Many people lately have been enjoying the use of Jonny Perl’s DNA Painter Tool. I have painted my chromosomes and wanted to look at my mother’s chromosomes.

Here are my results:

These are my 23 chromosomes plus my one X Chromosome. There is a bit of identified DNA on each chromosome except for number 21. The top bar represents my paternal side and the bottom represents my maternal side. The different colors represent various ancestors starting with my 2nd great grandparents. For example, the green represents my great grandparents James Hatley and Annie Snell. They had 13 children, so I have a lot of matches along that line.

Who to Map for My Mom?

For my mom I want to go to my great grandparent level or beyond. That is equivalent to my mom’s grandparents and beyond. That will in effect expand upon my maternal side matches and split them into my mom’s paternal and maternal sides.

Here is just my maternal side mapping:

That represents 22% of my maternal side. Because my mom gave me half of her DNA, I should be able to get her to a higher overall percent. Let’s see what percentage we can get Gladys up to.

Mapping Mom

As I am looking to map my mom, I will be basically looking at all the people that are 2nd cousins or further away to me. These would be her 1st cousins once removed or further away.

Here is my mom’s list at Gedmatch.

Hey, I’m at the top of my mom’s list. The green box represents people that I don’t want to map as they are too closely related (for example, niece and nephew, children).

Create a New DNA Painter Profile

At the top of the DNA Painter Page, I choose Profiles:

That shows that I have one Profile: me. I then add my mom, Gladys:

I’ll put in her name and that she is female.  Then I choose Save and Start Painting. This gives me a blank sheet. As mom is predictably female, she has two X Chromosomes:

Look at Relationships

First I want to paint one of my mom’s top matches – Anita. She is a DNA match who lives in Latvia.

From this chart, Anita is a first cousin, twice removed. Anita is higher up on the list at Gedmatch than Catherine who is a 1st cousin, once removed. This Chart also gives the common ancestors. These are my mom’s grandparents with the last names Rathfelder and Gangnus.

Paint a Match

I’ll copy my mom’s match with Anita into the DNA Painter form:

The matches scrolled off the page, but they are there. I push the save button:

In the background there is a grey hatched area of the matches. DNA Painter does not yet know if these are maternal or paternal matches for my mom. They are paternal and I need to put in Anita’s name in the first box and the shared ancestors’ names in the second box. I’ll choose father’s side in the drop-down box and go with the suggested color.

This put the matches with Anita on the top which is the default paternal side. This blue represents my mom’s two paternal grandparents. We aren’t sure which – it would be one or the other. In more general terms, this would be DNA that my mom inherited from her dad.

Anita’s X Chromosome match with my mom

The X match is more interesting in a way. On my mom’s Gedmatch match list, I choose the hyperlinked X near Anita and get this:

The thing that is interesting about this match is that I am doubly sure that this is not a Rathfelder match. I am double sure because my mom’s dad is Alexander. Anita’s great-grandfather is Leonhard. These are two males. Neither of them received an X Chromosome from their dad as a son never gets an X Chromosome from his dad. That means that this X match can only represent my mother’s father’s mother, Maria E.L Gangnus born 1856. And that is a good thing. Whenever we can go from the general to the more specific in DNA or genealogy, that brings us one step forward.

Now I want to map the Anita’s X match with my mom. Here is Maria in green:

The Fun Statistics Button

Before I added the X Chromosome, Anita contributed to 5% of my mother’s Chromosomes:

I hit the little refresh button to the right of the orange above and my mom was still at 5%. However, this is what it shows for the paternal side:

I believe that this went from 9% to 10% of my mom’s paternal side when I added the X Chromosome. I like looking at these orange numbers, to see how I am progressing.

When I added this X Chromosome match with Anita, I had to add Anita in again. That means that I now have two entries for Anita in DNA Painter. One has common ancestors Rathfelder and Gangnus and the one on the X Chromosome has just Gangnus as a common ancestor.

Carolyn: My Mom’s First Maternal Match

Here is how Carolyn is related to my mom:

This is from a partial Nicholson Tree. However, Gladys and Carolyn need to also match on William Nicholson’s wife Martha Ellis. Both these people were born in Sheffield, England. Technically Gladys and Carolyn will be matching on either Nicholson or Ellis, but we won’t know which in most cases.

