Category: DNA General

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Looking at Stuart’s Big Y-700

I told Stuart (his last name for privacy) that I would look at his Big Y-700. I hesitate to write this Blog, because I am not an expert on Big Y-700 and describing the differences between Stuart’s Big Y-500 and Big Y-700 is likely to be difficult. Stuart is not part of the Frazer YDNA Project that I am part of, but he is in a line that has had a common ancestor with the Frazer’s before the Frazer were Frazer’s. I am also interested in learning about the Big Y-700 as none of the Frazer testers have tested to that level yet. That makes Stuart a pioneer in this area of YDNA testing.

Stuart at YFull

Stuart has uploaded his Big Y-700 and previous Big Y-500 results to YFull. This is helpful in giving probable dates on when the different family lines had their origin. In the big picture, Stuart is R1a.

I see one difference already due to Stuart’s Big Y-700 test. Here are Stuart’s pre-Big Y-700 results:

Before, the number of years to Stuart’s common ancestors were lower. Stuart’s common ancestor with my Frazer relatives used to be 700 years ago. Now it is 800 years ago. Stuart’s common ancestor with his closest group of R-BY26344 used to be 225 years ago. Now it is 425 years ago. That has implications as there is a Stuart and a Grant in that group. The obvious implication is that the mixup in names could have happened up to 200 years further back in time than previously thought.

Stuart’s Big Y at FTDNA

Here is the same tree shown as a block tree at FTDNA but only up to the YP6479 level:

The thing I don’t like about the FTDNA tree is that it filters out too much. For example, I had my Frazer cousin tested shown as YF09981 at YFull above, but he doesn’t show as a match to Stuart at FTDNA. FTDNA shows a stingy 4 Big Y matches for Stuart

By comparison, YFull does a better job at matching SNPs and gives Stuart 71 matches:

More is better. My 2nd cousin with the Irish Flag shows correctly above, ahead of Hayes who has a common ancestor with Stuart of 1150 years ago.

Stuart’s Private Variants at FTDNA

Stuart shows an average of 13 Private Variants with his match Grant above. I would expect that Stuart would have more private variants than Grant as the Big Y-700 is supposed to pick up more than the old Big Y test.

 

This is the first page of Stuart’s Private Variants. He has 19 altogether. These Private Variants are shown above as position numbers. Once they find a match in another Big Y tester, they will be given a name. In order for Stuart and Grant to have an average of 13 Private Variants, Grant must have 7 Private Variants. As there are two in this YP6488 group, it would be helpful to have a third Big Y tester. This additional tester should refine the results in make a new branch for Stuart or Grant.

Tie-Breaking Candidates

Here is a group from the R1a Project:

The two testers with the green R-YP6488 results above are the ones who took the Big Y tests. The other two testers with the red R-M512 results would be the best bets for an additional Big Y test to match with the existing 26 Private Variants to form a new YDNA Branch on the tree of all mankind. I note that the one with the ancestor of Arthur Grant has genealogy that goes back the furthest. However, this is still within the 425 year timeframe for the common ancestor. In other words, there could have been an adoption or other name-changing event before the time of 1683 which separated Stuart from Grant.

Stuart At YFull

Stuart has two kits at YFull.

Big Y-500

I assume the shorter numbered kit is the Big Y-500. Here are Stuart’s 3 Private Variants:

 

This shows on Stuart’s original Big Y-500 test, he had one best quality Novel SNP and two that were acceptable. This SNP has two different position numbers based on the old system (HG19) and the new system (HG38). Due to newer technology and new SNPs being found, there had to be a new numbering system. It appears that this Private Variant already has the name of Y14660. However, different companies may have different names.

Here are the other two  private SNPs or Novel SNPs as YFull calls them:

 

They are of Acceptable quality. The last Novel SNP has a check by it:

It says that someone did a single test for this and it came up negative. Apparently the person who tested for this was someone other than Stuart.

Big Y-700

I’m curious to see any differences here.

Here are some huge differences. Now Stuart is up to 13 Best quality Novel SNPs. I can see the checked SNP from the previous Big Y-500. This has moved up from Acceptable to Best Quality.

Note that 6 Novel SNPs are marked as Homologous. I’m not sure what this means. I think it means that there is a SNP in a totally different haplogroup that looks the same.

One other difference is that YFull used the VCF analysis for Stuart’s Big Y-500. I checked the Big Y-500 test I had done for my Frazer cousin and the BAM file was used for that. My understanding is that the BAM file should be the one to use if possible.

Note that at FTDNA, Stuart had 19 Private Variants. At YFull, Stuart has 13 Novel SNPs of best quality and three of acceptable quality. This seems to be due to differences in how FTDNA and YFull choose which SNPs they should use.

Here is the side by side comparison between YFull and FTDNA:

For the YFull list, I only used the best quality list. That means that there were 7 Best Quality SNPs that YFull found that weren’t used by FTDNA.

Upon further review, I see that FTDNA has a second page of SNP Variants:

 

Now the comparison is closer. FTDNA has 19 Private Variants and YFull shows 15 Novel SNPs that match FTDNA’s. YFull has 13 SNPs of best quality and 3 SNPs of acceptable quality. These private SNPs are measuring Stuart’s non-matchedness. In other words, these are SNPs that are waiting to be matched, so that Stuart can form a new YDNA branch.

When I look at SNPs under different categories at YFull, it adds one SNP that FTDNA had. This brings up the importance of YFull. It is not necessarily showing that FTDNA is wrong but gives a second independent opinion to the analysis of the results.

YFull STR Matching

Here are the results of Stuart’s STR Matching at YFull:

When I try to choose Stuart’s old Big Y test, I get no results, so these are based on the more recent Big Y-700 test. The results are interesting, though generally not as precise as SNP results. Stuart’s closest match is correctly with Grant with a distance 0.03. After that, there are two Frazer’s, a Hayes and another Frazer. The last Frazer with the Irish Flag is my 2nd cousin once removed. Clearly the Hayes connection is much further back than the Frazer connection:

Extended STR Matching at FTDNA

This is available, but not in one place like YFull has it:

Here are Stuart’s 111 STR matches. If they have taken the Big Y test, then those results will show also. YFull showed 5 extended results. These are all the Frazer results. The rest of the group can be found at Stuart’s 67 STR match page:

For whatever reason, my second cousin once removed seems to have more than the average number of mutations, or that STRs that changed were the faster moving STRs to begin with.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Based on YFull, Stuart had a large increase of Private Variants or SNPs between his Big Y-500 and Big Y-700 test. Based on the Big Y-500, Stuart had 3 Private SNPs. This went up to 16 Private SNPs with the Big Y-700 test.
  • Stuart’s original YFull analysis was based on his VCF file and his Big Y-700 YFull analysis is based on his BAM file. My understanding is that the BAM analysis is more detailed.
  • Stuarts dates for a common ancestor to his Grant match and to his Frazer matches increased. This is apparently due to the increase of Stuart’s newly found Private SNPs. The more unmatched SNPs you have, the further you have to a common ancestor.
  • The new date for the common ancestor of 425 years before present between Stuart and Grant has genealogical implications. That goes back to before the year 1600. That means that the mixup between Grant and Stuart could go back that long, or it could be that these surnames were less set in stone at that time.
  • I don’t know how to look at Stuart’s old Big Y-500 results at FTDNA. It doesn’t seem like the old results are kept separately like YFull does.

 

 

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My Hathaway DNA

I was recently writing a couple of Blogs about where my Hathaway ancestors lived. It turns out that there are a ton of Hathaway descendants. This is a good thing for DNA matching. Think about it. If I was the only descendant of my Hathaway ancestors, I wouldn’t have any DNA matches on that line. As it is, I should have a lot. This made me want to look into my Hathaway DNA and see if I could do anything with it.

Hathaway Genealogy

The most recent Hathaway in my genealogy is Wealthy Hathaway born 1809. She married Harvey Bradford and is my 3rd great-grandmother:

Anyone with whom I share Wealthy Hathaway and Harvey Bradford would be a 4th cousin. At ancestry I have a DNA match with a J.H:

JH and I show as th cousins through Harvey Bradford. However, we are equally or more related on the Hathaway side:

This is JH’s tree and Olive descends from two different Hathaway Lines. As I said, prolific.

My JH match also appears on Ancestry’s Thrulines:

JH and Philip have modest DNA matches with me. I have a huge match with Patricia, but we are also 2nd cousins through a closer pair of common ancestors.

More Searching for Hathaway DNA Matches at Ancestry

I can do a seach like this:

This narrows down ancestral Hathaway’s from Wareham, MA. However, some of my Hathaway ancestors were actually from Rochester, MA. When I run this Search with Rochester, I get Louisa. She responded to to a message I sent her, but was somewhat private. Her tree is locked:

She thinks we connect on the Simon Hathaway Line. However, that would make us 7th cousins if she is in the same generation as me from Simon Hathaway. That is pretty far out there for a DNA match of 34 cM. Ancestry expects us to be on the order of 4th cousins based on the amount of DNA that Louisa and I share.

Shared Matches that Louisa and I Share

Assuming that Louisa and I share DNA all the way back from Simon Hathaway and Hannah Clifton, our shared matches could be along that line also.

