Category: DNA General

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A 23andMe DNA Match with Frazer Relative: Kat

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

Here is what 23andMe says:

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

Here is how I show Kat on our Frazer tree:

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

Painting Kat’s DNA Match

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

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

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

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

Adding Kat to the Mix

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Emily’s McMaster DNA

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

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

My Chromosome 1 Match with Kat

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

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

Chromosome 7

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

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

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

Chromosome 10 – More Frazer DNA

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

Here is Michael:

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

Chromosome 12

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

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

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

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

Here is Kat’s summary from DNA Painter:

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

 

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My Mom’s Lentz Family and Roberta Estes’ Lentz Family

Roberta Estes has blogged about her Lentz family. I have also blogged about my Lentz family. Roberta and I have checked to see if there was an autosomal DNA match between our two families, but we were unable to find any significant match. Recently, in checking my 23andMe results, it seems like there may be a way to see if we are related by YDNA.

My Mom’s Lentz Family YDNA

I have tested my DNA at 23andMe and have a few Lentz matches there. One good thing about 23andMe is that when you take an autosomal test, they also give you a rough estimate of your YDNA haplogroup. I have has two Lentz matches at 23andMe who are brothers. They both have this Haplogroup:

I’ve sent off messages to the two brothers. I don’t know exactly how we are related, but based on the size of the autosomal DNA match and where they live, my guess is that our common ancestors must be Jacob George Lentz and Annie Nicholson:

I don’t have record of William Lentz born 1892 as having any sons. William did have a brother named Stanley who had sons, so that may be where the two matches fit in. At any rate, their YDNA would go up through the Lentz side.

What is R-Y4355?

I would expect that 23andMe has an accurate haplogroup though not recent. Here is what YFull has on Y4355:

Above the tree, YFull gives the YDNA Line for this branch of Lentz back to Genetic Adam (listed as Home). This shows that Y4355 is about 4200 years old, so fairly old. I recognize R-U152 in that line as a major branch.

Roberta Estes’ Lentz YDNA

Here is what Roberta has in one of her Blogs:

Roberta has invested in the Big Y test for her Lentz relatives, so this is likely to be extremely accurate and fairly recent. YFull does not have BY39280, but has some information on KMS75:

Actually KMS75 is listed as +1SNPs above. The equivalent at YFull is Y20993 which was formed 4800 years ago. So this particular SNP is not that recent. BY39280 would be more recent but perhaps not by much.

The Short Answer

I would say that based on the 23andMe Haplogroup and the work that Roberta has done, these two families are not related. The common ancestor is R-L23 which was formed 6400 years before present. I’ll draw a tree for the two Lentz families:

I would have thought that Roberta’s Lentz Line would be longer, but it must be an older branch or a branch with less branching in it. So from the top of the tree to the bottom is about 2,000 years, but we still have about 4,000 years to get to the useful genealogical time.

Here is an R1b Tree:

I have an arrow pointing to where my Mom’s Lentz family and Roberta’s Lentz family split. The split goes to Western Altantic for my Mom’s Lentz family and Eastern for Roberta’s Lentz family. Interesting. U152 is a major branch. U152 begins below the ‘ic’ of Atlantic. Checking the YDNA was pretty easy. That concludes the YDNA part of the Blog. Next I’ll add my Lentz autosomal DNA to DNAPainter

Adding Lentz DNA to DNAPainter

I can add the autosomal DNA to DNA Painter for the two Lentz matches I have at 23andMe. Here is one match added to my Lentz/Nicholson common ancestors:

Jereme adds important DNA that I didn’t know about before. I didn’t have any DNA from these two common ancestors previously on Chromosomes 2, 3, 4 and 15. I have less of a match with Jereme’s brother Will:

I’ll paint in Will also even though he doesn’t add new information. Jereme matches me by 95 cM compared to Will’s 72 cM.

Jereme and Will upped my percentage of maternal mapped DNA from 30 to 32%. That is a significant jump at this stage of mapping:

Here is the maternal and paternal side:

I changed Lentz/Nicholson to a sort of pea green because it was the same blue as Clarke on my paternal side. I now have 41% DNA painted overall. I assume that this went up although I didn’t check to see what it was previously.

Summary and Conclusions

  • 23andMe has a useful feature that predicts your YDNA Haplogroup at no extra charge.
  • This feature can be used to see if you are related to male relatives of the same surname. In this case, I was related to two Lentz brothers with a predicted haplogroup. Roberta Estes had Lentz relatives tested for YDNA resulting in a known Haplogroup. I checked on Roberta’s Lentz relative’s YDNA haplogroup and it didn’t match up with my Lentz relative’s Haplogroup. I then found the common Haplogroup for the two Lentz families. The common haplogroup was over 6,000 years old.
  • It would be interesting to see if this could be used in other situations.
  • This Blog was short so I painted the autosomal DNA of my Lentz relatives using DNA Painter.

 

 

 

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Where Did My Pilgrim White Ancestors Live?

I have already looked at some of the places where my Pilgrim Bradford ancestors lived. The last in my line of Bradfords was Hannah T Bradford who lived in Rochester, Massachusetts where I grew up.

My White Ancestors

I only have half as many White ancestors as my Bradford ancestors:

William White

William White had a bit of a sad start in Plymouth Colony. According to the Mayflower Families:

In 1651 Gov Bradford wrote: “mr. White and his two servants died soon after their landing. His wife married with Mr. Winslow. His 2 sons are married and Resolved hath 5 children; Peregrine 2, all living.”

I can only assume that William died in the harsh New England Winter. I descend from Resolved. Peregrine was the one who was born on the Mayflower. William’s wife Susanna married Edward Winslow in May of 1621, not long after William’s death in February. That means that Edward Winslow would have raised Susanna’s young boys.

Edward Winslow (1595-1655)

After Susanna married Edward Winslow, she had a child who died young, then three boys and a girl. Here is the Winslow Property:

I didn’t realize that there was an early burial place by the water. My understanding was that the Pilgrims lived on board the ship when they first arrived. I assume that William never lived in a dwelling in Plymouth. At any rate, Resolved and his brother Peregrine must have lived at the highest location in early Plymouth.

The Bradford property is where the brick building is now on the left. That means that the Winslow property was probably near or to the right of the white building in the current photo above. The white building in the photo above is now the 1749 Courthouse Museum.

Here is Edward Winslow:

Resolved White

Here is some information from Wikipedia:

This gives a good summary of some of the places that Resolved lived including Plymouth, Scituate, Marshfield, Salem and Barbados for a short time. I haven’t found anything easy about where Resolved lived specifically other than in his early Plymouth days.

Here is where his brother Peregrine lived in Marshfield:

Here is the Winslow Cemetery where Resolved may be buried:

I also highlighted the Winslow House. This is actually the Isaac Winslow House built around 1700. So this is where Resolved perhaps ended up.

Resolved also visited Barbados:

I wonder how long it took to sail to Barbados. Resolved was there in 1657 for the sale of 1/5 of a plantation there that was in the Vassal family. Resolved was married to Judith Vassal. This is interesting due to the fact that a plantation probably involved slaves and Resolved observed this. Perhaps he had a chance to remain in Barbados but did not. At the time Resolved visited Barbados, his children were between the age of about 1 and 15.

Here is the Parish of St Michael in Barbados where the Plantation was:

Here is where Resolved lived in Massachusetts:

Resolved must have had some prior connections with Salem as he married his second wife Abigail Lord there in 1674. I would assume that his wife was a Puritan rather than a Pilgrim (who were called Separatists). This brings up the point that the White family may have not been part of the Pilgrims from Leyden but may have joined the Mayflower in London.

Samuel White Born 1646

Samuel is someone I am interested in. From what I understand he was influential in the beginnings of the Town I grew up in which is Rochester, MA. Samuel was born in Scituate. According to the Scituate Historical Society:

William Vassall of Stepney, Middlesex, England, merchant, age 42, was a passenger on the ship Blessing which arrived in New England by July, 1635. A few of the other passengers were Thomas King, age 21, Jo: Stockbridge, age 27, Ann Stockbridge, age 21 and Sara Tynkler, age 15. Vassall was granted 150 acres on Belle House Neck by the Plymouth Colony Court in 1638 and was one of the founders of the second church (South Scituate); he died at Barbados in 1655. The Lothrop records note that he was the first person to join the Scituate church “in our new meeting house, Nov 28, 1636.” Vassall’s daughter Judith Vassall, age 16, was also a passenger on the Blessing. She married Resolved White and was one of the original members of the second church (South Scituate).

Second Church Scituate is in current day Norwell. Here is a map of the Second Church Cemetery in relation to Norwell, Scituate, Marshfield and the North River:

Here is an excerpt from History of Scituate, Massachusetts: From Its First Settlement to 1831:

If this is accurate, then the places mentioned are in proximity to the Stockbridge Mill Dam shown in red below:

Here is an older map from the 1850’s:

The reddish outline is current-day Norwell. The Yellow is Marshfield. My guess is that Resolved lived in this general area. That means of course, that Samuel, his son, also lived with him here at this time.

Samuel White: From Scituate to Sandwich

According to the Mayflower Families Book,

Samuel White was in Sandwich as early as 20 May 1667 when Maj. Josiah Winslow of Marshfield, half brother of Samuel’s father, deeded “for love and good will to my kinsman Samuel White now of Sandwich.”

There must be a transcription of this deed somewhere:

Here is my attempt at figuring out the first part:

Winslow Gov

Winslow Gov

To all Christian [people?] to whom these ? ? shall come Major Josiah Winslow of that Towne? Of Marshfield in the Collonne of New Plymouth in New England ? ? And know yee that the said Major Josiah Winslow out of his ? Good Affection Love and Good Will unto his Kinsman Samuel White Now of the Towne of Sandwich in the Jurisdiction of New Plymouth in New England aforesaid and for? ? good considerations, him hereunto? Moving? Hath given granted conveyed…. Enfeoffed and confirmed; and by these? ? ? doth? Give grant convaye in feoff and confirmed? Unto the said Samuel White and his heirs for ever all that ? and ? of Land by the hounored Court of Plymouth unto him Granted ?  by Rewards? Of the said Cout  ? ? June? the ninth 1664 and June the Seventh 1665 ?; and is ? of those lands; lying upon the Easterly syde of Narrawakett? River in the Township of Middleberry; between the old and New path that goeth from the wading lake? On the said River towards Lakenham; and is commonly called the Wagons ? ; the said land given as aforesaid is four or five acres? of Meaddow lying upon the said River and West adjoining unto the Said upland, so? ? found, not ? Granted to any other ?; and the ? is an hundred and fifty acres? Most on ? bounded by said River all the northerly ?, buy the old path on the Mortherly syde; by the New Path on the Southerly Syhde; and all the easterly side? By a Marsh? ? oak ? Marsh? ? the old path; and against the Land of George Vaughan being? The Nrothward Bounds; and all the ? ? ? ; by a Marshed? Walnutt? ? standing ? unto the New Path and all the ? and the above mentioned Lands, both upland and meddow; ? with the…

Well, at least I tried. I take it the land was near a river, a new path, and old path and George Vaughan’s land. The Mill River would be a wild guess for the River mentioned:

Josiah Winslow, put another way, was Samuel’s half Uncle and a nice guy to give his nephew land in Sandwich. Here is Josiah:

Any family resemblance? Josiah was about 18 years older than Samuel.

