Category: DNA General

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My New Match with Anita from Latvia

There has been some buzz recently on the genetic genealogy Facebook Pages about MyHeritage and how useful it is becoming. Not too long after uploading my DNA to MyHeritage, a new match, Anita, showed up as my top match. This was MyHeritage’s estimate as to our relationship:

I guessed that Anita was related on my mother’s side as my mom’s dad grew up in Latvia. I wrote to Anita and she kindly and warmly wrote back. Anita lives in Latvia, so she is my first Rathfelder relative living in Latvia that I have a DNA match with.

A Rathfelder DNA Testing Tree

I have had another Rathfelder descendant tested, Catherine. She is even more closely related to Anita. Here are some Rathfelder descendants that have tested.

The Old Rathfelder DNA Testing Tree

This is the tree I have been working with:

Astrid is related, but more distantly than my second cousin Catherine, my mom, my siblings and two 1st cousins. I’ll use a different method to add Anita to the tree:

This chart gives the relationships between each DNA-tested Rathfelder descendant. I am a 2nd cousin once removed to Anita. MyHeritage had me as first cousin twice removed to 2nd cousin once removed by the DNA. They were right.

The Leo Rathfelder’s Line

Anita’s great-grandfather was Leo Rathfelder. Here is my web page on that Line:

Anita descends from Vera. It will be interesting to hear what that part of the family has been up to in Latvia since 1944.

I had asked Anita to upload her results to Gedmatch.com and she went along with my request. Here is how we match there:

Gedmatch has an estimated number of generations to our MRCA as 3.1. The MRCA is our Most recent common ancestors, Johann Heinrich Rathfelder and Maria Gangnus. I am three generations away from this couple and Anita is four, so that is an average of 3.5 generations away. This means that Anita and I share more than the average DNA for our 2nd cousin once removed relationship. Also I note that quite a few SNPs were used in comparison which is good. The test at MyHeritage is apparently much better than the one at 23andme which does not currently meet the gedmatch.com threshold for normal sharing.

The Kitty Munson Chromosome Mapper

One fun thing to do with DNA is mapping. Kitty Munson has an on-line utility to map your DNA. All the DNA I have above will be mapped to Heinrich Rathfelder and Maria Gangnus. Right now my map looks like this:

 

Heinrich and Maria are a sort of orange color on the maternal (bottom) side of my chromosomes. Anita should make a good contribution to this map. Previously, Catherine’s matches with me contributed to this DNA from these two great grandparents. Catherine has a large match with me on Chromosome 18, so Anita will not add anything there, but she will on other chromosomes.

Here is the new map with my matches to Anita added:

Anita added a lot of DNA to my Chromosome map on Chromosomes 3, 11, 14, 15. 16, and 19.

Anita and the X Chromosome

The X Chromosome is more of a female thing than a male one. I say this because woman have two X Chromosomes and men have one. This is the X Chromosome DNA match that Anita and my mom share:

Gangnus DNA

The DNA that Anita and my mother share is from the Gangnus side. How do I know that? Here is the paternal side of my mother’s DNA inheritance chart:

The maternal side (not shown) does not apply to Anita. My mom inherits X Chromosome DNA from the blue and pink areas but none from the white areas. This shows that at the level that my mom and Anita match each other, the DNA that they share has to be on the Gangnus side. That is because my mother’s father Alexander didn’t get any DNA from his father. He only got a full dose of DNA from his mother Marie Gangnus that he sent down to my mom.

Anita’s X Chromosome DNA inheritance pathway is a bit longer:

Anita got a full dose also of her grandmother Vera Rathfelder’s  X Chromosome from her dad. However, I think that Vera’s X Chromosome would have been a combination of her father and mother’s X Chromosome.

I have mapped out the X Chromosome for myself and four of my siblings:

The Rathfelder part is in green. Lentz is my mother’s mother’s side. That was the part I didn’t show on the bottom side of her X Chromosome inheritance chart. As I mentioned above, all the Rathfelder DNA on the X Chromosome came from Maria Gagnus, so it could just as well say Gagnus instead of Rathfelder. I am on the J bar. I got Lentz DNA from 100 to 140. My mom matches Anita from 114 to 144. That means that I should match Anita from 110 to 114 as my green Rathfelder/Gangnus X Chromosome inheritance starts at 110. When I check gedmatch for an X match with Anita, at first I didn’t get a match. That is because gedmatch sets the SNP level for matching higher than  the other chromosomes. When I lower the SNP level, I get this match with Anita on the X Chromosome:

 

Anita and Catherine’s Mystery X Chromosome Match

At first, I thought that I had stumped myself with this one, but I figured it out. Anita’s largest X Chromosome match is with her 1st cousin once removed Catherine:

I confused myself by the way I drew the DNA inheritance map:

Here it looks like the X Chromosome is traveling from Leo to Catherine’s father which is impossible. After posting a question to the ISOGG Facebook Page, I figured it out. Obviously Leo had a wife, Lidia Vasiljeva. This DNA was from her. I was focused on the Rathfelder side and forgot the Vasiljeva side that I’m totally unrelated to. So if Anita and Catherine are ever sitting around pondering their X Chromosome match with each other, they will now know that their match is a Vasiljeva match. Mystery solved.

Here is Marie (Maria?) Gangnus.

Other matches with Anita are from Marie Gangnus or her Rathfelder husband and we can’t identify which. Matches with Anita and my family on the X Chromosome would be from Marie’s DNA.

Other DNA Matches

This could be a topic for further research. Gedmatch has a way to look for people that match two other people. In this case, I’ll choose my mom and Anita. When I put these two names into the Gedmatch Utility, I came up with a short list including myself and my siblings.

One prominent DNA match was David. He matched my mom and Anita. This chromosome browser is from the perspective of my mom:

On Chromosome 14, my mom matches #1 Anita, #2 Catherine and #3 David. David tested at Family Tree DNA, so I’ll check there. Unfortunately David has no tree posted at either FTDNA or Gedmatch, so I may write to say hi.

Anita and Astrid

I’m a bit puzzled by Astrid. I had written a few Blogs about her previously. The most recent Blog is here. It seems like the DNA is telling me that Astrid should be more closely related than she is.

This table gives different matches to Astrid. If I have the tree right, then all these people seem to be off by about one generation. At the time I wrote the previous Blog on Astrid’s ancestors, I had thought that the higher matches had something to do with her being related to the Gangnus family also.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was pleasantly surprised to find Anita through DNA matching. I would like to find out more about her family.
  • I was able to match much more of my Rathfelder/Gangnus DNA thanks to Anita
  • X Chromosome matches that Anita and my family and cousins share is really Gangnus DNA coming through the Rathfelder male line.
  • It is possible that this DNA match with Anita will make it easier to find other Rathfelder relatives.
  • The Rathfelder family has been separated for over 100 years between Latvia, England, and the United State (and perhaps other places). Now thanks to DNA matches and the internet, connections are being made again.

 

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Richard and a Frazer DNA Breakthrough: Part One

Richard contacted me recently as he had seen my web page on my Frazer ancestors. He had seen some similarities between my Frazers and the names and places of Ontario Frazer ancestors he was researching and wondered if his Frazer ancestors matched with mine.

Here are some of the people that Richard has been researching. I have quoted Richard below in part:

Eliza Frazer, b. in Ireland on December 11, 1827 per 1901 Canada Census, having immigrated to Canada in 1842.

Ann Frazer, b. in Ireland about October 1832.  No record to date of Ann’s birthplace or parents.  She married Robert Johnston (b. Roscommon or Sligo, Ireland) in 1853, probably in Brant or Oxford counties, Ontario.

Rebecca Frazer, b. 1837 in Ireland, d. 1877 in Huron County Ontario.  Rebecca lived with Ann Frazer Johnston and Robert Johnston in 1861, as did Robert’s employee William Geddes.   Rebecca married William Geddes in 1865.  Their marriage record lists Rebecca’s parents as Philip Frazer and Mary Taylor.

George James Frazer/Fraser, b. July 6 1841 in County Sligo, Ireland.  No record yet of date of immigration.  George is listed in the 1861 Canada Census in Woodstock, Oxford County, Ontario, occupation school teacher.  George married Jane Burgess (daughter of William Burgess and Elizabeth Ann Watt) of Woodstock in 1863 in Paris, Brant County, Ontario.  The marriage record lists George’s parents as Philip Fraser and Mary Gray.

One interesting thing is that all these Frazers had children except Rebecca. Eliza, Ann and George all named their first child Philip. Richard guessed that Eliza was the one I had on my Frazer Web Page and that Ann and Rebecca were sisters. Richard descends from Ann who “…married Robert Johnston (b. Roscommon or Sligo, Ireland)…”

My initial guess was that all these four were siblings.

A Reassessment of the Philip Frazer Line

The earliest research on the Frazer line that we know of was done in the 1950’s:

This research shows Philip Frazer born 1758 with sons Philip and George. Subsequent research by Frazer descendents have moved these brothers’ birth dates up to the 1770’s. I reasoned that the James Frazer that married Violet Frazer above was actually another son of Philip above. This was based mostly on the James’ naming of his first son Philip and where these families lived in proximity to each other.

Here is my web page version:

 

Note that I have that the younger Philip married a Jane Johnston in 1818. However, it could be that the father Philip married this Jane as a second wife. Philip would have been about 42 in 1818.

Further, this George is of interest. My 2nd great grandfather was George Frazer born around 1836. He could have been named after the late George born say around 1800. Looking above, the George that the Richard of this Blog has could also have been named for the same George. This gives circumstantial evidence that he could also have been of this same Philip Line.

Finally, note the tithe applotment. My assumption is that George, Philip and James were three brothers. My second assumption is that they are listed in order of age. That would make George the eldest and James the youngest. I have James born around 1804 based on his age at death. That would put the two brothers as born sometimes before then – Perhaps 1800 and 1802.

More Thoughts on the Philip Frazer, Jr. Line

Here is my web page which is in need of revising:

First, I am leaning toward putting Jane Johnston with the elder Philip. Second, I now have a wife for the junior Philip from Michael’s compilation of Frazer records:

MLB                 Marriage Licence Bonds (Diocese of Elphin 1709-1845)

This information is interesting in light of Richard’s research showing that Rebecca’s parents were Philip Frazer and Mary Taylor. Richard’s Rebecca was born later than the one I have on my web page above. This could mean one of two things:

  • The first Rebecca died and the family had a later Rebecca
  • Rebecca wanted to be younger than she really was

This brings up the subject of the Maxwell Discontinuity.