Gloria is the first shared match I have with Louisa with a useful tree:

Gloria’s second great grandmother is Susan Hathaway born in 1849. As Susan seems stuck at that point, I hesitate to try to figure out who she is. So I am stuck here. Susan had a son named Rufus and there was a Rufus Hathaway who lived not far from where I lived in Massachusetts, but I am stuck on Gloria right now.

Searching for Wareham Hathaway Ancestors with DNA Matches

Next, I’ll go back to my Wareham search that I mentioned above. The first person I find who I don’t already know about is Carol. Carol has a Rebecca Hathaway in her tree:

I found her death record at Ancestry:

Her married name was transcribed as Leaver and I can see why. Here are her parents:

I just have to make the connection to a common ancestor. This will also force me to build out my Ancestry Tree. Based on 139 Ancestry Trees, David’s parents were Salathiel and Lovey:

Here is how Carol and I match as 7th cousins:

It’s a double Hathaway match as Lovey in Carol’s line married Salathiel Hathaway. Salathiel was son of Thomas, so of Arthur. Our common ancestor Simon was also a son of Arthur but from a different wife. I won’t chart that out for the sake of simplicity. I think that means that Salathiel and Lovey were half first cousins once removed! If I add Rebecca Hathaway to my tree, Ancestry will probably see the connection.

Actually, I left out David on Carol’s side:

Back to Wealthy Hathaway

I can add a Wealthy Branch to the tree:

I could also call this the Bradford Branch. On the right side where I am, Annie Snell and James Hartley had 13 children. So I won’t add all those. Patricia also descends from that couple on her mother’s side.

Skot

I wrote a Blog about Skot here. In that Blog I gave more in-depth analysis of Hathaway DNA.

Nadine

I also have a small DNA match with Nadine at Ancestry. Her tree appears to be on the same Lovey/Salathiel Branch. Nadine’s tree stops at Jonathan Hathaway:

Jonathan was one of 11, so there was a good chance that I would be matching some of those descendants.

Looking at My Brother Jon’s Matches

I have four other siblings tested at Ancestry. My brother Jon matches WW by DNA. WW’s tree stops at Simon Hathaway, but Ancestry shows that WW’s Simon is the son of my ancestors Simon Hathaway and Hannah Clifton:

WW is interesting as she has Pitts descendants:

WW’s Ancestry Solves Gloria’s Ancestry with DNA Matches as Supporting Evidence

Remember, I got stuck about on Gloria’s genealogy. Here is how Gloria most likely fits in:

 

Simon above who was son and grandson of Simon’s Hathaway was born in Rochester, MA and died in Florida. Susan Hathaway must be the sister of Mary Hathaway. Mary marries William Pitts and Susan marries John Pitts. That means that Gloria and WW are my 6th cousins once removed. It’s cool that DNA picked up Simon Hathaway who moved from Rochester to Alabama and Florida around 175 years ago.

Jon and Tami

When I look for Jon’s DNA with a search for Hathaway ancestors from Rochester, MA, I get Tami. Tami is from the Holmes, Florida Branch of Hathaway’s:

Based on WW’s Ancestry Tree, Simon W Hathaway bought 199 acres of land in the Tallahassee area of Florida:

Tami helps build out the Florida Branch nicely:

My Sister Lori and Alyssa

Ancestry doesn’t pick up a common ancestor here, but I think I see one:

I descend from David Hathaway and Priscilla Hiller. Here is that Line:

Alyssa also added her DNA to Gedmatch which is important for analysis. Here is where she matches my sister Lori on Chromosome 2:

The match is fairly low, so it is difficult to tell how significant this DNA match is. However, the genealogical connection is probably quite good, so the DNA match is not as important as, say, with Gloria, where some of the genealogical records appear to be missing.

Lori and Thomas

Here I have added Thomas and Lori:

Joyce, My Father’s Cousin’s Hathaway DNA Matches

Joyce is a generation away from me, so should have more Hathaway DNA. Joyce matches AH:

AH’s tree ends at Salathiel and Lovey Hathaway. I’ll add AH and Joyce to my tree. Actually it is not that easy as it shows Salathiel born in 1836 being the father of Thomas Hathaway born in 1789. That’s not good. I better make my own tree:

My tree goes out to an Isaac Hathaway Jr. That would give a hint as to the father. AH’s tree has Thomas Hathaway as the father of Isaac Hathaway. On Edward’s marriage record, it shows that his father was a Junior:

This record of Intentions is for Isaac Hathaway Jr.:

Short story is that it seems like AH should be in the David Hathaway Line:

That would make Joyce and AH 5th cousins if I have it right.

Joyce’s ThruLines with David Hathaway

ThruLines are a sort of short cut. Ancestry tries to make the connections that I am trying to make by computer matching and DNA matching:

Ancestry wants me to evaluate these, but they look alright to me. The only problem is that Ancestry shows Charlotte as a half 5th cousin and she should be a full 5th cousin to Joyce. Here they are on my Chart:

If all these people had uploaded their DNA results to Gedmatch, I would be able to tell how they match each other and it would give more evidence for this tree.

More Rochester Hathaway DNA Matches for Joyce

When I look for common DNA matches and common Rochester Hathaway ancestors for Joyce, I find Katherine:

Edwin looks familiar from AH’s tree, so I’ll add Katherine to my tree:

Katherine brings the David Hathaway/Priscilla Hiller tree down an additional generation. So the skinny little tree I had at the top of the Blog has filled out quite a bit. This is a composite tree with DNA matches from myself my siblings and Joyce so far.

Joyce and Joyce

Joyce’s match Joyce is from the Salathiel/Lovey Hathaway Line. When I add Joyce, I can take out Thomas. AH had him as an ancestor, but I didn’t think that was correct:

This will fix the Savery Branch. Savery was the brother of my ancestor David Hathaway:

This shows that Joyce is a 4th cousin to my high school friend, Skot.

Joyce and Cynthia

Cynthia is on the Hathaway/Bradford LIne:

Joyce and AF

AF goes back to Simon Hathaway and Hannah Clifton through their daughter, Rebecca:

So far I have only descendants of Simon’s three sons, so this is a new line.

Joyce with Bradford and Catherine

Bradford and Catherine add to the Salathiel/Lovey Line.

Joyce has a DNA Match with MD on the David Hathaway Line

Here is an update of the progress so far:

This shows Simon Hathaway at the top with three sons and a daughter. The David Hathaway line has the most descendants as that is the line that I come from and am comparing. All of these people have a DNA match to me, one of my siblings or to my father’s first cousin Joyce.

Joyce Matches Melanie on the Simon LIne

Melanie is the last DNA match for Joyce with an easily identifiable common Hathaway ancestor.

My Dad’s First Cousin Maury

My cousin tested her dad at AncestryDNA and gave me access to the results. He should match many of the same Hathaway descendants plus a few new ones. When I do the find DNA matches of Hathaway ancestors from Wareham, I get DM. I don’t recognize DM from previous searches. DM has ancestors on the Simon side:

I’ll have to add Maury to my Chart also. Here is how the DNA match works:

Both Maury and DM both likely got the same slice of DNA from Simon Hathaway or his wife Hannah Clifton. DM is on the Simon Hathaway Line that ended up in Florida in the 1800’s.

Maury and HI

HI goes back to my David Hiller ancestor:

Maury’s ThruLines

These are some of the DNA matches and genealogical matches that Ancestry came up with:

I just added HI and already have JH, but I can add in Eli and Janet.

Maury’s Match to Carolyn on the Lovey Branch

My DNA Hathaway Chart

This is what I came up with as a result of this Blog:

These are some of the descendants of Simon Hathaway and Hannah Clifton that have DNA matches with me, my siblings and my father’s two cousins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Painting a DNA Match on My Mother’s Side

I recently came upon a DNA match of my mother’s that I hadn’t painted yet. I use a web site called dnapainter.com to paint DNA. In order to do that, you need:

  1. DNA matches
  2. Yotu have to be pretty sure you have a common ancestor with those DNA matches that you can identify

Here is how my Mom is painted so far:

 

This shows my Mom to be 24% painted. That means that I have found DNA matches with most likely identifiable common ancestors for about one quarter of her autosomal DNA. However, I am missing a DNA match on my Mom’s Chromosome 22. In addition, I have no paternal matches on my mom’s Chromosome 4. The paternal side as shown above is the top blue side.

My Mom’s New Match – Ingrid

Actually my mom’s match is not really new. The match’s sister was going to add her results to Gedmatch.com, but never got around to it. Here is a Rathfelder Chart where I just added Ingrid:

By this chart, Astrid and Ingrid are 2nd cousins once removed to my mother. Here is Ingrid’s tree:

We both have slightly different trees. I wrote a Blog here in 2016 about Wilhemine. I may have written others also.

Common Ancestral DNA

I have at DNA Painter, that my mom’s common ancestors with Astrid are Rathfelder and Bittenbinder. That also agrees with Ancestry.com:

The crazy thing about this connection is that it shows two brothers with the same name. Believe it or not, I have this from a published document. That means that I have to change my chart.

That’s a pretty big change. Now my Mom is a fourth cousin with Astrid and Ingrid. With the amount of DNA shared between my mom and Astrid, Ancestry says they have a 4% chance of being fourth cousins:

However, there is a good chance that they are related on additional lines due to intermarriage within the Colony of Hirschenhof where these ancestors lived.

Here is Astrid’s DNA at DNA painter (as she matches my Mom).

Here is how Ingrid matches my mom at Family Tree DNA:

Some of these matches are below 7 cM and by default, DNA Painter does not add matches less than 7 cM.

