Category: DNA General

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My Mom’s MyHeritage Theories of Family Relativity

My mom has two Theories of Family Relativity (ToFRs) at MyHeritage (MH). One is on her father’s German/Latvian side and one is on her mother’s Philadelphia side. Let’s take a look.

Mom and Wolf: A German/Latvian Match

My mom’s dad was not Latvian, but was a German who lived in Latvia. I had written a Blog on Wolf here. In that Blog, I had noted many German-Latvian connections, so I was interested to see what MH’s ToFR would show.

For some reason, in my Blog, I had a heading for Biedermann, but under it, I show a connection to Biedenbinder. It looks like I mixed up my Biedermann and Biedenbinder. I did mention problems in the Biedermann line later in my Blog. However, Wolf has two Biedermann Lines and the one above is not the one I mention in my Blog.

Wolf has an impressive tree. The four in the first row are Wolf’s maternal great-grandparents. Anna Biedermann is shown above in the ToFR. The problem with Elisabeth is that she would have been 15 when her son was born. However, I found a possible birth record for Elisabeth that showed she could have been born in 1854.

Do My Records Match with MH Records on Biedermann?

First, it appears that MH agrees with Wolf’s tree – or more likely accepted his tree.

Here is my mother’s tree at MH:

 

In the ToFR, Jacobine Lutke is shown as private for some reason. Then ToFR shows Anna E.J. Biedermann as the mother of Jacobine. I have her as the mother-in-law of Jacobine! Now I don’t feel so bad about mixing up Biedermann and Biedenbinder in my previous Blog.

A Possible Fix for MH

If I see it right, if I replace Jacobine with her husband Philipp Gangnus on my mother’s side of the tree, this should work out.

I have the two common ancestors in my Ancestry Tree, but not in my MH tree, so I will say that I agree with this tree.

A Gladys – Wolf Common Ancestor Summary

I found three common ancestors in my previous Blog and MH found another one (Biedermann):

You have a lot of common ancestors with someone when you need a spreadsheet to keep track of them all. I should note that it is possible that Biedermann is in there twice due to Wolf having two Biedermann Lines. Coincidentally (or not) Wolf matches my Mom at 5 segments at MH:

Three of the five segments are in the 6 cM range.

MH Redeems Itself for My German Latvian Biedermann Ancestor

I had not previously noticed the highlighted hyperlink shown below:

This purple hyperlink leads to Theory 2 which agrees with my orange rendering above. Theory 2 was based on 5 Paths. That just means that 5 trees agreed with Theory 2. There was only 1 Path (or Tree) for Theory 1. I’m not sure why MH didn’t put the 5 Path Theory as Theory 1.  Note to self: Pay attention to purple hyperlinks at MH in the future.

Mom and Annette: The Philadelphia Connection

Let’s hope there are no bumps in the road for this ToFR.

One cool thing I notice is that Gladys and Annette’s mothers were both born in 1900. Another interesting thing is htat Annette’s grandfather is George Washington Slater. On Gladys’ side, Mary Baker was married to George Washington Lentz. It took me a long time and a lot of work to get a last name for my mom’s Mary. I just checked Ancestry and noticed this record that someone posted:

This record gives the name of both of Mary Baker’s parents. I may have already had this record. I have mentioned Annette previously in this Blog.

Summary and Conclusions

  • My mother has two ToFRs. They both proved to be valid.
  • My mother’s German Latvian ToFR appeared to be a problem. That was until I found a hyperlink that showed a more reasonable version of herToFR.
  • The ToFR was helpful as I had missed the Biedermann common ancestors with Wolf the first time I looked at the connection. I was focusing on only one of two of Wolf’s Biedermann Lines.

 

 

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My Brother’s MyHeritage Theory of Family Relativity Leads to Lancashire

I am finding MyHeritage’s Theory of Family Relativity interesting. I looked at a few of “Theories” in a previous Blog, and will now look at my brother Jim’s. My brother JIm has six matches under MyHeritage’s (MH’s) Theory program. Three are ones that I have. Of those three two are mother and daughter. The three matches that Jim has that I don’t have all appear to be related to each other also.

Jim and Marcus at MH

Here is how MH shows Jim and Marcus’ merged trees:

Unfortunately, these two trees don’t seem to match well. How could Mary Pilling and Betty Wilkinson be sisters? When I look at MH’s full Theory, I see this:

Marcus shows Mary Pilling in his tree, but I don’t know how she is connected and I see no parents listed for Mary in Marcus’ tree.

Jim and Marcus: the DNA

I’ll look at Jim and Marcus’ DNA and then get back to the genealogy. Jim’s best match with Marcus is on Chromosome 1 shown in yellow below and circled:

Jim and Marcus also triangulate with Stanley who is from Great Britain and shows as the red match. Marcus is from Australia.

This Chromosome map below shows that Jim has Hartley DNA in the part of Chromosome 1 where he matches Marcus:

When I look at Jim’s match spreadsheet, I find that Marcus also appears at Ancestry, FTDNA and Gedmatch. I have been in touch with Marcus at Ancestry, though it is difficult to retrieve old messages there. Marcus wrote me in 2017:

I have a James Moorhouse born Bacup c1830, son of John Moorehouse and Betty Wilkinson. While the names are shared, I can’t make the connection fit correctly. I would love to identify this MRCA. cheers Marcus

Building a Tree for Stanley

Stanley, Marcus and Jim triangulate meaning that those three should have a common ancestor somewhere. So I’ll try building out Stanley’s tree to see if there is a connection. Here is Stanley’s tree:

Here is my version:

Ancestry has a lot of hints, but I am wary of Ancestry’s hints. Here is the family in 1939:

The family was living with a daughter, but I didn’t include her for possible privacy reasons. The family was in Stainforth. That leads me to the 1901 Census:

Here is Thomas as part of a large family in Stainforth, living on a farm. Here is Stainforth:

I am trying to make a connection to my Lancashire ancestors from Colne or Bacup. Muriel was born further North in Westmoreland, so I’ll stick to the Towler side for now. As I build out Stanley’s paternal side, I get this:

Somehow Nancy Berry pops up from all the Yorkshire ancestors as being from Colne. I also see a Wilkonson, but she is living in Yorkshire. I’m not too excited about the Wilkinson name as I don’t descend from the Wilkinson family. My Pilling ancestor married a Hartley, then a Wilkinson, so Wilkinsons were half siblings to my Hartley ancestors.

I don’t think Nancy died in 1825, because I see this entry in Giggleswick, Yorkshire:

Let’s not bury her yet.

Here is Nancy in 1841 when her husband was still alive:

The 1841 Census taker has Nancy born in Yorkshire which is apparently wrong.

Two Nancy Berry’s at Colne Parish

Noyna End is to the East of Foulridge. Great Marsden is to the West of Trawden.

Now that I’ve shown that Stanley’s tree goes back to Colne, can I show the same for Marcus’ tree?

Looking at Marcus’ Tree

I followed Marcus’ tree out to where it appeared the match with my family should be. There was a sticky point at Walter Humphreys. Ancestry wanted me to add a different father named Snook. However, I went with Marcus’ tree:

Here is information from one of the Ancestry Snook trees:

There must be some sort of Snook/Moorehouse debate going on somewhere.

James Moorehouse (1830-1886)

I’m still getting Snook suggestions for the parents of James Moorehouse, so I’ll take a look at James on my own.  Marcus has him born in Bacap, which I believe should be Bacup as that is where some of my ancestors came from.  Using the Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerks, I find this:

The only difference is in the Moorehouse/Moorhouse spelling. This appears to be James’ parents’ marriage record:

Here is the family in 1841 living at ‘Lower Crossrow’:

Lower Crossrow appears to be a location in Bacup.