First, a Note on the X Chromosome

I was just mentioning the X Chromosome above. Here is how mom and Carolyn match on the X Chromosome:

The match with Carolyn is different than the match mom had Anita. Both the ancestors before the common ancestors are female in this case. That means that the X match could be either Nicholson or Ellis.

Painting Carolyn to My Mom

In Gedmatch, the results for the X Chromosome and the other 22 Chromosomes come out separately, but I want to combine them. So I will try to add them all together.

First I pick Paint a New Match at the main screen. Then I add the X match:

Right under that, I’ll add all the places Carolyn and Gladys match:

Here’s mom’s first maternal match:

I’m guessing that Carolyn might almost double my mom’s mapped DNA which is currently at 5%:

Not quite double digits, but pretty good.

Going Down the Gedmatch Match List

Adding my mom’s 1st cousin once removed, Catherine, get’s mom up to 12% mapped DNA. Judy brings in a new pair of ancestors: Jacob Lentz and Annie Nicholson.

Re-Keying the Key

Next I want to organize the key. I’ll move the Paternal ancestors to the top.

Then I’ll add a separator line. It will be after Maria in green, so I choose her. I choose Edit and then check this box:

Differentiating between the paternal and maternal is one of the most important things to determine in genetic genealogy, so this utility is important.

Mapping More Matches

The next match with my mom hasn’t gotten back to me. I know about where she fits in, but not for sure, so I’ll leave Kathy out for now.

I forgot to check my update button. Now mom is up to 15% mapped. I expect her maternal side to have more matches as she has Philadelphia relatives on her maternal side and her paternal side was from Latvia. However at this point, Gladys has 15% paternal and 14% maternal mapped. I expect that to change.

Joan has over 100 cM of matches with my mom. She is a 2nd cousin once removed on the Nicholson/Ellis Line. That brought my mom up 1% to 16% mapped. Things had to slow down at some point.

Two Matches Representing 1700’s Ancestors

Astrid’s match with Mom goes back to a German Colony in Latvia:

Hans Jerg married a Bittenbinder. Mapping Astrid/Rathfelder/Bittennbinder adds some rose color to the paternal side of Mom’s map:

Astrid added another 1% to my mom’s mapped DNA.

Nigel: A Match on Another 1700’s Couple

Nigel’s match with my mom goes back to 1765. Astrid’s match represented 1752.

I added Nigel in lilac. Then I moved the ancestral DNA his match represents down to the maternal side of the Map’s Key. By default, the new ancestors appear at the top of the key.

My Mom’s Percent DNA Mapped Vs My Maternal Percent Mapped

I put in the easy matches for my mom and only came up with 19% mapped. However, I have 22% of my maternal side mapped. Here is what I have for my maternal side:

I think I know why my percentages are not the same thing as my mom’s percentages. My mom’s chromosome is her maternal and paternal side which is a generation back further than what I am looking at. Another way to look at it is that her 19% is 19% of two copies of her chromosomes. I am only looking at one copy of my maternal chromosomes. That means that my mother is starting out with over twice as much DNA than I am. I say more than twice as much because she has two X Chromosomes compared to my one. Put another way, I have 22% of my maternal side mapped. That is roughly equivalent to 11% of all my mom’s mapped DNA.

More Numbers

I have mapped 19% of my mom’s DNA. She passed down half of her DNA to me. Actually, this is a little less than half as I only got one X Chromosome. As I have mapped 22% of my maternal chromosomes, that means, that I should be able to get near to 22% for my mom.

More Matches for Mom

As I look at my own maternal-mapped chromosomes, I see that I have mapped some X Chromosome that I don’t have for my mom. Also I have some John Lentz DNA.

More X DNA for Mom

At the top, I said that I wasn’t going to map close relatives. However, I will make an exception with Cindy. Cindy is my mom’s niece. The reason I want to map Cindy’s match is because her father Bob is my mom’s brother.

I thought I had a better photo. My mom is the oldest child with the curly hair. Bob is the baby. Bob got only one X Chromosome from his Lentz mom. She got her DNA from her two parents who were Jacob Lentz and Annie Nicholson.