The Maxwell Discontinuity.

I had told Richard that this was the Minion discontinuity, but apparently I was wrong. These are Minions:

Maxwell was the Parish Priest in Klmactranny. He was supposed to be taking down records but didn’t between sometime in 1830 and sometime before early 1842. For this reason, a lot of important records are missing. My 2nd great grandfather was born about 1836. So that could explain his missing birth record. Apparently the birth of Richard’s George James Frazer is missing due to the Maxwell discontinuity. Hmm… perhaps George James Frazer was named for the deceased George mentioned above and also for my ancestor James born about 1804. Well, James is a common name. Another issue for Richard’s George James Frazer is that his mother is listed as Mary Gray rather than Mary Taylor. There could be at least two reasons for that:

  • The wrong name could have been written down for George’s mother on his marriage record
  • George’s father could have remarried a Mary Gray. I suppose if this was the case, then DNA testing of descendants would show the difference. For example, matches between Richard and George’s descendants would be half cousins, so the DNA matches would be half as much as they would be with the full cousins.

What About Ann Frazer born 1832

If Ann Frazer was a sibling of Philip, Eliza, Rebecca and George she would have been born during the Maxwell Discontinuity. It would have been likely that she would have been baptized at the same Church as her siblings.

That sums up some of the genealogical connections between the families.

Next, on to the DNA

Richard’s Ancestry DNA Matches

Richard gave me access to his DNA results. I typed in Frazer on Richard’s match list and came up with these results:

 

These were just the projected 4th cousin by DNA matches. The first match was with Michael who compiled the Frazer records I mentioned above. The second match was with Gladys who I have as descending from Philip Frazer. Both of these people are the Frazer DNA project that I run. I don’t know who Debbie is.

Under more distant cousins, my sister Lori and I are listed. Then there is Moira who I don’t know. Finally there is someone who wished to remain anonymous, but is clearly related on what I have as the Philip Frazer (Sr.) Line. Once I saw the Ancestry results, I was quite sure that Richard was on the right track and was related by DNA and genealogy to the rest of the Frazers in the Frazer DNA Group.

But Wait, There’s More: Shared Matches

AncestryDNA doesn’t have a chromosome browser, but they do have a useful utility called Shared Matches. When I check the Shared Matches between myself and Richard, I come up with Gary. Here is Gary’s paternal tree from Ancestry:

Gary has his great grandfather William Acheson as being from Rockview, Lough Arrow, County Sligo. My Frazer ancestors lived on Lough Arrow and some of my relatives are still there. The ones I have been most in touch with live on the NE shore of Lough Arrow Here is a map of the Rock View Hotel, which I assume could be the same place:

Another tie-in is that Arthur, someone that helped with my genealogy years ago, was researching Achesons. Arthur was the one that coined the phrase Maxwell Discontinuity and discovered the gap of missing records.

It turns out that Gary’s father’s best man at his wedding was one of my Frazer relatives from near Lough Arrow. I had asked Gary to upload his results to Gedmatch. I didn’t see his message that he did that until I looked again at his results at AncestryDNA just recently. Right now Gary’s results don’t give me any easy answers, but there seem to be some interesting connections there – somewhere that we haven’t figured out yet. Ah, the mystery of genetic genealogy.

By the way, a Shared Match means just that. It means I match Richard by DNA. Richard matches Gary and I match both of them. It is not the same as triangulation by DNA but it could be the same. In a way it means, where there is smoke, there may be fire.

A Summary of Part One

  • Some Ontario Frazers that Richard has been researching (including his own ancestor Ann Frazer) appear to be siblings. They also all descend from Philip Frazer. This appears to be the same Philip who I have as the son of another Philip from North Roscommon, Ireland and the brother of my ancestor James Frazer. I have not proven that my ancestor James is the brother of Philip, but the research from Richard adds circumstantial evidence to the work that I have done.
  • In addition to matching by genealogy to my Frazer relatives, Richard matches me, my sister and two other Frazers in the Frazer DNA Project: Gladys and Michael. The match to Gladys can be explained if we are all descended from Philip Frazer born around 1776.
  • Richard also matches Michael at AncestryDNA. I have that Michael does not descend from Philip born around 1776, but from two of his brothers: Richard and Archibald. That means that the common ancestor between Michael, myself, Gladys and Richard could be the father of Philip or another collateral line. Actually Gladys does match Michael on another Frazer Line. Both Gladys and Michael descend from Archibald Frazer born about 1778 who is a brother of the Philip born about 1776.
  • Richard and I have another shared match Gary. The connection between this Gary, Richard and me may be even more difficult to figure out than the one between Michael, Richard and myself. This is because Gary is not aware of any Frazers in his ancestry.
  • So far, my research on the Frazer family has been a great collaboration with other Frazer researchers around the world. I am glad to have Richard contributing his research to the work that others have done.

Next Blog

In the next Blog, I’ll take a look at Richard’s results at Gedmatch. AncestryDNA gives some general matching information, but does not give specific matches. With specific matches, on specific parts of specific chromosomes, it is possible to infer or give pretty good indication of common ancestors. This DNA may give further evidence for or against having my James Frazer in the Philip Line.

Also, I know how I am related to Michael. My ancestor Violet Frazer was the daughter of Richard Frazer born about 1777. Violet was the sister of Isabella Frazer who was the ancestor of Michael. However, I am not sure how Richard matches Michael. He would have a common ancestor in the father of Philip Sr who was Archicbald Frazer born about 1743, but that is going quite a way back.

 

 

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Frazer-Johnston DNA and Genealogy

I recently had some good news. John contacted me. He has Johnston and Frazer ancestry and wants to know if I could look at his DNA. I like it when I am not chasing down people and someone gets in touch with me without me first asking them. In his initial contact with me, John brought a smile to my face when he noted that I was “working the DNA hard”. This brought to my mind the comedy mocumentary “Walk Hard”.

Frazer-Johnston Genealogy

I have had an interest in the Johnstons for some time. I noticed that they were living in vicinity of Frazers  in North Roscommon and had married into the family – though not into my specific line as far as I know.

Here is the important Frazer-Stinson marriage.

This was compiled by Michael of our Frazer DNA group and researched by Ros of our group. Good team effort.

I also find this entry interesting:

My research leads me to believe that I am descended from the elder Philip [Frazer] mentioned above. That theory could be supported if I were to find a descendant from this line to test their DNA.

That brings up a point. It is an excellent genealogical method to research collateral lines when researching your own line. Johnston would be considered a collateral line for me and for those in the Frazer DNA Project. Research in these lines can shed light on your own line.

A Bloated Archibald Frazer/Ann Stinson Line

This line is bloated but in a good way.

I added John on the left as he descends from Mary Frazer. Mary appears to be an elder daughter of the Frazer/Stinson union. By this chart, John is 4th cousin to those in his generation from Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson. John is 4th cousin once removed to those that one generation down from him (bottom row).

I should note that there are two types of DNA testers in the tree above. The first group from the viewpoint of the Frazers are only in the Archibald Frazer/Ann Stinson Line and no other Frazer Line. The second group are in more than one Frazer Line. Those that are in more than one line are:

  • Jane
  • Michael
  • Those in the yellow group to the right

I put a red box around the lines that descend from more than one Frazer from the Archibald Frazer/Ann Stinson Tree. This is important when trying to separate out the DNA.

Derrycastle During the Tithe Applotment (1834)

The Tithe Applotment was an assessment to support the Church of Ireland from what I understand. Here is a list of the families in Derrycastle in 1834:

Here is the original handwritten list:

My sense is that the most important person was listed first in these assessments. Now I get to quote myself as a self-appointed leading authority on Derrycastle. From my Frazer webpage:

The Tithe Applotment is considered to be a census substitute. We may tell where many of the heads of households lived at this time. There were 19 Frazers listed in this ‘census’ in Roscommon. That is more than any other Republic of Ireland County at the time. John is difficult to determine due to the number of Johns in the area. My guess is that he is the John b. c. 1805 who married Isabella. Archy may be John’s brother. William may be yet another brother. I don’t know who Ann is – perhaps his mother Ann Stinson Frazer(?) Philip and James are likely the sons of Philip. Archy of Shanvoley apparently was from or lived in Shanvoley. I don’t know if people were listed more than once in the Tithe Applotment. There is also an Archy and Alexander listed in Shanvoley in 1834. Actually they are listed as being in Bothoriagh Shanvallew Derrynamontrue. I don’t know who the widow McGrath was. Lastly John Johnston was probably Jane Frazer’s husband below.

To answer my question above, I believe that people were listed more than once in these Applotments. For example Alexander of Shanvoley lived in Shanvoley, but had some land in Derrycastle. This would be quite common as these Townlands were quite small.

Another question is: who was George Frazer? I didn’t address that above. However, Michael’s compilation of records has:

So if my theory is right, then my ancestor James Frazer was the son of Philip and the brother of George. That would explain where my 2nd great grandfather George Frazer (son of James) got his name:

My great great grandfather (seated to the right in the photo above) was born about 1838 and was apparently named after his Uncle George who died late in 1831 – probably in his memory. I was recently wondering where George got his name. This would be a good explanation. While I’m off the subject, I’ve slept in the house pictured above which I think is pretty cool. The house is still in the family. My great grandfather who was the eldest child had already left for Boston, Massachusetts by the time this photo was taken. He was seeking his fortune in the new world.

Getting back on subject, I find it interesting that Ann Stinson Frazer is probably the Ann Frazer listed in the 1834 Tithe Applotment above. Information supplied to me by the John of this Blog indicates that Ann Stinson died in 1840 – 6 years after the taking of the Tithe Applotment.

John’s Frazer DNA

I don’t know much about Johnston DNA, so I will be looking at John’s Frazer DNA. By the way, what is the question we are trying to answer with John’s DNA? One is, does the genealogy look right? Does John belong in the Archibald Frazer/Ann Stinson Line? According to this table, John should have a better than even chance of matching a 4th cousin:

However, for 4th cousin, once removed, it looks like he has less than an even chance of matching by DNA.