Betty Wilkinson

I have Ancestry hints for the parents of Marcus’ Betty Wilson:

and:

I’m not sure about the Moses Wilkinson from Tynemouth. This would be quite far from Trawden.

Here is what I have at my Willkinson web page:

The biggest problem with merging these two trees is that I show Betty marrying Robert Stansfield. Here is the marriage of Betty Wilkinson and Robert:

Here is a marriage for Moses Wilkinson and Jane Shaw:

This could be Jane’s baptism:

If this is the right person, she would have been baptized at a rather obscure Inghamite Church in Winewall which was part of Trawden. This is where my Hartley ancestors were from. So, nobody sneeze as this is quite the house of cards!

This is probably John and Jane:

More on Marcus’ Betty Wilkinson

There is one record that would indicate that Marcus’ Betty was from Bacup and not Trawden. The marriage record from St. Nicholas, Newchurch in Rossendale states that both bride and groom were “…in this Chapelry”.

The 1851 Census would have been helpful, but it appears that Betty had died by this time. John Moorhouse, said to be born in Burnley is a widow at this time. Although there is a connection between Trawden and Bacup for my Hartley ancestors and their half sibling Wilkinson not too long before the 1851 Census, there is no reason to believe that Betty Wilkinson would have moved from Trawden to Bacup before her supposed marriage to Moorehouse in 1820.

Assuming that Betty was from the Newchurch Chapelry, this could be her birth record:

It would have been customary for Betty to name her second son after her father. That could have been the case with her second son George:

According to Google Maps, here is Heap Clough to the West of Bacup and Haslingden:

Here is an older map:

I have also circled Goodshaw where another of my ancestors (Emmet) was born:

I note that my ancestors Edmund/Emmot and Mary Omerod married at St. James. This is the same place as I have the probable baptism of Betty Wilkinson about 45 years later.

Following Up On Betty Wilkinson of Haslingden

Here is a candidate for Marcus’ potential ancestors:

This could be the same George:

That would put George at just under 20 at the time he married. I think that Grain is Haslingden Grane. Grane looks to be across the street from Heap Clough:

Here is my guess for Mary Duckworth:

However, there was another Mary Duckworth born less than a year before this in the same Church. I’m guessing Heap Clough is right. Here are the likely parents:

I’m starting to get a tree for Betty Wilkinson:

I have two choices for Jonathan Duckworth:

Grane sounds familiar.

Here is the marriage for George and Betty Haworth:

A Haworth/Howorth Connection?

I have Howorth ancestors from the Bacup area.

I’ve already mentioned Edmund Emmet. James Howorth is shown above also. Another interesting thing is that Ancestry is suggesting this mother for George Wilkinson:

This is just about outside the reach of DNA matches. The Ancestry hint could correspond with this birth:

And this marriage:

 

So Where Am I?

  1. My brother Jim, Marcus and Stanley triangulate with their DNA matches. That means that they likely have a common ancestor. However, it may go back quite a way.
  2. I took Stanley’s tree back to a Nancy Berry. There were two Nancy Berry’s baptized in the Colne Parish Church around the time of Stanley’s Nancy in the 1770’s.
  3. I looked at Marcus’ genealogy tree and see that he had a Betty Wilkinson who could be the Betty Wilkinson I have at my Wilkinson website. However, this Betty would not be my direct descendant. My direct descendant married Betty’s brother Robert after my male direct descendant died.
  4. I decided that Marcus’ Betty Wilkinson was more likely a native of the Bacup area. I found a Betty Wilkinson from Heap Clough to the West of Haslingden.
  5. I traced Betty’s lineage back as well as I could. Heap Clough is not too far where some of my Emmet ancestors were from. I also found a Haworth and Howorth. I descend from Howorth in Bacup. I have not found where they lived before Bacup.
  6. So while I favor a Bacup area connection between Marcus’s family and mine, that doesn’t account for how Stanley ties in. As I guessed, it is likely far back – as in the late 1600’s or early 1700’s.

Summary and Conclusions

  • MH’s new Theory of Family Relativity resulted in my taking a fresh look at a DNA match who had a good tree.
  • It is still a bit unclear to me how MH’s Theory made Mary Pilling and Betty Wilkinson look like sisters given the trees I have seen.
  • As with many other genetic genealogy problems, I feel I am getting closer to a breakthrough, but I don’t quite get there.
  • I would say that the new information is that I have brought in a third person whose DNA triangulates with mine and Marcus’. His name is Stanley. Our three genealogical lines appeared to converge on Colne Parish in the mid- 1700’s, but as always, there are uncertainties.
  • A more likely candidate for Marcus’ Betty is Betty Wilkinson of Heap Clough, Haslingden of the St. James Parish. If I brought her ancestry back correctly, she has Haworth and Howorth ancestry. It is possible that one or both of these families are related to my Howorth ancestors.

 

 

 

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Checking Out a New Frazer ThruLine Match at AncestryDNA

Since the new ThruLine program came out, I have taken a look at some of the hints there.

Hey, look. There is my head with ancestor lines going through it.

My Ancestor, Michael Frazer?

I have been working on a Frazer DNA project for about 4 years now and have not created a connection with Michael Frazer that I can vefify. I am related to many Frazers on two different lines starting in the early 1700’s. Those two main lines are Archibald Frazer and James Frazer. I am related to many on the Archibald Line. I am also related by DNA more distantly to the James Line, but I have been unable to figure out the exact connection. I can get about this far:

This line goes through my Frazer side to my McMaster side and then back to Margaret Frazer at the top. My notes have William McMaster and Margaret Frazer marrying in 1813, so I’ll say she was born around 1792.

 The ThruLine Connection Was

My original connection looked like this:

This showed me matching through Susan up to Michael Frazer. Now I can’t find Susan as she has disappeared as my ThruLines connection to Michael Frazer. I wonder if she will re-appear. Perhaps ThruLines is still in flux or Susan changed her tree. The interesting thing about the connection was that Susan’s tree stopped at James Hazard and mine stopped at Margaret Frazer, but somehow Ancestry made the connection to Michael Frazer at the top.

Now my connection to Michael Frazer looks like this:

 

Now I’m connected through Keith and at one level lower in our connected family tree. Keith also lacks Michael Frazer in his tree, so how was the connection made?

More On Michael Frazer Trees

When I go to Michael Frazer on my tree, I see some hints. One of those hints leads to Joanna’s tree – among many other trees. Joanna has this:

Joanna shows Margaret Frazer as daughter of Michael Frazer and Margaret Stewart and married to William McMaster. Joanna also mentions a Marriage in 1813. However, how the connection was made between Margaret Frazer and Michael Frazer is unclear. My guess is that Ancestry grabbed Joanna’s tree and applied it to me. I asked Joanna if this was an educated guess on her part and that seems to be the case.

Looking for Susan

I was able to find Susan by searching by her last name. Here is the tree that Susan has:

The names of Johnston and Hazzard sound familiar in Frazer genealogy. However, I am having some problems getting past James Hazard or Hazzard or Hassard before 1877.

My Sister’s Connection to Michael Frazer

I note that my sister Heidi also has a connection to Michael Frazer:

Here Richard is showing as descending from Patrick – a different son of Michael. Here is Richard’s tree:

Richard’s tree stops with his paternal great-grandmother Daisy Belle Frazer. However the connection above shows more:

The note under George H Frazer says that he is from lulu’s tree. That means that ThruLines takes the DNA match between Heidi and Richard and applies lulu’s tree to Richard to make the connection.