I’m not sure why, but it appears that Resolved and Peregrine signed the deed that gave Samuel White the land in Sandwich. Perhaps this was because Samuel was in Sandwich and the deed could have been signed in Plymouth or Marshfield?

I read something like Signed, sealed and delivered in the presence of Resolved White; Peregrine White. I find it fascinating to see a record of these two. One brother took the trip across the Atlantic as a 5 year old boy. The other boy was the first born of the Pilgrims in the New World.

It is not clear when Resolved moved to Marshfield. Resolved sold land in Scituate in 1662 and was elected surveyor of highways in Marshfield in 1668.

So we see that wherever Samuel White came from, he was living in Sandwich as of 1667 when he had just turned 21 years of age. Back to the Mayflower Silver Book:

He was still in Sandwich 8 June 1671 when he and his wife Rebecca deeded land to Benjamin Church, acknowledged 8 June 1677. In 1679 he was listed as one of the proprietors of Rochester.

This shows the importance of land records. There is no record of Samuel’s marriage to Rebecca, but this shows that Samuel likely married between 1662 and 1671. I assume that Samuel sold the land to become a proprietor of Rochester.

Here is an excerpt from the History ol Mattapoisett and Old Rochester:

That means that Samuel White was one of the first inhabitants and first Selectmen of the Town of Rochester.

In 1684, Samuel would have been about 38 years old.

Where Did Samuel White Live in Rochester?

Samuel drew a home lot at Mattapoisett as opposed to Sippican. However, some of those people never occupied their lots and people were allowed to swap or take other land. According to Mattapoisett and Old Rochester:

That may be as close as I get for now:

That turns out to be less than a mile from where I live.

Penelope White 1687-1738

According to the Mayflower Families, Penelope was born in Rochester. She married Peter Crapo in 1704. The Crapo family lived on the West side of Snipatuit Road. This is perhaps the same house that Peter lived in:

Penelope would have been about 17 years old when she married Peter. Tradition says that as a boy Peter was shipwrecked on the coast of Cape Cod in 1680. If that is true he could have been born about 1670 and been about 17 years older than Penelope – say twice her age at 34 when they married.

Here is a map from the 1850’s showing where some of the Crapo’s lived at that time:

Unfortunately, most of the Crapo properties are miss-spelled. After he was shipwrecked Peter or Pierre lived with a Francis Coombs of Middleborough. At the top of the map above there is a Coombs listed. I believe that this location was an inn or tavern. Perhaps Peter’s son, my ancestor, Francis was named for Francis Coombs. I have read that Peter Crapo got together with other land owners to create a connection between the Mattapoisett River and Snipatuit Pond so the alewives (herring) could spawn in Snipatuit pond. That would have been in the area shown as Randall above. I believe that the Randall house was once a Crapo property also.

My ancestor, Greenwood Hartley bought the Philip Crapo house at the bottom right of the map. Philip was the great-grandson of Penelope White.

Summary

  • My last White ancestor Penelope died about 282 years ago. That is a long time. However, she lived in the same Town that I grew up with. That speaks of a great amount of continuity. She probably lived on the West side of Snipatuit Road on the West side of Snipatuit Pond.
  • Penelope’s father Samuel White was one of the founders of Rochester. He moved to Rochester sometime around 1675. 345 years ago!
  • I descend from Governor Bradford on another line. I hadn’t thought as much about my connection to Governor Josiah Winslow. I don’t descend from Josiah, but he was the half brother of my ancestor Resolved White and was generous to his son Samuel White.  Part of the interest in descending from Josiah is that there is a painting of him and could give some indication of what Resolved looked like. Josiah was Governor of the Plymouth Colony during King Philip’s War. I’m sure that made life difficult for Josiah.
  • I perhaps feel less connected with Resolved White. He was born into some amount of privilege and also married into a wealthy family. He sold his holdings in Barbados. Whether this was from moral or personal reasons is not certain. He lived a long a prosperous life. I suppose I hadn’t thought of Resolved living in Salem which adds some interest to life. That, and his trip or trips to Barbados.
  • Unfortunately, little is known about William White. It is even uncertain as to whether he was born in England or Holland. Many trees have him from Holland, but things I have read lately lead me to believe that he may have been born in England.

 

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My Distant Pilgrim Relative Gary

I was surprised to find out while pursuing my genealogy hobby that I was related to my friend Gary. We both descend from William White of the Mayflower. Gary goes all the way with the Whites. My White line drops off at Penelope White who was born in 1687:

Tracing Gary Back to William White

Here is Gary’s dad Donald who passed away in 2015:

A quick search for Donald gave me this tree:

That gets me quickly back to 1873.

However, I’ll make my own tree also.

Donald W White 1930-2015

Donald was born in Acushnet, but lived with his family nearby in New Bedford in 1940:

Donald’s father was listed on the previous page of the Census:

Raymond and family were at 2135 Acushnet Ave:

This is the address of Kentucky Fried Chicken today. Raymond had only completed 3rd grade. His occupation was dairyman.

Raymond White 1906-1978

Apologies to Donald, but I have a long way to get back to William White of the Mayflower. Here is Raymond’s birth record from 1906:

Raymond’s father was Walter and was listed as a farmer.

Here is Raymond’s stone at the Long Plain Cemetery in Acushnet:

Only 300 more years to go.

Walter Augustus White 1873-1956

Augustus was a popular family name. Walter died the year I was born. Walter was also born in Acushnet, but his father who was also a farmer was born in Fairhaven and his mother born in Freetown based on this birth record:

Here is Walter in the 1880 Census with the rest of his family:

Augustus White 1832-1917

Findagrave.com has a lot of information on Augustus:

Augustus White, son of Phineas and Betsey (Walker) White of Livermore Maine was born September 26, 1832, in the house where he has since resided on the Mill Road at the head of White’s Factory Road in this town.

Mr. White comes from Mayflower stock, his ancestor William being one of the passengers of that good ship. The line down is as follows: William White, Resolved White, Samuel White, John, John, William White, William White, Phineas White and Augustus.

The only education Augustus received in his boyhood days was in the district school near his home, but he has been a diligent student all his life and has acquired useful knowledge from much reading and careful observation.

His chief occupation has been the tilling of the farm on which he was born and he now has one of the largest, most productive dairy farms in this country. Assisted by his sons, he makes milk for the New Bedford market, all of which they deliver. Mr. White has served the town 12 years as school committee and been several years surveyor of highways. He was one of the leading men in the erection of the Advent chapel in the Whelden neighborhood, 44 years ago and has been a deacon of the society and superintendent of the Sabbath school during those years. Mr. White has always been a man of industry and push and now at 75 years of age, is remarkably vigorous in body and mind.

He married June 7, 1869, Angeline M. White the daughter of Merchant and Melora A. White.

Now I’m getting somewhere with this excerpt from the History of Acushnet. Gary and I have the common ancestors of Samuel White which I would have suspected. That is where Gary’s family and my family went their separate ways:

My quick version, if I got it right, is that Gary and I are 9th cousins once removed:

Another Look at My Hartley Tree

The first time I didn’t notice Gary in my tree. Now I see that he is there:

Ancestry shows as 9th cousins:

Apparently we are more closely related than I realized through John Jenkins. Who knew?

That means that John Jenkins’ granddaughter Mercy married John White and had Thomas White who had Merchant White. Then there was another Merchant white who had Angeline White who married Augustus White. It gets confusing when White marries White. The interesting thing is the Jenkins family was from Barnstable on Cape Cod originally. Who know? Perhaps Gary and I are related other ways also.

Who Was John Jenkins 1609-1685?

John Jenkins bought land in Plymouth in 1640:

Here is some more I found out about John in the Great Migration Project:

 

Above are Mary Jenkins who I descend from and Thomas Jenkins who Gary descends from.

That’s quite a bit about John Jenkins.

Back to the White Tree

Here is where Mary Jenkins came in on Gary’s line:

Also Augustus White married his third cousin Angeline White.

John White Born About 1689

Here is an interesting item that surprised me about John White the son of John White. According to the Mayflower Families Book:

Son John is apparently an illegitimate child by Martha Doty (See Plymouth Co Ct Recs 1:205). This may explain why he is not named in John’s will even though he was alive and living in Rochester when the will was written.

However, there is a much more complicated lengthy discussion on Rootsweb not all of which I can easily follow:

I think the upshot of the above discussion is that the author believes that Martha Doty had a child John White out of wedlock but that the father was John White.

DNA Testing

Some Mayflower White descendants have been tested, so it may be possible to settle the issue through YDNA testing. YDNA tests the DNA from father to son to son. There is a Mayflower YDNA Project that has three Whites in the group. They have tested markers called STRs:

I didn’t show all the results. The first two testers have tested 67 STRs and the last person tested 37 STRs. One study reported that for the 67 STR test, one STR should change, on average, every 3.5 generations. So that means that for a common ancestor such as William White of the Mayflower, some changes would be expected. So if Gary were to have his YDNA tested and the STR results were consistent with other William White descendants, it should prove that John White of 1689 was the son of John White of 1669. It would be even easier to tell if Gary did not match the haplotype of Mayflower passenger William White.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I ran into a few surprises while looking at Gary’s Mayflower lineage and how he matches with my lineage
  • The first was that Gary and I are more closely related on the Jenkins Line. I looked into some information about John Jenkins who was born about 1609.
  • The second surprise was that there was some question about Gary’s Mayflower lineage on the White Line. That is because Gary’s ancestor Martha Dotey was brought up on charges of fornication. Martha confessed to the charge though apparently no father was named. This brings into question whether her first son John was the son of her later husband John White.
  • This issue could be cleared up if Gary took a YDNA test.

 

 

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Deborah’s Frazer Ancestry and DNA

I first heard from Deborah two years ago. She was interested in finding out if her Frazer heritage matched up with mine and was also interested in the DNA aspects of the genealogy. Deborah had tested at AncestryDNA and I suggested that she upload her DNA to Gedmatch to compare with other Frazer descendants. In March of 2018, I looked at Deborah’s DNA at Gedmatch and only found one Frazer match.

Based on only this one match, I didn’t follow up further. My guess at the time was that, “It may be a match from way back or from some other non-Frazer line also”.