Here is the DNA that Ingrid adds:

Ingrid matches my Mom at similar places as her sister Astrid. However, Ingrid adds some DNA that on Chromosome 19. Due to the nature of DNA mapping, the largest matches are first and the newest ones are usually smaller.

Painting My Match with Ingrid

I can do the same for me. Here is my match with Astrid on DNA Painter:

Every time you go through a generation, some specific DNA is lost or diluted. Also my representation of Rathfelder and Bittenbinder has a pink background as they are on my Maternal side. For my mom, they are on her Paternal side.

This shows that Ingrid didn’t add anything new for me:

Ingrid is in the grey and Astrid in green.

 

 

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Where Did My Hathaway Ancestors Live?

I am curious as to where my Hathaway ancestors lived. There were many different Hathaway facilities in Southeastern Massachusetts. My most recent Hathaway ancestors lived in Wareham, MA and also in neighboring Rochester.

Wealthy Cowing Hathaway 1809-1863

Wealthy Hathaway married Harvey Bradford in 1832 and had two children. Harvey died in 1841. It may be easiest to start at the end of Wealthy’s life and work back. Here is Wealthy in 1860 in Rochester:

 

Wealthy was living with her young married daughter Hanah Bradford Snell who was married to Isiah Snell. Wealthy was my third great-grandmother. The order on the Census listed Elisha Bumpus, Blacksmith, Ephraim Gammons Master Farmer, Lydia Pierce and Alden Rounseville, Miller. The first row mentions of the Census shows the house and the second row shows the family. So that means that the 70 year old Lydia Peirce was living in the same house as Isaiah Snell – possibly with a grandchild John King. Here is an 1857 map:

At that time Isaiah’s father lived on Snipatuit Road. A Rounseville and EK Gammons are shown on presetn-day Rounesville Road. I don’t see Phipps or Bumpus on the map and I don’t see A Gillmore on the Census. It could be that Isaiah Snell and his mother-in-law Wealthy were living in the Gillmore house.

Wealthy in 1855

In 1855 Wealthy and her daughter Hannah were living in the house of Mercy Snow. Here is an 1856 Map:

This shows Ira Clark. J. Pierce is probably Josiah South of Snow’s Pond. Barnabas Douglas is probably the Douglass to the SW of Snow’s Pond on the map above. Seth and Israel Cowen are shown on the preceding page of the 1855 Census. There are two Snow houses shown on Neck Road, so Wealthy was probably living in one of them. I don’t know what Est means after the N Snow house. My ancestor Otis Snell after moving from Snipatuit Road, moved to where the N Snow house is shown on the map. I don’t know if he lived in the same house or had a new house built.

In 1850 Mercy Snow was living in this house on Neck Road:

This could be the N Snow from the map above – my first guess for where Wealthy was living in 1855.

Wealthy in 1850

Wealthy was living in Rochester in 1850 with her mother Experience and sister Priscilla, but her two children Henry and Hannah were born in Wareham. Her son Henry was a ‘Nailor’. He likely worked at a local Nail factory.

Experience was her mother – Experience Cowing Hathaway. Priscilla may be a sister of Wealthy. With the Pierce’s listed in this Census, it makes me think that this may be in the Pierceville section of Rochester/West Wareham.

Names listed in the 1850 Census around Hathaway are Nicholus Snow (see above), Dennis Pierce, Dennis A Pierce,  Robert Pierce, Moses Pierce, Jonathan King, Experience Hathaway, Nerberg? Morse, Isaiah Cobb, John Pierce, George Pierce, James Nickerson, Branch Pierce and Milton Reamy.

 

On this 1857 map, I wanted to show Pierceville on the left and a Nail Manufactory and various iron works on the right. M Reamy must be Milton Reamy. He is importantant as the Census says he was born in Virginia and has a unique surname compared to the common names of the area. N Morse may be the Morse in the Census. R Pierce may be Robert Pierce of the Census and G Pierce may be George Pierce of the Census. Of interest also is the N [I now realize this is R] Hathaway House. The Hathaway House was on what is now High Street in Rochester.

[Note: As per below this Hathaway House was the house of Wealthy’s sister Ruth A Hathaway and perhaps formerly her parents – Joseph Hathaway and Experience Cowing Hathaway.]

Here is another map from 1856:

Actually, it is a map with overlays. This area is called Horse Neck on the Map and the house is the Ruth Hathaway House. The road branching off to the Store to the East of the Hathaway House is currently Pierce Street.

The Horse Neck area reminds me that I had transcribed an deed fromWealthy Bradford to George Pierce on my Bradford Web Page:

The above deed was the last listed below:

Part of the problem is with the spelling of her name. I would have spelled it Wealthy.

I was hoping the first deed in the list above would explain it all, but it didn’t:

The same Cobbs were mentioned. This time Alvin Drake is mentioned. It looks like Wealthy Bradford and George Pierce were selling some land to these Cobbs.

This land is described as being on the South side of the Road leading from Alvin Drake’s to Wareham. The lot started at Alvin’s property and went East. So that is fairly specific. The middle Branch of the Sippican River must be the one near the Hathaway House in the Map above.

1859 Deed from George Pierce to Ruth Hathaway

Here Ruth buys land for $65:

This deed gives some more specifics as to whereWeathy’s land was.

Probate Records for Ruth A Hathaway 1863

Here he see Ruth died 22 June 1863:

Hopefully this will tie things together. Unfortunately, Wealthy had died on 11 April 1863. That left as Ruth’s heirs,

  • Henry C Bradford and Hannah T Snell both of Rochester
  • Caroline C Cobb, Artemus C Cobb, Lucy F Cobb and Mary A Cobb all of Middleborough

It gets better because Ruth had a will.

That must be Ruth’s signature. A little faint, but it was the day before she died. In the will, Ruth mentions her mother, Experience Hathaway and her sister Priscilla Hathaway. Here are the stones that Ruth requested at the Union Cemetery:

Now I know where my fourth great-grandmother Experience Cowing Hathaway is buried. This stone states that Ruth died May 22, 1863, but that cannot be right as she signed her will June 21, 1863.

Here are the heirs:

The Last Deed for Ruth A Hathaway

The property was sold in 1863 and recorded in 1866:

George Pierce ended up buying the property for $175.

So now I know:

  • Three of the places where Wealthy Hathaway Bradford lived after her husband died. I assume that her husband may also have been a Nailor and lived in the area, but over the Wareham line.
  • I found what appears to be the house where Wealthy grew up. This was in current day Pierceville on current day High Street. I don’t think there is a house there now but I can check. I find it very satifsying to find out where my ancestors lived for some reason. I knew some Hathaway’s growing up and just wrongly assumed that this Hathaway ancestor lived in the area where they lived.
  • I found out some more about Ruth A Hathaway and the Cobb family.
  • I found a photo of three Hathaway grave stones at the Union Cemetery in Rochester. This is a place I would not have expected to look for Hathaway’s.

Any More On Joseph Hathaway (1771-1815)

With my recent success, I’m tempted to look further back a generation to Joseph Hathaway. With Joseph, I’ll start right off with the Probate:

I see a letter in the file from 1835, twenty years after Joseph’s death. Here we get into some family intrigue. All the children of Joseph are going against the administrator of Joseph’s estate.

The children a claiming that the administrator, Jonathan Cowing was not administering properly. I don’t think that the children got the money from the sale of the property that they should have and that Jonathan also sold property that he was not authorized to sell. At least that was the claim.

A Rare Mention of Harvey Bradford

Interesting to me is that Harvey Bradford was still alive at this time. He is said to be of Rochester. However at the time he was married in 1832 and in the 1840 Census, Harvey was listed as being in Wareham. Here are some of the people that he is enumerated near:

This version is easier to read:

Here is Experience’s signature to the fact that Jonathan Cowing could be administrator of the Estate:

So that explains why Experience did not sign the letter above from 1835 against Jonathan who was probably her brother.

Joseph’s Inventory

Inventories are interesting as they give a glimpse into what an ancestor owned. This one is a bit difficult to read:

At the top of the list is a cow worth $20. This was quite a bit of money for the time as several acres of land could be bought for less than this. The cow and steer totaled $54. He had an axe and a broad axe. I believe a broad axe could be used for turning lumber into planks or wood or dimensional wood for house framing.

Experience Hathaway’s Dower

It appears that it was the custom to set off part of the lands of the deceased husband to support the wife:

Here Joseph’s inventory was determined to be five hundred and thirty dollars. Land set off for his wife, Experience was appraised at one hundred and seventy six Dollars and sixty six cents and two [thirds?]. This was likely a quite generous amount and enough for Ruth to live on also. It looks like Experience also got the house. So that should mean that Ruth Hathaway was living in her father Joseph’s house.

As far as the 1835 letter above, I have not yet found the outcome of that.

Probate for Experience Hathaway 1855

Experience left a will:

It seems like Priscilla and Ruth Ann made out better than Wealthy. They got the house and Wealthy got $1. My guess is that Priscilla and Ruth Ann took care of their mother and Wealthy was unable to as she was raising her two children. The children of her daughter Lucy Cobb got 25 cents each.

Joseph Hathaway Deeds

Joseph Hathaway was born in Wareham before the Revolutionary War:

Here is a deed where Joseph buys property in Rochester from Manter in 1791 when Joseph was 28.