Summary of Michael Frazer and ThruLines

  • I found an interesting connection between Susan and myself that lead up to Michael Frazer.
  • This initial ThruLine connection disappeared
  • I was unable to easily recreate the connection that Susan had to Michael Frazer
  • It looks like Ancestry pulled my connection to Michael Frazer from a tree by Joanna. She made an educated guess that Margaret Frazer was the daughter of Michael Frazer in hopes that she would find connections to other trees.
  • I checked my sister Heidi and she had a connection to Michael Frazer through Michael’s child Patrick down to Richard. It was easier to see how Richard was connected to Michael Frazer via a tree from lulu.

It would seem that ThruLines has given more support to Joanna’s educated guess that my ancestor Margaret Frazer’s father was Michael Frazer. However, my match with Susan showed that she had a genealogical connection to Michael as originally shown by Thrulines. If this original connection between Susan and Michael Frazer could have been shown to be true, then this would have created a sort of triangulation between myself, Susan and Richard and provided more evidence that Margaret was the daughter of Michael Frazer. In order to give even more proof, I would then need to show that I did not have DNA connections to descendants of Archibald Frazer and Catherine Peyton:

I think that this may be difficult to show.

The other question is: what if Joanna had attached Margaret Frazer to Archibald Frazer above? Would that then show that I am related to people who descend from Archibald Frazer and Catherine Peyton? In fact, that has been my most previous thinking as I have myself that way in proposed tree:

Part of the reasoning the the tree above is that I have matches to the other green McPartland group. However, what if the McPartland group belongs under the Michael Line? At some time, I should learn how to used the DNA method called What Are the Odds? (WATO) and see if that sheds any light on the subject.

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MyHeritage and the Theory of Family Relativity

First, MyHeritage gets credit for a catchy name for their new utility. That reminds me of this cartoon:

MyHeritage is doing what AncestryDNA does in matching up family history trees and DNA. In this Blog, I’ll look at my top three matches at MyHeritage that use this utility.

Melanie

I have blogged about this connection previously through Melanie’s mother Emily. Actually, it looks like I have written three Blogs on this connection. I was quite happy to come across Melanie and Emily. Here is Melanie and my shared tree at MyHeritage:

As a result of our connection, I shared a photo I had of Melanie’s great-grandmother Violet Frazer which appears on her tree. Melanie says this would have been taken on her wedding day. This was a very clear and clean match. Melanie and I share 19.9 cM of DNA.

Celeste: Theory of Family Relativity #2

I don’t recall Celeste. So this is a new find for me.

Celeste and I share 12.7 cM of DNA on Chromosome 9:

I have a web page on the Snell family and what I have matches what Celeste has. In fact, Norman was born in the same Town that I was. Here are our common ancestors:

Mary Ann was from Nantucket. Her father had a business repairing ships. Otis was on an early whaling voyage from New Bedford to Hawaii. He jumped ship, made his way to Nantucket and married Mary Ann in 1828.

Celeste and Snell/Parker at DNA Painter

I can paint Celeste’s DNA onto my chromosome map:

This takes up a small segment in dark blue on the top part of Chromosome 9 (the paternal part) that was already taken up by my great-grandparents’ DNA. However, this DNA goes further back in time and is more specific.

Here is the expanded view of the paternal side of my Chromosome 9:

The dark blue overlaps with Beth and Jim, so that means that Beth and Jim should have Snell/Parker DNA in that area of their Chromosome 9 also.

Marilee: Family #3

My match with Melanie was known and accurate. My match with Celeste was unknown and accurate. My match with Marilee is known, but I had a different connection shown than MyHeritage shows. This is what MyHeritage shows:

Here is how I had Marilee’s connection:

I show Marilee in a separate John Line in pink. MyHeritage shows us both in the Richard Frazer Line. I circled myself in the Philip Line, but I am also in the Richard line above. I left my family out of the yellow line to save room.

So how do I reconcile these trees? MyHeritage (MH) shows an expanded view that seems convincing:

There is a connection shown and percentage that I had not noticed before. When I click on the green percentage, it gives a comparison between my tree and a third tree. The same with Marilee’s comparison. It compares Mariee’s John Frazer with a John James Frazer in another tree and gives the match a 100% probability.

There is another thing that I didn’t notice. There is a tab called Path 2:

This path compares to another tree, which I recognize as Joanna’s – a Frazer researcher.

So, Who Is Right?

We may both be right. All I have to do is show two lines of Frazer descent for Marilee and that will reconcile the two trees.

Marilee and the Richard Line

If Marilee is from the Richard Line, it would support the earlier birth dates for Richard and his siblings. So, that in itself is interesting. Here is what I have now for the Richard Line:

I’m not sure about David on the left. Jane was added in. She has many matches and appears to belong in this line. Here is a detailed comparison between John James Frazer and John Frazer:

Marilee’s Tree

Next, I compare this with Marilee’s tree:

Here is the disconnect. Both trees cannot be right. MyHeritage ignored Marilee’s tree in favor of two other trees. Interesting.

Based On the Above, Marilee Cannot Descend from John and Richard Frazer

That means that there is more work to be done to figure out which tree is right. One might argue that John Frazer born 1825 was named for his father’s father John born 1755. It may be that DNA analysis could shed light on which line Marilee would most likely be in. There is a program called What Are the Odds? (WATO). However, I have not used this yet. It takes two scenarios and looks at the odds of one scenario being more likely than the other based on DNA matching. This could be the subject of a future Blog in addition to more genealogical analysis.

Match #4: Warwick from New Zealand

I’m having fun, so why stop at three? Warwick is my third Irish connection out of my top four Relativily Matches:

According to MH, Warwick is my 4th cousin, once removed and we share 17.8 cM on Chromosome 12:

For a reality check, I make sure that I have Frazer grandparent DNA in that part of my Chromosome 12:

I do. I expect that my siblings Sharon, Jon and Lori will also match Warwick. They do. In fact Emily, Paul and Stephen who are known McMaster descendants are shared DNA matches between Warwick and me.

Checking Warwick’s Tree

Warwick’s tree matches with what I have on my McMaster Web Page – at least down to Samuel:

Let’s Paint Warwick

Warwick represents some very old DNA:

The darker colored DNA next to Warwick’s is my 2nd cousin Paul:

I now know that Paul’s Chromosome match with me goes back to his McMaster side. MH shows it like this:

Paul, Warwick and I are in a Triangulation Group (TG). This TG goes back to Abraham McMaster or his wife Margery.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I took my first look at MyHeritage’s Theory of Family Relativity to see how it worked
  • Match #1 was no surprise
  • Match #2 was a surprise as I didn’t know about it. I’m sure this match was buried deep in my match list and the program nicely pulled it out. The matching trees were easily verifiable.
  • Match #3 , Marilee, was on my radar. However, the MH utility brought into question Marilee’s tree. The utility disregarded Marilee’s tree in favor of two other trees. Now I am not sure of either tree and will need to do some more analysis of the Marilee’s DNA matches.
  • I ended the Blog with Match #4. This match easily mapped new DNA and a new common ancestor onto my DNA Painter Chromosome Map.
  • Overall, I like the program and now see how it works. MH has an advantage over the AncestryDNA programs in that they show where on the chromosome the matches take place.
  • The down-side to the MH Relativity is that I only have 6 matches in the program. The two that I didn’t look at are related to the ones that I did look at.
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Sorting Out the Philip Frazers of Roscommon, Ireland

I’ve written a bit about Philip Frazer. He was born probably in Roscommon, Ireland between the 1750’s and 1770’s. In one of my previous Blogs, I proposed this tree:

 

In a recent e-mail from Richard to myself and Bonnie, we have this to consider:

I am trying to tie up some loose ends about my Frazer family in Ontario in the mid-1800s.  