Here is Cindy’s X match with my mom at Gedmatch:

I then map Cindy’s match to my mom’s map:

This match is perhaps not too meaningful. Cindy got her paternal X from her dad Bob. Bob in turn got his only X Chromosome from his mom. She got her DNA from her two parents Jacob Lentz and Annie Nicholson. However, those segments are mapped as a placeholder to remind me that those segments represent either Lentz or Nicholson. Also the breaks in the matches may indicate changes from Nicholson to Lentz DNA or the other way around.

Mapping John Lentz and Eliza

I’m going to switch back to my DNA Painter Profile to see this match. When I do that, and choose John Lentz/Eliza from the key, I see this:

This shows on my maternal Chromosome 2, I had a 16 cM match with Radelle. I also have her Gedmatch number written down, so I can look for that match on my mom’s Gedmatch match list. My mom’s match with Radelle is about twice the match that I have with Radelle:

Next I switch the profile back to my mom and paint in the Radelle/Lentz/Eliza DNA:

Finally, I need to put John Lentz on the bottom maternal part of the Key:

Add Beth from MyHeritage

My mom matches Beth at MyHeritage. They are 2nd cousins once removed. Beth matches on my mom’s Nicholson/Ellis Line. Here is the match at MyHeritage:

This should add some new DNA to my mom’s DNA map. At MyHeritage at the Chromosome Browser, I choose Advanced Options. The only advanced option is to download the DNA match which I did. At DNA Painter, I choose Paint a New Match and add Beth’s DNA match. Beth’s match on Chromosome 12 was new as I had no DNA match for my mom there before Beth.

If I choose Nicholson/Ellis on the DNA Painter Key and then choose Beth, I get this:

This shows that Beth added no new DNA on Chromosome 5, but added some gap DNA on Chromosome 6. Her match extended a match on Chromosome 8 and added new DNA on Chromosome 12.

Fixing a Mistake

In the image above, I just happened to hover over Chromosome 5 and it shows a match with Gladys. That is wrong as Gladys is my mom. This should be Carolyn. To fix this, I choose Nicholson/Ellis in the Key. At the top, I choose Gladys and get this screen:

I then chose Edit Match. I replaced Gladys’ name with Carolyn. That fixed the problem.

Here is where I am:

That about as far as I will get as my own maternal chromosomes are also at 22%.

Here is what my mom’s DNA Painted Map looks like:

As predicted, my mom has more maternal DNA relatives compared to paternal. However, given that the paternal side is from Latvia, I am happy with the matches that she does have.

Summary and Conclusions

• I was able to paint 22% of my mom’s chromosomes based on identified existing  cousin matches. It would be nice to be at 25%.
• I have matches on all chromosomes except for the shortest one – 22.
• The colors could use a little work. They are a bit boring. The rose is close tot he brown and the light green does not show up well.
• Chromosome 18 appears to be the best mapped Chromosome.
• I was able to map the X Chromosome match my mom had with a niece because that niece is a daughter of my mom’s brother.
• I found a mistake and was able to fix it easily in DNA Painter.

In my last Blog, I brought Gary’s Taylor ancestors back to the late 1600’s in Pennsylvania and to Wales before that. Gary so far had one correction which I was easily able to fix. However, now Gary is interested in his Ormsby line,

Florence is Gary’s paternal grandmother. She was the one I called the child bride in the last Blog. Gary thinks Harry had roots in Scotland and Fannie may have been part native American.

Here is a a portion of the death record for Fannie:

This gives some information about her mother and father.

Harry and Fannie got married at a Methodist Church:

Harry was from Media and Fannie was from Springfield when they married in 1887.

Expanding Fannie Palmer’s Ancestry

I’ve started looking at Fannie Palmer, so I might as well continue down her line.

It looks like Fannie was born during the Civil War which was between 1861 and 1865.

Fannie in 1870

Fannie was the older daughter of 8 living in Ward 24 of Philadelphia in 1870. Also in the house was Johanna Palmer – possibly her grandmother. Her dad was a car driver. There was also a ‘driver express’ person living in the house – Lewis Woodward.  Here is Ward 24 to the West of the Schuykill River:

Fannie in 1880

Now Fannie is living with her grandmother in Upper Darby:

Johanna Palmer indicates that she was born in New Jersey. However, her dad was from England and her mom was from Scotland. She would have been born about 1808. It appears that Johanna woujld not be a good candidate for Native American ancestry if this census is correct.