The Archibald Line Matrix

The matrix is getting too big for the whole Frazer DNA project, so I will just show it for the Archibald Line:

I am at the top left. I don’t descend from Archy and Ann. David is someone who is unsure of his relationship to our group but does match by DNA. I suspect he descends from Richard Frazer born in the 1770’s. John is below David in the first column. Notice that John doesn’t match anyone in my family – the family that does not descend from Archy and Ann Stinson. So that would make sense. David should also be in the ‘not descending from Stinson’ category. John has nine matches with 15 Frazer/Stinson descendants. That sounds like more than half. Albeit, two of those matches are below 7 cM.

John had asked me about his lack of match with Michael at AncestryDNA. At Gedmatch, John clearly matches Michael. My guess is that Ancestry uses a method to filter out some of the matches that it thinks might not be real or accurate. It is that method that likely filtered out this match between John and Michael. Some people don’t like Ancestry’s filtering. To me, the match between John and Michael looks good.

More DNA Details and Triangulation

John had a question to me about AncestryDNA circles. I told him that they are OK, but that triangulation is much more precise. To find Triangulation Groups (TGs), I use the Multi Kit Analysis utility at Gedmatch. If three not very closely people match each other on the same segment of DNA, then that is considered a TG. It means that those three share a common ancestor. In this study, we are looking for common Frazer ancestors.

Based on the Multi Kit Analysis, John matches 7 people on the Archibald Frazer Line:

That makes sense as I mentioned that two matches were under the 7 cM threshold. Here John matches brother and sister Susan and Ken as well as their 1st cousin Patricia. That would be John’s TG. Then he matches Gladys, Michael, Doug and Vivien of the Frazer/Stinson Line.

This shows that John matches Frazer/Stinson descendants on four different lines. That is quite convincing. These international matches represent Australia, two DNA testers from England and Canadian relatives.

The triangulation is with the yellow line of Frazer descendants on the right. This is likely because they have more people tested to triangulate with. John mentioned a common area that his family lived in with the yellow line. That was Martinsburg, NY. So John should also check that there was no common ancestor from that connection. My guess is that the small DNA match they have represents Frazer as a New York connection would likely represent a larger DNA match.

Actually, my next project is to determine what parts of DNA Doreen, Ken and Susan got from their grandparents – especially their Frazer grandfather. I’ll be using a procedure called Visual Phasing. So this Chromosome 3 match they have with John would very likely be from their Frazer grandfather.

For fun, I checked to see if John matched anyone in the James Line of Frazers. He matched Charlotte from that Line, but only at 6.0 cM.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Going over John’s Frazer-Johnston background was interesting and it shed some new possibilities for my own genealogy.
  • Like Michael, John represents for now, a single line branch coming down from a child of Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson.
  • Unlike Michael, John only descends from one Frazer Line.
  • Although technically, the DNA could indicate that John descends only from Archibald Frazer or Ann Stinson, there is no reason to believe that John does not descend from both.
  • It can be comforting to know that your genealogical research is backed up by DNA evidence.
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Ken’s Frazer Autosomal DNA

Ken’s DNA test came in recently to Family Tree DNA. Then it was uploaded to Gedmatch. One important thing about Ken’s test results is that he is the third of three siblings to have taken the DNA test. That means that it is possible for Ken and his two sisters to figure out what DNA they got from their four grandparents. This is important in figuring out how you match other people by DNA.

Ken’s Genealogy

Ken descends from three different Frazer Lines. I am in this line.

Notice that James Frazer married a Violet Frazer. Yes, they were cousins. It seems weird today, but this apparently was not as weird in the early 1800’s. I am not completely sure of this line. I know that Violet married James, but I am not completely sure that James was the son of Philip. It would make sense as James first son was named Philip which may have been in honor of James’ father. This would have been a common naming practice but not a hard and fast rule.

Here is another line I’m in:

This line descends from Richard who was Philip’s brother. Here Violet’s father at least is quite certain. I don’t know who Richard’s wife was. This is a bigger branch of the family. These branches shown are only those that have taken the DNA test. David on the left matches, but he hasn’t been connected for certain by genealogy. Jane was added to line by DNA also (in conjunction with some probably genealogy) but she was already in another Frazer Line.

Here is the third line Ken is in.

One good thing about this line is that we have a wife for Archibald at the top. Archibald is another brother of Philip and Richard. Archibald’s wife was Ann Stinson, so I think of this as the Stinson Line. Another thing about this Frazer line is that some of the people that are in it are only in the Stinson Line. That is, except for the yellow line, Michael, and Jane.

Ken’s DNA Compared to Other Frazer DNA

Here is how Ken compares to other Frazers descending from North Roscommon County, Ireland.

I put all the matches in a matrix:

I put the matches into categories. David is in the wrong area. He should be with the Richard Frazer descendants – at least this was our guess. I lumped all the James Frazer Line together as the Archibald line does not, in general have large matches with them. They are in the bottom right of the matrix.

Ken is my 4th cousin. He matches my brother Jonathan at 18.5 cM and my sister Lori at 74.2 cM. Ken is a 3rd cousin once removed to Paul and matches him even less at 11.7 cM. This just shows the randomness of DNA inheritance. Ken’s DNA match with Lori is above average and his match with Paul is below average. However, they are both within range for either 3rd cousin once removed or fourth cousin.

Ken’s Frazer DNA More Specifically

The above chart shows where Ken, highlighted in blue, matches other Frazers. To get where he matches them on each specific chromosome, I go to Gedmatch’s ‘Multi Kit Analysis’. I choose all the DNA testers in the Frazer project. Then I download the individual matches. This gives me over 3200 matches. I also change the names of the people to make them more private. I usually take out the last name. Unfortunately, I didn’t distinguish between my brother Jonathan and the Jonathan on the James Line. Hopefully, I’ll be able to figure that out.

Here is a summary of Ken’s matches that are at the level of James and Violet Frazer or above. I took out his closer matches as the closer you get to a relative, the more lines you may match on.

  • Vivien and Cathy are from the Archibald Frazer/Stinson Line
  • Lori, Jonathan, Joel, Heidi and Sharon represent the James/Violet Frazer Line
  • Prudence is from the far-away James Line
  • Jane may match Ken in either the Richard Frazer or Archibald Frazer/Stinson Line
  • David is not certain by genealogy, but I have placed him for the time being in the Richard Frazer Line

Ken and Triangulation

What I am looking for are Triangulation Groups or TGs. These are threesomes of matches all on the same part of the chromosome. These matches indicate a common ancestor. This could be important to figure out whether a specific DNA match with Ken is the in the Richard group, the Archibald group or perhaps the Philip group.

Ken and Lori – Chromosome 3

Ken matches my sister Lori on Chromosome 3.

I have added some of the other matches for comparison. Madeline, Mary, Gary and Judith are on the James Line, so they can be ignored for this Archibald Line match.

Here we have a new Triangulation Group (TG). Lori matches Ken and Patricia and Ken and Patricia match each other.

This shows that the Chromosome 3 TG represents DNA from James Frazer or Violet Frazer. Lori was the 5th and my most recent sibling DNA tester. She is the only one of my siblings that matched Pat and Ken. This is why:

The top part is a map of the DNA for me and my sisters Heidi and Sharon. This was done by Martin Macneill from our ‘raw’ DNA. The lighter red is Frazer DNA. Heidi got Frazer DNA up to about 26M. Sharon got Frazer DNA up to 27M. The match Ken has with Lori is at 60-74M. So Lori is my only sibling out of 5 that could match Ken.

This TG on Chromosome 3 gives strong evidence to support the Frazer tree up to James and Violet Frazer. We can’t tell from this TG whether the DNA represents James or Violet Frazer. It would have to be one or the other. We do know that it is Frazer DNA.

Here I have added Ken to the TG Matrix:

This is just the part of the Matrix that has people descending from James and Violet Frazer. The yellow boxes indicateTGs that probably represent James and Violet Frazer.

Chromosome 12 in the Age of Discovery

I feel like I’m in the Age of Discovery for DNA. Here are some Chromosome 12 discoveries. Actually, a TG12B above has already been discovered. However, there are a few interesting points about this TG.

First, there are quite a few people in this TG. There are eight people shown above in TG12B. Secondly, David, who I mentioned above, is in this TG. David is the ninth person in TG12B. Thirdly, Jane is in this TG. Jane does not descend from James and Violet, but she does descend from Violet’s father Richard. This TG is not likely an Archibald/Stinson TG as Heidi, Joel and Sharon do not descend from that Line. This seems to confirm that David should be in this Richard Line.

Here are David’s Chromosome 12 matches:

I had actually pointed out David’s TG in previous Blogs, so perhaps this is more like the age of re-discovery.

 

This tends to solidify the TG and relationship that David has to the Frazer DNA Project. If the tree I drew is correct, then David would be 4th cousin to Jan and Gladys and 4th cousin, once removed to Ken, Bill, Sharon, Heidi, Joel and Lori. In support of my theory for David, I note that his level of DNA matches with the group and Jane’s level of DNA matches are very consistent with each other. Here are Jane’s match levels for comparison:

Next Up

I would like to get started with the Visual Phasing for Ken, Susan and Doreen. This should at least separate out what DNA they got from their Frazer grandfather and what DNA they got from their Gray grandmother. If I find out more about their maternal side, I will be able to map to those two grandparents also – depending on how many known matches they know on that side.

Summary and Conclusions

  • At one point, I was tentative about joining the genealogies of my family with those of the Richard Patterson Frazer Branch. Now, with all the DNA matches, the relationship is very clear.
  • I am reminded of the connection between David and our Frazer branch. He has a Frazer ancestor that he has not linked to our Frazers by genealogy. However, David is certainly linked to our Frazer project by DNA. That link appears to be on a Frazer line. However, it is possible that the link may be on a collateral line.
  • I’m looking forward to starting the visual phasing of Ken and his two sisters

 

 

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My Mother’s Best Lentz DNA Match

I’ve been in touch with Radelle for a while. First, we were in touch over Lentz genealogy without the DNA part. Some of the Lentz genealogy that I had done in the past was helpful in Radelle finding parents for her ancestor Eliza Lentz. Radelle later took the AncestryDNA test and recently uploaded those results to Gedmatch.com.

