Category: Dicks

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Will’s Newfoundland DNA and Matches to My Wife’s Family

I recently had an email from Will’s 1/2 niece Marilyn. She had uploaded her Uncle’s DNA results to DNA. In the past, I have looked at DNA matches for the Dicks family of Newfoundland and Marilyn is in that project. I am interested in Newfoundland as my wife has some of her ancestry from Harbour Buffet in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland.

Will’s Genealogy

In the tree, Will looks like he must be Marilyn’s 1/2 Great Uncle.

That is interesting, because Will should be a third cousin to Esther who is my wife’s 1/2 Great Aunt. However, Esther and Will have a large DNA match:

Gedmatch guesses that Will and Esther have a common ancestor that is 2.7 generation away. That would be closer to a 1st cousin once removed or a 2nd cousin. Also note that Will and Esther have a lot of matches on different chromosomes that are on the smaller side. My guess is that means that these two are related on several different lines further in the past. Here is how the DNA match looks at FTDNA:

This version includes the X Chromosome. Marilyn had a question about that that I can look at later.

Going Back Further in Will and Esther’s Genealogy

Here is Esther’s genealogy, such as I have it:

I have circled Esther and Will’s known connection. My guess is that there are other connections at the level of Christopher Dicks and Margaret. The problem is that I have eight missing 2nd grandparents for Esther in that row.

It would be good to take a look at Will’s other ancestors also. Will doesn’t have a tree at FTDNA. Apparently, Marilyn’s grandmother remarried and had Will. That means that I know half of Will’s ancestry through Marilyn. Here is the portion of Marilyn’s tree that relates to Will:

I forgot to mention above that Esther is doubly (at least) related to Will as a third cousin:

Will descends from a Joyce line and a Dicks line. I left out Will’s Dick’s connection on the right to save space. As I don’t have a tree for Will, I will try to make a private one at Ancestry. I am also tempted to ‘borrow’ from this tree I found at Ancestry:

Here Uncle Will is listed as Willis Clarke. That same tree has this record:

This shows Zacharias Clarke of Baine Harbour marrying Bertha Slade nee Joyce in 1906. However, the math is a bit off for Bertha’s age if she was born 1871.

This leaves me with a lop-sided tree for Willis:

Willis and Esther and the Crann Connection

Based on some guessing and some DNA matches, I have this Crann connection for Willis and Esther:

Under this scenario, Esther’s great grandfather Christopher Dicks married Elizabeth Crann. Based on the above, Esther and Willis would be 3rd cousins three different ways – two on the Dicks line and one on the Crann Line. If I have this tree right, it may account for all the DNA matches between Esther and Willis.

Crann DNA

One way to isolate the Crann DNA is to go outside of Newfoundland.

This tree shows Henry Crann from Netherbury, Dorset, England. One son, John Crann, ends up in Newfoundland. Another son, Samuel, ends up in New Zealand. That means that if Willis matches Heather, Wayne or Marjorie from New Zealand, it is more than likely that that DNA match will represent Crann ancestry (or Collins).

Here is Willis’ match to Marjorie:

Willis matches Wayne here:

I couldn’t find Heather at Gedmatch, so she may no longer be listed there.

Uncle Will’s X Chromosome

Marilyn wrote to me concerning her Uncle:

He shares DNA with my brother on X Chromosome so that is a mystery to me. 

X DNA inheritance follows a specific pattern. This pattern is more restricted for men as they only inherit an X Chromosome from their parents. By comparing Marilyn’s brother’s tree with Marilyn’s Uncle tree, we will be able to see where recent shared X Chromosome inheritance comes from.

I had started a tree for Uncle Willis, but didnt’ get too far:

After looking at Marilyn’s brother’s tree, I see where Marilyn’s question comes from:

The obvious match between Marilyn’s brother Howie and Uncle Willis is on the paternal side. However, Howie got no X Chromosome from his father. Here is Howie’s X inheritance taken out one more generation:

X Chromosome matches are tricky as they can travel further back in time than other autosomal DNA matches.

Uncle Willis has an X match with Marilyn:

Also with Marilyn’s Aunt DIddie:

Here is Uncle Willis and Howie:

 

Here I can see what happened. Howie only has a small X match with Uncle Willis. As such, I would not bother following this. Assuming that this is a valid match, I would say that this could be a very ancient match. This tells me that Marilyn and Aunt DIddie match Uncle Willis on their paternal side. Howie matches his Uncle Willis on his maternal side, but it is too small of a match to be of much consequence.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was interested in following Marilyn’s Uncle Will’s Crann connections based on my previous research into this line.
  • Some Crann DNA matches can be traced to lines that have never lived in Newfoundland. That makes it easier to identify the DNA from these matches as being from Crann descendants.
  • I stayed away from the Dicks connections in this Blog. It would be helpful to find more DIcks matches that are outside of Newfoundland, so that the DNA for those matches could be determined with more certainty.
  • I looked at Uncle Willis’ X Chromosome matches. The one he had with Howie was confusing at first. That was because Uncle Willis is related to Howie on Howie’s paternal line and Howie got no X DNA from his father. However, as the match was small compared to his sister Marilyn, it was clear that the X DNA match  between Howie and Willis was either a false match or one that goes back many, many generations.
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Esther’s Newfoundland ThruLines at AncestryDNA