John and Eunice Palmer

Fannie was living with her grandmother in 1880. What happened to her parents? The Media Burial Grounds records show this:

It looks like John passed away and Eunice remarried.

In 1850, Eunice was living in Thornbury, PA:

What About John Palmer?

 

John appeared to be F. John Palmer in the 1870 Census. Other hints at Ancestry refer to a John G. Palmer. I’ll take a look at some other Ancestry trees to see what they show. I found 10 trees with John Palmer. Nine trees showed him as John F. Palmer. Only one tree had parents:

This also showed two other Children that the other trees did not have. This raises some questions. Why was only one researcher able to find John’s parents? Most or all trees had his birth date and place of birth as Upper Darby. Johanna could be right as Fanny was living with her grandmother Johanna in 1880.

City Directories

Perhaps we can find John in the Philadelphia City Directories. Here are a few John’s in the 1860 Directory:

My first choice is John P., carriage driver, 326 Wildey. I don’t see any John F.

Here is 326 Wildey in Fishtown.

This is not near Ward 24. But the family was in Ward 24 in 1870, not 1860, so I picked the wrong directory. As an aside, my great-grandparents (no relation to Gary) lived on Earl St. I couldn’t find an 1870 Directory. Here is 1867:

Here I don’t see a John P or a carriage driver. There is a John Wheelwright, at Fkd av. which I take to be Frandford Ave. This may be the same person, assuming John is still in Philadelphia in 1867.

I can’t find John in 1861:

1866

This is similar to the 1867 Directory. However, I didn’t notice in 1867 that there was a John Coach painter on 2132 Winter. That seems to fit in with the car driver profession also. Here is 2132 Winter Street:

This is also getting us closer to Ward 24. Fannie was born in 1862, so she would have been around by now.

John F Palmer 1873

I did find our mysterious John F in 1873:

I don’t know if W P stands for West Philadelphia or West Powelton:

Perhaps the family was also living here during the 1870 Census.

Back to 1863:

This was thrown in in case it comes in handy some time later. There was a John V., carman.

1874

Where is John F? Is he now a foreman at 131 Dauphin, in West Kensington? Did he die? Did he move out of Philadelphia? Is seems the trail is going cold.

 

1878

There doesn’t seem to be a trace of Gary’s John in 1878 in Philadelphia. The above wheelwright may be the same as the one in the 1866 Directory.

Johanna Palmer

As Johanna is the apparent mother of John, let’s look at her. This Joanna in the 1850 Census looks to be the same person:

That would make John’s father John a paper maker born in 1805 in Pennsylvania. Here Joanna is also said to be born in Pennsylvania, but that may be a mistake. The son John looks to be 9 years old here and one of six siblings. This family lived in Upper Darby in 1850.

1860 Concord Township, PA

There are marks to the right of each of these household members showing that they are all paper makers. It appears that the family moved to Concord from Upper Darby.

1870

I mentioned above that Johanna was living with her son, daughter in law and two granddaughters in Ward 24, West Philadelphia. That means that Johanna got around a bit as she was back in Upper Darby in 1880. This means that Johanna’s husband John likely died between 1860 and 1870.

Before I leave the Palmers, here is one last reference to Johanna as Johanna Scot:

This is from an 1887 book called Genealogy of the Sharpless Family. This gives the other two children. That puts the likely death of John Palmer at 1876 or later.

Eunice Pyle Born 1839 and Family

There is a lot of information about Eunice’s parents in the book excerpt above. The family lived in Thornbury in 1870. All were born in Pennsylvania and all the parents were born in Pennsylvania:

Eunice’s grandfather was Israel Pyle:

William was from a large family.

Here is some more, from a different publication on Sharples:

They had other children. It looks like John broke away from the Quaker Faith.

That brings Gary’s paternal grandmother’s ancestors out like this:

I didn’t see any Native Americans in her ancestry. Gary does have a lot of Quaker ancestors.

Harry G Ormsby, Born 1865 and Ancestors

This is the side Gary thought would go back to Scotland. Here is Harry in 1870.

The family had a servant, which says they may have been relatively well off. Here is the previous page.

