, so FTDNA must have a formula that deals with that.

A11130

My brother’s Haplotree appears to say that his A11130 test was presumed negative. However, the actual test, shows that he is definitely tested positive:

That makes me wonder about my test results:

My results are even better. The lesson is: don’t trust the little dots by your SNPs. Better to check the test results.

Negative Results

The negative results are important as are the positive ones. Here is my Haplotree:

The places where I have arrows are the gray SNP boxes which I should be negative for. I should have red dots for these SNPs and their equivalents. Here is the key again:

I don’t have any red dots which is suspicioius. I’ll check my A7 which is a higher level SNP. The 232 next to it must mean that there are 232 testers in that Haplogroup. Clearly I have tested negative for A7:

Clearly I am negative for A7. Perhaps FTDNA only shows negative if I take the single SNP test?

Summary and Conclusions

  • I looked at the Haplotree view for my BigY test and my brother’s BigY test
  • The Tested Positive green dots seem accurate.
  • The Presumed Positive is accurate but on in the case where that SNP is the defining SNP for the Block of SNPs. In my case, that was for SNP Z16357
  • The Presumed Negative is also inaccurate. The actual test results need to be checked. If you are positive for a block of SNPs, then you should be positive or Presumed Positive for all the SNPs in that Block.
  • The blue dot would be helpful in showing downstream SNPs. However, as I had my brother and myself tested, there are no downstream SNPs.
  • It seems like the red dot for Tested Negative should appear much more often unless it is reserved for the Single SNP test at FTDNA.
  • My conclusion is that the color coded dots for the SNPs do not work well
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A Different Look at the I2 Butler/Whitson BigY Results

In my previous Blog, I set out to look at the finalized results of my brother-in-law’s BigY test. While doing that, I saw that a Whitson in the I2 section of the Whitson/Butler Project had also taken a BigY Test. That test apparently helped to place a lot of my brother-in-law’s previous Private Variants onto the YDNA Tree. Here is a summary of the overall Whitson Project:

The part that I am looking at in this Blog is the green area. This is on the YDNA tree in the general area of I2. Those who have taken the BigY test are in green. My brother-in-law is the next to the last tester on the list and my father-in-law is the last. Batt, Butler tester with James Butler as ancestor and my father-in-law Richard, had the older BigY500 tests. The new Whitson tester who doesn’t show an ancestor and my brother-in-law had the new BigY 700 tests.

The BigY Block Tree for Whitson/Butler at I2

Here is the Block Tree:

The Butlers are under I-Y128364. Batt has Whitson ancestry. that means that I-BY115420 is the Whitson side. Above this is a large Block of SNPs from position 7 to position 45 (not shown) collectively named for one of the SNPs in the Block: I-Y128591. The Block tree is from my brother-in-law Ken’s perspective, so he is not shown but is in the left column under I-FT241245. Because the older tests of BigY 500 did not cover a lot of the SNPs, the two new testers (one Butler and one Whitson) have greatly helped to improve the tree. However, I think that the tree could be better. I will likely discuss that later in the Blog.

The Different Look

Here is the different look from FTDNA. I’ll start with Ken. This just focuses on the individual, where the Block tree represents 5 testers. Here are the headings for the tree:

The detail will be in the five categories of tested SNPs.

There is no need to go too far up this tree. As I mentioned above, I-Y128591 has 39 SNPs in it. This could represent about 3900 years. I-Y128364 represents the Butler with the James Butler ancestor. I-BY115420 is the Whitson group. Ken only has two colors of the dots representing ‘tested positive’ or ‘presumed negative’. I would think that he should have some yellow dots for ‘presumed positive’. For example, Ken should be presumed positive for BY48499 under A427, then he should be presumed positive for FGC70597, etc.

Here are Ken’s results for BY48499:

This shows four out of five runs came up with a mutation at this location.

My Father-In-Law’s Version of the Tree

This view is pretty much the same except that, as he had the older BigY 500 test, he has more gray dots (which I believe should be yellow dots).

Tester with James Butler Ancestor

These results introduce a few more colored dots. FT241245 has a blue dot for downstream. He also has a red dot for S23897. That confirms that he tested negative for this SNP and was not just presumed negative. Again, I believe that all the gray dots above the highlighted row should be yellow dots.

