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.

 

 

 

i have been hearing a lot of rave reviews about DNAPainter, an award-winning DNA analytical tool. So I thought that I would try it. Before I tried it, I had to finish my taxes. Now my State Taxes are in the mail and my Federal Taxes are e-filed, so I’m raring to go.

Using DNA Painter

The instructions seemed pretty straight-forward and intuitive. In short time, I went through a lot of my Gedmatch top matches and painted into the program.

I have a lot of 2nd cousins as my Hartley great grandparents (represented in green above on the DNAPainter) had 13 children that made it past infancy.

My grandfather is third from the right with his 12 siblings and mom. I”m told this photo was from 1938.

The DNAPainter shows that I have painted 28% of my chromosome. So far I have not started on my X Chromosome and still have some more to map.

The Matches Behind the Matches – Under the Hood

This is one of the cool features of DNAPainter. Here is Chromosome 18, for example:

This shows that on the top paternal side, I have a blue match mapped to James Frazer and Violet Frazer. They were born around 1804. When I select the Chromosome, it opens up, so I can see the matches that make this up:

The Maternal side splits out also, but I am just looking at the Paternal side for now. These four bars represent four people that I match and two sets of common ancestors. The brown represents my Frazer and McMaster great-grandparents. The blue represents my Frazer 2nd great-grandparents.

Separating the DNA and the Ancestors

A lot of genetic genealogy is about separating out the DNA. For example, if I have a match on the brown segment above, I would like to know if it is specifically Frazer or McMaster DNA. My guess is the brown match with Emily above is a Frazer and not a McMaster match. Emily in brown above should match Gladys, Susan, and Doreen in blue.

It seems like Emily has to match the blue matches, but I’ll check to make sure:

These are Emily’s matches with Doreen, Susan and Gladys (in that order). Emily’s matches with these three women go from about 26M to 53M. Emily matches me from 35M to 52M. Now on my Chromosome 18, I got all my paternal DNA from my Frazer grandmother. I can now know two things:

• The match with Emily is a George Frazer match and not a McMaster match
• The segment right before 35M and after 52M on my Chromosome is not from George Frazer. This could be DNA I got from McMaster or even my grandmother’s mother Clarke.

Because I know that my match with Emily is with George William Frazer, I can map that DNA more specifically. In order to do that I click on the brown Emily segment on Chromosome 18:

Then I choose Edit Segment.

Under the drop-down menu for Group/ancestor, there is an option for ‘Create a new group’. This looks like a good option.

 

Now the match with Emily is yellow and represents just George Wm Frazer 1838. This means in a practical way, I will not be looking for McMaster matches in this segment, but Frazer matches.

More George on Chromosome 7

By the way, here is George Frazer and his wife Margaret McMaster:

Again, the light blue goes back to James and Violet Frazer in the early 1800’s. On the end of the blue segment, it gets a little darker, indicating that something is going  on. That is when I look under the hood:

Again, here is a match in brown (indicating Frazer/McMaster.  However, this time it is a match with my cousin Paul and not with Emily. This has to be just George Frazer as it is overlapping with a match going back to the parents of George. The two blue matches represent Ken and his sister Susan. Ken does not show up on Paul’s match list, as the match would be too small. However, Paul does show a match with Susan.

This match that Paul has with Susan is at about the same location as the match I have with Paul. That is triangulation and shows that the DNA that Paul and I share in brown should be in yellow for George McMaster.

I went in and edited the segment that I share with Paul:

It doesn’t look llke a big change, but I would rather have a short specifically identified segment than a longer more vague segment.

Splitting Out My Hartley/Snell Great-Grandparents

I have a lot of interest in splitting out my Hartley and Snell great-grandparents. That is because my Hartley great-grandfather was born in Bacup, Lancashire and my Snell great-grandmother has ancestry going back to SE Massachusetts in Colonial times. I have brick wall issues on the Hartley family in Lancashire.

Here is my Chromosome 9 from DNAPainter. I got all my paternal DNA from my paternal Hartley grandfather on Chromosome 9. Here are my second cousin (and 1C1R) matches that I have mapped so far:

These two areas look suspiciously like crossovers:

These are likely areas where my DNA switched from Snell to Hartley, or from Hartley to Snell. The first circle is at 81M. The second circle is at 126M. If I were to look at all my Chromosome 9 paternal matches, I may be able to figure out which ones have Colonial Massachusetts ancestry and which ones have Lancashire ancestry.

Adding More Matches to DNAPainter

I’ll add Michael. We have a common ancestor going back to the 1700’s.

Our common ancestor is Richard Frazer. I don’t know his exact birth year or his wife’s name. However, the red DNA that we share could be from Richard Frazer or his wife. So I indicated that in the key. I also notice that on Chromosome 17, there are a few hash marks. This indicates a common pile-up area within the area of the match that I have with Michael.

Adding Nigel

Nigel is a maternal match and our common ancestors also go way back to Sheffield, England.

This yellow match on Chromosomes 1 and 3 goes back to 1765. When I hit the orange refresh button, I see that my mapping has increased from 28% to 29%:

It also shows that I added 4 segments.

Summary and Conclusions

• I was most impressed with the individual segment look underneath the map. This is what Roberta Estes calls the self-triangulating feature. I think of it as the under the hood look.
• Using the under the hood look and known cousins, I was able to assign DNA to a specific ancestor in two cases. This requires multiple known matches in overlapping segments.
• I’m sure that this feature will have more applications for me with unknown matches in the future.
• I would like to try to use DNAPainter to separate out my Hartley and Snell sides going back to my great-grandparents.
• Next up, I’ll map more DNA from MyHeritage, FTDNA and/or 23andme.