In Joel’s blog about my third cousin, Martha, http://www.jmhartley.com/HBlog/2018/10/22/frazer-dna-analysis-for-martha-richards-3rd-cousin/

Joel speculates that Philip W. Frazer, in the household of Philip Frazer and Jane in Plympton, Lambton County, Ontario in the 1871 census, is the son of Philip Frazer, the first child of Philip Frazer (b. 1805) and Mary Taylor, b. in Kilmactranny Parish in January 1825.  However, Bonnie’s Frazer tree on Ancestry shows this Frazer family as descended from James Frazer and his wife Violet Frazer.  It seems clear that the Frazer family in Plympton, Ontario is related to my ancestor, Ann Frazer (b. 1832), m. Robert Johnston c. 1853 and raised their children in Blenheim Twp., Oxford County, Ontario and died in 1871.  Based on Bonnie’s Frazer tree, Philip Frazer (father of Philip W.) and Ann Frazer would be first cousins rather than siblings.  Does this sound right to both of you?

I have trouble picturing all this, so let’s look at Bonnie’s tree:

The way it worked, is that it would have been traditional to name your first son after your father. Well, Philip and James, under this scenario both were the sons of Philip and both named their first son Philip. Bonnie has Philip’s first son born in 1825 and James’ son born 1828  – both named for the elder Philip. This makes life for genealogists quite confusing. Under Bonnie’s tree, Richard descends from James and Violet Frazer. I would say that Bonnie’s tree looks better than mine:

I don’t even have Philip as the son of James and Violet – even though I have had him on my web page for a long time:

My October 2018 Blog – Philip Frazer Son of Philip Or James?

Here is the Blog that Richard was referring to:

In my Blog, I assumed that the 45-year-old Philip Frazer in the 1871 Ontario Census descended from Philip and not James and Violet. I can see that I did not at the time consider the other possibility.

Arguments For Philip Frazer of Ontario Being the Son Of James Frazer

Seeing as I did not consider this before, I will now. First, Bonnie’s tree has Philip Frazer married to Jane Hayward. I notice in the 1861 Ontario Census, Jane Hayward Frazer was living in the Haywood household:

Philip was an early Frazer with a connection to Kilmactranny. My own 2nd great-grandfather, George William marries a woman from Kilmactranny Parish and later moves to the area. This may or may not be a coincidence.

Richard Frazer who would have been Philip’s brother under this scenario also lived in Ontario for a while. This could also be considered coincidence.

Here is a photo from my grandmother’s photo album from Toronto:

I have no idea who this mysterious young woman is.

If Philip was the brother of my ancestor George, he may have named a son for him. However, I have that both Philip and James had a brother named George.

I have that my ancestor George lived in the house of his father James. If Philip or Richard, George’s older brothers, continued on in Ireland, then this may have not been the case.

I have not come up with a convincing argument, but I think that Bonnie’s tree is probably right. It feels right.

Other Trees

Joanna, who is a noted Frazer researcher, has this in her Ancestry Tree:

 

Joanna agrees with Bonnie though I think they do collaborate some.

The Counter-Argument: Philip Frazer is the Son of Philip Frazer

My original suggestion was based a lot on naming patterns. It would have been traditional for Philip, son of Philip to name his first son Philip. If Philip was the son of James, why didn’t he name his first son James instead of Philip? James’ first son was Philip. James’ second and third sons were Richard and George William. Richard’s first son was James Archibald born 1856. He died in 1861. George William’s first son was also James Archibald who was born in 1867.

Philip in Kilmactranny or Ardcarn?

I believe that Philip was from Ardcarn Parish. A search for Frazers in the Tithe Applotment Books shows 18 entries for Frazers in County Roscommon and none in County Sligo. Ardcarn Parish is in Roscommon and Kilmactranny Parish is in County Sligo. Here is Philip in 1834 in Derrycastle aka Derrycashel with some of his relatives:

Here is an early marriage record from the Kilmactranny Church:

This clearly indicates that Philip was from Ardcarne and Jane was from Kilmactranny. A search for Johnstons in Kilmactranny Parish in the Tithe Applotment reveals three Johnston families in Dromore in 1834: William, Alexander and John. Perhaps they were brothers of Jane. Here is Dromore:

The dotted line to the South of Kilmactranny is the County Roscommon border.

Here is another try at a Philip Frazer Tree:

 

This tree focuses on the Philip’s and omits some of the siblings. I have a Philip marrying Jane Johnston and then Mary Taylor. If he first married in 1818, I would guess that he could have been born around 1795.

Another Ancestry Tree

Here is a Tree that is not associated with the Frazer DNA Project:

Here they have more information on George Frazer. They also have a William Frazer who would make for a young parents for James and Violet Frazer. This William is also unexpectedly born in Edinburgh. The tree has the generally accepted Philip husband of Jane Hayward as the son of James and Violet Frazer:

 

The DNA?

I mentioned in the Blog that Richard referred to, “All we need to do next is to see if there are descendants of Philip W, Alfred, Mary, Emily and George and see if they would take a DNA test.” I don’t know of any of the descendants of the Philip Frazer family of Plympton, Ontario who have had their DNA tested. Perhaps one will soon. This would be especially interesting to me as we would have the common ancestors of James and Violet Frazer – assuming the above tree is right.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Thanks to Richard’s diligence, he pointed out a disagreement between my previously proposed Philip Frazer tree and what others had in their Frazer Trees.
  • Given what I know now, I think that the most recent tree above should be fairly accurate. Next time I need to check existing trees before suggestiing a new line.
  • If any descendants of Philip Frazer and Jane Hayward have their DNA tested, it would likely give more proof as to whether the above trees are correct.
  • I haven’t seen a death record for the elder Philip Frazer. It could be that he died before there were good death records available. If that was the case, that would mean that it would be his son Philip who was in the 1834 Tithe Applotment.

 

 

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A New Rathfelder DNA Match

I recently saw an interesting DNA match on my mother’s side. This was on her paternal Rathfelder side. What was interesting was that the DNA match was quite high and the Rathfelder matches are quite rare.

My Mom’s Match With Donna At AncestryDNA

My mom’s match with Donna is here:

Ancestry predicts that Donna and my mom are 2nd cousins. However, they give a range between 1st and 2nd cousins. Here are some possibilities by DNA:

My guess is that my mom Gladys and Donna are 1st cousins twice removed.

Donna’s Genealogy

I wrote to Donna saying that I thought that the match with my family was on our Rathfelder side. Donna wrote back saying that she didn’t know who the father of her grandfather but her grandfather was born in 1919 to a Miss Barlow and his name was was Leonard Rathfulder Barlow. My mother’s father’s brother’s name was Leonhard Rathfelder. He was born in 1896 and could be the right age to be the father of Leonard Rathfulder Barlow.

Here is how Donna may fit in:

My mom is on the left. Donna is in the next to the last row. If my guess is right, then Donna would be my mother’s 1st cousin twice removed and my 2nd cousin once removed. The fact that Donna’s grandfather’s name is so close to my great Uncle’s name seems to be a major clue.

Here is a photo of my grandfather Alexander and his brother Leo:

Here is a photo from Anita of Leo’s three children in Latvia – Hermanis, Nina and Vera. Hermanis is Catherine’s father and Vera is Anita and Inese’s grandmother.

More DNA Comparisons

If my guess is right, then Donna should match my mother, and my family in a similar way that Anita and Inese match my family. All I have to do is fill in the blanks:

Jim and Rusty tested at FTDNA. Anita and Inese tested at MyHeritage. All have uploaded their results to Gedmatch Genesis for comparison except for Donna.