Esther is my wife’s 1/2 great Aunt and has Newfoundland Ancestry on both sides. AncestryDNA’s ThruLines takes DNA matches and matches those up with Ancestry Tree matches. Let’s take a look at Esther’s ThruLines to see what they show.

Esther’s Parents

Here are Esther’s Parents:

Here are the ThruLines for Fred Upshall:

These people are not related on the Shave side, so the relationships show correctly as half relationships. These people are my mother in law, Joan, her sister Elaine, my wife Marie and Marie’s niece Tina. These four should show up in Esther’s more distant Upshall side ThruLines.

Esther’s Grandparents

 

Very quickly, Esther is back to 1841 with her Upshall grandfather. I am more interested in the Upshall and Dicks side as that is the side where my wife and her mother are related.

Here are the Henry Upshall ThruLines:

On the right is Karen. I have written Blogs about her family. I put her great-grandmother Jessie as the daughter of Henry Upshall based on DNA evidence even though there was no genealogical evidence. This was a bit dicey, but based on the amount of DNA shared between Esther and Karen, it seems like the right thing to do. According to Ancestry DNA, that amount of shared DNA is most likely to be a 1st cousin, twice removed relationship:

Nicholas and Esther

How does Nicholas fit in? For one thing, 1st cousin four times removed goes right off the chart:

I would think that a 1st cousin four times removed would be similar to the 2nd cousin once removed. Either way, the chances of this being right are <1% according to AncestryDNA.

Nicholas’ Genealogy

Here is the expanded view of ThruLines:

One problem is that Nicholas’ parents and grandparents are shown as living, so I don’t have information on them. Nicholas’ tree is managed by Kara. She has Gladys Uppshall Knight as Nicholas’ maternal great-grandmother. From there, Stephanie’s tree kicks in with Theodore the father of Gladys.

Here is the 1935 Census for St John’s West:

The assumption is that this is the same Gladys in 1945:

Here is a replacement birth record for Malcolm:

This shows that Malcolm’s mother was a Shave. That makes it more surprising that Esther and Nicholas don’t have more matching DNA as Esther’s mother was a Shave.

Here is another after the fact record for Malcolm’s brother:

This could be William in the 1945 Census living next to his brother:

Was Alexander the Son of Henry Upshall?

I have it that way on my Ancestry Tree, but not on my Upshall Web Page. I don’t see any genealogical evidence that would put Alexander as the son of Henry Upshall. It is that way in some on-line Trees. Based on the low amount of DNA match and the shaky genealogical evidence, I would call into question this particular ThruLine at this time.

Esther’s Upshall Great-Grandparents

Here, things get more interesting as there is no known genealogical evidence for Esther’s great-grandparents. These ancestors are a best guess scenario. Here are the ThruLines for best-guess Peter Upshall:

At first look, it seems as though there are a lot of different DNA matches for these likely children of Peter Upshall.

George Upshall Branch 1829

Here, note that Pat, like Nicholas has Shave and Upshall in her ancestry. I note she also has Burton which Eshter has, so perhaps other names also. 280 cM is a huge match for a 2nd cousin twice removed:

Ancestry says that Pat and Esther look like 2nd cousins. However, that is assuming that they are not related on other lines which they are.  For comparison, I had mentioned above that Nicholas’ match to Esther should have been equivalent to a 2nd cousin once removed. Another thing I’d like to do is to see if these people have shared matches with each other. I note that Nicholas does not have a shared match with Pat. That means that he shares less than 20 cM with Pat.

Checking with Joan and Elaine

One way to check these matches is by Joan and Elaine. They are Esther’s half nieces. That means that they match on the Upshall side and not the Shave side. Here is what Joan shows:

Now the DNA matches are quite a bit different. When I look at the numbers for Joan and her sister Elaine, I get this for the proposed George Upshall Branch:

Sarah Upshall Branch 1831

Here Esther has 10 DNA matches on the Sarah Upshall Collett Branch:

Here are the results for Eshter, Joan and Elaine:

  • I added in a Maximum % column, so we could see what the highest likelihood is for the DNA match
  • Green indicates that the DNA matches got that highest mark
  • This seems to indicate that Esther does not match this Sarah Upshall Collett on other lines.
  • None of the numbers seem unreasonable. The <1% can be explained by matching on many other lines and getting too high of a match.
  • Joan and Elaine match Sarah and Esther doesn’t. That means that Florence (who is Joan and Elaine’s mother) got DNA that her sister Esther did not.
  • Esther went off the chart with the 2nd cousin 4 times removed category.
  • To do this right, I would need to check all the genealogy. I didn’t. The genealogy is likely good up to the children of Peter and Margaret Upshall and then missing.
  • All these numbers seem to confirm that the trees are likely trees.