Lentz Genealogy

I have made a Lentz tree for those that have had their DNA tested and uploaded the results to Gedmatch. There would be a bigger tree of those who haven’t had their DNA tested.

I’m on the left side of the chart. Radelle is on the right side of the chart. Radelle, Al, and Stephen descend from Eliza and William Andrew Lentz. Note that Al and Stephen’s great grandfather is Phillip Miller Chappell. Phillip Miller is discussed below as the 2nd husband of Eliza who married John Lentz at the top of the chart. Phillip Miller most likely raised the young Lentz family. Judy, Joshua, my mom and her children and my 1st cousin Cindy descend from Jacob Lentz b. 1818. Because Jacob George Lentz b. 1866 married Annie Nicholson, I can’t tell for sure if the matches with Judy, Joshua and Cindy are on the Lentz side or Nicholson side. Radelle and my mom are 4th cousins. Radelle is 4th cousin once removed to everyone else except for Joshua. Radelle is 4th cousin, 3 times removed to Joshua.

I had a difficult time nailing down John Lentz years ago when I was working on Lentz genealogy. I wasn’t sure if there were one or two John Lentz’s in the area at the time. From what I could tell, John died and his wife Eliza married Phillip Miller. Here is an 1877 death notice for Eliza:

Notice that the funeral reception was at Eliza’s daughter in law’s house. Mary A Lentz was my 3rd great grandmother, the wife of Jacob Lentz b. 1818. Eliza was Jacob Lentz’s (b. 1818) mom, so Mary A Lentz his wife was Eliza’s daughter in law. Based on the above death notice, Eliza would have been born about 1796.

Who Was the Eliza Lentz Married to John Lentz and Phillip Miller?

I see that Radelle has a possible name for Eliza:

 

This record was from Trinity Church, Oxford. According to Wikipedia:

Old Trinity Church, also known as Trinity Church, Oxford, is a historic Episcopal church founded in 1698 in Oxford Township, Pennsylvania, which is now part of Philadelphia

Here is another hint that came up for me at Ancestry. This is from Kensington

This may fit in better as far as the date goes. This would mean that Eliza was married at about age 26. The first marriage, Eliza would have been married at about age 17.

However, having said that, it does appear that Radelle is right as I have that the three sons of John were born before December 1st 1822. Perhaps Elizabeth Refford died in childbirth at the birth of Wiliam Andrew Lentz who was born 13 May 1822. John would have had no one to take care of his young family. So perhaps he remarried Eliza Rihl later that same year. Something to think about. However, then John Lentz died in 1823. Eliza marries Phillip Miller in 1825. If I have my facts right, then the Lentz children were raised by a step mother and a step father.

The DNA Part

I said that Radelle was my mom’s largest Lentz DNA match. Here is how they match at gedmatch:

Their estimated common ancestors are at 4.4 generations based on the DNA match. Their actual ancestors are 5 generations back, so that is a bit more than average DNA that they share. Here are some more matches Radelle has with my family:

Heidi and Jon are my siblings. Gladys is my mom. Heidi got the same match with Radelle that my mom had. Jon and I got less. My two sisters Lori and Sharon don’t match Radelle.

Mapping My Family’s DNA onChromosome 2

I have my DNA mapped. That mapping shows where my siblings and I got our DNA based on how our four grandparents contributed. Any match with Radelle should be on the Lentz grandparent side.

This shows why Jon and I had less than a fuill dose of Lentz DNA from our mom. My mom matches Radelle between 171 and 212M. I have a crossover at 186. That means on maternal Chromosome 2, my Lentz DNA ends at 186M and the Rathfelder DNA takes over. Lori is has all Rathfelder DNA in that area (from my mom’s dad) so she doesn’t match Radellether. Jon has a Crossover at 180M, so he matches Radelle’s Lentz DNA less than I do. Here is a close-up of the area where Radelle matches me and my brother Jon:

We match Radelle only in the yellow Lentz segments. I didn’t show Heidi, but she has a longer Lentz segment than Jon or me in this area of Chromosome 2.

DNA Matches to My Mom and Radelle

At Gedmatch, there is a way to find common matches to two people. I did this for my mom and Radelle. When those matches are on the same segment, that tells me that these people should share the same ancestors. Here is how my mom matches Radelle and four others on Chromosome 2:

#3 had a tree at Gedmatch.

A Lanz/Lantz family may be a link to the Lentz family.

Another Chromosome Map

Kitty Munson has a chromosome mapping utility at her web site. Using my new match with Radelle, I get this:

The new match with Radelle translates to the DNA I got from John Lentz b. 1792 (or his wife who appears to be Elisabeth). That new piece of DNA appears in pink on my maternal side Chromosome 2. This map is different from the mapping I did with Chromosome 2 above that only has my grandparents. This map uses matches from actual people with known ancestry. The DNA match with Radelle pushed back what I had on the Lentz family over 70 years.

Other Matches?

Unfortunately, I didn’t see other matches between Radelle and other Lentz descendants. It may be that the relationships are too distant and the DNA dropped out. However, Radelle matches my mom and three out of five of her children. My mom matches others on the Jacob George Lentz branch. That implies that the DNA match between my mom and Radelle also applies to them:

Here are the chances of matching a specific level of cousin:

Summary and Conclusions

  • Radelle is my mom’s biggest identified Lentz DNA match. This helps solidify the genealogy that Radelle and I have done.
  • With previous Jacob George Lentz descendants matches, I couldn’t tell if the DNA represented Lentz or Nicholson. The match with Radelle would be the first Lentz-only identified DNA match.
  • I was able to add a late 1700’s Lentz DNA segment to my Chromosome map
  • Radelle got me thinking again about John Lentz, Elisabeth and Eliza. I came up with a possible scenario for this family which had the children being raised by two step-parents.
  • Radelle does not match other Lentz desendants by DNA. This may be due to the distance of the relationships. After fourth cousin level, the chances of matching by DNA drops off.
  • I’ll be waiting to see if we find other Lentz DNA matches. These matches seem to be a bit rare.

 

 

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An Update on Skot’s Colonial DNA

Last year I wrote a Blog about Skot and a small match we had of DNA. We showed up as a Shared Ancestor Hint at AncestryDNA. I had known Skot in high school and remember him playing drums in the band and going to some get-togethers that I was at with mutual friends. So we were both surprised that we were distantly related.

Skot in Review

I have 49 Shared Ancestor Hints (SAHs). Ancestry has a computer program that compares your ancestral trees. If you have a shared ancestor within a certain range and a DNA match, then you get an SAH. Here is my match with Skot at AncestryDNA:

Here we show as 7th cousins. Ancestry goes as far back as 10 generations for these SAHs.

Skot also matches my father’s first cousin Joyce that I had tested since I wrote the last Blog. Here Joyce is a 6th cousin once removed to Skot which makes sense as she is one generation to the common ancestors:

However, note that Joyce has a second Hint:

Joyce is also 8th cousin to Skot. Perhaps that is where Ancestry’s 10 generations come in if you count yourself as the first generation.  This match would go back to the 1650’s. We are talking old. However, it isn’t quite that old. Note that Joyce and Skot both share a common ancestor of Arthur Hathaway, so they should be 7th cousins. Actually, Simon and Thomas Hathaway had different mothers, so that means that Joyce and Skot are half 7th cousins on this line.

Joyce and Skot at Gedmatch – Chromosome 10

Here is how Joyce and Skot match at Gedmatch on Chromosome 10:

Here is how Skot matches my brother and me and Joyce on Chromosome 10:

More Matches on Chromosome 15

It is not advised to go below 7 cM with matches, but I made an exception in this case:

Below 7 cM, there is a large likelihood that a match could be false. My reasoning here is how could all these matches be false? These are from three different families. Jim is Joyce’s brother, Heidi is my sister. Pat is a second cousin. Then there is me. Next I’ll do something tricky. Thanks to Martin MacNeill, I have a synthetic file of my grandfather’s reconstructed DNA. I will run this against Skot and other relatives:

This is how my grandfather matches:

  1. Me
  2. My sister Lori
  3. My second cousin Beth
  4. My second cousin Patricia
  5. Joyce’s brother James, my 1st cousin once removed
  6. My sister Heidi
  7. My brother Jon
  8. Skot

Scanning up from Skot, you can see he will match me, my sister Lori, my second cousin Patricia, Jim and my sister Heidi. It looks like I missed Lori in my previous figure.

A Hathaway Tree

This is the Hathaway Tree with the matches from Chromosome 10:

 

This looks like a Triangulation Group (TG).

Here are the Chromosome 15 matches:

 

Here the matches were smaller, but there were more people in the match group or TG. I have other Hartley cousins that did not match Skot from the Grace Hartley Line.

These TGs shows in the images above are very tall. It would be better to have people part way up the tree to verify these. Here is another SAH that Joyce has:

This person has an ancestor not quite as far out. He would be Joyce’s 5th cousin, once removed. If this person uploaded his results to Gedmatch, we may have more confirmation of the Hathway match.

In my last Blog on the subject, I found people that triangulated on Chromosome 10 with other ancestors and not this Hathaway couple. For that reason, I could not be sure that my match with Skot was actually a Hathaway match. Now I do have a triangulations on Chromosomes 10 and 15 that shows Hathaway as a common ancestor. That could mean one or more of several things:

  • One or more of the genealogies could be wrong
  • There is a common TG to a common ancestors, but we haven’t figured out who that is yet
  • Some of the matches in the TG may not be real matches as they are small
  • The TGs may be going back in time to a common pattern for a shared common type of group ancestor – say pilgrim ancestors in general.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Looking at the test results for Joyce has given more certainty that some of the smallish matches with Skot could indicate colonial Hathaway DNA
  • Results from closer Hathaway matches would help confirm that.
  • Triangulation is a good tool, but when it gets down to small matches and distant relationships, it can be difficult to interpret.
  • Triangulation is also difficult when there are different lines of ancestry that are possible. For example, the early prigrims had a small gene pool to choose from so there were many cousin marriages in the colonial days.