Here are the known matches with Anita and Inese:

The DNA matches range from a low of 80.7cM between Rusty and Inese to a high of 213.5 with Heidi and Anita. This turns out to an overall average of 127 which is close to the reported average of 123 cM for 2nd cousin, once removed.

When I add in Donna’s matches with my family, they are higher than between Anita and Inese and my family:

Jim and Rusty’s comparisons with Donna are blank because they didn’t test at Ancestry. The biggest different is with my first cousin Cindy. She has about twice as much matching DNA with Donna compared to her matches with Anita and Inese. However, it appears that these are all 2nd cousin, once removed relationships. Donna just got more Rathfelder DNA than average.

The Logistics

At first glance, it would appear unlikely that a child born in South Shields on Tyneside would have a father who was from Latvia:

However, Leo worked on a ship and traveled extensively:

Leo is on the right in the first photo and on the left in the second one. That means that I cannot provide the exact circumstance of how Leo and Miss Barlow met. Perhaps she also worked on a ship or perhaps Leo had regular visits to where Miss Barlow lived.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Putting together the DNA match and other evidence, It appears that Leonhard Rathfelder is the father of Leonard Rathfulder Barlow who was born in 1919 in England.
  • This could be further verified if Donna uploads her DNA to Gedmatch Genesis for comparisons.
  • I don’t have specific evidence of where Miss Barlow and Leo were  in 1918, but it appears that it is quite likely that they were the parents of Leonard Rathfulder Barlow.
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Visually Phasing Heather and JJ’s DNA

I started visually phasing my two children, Heather and JJ’s DNA in this Blog. I was having trouble getting the Steven Fox Visual Phasing Spreadsheet to work, so I just used Excel.

The Steven Fox Visual Phasing Spreadsheet

I got this spreadsheet working. It doesn’t like you to cut and paste numbers, so I typed them in. In my previous Blog I mentioned above, I came up with this for Heather and JJ’s Chromosome 5:

The paternal side is easy because Heather and JJ’s Rathfelder grandmother has tested. Where she matches them on the paternal side is Rathfelder. Where she doesn’t match Heather and JJ is Hartley DNA. The maternal side is more difficult. The green above is Jarek. I found some Jarek relatives that helped there. I couldn’t find a Cavanaugh relative and uploaded JJ and Heather’s AncestryDNA results to FTDNA. There, I found Martha, who is a 1st cousin once removed. That is perfect for phasing. Martha is related to Heather and JJ on the Cavananaugh side only.

Here is the Fox Spreadsheet:

I set the vertical lines to match the areas above where JJ and Heather match each other. Below is JJ and Heather’s maternal grandmother’s match which will be the Rathfelder side. Next I put in Rathfelder and Hartley based on the match below:

Jarek Cousin Robert

Next, I can fill in some Jarek DNA based on matches to Jarek cousin Robert:

Robert matches Heather more than JJ on the right, so that could be a maternal crossover for JJ:

Here is how Heather matches her Cavanaugh cousin Martha on Chromosome 5:

 

Heather’s match stops at 159M which is where I have a crossover line:

At the same area, JJ has a match with Martha from 150-166M.

Another Jarek Cousin

Jarek cousin Robert tested three of his relatives or siblings, I’m not sure which. This one helped:

Robert’s sibling’s DNA match goes over the crossover line, so that cannot be JJ’s crossover. I gave it to Heather. The crossover at 112 was already paternal, so I brought the Jarek DNA over. So far, on Chromosome 5, the Jarek DNA seems to be winning out between JJ and Heather. However, I have a problem. The Fox Spreadsheet has a feature called a segment map. It compares what you have mapped (bottom bar) versus what the actual comparison is between Heather and JJ (top bar).

 

The top bar needs to match the bottom bar. It does except for the 2nd and third segments I show above.  I missed the crossover before 112. However, I may be able to reason myself out of this jam.

Note that at position 129, there are already two crossovers. I think that there should only be one there. If I move Heather’s Cavanaugh DNA to left, that should solve the problem:

This is what I end up with. Now the bottom bar and the top bar match each other. I still don’t have the first maternal segment defined for Heather and JJ. It would look better if JJ had the crossover at 33.5M. It may be possible to figure this out by cousin matches.

Here are some of JJ’s maternal DNA matches from his match list:

JJ doesn’t have any matches going through 33.5M. The 10.7 and 14.6cM matches are where JJ matches Heather.

Here is the same portion on Heather’s maternal match list:

This shows that Heather’s matches do go at least a little way through 33.5, so it appears that JJ has the crossover at 33.5M:

This is true because maternal matches cannot go through a maternal crossover. That is true unless someone is related on the order of first cousin or closer.

From this, we see a few interesting things:

  • Heather and JJ will not have any Hartley side matches before 112M or what appears to be more than half of Chromosome 5
  • After position 129M, Heather and JJ will not have any Rathfelder matches.
  • Likewise, Heather and JJ will have no Cavanaugh matches between 33.5 and 74 and from 170.6 to the end of Chromosome 5.
  • Jarek DNA is missing between Heather and JJ only between 149.7 and 159.3.
  • All this information is important when trying to determine on what side your unknown DNA matches are on.

 

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Genealogy for Heather and JJ: Part 10 – Cavanaugh/Warren

I last discussed Heather and JJ’s Cavanaugh side in Part 4 and Part 6. I came to the conclusion that Cavanaugh should really be Warren:

That has a lot of implications for Heather and JJ’s maternal grandmother’s father’s genealogy. John E Cavanaugh’s mother is the same, but I have the father as John J. Warren.

Warren Genealogy and DNA

Ideally, the DNA should confirm the Warren genealogy. However, so far, I have not found a lot of matches on the “Cavanaugh” side of Heather and JJ. I’ll start with Heather’s DNA matches. There could be Warren’s on the paternal side, so I need to disregard paternal matches.

I found one match at 4th cousin level or closer, but the Warren matches were not obvious. Also this person had some Polish matches, so the matches could have been on JJ and Heather’s Polish lines.

DNA Matches At FTDNA

Family Tree DNA or FTDNA allows you to upload your DNA results from Ancestry to see if  you have matches with others who have tested at FTDNA. I did that for Heather and JJ. Here is JJ’s match with Martha at FTDNA:

Martha shows as a 1st to 3rd cousin to JJ by DNA. Martha doesn’t match on JJ’s paternal side or on the Polish side, so that should mean that Martha matches on JJ and Heather’s Cavanaugh side. The problem is that Martha doesn’t show a tree at FTDNA. I’ve sent Martha an email and will have to wait and see if she writes back.

Warren Genealogy – John J. Warren 1845-1882

What do we know about John J. Warren? He did not live long. It looks like he died at age 37. Here are records from Lowell:

On the next page:

Actually, I should be looking at John’s most recent records first and working back.

This shows a John J Warren died in Lowell of an accidental drowning in 1882 at age 38. The record says that he was born in Lowell, but that his parents, Jeremiah and Mary were both born in Ireland.

John J Warren – 1880 Bleachery Street

John J was living as a widower in 1880 with his family on Bleachery Street in Lowell and worked at the bleachery:

This Census was June 7 and I have that John Edward Warren aka Cavanaugh was born on August 24, 1880.

The Warren Family in 1855 Lowell

Above in the Lowell Birth Records, I had birth records for Jeremiah, John and Thomas. This must be them in 1855 in Lowell:

This is a little confusing, but it is the best that I have. Patrick appears to show as being under 5 years old and born in Ireland. Then Robert shows as born in Ireland. Thomas, Jeremiah and John match what is in the Lowell Birth Records Book.