Up To 2020

I recently heard from Deborah again, so I appreciate her keeping in touch. Here is part of Deborah’s recent email:

I have had some links to research via the ancestry thrulines which overlaps again with some of your research . I am not sure how accurate this all is but hope it is of some interest , kind regards Deborah

Deborah Frazer DNA Thru lines from Ancestry.co.uk

William Frazer 2nd Great Grandfather 1812-1887 4 DNA matches

Archibald Frazer 3rd Great Grandfather 1760 3 DNA matches

Anne Stenson 3rd Great Grandmother 1759-1848 4 DNA matches

Archibald Frazer 4th Great Grandfather 1732-1800 4 DNA matches

Private ( Query Mary Lilly 1726-1775) 4th Great Grandmother 4 DNA matches

Samuel Stinson 4th Great Grandfather 1750 – 3DNA matches

Archibald Frazer 5th Great Grandfather 1690-1749 3 DNA Matches

Mary McDowell 5th Great Grandmother 1695-1786 2 DNA Matches

Thomas Lilly 5th Great Grandfather 1695 – 3 DNA matches

Mary Browne 5th Great Grandmother 1683-1731 3 DNA matches

I checked Deborah at Gedmatch, but couldn’t find her there anymore – perhaps due to the new Gedmatch owner and the policy requiring member approval to stay in the system.

Deborah’s Frazer Tree

Here is Deborah’s tree starting with her grandfather David Frazer:

Previously, Deborah had researched up to William Frazer and Letitia Singleton. However, above, Deborah now makes the connection to Archibald Frazer and Anne Stenson. This could be the same that I have in my Frazer DNA group. I sent Deborah a copy of a chart of the Frazer/Stinson Line:

Unfortunately, I’m not an expert on this line as I descend from a different Frazer Line. However, due to intermarriage and common older ancestors, I am related to people on this line. The above chart represents people who descend from Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson and had DNA matches. The tree above does not show William Frazer as a son of Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson. That does not mean that he was not their son, necessarily. The one person who Deborah matched by DNA was Susan in the yellow group on the right. My feeling was that if Deborah was truly in this line she should have matched more than one person from the Frazer/Stinson Line.

Taking a Look at William Frazer of Armagh (1812-1887)

There are a few ways I could do this. One is to build out my own tree for Deborah on her Frazer side. The other would be to look at other Frazer trees. I’ll build out my own tree to see if I get the same results.

Deborah has this 1901 Census referenced on her tree:

This has David Frazer as a printer, married with three children. One interesting thing is that David was from the Church of Ireland. My Roscommon Frazer ancestors also belonged to the Church of Ireland.

Checking Other Sources for William Frazer

Building my own tree for Deborah was taking too long, so I decided to try other sources. I did a search for trees with Ann Stinson and Archibald Frazer. The first tree that comes up references my own web site:

My web site has a William born about 1804. The tree I looked up links this William to the 1834 Tithe Applotment in Derrycastle in the Parish of Ardcarn in Roscommon:

This William was  associated with an Anne (perhaps Anne Stinson Frazer – his mother?).

Deborah’s ThruLines

Deborah kindly gave me access to her DNA results so I could see her ThruLines. ThruLines is a utility that Ancestry has to connect DNA matches with common ancestors in family trees.

ThruLines to William Frazer and Letitia Singleton

For some reason, Deborah’s ThruLines focus on William Frazer:

Because of that, the ThruLines incorrectly show Deborah’s matches as half cousins where I believe they should be full cousins. All these DNA matches tend to confirm that Deborah is on the right track up to William Frazer and Letitia Singleton.

Deborah’s ThruLines to Archibald Frazer and Anne Stenson

This is the part I am more interested in:

Deborah has three DNA matches to Archibald and four DNA matches to Anne. However, there are no new DNA matches at this level, so there is no new information here:

The same is true for the next level up. If Deborah was from the Frazer/Stinson Line, I would have expected other DNA matches to other descendants of the other children of Archibald Frazer and Anne Stinson such as I have on my Chart above.

Any Conclusions?

At this point, I would go with my original thinking that William Frazer born 1812 was not the son of Archibald Frazer and Anne Stinson. If he was, I would have expected more matches with other lines from other children of Archibald Frazer and Anne Stinson. Also, I have no evidence that Archibald Frazer and Anne Frazer moved to Armagh and had a son there. It is possible, but also possible that did not happen. Here is how I picture the shared DNA matching:

There is a circle of shared matches with the Roscommon Frazer Group and a separate circle of shared DNA matches with the Armagh Frazer group. Linda matches Deborah and thus the two cirlcels with a borderline low match. This may be a false match or a match indicating an ancient Frazer or non-Frazer match.

A Sure Way To Test Frazer’s By YDNA

There is one way to show for sure if the two Frazer families are related. L.F. could take a YDNA test.

L.F. shows as a direct male descendent of William Frazer. The Frazer Line from Roscommon is well documented by YDNA as being far down on a branch of R1a type YDNA. If L.F. was to take a YDNA test, it would show if he was from the more common Frazer YDNA type of R1b or the rarer Roscommon County Frazer YDNA type of R1a.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Deborah has Frazer ancestry that goes back to County Armagh in Ireland
  • ThruLines indicated that Deborah had a connection to my Frazer ancestry in County Roscommon, Ireland
  • ThruLines show a good DNA connection with others to their common ancestors of William Frazer of Armagh and his wife Letitia Singleton.
  • Further back than that on the proposed Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson Line, no new DNA matches were added by ThruLines.
  • It appears that the shared matches for the Frazer/Stinson Line are separate from the shared DNA matches of the Frazer/Singleton Line. That means that the two lines do not appear to be related. Even though this seems like a negative result, this is a positive result as far as directing genealogical research.
  • A sure way to test if the two Frazer Lines are related would be to test LF who is a direct male descendant of William Frazer. That would tell if he was related to the County Roscommon Line of Frazers – even if that connection went back to Scotland.

 

 

 

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A New R1b-L513 YDNA Tree for Hartley

Well, the tree isn’t just for Hartley. This is a new tree that my branch of Hartley happens to be in.

The Old L513 Tree

Here is a Tree from 2016:

Hartley was about in the middle where I put an arrow. That Tree is pretty old. Here is a newer Tree from 2018:

Between 2016 and 2018, my Hartley branch moved down two levels from Z17911 to A11138 to A11132:

Updated 2020 L513 Tree

I was surprised that when I found my Hartley Line on the 2020 L513 Tree that I wasn’t in the middle anymore:

That is because the L513 Tree has been split in two. This makes sense due to more people taking the Big Y test. There were a few more changes. One is that the country of origin is no longer shown. Instead, there is a timeline on the left. The larger part of the tree is in green which is starting about 1,000 AD. Right below that is the genealogical Timeframe. To me, the most important part is the part where the SNP represents a particular Surname.

Here is Part 2 of the L513 Chart – the part that Hartley is not on:

SNP Tracker

There is a web site called SNP Tracker which tries to trace the history of your SNP through time:

Summary

  • A New L513 Tree Chart shows Hartley in a different format than previously
  • This new Chart splits the previous L513 Tree into two parts
  • The old Chart’s country of origins is replaced by a timeline
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Shared Clustering for My Father’s First Cousin Joyce

Shared Clustering is a program that was brought to my attention by Jim Bartlett. As Joyce is my father’s first cousin, I share common ancestors with two out of four of her grandparents:

However, once I go down this route, I need to know something about Joyce’s Gurney and Rounseville sides to make sure I’m not going down the wrong path.

Jumping Into Joyce’s Shared Clustering

I had thought that I had downloaded Joyce’s matches from Ancestry already, but I guess it didn’t save the results. I’ll need to try again:

Joyce has quite a few matches – over 84,000. This could take a while to download. The advantage of using Joyce’s matches is that she is one generation closer than me to get matches from my great-grandparents. Stated another way, her Hartley and Snell matches should be about twice as strong as mine.

Now that Joyce’s matches are downloaded, I can begin to cluster. I’ll choose a lower limit of 50 cM:

 

I’ll put the results in a chart:

The good news is that all four of Joyce’s grandparents are represented in the chart above. There were six clusters. There were two more on the Gurney side that I didn’t enter.

Joyce’s 40 cM Clusters

Going from 50 to 40 cM adds two clusters:

The split is pretty even between Gurney in the upper left and Hartley in the lower right. Joyce’s Hartley mother was one of 13 children, so she has a lot of close relatives.

When I compare the clusters at two levels in MS Access, I get this:

Hartley was Clusters 5 and 6 previously. This shows that old Cluster 5 mapped to Cluster 6 and Cluster 6 mapped to new Clusters 6 and 7. That shows that the clusters are reorganizing.

Victoria in Cluster 6 with Howorth Ancestry

One person in Cluster 6 has Howorth ancestry. It would be worth looking into Victoria’s tree:

This is Victoria’s paternal side. I’ll try to recreate Victoria’s tree.  I want to focus on Margaret Howorth. According to the 1910 Census, James’ mother was Margaret and Margaret’s father was from England:

The 1910 Census has her born in Iowa in about 1878. Here is some information about Margaret from her marriage record:

Edmund Howorth from England

In 1880, Edmund was living on a Farm in Iowa with his family:

This appears to be Edmund living with his parents in Ohio in 1850:

The next record which is a hint at Ancestry seems to be a leap of faith except that one of my ancestors attended this same Baptist Church:

The record makes it clear that Edmund’s mother’s maiden name was also Howorth:

That means that Joyce could be related on either side of the family or both.

Edmund the father was a weaver in 1823. I’m not sure where Long Bridge is or was. I assume in Bacup. This also matches Edmund’s birth on the 1900 Census:

By 1856 the elder Edmund had made his way to Crawford, Iowa:

Howorths in England

It appears that the Howorth’s should have been in England in 1841 for the Census. This could be the younger Edmund:

He was living at Waterside which I assume is in Bacup with perhaps his grandmother and Uncles?

Back to Iowa for Edmunds 1861 Will

Edmund mentions first his daughter Sarah, then his wife Mary:

Next. he mentions his four children and finally his brother Daniel and his son Daniel executor:

The son Edmund is not mentioned. However Edmund is referred to as Senr. which I take to be Senior and thus the son Edmund is implied in the will.

Liverpool to New York in 1842

This appears to be the Howorth family traveling to New York in 1842:

However, some of the family appears to be missing. I assume that the elder James was a brother of Edmund.

Connecting the Howorths

I would like to connect this family to my line:

Perhaps more DNA review will help clear this up. These two lines are from Australia on the left and the US on the right and are connected by genealogy and DNA.

On To Joyce’s 30 cM Clusters

At 30 cM, Joyce has 21 clusters. Using Access, I get the new cross-cluster comparison:

I’ll try this for now:

However, there were two Cluster 6’s last time, so I’ll have to check. Also, I’ll want to see if there are any new Hartley side clusters.

Gurney Clusters 7 and 11

I have a note that one of the people has many of my ancestor names, but the DNA match is in a Gurney Cluster. That tells me that I should not pursue the ancestry of this one match. That is, unless this match has other DNA matches on my Hartley side.

There is a similar situation at Gurney Cluster 11. However, this Cluster has common ancestors from Joyce’s maternal and paternal sides.

First, if there is more than one common ancestor, I tend to go with the closest common ancestors.

Hartley Cluster 13

This is the big Cluster this time:

It also has a funny bump at the bottom. The top left of the Cluster is a part I’m interested in.