We find that Grafton Manter of Rochester was a Cordwainer. That is a shoemaker. Joseph of Wareham was a blacksmith. He managed to save or somehow get $450 dollars to buy this large property.

The deed mentions 55 acres adjacent to Elijah Caswell’s Lands. It also mentions some fresh meadows and meadowish lands by the East Branch of the Sippican River and by Thomas Bassett’s meadow. This house could be the same one that Ruth Ann Hathaway lived in. The extra Meadow land would have been further to the East.

Two More Joseph Hathaway Deeds in Rochester

After Joseph bought this large property in Rochester in 1797, he married Experience Cowing in Mattapoisett in 1801:

In the first deed in 1809, Joseph sells off his Sippican River East Branch property to John Morse.

The land was 15 acres. The deed mentioned a deceased John Goodspeed and an Isaac Savery.

The 1856 Map shows an N Morse which is probably part of the area sold to John Morse. Joseph is now called a yeoman, so perhaps he gave up the blacksmith profession. The deed was first made in 1802, a year after Joseph married Priscilla Cowing and then recorded later.

Here is the next deed:

Joseph paid $100 to William Pierce for this land.

This agreement was on 1 August 1806 and recorded 1815. This was probably the land that went to Joseph’s daughter Wealthy Hathaway Bradford – my 4th great-grandmother. Wealthy’s sister Lucy also seemed to have a legal right to this land, so perhaps the land went to her also. That may be why Wealthy only got $1 in her mother’s will.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I had fairly good luck in finding the Rochester locations where my Hathaway anestors lived.
  • Wealthy Hathaway was born in 1809 and grew up on High Street, Rochester to the West of Pierce Street. She married Harvey Bradford in 1832. He was from Wareham. An 1835 letter implied that the family lived in Rochester. However, the 1840 Census has Harvey Bradford and family in Wareham.
  • Harvey dies in 1841, leaving Wealthy as the single mother of two children. In 1850, Wealthy lived with her mother Experience and sister Priscilla in the house where she grew up on High Street. In 1855, after the death of her mother, Wealthy was living on Neck Road with her daughter Hannah at the home of Mercy Snow. In 1860, Wealthy lived with her daughter Hannah who was now married to Isaiah Snell and living on Snipatuit Road.
  • In a twist, Isaiah Snell’s father was living on Snipatuit Road. He sells his house to his son Isaiah and buys what appears to be the house and/or property where Mercy Snow previously lived.
  • My ancestor Joseph Hathaway born 1771 in Wareham buys land in Rochester and apparently moves there in 1779. He also buys land near this land in 1806 which ends up going to Wealthy. Wealthy’s sister Lucy also has a claim on this land.
  • When Joseph dies in 1815, he leaves his house to his wife Experience. However, the children are unhappy with the way that the property is administered by Experience’s brother Jonathan Cowing.
  • When Ruth Ann Hathaway dies, she is interested in erecting a headstone for her beloved mother Experience and her sister Priscilla. These headstones are still standing today in the Union Cemetery in Rochester, MA.
  • In 1858, Wealthy sells the land her father bought for $100. She only gets $10 for the 20 acres of land. I assume that part of this $10 went to her sister Lucy’s children.
  • This research was greatly aided by an 1856 Map that gave names on the houses in the area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Trip to the Plymouth County Registry of Deeds Part 1

I was off to the Plymouth County Registry of Deeds to record my mortgage discharge. While there, I though I’d check out some genealogical land records for my Bradford and Snell ancestors. In this Blog I’ll look at one of my Bradford ancestors and land they held across from the Training Green in Plymouth.

Harvey Bradford and the Plymouth Training Green

Harvey Bradford born about 1809 is the weak link between myself and Governor William Bradford of Pilgrim fame. One of the best records I have for him is in a land deed. That 1816 land deed connects him to the Training Green in Plymouth:

In my transcription above Harvey was listed in the sale of a house from his family to Henry Bartlett, Jr. This house was on the North side of the Training Green. To the West of the house was a way leading from the meeting house in the Third precinct. To the East was Deacon Lot Harlow Land. It seems with all that description I should be able to find where this house was. I assume that this was Harvey’s father Samuel’s house and where Harvey grew up.

On the way to the Registry, I passed the Green:

Technically North of the Green is at the intersection of N Green and Sandwich. However, the fact that there is a North Green leads me to believe that North could have been to the upper left of the map above.  There are only four houses on North Green Street, so my thought was that the Bradford house could be the one on the corner of North Green and Pleasant.

It was clear to me that this house was a newer one or seriously rebuilt:

I did walk from the bottom of the street to the top. The house at the bottom was the Benjamin Bartlett House from 1726. The next house up was listed as the Jesse Harlow House from about 1800. There were no plaques on the top two houses.

Next, I checked a Fire Insurance map from 1885:

This map shows no house on the corner of Pleasant and N. Green, so the house there now was built some time after 1885.

Also no house there in 1879:

Here’s an 1857 Map of the area:

Now we are back up to four houses on this little Street. That means that the Bradford house disappeared sometime between 1857 and 1879. One interesting thing is that there is a S Bradford at the corner of Commercial and Sandwich. He is surrounded by Churchill’s [possibly Samuel, son of Samuel Bradford?]. I have that Harvey’s father Samuel Bradford married Lucy Churchill. The name on the map above associated with the house I think was my ancestor’s looks like W Straffin or Straflin. This could be the W Straffin:

Looks like he got property from Daniel Gale. From there I go back to 1818:

I picked the Bates to Gale deed because the Street name was blank on both. Now I’m getting lost. [See later in the Blog for the correction.]

The Bradford House Going Forward

I tried going backward from an 1857 Map and got lost. The Bradford House and Land near the Training Green was sold in 1816 to Henry Bartlett Junior. On my trip to the Registry of Deeds I saw that Henry Bartlett Junior turned around the next year and sold the land in 1817 to Joseph Avery.

Hopefully the answer would be in one of these deeds:

However, I wonder if Joseph dies after 1824. Then the land could have been conveyed by inheritance. According to the deed I got at the Registry, this Joseph Avery was a bookbinder.

Deacon Lot Harlow Land Next to the Samuel Bradford Land

I did find a deed on-line for Deacon Lot Harlow from 1805. He was Samuel Bradford’s neighbor:

This was a family transaction:

Short story: this lot was between my ancestor Samuel Bradford on the West and Lazarus Harlow on the East. So I am back to 1805, but no mention of Jesse Harlow. Apparently this house used to belong to Deacon Lot Harlow’s father John Harlow.

How Did Samuel Bradford Get His Land Near the Training Green?

Samuel got this property from Nathaniel Ripley:

Here’s the whole 1793 deed. Only 226 years old:

Apparently Nathaniel Ripley and Samuel Bradford were both mariners. The Bartlett name is here also:

Samuel paid 8 pounds, so this was before the time of the dollar.

Here we learn that this property previously  belonged to Abigail Bartlett who had died. She was the wife of Benjamin Bartlett and received that property after Benjamin died. The wives of Nathaniel and Joseph are also mentioned:

Here is some more on the Bartlett/Ripley connection:

It looks like Nathaniel Ripley was a Captain married to Elizabeth Bartlett, daughter of Benjamin and Abigail. Here is a Reference from the Mayflower Descendant Richard Warren Book (Vol 18, part 2):

I assume that this was the widow’s dower mentioned in the Samuel Bradford deed.

This is also interesting in that there was no house on the property in 1793. Benjamin Bartlett is mentioned in this deed. He is likely the one who built this house on the lower corner:

The garden to the Bartlett house mentioned in the deed must have been to the left of the house. This Bradford deed gives me more certainty that I have been on the right track.

Tracing 7 North Green from Present Going Back in Time

One tedious way to look at this is starting with the Plymouth Assessor’s Office and going back through deeds:

The lot that Samuel purchased was fairly small. This lot is 0.075 acres, so would be a good match. I traced this back to 1948:

There was a hint on this deed:

I’m glad that this deed mentioned a previous deed as Bumpus is not mentioned on the previous deed. So this deed gets us back to Hannah T Weston in 1896. I feel like I am getting closer:

This deed references an earlier deed in Book 409, pages 230-231:

Here I am getting a bit stuck. I’m having trouble finding this Book and Page. Hannah was the wife of George:

This was probably Hannah T Chase:

Fortunately, FamilySearch also has records. Here is Volume 409, page 230:

Page 231:

This page mentions William Straffin which is back where I was a while ago. This was the W Straffin on the map that showed occupants’ names.

Back to the Straffin Deed

This Straffin/Gale deed where I got stuck should be found in Book 164, page 104. A closer read of this deed shows that this is the wrong property. This must be the right one in 1857:

The Straffin/Spear deed shows that Straffin bought this property at auction for $8.50.

Turns out Spear is the administrator for Hannah Bartlett. This could get us back to the Bradford/Bartlett deed. For some reason, this house that Straffin bought was already called the Straffins house in 1857.

I assume that this Straffin house was the one originally occupied by my ancestor Samuel Bradford.

The Bartlett/Straffin Connection

On 21 November 1811 Henry Bartlett married Prudence Straffin. My guess is that this was Henry Bartlett Junior.