This is what I had for the Warren family:

I had that Bridget got married on 25 May 1855. The Massachusetts Census was on 1 May 1855, so she may have just moved out of the house (assuming I have the right person). Her marriage and death record says that she was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her death record says that her father was John Warren, however, this may be in error. Bridget’s death recored shows her mother’s name as Mary Kelly.

Thomas A Warren

After the Civil War, Thomas moved to Boston with his wife and two children. Here we see Patrick Warren who was mentioned in the 1855 Lowell Census.

Unfortunately, this Patrick died in Lowell in 1875. From Patrick’s death record, his mother is given as Mary, but on his birth record, his mother’s name is given as ‘Margret’. This makes more sense the way the 1855 Census was written.

Here is a possible death record for Jeremiah on 31 August 1857:

This record shows Jeremiah, son of another Jeremiah and Mary, as being married at the time of death. He appears to have died at Crop Street? Maybe Cross Street makes more sense.

According to the 1855 City Directory below, the corner of Cross and Marion would have been right across from Saint Patrick’s Church.

In the 1858 City Directory, I see no Jeremiah:

Back To Martha and FTDNA

Martha was nice enough to get back to me and figured out who I was. Then I thought to look at the information my former wife sent me and found Martha there.

Now I see why Martha was able to figure out who I am:

 

Martha is 1st cousin once removed to Heather and JJ.

Summary and Conclusions

  • In this Blog, I mixed some genealogy research with DNA research
  • I had trouble finding matches on JJ and Heather’s Cavanaugh/Warren side, so I uploaded their results to FTDNA
  • At FTDNA I found a match who is Heather and JJ’s 1st cousin once removed.
  • In my next Blog, I will use Martha’s DNA matching to help visually phase JJ and Heather.
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My Son’s AncestryDNA Results Are In

I recently got an email saying my son JJ’s DNA results were in. JJ shows this on his main AncestryDNA page:

There is a third box for DNA Circles, but those take a while to form after JJ’s DNA is linked to a tree. Here is how JJ compares to his sister Heather:

Both JJ and Heather come out as mostly England, Wales and Northwestern Europe. However, JJ’s #2 Ethnicity is Eastern Europe and Russia and Heather’s #2 is Germanic Europe. Another thing that stands out is that JJ has about 150 more 4th cousin or closer matches.

JJ and Heather’s Ethnicity

One would think that the ethnicity would come out the same for Heather and JJ as siblings, but it doesn’t. Here is what JJ shows:

JJ shows 3% Baltic within the larger Eastern Europe and Russia.

Heather doesn’t show the 3% Baltic but has 3% France instead:

The overall effect is the same.

JJ and Heather Each Have One SubRegion of England

These are subtle differences. JJ has Yorkshire & Pennines within Northern England and the Midlands:

Heather has the SubRegion of Northern England & the Midlands, but doesn’t have it broken down further like JJ has:

That means that while JJ and Heather both have the subregion: Northern England & the Midlands, JJ has the sub-sub region of Yorkshire & Pennines.

JJ and Heather At Gedmatch Genesis

As siblings, JJ and Heather match each other in a way that they match no one else. Here is how JJ and Heather compare to each other on Chromosomes 19-21:

We each have a male and female copy of our chromosomes. However the results don’t distinguish which is which and combine the two. On the bottom of each chromosome above is a blue or black region. Blue is where JJ and Heather match each other and black is where they don’t match. On the top part, there is either green, red or yellow. Red is where there is no match. The yellow above the blue is called a half match also known as an HIR. The green is called a Fully Identical Region (or FIR).

What Do These Three Regions Mean?

No match means no match. However, a good way to look at this is in terms of grandparents. JJ and Heather got their DNA from their four grandparents: Hartley, Rathfelder, Jarek and Cavanaugh.

  • No Match – An example would be if JJ got his paternal DNA From Hartley and maternal DNA from Jarek in a no match region, that would mean that Heather must have gotten her paternal DNA from Rathfelder and her maternal DNA from Cavanaugh
  • HIR – These regions are a little trickier. This means that if JJ and Heather both got their paternal DNA from Hartley and JJ got his from Jarek, then Heather got her maternal DNA from Cavanaugh in that half matching region.
  • FIR – This means that if JJ got his DNA in this region from Hartley and Jarek, then Heather also would have to have gotten her DNA from Hartley and Jarek.

Visual Phasing for JJ and Heather

Visual Phasing is more difficult for two siblings than for three or more, but let’s try it on Chromosome 19. First I put some information onto a spreadsheet, but it is just a place for phasing:

In the middle no match, I represented the four grandparents as four different colors:

There looks like there may be a tiny match in the middle of the non-match, but I am ignoring that for now.

Cheating on the Rathfelder Side

JJ and Heather’s Rathfelder grandmother has been tested so this should be a big clue. Here is how JJ and Heather match their paternal grandmother:

What does this mean? This means that Heather matches her paternal grandmother on the whole length of the Chromosome. Again, I’m ignoring the non-match in the pink area (called the centromere).

In the chart above, I had Heather’s paternal as blue in the middle region. Let’s call blue Rathfelder.

 

The places where I have the vertical lines in the spreadsheet above correspond the changes in the ways that JJ and Heather match each other. These are called crossovers. That means that at these spots the DNA that they got from one grandparent will cross over to the DNA that they got from another one. These crossovers are either maternal or paternal.

Already, I also know that JJ’s Yellow will be Hartley. That is his only other choice for a paternal grandparent. Next I put the JJ’s Rathfelder DNA in:

Now JJ has two paternal crossovers. His paternal DNA goes from Rathfelder to Hartley and then back to Rathfelder. JJ’s crossover is at 7 Million, because that is where the DNA match with is Rathfelder grandmother stops.

Next, because JJ has a paternal crossover at position 46, that means that he probably doesn’t have a maternal crossover at the same spot. Because of that, I’ll move JJ’s green DNA a little to the left and all the way to the right:

On the right hand side there is a half match. That half match is blue, so the orange can extend to the right on Heather’s maternal side:

Using the same logic for the small segment on the left, I can move the orange a little way to the left:

 

Now I am stuck on the left HIR segment. I don’t know if the maternal crossover goes to Heather or to JJ. If it goes to Heather, then that means that the left maternal segment for JJ will be green. If JJ has the crossover, it will be orange. A maternal cousin match could solve this.

Painting JJ’s Chromosomes

I’ll come back to visual phasing later. Now I’d like to paint JJ’s chromosomes. I had painted Heather’s previously. This shows Heather’s known maternal matches on her Jarek side:

These appear to be four siblings or close relatives. They are not relatives that Heather knows, but relatives with known Jarek ancestors. I could use this information for visual phasing as these chromosomes should be easier to visually phase.

The Same Matches But Matched To JJ

Back To Visual Phasing

JJ has a pretty good match on Chromosome 18, so I’ll try that one next:

Here we have almost the same scenario as in Chromosome 19, except that there is one more crossover on the right. I put in numbers at 9.8 and 53 to give a general idea of where we are. These correspond to where JJ and Heather match each other.

Here is how JJ and Heather’s paternal Rathfelder grandmother match them on Chromosome 18:

This time JJ gets a full dose of Rathfelder DNA.

 

I put in Heather’s Rathfelder DNA also.

Next, I want to visually phase Heather and JJ’s first maternal side DNA. Actually, I phased it on Chromosome 19, but I couldn’t identify it due to lack of DNA matches with known ancestry. Now we can do that. My guess is that green will be Jarek and orange will be Cavanaugh. By eye it looks that way.