I already looked at Victoria’s tree above. That is the tree with two Howorth Lines. Above are my Greenwood Hartley matches. Here is Greenwood and his wife Ann Emmet:

It was Ann’s mother who was a Howorth.

Of the 7 I show in the first part of Cluster 13, I have already been tracking the last 5. I have Kristen and Emily in a tree already:

I have been unable to figure out where saudet fits in. Jennifer doesn’t have a tree and I haven’t been able to get in touch with her. Perhaps the first two matches, Janet and Stephen, will help place saudet.

From comparing trees, it is clear that saudet is related to Stephen. So I will look at Janet’s tree:

It appears that both sides of Janet’s tree are from Lancashire. I see that James Stott was born in Cloughfold, to the West of Bacup:

Janet had this marriage for James:

I’ll assume that Janet knows her genealogy.

Here Janet has James mother as Malley Stott. The 1881 Census mentions a Sarah Stott. So there is some confusion. Was Malley a nickname? So I didn’t make the genealogical connection but now Janet is on my radar. I did make a geographical connection.

The Other Side of Cluster 13

In the middle of Cluster 13 are a lot of close relatives. It comes out of that on someone named Bessey. I’ll take a look at her tree:

It’s a bit skimpy, but I get some hints:

Althea was married to a Fearing. I thought that I was related tot he Fearings through the Snells and this shows how. We both descend from Bradford and Snell.

It looks like I was already tracking a Katherine. This person must be the same person or a sister:

The part of the Cluster in green is Snell:

Moving on to Joyce’s 25 cM Clusters

This gets Joyce up to 43 clusters.

Cluster 2

Cluster 2 is broken into two major parts and a small part at the end. The first part is probably Snell/Bradford. The second part is probably Hathaway/Clifton. The third small part seems to merge back into Gurney (not related to me).

Running the 25 cM Clusters Through Access

Access makes reviewing the clusters easier:

This is only part of the answer. Looking at the last two columns, this tells us that the previous Cluster 1 mapped to Cluster 2 at the 25 cM limit. However, that is not the whole story:

When I sort by new Cluster 2, I see that it comes from other places. Usually the clustering is going from few to many. In this case, it went from many to one. From the chart above, at 50 cM, Clusters 3 and 4 are Gurney Clusters. This may be a result of the way I did my Access query or have to do with relatives of relatives.

Here is my Access query:

It starts with the 25 cM Clusters. There is a right handed arrow which means to include all the 25 cM Clusters plus the clusters where the 25 cM clusters are the same as the 30 cM clusters. I do that the same way down the line. I tried to query a slightly different way and got the same results.

Here are Clusters 3, 4 and 5 from 50 cM:

Clusters 3 and 4 are Gurney matches and Cluster 5 shows Hartley matches.

I can simplify my Access Query by only including those Hartley Clusters I considered at 30 cM:

Interestingly when I restrict the 30 cM Cluster, I no longer show Gurney Clusters 3 and 4 at the 50 cM level. This shows that previous Cluster 13 may now be 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 9. Cluster 2 is interesting in that it also came from Cluster 1.

Here is another way to slice and dice it:

Cluster 5 at 50 cM was my Snell side. Cluster 6 was my Hartley side. That means that Clusters 6, 7, 9, and 25 should be on the Hartley side. This is generally true except for Cluster 25:

There is someone there who is related to Joyce on her Gurney side. However, he also has a Howorth ancestor which would be on Joyce’s and my Hartley side. I had discussed this some above.

Restricting Members

In my previous Blog I restricted my wife’s large French Canadian clusters to 40. I wonder what would happen if I restricted Joyce’s clusters? One of the great things about the Shared Clustering Program is that it only takes a minute to see what happens. I tried it and it didn’t help. I only lost one cluster and I lost the English Hartley Clusters that I am interested in. So where it helped in one case, it didn’t help here.

Looking At Clusters 2, 6, 7, 9, 25

Actually, I already mentioned that Cluster 25 is a Gurney Cluster, so that is confusing. I already looked at Cluster 2.

Plus, Victoria’s tree with the Howorth families is now in Cluster 6. After shuffling things around a bit, I get this:

This also has Cluster 5 which I missed above. It takes a little bit to sort these out.

Cluster 4

I haven’t mentioned Cluster 4. This also came from busy previous Cluster 13. Cluster 4 is hanging off of the top left of Cluster 5:

There are only 6 matches in Cluster 6, but two are associated with Cluster 5 and one with Cluster 9. As Cluster 5 and 9 both have Snell’s in them, that tells me something about Cluster 4. Here is one tree in Cluster 4:

I’ll fill out this tree to see if I find any common ancestors:

Now if Ancestry could have figured this out, it would have saved me some time. Here is my tree:

Our common ancestors are Snell and Head. However, my guess is that there are other connections. I see also Palmer in LPs tree. I had to extend my existing chart from Isaiah Snell:

This is how LP matches Joyce:

More Snells in Cluster 5

Joyce’s first match in Cluster 5 has a very large tree. Joyce and John’s ancestors go two steps beyond the tree above to Thomas Snell. I might as well add in John. However, it will make the names tiny. That makes John and Joyce 8th cousins:

The other Snell match who I know of is OT:

Here is OT added in:

Cluster 7 From Lancashire

Cluster 7 has an interesting shape:

New in this Cluster is Ruth. Joyce and Ruth’s common ancestry go back to Pilling.

Ruth is in yellow as are the other 2 in this Cluster. One theory is that the overlapping clusters in Cluster 7 are for Hartley and Emmet. As Ruth has no known Emmet DNA, that could mean that Kristen is related to Joyce more on the Hartley side and Emily is related to Joyce more on the Emmet side.

Cluster 8

This Cluster is situated between my Hartley and Snell Clusters. There are only three in this Cluster. One match, LD, has a tree:

Here is my buildout on LD’s maternal side:

I’m curious about this part of the tree:

I did a genealogy on the Snell’s years ago and didn’t have that Samuel had a son named Peter. This Peter was from Freetown and Samuel was from Tiverton. So there must be a Snell connection, but perhaps not through Samuel. Also looking at Cluster 8, there are some matches to Cluster 9 which is a Snell Cluster.

Taking Joyce’s Clusters Down to the Minimum at 20 cM

This involves correlated matches that are down to 6 cM. This gets me 104 clusters. At the 6th cousin level, Joyce has 128 5th great-grandparents. However, I have already mapped out a match for Joyce at the 8th cousin level. At this level, Joyce has 512 7th great-grandparents. That is far back and old.

Comparison in Access

I brought part of the cluster spreadsheet into Access and compared it to the two previous cluster runs. I set the previous run to only include non-null values. Then I sorted by new cluster number:

So that tells me that the new Cluster 1 and 4 came from the old Cluster 6. Cluster 6 is the one I had as Howorth previously.

Here the new Cluster 1 has many notes on Howorth. However, I have no notes on Clusters 2, 3, and 4. Cluster 4 extends down quite far with a lot of small matches.

Starting at the Top – Joan’s Tree

There are some names above Cluster 1:

  • Sammy doesn’t have a usable tree
  • Ann has a common ancestor with Joyce of James and Mary Howorth
  • Joan has a tree with three people

Here is Joan’s tree:

Here is Mary Jane in 1940:

I think I already tracked this family. Here is Victoria’s tree:

Joan’s tree matches up with Edmund and Sabrina:

Actually, I have a guess for Edmund at the top:

This is from the Ebebezer Baptist Church in Bacup where my Howorth were baptized. Edmund mentions his brother Daniel in his will. That must be his brother Daniel above.

Here are the dates of the births:

The Tong Connection

Edmund and Ann’s children were born in Tong. I mentioned Tong in a previous Blog. Here are the children of my ancestor James Howorth:

This timeline is confusing becuase there are two Betty’s. Also Abram is another name for Abraham, so there appear to be two of those. Esther is my ancestor. I have that her youngest two siblings were born in Tong. Tong is to the East or SouthEast of Bacup:

Cluster 1

Cluster 1 adds Sara:

Sara’s tree already made the connection with Edmund Howorth of 1823.

Gretchen has an unlinked tree:

Now that I’ve gone down this route, I feel obliged to check for a Howorth connection:

I have a feeling the connection is through Hetty Nuttall, but I had trouble figuring out where in England she was born.

From Bacup to Trawden: Cluster 1 to Cluster 54

Cluster 53 has a Snell/Bradford common ancestor. Then there are some closer cousins. Then there are two with Hartley/Emmet ancestors. So Cluster 53 is a compound Cluster. Cluster 54 has some Hartley/Emmet common ancestors. Below that, there is a Sarah Pilling ancestor that I would like to look at. The first person in Cluster 55 has a Hartley ancestor from the area where my Hartley’s lived. The first person in Cluster 56 has Hartley also but no tree.

Sarah Pilling Common Ancestor

A match associated with Cluster 54 shows Charles and Joyce as having a common ancestor with Sarah Pilling:

I would like to take a look at this connection. In my tree, I have that Sarah Pilling was a single mother:

Charles’ tree stops short of the older Sarah Pilling:

Apparently, Ancestry made the connection based on my tree:

This is the record I had for John:

I don’t know if Charles got his/her information from my tree or if it was gotten independently. apparently, there was a record that John was the illegitimate son of Sarah. I had assumed that Greenwood Pilling was also an illegitimate son of Sarah who was not baptized (or at least I found no record).

Also, I note that if I have my tree right, there would be Stansfield in this line:

I have come up with Stansfield connections in other DNA matches, so that is something to consider.

Cluster 55

Here is how these Clusters compare in Access with Clusters from earlier runs:

That check that by walking it forward. By forward, I mean from the 20 cM run to the 25 cM run to the 30 cM run. 55 goes to Cluster 1 then Cluster 14. The problem is, I haven’t been tracking these Clusters.

The previous Cluster 1 was under the radar with only three matches:

This further mapped back to Cluster 14 at the 30 cM cutoff. That was also under the radar:

However, since Cluster 55 below has a Shackleton, perhaps it would be be worthwhile to look at Claire’s tree. Claire is also in Clusters 55 and 1.

Claire’s Cluster 55 Tree

This tree has dates but no places. I’ll be making my own tree. My tree shows that this family was from Wharfesdale which is between Ilkley and Otley:

I brought Claire’s tree back to 1823 int Otley. There I found an Elizabeth Hartley:

The clues for Elizabeth’s parents lead me to John Hartley of Colne and Sarah West of Otley. Here is Elizabeth’s birth and baptismal record:

The 1851 Census says that John Hartley was from Colne:

Here is Elizabeth in 1841:

Elizabether’s father, John, is listed on the previous page as an agricultural laborer. He apparently became a paper maker because of his father in laws. Also there is a George Hartley living next door – perhaps a brother of John who was born in Yorkshire.

Here is George’s birth in 1815 to Samuel Hartley:

It looks like I am stuck on John Hartley.