Harry’s dad was a gentleman.

George W in 1880

All is not well in 1880 as Harry’s dad has ‘affections of the spleen and liver’. George W is now shown as a lawyer. Less than three years later:

Here are some directions to the vault in case someone would like to visit:

The date of internment was 24 March 1883. Section 7. Lot 17 NW1/4. Then there is a grave number and remarks.

Here is an article from the Chester Times from Tuesday, 20 March 1883:

Harry in 1928

Fast forward 45 years:

More on George W

This is likely George registering for the Civil War:

At the time, he was living in Middletown, Delaware County.

There are only a few tree hints for George at Ancestry. None of them give his parents’ names. One gives a last name for his wife Williamette as:

 

More on Williamette

Williamette died as Williamette Dickeson in 1906. Harry Ormsby was the informant. Her father was listed as William. This appears to be the family in 1850 in Montgomery Township, PA:

William appears to have been a wealthy farmer. Here is a photo that someone posted to their tree of Williamette’s older sister Anna Matilda Steinmetz:

Here’s what I have so far for Florence Ormsby’s ancestors:

Summary and Conclusions

• I was not able to get back very far on the Ormsby Line.
• So far I have found no information that George Ormsby was born in Scotland. If the 1880 Census is correct, both his parents were born in Pennsylvania.
• Ormsby is a name associated with Scotland. There is a family legend of the first Ormsby in Scotland, where Orm was a Viking. Some of the gory battle stories are here.
• I wasn’t able to find any indication of Native American heritage on the Palmer side. It is possible that this could come up on Gary’s DNA test if there is a significant amount of Native American DNA that Gary has inherited.
• Gary has deep roots in Pennsylvania. As a result, many Quaker ancestors have popped up. Also an apparent German ancestor has surfaced in the Steinmetz family.

 

 

My Last Update on my wife’s Butler YDNA was here. My wife’s Butler male line is designated an I2 for his YDNA haplogroup. That is somewhat rare considering that this is an Irish Family. A more typical Irish haplogroup is R1b.

The short story is that my late father in law Richard’s YDNA has gone from I-A427 to I-S17511. A427 was easier to remember. How did Richard’s SNP change? Basically, when Richard took the BigY test, many SNPs were tested for Richard. A lot of those were unidentified SNPs. Once someone came along and matched others of Richard’s SNPs they become known.

Richard at YFull

YFull is a company in Russia that analyses SNPs. They are popular because they also date the SNPs. The downside is that not all people use this service, so the results can be incomplete. The other downside is that they use a BAM file from FTDNA and FTDNA has not been making their BAM files available lately. However, they are adapting by using FTDNA’s VCF files from the BigY.

Here is the old YTree:

The Irish flag is for Richard. There are a bunch of people that tested positive for Y4884 that I did not include. The three above that tested negative for I-Y4884.

Here is the updated tree (as of April 2018):

This SNP is still really ancient. A427 had an TMRCA of 4700 years ago. This new SNP brings us ahead 600 years to 4100 years ago. What happened was that two new tests came in. Four of the people under A427 matched, so were put into a new SNP. The person with Canadian ancestry did not match the other four, so was stuck in the older SNP. Perhaps someone else will come along that matches him and they will form a third group.

Also note that there is someone in the group with a Russian background. That is not surprising given the age of this SNP. My recollection is that this SNP in general started in the area of Germany. I’m sure in the last 4,000 years people have had a lot of time to travel from Germany to Russia or from Germany to Ireland. Then there is a kit in the above listed results marked by an ERS prefix. When I hover over this, it says, “analysis in progress”. So this kit may produce further branching. It starts with ERS23. I’m not sure what that means. ERS25 was from a 2013/2015 Sardinian Study.

My Own Drawn Version of A427

I had trouble seeing FTDNA’s SNP Tree, so I drew my own:

I had predicted a new branch for the Butlers and Whitson at the top (in yellow). Now we know what it is.

The Y4884 Branch also has a new date which is 200 years older than S17511 for some reason. One more person in the Whitson/Butler YDNA Projet has taken a BigY test, so that should result in more recent SNPs.