Avery/Bartlett Connection

There was a connection also between Avery and Bartlett. On 8 October 1816 Henry Bartlett Junior sold Joseph Avery a house for $1,350. That was quite a bit in those days. Henry’s wife Prudence agrees to give up her dower in the house. In that deed mention is made of Joseph’s mother:

More On Hannah S Bartlett

Hannah apparently died in 1855. A William Harlow applied to be her administrator because Hannah owed him the most money, but the administrator role was awarded to William H Spear. A note on the record refers to her as a:

More On Henry Bartlett, Junior

The Samuel Bradford house on the Training Green in Plymouth got sold to Henry Bartlett Junior in 1816. This Henry Bartlett the second may be the same person here:

It appears that he died in 1827 and Ezra Finney was named administrator. This was probably the same one who sold to Joseph Avery.

That means that I am missing something between 1817 and 1857.

More on Joseph Avery

Joseph Avery was a bookbinder in Plymouth. His father, also Joseph Avery was apparently a clergyman in Holden.

In Joseph Avery’s Inventory of Real Estate, I don’t see the property by the Training Green:

Avery’s Pew

In a custom that has not carried to this day, pews in the Church were sold. This Registry of Deeds record describes Avery buying a pew from Stephen and Lucy Churchill:

This is interesting because Stephen and Lucy Churchill were the parents of Lucy Churchill who married Samuel Bradford. If I have the right couple, they would have been quite old as Stephen was born in 1743 and Lucy in 1745. I don’t have death dates for either person, so this document could narrow things down.

Other Churchill Deeds

This has me wondering if there were other Churchill deeds around this time. Here is one where Stephen sells his cooper shop to Samuel in 1813:

 

However, was this Samuel the father born about 1755 or Samuel Bradford the son born 1788?

It turns out that Samuel’s father-in-law Stephen Churchill was also his second cousin:

Other Legal Documents for Samuel Bradford

I mentioned above that it appeared that Samuel bought the cooper’s shop from his father-in-law Stephen Churchill in 1813. In this 1819 court document, it appears that Samuel Bradford has passed away if I am reading it right. It looks to me that Samuel has an administrator named Bartlett Bradford. I can make a guess as to who these other Bradford’s are. Samuel’s eldest was Lucy. She married Bartlett Bradford in 1807 at First Church, Plymouth. Bartlett’s father was James Bradford. It looks like Bartlett was going after money owed to his deceased father-in-law.

This says Samuel Bradford, but a case near it was in 1825 (vol. 14, p. 62), so possibly Samuel, the son of my ancestors Samuel.

Telling the Story of Samuel and His Property at the Training Green

According to the Mayflower Families Bradford Book, Samuel was the fourth of nine children born between Josiah in 1754 and Charles who was baptized in 1756. That could put his birth in 1755. That birth order was likely derived from another deed:

Growing up, the family lived mostly in Plymouth, but for a while also in Middleborough. Samuel’s father Josiah was originally a mariner but mostly was a cordwainer. On 10 Jan 1757, Josiah Bradford and family were warned from Middleborough. In 1763 Josiah Bradford and family, from Middleborough, were warned from Plymouth. Warning was a way for a Town to get rid of someone they didn’t want – either bacause they were trouble or they needed Town support. The idea was that their home town should be dealing with them and that you couldn’t just move to another town if you were a liability. Here is one court case that mentions Josiah:

There is no date on this case, but it was probably about 1759. Here another case involving someone from “Plimpton”:

This must be the Warning from Middleborough:

No reason is given for the warning other than they are not inhabitants. Here is the warning from Plymouth:

I assume that this warning was ignored or appealed. This would have put the family in a Catch 22. They couldn’t be in Middleborough or Plymouth. This gives me the sense of an unstable home life for the family. Samuel’s father Josiah died in 1777 during the time of the Revolutionary war.

Eight years later, Samuel married Lucy Churchill in 1785. She was one of nine children of Stephen Churchill and Lucy Burbank. Perhaps Samuel was working at Stephen’s cooper shop when he met Lucy. At any rate, Samuel changes his profession from mariner to cooper.

On 26 April 1777, Samuel’s father, Josiah dies. This was an interesting time as it was during the Revolutionary War. That brings up the question of what Samuel was doing during the Revolutionary War. I haven’t found any obvious record of his service in that War. Samuel was listed as a mariner, but apparently got into the cooper business through his father-in-law Stephen Churchill. Samuel married Lucy Churchill in 1785.

Here is some Samuel Bradford family chronology:

  • Samuel Bradford born about 1755
  • 1757-1759 Samuel appears to be living in Middleborough where his father is listed as a cordwainer. Was Samuel’s birth not recorded because they weren’t supposed to be living in Middleborough?
  • 1763 or 1765 – The Mayflower Families Book says that Samuel’s father Josiah was warned from Plymouth in 1763. However, the transcription above says this happened 12 Feb 1765 and that they moved to Plymouth from Middleborough the previous May (1764)
  • 1772 – Samuel’s father Josiah given eighty acres of land by his mother Elizabeth Finney Bradford. The land is to the East of Gunner’s Exchange Pond
  • 1773 Samuel’s father Josiah buys land from Henry Richmond near South Pond where his house is already located
  • 26 April 1777 – Samuel’s father Josiah dies
  • 26 Oct 1777 – Samuel’s mother Hannah becomes a member of the Plymouth Church
  • Lucy Bradford born 1787
  • Samuel Bradford born 1788
  • 19 May 1790 – Samuel’s mother Hannah Rider dies

Other Samuel Bradford Deeds

At this point, I went looking for more records for 1790 and found another deed:

This deed names William Bradford, Cordwainer, Samuel Bradford, Charles Bradford, Zephaniah Bradford, Married Hannah Bradford, Betsy Bradford, Lois Bradford, Mercy Bradford, spinsters all of Plymouth. [But where is Josiah, son of Josiah?] They sold land for 5 pounds to Rosseter Cotton. This land was near South Pond, Plymouth and was 1-1/2 acres. Further mention is that their father Josiah had bought this land from Henry Richmond on Sept 14th 1773.

Here is South Pond which is also a village in Plymouth:

Here is the earlier deed reference:

This is actually quite interesting. The question is why a mariner would buy land from a ‘Husbandman’. The answer is within the deed:

…one acre and a half more or less of land lying near South Pond in said Plymouth being part of my [Henry Richmond’s] homestead, and is the piece of land where said Bradford’s House stands and is all included within fence and is twenty Rods long and sixteen Rods wide at one end and eight Rods at the other end. Being the easterly Part of my said Homestead Lands. – To have and to hold the same, with all the priveledges and appurtenances thereto belonging, (the Dwelling House being his before,)…

The deed suggests a few issues:

  • Why was Josiah Bradford’s house on Henry Richmond’s Land?
  • The deed does not state which side of the Pond the property was on.
  • Why is there no mention of the Bradford house in the 1790 deed?
  • I assume that Josiah Bradford’s children were raised at this dwelling house.
  • I don’t see this deed mentioned in the Mayflower Descendants Books, so in a sense this is ‘new’ evidence’. Or you might say one good deed leads to another.

Here is something on Henry Richmond:

It looks like Henry Richmond had something in common with Josiah Bradford, in that they were both warned out of Plymouth in 1765. This Henry was in Court a lot as a lot of people were trying to get money that Henry owed them.

The following deed is mentioned in the book, William Bradford of the Mayflower:

I had previously transcribed that deed:

I now see Zephaniah Bradford as Mariner (not married). This is for the sale of land to the East of Gunner’s Exchange Pond in Plymouth. Gunner’s Exchange Pond is to the Southeast of South Pond:

This was an important deed. This land was given to Josiah by his mother Elizabeth Finney Bradford in 1772. That deed refers to an earlier deed dated 6 Jun 1727. I haven’t looked up that deed, but apparently Elizabeth’s two brothers gave the land to their three sisters at that time.

Back to Samuel Bradford’s Chronology

  • 1791 – Stephen Bradford born
  • 1793 – Samuel buys land near the Training Green. Was he looking for a shorter commute for his Mariner profession? Samuel apparently has a house built around this time on this property.
  • January 1797 – Samuel and family sell to Joshua Wright and Joseph Samson 80 acres of land that their grandmother Elizabeth Bradford deeded to their father Josiah Bradford to the East of Gunner’s Exchange Pond.
  • August 1797 – Ellen Bradford born
  • 1800 – Hannah B Bradford born
  • 1809 – My ancestor Harvey Bradford born. His mother Lucy was about 41 at the time.
  • 1813 – Stephen Churchill, father-in-law of Samuel, sells his cooper shop to Samuel [probably the elder] Bradford
  • The Bradford house and land near the Training Green is sold on 8 October 1816 after Samuel’s death. That puts Samuel’s death at some time not too long before this date.

Summary and Questions

  • Looking at deeds and legal documents gave a lot more information on the Bradford family, food for thought and future research
  • I feel like I have the right property for the Samuel Bradford House on the Corner of Pleasant and North Green.
  • Samuel bought the land and apparently built a house there sometime after 1793. Samuel’s first three children Lucy, Samuel and Stephen were born before this time. Ellen, Hannah and Harvey were perhaps born in this house.
  • Samuel dies and the house is sold to Henry Bartlett Jr, in 1816 when Harvey is only about 7 years old
  • The next year the land is sold to bookseller, Joseph Avery. He dies in 1822, but there is no mention that he owns this property.
  • What happened to the Bradford family after the death of Samuel Bradford?
  • Looking at deeds gave more information on the Samuel Bradford family and the family of his father Josiah Bradford, including places where Josiah and family had lived

 

 

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23andMe Your Family Tree Beta

23andMe has a new feature. It tries to predict your family tree based on DNA alone. Here is mine:

This tree looks like it could have been designed by Dr. Seuss. It turns out that this is at least potentially helpful as I have had trouble figuring out who is who at 23andMe.