Lee’s Cluster 55 Tree

Lee also has a Hartley in his tree:

Confusingly, Margaret’s father is given as Lawrence Halstead:

 

Rebecca’s Tree

Rebecca in Cluster 55 has a tree with Shackleton:

Ancestry has shared surnames in green. Here some more of Rebecca’s tree:

The tree I built out for Rebecca also has a John Shackleton:

I’ll look into Rebecca’s tree. In 1871, Thomas Shackleton with his father Henry and family were living in Harden, Yorkshire, but were born in Heptonstall:

Here is Henry’s marriage record:

Beyond that, I cannot be sure.

Summary and Conclusions

  • In this survey on Joyce’s clustered, I focused mostly on the Hartley side. However, I looked at a few Snell matches
  • I used the clusters to identify new people in them with new trees that I could build out. It helps to know that you are looking for a certain branch of the family that lived in or probably near a certain location.
  • I didn’t have any major breakthroughs but attempted more contacts and got closer to finding out more about my ancestry.
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Shared Clustering for My Wife’s Aunt Suzy

My wife’s brother recently took a YDNA test. I can’t do an AncestryDNA Shared Clustering for my wife’s father because he didn’t test at AncestryDNA, but I can look at Aunt Suzy’s Shared Clustering

What Is Shared Clustering?

Shared Clustering is looking at shared DNA matches. The theory if you have a bunch of shared matches that also match each other they are likely from a common ancestor. Jim Bartlett got the idea of walking back your shared clusters. That means starting with your more recent clusters and going back through the years to check on and verify your older clusters which represent more distant ancestors. Jim used Jonathan Brecher’s Shared Clustering Program.

Let’s Download Aunt Suzy

I used Jonathan Brecher’s program to download Aunt Suzy’s AncestryDNA results:

Aunt Suzy also goes by Virginia which is probably a more official name. Suzy has over 68,000 total DNA matches. That should take a couple of hours to download. Once the download is down I’ll be able to look at Suzy’s clusters.

What I Expect Based on Suzy’s Ancestry

I already know what to expect in general from this excercise. Half of Suzy’s ancesty is French Canadian. They will result in many matches. The other half is Irish and they will result in fewer matches and shared ancestors.

Suzy’s dad was from an Irish background. Suzy’s mom was more recently from French Canada.

A Test Run of Shared Clustering

Suzy has 82 third cousins. Where do I set my first cluster level? Ancestry says that Suzy should start getting third cousins at 199 cM. However, I clicked through a lot of Suzy’s actual cousins and the third cousins didn’t show up until somewhere bettween 128 and 118 cM. So I’ll set the first cutoff at 123 cM. Odd number:

This was good enough to give me a paternal and maternal view of Suzy’s ancestry:

Cluster 1 is paternal and Cluster 2 is maternal. The thing that looks like a Red Cross plus sign in the middle would be Suzy’s closer relates. They match on her father’s and mother’s sides.

I’m going to put Suzy’s cluster results in a chart sorting her clusters by grandparent:

Spoiler alert is that Suzy should have a lot of LeFevre matches. I could put in Suzy’s paternal and maternal single clusters in the chart, but that would be a waste of space. Instead, I’ll bring Suzy’s cluster level down to a maximum of 50 cM from 123 cM:

Still there are only three numbered clusters, though, as above, I can see clusters within the clusters. I’ll go lower still.

At a 40 cM Limit, Suzy Has 8 Clusters

I’ll be happy to start here:

Things get a bit blurry at this level. There are 216 matches on this chart. They are not all in clusters, but most of them are.

Cluster 1

This should be easy:

Here as a Common Ancestor, Joseph Pouliot is listed as well as Pepin. However, this relationship goes back several generations:

Maybe not so easy. The Pouliot that I was thinking of is in Cluster 5:

Three of the matches have the common ancestor of Joseph Pouliot and Josephine Fortin:

I’ve been in touch with Fred. Because there are two common ancestors, I don’t know which one the DNA goes with, so for now I choose the daughter in Virginia’s line who is Emma Pouliot:

On to Cluster 2

I put Cluster 1 on hold. Cluster 2 is quite large:

In order to tame it, I retrieved all the common ancestors from Cluster 2 and put them in alphabetical order:

This name comes up quite often:

However, this goes quite a ways back. I think I need a new set of clusters. I’ll go back up to 45 cM to see if this makes things simpler:

5 Clusters for Suzy at 45 cM

The thought is, that if these clusters are obvious, they should map to the 40 cM clusters.

Cluster 1 Is Large

By the common ancestor names, this must be a LeFevre cluster. Here is a popular common ancestor:

One step backward, two steps forward?

Cluster 2

This should be the same Cluster that Fred was in above:

Cluster 3 Goes To Old Common Ancestors

This was the problem I was having with Cluster 1 at 40 cM. In fact, I’ll go to Access to compare the 40 cM clusters with the 45 cM Clusters:

I start with the 40 cM clusters as there are more with them. I join them to the 45 cM clusters by the Test ID. Then for the join I choose option 2. That says include all the records from Virginia’s 40 cM cluster and only those records from Virginia’s 45 cM Clusters where the joined fields are equal. Then on the part below in the query screen, I reverse the order with the 45 cM results first, so it will look more like my summary table.

It is possible to do this without Access but it would take quite a bit of time. I also group my query results. This takes out the duplicates:

This shows that the Cluster 3 I was looking at with the 45 cM cutoff, maps to Cluster 2 at 40 cM. Cluster 2 at 40 was the same one I looked at above and was having trouble with because the common ancestors were so ancient. I then took the clusters up to 47 cM:

This shows Clusters 4 and 5 at 47 cM. Cluster 4 is the more recent Pouliot Cluster. That tells me that there are a lot of connections between the two Clusters and that the bigger cluster must be an ancestor of Pouliot (or Fortin).

Here are the same two corresponding clusters at th 45 cM cutoff:

Now they are Clusters 2 and 3. As the larger cluster is an ancestor of Pouliot, I’ll extend Emma Pouliot’s tree:

This brings Suzy out to her 5th cousin level. However, some of the common ancestors were out at the 6th cousin level. The confusion could be that there are two Trembely or Tremblay lines. However, both Tremblay lines go through Josephine Fortin. Here is her line with the Cluster 3 common ancestors highlighted. Actually, these are the Cluster 2 Common ancestors from the 40 cM run:

All these common ancestors funnel down through Emma Fortin. Imagine that you are John Brecher’s computer program and you had all of these ancestors. What would you do? You would probably come up with something like Cluster 3.

Bottom line:

Here I mapped Cluster3 at 45 cM to Cluster 2 at 40 cM. It’s a lot of work to map one Cluster, but I feel as though I got it right.

Cluster 4 at the 45 cM Cutoff

Cluster 4 is off to the bottom left of Cluster 3. Cluster 4 has some affinity with Cluster 3 as can be seen by some of the matches to the left of Cluster 4 and underneath Cluster 3. Cluster 4 at 45 cM maps to Cluster 1 at 40 cM. This is one that I got stuck on above.

I’ll take what I learned with Cluster 3 and apply it to Cluster 4. I’ll just say that this Cluster goes to Joseph Pouliot born 1848:

Above I highlighted the AncestryDNA suggested Common Ancestors for Cluster 4.

Cluster 5 – The First Irish Cluster

So far, I have been dealing with French Canadian clusters. This is the first Irish one.

This Cluster has both of Suzy’s Irish grandparents, so I’d rather not put it in my spreadsheet just now. In general Butler is at the top left and Kerivan is the rest of the Cluster. I note that, based on my previous Access query, this will be mapping to two Clusters at 40 cM.

Back to the 40 cM Clusters

Irish Cluster 5 at 45 cM mapped to Clusters 6 and 7 at 40 cM. I’ll start with those.

In addition, there are now Clusters 8 and 9. Due to close relatives, Cluster 6 has Butler and Kerivan still. Here is the area with just Butler:

I’ll call that 6a.

Clusters 6b and 7

Here are Clusters 6b and 7:

However, both Clusters have the same two common ancestors. It could be that one Cluster favors Kerivan and the other Rooney. I would rather assign them both to the daughter at this point.

Clusters 8 and 9

Clusters 8 and 9 are small. They seem to favor the Kerivan side. One person in Cluster 8 has a tree with 247 people:

I notice he has a Bridget Rooney in his tree. At this point, I could try to build out his tree or wait to see what happens with further clustering. I’ll create a tree as I’m curious. I’m having trouble getting back to Bridget from Alice McCusker. Here is a transcription of her baptismal record:

One of the witnesses was a Patrick Rooney.

It looks like the family was enumerated as McCarty in 1870:

In 1880, Bridget was a widow:

This record pulls things together:

From that record, I get this:

Lawrence and Suzy are third cousins.

I don’t like the look of Cluster 9, so I’ll ignore it for now:

When I say I don’t like the look of it that is because it appears that this could be two small clusters.

Clusters 3 and 4

In my mapping, the previous Cluster 1 went to Cluster 4, so that is LeFevre. Here are the listed Common Ancestors for Cluster 4:

The Butler entries are too close for clustering. Most of the Common ancestors seem to go back to Lazare Lefevre and Adelaide Boure:

However, one went back to Methot and Anger:

Ancestry would like me to evaluate this tree. I’ll bite.

I am questioning why Armand Petrelli is the son of Alphonse Moreau. The 1930 Southbridge Census has Armand as the son of Joseph Petrelli:

Actually, I see what happened.

Robert got his tree backwards:

His mother is Moreau. His maternal grandfather should be Alphonse Moreau – ot Joseph Petrelli.

Here is Jeanette in 1920:

The other problem is the Athanase I have in my tree is a man and Robert’s connection to me is shown through a female Athanase.

I think I’ll just assume that this is an earlier LeFevre Cluster rather than Methot:

That leaves the new Cluster 3:

Cluster 3 has four connections to Cluster 2 (Fortin) and two to 4 (LeFevre). I don’t have a lot of information, so I’ll just add Cluster 3 near Fortin:

This could be a long Blog, but I like that the clusters seem to be falling into place – even with the French Canadian families.

Suzy’s 18 Clusters at 35 cM

This looks like the 1,000 foot view:

In Access here is how the previous clusters map to this set of clusters:

This is interesting because the Cluster 3 I was looking at above, maps to 7 and 8 but Cluster 2 also maps to Cluster 7.

Cluster6 mapped to 9, but I had a 6a and 6b. It turns out that the Cluster 9 has not separated out yet due to Suzy’s close relatives being in that cluster. From above, it looks like a lot of the action is in the French Canadian quarters.

Looking At the Irish Side – Down to 30 cM

I’ve decided to take a new easier approach. I am more interested in the Irish side at this point. The French Canadian side is interesting, but much of the genealogy is seemingly well-defined. At least the answers seem to be there if you dig deep enough. Describing the French Canadian clusters may be interesting, but it is a lot of work. I had some luck above with Rooney, so I’ll stick with the Irish and go down another level to 30 cM.

I ran the Shared Clustering program and came up with some more large French Canadian Clusters. I notice there is a button where you can filter out the larger clusters.