New Whitson Tester

Here I highlighted a SNP with a red shopping basket. It is noted that this SNP is part of a SNP Pack.

Batt

I would expect to see more gray dots for Batt’s BigY 500 test:

Back to Private Variants

I spend a lot of time on Private Variants as they are on the cutting edge of the BigY tests. If these are really private variants, then they should describe a future branch of the tree. If they are not, then they should be describing an upstream branch of the YDNA tree.

Ken and His Dad

Due to the closeness of the relationship, Ken’s dad should not have any SNPs that Ken does not have. Richard has no Private Variants, but he also took a less comprehensive test. As these SNPs form about every 100 years on average, it would be rare also for Ken to have Private Variants. Yet he has three:

I have Ken’s Private Variants (PVs) in yellow above. These positions were not tested for in his father, but if they were, he would most likely test positive for them. The next to test is Eng Butler or the Butler with James as his ancestor. I have that he has a ? by his results for 17140468:

Batt has the same ambiguous results and Whitson has a definite no. That means that we don’t know if Ken’s ‘Private Variants’ should show up under FT241245 or Y128364:

Ken’s PVs probably would not show up under Y128591 as Whitson tested negative for these PVs.

James Butler Ancestor Private Variants

The tester with James Butler as an ancestor has these Private Variants:

If we can trust these are truly Private Variants, then we can say that they define the James Butler Line down to the present day tester.

Here, Ken tested negative for these two positions. So the two Private Variants for the James Butler ancestor are valid. There may be other positions that were not tested for under the BigY 500 test that could be private variants also.

Whitson Private Variants

These are from the newest tester in the group:

Whitson has three Private Variants. I’ll check Whitson’s closest match who is Batt. Batt is actually negative for 12984909:

The other two positions are unclear:

That means that it is possible that the second two positions could actually be SNPs for Batt and Whitson under BY115420.

Batt Private Variants

Batt has two PVs:

My guess is that these two should be valid. Again, I’ll check Batt’s closest match who is Whitson:

Whitson does not have the first position.

Whitson has a clear ‘no’ for 19550845 also. This means that Batt has two unambiguous Private Variants.

Common Ancestor Dating

This is easier to see in the Block Tree view:

 

The places where the common ancestors are dated are in the ewhite space btween the SNPs. The common ancestor between Butler and Whitson is in the white space where the second arrow is. The common ancestor between the two Butler families is in the white space where the first arrow is.

Common Butler Ancestor

In order to get to the date for the Butler ancestor we need to assume a number of years per SNPs or Private Variant. I will use 100 as a round figure. I know that Ken has three private variants, so I will say that he shares 1.5 private variants with his father. That is assuming that FTDNA is right with the analysis. It is also possible that Ken actually shares his Private Variant with the other Butler Branch. That would put those SNPs in a Block under Y128364.

I’ll add those 1.5 private variants to the the two SNPs under FT241245 to get 3.5 SNPs. Then I’ll average those with the other Butler’s two Private Variants to get 2.75. Based on the assumption of 100 years per SNP, that would results in a common ancestor for the two Butler Lines of 275 years ago or the year 1745. That sounds pretty recent.

Common Butler/Whitson Ancestor

There are many more SNPs on the Whitson side compared to the Butler side. This means that it is possible that the Whitson SNPs came about more often than the Butler SNPs. However, the end point has to be the same for the common ancestor for these two groups. that is where the second red arrow is above. Average 2.75 with 6 to get 4.375 or 438 years. That puts the common ancestor for Butler and Whitson at the year 1582. If I come back down on the Butler side and add 100 years for Y128364, I get 1682 compared to the 1745 I previously had.

I used the 1682 date above because it was based on averaging more SNPs. For the second Butler Line, that means that a SNP was formed about once every 130 years assuming that tester was born around 1940. Also, that tester may actually find more Private Variants if the test was upgraded to BigY 700. If we use the present date, then there would be a SNP every 170 years.

On the Whitson side, there were 6 SNPs in about 440 years to present. That is a new SNP every 73 years.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I took a look at 5 BigY tests from the point of view of their individual Y-DNA Haplotrees. This look gives some extra imformation on the testing results for testers’ individual SNPs.
  • I took another stab at estimating dates to common ancestors based on the way that FTDNA has the SNPs and Private Variants for the five Butler/Whitson BigY testers. These results were very similar to what I came up with in a previous Blog.