 

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Cousin Cindy’s DNA: Part Two

In my last Blog, I looked at some of Cindy’s Rathfelder matches and at her X Chromosome matches. In this Blog, I’ll look at some matches on Cindy’s Lentz and Nicholson Lines.

Another Classic Photo

Here is Cindy in profile inbetween my two sisters, ‘back in the day’:

More on Ethnicity

Here is what Gedmatch.com shows for Cindy’s ethnicity:

This should be more accurate than what Ancestry shows. The down side is that specific country names are not given. However, that is rectified by the two Oracle buttons. When I push the first button, I also get a list of Single Population Sharing. According to the Genalogical Musings Blogspot:

Single Population Sharing attempts to pinpoint a specific, single population that your DNA most closely matches, with a list of the top 20. The distance will tell you how closely you match each group, so the smaller the distance number is, the more closely you match. It is assuming your ancestors all came from the same area/population.

For Cindy, her top choice is West German:

Cindy wanted to know if she was German by genealogy, why didn’t her Ancestry results show that? Gedmatch Single Population Sharing does show that her first choice is German. The second guess is French. This makes sense considering how close the two coutries are. Or, this French part could be more from Cindy’s mom. There is also a Mixed Mode Population Sharing, but that is more complicated, so I won’t go there.

By comparison, here is how my mom’s admixture shows up at Gedmatch. These results should be comparable to Cindy’s dad:

The difference is that my mom has more North Atlantic and none of the small green wedges that Cindy has. I would expect that my mom should come out German also in the Single Population Sharing:

Good guess. However, look at the West German distance compared to Cindy. My mom Gladys’ distance to West German is a lot closer than Cindy’s distance to West German. I suppose that means that Cindy has more mixing of heritages than my mom. Also Cindy has Serbian as her #4 choice and my mom doesn’t have that on her list. That could be related to Cindy’s mom. That is not to say that Cindy’s mom is necessarily Serbian, but perhaps there is something in Cindy’s DNA that is similar to Serbian DNA. There are other Admixture toys to play with at Gedmatch such as the Oracle4 Button.

Now I’m curious to see how I show by comparison to Cindy and my mom.

This looks similar to my mom, except that I have some South Asian and Amerindian. How did that get these? From what I can tell, my mom is 3/4 German and 1/4 English. My dad is 1/2 English and 1/2 Scot from Ireland. That should make me roughly 3/8 German, 3/8 English and 1/4 Scot. How will Gedmatch figure that one out? It looks like a tie.

It has me as West German. The Scots gets lost in the Shuffle. I have Orcadian which is from the Orkney Islands at the very Northern part of Scotland at #7. Actually, my grandmother’s Irish mom was Clarke, so perhaps English and not Scots. The Germans came into England as the Anglo Saxons and England got its name from Anglo. Also come to find out from YDNA testing that my Scots ancestors the Frazers a few thousand years ago traveled from Scandinavia to Scotland. When you go back far enough, there is a lot that could have happened. I wa s a bit surprised that this showed me as closer in distance to West German than my mom.

Here I also have French where my mom does not. This could go back to my paternal Pilgrim heritage or it could be due to the fact that a lot of French DNA is similar to English DNA also.

As I alluded to above, there are a lot of other crazy things you can do with Gedmatch and Admixture such as a very detailed chromosome by chromosome comparison, including detailed chromosome painting. For example, I could track down the specific area of the specific chromosome where Gedmatch thinks I have Amerindian background. Using this, I could even make a guess as to which ancestor this segment came from.

Back to the DNA – Nicholson Matches

I drew a new tree for the Nicholsons:

These are some of the descendants of John Nicholson. The people in green have taken a DNA test. First, Cindy does not match Nigel. This is not surprising as they are 5th cousins once removed. Nigel had some surprising matches with my family considering the relationship.

Nicholson or Lentz DNA Matches?

One problem that I’ve had is finding good Lentz only matches. In situations where Cindy matches Judy or Joshua, the match could be either Lentz or Nicholson. When Cindy matches Sarah, Joan, Linda or Carolyn, those must be Nicholson only matches. When Cindy matches my family or Rusty, she could be matching also by Rathfelder.

Autosomal Matrix

First, I’ll put the Nicholson descendants into a matrix to see how they match each other in general:

Here I have the DNA tested Nicholson descendants sorted into the three sisters: Sarah Ann; Annie Eliza and; Nellie Nicholson. Then I have Nigel descending from John Nicholson from 100 years earlier than Annie. The places where Cindy match Sarah, Joan, Linda or Carolyn are matches of DNA that she got from the Nicholson only side. Where Cindy matches Judith or Joshua, those matches may be from the Lentz or Nicholson side. Where Cindy matches Gladys or her cousin Russell, those matches could be Rathfelder orLentz (including Nicholson).

Here is how Judith matches my mom, Cindy and Carolyn on Chromosome 18:

If this was just Judith matching Cindy and Russell, we wouldn’t know if this was a Lentz or a Nicholson match. However, the fact that Judith also matches Carolyn in the same area of Chromosome 18, makes it look like a Nicholson match. Just to make sure, I will look to see how Carolyn matches Gladys, Cindy, Judith and Russell:

This view shows more of Chromosome 18 than the previous one. What this shows is that:

  • From about 14 to 38M, Carolyn, Gladys, Cindy and Judy share Nicholson DNA
  • From anout 55-70M, Carolyn, Gladys, Cindy and Rusty share Nicholson DNA
  • Between 38 and 55M, I am not sure. It could mean that this is Lentz DNA as Carolyn drops out. However, she may be dropping out for for another reason.

Here is the Triangulation Group (TG) between Judy, Gladys, Cindy and Carolyn between 14 and 38M:

In the second TG, Cindy jumps out of the group and Rusty joins in.

Cindy’s Top Unknown Match at Gedmatch

Cindy’s top unknown match at Gedmatch is Dorothy. Let’s see if we can figure out how Dorothy fits in. Here is how Dorothy matches Cindy and my mom:

Dorothy tested at FTDNA where my mom tested. Maybe there is some more information there. Dorothy has a tree there, but I don’t see any shared surnames.

Here is some more information:

Dorothy has two additional matches: Lori and Jon. I know from previous Chromosme mapping that Lori and Jon map to their grandmother Lentz in this area of Chromosome 5. One of Dorothy’s ‘In Common With’ (or ICW) matches at Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) seemed to be on the Nicholson side by DNA. So we would give Dorothy more of a chance of being related on the NIcholson side than on the Lentz side. However, at this point, it would take too much work to figure out the match, so I’m giving up for now.

Cindy’s Other Gedmatch Top Matches

Cindy’s match after Barbara is DD. I don’t see DD on my mom’s match list, so I’ll guess that DD may be a match on Cindy’s mom’s side. After that is Derek. Perhaps I will have better luck with Derek than I did with Barbara. Derek matches my mom, Cindy, me and Lori in a pretty unified block of DNA on Chromosome 3:

 

This looks interesting. The match goes from about 18-41M. I have a map for my Chromosome 3:

This shows that I have Rathfelder grandparent DNA in this area (darker blue). Carolyn (our Nicholson cousin) matched my mom, Heidi and Sharon in this same area. So how can my mom match both Carolyn and a Rathfelder in this spot? My mom matches Carolyn on her materal side and Derek on her paternal (Rathfelder) side. The interesting part is that I don’t get too many good matches on the Rathfelder side.

I didn’t find much on Derek on Ancestry. I added Derek to my match spreadsheet and noted that he also matched a Carol – a nearby match on the spreadsheet. I did find Carol at AncestryDNA and she has a tree there:

For some strange reason when I select ‘view full tree’ it goes to a different tree. When I choose shared matches for Carol, I get an AncestryDNA match with this tree:

That means that Carol’s maternal grandfather is the same as this tester’s father. This also appears to show that I should be looking at the Eurich/Kraft part of the tree.  I have been in touch with the son of the above-tested woman. He says Eurich and Kraft were from a German Colony in Russia called Saratov. I had thoiught that I had written a Blog on this, but maybe not.

Saratov and Hirschenhof

The Rathfelder and Gangnus families were from Hirschenhof, Latvia. The Eurich and Kraft families were from Saratov, Russia. Other than these both being German colonies in then Russia, I am not sure of the connection.

I have a pin by Saratov. Hirshchenhof is to the SE of Riga. They are both quite a way from Germany. I would say the distance would be in the range of 1,000 miles.

I did begin a Eurich Family Tree:

I just added the couple in the lower right today. The problem is, that if my mother is a 4th cousin to this person, I will have to move the tree out three more generations. That would be out to 32 thrid great grandparents.

It looks like this is a dead end right now also, unless I hear from some of the researchers working on these lines. It appears that getting genealogical informaiton from Russia is quite difficult.  It is interesting that the Rathfelders who were from a German Colony in Latvia have a connection in some way with this family that is from a German Colony in Saratov, Russia. Perhaps the connection goes back to before the time these people were in their colonies.

Another Thought on the X Chromosome

In my last Blog on Cindy, I mentioned her X Chromosome. Her X Chromosome pattern is different than mine and cousin Rusty’s in that her Rathfelder parent was a male. That means that Cindy’s dad only passed on Lentz X Chromosome to Cindy. I mentioned, that as a result, wherever I match Cindy, I would match her on the Lentz and not the Rathfelder side for my X Chromosome. I used that information to update my X Chromosome Map.

This mapping program was developed by Kitty Munson Cooper and is available on her web site. On the bottom line (the X Chromosome), I have the places I match Cindy in yellow. I left the matches with Rusty as purple indicating Rathfelder. The bottom part of each chromosome represents my maternal (Rathfelder) side. I had already mapped my X Chromosome using two other methods, but Cindy’s X Chromosome matches with me confirms that work.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I had not planned on looking into the admixture or heredity of Cindy, my mom and myself. However, when I did, I had a good time doing it and came up with good results.
  • It is fairly easy to find Nicholson relatives. However, it is difficult to find DNA – tested Lentz relatives. The closer Lentz relatives we know about also descend from the Nicholson family, so that makes it difficult to know if we are matching on the Lentz or Nicholson side.
  • I didn’t get very far trying to identify some of Cindy’s unknown matches. I did at least figure out if they were on the Rathfelder or Lentz side.
  • I noted how Cindy’s actual X Chromosome matches with me mapped to the segments that were created using Visual Phasing and Raw Data Phasing
  • Working on Cindy’s DNA reminds me of the family connections we have and the times the families have spent time with each other

 

 

 

 

 

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Two Person Hartley Visual Phasing

I’ve had a FTDNA kit hanging around for my father’s elderly cousin. I’ve had it since last Summer, but haven’t gotten in touch with my second cousin Lisa to see if I could get her uncle tested. This would be important, because I have test results for Lisa’s dad Jim and her Aunt Joyce. The third sibling Ralph would make it easier to perform Visual Phasing.