I thought I wanted to use the first box, but that is for the entire file. I want the second box to get rid of the large French Canadian clusters. Without this filter I get:

  • Cluster 2 goes from row 15-266
  • 21 goes from 441 to 485
  • 22 which I want goes from 487 to 509 or about 23 rows

I’ll try setting the cutoff at 40 members. I like this because I can now see what is going on:

This reduces the number of clusters and changes the cluster numbers, but that is OK. I’ll just put another heading on my Summary Chart:

I brought these new restricted clusters into Access and compared them:

Here I have only 5 clusters. That made a huge difference. Without the 40 member cutoff, I get 31 clusters. Life just got simpler.

Above Cluster 9 goes to Clusters 1 and 2. Cluster 9 was the one that I had split previously. Here are the new Clusters 1 and 2:

Cluster 1 is the Kerivan side and Cluster 2 is the Butler side.

This is interesting because former Clusters 10 and 11 reclustered into the new Cluster 1. Now I’m curious to see how the unfiltered Clusters would have mapped:

This goes off the page above. One unexpected result is that under this configuration the previous Cluster 9 now only maps to one Cluster 4. However, now the old Clusters 10 and 11 map to their own clusters. With the restriction of the large clusters, I was expecting no effect on the Irish clusters, only on the large French Canadian clusters. However, the restriction also had an effect on the Irish Clusters.

The bottom line is that I could work with either the restricted or non-restricted clusters, however, for the purpose of looking at the Irish clusters, I would rather deal with the restricted clusters.

Irish Cluster 1

At 30 cM with a restiction 40 per cluster, I get two Irish Clusters. The first one is the Kerivan side. The first person on the list is not in the cluster but has matches to Cluster 1. He has a small tree with a Hanrahan in it. The fourth on the list shows a correclation to Cluster 1 and has a public tree. I don’t see any obvious match and would prefer not to build out this tree.

The last person before the Kerivan Cluster 1 has a curious common ancestor named Mary:

This looks worth pursuing. The relationship is shown as half first cousin, but it is likely a full cousin relationship unless Mary married two different Rooney’s. Here is Suzy’s tree starting with her Kerivan grandfather:

The Ancestry shared ancestry tree looks suspicious also because it appears to show that there were two brothers named Timothy Rooney. I’ll try to recreate Daniel’s tree to see what is going on. I was having trouble with the tree, then I found a chart I had made a while ago:

This shows John Henry descending from a first wife of Timothy Rooney. I’ll put that on my new Rooney Tree:

I’ve ended up with a half relationship after all. However, it now appears that Daniel and Suzy are 1/2 third cousins once removed. I tried to distinguish the two branches with different colors.

The next person in Cluster 1 who I haven’t looked at yet is FG:

FG has an unlinked tree:

I noticed the name McCusker:

I like the easy ones. See, I’m a Rooney specialist.

Andrew from Cluster 1

The next person in Cluster 1 with a usable tree is Andrew:

After a little snooping around Ancestry, I came up with this:

Andrew goes on my Rooney Tree:

That brings up a point. The first three matches are not Kerivan matches. Technically, that makes Cluster 1 a Rooney Cluster.

Russell and Sandra

Russell and Sandra should be easy as they show Common Ancestors at Ancestry:

Bob’s Tree Looks Hopeful

Bob, who is in Cluster 1, has this tree:

Here is a quick tree to get him on my Chart:

Donna and John

I have a note that Donna is the mother of John and that I wrote a Blog about John. Here is John at Ancestry:

It looks like a good time to start a separate Kerivan Tree:

I found Donna’s sister in the mix also.

H6 and a More Challenging Tree?

H6 is in Cluster 1 with a match of 141 cM:

These families lived in New Jersey and some came from Sweden or Italy, so I had trouble getting this back to Kerivan easily.

On To Butler Cluster 2

The first two with small unlinked trees are Kerry and Janice.

Kerry’s tree:

Janice’s tree:

 

I’m thinking it would be a lot of work to track these trees down. Here is some more on Mary Ann:

I decided to look into this tree based on the fact that I also found a Rooney in the ancestry. Mary Ann’s mother was Rose Rooney.

That could explain the link of Cluster 2 to the Rooney Cluster 1:

Butler’s I’m Already Tracking

 

I already had Donna, Janice and Barbara. I added Harry also from Cluster 1.

Suzy’s Clusters of 40 Members or Less at 25 cM

I checked Suzy’s clusters at 25 cM without the 40 member limit and she had 69 clusters. With all those clusters, I couldn’t see all the clusters on the chart even at the minimum 10%. With the 40 member limit, Suzy had 12 clusters:

 

 

I’m curious what these clusters will show.

Running the 25 cM Clusters by Access

I’ll compare these clusters to the 30 cM clusters in Access.

This says that Clusters 1 and 2 both split three ways. That means that there were also 6 new clusters. I expect the new clusters were a mix of Irish and French Canadian. It seems odd that only the two Irish Clusters that I was working on at the 30 cM limit mapped as I had 5 clusters previously. I’m guessing that the other three clusters mapped clusters of over 40 members, so were screened out.

Cluster 1

I don’t like how Cluster 1 doesn’t cluster well, but I’ll take a look anyway:

In looking over these 4 mathces, I don’t see an obvious connection. Something more may show up at the 20 cM Cluster run.

Cluster 2

This Cluster seems to have an affinity with part of Cluster 7, which looks like a Kerivan Cluster.

Cluster 3

This mapped from previous Cluster 1. I see one person who has a Rooney in their ancestry. This is a person I looked at in the previous Cluster 1:

I’ll put Cluster 3 here:

However, I’ll have to go back and check in Access to see if that looks right:

It is right as it mapped back to Cluster 11 at the 35 cM limit. Also I see that the Cluster 1 at 35 cM that I had looked at above came from the previous Cluster 2 at 30 cM which was a Butler Cluster.

Cluster 4

Cluster 4 is new. Here is the tree for Suzy’s first match in Cluster 4:

Ancestry has Rooney in green as it notices that name in Suzy’s tree. Thomas Rooney above was said to be from County Roscommon. Here is the largest tree from Jean of Cluster 4:

 

Timothy Rooney from Suzy’s tree is supposed to be from Leitrim. Daddy Mick Roone is supposed to be from Galoway (Galway?). Thomas above shows from Roscommon. They could all be right and all be related.

Cluster 5

The person above Cluster 5 seems associated with Cluster 5 and has a tree. However, that person also has connection with Rooney Cluster 3. Here is some Rooney information from the tree:

Here is more of the tree:

Suzy has both Rooney and Sullivan ancestry:

The question is whether Cluster 5 is a Sullivan or Rooney Cluster.

I’ll build out the other unlinked tree from Kerry in Cluster 5:

I’m guessing the connection is on the Gilmartin side as that name sounds familiar. However, I couldn’t get the tree to match with a familar surnam, so I gave up for now.

Anyway, based on the Clusters, I should be looking on the Bulter side for these Cluster 5 matches:

It is easy to get thrown off my conmon surnames. That is why we have to pay attention to the shared clusters. However, having said that Cluster 5 did seem to match both Clusters 4 and 6. So for now, I’ll put Cluster 5 on the Butler side:

Cluster 6 – A Butler Cluster

This is an interesting Cluster because it includes a Cincinnati branch of Butlers who are related to Suzy’s Butlers, but we don’t know how yet. Here is my guess how they could match:

The George Butler Branch from Cincinnati is on the left. The Edward Butler branch who lived for a while in Cincinnati ended up in the Boston area.

Within Cluster 6 is the Boston group and the Cincinnati group:

The last two matches that I don’t have a green box around are closer Butler relatives.

Cluster 7 – Back to the Kerivan Side

I don’t see any new matches in this group, so no new news.

Clusters 8-12

These are all new clusters:

I don’t know if these are Irish or French Canadian Clusters.

On to the Final Clustering at 20 cM

In this run, I’ll choose 6 cM and have a maximum cluster size of 40 keeping in mind that Ancestry’s shared matches are generally at the 20 cM size or larger. This gives me 20 Clusters and some greater detail on what I had already.

First I’ll pull this new information into Access to see how the Clusters map:

This cut off a few clusters at the top. First I see in the 7th row from the bottom, Cluster 2 that went to 1 has no cluster in the last row. That was the cluster that I was wary of.

Here is a sort by the previous run of Clusters:

This tells me the new Cluster 1 is from the previous Cluster 2. The new Cluster 2 had no precedent. One large tree in Cluster 2 had a Crowley ancestor from Cork, but that may be a coincidence.

Cluster Three maps to previous Cluster 9 which I haven’t looked at. I see another Gilmarting in Cluster 3. His ancestry goes back to Leitrim, Ireland. After clicking through a lot of connections, I would guess that the connection is through Ireland. Also a lot of the connections are in Leitrim and I found one tree with a Rooney in it from Leitrim:

Here is an interesting match between Clusters 3 and 4:

This wants to tie together the Jeremiah and John Rooney Lines.

ThruLines suggests another Rooney Line:

Skipping Down to the Butler Clusters

The new Cluster 11 mapped to the previous Cluster 6:

There is nothing new in Cluster 11 itself, but the interesting part is outside Cluster 11 proper:

However, there are four matches above Cluster 11 that show association with Cluster 11. The first person is managed by Patty who I already know about:

Patty is on the George Butler Line. George Butler came to live in Cincinnati.

The third person in the group of matches that are correlated to Cluster 11 is Regina. Here is her tree:

I recognize the Branch name above.  Here is the marriage record for Alma from 1925:

Another person in the group that is correlated with Cluster 11 is Ryan. Here is his tree:

Both of Ryan’s parents were born in Cincinnati. I need to build yet another tree to see if I can find a match:

With a little snooping around, I was able to get back to Alma Branch:

Christy is on the other side of the Cluster 11:

She fits in on the Boston George side:

Emily married an unrelated Butler.

Next under Christy is Larry:

Larry matches clusters on either side. Here is here small tree:

The tree is interesting as both parents are from Wexford. Some of the Butler ancestors were also from Wexford. Unfortunately, the tree is a bit confusing to follow. Was Bridget’s maiden name Browne or Hesse?

Larry has shared matches with Suzy, Brian, Barbara and Janice:

That seems to make Larry a sort of missing link.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I did a first shot at looking at Suzy’s Shared Clusters
  • Not too far into looking at Suzy’s clusters, her French Canadian Clusters got very large.
  • I restricted the size of Suzy’s clusters so I could look more at her smaller clusters on her Irish side.
  • This lead me to some interesting finds on her Kerivan and Butler side.
  • One Butler match was very interesting as it was shared with two Butler branches that I have been trying to connect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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An Analysis of My Mom’s Shared Clusters

I’ve been playing around lately with John Brecher’s Shared Cluster Program. I wrote a series of three Blogs looking at my owned Shared Clusters. The last Blog is here.

Downloading My Mom’s AncestryDNA Matches

First I signed into my account using the Shared Clustering program. I chose my mom’s kit and downloaded it.