Family Tree DNA (FTDNA)

Here is the FTDNA version of the same tree:

They have the order reversed from YFull. They also call Y4884 (the Branch that Butler is negative for) S23612. What happens is that a group of people match a block of SNPs. As the group matches a block of SNPs, there is no way to tell which SNP is older or newer. One SNP is taken as representative – usually one  that is a good quality SNP. In this case, two different companies picked different SNPs for their own reasons. For example, here are Richard’s matches at YFull:

Richard shared 17 SNPs with the man from the Russian Line. He shared 9 SNPs with the last person. Here is what YFull shows on their YTree:

Under the heading of I-S17511, YFull shows four SNP plus six more for a total of 10. I assume that these were the 9 SNPs Richard shared with the last person in the list plus one other SNP that the company felt everyone had to match on – perhaps one of the assumed shared SNPs.

The Advantage of the Whitson/Butler DNA Group

There are two ways to test YDNA. One is you take a test and wait a long time and hope that someone that is related to you tests. However, this method does not work well. In this case, someone did test. The terminal SNP changed, but the date is still in the range of 4,000 years ago.

The second way to test is in a more methodical way. This is apparently what some of the people in the Y4884 Group did. They came up with one SNP that was as recent as 150 years ago. I assume that this was coordinated testing. The good news is that another person from the Whitson/Butler YDNA Group has taken a BigY test and is awaiting results. One other person has also planned on taking the BigY test.

One problem with the Whitson/Butler Group is that there are many different Haplogroups within the Group. Within the Butler section there should be two or three BigY results soon. However, for some of the other branches of the Whitson/Butler group, there is only one BigY or no BigY tests taken.

Summary and Conclusions

• It was a matter of time before someone tested to get my Butler in-law’s line further down the SNP ladder.
• As this person was random, the results were not dramatic
• It will be interesting to see the results of one or two new coordinated BigY tests.
• One goal of SNP testing is to get to the level of a surname only SNP or SNPs. We are far from that level right now, but on the way to getting there.

The descendants of the James Line of the Frazers of North Roscommon, Ireland will be especially happy to hear about the latest DNA test-taker, Rod. He has also ordered the BigY test which is a big deal. But more about that in a later Blog when the results come in. This Blog will look at Rod’s autosomal DNA results.

Rod’s James Frazer Heritage

This view brings Rod up to Thomas Henry Frazer with his niece, 1st cousin and 2nd cousins.

Here is the bigger picture of the James Line:

There are about 47 people in the Frazer DNA Project. There are 28 in the Archibald line that are DNA tested and uploaded to Gedmatch. There are 19 in the James Line of the DNA Project. However, I don’t use all the matches. I don’t use the children if the parent has tested. Also I can’t compare Kim’s results with everyone else as she was only able to upload her test to Genesis. Genesis is for DNA tests that are not yet fully compatible with Gedmatch. That means that there are actually 16 in the James Line that I can fully compare their DNA results. Kim is ordering another test that can be uploaded to Gedmatch, so that will be a help.

Rodney’s DNA

I will try to look at Rodney’s Frazer-only DNA as this is a Frazer Project. Here is how Rodney matches other James Line DNA Test-takers in general:

Rod matches everyone except from Penny and Gary. Rod matches Prudence but below the normal threshold of 7 cM.

Rodney and Triangulation Groups (TGs)

Next, I will look at James Line Triangulation Groups or TGs that Rodney is in. This can help shore up genealogy in the James Line.

Chromosome One

Rod’s first TG is in Chromosome one with Toni, Joanna, and Betty:

 

Here is what the numbers look like:

This is really two TGs, Rodney, Betty and Joanna have a TG focusing in on Thomas Henry Frazer. The addition of Toni to the TG suggests that the Thomas Henry Frazer TG is a Frazer TG and not a Palmer TG. The numbers work out well also. Rod shows a 64 cM to his first cousin Betty and smaller matches to his more distant cousins.

Chromosome 2

Here is a new TG with Rod, Betty and Clyde:

Madeline and Mary are matching on another line, so they are not in this TG.

Here is another TG with Rod, Madeline and Mary:

Rodney is doing a good job in tieing these families back to Archibald Frazer born about 1792.

Chromosome 8

Clyde, Betty and Rod.