Visual Phasing

Visual Phasing is comparing siblings’ DNA results in a Chromosome Browser. By looking at changes and comparisons in the Browser as well as matches to known cousins, it is possible to find out what portions of the siblings’ DNA came from which grandparent. For me, this is important as I am interested in separating out matches between my great grandparents Hartley and Snell. Jim and Joyce’s maternal grandparents were James Hartley and Annie Snell. Annie’s ancestors went back to SE Massachusetts Colonial times. James ancestors were from NE Lancashire. I’m stuck on Hartley genealogy in Trawden, Lancashire around 1800. This is due to the fact that there were too many Hartleys in the area at the time to tell one from another based on vital records. Finding Lancashire Hartley ancestor DNA matches may help me break down my Hartley genealogical brick wall.

Joyce and Jim’s Genealogy

The goal of visual phasing is to figure out what parts of Gurney, Rounesville, Harltey and Snell contributed to Jim and Joyce’s DNA. In doing this, it would help to have matches from fairly close (but not too close) relatives on all four lines.

Comparing Jim to Joyce on Chromosome 11

I’ll just jump in and start with Chromosome 11. This is midway between 1 and 22. Here is the comparison between Jim and Joyce:

  • The blue line is where Jim and Joyce match each other
  • Within the blue line there are two types of matches
  • The yellow area is a single match. This is also called a Half Identical Region (HIR). This means that Joyce and Jim get their DNA from one shared grandparent A, but don’t match on grandparent B, C or D. We don’t know now if granparent A is on the maternal or paternal side.
  • The green is a double match. That is called a Fully Identifal Region or FIR. In that area they got the same DNA on their maternal and paternal side of Chromosome 11. That also means that they share the DNA from the same maternal grandparent and the same paternal grandparent
  • The grey, non-blue area (below) and the red area above is where Joyce and Jim do not match. That means that Joyce gets DNA from Maternal grandparent A and Paternal grandparent C while Jim gets his DNA in that area from Maternal grandparent B and Paternal grandparent D
  • At each vertical line above, there is a crossover where Jim or Joyce’s DNA goes from one grandparent to another.

Let’s Start Two Person Visual Phasing

Here is a start. In about the middle of the Chromosome there is a green FIR. That means that Jim and Joyce got their DNA from the same maternal and paternal grandparents. Those grandparents are represented by blue and orange segments. There are crossovers on the right and left of these segments, but we don’t know if the crossovers are for Jim or Joyce (or one for Joyce and one for Jim).

It would be nice to know where the changes take place, so I go to gedmatch.com for that. At gedmatch I compare Joyce to Jim in the chromosome browser at full resolution.

The pink area is the centromere of Chromosome 11. Every ^ is one million places. The start of the green HIR counting back from 60M is 57M.

Here I added the 57 before ‘Chromosome 11’ above. I also added some other crossover locations.

Cousin Matches

I am stuck already in my analysis, so I need some cousin matches. These would ideally be at the level of second cousin matches. At the level of second cousin, you match on only one grandparent. Most known matches matches share Hartley and Snell grandparents, so that is a problem.

Shared Ancestor Hints (SAHs) at AncestryDNA

Joyce’s results are at AncestryDNA. There, she has Shared Ancestor Hints. Those Hints are where Joyce has a family tree match and a tree match. Here is an SAH that Joyce has with Chuck:

Chuck is at the perfect level as he is a 2nd cousin. However, he has not uploaded his DNA to gedmatch for comparison. Ancestry does not show on what Chromosomes you match, so that is a problem. We need chromosome match information for DNA mapping.

Back to Gedmatch

Because many at AncestryDNA don’t upload to Gedmatch, I’ll go back to Gedmatch and look for matches there.

Here is a very interesting match that Sumner and Heather have with Joyce at Gedmatch. This shows that Joyce has an estimated by DNA common ancestor between 3.7 and 3.9 generations away. They also share autosomal DNA and X Chromosome DNA. These two are also at Ancestry and show up on Joyce’s Shared Ancestor Hints.

Here, Joyce and Sumner are 4th cousins by shared trees. However, note that this is only hint 1 of 3. HInt two also goes back to Joyce’s Rounseville grandparent at firth cousin twice removed. Here is Hint 3:

This Snell connection is at 7th cousin once removed. There has to be a very low chance of a DNA match that far out – especially compared to a 4th cousin match . However, this is interesting as it shows that Joyce has two paternal matches with this person and one more distant maternal match.

Here are the important details of the match between Joyce and Sumner:

This shows that Joyce and Sumner match on four different chromosomes, but not Chromosome 11. OK, back to the drawing board. I’ll start over with Chromosome 7. Sumner and Joyce have a pretty good match there.

Chromosome 7 Visual Phase Two Person Map

Note that Joyce’s Chromosome 7 match is from 149 to 158M. That is at the right side of Chromosome 7. It is possible that the 149M could mark Joyce’s paternal crossover. I am going to start from the right of the Chromosome and give Jim and Joyce four different colors there. This will represent all four of their grandparents. I can do that because Jim and Joyce don’t match each other at all in that segment.

Here I have put Joyce in for a possible to likely crossover at 149. Remember that Joyce and Jim don’t match each other at all after 149M. That means that Jim won’t match Sumner either. I checked gedmatch and he doesn’t as expected. Next, I’ll assign Sumner’s match to Joyce on either her green or brown side. I’ll randomly choose green. That puts the paternal side on the top for Jim and Joyce:

Becuase Joyce’s green paternal segment is Rounesville, that means that Jim’s orange segment must be the paternal husband, Gurney.

Next, I would like to check the paternal crossover for Joyce. The recommendation at the Facebook Visual Phasing side is to look for ‘stranger matches’.

Stranger Matches

If I see that Jim has a match or matches that go across the 149 crossover line, then I can assume that he has no crossover there. The hitch is that the match going over the 149 line needs to be on Jim’s paternal side on the top of his Chromosome 7.

Here is a spreadsheet of Jim’s matches on Chromosome 7. Jim’s match with Tim goes clearly from 138-155M. That meets one requirement. Is this a paternal or maternal match for Jim? My thought was that if this match was maternal, then Tim should match my sister Heidi at the top and me at the bottom of the list in blue. I checked and Tim only matched Jim. That means that the crossover belongs to Joyce and is likely on her paternal side. The only thing I didn’t rule out is that the crossover could possibly be on Joyce’s maternal side.

Here I went with my original guess that Joyce’s crossover was on her paternal Gurney/Rounesville side. Because I gave the crossover to Joyce’s paternal side, that meant that there was no other crossover at 149 and I moved the maternal segments to the left. I still have figured out whether Hartley or Snell is blue or brown. Next note that the segment from 110 to 126M is a no-match segment. That means that there must be a maternal crossover next. The reason for that is that no-match means four different colors. Jim and Joyce already have different colors on the maternal side. If we change one of those colors with a maternal crossover, there will be a match between 110 and 126M.

In order to get a no-match from 110-126M, Jim or Joyce’s DNA must be Rounseville from 110 to 126M.

Stranger Match or More Cousin Matches?

I really should go with both, but I’ll start with the stranger match. Jim has matches between 105 and 134 showing no crossover there. When I look at one of those matches and run those that are in common, I get this:

#1 is Jim’s sister Joyce. 2-6 are the strangers and #7 is actually a 2nd cousi of mine, but it could be from a match on another line. So Jim is matching the strangers in that 105 to 134M area. However, he is matching Joyce starting at 126. That gives me the impression that it is Joyce that has the crossover. On the other hand, I don’t see any of Joyce’s matches on her match list that go through 126M.

i am moving slowly from right to left on Chromosome 7. The segments that I am really interested in, I have no information on – except that one is Snell and one is Hartley and they appear to be relatively large segments, so far.

Phasing by Geography

I had mentioned that Snell’s ancestors were from SE Massachusetts going way back. The Hartleys came to the US from Lancashire in the last half of the 1800’s. As far as I know, the Gurneys and Rounesvilles have been around SE Massachusetts for several hundreds of years also. When I look at Joyce’s matches at Chromosome 7, I see some interesting emails. Between 155M and the end of Chromosome 7, Joyce has three small matches with people three people that have nz, au or uk in their email addresses. That gives me the opinion that at least from 154M to the Joyce could have Hartley DNA. That also brings up the question as to whether Joyce has a maternal or paternal crossover at 149M. If I go with what we had already, I would get this:

Starting to Visually Phase Chromosome 8

I can come back to Chromosome 7 at some time. I’m looking at Chromosome 8 as I wrote a Blog about a Lancashire matcher here. Here is how Anne matched Joyce and two of my second cousins:

The important part is that Anne matches Joyce from about 17 to 59M. That is a pretty good match. Here is the common ancestor:

The other important thing is that even though the match points back to Howorth, this is on Joyce and Jim’s Hartley grandparent line.

Here is how Jim and Joyce match each other:

Here I did something different. I started by mapping a HIR or Half Identical Region. That means that one grandparent matched and the other two did not. We know that Joyce matched on the Hartley segment and Jim did not.

That means that the maternal Hartley/Snell side is on the bottom of their Chromosome 8. From here, we can logic a few more segments. Going from HIR to the no-match left, that means the top part will have to change for there to be no match at the beginning of Chromosome 8. Using similar logic, for all to match (in the HIR region), the crossover will have to be on the bottom of Chromosome 8.

Next, on Joyce’s match list, I picked someone who she matched that went through the 70.7M crossover.

I picked the 18 cM match. Then I picked people that matched both Joyce and the stranger’s 18 cM match.