I used the middle button which says ‘Slow and complete’. It was supposed to take several hours but only took 32 minutes. My mom has 26947 total matches and 438 fourth cousins. That is about half the matches that I have.

First Try: 50 cM Gets Two Clusters

My first try was conservative at 50 cM. I only got two clusters. I was sure to name the output file indicating that it was for 50 cM:

This gave me two named clusters. I say named, because I see that there are probably actually four clusters altogether. My guess is that these represent her four grandparents. The top cluster represents my mom’s mom who was a Lentz.

By the way, my analysis looked like this:

I have a green box around my mom’s side. I will be expanding that like this:

For now, I’ll keep it simple with a paternal and maternal side for my Mom:

3 Clusters at 40 cM

These clusters are in no hurry to separate. That is partly due to my mother, her niece and two grand-nieces being in Cluster 3:

One person I know in Cluster 2, Otis, descends from a Schwechheimer:

Also Gangnus, but more distantly.

At 35 cM, Mom Has 6 Clusters

Now my mother’s maternal grandparents, Lentz and Nicholson are starting to separate. Nicholson is Cluster 2 and Lentz is Cluster 4:

Here is a simple comparison of Clusters between the 40 cM and 35 cM cutoffs:

This shows that the Lentz 1900 went to Lentz and Nicholson as I have them. That means I need to figure out where Clusters 1 and 6 go. These are new clusters with no precedent. All three in Cluster 1 match my mother’s Rathfelder cousin, so Cluster 1 could be Rathfelder or Gangnus:

Cluster 6 also appears to be on my mother’s father’s side which could be Rathfelder or Gangnus. I’ll put them under Gangnus as I have nothing else there so far.

My Mom’s 10 Clusters Down at the 30 cM Match Level

My MS Access query gives me this:

At the 30 cM level, this shows that Clusters 3, 6 and 10 are new. The previously new Clusters 1 and 6 at the 35 cM level map to new Clusters 9 and 1. Cluster 7 is interesting it has no precedent at the 35 cM level but one of those non-precedents was previously a Cluster 2 (Scwhechheimer) at the 40 cM level. So that may be a clue. Here is how these 35 cM clusters map at the 30 cM level:

Three maps to 8 and 7. 5 maps to 2. Technically 5 did not map to 7 but someone who was in the precursor to 5 mapped to 7. This probably gets into intermarriage in the German colony of Hirschenhof, Latvia where some of my ancestors lived. I suppose I could have omitted the second 7. Here is Cluster 7:

It looks to have two parts to it.

That leaves Clusters 3, 6 and 10 to map. Because I compared the clusters above in Access, I didn’t have to know anything about who was in the clusters when I mapped Clusters 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8. However, for Clusters 3, 6 and 10, I have to know something about these people to put them in the right places.

Finding a Home for Cluster 3

Cluster 3  at the top left is part of a larger Cluster 3-4-5 complex:

The is a large area below the second green box which can be ignored as that would be my mother’s close relatives. The second green box is Lentz. Below the close relative area is Nicholson. One person in Cluster 3 matches 2 people in the Lentz Cluster. However, 3 people in Cluster 3 match people in the lower right Nicholson Cluster. So I’ll say this is a Nicholson Cluster. The Nicolson’s came from Sheffield, England. One person in Cluster 3 has a tree. This tree shows both of his parents being from England.

Cluster 5 – Consider the Source

Here I have both Lentz and Nicholson mapping to Cluster 5. How does this make sense? The ones that map from Lentz (4) to 5 are my mom’s close relatives, so naturally, they would match both sides. I’ll take the Cluster 5 that comes from Cluster 4 out. That is one of the disadvantages of mapping the numbers without considering the source.

Cluster 6 – Rathfelder Side

Here are my notes on this small Cluster:

My Rathfelder grandfather was a German from Latvia. So by geographical phasing, that puts Cluster 6 somewhere on his side.

Cluster 10 – Mystery Cluster

Cluster 10 has strong internal matches indicated by the dark color of the Cluster. However, I don’t see any other matches with other groups or clusters:

Two of the matches have large trees of over 25,000 people. Comparing my mom’s tree and this large tree brings up the name Clayton:

However, JK also shares these areas of ancestry with my mom:

Here I have banished Cluster 10 to the Unknown Realm:

So now I am ready to dive into new depths of my mother’s clustering ancestry.

Mom Is Up To 18 Numbered Clusters at 25 cM

25 cM is the next to the last stop for our analysis. This is an important level, because at this vantage we can look toward the more recent 30 cM clusters and will be able to look next at the further in the past 20 cM clusters. The progression for the numbers of clusters has gone 2, 3, 6, 10, and now 18.

This is the overall shape of the 18 clusters

My mom’s close relatives have split into two clusters. The previous Cluster 10 of unknown origin is getting bigger.

Putting Access to Work Again on the 25 cM Clusters

I imported Columns A-L to Access and added it to my ongoing query:

When I view this query, I get this:

 

I’ll sort by new clusters to see which ones are new:

Next, I’ll map the non-highlighted new clusters. Here is what I get with my blind comparison:

Clusters 7 and 8 are on my mom’s maternal and paternal side. I suspect that is a result of her close relatives matching both sides. I’ll search Access for Clusters 7 and 8 and add names:

Here I see Cluster 5 going to Cluster 8 only with two close relatives, so I’ll remove that from my analysis.

However, we are still left with two Clusters 7. One is on my mother’s maternal side and one on her paternal side. That means that Cluster 7 is a compound cluster due to close relatives being there and matching both sides:

That means my mom actually has at least 19 Clusters at this level:

Ancestry uses 20 cM for a fourth cousin cutoff. The fourth cousin level represents 32 ancestors – in theory.

Next, I just need to go down the Clusters and fill in the blanks:

Clusters 1 and 2 – Sheffield Area

One person in Cluster 7a matches all four people in Cluster 1. Cluster 2 goes back to a known Nicholson ancestor born in 1765. That would bring Nicholson down to 1798 on my mother’s line in the next generation. Due to the fact that we know that ancestors, it is possible that Cluster 1 could be on Nicholson’s wife’s Clayton line:

 Cluster 3 Affinity to Cluster 7b

Cluster 3 also has an affinity to Clusters 4 and 14. That brings up an error in my Chart:

At 35 cM, I had both Clusters 3 and 5 mapping to Cluster 4 at 30 cM. A review of my Access query shows one to be wrong:

Cluster 3 only mapped to Clusters 7 and 8. Here is the corrected version:

This is bound to be a little messed up because my mother’s father had Gangnus and Schwechheimer on his paternal and maternal sides:

 Cluster 5

Fortunately, I have already done some work with Robert in this Cluster:

Here is a confusing tree. The confusing part is that the common ancestor is with Gangnus. Gangnus is also the wife of my mother’s Rathfelder grandfather. That means that this Gangnus goes in on my mother’s non-Gangnus side!

Actually, it appears that Robert is equally related on both sides:

In fact, as Otis is not in Robert’s shared group, I need to put Robert back on the Gangnus side. Good thing I’m flexible. Patrick doesn’t figure in as his results are on MyHeritage.

I needed someone on the Gangnus side that I could identify.

Summary of the 25 cM Clusters

Here I dumped more new clusters into the Unknown bucket. I don’t have much under Lentz, so some may belong there.

The Final Run of 20 cM for 36 Clusters

I run this at 6 cM which is the minimum, but the minimum shared matching at AncestryDNA is set at 20 cM. Some of the extra matches between 6 and 20 cM could give hints from the Correlated Cluster Column.

Probably the easiest part of the comparison is using Access. Here is what I can fit out of the 83 rows of results:

Here is what the mapping looks like except for Clusters 7a and 7b:

Both Clusters 10 and 5 mapped to Cluster 24. That probably has to do with the interweaving of Schwechheimer and Gangnus in my mom’s Colony of HIrschenhof ancestry. In order to map Clusters 7a and 7b, I bring in the 30 cM clusters to see which 7 I am looking at:

Here, Cluster 2 maps to 7b and Cluster 5 to 7a. This still gives some confusing results:

However, when I filter out my Mom’s close relatives of over 900 cM, I get this:

Here is how that looks in my summary chart:

I couldn’t decide whether to put Cluster 12 in under previous Cluster 7b, so I put it in parentheses. It looks like I mapped 19 clusters not counting those mapped more than once. That should leave about 17 more to map – or drop into the unknown bin.

Mapping the New 20 cM Clusters

Here are some new clusters:

All I have to do is to look at each of these clusters. My best hope is if they match another cluster or have a common ancestor or if I have some notes on them in Ancestry. Occasionally, looking at a tree or building out a tree will help, but I rarely have luck that way. One thing I find difficult is that my mom had German ancestry on both sides. One side came to the US before the American Revolution. Another side went to a German Colony in Latvia and then came to the US in the 1900’s. However, both sides were originally in Germany.

Clusters 28 and 29

Someone in Cluster 29 had a Nicholson ancestor, but it may be coincidence:

Sarah was from Bolton in the above tree. My mom’s Nicholson’s were from Sheffield, but perhaps not always from there:

The Large Cluster 30

It looks like one of mom’s unknown ancestors had a lot of descendants.

And the Answer Is…

It seems like I’ve increased my knowledge of the unknown (poor pun intended). I still have a shortage on the Lentz side. I’m not sure if there were just not many offspring or what happened. I have at least one early common ancestor at Ancestry, but that match is not in a cluster. Another question would be to identify Cluster 10 at 30 cM. I feel like I have a better idea of the weaving of DNA and families between Gangnus and Schwechheimer in my mother’s ancestry.

Summary and Conclusions

  • The combination of the Shared Clustering program and MS Access help to make a fairly quick analysis of AncestryDNA shared matches
  • My mom’s genealogy is a bit tough. I know she has some more Latvian matches out there but tracing their trees back is difficult in the period when Latvia’s records were in Russian.
  • I don’t have an explanation why my mother’s common ancestors of Lentz and Baker in Philadelphia were not part of clusters.

 

 

 

 

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Walking My Clusters Backward and Forward Using MS Access

In my previous Blog, I came up with a way to show my Clusters and how they changed (or didn’t change) between Shared Cluster runs at different DNA match levels. The Shared Cluster Program is from Jonathan Brecher and the encouragement to walk my cluster back was from Jim Bartlett. As a result of my previous Blog, I thought that it might be easier to walk my clusters forward instead of back. Usually in genealogy work proceeds from the recent to the more distant path and from the known to the unknown. However, after looking at the clusters, it seems that in some ways the older clusters are more specific.

Using MS Access to Walk My Clusters Forward

I used to have some knowledge of MS Access. I wonder if I can resurrect that. I want to take my 6 cM run from my previous Blog and compare it to my 25 cM run. I hope to map 50 clusters down to 27. So I am reducing the clusters by about two to one.

I’ll start with  a new Access database:

This database had a blank table in it for me to add data to. I didn’t want that, so I got rid of it. I’ll go to External Data and import my 6 cM Shared Cluster Run. I feel like I should close out my open copy first.

I chose New Data Source and found my file. When I sorted by Date modified, my file rose to the top.