My guess is that the left hand side is to represent my mother’s side. My right hand side is my paternal side. However, a closer inspection of the tree shows that to not be the case. 23andMe gives you the opportunity to add some known ancestors in:

Iain to the lower left of me (JH) is right. He descends from my mother’s Uncle Leo from Latvia. However, other of my mother’s relatives are listed on my father’s side.

My Hartley/Snell Great Grandparents

Probably a good strategy for determining a paternal or maternal side is to go with the largest group. My Hartley/Snell grandparents had 13 children and most of them had children. So I picked that group to be the paternal side. This happened to be on the right-hand side of my 23andMe DNA Tree:

Daniel and Harold are rightly placed on the same level as me as second cousins. I suppose that it would be fun to try to fill this part in a bit. I’m familiar with this family on the right:

Mary Hartley was my great Aunt Mary and lived close by when I was growing up.

Fixing Mistakes in the Tree

It looks that it may be possible to fix mistakes in the future:

It’s not as much fun building out the tree when you know it is wrong. Here is my second cousin Judy:

She descends from my mother’s grandparents Lentz and Nicholson. Here she shows as descending from my father’s great-grandparents Snell and Bradford.

Even though Judith is shown on my paternal side, this relationship appears relatively correct:

Will and Judith’s ancestos would be my mother’s grandparents Lentz and Nicholson. However, as 23andMe does not show that couple as my direct ancestors, they do not give me the opportunity to enter both ancestors.

Gail On My Family Tree

Even though Gail should be on my maternal side, I figured out who she was by looking through my messages:

Gail actually descends from the Nicholsons. In fact, I already had her on the right hand side of a Nicholson chart I created:

As Joan, Linda, and Gail are sisters, it would be possible to perform visual phasing on their DNA results. I added to my chart that Gail was on 23andMe, so I would remember.

I’ll add Gail’s ancestry to the 23andMe tree:

My guess is that Alexander, Amelia and John descend from Nellie Nicholson. Nellie was the daughter of William Nicholson of Sheffield, England, not Isaiah Snell of Rochester, Massachusetts.

Sorting Out the Hartley Branch of the 23andMe Tree

I think I have figured out who Charles is:

Charles should be my second cousin twice removed. The DNA Tree shows Charles as my 3rd cousin once removed. Here is the DNA that Charles and I share:

Here is Charles added on to my own chart:

Charles represents a seventh child of James Hartley and Annie Snell. The only person who I can’t identify in my Hartley 2nd cousin group is DL. DL must come either from one of the children not shown above or perhaps come more distantly from the Snell family. My great-grandparents had 15 children over a 25 year period. Two died in infancy and two didn’t have children. That leaves 11 children with offspring. I show 7 above, so DL may come from one of the lines not represented above (or from a line that only tested at AncestryDNA).

Pro’s and Con’s of 23andMe’s ‘Your Family Tree’

I’ll start with the negatives:

Con’s

  • The tree mixes up maternal and paternal relatives. This would be solved if I had my mother tested at 23andMe. My suspicious side says that this is a scheme to get more people to test at 23andMe.
  • There are only two relatives shown on the tree that are on my maternal side. One is right and one is wrong. There appear to be 6 relatives that should be on the my mother’s side that show on my father’s side. That means that my mother’s side mathces are placed mostly wrong.
  • There is currently no way to correct the tree. Apparently this is in the works and would be quite helpful.

Pro’s

  • The tree prioritizes cousins to look at and contact
  • The tree gives potential lines based apparently on common matches.
  • Even though groups may be on the wrong paternal/maternal side, the common ancestors for those groups may be correct. This can help identify common ancestors for others in the group when one common ancestors is known.
  • Hopefully 23andMe will use the information added by me and others to correct their algorithms and improve their trees.
  • The tree gives a possible way that your tree could have been based just on DNA matches and helps put your 23andMe DNA matches into a context.

 

 

 

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Aunt Esther’s Newfoundland Ancestors, MyHeritage’s Theories of Relativity, and DNA Painter

I’m surprised that I have never written about my wife’s Aunt Esther’s Theories of Relativity (TOR). MyHeritage takes DNA matches and matches them up with ancestral trees. I’ll go through Esther’s Theories of Relativity.

Esther’s Top TOR – Wallace

I have Blogged about Wallace before. Here is how Wallace and Esther’s TOR looks like:

Esther and Wallace are 1st cousins once removed. I have already painted Wallace’s DNA onto Esther’s chromosome map.

Wallace accounts for some of the Esther’s green DNA above which represents DNA from either Henry Upshall or Catherine Dicks. The above map shows Esther’s paternal side which is 50% mapped.

TOR#2- Marilyn

Esther and Marilyn show as third cousins twice removed. The common ancestors are Christopher Dicks born about 1784 and Margaret. I don’t see Christopher Dicks on Esther’s Chromosome Painter Map. However, there is a problem with the match between Marilyn and Esther. The problem is that these two match by too much DNA for this relationship:

Marilyn and Esther share 151.5 cM. That puts them off the chart for 3C2R. However, there is a 0.46% chance of this being right. The more likely reason is that Marilyn and Esther match on more than one line. This is common with people who have Harbour Buffet genealogy. I’ll just ignore that for now and sort it out later, perhaps.

However, I see that Esther and Marilyn have this other match:

Marilyn descends from two of Christopher Dicks’ children: Robert and Rachel Dicks.

Here is how Marilyn and Esther match:

Here is the addition on Esther’s paternal side:

This brought up Esther’s paternally mapped DNA up 1% to 51% and her entire mapped DNA up 1% to 30%.

There is a utility at Gedmatch called ‘Are your parents related?’. Esther’s parents are related on several chromosomes. Here is one spot on Chromosome 2, where Esther matches Marilyn also:

I see that Wallace also matches Esther in this region.

TOR #3 – Annie

In the past, I have not looked much at Esther’s maternal side. That is because my mother-in-law is Esther’s half niece and is not related on Esther’s maternal side. However, I’ll look at Esther’s maternal side now.

I’ll just paint Annie’s match onto Esther. This is what Esther’s maternal side looks like so far at 8% painted:

The addition brings Esther’s maternal map back to the late 1700’s:

That gets Esther’s maternal side up to 10% painted.

I do see one problem at Chromosome 1 already:

Violet and Annie both match Esther on the right side of Chromosome 1. That segment cannot be for both shared ancestor couples. It could be that Violet has Shave and/or Parsons ancestors or some other similar explanation. This is another reason I haven’t looked into Esther’s maternal side!

TOR #4 – Josiah

Josiah looks like he could be Annie’s Uncle:

That also makes Josiah, Esther’s third cousin.

Josiah has a similar issue with Violet, but on a different segment of Chromosome 1:

I’ll file that under the category of ‘sort it out later’.

TOR #5 – Frederick

Frederick appears to be Annie’s brother. His Theory of Relativity is missing a generation, so I won’t show it. It turns out that Frederick didn’t add any new Shave/Parsons DNA to Esther’s map that his sister and uncle didn’t already have:

Frederick’s matches show up in grey cross-hatch above.

TOR #6 – Jacqueline

Esther also has Kirby ancestors, but this shows only the Shave/Parsons common ancestors.

I decided to change Shave/Parsons to yellow. Jacqueline adds quite a bit:

TOR #7 – David, Another Pafford Descendant

This could take a while as Esther has a lot of matches:

Stephen adds a large match to Esther’s Chromosome 1:

Esther’s maternal side is now 15% painted. Esher’s entire chromosomes are now 33% or one third painted:

As far as I know, MyHeritage does not show X Chromosome matches. That means that we have to go to Gedmatch to get X Chromosome matches.

Marilyn and Esther’s X Match

I mentioned Marilyn above. I know that her DNA has been uploaded to Gedmatch. The X Chromosome is a special case and follows a specific inheritance in that the X Chromosome is never passed down from father to son. That means that the X Chromosome match that Marilyn and Esther share was passed down from Margaret, the wife of Christopher Dicks. We can know that because of Esther’s tree:

Above, I had that Margaret may have been a Burton, but in looking at other trees, I don’t see that as much of an option.

Now Esther has a little color on her paternal side X Chromosome. That is the side that men don’t have. I could do much more, but I’ll get back to the Theories of Relativity.

TOR #8 – Rowena

Rowena takes us back a generation on the Dicks side:

I don’t know when this Christopher was born, but I’ll say about 1750. I’ll paint this match and see what happens. I see a few potential problems. One is that these segment sizes are quite large for such an old match:

The other potential problem is that Rowena and MB have a match with Esther that overlap on Chromosome 2:

Rowena’s common ancestor with Esther is Christopher Dicks and MB’s common ancestors are Peter Upshall and Margaret.

TOR’s #9 and 10 – Another Wallace and Valetta

This is not the same as the earlier Wallace but seems to be another brother of Annie:

As such, he did not add any more Shave/Parsons DNA to Esther’s map. TOR #10, Valetta appears to be Wallace’s sister.