#1 is Jocye’s match to her brother Jim. The next three matches go up to 74, so they go through the crossover. #5 is our stranger, Sheila with the 18 cM match. There is another interesting thing about Match #2. That is Jo who is on Ancestry with a private tree. However, when I click on her name, it says she is from Lancashire, England. Someone with a tree at Ancestry and DNA at gedmatch is good news to me, so I wrote an email to her.

Here is another piece of the puzzle:

I don’t know what the orange represents, but I don’t match Joyce and Jim on that side, so it isn’t as important to me. I was interested in separating the green DNA from the blue – or the Snell from the Harltey DNA. I was able to do that thanks to visual phasing and a match with Anne.

Wrapping It Up

  • It is possible to do some visual phasing with only two siblings. However, cousin matches, and stranger matches are needed.
  • Geographical phasing is also important. I like the use of email extensions to identify non-US matches.
  • Mapping my father’s two cousins is important in separating my Lanchashire ancestors from my colonial Massachusetts ancestors.
  • Work is needed to get AncestryDNA testers to upload their results to gedmatch.com
  • More matches could be found by checking FTDNA
  • More work is needed in tracking down genealogies of gedmatch mathes. This would help identify segmens of visually mapped chromosomes.
  • Attention to mapped segments of interest (in this case Hartley) can lead to matches to follow-up with.
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Did Christopher Dicks of Newfoundland b. 1812 Marry Elizabeth Crann?

This Blog is a follow-up on my previous Blog. Anne had tested her DNA and uploaded to Gedmatch.com which is great for DNA analysis. I posted my previous Blog at the Newfoundland Gedmatch Facebook Page. At that Facebook Page, I had this interesting comment from Karin,

Anne is Richard’s closest match on GEDMatch at 2.9 generations and 258 cM, and yet there is no apparent connection… unless of course Christopher Dicks married Elizabeth Crann, which is looking more and more likely. 

That comment sent me off to Richard’s results at Gedmatch and his Gedcom. Richard’s great grandfather was Samuel Crann:

Richard had this further interesting information on his second great grandfather John Crann:

Perhaps this Elizabeth Crann, daughter of John Crann could be the one that married Christopher Dicks born around 1812:

 

In March 2017, I had theorized that there should be a Crann in one of these two places on Esther’s Tree:

 

 

At that point, the two choices were on the Upshall Line or the Dicks Line. Karin is suggesting that it should be on the Dicks Line. In the above diagram, the green boxes are significant as they represent New Zealand Crann Lines with no other Newfoundland contribution. This branch moved from England to New Zealand.

Some Possible Crann Genealogy

My next step is to draw a tree with some of the proposed Crann connections and see if it makes sense by DNA matches. I already had this tree on my computer that had Richard on it:

As a point of interest, Forrest came up when I was looking at some of Anne’s DNA matches. Now I just add the Christopher Dicks Line through his putative wife Elizabeth Crann:

 

 

It looks like I’ve created a bit of a monster, but this is good in DNA terms. The wider the tree is, the more opportunities for DNA matching. Richard plays a pivotal role here. He is to the left of the Dicks/Crann Line, but he doesn’t descend from the Dicks of the Robert Dicks/Crann Line. He is to the right of the Christopher Dicks/[possible Eliazabeth Crann] Line but doesn’t descend from Christopher Dicks. Hence, Karin’s comment at the top of this Blog which got me going on this line of thinking.

Looking at DNA Matches

In my plan, the Frank Dicks and John Dicks lines are also important as they don’t descend from Upshalls as far as they know. Remember above, that one of my earlier ideas was that an Upshall could have married a Crann. If they also match Crann, which it appears they may, that would show that the Crann  DNA matches are through the Dicks marriage to Elizabeth Crann that we are considering here.

The Autosomal Matrix

Here I found a few others that were also in Crann Lines. Anne has good matches to our three New Zealand Crann descendants. Some testers that I haven’t looked at yet, Randy and Elaine as well as Karen all match with the New Zealand Crann descendants. Ken is still a mystery and appears to match on a different line. Notice he has huge matches until he gets to the NZ Group. Then basically nothing. This also holds true for Forrest and Sandi.

Looking for Crann Triangulation Groups (TGs)

Triangulation Groups are where three or more people match each other on the same segment of the same Chromosome. This is an indication of a common ancestor. In this case we are looking for a common Crann Ancestor.

Starting From the Bottom: Chromosome 22 TG

This was the big TG, so I’ll start here:

It seems ironic that the biggest TG is on the smalled chromosome. Here we have Heather, Margorie, Wayne, Randy, Elaine, Esther and Karen. If we go down a little more, Anne is also in there:

This shows that Anne has something called a crossover at about 35M. That is why she doesn’t start matching Heather, Elaine and Esther until then. Marjorie, Wayne and Heather are our tested and proven NZ Crann descendants. I have them highlighted in green on my spreadsheet.

This turns into quite the criss-cross:

[Edit: Edward in the bottom left is placed wrong in this tree and the next. For the correct tree see previous trees. He should be on the same level as Hayley. I am missing his female Shave ancestor here.]

Karen actually plays an interesting part in all this. She is in a TG with Randy and Esther. Because Karen is 7 generations away from Henry Crann, the match is just not there with the New Zealand Cranns. However, she triangulates on Elizabeth (now more apparently Crann). Randy, Anne, Elaine, Esther, Marjorie, Wayne and Heather triangulate on the same area of Chromosome 22 with Henry Crann born 1757. The confusing part is why Anne and Elaine don’t also match Karen in that same segment. It turns out that Elaine and Karen do match from 24 to 26M. And as I mentioned above Anne’s Crann DNA doesn’t kick in until later at 35M.

I just didn’t have enough orange lines:

So I added an orange line from Elaine to Elisabeth [most likely born Crann] Dicks. The point that I was trying to make above is that there is a TG focusing in on Elisabeth and a TG focusing in on Henry Crann. Both those TGs are using the same segments, so they represent the same Crann DNA. Technically, the DNA could be from Collens who was the wife of Henry Crann above, but by the time it made it’s way down to the two different lines, it could be considered Crann DNA. It looks like I had identified this TG back in March, 2017, but at that time, I only had Esther, Heather, Wayne and Marjorie in it. The fact that we have so many more testers now, including three that don’t appear to be descending from Upshall should put Elizabeth as Christopher Dicks’ husband.

TG On Chromosome 18

This one is less complicated:

This has just NZ Marjorie and Elaine and Esther. Note that Elaine matches her sister Joan here but Joan matches neither Marjorie nor Esther. How is that? The answer is that Elaine and Joan as sisters may match on their maternal and/or paternal sides. Elaine is matching Margorie on her maternal [Upshall] side. Joan is matching Elaine on her paternal [Ellis] non-Newfoundland side. It’s good to keep in mind with DNA that we all have a paternal and a maternal side.

Just to be confusing, it looks like Richard, Ken and Barry are in a TG with each other in the same area. This would most likely be a Dicks TG – unless they have some other non-Crann common ancestor.

A TG on Chromosome 10 with Molly, Howie, Marjorie, Wayne and Heather has been pointed out in my previous Blog.

Richard’s TG: Chromosome 8

This TG has Heather, Wayne and Richard.

The Last NZ TG On Chromosome 2

This is the last TG going up from Chromosome 22 where I started:

 

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was able to test out Karin’s perceptive theory with DNA
  • The DNA seems to show that Karin was right and that Christopher Dick’s wife should be Elizabeth Crann
  • Chromosome 22 gave the best evidence of Crann DNA in the Christopher Dicks b. 1812 Line. That showed a double TG going through Elizabeth. This double TG was apparently Crann DNA. Ironically Karen, who was part of one of these TGs, was recently added to the Upshall/Dicks Line via DNA matching.
  • The testers have reached a critical match for this Crann project with Crann descendants in New Zealand and in three Newfoundland Crann Lines.
  • It’s nice to have found some non-Dicks TGs after working quite a while on the Dicks Newfoundland DNA Project.

 

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Hayley’s Grandmother’s DNA at Gedmatch

Hayley recently told me she had uploaded her grandmother’s DNA results to Gedmatch. Hayley is in the Dicks DNA Project which looks at the DIcks family of Newfoundland and their many descendants. Hayley’s grandmother is Anne and being Hayley’s grandmother she is already on a family chart of those that have had their DNA tested and uploaded to Gedmatch.

This is just one of the branches of the Dicks DNA project. Barry who is Anne’s nephew also pointed out to me that Anne is Esther’s second cousin. I checked on Esther’s list of matches and sure enough, Anne is Esther’s closest relative other than to her two half neices, Joan and Elaine and my wife (Joan’s daughter).

To the right, I have added in Karen and her ancestors. I haven’t proved that her ancestor was Esther’s Aunt, but it seems likely based on looking at her DNA matches.

Hayley was wise to get a DNA test for her grandmother. Anne gave half of her DNA to Chris who gave half of his DNA to Hayley. That should mean that Anne would have four times the Dicks DNA that Hayley does.

Let’s Get To the DNA

Here are the details:

The bottom line is the MRCA. Note that Anne and Esther are three generations from their common ancestors: Christopher Dicks and his wife Elizabeth. Esther and Anne may have some other common ancestors.

Are Your Parents Related?

There is a utility at Gedmatch called “Are Your Parents Related?” When I run Anne’s kit through that I get this:

This is what genetic genealogist David Pike (also from Newfoundland) calls Runs of Homozygosity. Anyway, Anne gets an MRCA of 3.4. That means that she is something like a 2nd cousin once removed to herself.

When I run the report for Esther, she gets an MRCA of 4.0, meaning her common ancestors are about 4 generations back. The way David PIke explains it, the Runs of Homozygosity (ROHs) is where the DNA lines up in your DNA due to those common ancestors.  Anne’s ROHs are on Chromosomes 1, 2, 4, 7, 13 and 20. Esther’s are on Chromosomes 2, 11. 15, and 20

Do Esther’s and Anne’s ROHs Match?

Here is Anne on Chromosome 2 vs. Esther

This makes it look like Anne’s common ancestors and Esther’s common ancestors are also common to Anne and Esther. Or put another way, this could be a quadrouple match between Anne and Esther. However, look at the match above.