This leads me to an import wizard:

I probably won’t import all the information. I clicked the box saying I wanted my first row to be the Column Headings.

Actually, I see a better way to do this. I went back to my original file and copied columns A-L:

I put these into a new file, saved it and imported that into Access. I don’t need any of the 2500 or so columns after L. This brought me to the import wizard again. I pressed next:

Access want to add a primary key or to choose a primary key. The test ID is an ID, so I’ll use that. Otherwise, Access will assign the numbers of 1 to about 2500 to identify my new database.

Next, I give my table a name:

This now shows up in my Access Database:

Next, I do the same for my 25 cM run as I want to compare the 6 cM run to the 25 cM run.

Querying Access

The next step is to use these two tables to see how the 6 cM Clusters look like at the 25 cM level.

I’ll choose Create > Query Design:

I’ll choose these two tables. That will put them onto the blue area, then I’ll connect them by the key ID:

I wasn’t sure what to choose from the tables above to put into the query below. I put in the name. This has to be the same in each table because the Test ID in each table corresponds to the same name. Most important is to map the 6 cM Cluster Number to the 25 cM Cluster Number. I have those columns plus the 6 cM Correlated Cluster Number, the 6 cM Common Ancestors and 6 cM notes. The notes should be the same for each table. I didn’t add the 25 cM Correlated Cluster Numbers. I can add those later if I find I need them.

Next, I choose view to get the results of the query:

I get 378 results. This makes sense as there were 378 results in the 25 cM Shared Cluster Table. For some reason, Access ordered the results by the number of the 25 cM Cluster Number. This isn’t so bad.

Easy Results

Next, I’ll move the 25 cM Column in closer so I can compare the two sets of cluster numbers:

Let’s look at the 25 cM Clusters 1-3. Walking back, Cluster 1 went to mostly to 23, but one went to 24. Cluster 2 went to 24 twice and 32 once. Cluster 3

only went to Cluster 16. My guess is that the mixup between Clusters 1 and 2 have to do with the fact that these Protestant Irish families intermarried.

A Flaw in My Logic?

I’m just thinking that I need to do this exercise at least one step further back as I haven’t yet finished filling in my 25 cM Clusters. I’ll see what I can do with just the information I have sorted out from Access so far.

Without any sorting of my query, it appears that Cluster 40 comes out of nowhere. However, when I sort by the 6 cM clusters:

Here is a situation where Cluster 40 must be a compound cluster. Here is what I see:

 

The smaller square at the top left may be Lentz. The single dark red square in the bottom right is Nigel. I mentioned him in my last Blog. He represents an old  Nicholson DNA match.

Nigel would not match the Lentz side which appears to be the top left side of the Cluster. There appears to be other sub-clusters within the Nicholson Cluster which may represent Ellis or Clayton highlighted above.

Because, I’m in the area of my 25 cM Clusters that I didn’t finish last time, I want to do a new Access Query

Comparing My 30 cM Clusters to My 25 cM Clusters in Access

Here is what my new query looks like:

I’ve connected the two tables by the Test ID. Then I compared the 25 cM Cluster Number to the 30 cM Cluster Number. Plus I added some more information that I though to be helpful. Actually I had the Name column twice which was not needed.

This is my Nicholson section. This shows that the 30 cM Cluster 14 mapped to two clusters at 25 cM. I’m glad I did this, because Cluster 25 splits between Lentz and Rathfelder due to my mother being in that Cluster:

This brings up another issue. At 20 cM, my Rathfelder 2nd cousin match aligned with my maternal 1st cousin and her two daughters. This caused them to form a single Cluster that mapped from a previous two Clusters (25b and 11). It’s not a big deal, but I had to just enter 38 twice to account for it. To be consistent, I’ll call them 38a and 38b:

 

Here the green square represents 38a with my first and second Rathfelder cousins:

The matches to the lower right of the green box would be my more distant relatives with ancestry in Hirschenhof, Latvia.

Finding Cluster 22 at 25 cM

When I compare my 25 cM Cluster to my 30 cM clusters:

Cluster 22 at 25 cM has no precedent at the 30 cM level. That has to do with the match level of Cluster 22. Here is a comparison with it’s corresponding 6 cM Cluster:

All these matches to me were under 30 cM. So basically, Access makes it so you don’t have to keep switching back and forth between the different results.

Solving the Puzzle: Filling in the 20 cM Clusters

The 20 cM and the 6 cM Clusters are the same. The Shared Cluster can look at how the matches between 6 and 20 cM are associated with Clusters but Ancestry doesn’t make shared clusters at less than 20 cM.

I have some filled in already, but need to get up to 50 clusters:

The first Cluster 19 mapping is an issue:

25 cM Cluster 19 maps to Clusters 6, 7, and 15 at the lower cutoff. Further, I can see at least three clusters within the new Cluster 7:

The two green squares represent points of interest for me. They appear to represent my Hartley English genealogy.

Backing Up a Step: 30 to 35 cM Clusters Compared with Access

Another way to use access is by using an unequal join:

The unequal join is represented by the left to right arrow above. That says, show me all the cases where there is a value in the 30 cM cluster table that is equal to a value in the 35 cM cluster table. And it adds in all the remaining 30 cM clusters that aren’t included in the 35 Cluster Table. I think that that is what I want. I could have had the arrow go the other way, but would have gotten different results.

Just for fun, I’ll do it both ways. This is the way from above:

This shows that Cluster 2 at the 30 cM level had no corresponding cluster(s) at that 35 cM level. Cluster 4 only had one corresponding Cluster. And in that corresponding cluster, Cluster 4 had a correlated Cluster 7.

Here are the results with the arrow going the other way. Think of the previous results as walking the clusters back and this new one as walking the clusters forward:

Here Cluster 2 doesn’t even show up at the 30 cM level. They both give about the same information, but the walking forward comparison should provide more detailed information.

Cluster 7 at 35 cM

I’d like to take another look at this as I had ignored this Cluster previously. Based on the above query, it turns out Cluster 7 is quite important. This is Cluster 7 at 35 cM:

The first two people I have as coming from Nantucket (my paternal grandfather’s side). The second two I had guessed as being from Ireland (my paternal grandmother’s side). I don’t think that they belong in the same Cluster, so I’ll tree this as two clusters.

Putting It All Together with Access

Here is a more complicated Access Query:

 

Above, I’m comparing the 6 cM table to the 25, 30 and 35 tables. I have the link between the 6 cM Table and the 25 cM Table a right handed link, so I’ll see all the 6 cM (or 20 cM) Clusters. I then put the 35 cM Clusters first so they will be in the order of my Summary Chart:

At 35 cM I have 10 Clusters. Cluster 1 maps to Cluster 14 at 30 cM. 14 Maps to Cluster 26 at 25 cM. Cluster 26 maps to Clusters 40 and 42 at 6 cM. However, note that other clusters are mapping to Cluster 40. That is because we have Lentz and Nicholson in Cluster 40 as well as those who only descend from  Nicholson, if I understand it correctly.

Cluster 2 at 35 cM includes my mother. Her clusters go from 2 to 14 to 25 to 21. The correlation is one to one until we get down to the 20 cM level. At that point the cluster splits into three where Cluster 40 is a child of Cluster 1. That makes me think that Cluster 40 will be a compound Cluster.

I see at least three clusters for Cluster 40 at the 20 cM cutoff:

Another Query

This one is more like the manual comparison that I did previously:

This query says take everything in the 6 cM Table plus those things that match inthe 25 cM. Then do that for each Table. That query appears to give me everything as it includes 2,452 rows:

Here is a stripped down version of this query:

Here I only include the Cluster Number columns:

This gives me 135 rows. This also points out that Cluster 6 and 10 at the 35 cM level both map to Cluster 7 at the 30 cM level. This makes sense when you look at Cluster 7:

This is a distinction that I had missed in my original mapping chart:

This corrected chart better reflects what Access is showing me:

Access then shows this:

The part of Cluster 7 that was from 10 goes to 18 and then to Cluster 5. This was not reflected in my previous summary chart:

Here is the correction:

I’ll also add in my Cluster 7 at the 35 cM level. I didn’t add it in previously as it had 2 people with Nantucket shared ancestors and 2 people with suspected Irish shared ancestors.

Mapping Cluster 4 at 30 cM

Here I have another situation like my Cluster 7 above:

This is another 4 person Cluster. And, like Cluster 7, the first two people seem to match on my Hartley side and the second two seem to match on my Frazer or Irish side. This is reflected in my Access query:

The split goes to Cluster 8 (Irish) and 14 (Hartley ancestors).

Mapping Cluster 14 at 30 cM

Here is the work I did previously in my Cluster Summary Chart:

I had split Cluster 14 in three. These are my major maternal lines. Because my mother was in this Cluster, she was related to both these sides. Lentz and Nicholson are well-tested, so I have some good separation there. This confusion is reflected in my Access query:

The Common Ancestor Column above shows three different sets of Common Ancestors. They represent the needed splits for Cluster 14. This is where the Access results come in handy. In Access, I have a 14 Cluster going to Cluster 26 which goes to 27. I had missed that in my previous analysis and only had 27 going to Cluster 40.

My Irish Cluster 15 at 30 cM

Here is what I had:

The Access query shows some additional subtleties:

This shows Cluster 2 at 25 cM going to Cluster 24 at 20 cM. However, that doesn’t mean my other Cluster 2 to 32 is wrong:

Two other people in Cluster 2 probably would have mapped back to Cluster 15 but the DNA match was not high enough to be in Cluster 15. Also note that Cluster 24 and 32 both have Common Ancestors:

The question is, if these three have the same common ancestors, then why are they in different clusters? The answer appears to be that one Cluster (24 or 32) would represent McMaster and the other Frazer due to the two common ancestors.

As a result, I split out these two clusters like this:

McMaster 1829 is Fanny in Cluster 2 above. I now have Clusters 24 and 32 as her parents. Consider it a theory.

The Good Enough Product

I have slimmed down my chart to show between 40 cM and 20 cM. I started with 5 clusters in the 40 cM Column which is enough to describe my four grandparents. In the 20 cM column, I didn’t feel a need to describe each of the 50 clusters. However, I was interested in describing each cluster in the 25 cM column and it’s corresponding cluster at 30 cM and 20 cM. The 25 cM clusters were at a good vantage point where I could check the clusters on either side using Access. The place where I may be more interested in detailed 20 cM clusters would be for my English Hartley side.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Jonathan Brecher’s Shared Cluster Program is good for sorting out your clusters
  • The use of MS Access makes it easier to see the nuances of how the clusters merge or separate between the different lower match thresholds
  • There is a question of my mind concerning the level of accuracy needed in this analysis. It’s good not to be so detailed-oriented that you miss the big picture. The big picture for me is whether the cluster is in the right grandparent group for me.
  • This was my first shot at using Shared Clusters to sort out my Ancestry Clusters. I’d like to try using the Shared Cluster program on other DNA kits that I administer. Perhaps my mother’s results would be the next logical step.