I have already portrayed this combination above. Rod appears to be a missing link for some of these TGs. This TG brings up an interesting point. There is already a TG on the Archibald Line in this area. How is this possible? The Archibald TG has in it Emily, Bill, Paul, Gladys and Vivien. Vivien is in the Frazer Stinson Line. Emily, Bill, Paul and Gladys descend from a double Frazer couple: James and Violet. That means that the Archibald Line TG is most likely a Frazer TG. That means that the TG with Rod, Betty and Clyde likely goes back to the wife of Archibald born in 1792.  Joanna has this person as Mary Anne on her Ancestry Tree. This may give a clue as to Mary Anne’s last name.

Looking for Mary Anne

I’ll take a little side track to see if we can find any DNA evidence of Mary Anne. I ran a list of those that match Clyde and Rod and came up with this:

The TG is near the beginning of the Chromosome. The large red match is Clyde’s daughter. 7, 8, and 9 are Betty, Rod, and Jonathan. Jonathan wasn’t picked up previously as this is a 6.1 cM match – below the normal threshold. #2 is Noel. That may be a hint, but she would be outside the existing TG. A similar search for those that match both Clyde and Betty gave similar results. Still, there may be some hints in those that match Clyde and Betty or Rod on other chromosomes. Just not as focused hints as we could have had here.

Chromosome 10 – Rod, Betty and Toni

This is a simpler version of the first TG I showed. This has the same effect. Rod and Betty most certainly match on Thomas Henry Frazer, but the TG is on Archibald Frazer born 1792.

Chromosome 13

This TG is just within the Thomas Henry Frazer group, so it could be Frazer or Palmer.

Chromosome 14

Here is a different combination:

This looks to be a long-range TG out at the 5th cousin level, unless someone can think of a closer common ancestor than James Frazer.

This is another James Line TG that overlaps with an Archibald Line TG. The Archibald Line TG has Gladys, Bill and Jane. This could be under the Richard Line or the Archibald/Stinson Line, so it gets complicated. I would still think that both TGs would not be TGs with a Frazer ancestor.

Chromosome 20

Here is another Thomas Henry Frazer TG:

I won’t be recording these TGs on my spreadsheet as they may be Frazer TGs. However, it is good that there enough people from the same great-grandfather to have these TGs as they produce other TGs with ancestors more distant than Thomas Henry Frazer.

Rodney’s DNA Summary

Rodney has added a lot to the TGs of the James Line. Most of his TGs linked families to Archibald Frazer born in 1792, One of the TGs that Rodney was in seemed to go all the way back to James Frazer from the early 1700’s. Rodney was in other TGs that went back to his great grandparents. However, these seem less important right now as I believe that there is no question of that relationship. Also, I did not emphasize those TGs as they may be Frazer or Palmer TGs. The Palmer TGs may be important for further research along those lines. Finally, I discussed what it means when a James Line TG overlaps with an Archibald TG. I felt in places where they overlap, that it would be unlikely that both TGs would be from a Frazer Line.

Two Frazer Brothers: William and Edward

Joanna has this fascinating photo on her family tree. William and Edward are two Frazers that have descendants that tested for DNA. William is in the back left and Edward is in the front right. Rodney’s grandfather is William.

Here is Joanna’s caption:

Edward FitzGerald Frazer in checked suit/dress, behind is William, Eliza centre, John at back and Robert beside his mother. (Boys wore dresses as toddlers)

Joanna has Edward born 1867. My guess for the date of this photo would be around the year 1870. Perhaps Eliza had her hands full with four boys.

William’s Travels

Sometime before 1893, we see that William made his way to Spokane, Washington in the United States where he lived as a farmer.

William had married German-born Bertha Coblestine (or Koblestine) and had four children.

Here is the family in 1910:

Now William has five children. An interesting detail is that Bertha now is said to have been born in Wisconsin, but that she is German.

Here is a more grownup photo of William from Joanna’s Ancestry Tree:

William’s Petition for Naturalization from November 1909 is a good source of information.

Here is William’s signature:

William gives his birth date, place of birth, date of emigration and the ship that he was on:

William’s witnesses must have included an in-law:

Here is Drumkeerin – probable a little under 5 miles from the County Sligo border in Leitrim:

And here is Spokane. Two different worlds:

According to Joanna, William left his family. This seems to be a repeat of history as William’s father Thomas left his Irish family and moved to Owatonna, Minnesota. There he started another family which, according to Joanna, he also left.