It looks like there is no match specifically where Anne and Esther have ROHs. I’m not sure what that means. Probably an area for future research. Maybe Anne and Esther are messing with the Gedmatch matching algorythms. Or it could just mean that Anne’s common ancestors and Esther’s common ancestors are different people.

Here is Anne on Chromosome 20 vs. Esther

Here Anne and Esther’s ROHs don’t overlap. These two sets of DNA could be from the same couple and they could have sent different segments down to Esther and Anne, but we can’t be sure of it just from this comparison.

Back To the Dicks Project

I’ll start by comparing Anne to Edward, Randy, Barry, Joan, Elaine, Esther and Karen. I’ll skip Hayley as Anne will have the same Newfoundland DNA as Hayley, but a whole lot more.

The Autosomal Matrix

First I’ll sort people by the sublines that they seem to be in:

This is to see if it looks like these people are in the right groups. One thing I notice is that Edward and Esther have a pretty high match that doesn’t seem to be explained by a 2nd cousin once removed relationship. The match numbers go down when Edward gets to Joan, Elaine, and Karen. Perhaps Edward is related to Esther on her maternal side as well as the paternal. Esther matches Joan, Esther and Karen on her paternal side.

Here are some autosomal statistics to go with the Autosomal Matrix:

Esther is a half Aunt to Joan and Elaine. They are higher than average but within range. Edward at 2nd cousin once removed to Esther should have a match between 0-316, but he matches at 392.8.

More On Anne’s Family Tree

Before I jump into the DNA, I would like to look more into Anne’s family tree, to see what I may be getting into. In other words, what if I think Esther is matching Anne on her paternal side, but she is actually matching Esther on her maternal Hann side? That would get me all messed up.

Here is what I see at Ancestry:

That is actually not a lot to go on. Anne is missing the surname for a maternal grandmother. That is about 25% of Anne’s DNA. Also, as discussed above, Anne has the same person or couple in her ancestry on her paternal side and maternal side. This would be back about three and a half generations. That would mean back four generations on one line and three generations on the other.

Here ‘s a photo of Anne’s dad William Dicks:

William was living in Little Harbour in 1935:

William was living in an $800 8 room house with wife Edith and children Patricia and Bertram. Compare that to Peter Upshall sho had 8 people living in a 4 room $60 house.

William Dicks in 1921

This appears to be the same William in 1921 at Little Harbour East:

This census gives more detail about William’s place and date of birth. William’s occupation was “coasting” on a local schooner. This raises a few questions: Who was watching the girls while Willliam was coasting and Who was William’s first wife?

William Dicks’ First Wife

This is my guess for William’s first wife:

Notice that William was living at Little Harbour East at the time of his marriage. He got married at Harbour Buffett. If he was born February 1890, he wouldn’t quite be 22 at the time of his marriage. Also if the timing is right, his first daughter Ethel M came one year later in December of 1912.

Here is the connection between Harbour Buffett and Little Harbour:

 

William Dicks’ Father and Mother

John Dicks Born About 1844, Harbour Buffett

Anne’s tree shows that William’s father was John. I found a death record for a John Dicks in 1913:

The heading on the next to the last column seems to be mis-labled. It has ‘place of death’. As the second column is already place of death I think that the last column should read place of birth. That seems consistent with other death lists I’ve seen. At any rate, this would indicate that John Dicks was born about 1844 in Harbour Buffett. That connects Anne to Esther geographically.

Edith Reid

Anne’s tree has Edith dieing in 1909. I couldn’t find a death record for Edith, but found one for Elizabeth Dicks here:

Note that this Elizabeth also died  and was buried in Little Harbour East, but was born in Harbour Buffett about 1846.

Anne’s Mother’s Side: Edith Hann

Anne’s tree shows that Edith was born 1909. The logical place to look for Edith is in the 1921 Census. Here she is on the same page as William Dicks when he was widowed with two young girls:

This is the Census I liked because it gave birth month, year and place. I’m sure all of William’s descendants have gone through this before, but it’s new to me. This tells me that Chirs Dicks was born in Little Harbour East. Edith Dicks was born in Harbour Buffett. Richard Hann was born in PInch cove in 1899 and what appears to be his sister was born in 1909 in Little Harbour East. 12 year old Edith likely had no clue that she was to marry the then 31 year old widowed William Dicks. Perhaps it was young Edith that took care of William’s girls.

Little Harbour East in 1945

Could this be our Anne? She is listed on page XIV of the Little Harbour East 1945 Census. Anne’s tree says that her dad died the year that she was born:

The other question would be how 41 year old Thomas C Dicks would be Anne’s first cousin. That would mean that Thomas’s father would have to be John Dicks’ brother?

This looks to be Edith Hann’s older brother on Page XI of the Census:

He is living next to his adopted mother, Edith Dicks.

I didn’t see Edith Hann Dicks in the 1945 Census. Perhaps she remarried.

Edith Hann’s Parents

I started out wondering about Edith’s parents. Anne’s tree has John Henry Hann and Anastasia as her parents. We know that Edith was born at Little Harbour East. Her older brother was born at Pinch Cove. Pinch cove is 6 km North of Fair Haven. That should be directly South of Little Harbour. From a short look on the internet, Pinch Cove was abandoned after 1921.

As Richard Hann was born Sep 1899, I will look for a marriage between John Henry Hamm and Anastasia before that time. Here is a John Hann, widower who married in 1894

These two were listed as ‘RC’, Roman Catholic. I also noted that the name Anastasia came up frequently in the Roman Catholic Parish Registers.

Here is Mussell Harbour:

This looks promising geographically. The downside is this Jane would have been 45 in 1909 at the birth of Edith.

Here is perhaps a more promising entry. First I give the parents:

This Robert kept coming up as I was searching marriage records. Note that both Robert and John Henry are living in Pinch Gut. The date to the left is the birth of the child.

Here are their children with their Roman Catholic Baptism dates:

 

My guess is that Robert and John Henry were brothers. Note that their two children were baptized on the same day in 1894. The date on  the right is for registration. So I have linked John Henry to Pinch Cove via the birth of his son Richard in 1899. Here John Henry is in Pinch Gut with his wife Clara who gave birth to Margaret Jane five years later.

In 1896, Robert and John Henry had another synchronized birth and and baptism even:

This time, the baptism was listed under the Church of England. Here are their children and the baptsim date:

 

Did Clara Hann Die Young?

So far, there was a John Hann who married a Jane Whelan at Mussel Cove. I don’t know if that was the same as the John Henry Hann who married a Clara and had two children at Pinch Gut. Then John Henry Hann had two children – Richard and Edith at Pinch Cove and Little Harbour East. I have not found birth records for these two yet. I have a record of a Cara Hann dieing at Ping Gut in 1903:

Based on Clara’s age of 28 at death, she would have been 19 at the birth of her daughter Margaret Jane, so that sounds reasonable. A 10 year difference between Richard and Edith Hann would explain her death and John Henry’s marriage to Anastasia. So I have built a house of cards from the incomplete records that I have.

Back To the DNA

With Anne’s DNA results, it will be important to try to filter the DNA as much as possible as there could be potentially so many matches. In a recent Blog I wrote on Martha and her family, Martha was found to have more Upshall ancestors and fewer Dicks ancestors. So that should mean that if I compare Martha’s family with Esther’s and Anne, that may show an Upshall connection (or not).

Eliminating an Upshall Connection

When I did this exercise, it appears that Anne’s matches do not line up with those places that Martha and Esther’s families line up. I take that to mean that there are no obvious Upshall shared ancestors. The one place that Annes’ matches lined up with Martha’s family, they did not line up with Elaine and Joan. Elaine and Joan match Esther on her paternal side, so that match could be on Esther’s maternal non-Upshall (Shave) side:

Here, Joan is #1, MLB (Martha’s Aunt) is #2. DTE (Martha’s brother) is #3 and Anne is #4. Esther is the person that these people are matching.

Narrowing Down Anne’s Matches To the Dicks Line

 

When I look at shared matches between Elaine, Joan and Esther, those DNA matches eliminate Esther’s maternal side because Elaine and Joan are only related to Esther on the Upshall side. I had trouble figuring out more about Anne’s family history, but by DNA, it seems that she didn’t have an obvious Upshall influence in her DNA. That means that if I compare Esther, Joan, Elaine, and Anne, I should get mostly Dicks DNA. Now according to Martha, Henry Upshall’s father was Peter Upshall b. about 1800 and she has him married to a Margaret Burton. So there is the potential to have some Burton come through there assuming Martha is right. However, Anne could likely match Esther also on her maternal Dicks Line, so this method would elimiate that line of Dicks.

 

Comparing Ann’s DNA to Joan’s

As I mention above, Anne and Joan’s DNA should be specifically on the Dicks Line (and their ancestors). Here is how Joan and Anne match:

 

Comparing Anne to the Dicks DNA Project

Next, I’ll compare Anne to those who are in the main area of the Dicks DNA Project. Here is how the big Dicks Matrix looks:

Actually the Christopher branch is shaping up as one of the biggest branches and one with a lot of people that match each other. There are some, notably Nelson, Ken, Charles and a few others that match outside their branches. This could be on other Dicks Lines or other Newfoundland surnames. Based on a recent Blog, I added Karen to Esther’s family based on an Upshall connection. It appears that she fits quite well in the Christopher Dicks Line also.

Summary and Conclusion

  • As Anne has good DNA matching results, I found it a bit overwhelming looking at all her matches.
  • More work is needed in comparing Anne’s shared matches and the the Triangulation Groups she is in.
  • It is possible to narrow down the scope of Anne’s shared DNA by looking at certain testers with known genealogy. However, this could also fileter out matches that we do want. In this example, I looked at Anne’s matches with Joan, my mother in law to narrow down her matches. I could have also used Joan’s Elaine sister for this.
  • I tried to fill out Anne’s maternal side genealogy. This was to see if there could be other shared DNA matches that we didn’t know about. I found this to be a bit difficult to do. If Anne’s maternal genealogy were obvious, it would already likely be on her tree.
  • I’ll likely be following up with another Blog on Anne’s DNA results
  • I like how the Christoper Dicks (b. 1812) Line is filling in and how the DNA matches comirm the genealogy that we have for that line. Knowing the surname of Christopher’s wife Elizabeth would be a big help.