TOR #11 – Laurie

Here is someone with a more recent Shave ancestor:

However, MyHeritage also shows this possible match:

To make things more confusing, Laurie has a Joseph Dicks in her tree which may be the same Joseph I have on Esther’s maternal side:

It may be that further DNA analysis could sort this out, but I’ll skip Laurie for now.

TOR #12 – Janet

Janet also has two TOR’s – one on Esther’s paternal side and one on her maternal side, so I’ll skip her for now also.

TOR #12 – Harold

Harold is forging into new old territory:

I’m not sure what to make of this. I’m tempted to add the Pike name to Esther’s maternal side.

As a follow-up, I could check on Esther’s likely maternal Pike ancestors.

Summaries and Conclusions

  • MyHeritage’s Theories of Relativity lend themselves to the DNA Painter program.
  • I had some problem when the Theories of Relativity were on Esther’s Paternal and Maternal sides, so I chose to ignore those situations.
  • One shortcoming of MyHeritage is that they don’t show X Chromosome matches. Those are important for showing specific common ancestors.
  • I could follow up on Esther’s DNA painting by looking for more Gedmatch matches.
  • It appears that Esther has Pike ancestry on her maternal side based on one Theory of Relativity

 

 

 

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Edward H Butler May Not Be the Son of Michael Butler and Margaret Croke?

In my previous Blog, I wrote an update on Butler DNA. In that Blog, I discussed a match between my wife’s Aunt Lorraine and Brian:

Brian shows up at AncestryDNA as a potential third cousin to Lorraine. That means that unless there is an unusual circumstance, my proposed DNA/genealogy chart cannot be right.

That chart shows Brian and Lorraine as 4th cousins once removed. However, reported data indicates that sharing 147 cM of DNA is outside the range of 4C1R possibilities, but is within the realm of likelihood (albeit on the high end) for a 3C1R:

As we have a birth record for George Butler, but not for Edward H Butler, that suggests that Edward H (likely Henry) Butler could have been the son of Henry Butler and Ann Russel.

Playing With the Butler Family Tree

There, I just made Lorraine and Brian third cousins, once removed. However, Edward H just lost MIchael Butler as his father. Here is the family tree that Butler researcher Peter has:

HENRY1 BUTLER was born in 1800 in Wexford. He married Ann Russel on 02 Jul 1824 in Wexford.

She was born in 1800 in Wexford.

Henry Butler and Ann Russel had the following children:

i. GEORGE2 BUTLER was born on 03 Oct 1826 in Wexford, Ireland. He died on 23 Dec 1890 in Hamilton County, Ohio. He married (1) MARY WHITTY, daughter of Richard Whitty and Margaret, on 12 Jun 1849 in Mountain Gate Rathangan Wexford. She was born on 03 Dec 1824 in Rathangan Wexford, Ireland. She died on 11 Jan 1865 in Hamilton County, Ohio. He married (2) MARGARET SINNOTT on 11 Nov 1868 in All Saints Catholic Church Cincinatti. She was born in 1845 in wexford Ireland. She died in 1887 in Hamilton County, Ohio.

ii. NICHOLAS BUTLER was born on 23 Apr 1828 in Wexford. He married Christina Lambert on 06 Oct 1848 in Wexford Ireland. She was born in Wexford.

iii. ELIZA BUTLER was born on 06 Mar 1830 in Wexford.

HENRY BUTLER was born on 29 Mar 1832 in Wexford.

MARY ANNE BUTLER was born on 23 Mar 1833 in Wexford.

BRIDGET BUTLER was born on 15 Jul 1836 in Wexford.

vii. ADAM BUTLER was born on 24 Jul 1839 in Wexford. I think this is a Baptism date

Peter also found another daughter for this family born in 1842:

Peter notes that George’s other name also appeared as Adam on his baptismal record and that the Adam born in 1839 went by Edward. There are a few reasons why Edward H may have been part of the Henry Butler/Ann Russell family:

  • The large DNA match between Lorraine and Brian
  • The fact that Edward did not name any of his children after Michael nor after Margaret
  • Edward did name his first son George and lived in Cincinnati for several years where the (presumably) elder George Butler lived.
  • The middle name of Henry which was carried down could have been for the Henry Butler born about 1800 in the genealogy above.
  • There has been no birth record found for Edward as son of Michael (nor as son of Henry).
  • Most records for Edward’s sons list his father born in Kilkenny. However, one record lists his father as being from Wexford.

Under my scenario, Edward is born to Henry in Wexford but is adopted by Michael Butler of Poulrone, Killkenny for some reason.

James Butler Born About 1823 Kilkenny, IRE

I have noted before that it appears that Edward was a brother to a James Butler. This was inferred from the US Census of 1910:

Here Mary Mellie is actually Mary Butler, the daughter of James Butler and Mary Quinn. She was born in 1858, though she would like us to think that she was born in 1880. That is quite a difference. Joanna, born in 1860 would have liked to have us think she was born in 1877. Edward Butler was clearly not Mary’s father. That lead me to believe that Edward and James could have been brothers and Edward was acting as Mary’s father. If Edward gave his correct age, he would have been born about 1832 (see below).

However, I note that this James Butler’s eldest son was Michael Butler:

Perhaps this James actually was a son of Michael Butler. James’ son Matthew could have been named for his brother.

Here is Mathias or Matthew Butler who is recorded as a son of Michael Butler and Margaret Croak:

So under this scenario (likely or not), Edward goes to live with and Uncle and considers the Uncle and Aunt his parents. He also considers James and Matthew his brothers.

So Where Does Edward H Butler Fit In?

Peter recently discovered  Naturalization papers for an Edward Butler from Poulrone:

In those papers, he gives his birth year as 1825. However, if he is the same as Henry born in Wexford in 1832, that would fit in better with other recorded birth years for Edward:

If Henry was named for his father, it would make sense that he might go by a different name to avoid confusion. One problem with the timing is that if Edward came to the US in 1843, he would have been only 11. That leaves a few possibilities:

  1. Edward was actually born 17 August 1825. To do that, he would have been squeezed in between his parents’ marriage and the birth of George in 1826.
  2. Edward was born in 1832, came to the US, say in 1848 when he was about 16 and was naturalized at about age 18. That would results in several fibs as his witnesses were supposed to have known him for 5 years before his naturalization.

More DNA Analysis

As I mentioned above, the DNA match between Lorraine and Brian has lead me to the above scenario. Here is an AutoCluster I performed for Lorraine earlier in the year:

These clusters are difficult to see. Clusters are where you match people in a group and that group of people match each other for the most part. Lorraine is part French Canadian and part Irish. The French Canadian took over for the most part. Lorraine’s Irish clusters are in the bottom right. Brian is in Cluster 35 which has 7 members.

Here is a closeup of the Clusters 33-36:

 

Brian is the second person in Cluster 35. He matches Barbara, Donna, Patty and Kim:

That means that in Cluster 35, there are three descendants of Edward H and three descendants of George Butler. I don’t know if the fact that there are three people on each side make the proposed tree more likely or not. To me, it suggests that it could be more likely.

Cluster 34

Brian also matches two people in Cluster 34. That is a Kerivan Cluster, but Edward H’s son Edward Henry born 1875 married a Kerivan, so that explains the connection. Brian is matching on the Butler side of the Kerivan Cluster. Brian matches Amanda and Dawn in Cluster 34. Unfortunately, Amanda and Dawn either have no tree or not enough to figure out their ancestors.

Analyzing the Size of DNA Matches

There are two ways to do this. One is by the Chart I showed at the top of the Blog. It is possible to analyze the possibilities at Ancestry also. Here is how AncestryDNA shows Brian and Lorraine:

Their most likely relationship given the match would be 2nd cousin once removed. However, they have a 1% chance of being 3C1R. I’ll put that into a chart:

I’ll be looking at my wife’s Aunt Lorraine and her sister Virginia as I manage their DNA results. Here is how the results look:

Were it not for the match between Lorraine and Brian, I would say that the results are inconclusive. However, there appears to be no chance that Brian and Lorraine could be fourth cousins once removed.

Looking at Gedmatch

I can also look at Gedmatch, however, there is not a one-to-one correlation between AncestryDNA and Gedmatch. Here is how the match between Lorraine and Kim looks at Gedmatch:

Gedmatch expresses it’s guesses in generations. So a 4.5 means generations to a common ancestor. That would be equivalent to a third cousin once removed. The green above represents the new chart that I have with George Butler and Edward H Butler as brothers. The yellow represents George Butler and Edward H Butler as first cousins.

Here is some more data, though, again, I don’t see any clear conclusions:

Summary and Conclusions

  • A high DNA match between Lorraine and Brian in conjunction with lack of some key birth records has lead me to believe that George Butler born 1826 and my wife’s ancestor Edward H Butler could be brothers.
  • That would mean that Edward H Butler’s parents would be Henry Butler and Ann Russell.
  • Then why would tradition and records on the Edward H Butler line have his parents as Michael Butler and Margaret Croke? One possibility is that Michael and Margaret were Edward’s Uncle and Aunt and that he went to live with them and considered them to be his parents. Perhaps MIchael needed help on his farm or Edward had some falling out with his family.
  • This should lead to a renewed interest to find out more about the Henry Butler and Michael Butler families.
  • I would be open to other interpretations, but due to a high DNA match which indicates that George Butler and Henry H Butlers should be brothers, no other clear possibilities come to mind right now.
  • I still surmise that Henry Butler and Michael Butler could be brothers. I have a birth record for Matthew, son of Michael and my assumption is that Michael Butler had a son named James. James had several children. One of his daughters was Mary who married a Mellie and housed Edward H Butler in Newton, Massachusetts according to the 1910 Census.