JJ’s match with one Jarek descendant goes from 33 to 53.8, so that is the case.

I filled in the yellow Hartley for Heather as it should go up to where Heather matches her Rathfelder grandmother. Now I am stuck, but I have identified a Cavanaugh segment for Heather based on JJ’s Jareck DNA.

Chromosome 4 – Some Cavanaugh DNA for JJ

From DNA Painter, here are JJ’s Jarek DNA matches:

Here are Heather’s Jarek DNA matches:

Heather has extra Jarek matches that JJ doens’t have. That means that JJ probably has Cavanaugh DNA where Heather has her first two Jarek DNA matches.

Unfortunately, Chromosome 4 is longer and will have more crossovers:

This time I’ll start at the FIR. That means that JJ and Heather have the match on the same two grandparents on their paternal and maternal sides. I’ll have to switch the colors to keep them consistent. I said that JJ should be going from Cavanaugh to Jarek:

Here is JJ’s first identified maternal crossover.

Next, I’d like to add in the Rathfelder DNA:

The blue is Rathfelder. The matching segments information is how Heather and JJ match their grandmother. This is the same as the blue Rathfelder segments above. Where there isn’t blue Rathfelder DNA, I have put in yellow Hartley DNA.

Heather’s first Jarek descendant match goes from 85M to 109M:

At this point, I am stuck again:

There is a maternal crossover at 85, but I can’t tell if it belongs to JJ or Heather.

A Spreadsheet For JJ and Heather Using Gedmatch Genesis

At Genesis, I used JJ’s and my own DNA to make two more kits for JJ. One has an M1 designation and one is P1 for maternal and paternal. Genesis has a utility called Segment Search. I’ll use this once for JJ’s maternal matches and once for his paternal matches.

JJ’s Maternal Matches

Here are some of JJ’s maternal matches. I downloaded about 1,000 of them:

I made them pink for maternal. The green matches are the ones over 15 cM. JJ’s largest match above is with Heather. Note that JJ has maternal matches on Chromosome 4 between 80 and 89M. That means that he should not have a maternal crossover at 85M. That means that Heather should have the maternal crossover at 85M. Let’s look at Heather’s maternal results next.

Heather’s Maternal Matches at Genesis

Here are Heather’s Chromosome 4 maternal matches:

Notice that Heather has no matches going through position 85. Actually, Heather has matches going up to 84.3 and then starting again at about the same spot or at 85M. This tells me that Heather has a maternal crossover where I thought.

If I did this right, I should find Cavanaugh ancestor matches for Heather and JJ in their orange areas and Jarek ancestor matches in their green areas of Chromosome 4. Unfortunately, Heather and JJ have small matches in their orange areas which means that the relationships represented by those matches could be quite distant.

Near position 14, there aren’t a lot of matches, so I would be guessing more than usual there as to where the crossover goes. What about the right side of Heather and JJ’s Chromosome 4? First I need to figure out where the crossover is. For that I need to look at how JJ and Heather match each other at full resolution:

Each  ^ is 1M, so the change from all green to more yellow is at about 167.6M. Again, neither JJ nor Heather have good matches in that area, so I can’t tell where their maternal crossover is using that method.

Summary and Conclustions

  • I started looking at JJ’s AncestryDNA test results. I first compared JJ’s ethnicity with what his sister Heather showed. JJ shows a more detailed sub-region in England compared to Heather. JJ shows a Baltic region that Heather doesn’t show and Heather shows a France Region that JJ doesn’t have. The overall effect is the same, but the smaller details vary a bit.
  • I looked at how JJ and Heather compare to eatch other with HIRs, FIRs and no-match areas. Using these, I was able to start to visually phase Heather and JJ. I haven’t been able to identify matches along JJ and Heather’s Cavanaugh maternal grandparent side, so that made the phasing a little more difficult. JJ and Heather’s paternal side is already phased by comparing their results to their Rathfelder grandmother.
  • I downloaded JJ and Heather’s maternal matches from Gedmatch Genesis. Some of these matches were helpful in assigning maternal crossovers for their visual phasing maps.
  • Some other things that I could do would be AutoClustering JJ’s AncestryDNA results, more DNA Painting and more match identification. I would still like to figure out at least one match on JJ or Heather’s Cavanaugh side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A DNA Match With Kristin Who Has Hartley Ancestry and a Possible Hartley Genealogical Breakthrough

I recently noticed that my daughter had a Shared Ancestor Hint with Kristin. Not long ago,  had my daughter Heather’s DNA tested. Kristin is Heather’s first Shared Ancestor Hint (SAH). An SAH means that two people have a DNA match and have a common ancestor or ancestors. Here is what that looks like for Heather:

This shows that Heather and Kristen are 4th cousins. Here is the amount of DNA that Heather and Kristen share:

AncestryDNA predicted that Heather and Kristen would be 4th cousins and they guessed right.

The Hartley Branch of Fall River

Many of my closer Hartley relatives are perhaps not aware of the Fall River branch of the Hartley family. They know that the Hartley family lived in Rochester, Massachusetts. Many know that Greenwood Hartley and Ann Emmet lived in New Bedford before that. However, not many know that Greenwood and Ann were first in Fall River for a short time. Here is the Hartley Family in 1870:

This Census record is very difficult to find in that the last names are all written wrong. Here is how Ancestry sees the name:

I’m glad the Hortcliffe name didn’t stick. Soon after this time, the Hartley family moved to New Bedford. They lived in Fall River for only one or two years.

Abel Burrows

Mary Ann Hartley married Abel Burrows on 12 February 1874- probably in New Bedford.

Abel was later to be a jeweller in Fall River, but at this time he was a weaver. Perhaps Abel and Mary Ann met while she lived in Fall River.

Here is the Burrows family in 1880 at 63 Pleasant Street, Fall River:

This appears to be Mary Ann Hartley Burrows at a Hartley family gathering in Rochester, MA around 1921:

Looking at the photo, my grandmother is to her right.

Connecting the DNA and the Family Tree

Here is the tree that I have so far:

The people in green have had their DNA tested and uploaded to Gedmatch where the DNA can be compared. Emily in yellow has tested at Ancestry, but has not uploaded her results to Gedmatch which is now Gedmatch Genesis. Mary Pilling at the top of the chart is Mary Wilkinson in the 1870 Census. I mentioned Emily here in a Blog on AutoClustering Joyce’s AncestryDNA results.

It looks like Kristin is a close relative to Emily:

Adding a Pilllng Line

Mary Pilling was a single mother before she married Robert Hartley and had Greenwood. Robert then died ans she married Robert Wilkinson:

Ruth is a Shared Match with Kristin and my father’s cousin Joyce.

Shared Matches Between Kristin and Joyce

Kristin may be the key to unlocking clues on my Hartley genealogy. Here are Kristin’s shared matches at AncestryDNA with Joyce, my father’s 1st cousin.

  • Jennifer – I messaged her. She has Williams ancestry and is checking on possible connections
  • Emily and Ruth – They are in the chart in yellow above.
  • Paul – shows two parents in his tree. This could be built out.
  • Luke – He has a private tree. I have sent him a message.
  • Sheryl – She has an ancestor from Colne

Colne is next door to Trawden where my ancestors lived. My ancestors were born, married and buried at the Colne Church.

Bracewell came up in another tree of a shared match of a shared match if that makes sense.