Edward Frazer

Wililam’s younger brother Edward was born in either Drumkeeran or Manorhamilton about 10 miles to the North of where William was born.

Here is a photo of Edward, looking quite different from when he was wearing a dress as a young child:

According to Joanna, Edward’s life was quite different from his brother William. Edward graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

Too bad I didn’t know this when I last visited Dublin. I think that most people that visit Dublin would visit St. Stephen’s Green. Certainly researchers would stop by the National Library of Ireland which is not too far away. Here is a drawing of the College from 1830:

This is from the College website:

RCSI Roll of Licentiates

The RCSI Roll of Licentiates (RCSI/LIC) was signed by every graduate of the College once they had completed their studies, passed their exams and received their license. The student signed their full name and gave their place of residence. The variety of nationalities that attended the College in the 1800s is reflected to this day in the student body.

Here is Edward’s signature and place of residence from February 5, 1892:

At this time Edward would have been not quite 25 years old.

A year earlier, on February 21,1891, Edward was playing on the Irish National Rugby team. I’m amazed at people that are able to balance athletic achievements with medical studies.

Here is Edward in an 1895 Directory:

I wonder where Glosdromon is? It looks like Edward graduated about five years after another Edward Frazer relative.

Edward shows up in a Brighton Directory in 1899:

Here is Edward in a 1900 Medical Directory:

I get the sense of some but not all of the abbreviations.

In 1903, Edward shows up in a Brighton Phone Book.

Here, he went by Fitzgerald.

Edward has an extra medical qualification in 1903 dated 1901:

In 1905, Edward took a long trip from his home in Brighton to see his brother in Spokane, Washington. Now Edward is 38 and single. This is the part of the Ship Manifest where Edward said who he was visiting:

Now I assumed that he was going to William. He is going to see J.A.P. Frazer in Spokane. Who is this other Frazer? This is the older brother, John Archibald Peyton Frazer. According to Joanna, John wrote to Edward in 1900 about his poor health. One would assume that Doctor Edward was going out to check on his older brother John. Here is a photo of John Frazer from Joanna’s web page:

Interestingly, John had married his sister-in-law Amelia Cobensten. There are many ways to spell the last name. Here is John’s wife and his children on the 1900 Census for Spokane, Washington.

From the birthplaces of his children, we can see that the family moved from Minnesota to Washington around 1992. So this is turning into a tale of three brothers. Two were farmers and the youngest was a surgeon. Joanna also explains that it was the father Thomas Henry Frazer who got two of his sons to visit him. Joanna writes, “John and brother William arrive in America having been summoned by their father Thomas Henry Frazer.” I wonder if he wanted them to help out on his farm.

Back to Edward the Surgeon

Here is Edward in 1909:

Nine years after visiting Spokane, Edward marries Edith Seymour in London in 1914. Edward is now at 47 years old. Edward lives out his days in Brighton, having one son. He dies in 1943 at the age of 76.

Thoughts on the Frazer Brothers

I found the differences between these three brothers interesting. The obvious difference is the distance that they lived apart. In my own Frazer family, there was a similar rending of the family. Some Frazers stayed in Ireland and some came to the Boston, Massachusetts area. Another difference was in careers. Perhaps Edward’s delay of marriage gave him more time to pursue his medical studies and practice and his rugby.

I wonder how Edward could afford to go to a medical college in Dublin. It appears that he had no support from his father. Also Edward’s mother died when he was 15. Who did he live with after that? I find it interesting that Edward came to Spokane to visit his ailing brother John. Joanna mentions that William Frazer also went back to Ireland in 1891, but then came back to the US in 1893. That means that William would have been in Ireland at the time of Edward’s graduation from the College of Surgeions and at the time Edward was playing Rugby.

I had trouble finding Edward in the Census records. Perhaps he was traveling or on the move. However, Edward is well documented in directories and on cruises that he took.

As family historians, we get a chance to look at the cause and effect of the legacy that is passed down to us. In some cases we can be thankful for a positive legacy. However, we know that our ancestors were not perfect. In some ways we try to overcome negative legacies and turn things around so that our descendants will have something to be thankful for.