 

 

 

 

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Edward Butler Son of Henry Butler and Ann Russel Born 1839 Wexford

Thanks to my fellow researcher Peter from England. He, with the help of Neil, has unearthed Edward Butler. This was no easy task as this Edward was baptized Adam:

George Butler Born 1826 Wexford, Ireland

Adam must have been a popular name in this family as George was also baptized as Adam:

George is important because he moved from Ireland to Cincinnati. He had two wives and descendants who have taken DNA tests. Those DNA tests have linked George to my wife’s ancestor Edward Butler (different than the Edward above). Here is my tree from Henry Butler showing those on the bottom who match my wife’s Butler family by DNA:

Above, I have added in Edward Butler (baptized Adam) next to George.

The Ireland, St John, Cincinnati, and Boston Connection

  1. My wife’s ancestor Edward was born in Ireland. He married in St John, New Brunswick. He moved to Cincinnati, then to the Chicago area and then to the Boston area.
  2. George Butler above was born in Wexford and moved to Cincinnati. However, his daughter Mary Ann who was born in Cincinnati moved to St John where she married Thomas Joseph Murphy. This implies that the family had previous connections with St John.
  3. The Edward of this Blog was born in Wexford, and died in Boston. However, his funeral notice in the newspaper mentions that the funeral arrangements would be of interest in St John, NB.

Here is Edward’s Boston Globe funeral notice thanks to Peter:

Edward Butler Born 1839 Wexford, Ireland

Perhaps this Edward who was baptized Adam can shed some light on these connections. I’ll start with Edward’s death which Peter already found. Edward was listed as married and a longshoreman. He died of pneumonia at the Boston City Hospital:

I found this 1908 marriage:

This Julia A married a man from Digby Nova Scotia. Her parents were Edward E Butler and Catherine Murray. Julia A was said to be born in Boston, but her husband’s naturalization papers say she was born in Ireland:

I can’t be sure this is the right family. It appears that Julia could have been from Cork:

However, other Ancestry trees seem to think that this is the right person:

City Directories

I’ll try some City Directories. Here is Newton, Massachusetts in 1893:

This is at 220 California Street where Edward’s funeral was at in 1891. I assume that b means boards. That would mean that this was a boarding house.

Here is the 1891 Newton Directory:

I get the sense that Edward (Adam) lived in Boston, but had the funeral at a boarding house where Edward H Butler lived in Newton.

Who Was Edward H Bulter, Clerk at 220 California Street?

Hopefully this is more than a wild goose chase.  In 1895, this Edward H was a canvasser:

Here is a bit of a breakthrough in the 1897 Directory:

Here, Edward H makes the switch from clerk to canvasser to machinist. This is important because my wife’s great-grandfather was Edward Henry Butler, a machinist.  In the 1899 Newton Directory, the entry is exactly the same.

By the time of the 1900 Census, Edward H had moved to 26 Crescent Street, Newton:

Here Edward is shown as being born in Massachusetts, where other records have him born in Chicago.

That leads me to an interesting conclusion. My wife’s great-grandfather was living in Newton at least as early as 1891. At that time he was 16 years old, working as a clerk and hosting the funeral of Edward (baptized Adam) Butler who was born in Wexford in 1839. Edward later was a canvasser shortly and then a machinist and moved to 26 crescent street.

[Edit: After further thought, it would make more sense if the Edward H Butler in the Directory and holding the funeral service was the elder Edward H Butler born in Ireland. Subsequent evidence has come to light based on DNA testing that the two may have been brothers. That means that they would have been brothers of the elder George Butler who lived in Cincinnati also.]

In November 1901 Edward H married Lillian Frances Kerivan. However, it seems the marriage got off to a rocky start. Here is a note from the Newton marriage intentions dated 6 November 1901:

This note is in the column titled “married when, where and by whom”. This would usually give the name and address of a priest. Apparently the marriage took place but in Boston, not in Newton where the Intentions were recorded:

Here is the person who married them:

This is also a bit unusual. CL stands for Clergyman. PR stands for priest. That means that this was not a Catholic wedding. Perhaps that is why Edward destroyed the original certificate?

Back To Edward Butler Born 1839 Wexford, Ireland

Other than Edward’s birth and death, not much can be found out about him. Here is a detail from Edward’s death record:

Boston City Hospital was not at 24 Clark Street, so I assume that is where Edward lived prior to his death. According to Google maps, 24 Clark Street is the address of the Society of St James. However, that Society began in 1958. The Society of St James is part of St Stephens Church:

Ancestry has this listing for Edward Butler in the Boston Directory of 1890:

Here is my guess from 1889:

Here is another guess:

The above is from the 1879 St John Directory.

Then, if we want to accept that he was a seaman, we can consider this record:

Summary and Conclusions

  • I am fortunate to have Peter working on my genealogy as he has come up with so many leads.
  • Peter’s finding of this other Edward Butler has lead to more important clues for my wife’s family.
  • Edward son of Henry Butler had his funeral at the boarding house where my wife’s great-grandfather Edward H Butler lived. Edward was the grandson of Michael Butler of Ireland.
  • I suspect that Henry and Michael Butler were brothers.
  • It was difficult finding clues for Edward, son of Henry other than his birth and death records. However, looking at his information shined some light on details of my wife’s family.
  • While working on this Edward, new information has been brought to light by Peter concerning my wife’s immigrant ancestor Edward. I’ll Blog about that soon.

 

 

 

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Upshall DNA Update: Barry From New Zealand

In a previous Blog, I looked at Mervyn’s DNA. He matched my wife’s family on the Newfoundland side where many Upshall’s lived. Upshall DNA and genealogy is a difficult subject. Many families intermarried in the small community of Harbour Buffett where many of these families lived.

Esther’s Early Upshall ThruLines

Esther is my wife’s 1/2 great Aunt. Here are her early Upshall ThruLines:

Here, the working theory is that Sarah Upshall (above left) was the daughter of John Upshall and that she was the single mother of Peter who moved to Newfoundland. This theory seems to be born out by the above ThruLines.

I have also come up with my own tree that mixes ancestry and DNA:

This tree has George in the right columns as one of four children of John Upshall. Sarah is in the middle with many Newfoundland descendants. Interestingly, there is no overlap between Ancestry’s ThruLines and my chart.

The John at the top of the chart was married to an Elizabeth Ellis. The ThruLines for Elizabeth give me one more line to look at:

All the ThruLines have a note that they want me to evaluate the lines. That sounds like a lot of work. The thing that I like about these early ThruLines is that they represent the family before they moved to Newfoundland, so there would be less intermarriage with these lines. That means that these lines should more likely have Upshall common ancestor rather than another name.

Evaluating Esther’s Early Upshall ThruLines

The Upshall/Carter Line

I’ll first look at the additional ThruLine that Elisabeth Ellis has. Barry shows a 19 cM match with Esther. Fortunately, Barry also has uploaded his DNA results to Gedmatch:

Before I look at Barry’s genealogy, I note that Martha also matches Esther at this location. Here is Esther’s Chromosome 12:

This is roughly the area where Barry matches Esther in red. If Barry also matches Martha, then we would have triangulation and indication of a common ancestor:

This shows that Esther, Barry and Martha triangulate. This gives me confidence that the Ancestry ThruLine between Barry and John Upshall is correct.

Here is Martha’s tree. Ancestry has put green rectangles around common ancestors:

This shows that Esther and Martha also match twice on the Kirby/Emberley lines. Barry has 28,000 people in his tree but no Kirby or Emberley. That means that the common ancestor for Esther, Martha and Barry should be Upshall/Ellis.

Barry’s Genealogy

I’ll do a quick tree for Barry to figure out who the private person is in the tree. I got back as far as Priscilla Carter and noticed an Ann Upshall in Barry’s tree:

This appears to be Ann’s birth record:

Here is Winterborne-Stickland, about 6 miles from Hazelbury Bryan:

Triangulating With Barry

Now we have a match by DNA, Triangulation and genealogy:

The people in the green boxes have their DNA at Gedmatch.

DNA Painter

All that is left to do is to paint in these ancestors on Esther’s Chromosome 12:

This shows more precisely where Barry’s match is on Esther’s paternal side Chromosome 12. It appears that Joan’s sister Elaine and Martha have DNA from either John Upshall born 1739 or his wife Elisabeth Ellis.

Summary and Conclusions

  • In updating my wife’s side Upshall DNA matches, I came across Barry
  • Because Barry had his genealogy at Ancestry and his DNA at Gedmatch, he was the perfect example to show and Upshall match that was outside of Newfoundland.
  • A match outside of Newfoundland is important as other Newfoundland matches have confounding DNA matches and genealogy.
  • I was able to show genetic triangulation with Barry, my wife’s Aunt Esther and at least one other match. That triangulation in conjunction with the genealogy seemed to confirm that Esther’s DNA match with Barry was from an Upshall born in the 1700’s.
  • In areas where there is intermarriage, it helps to go to earlier matches outside the area of intermarriage if possible. In this case the Upshall matches go back to the area of Hazelbury Bryan in Dorset, England.