Building Out Paul’s Tree

At the risk of making this a long Blog, I’ll try and build out Paul’s tree. Paul’s parent’s were both from New Bedford, so that is interesting already. My guess is that my match with Paul is on his mother’s side. I wasn’t able to easily fill in all the names, but did make it back to a Hartley and a Bracewell. The Bracewell name is new to me but apparently common to some of these shared matches:

Robert Hartley is an ancestral name, so that is hopeful also. Robert Hartley in the tree above would be Paul’s 5th great-grandfather if I have the tree right. However, having said that, there still are many gaps in the tree and the connection is quite a ways back.

Sheryl’s Tree

This is the one with the Bracewell born 1778 from Colne:

This is as far as I got with the Ancestry suggestions. It seems like the father of Susy Hartley should be John Hartley like in Paul’s tree:

Combining Paul and Sheryl’s Trees

When I combine the two trees, it looks like this:

 

This means that, on paper, Sheryl and Paul are potentially 6th cousins with each other. I also see that Sheryl has potentially two Bracewell lines. All this gives me a lead to check into.

A Third Bracewell Tree?

I had mentioned above that I had seen a third Bracewell tree. This was from a Shared Match of a Shared Match. My father’s cousin Joyce and Kristin have a shared match with Luke. I mentioned him above, but his tree is locked. So I looked at Shared Matches between Between Luke and Joyce and came up with an additional Shared Match. This shared match is Mark and he is on a list of Shared Matches with Kristin, Paul and Sheryl, so he is in good company, so to speak.

Mark’s Bracewell Ancestors

Here are Mark’s Bracewell Ancestors:

This looks like Ellin Bracewell married John Hackin and they had a child named Margaret Hakin. Mark’s ancestral location map shows his ancestors in orange:

Margaret Hakin is Mark’s ancestor who was born in the area that I am interested in. Does it make sense that Margaret’s mother Ellin was born in New York?

This appears to be the marriage record for John and Ellin:

Here are a few choices for Ellin’s birth record. I’ll go with the more recent one as it has George as the father and it seems more reasonable:

Here is a hint for Ellin’s mother’s name:

Here is a guess for George’s birth:

Here is what I get:

This tree is more confusing as Reuben Speak is shown as the father of Susannah Cronshaw. There is no father’s name given on Susannah’s birth record. It is possible that this is right and that there is another link in Mark’s ancestry to Hartley/Bracewell. However, this route does not easily match with the same Hartley/Bracewell family as the other two DNA matches. The other possibility is that this DNA match is on the Bracewell side only and that Mark matches further back in his ancestrry.

Building Down from Hartley/Bracewell

The next logical step would be to build down from John Hartley born 1730 and his wife Anne Bracewell to see if I can link up my tree to this line.

Here is a tree from Ancestry with John Hartley born 1733 and Anna Bracewell:

This tree has two John’s as sons. A previous tree I looked at had three sons named John.

It looks like John and Anne were married on 23 September 1752 and they both lived in Trawden:

Trawden is good in that my known Hartley ancestors came from there. At this point, I assume that the family stayed in Trawden. I then looked for children born to John Hartley in Trawden:

If Anne lived long enough, she could have had children for 25 years or more. So, until about 1777. Here is the start of my tree:

Then I ran into a snag:

Here is another Robert. Also the mother is called Nanny now which could be a nickname for Anne.

Next is another John:

The mother’s name is back to Anne. If the first John died, then it would make sense if they have another John.

Finally, in 1772, we are back to Nanny:

I’ll add in the extra John above, just in case. I’m looking for a Hartley connection, so I’m more interested in the male Hartley’s.

James Hartley and Betty Baldwin

One of my top guesses for the parents of my ancestor Robert Hartley (father of Greenwood Hartley) is James Hartley and Better Baldwin. What if the James above born 1763 married Betty Baldwin?

One Holgate Tree I see at Ancestry has Elizabeth Southgate as the wife of James Hartley:

I don’t know if the creator had special knowledge of this marriage or if they were guessing.  I searched for this marriage at the Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerks Website and coud not find it.  I would follow up on the tree, but when I search for Elizabeth in trees, I find this:

Perhaps Elizabeth got attached to James above by mistake. It appears that the tree intended to have her married to John Hartley.

Did James the Son of John Hartley and Anne Bracewell Marry Betty Baldwin?

My best guess when I was researching Hartley genealogy was that James Hartley and Betty Baldwin were the most likely parents for Robert Hartley born about 1803. Now shared DNA matches with a good Hartley DNA matches Kristin and Joyce show a common ancestor of John Hartley and Anne Bracewell. This couple has a son named James. I’ll combine these lines and see how it looks:

  • Kristin and Joyce have a Shared Ancestor hint with Greenwood Hartley and Anne Emmet. This genealogical and DNA connection is quite certain.
  • Kristin and Joyce also have shared DNA matches with Sheryl and Paul
  • This shared DNA could be on the Hartley side (Trawden) or the Emmet side (Bacup). Sheryl and Paul have ancestors in the Colne/Trawden area.
  • Sheryl and Paul appear to have the shared ancestors of John Hartley and Anne Bracewell.
  • John Hartley and Anne Bracewell had a son James who could be the father of Robert who was the father of Greenwood Hartley.
  • This would combine my genealogical research with DNA evidence. There may be other explanations, but this one looks good right now – at least good enough to flesh out.

Fleshing Out the New James Hartley (Born 1763) Connection

One other item I see for James in Ancestry trees is his death:

This seems a bit sketchy to me. I have found no marriage record in Ancestry Trees for this James. Why would James be born in Trawden and die in Lancaster?

Lancaster is quite a ways from Colne. Unless, the record means to say that Lancaster represents the County of Lancashire.

Here is the record:

This does show that a James Hartley, son of John Hartley was buried in Lancaster. However, I’m not convinced that this is the same person.

Here is a James Hartley who was buried in Trawden in 1769:

and:

There are many other James Hartley burials in the Colne Parish. Here is another possibility:

This James was 82 in 1845, so he was born about 1763. Here is the same person in 1841:

Little Lather in the Burial record is better rendered on page 2 of the 1841 Census as Little Laith.

Another Elderly James Hartley Farmer South of Trawden Village

Just to confuse things, there is another elderly James Hartley South of Trawden Village:

 

Little Laithe is listed in the Census as near New Laithe and Hole is listed as near Naze End on Page 11 of the 1841 Trawden Census. These places would be a short walk from each other. I like the second James for a few reasons. One reason is that he is married to Betty, The second is that he lives near Seghole. Mary Pillng who married Robert Hartley was born in Seghole in 1802. I haven’t found death records for this James and Betty Hartley. Perhaps they moved to be with relatives after this time.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Kristin’s DNA match with the Hartley family and especially with Joyce has been helpful
  • Kristin descends from Ann Hartley born 1855, so shared matches with her would be more likely to represent Hartley ancestors from England.
  • I looked at the Hartley’s of Fall River
  • I looked at shared matches between Joyce and Kristin. They had two shared matches that both had the same ancestors: John Hartley born 1730 and Anne Bracewell.
  • I started to build a case that John Hartley had as his son, James Hartley who married Betty Baldwin. They had Robert Hartley who was my 3rd great-grandfather born 1803 in Trawden.
  • I looked at two elderly James Hartley’s in the 1841 Trawden Census. I favored the elder one as a potential 4th great-grandfather because he was married to a Betty and because he lived very close to the birth home of Mary Pilling who was my 3rd great-grandmother.
  • Before I had this match with Kristin, I had no known DNA connection to my Hartley ancestors in Trawden, Lancashire. Kristin’s DNA results appears to have provided that DNA connection and given good evidence and direction for genealogical research.
  • This is a potential break in my genealogical brick wall that I have had for around 25 years. I will do some more work to see if this theory makes sense.