Jane Upshall Branch

Jane appears to be well documented by DNA. Esther has 14 matches to Jane’s descendants along the Tulk Line. I have noted close matches to Tulk in the past, so this may explain those DNA matches.

Jane also has a rare Upshall birth record:

However, I find it odd that she was born in November and baptized in September. Perhaps she was born in 1838. I assume that there was only one Peter and Margaret Upshall at the time. Burin was about 90 miles away from Harbour Buffett, so I assume there was a travelling minister who performed these baptisms on 29 September 1839. I have that Jane was born in Burin which is not accurate. She was born in Garnish Gut according to this record. I’m not sure where Garnish Gut is, but I assume that it is part of or near Harbour Buffett.

An additional confusing point is that Peter was the father of Christopher Upshall also in 1833:

This means that Peter may have had a first wife Mary or the transcription may have been off. Christopher doesn’t show up on the ThruLines. I don’t see many trees for Christopher. Here is one:

This person shows Margaret as the mother and the birth at Famish Gut which perhaps makes more sense. Perhaps there were few descendants on this line.

So far the matches for the descendants of the three potential children of Peter and Margaret Upshall looks like this:

The evidence looks pretty good. I added Karen from the more recent Henry Upshall Line to show how good her numbers were.

Susan Upshall Born 1848

This Line is a little more confusing:

Roy’s grandmother is Margaret Collett. That begs the question of Elizabeth Webber. Shouldn’t she be a Collett also? Here is some information from http://www.collettfamilyhistory.net/Part-32-The-Newfoundland-Line-Rev.12.htm:

The same web page has this on Elizabeth:

According to this information, Elizabeth Webber is really Elizabeth Collett.

Here is the last of Esther’s ThruLines at this level:

This was a bit of an annoying exercise, but it does seem to verify the trees for the descendants. However, I have not tried to disprove the theory. That would take a bit of work. I do recognize interfering influences of the DNA matches through intermarriage.  I showed some of those effects by comparing Esther’s matches to her half nieces Joan and Elaine. The main interferences could be other relationships with the Dicks, Shave and Burton families. The other thing I didn’t do was to check the genealogy of each line. This would take a while to do. The last confirmation would be to check to see if each of these matches match each other. The best way to do that is with Genetic Affairs’ AutoClusters.

Esther and AutoClusters

Here is a ‘basic’ AutoCluster I ran for Esther.

Esther has all Newfoundland ancestry, so almost all her clusters match other clusters. This AutoCluster ran January 9, 2019 between the match levels of 50 and 250 cM. I checked my Chart above to see which clusters the matches were in:

It turns out that the Jane Upshall Tulk Line were all in Cluster 14. In the other Lines, there was not enough information or the matches were outside the range. However, the other two Clusters found were 8 and 11.

This means that while Esther is matching Cluster 14 by Peter and Margaret Upshall, all the 10 in my Chart are matching each other by Jane Upshall and her Tulk husband.

Esther’s ThruLines With Christopher Dicks Born 1812

Christopher was married to Elizabeth. My best guess is that she was Elizabeth Crann. Esther has 12 new DNA matches on the Christopher Dicks Line. These matches could have gotten their DNA from Christopher Dicks or from his wife Elizabeth or both.

The matches under Catherine Dicks have already been looked at. Compare this with the Gedmatch Tree I have been working on for the Dicks Family:

ThruLines has a David Branch that I don’t have and I have a Christopher Branch that Thrulines doesn’t have.

The David Dicks Branch

Here is a partial opening of that Branch:

One interesting thing here is that Frances is also related to Esther through the Jane Upshall Tulk Line:

That is because Caroline Dicks married Edwin Kingwell Tulk according to the trees at Ancestry.

Cathy in the David Dicks Branch

Here is how ThruLines shows Cathy:

I had Cathy in a different Branch. However, if the ThruLines are right and I am right, she could be in two Dicks Branches of Frances Dicks Burton and Christopher Dicks:

Here is a summary of the David Dicks Branch:

It seems like everything checks out OK. Esther was matching too high to Newf due to matches on Esther’s maternal side. Joan isn’t related to Esther on Esther’s maternal side, so that took the extra DNA out of the equation. I skipped checking Joan’s sister Elaine’s results to save time. Joan matched one person David, who didn’t match Esther.

Going Up One Generation to Christopher Dicks Born about 1784

The Dicks family was huge and then spread out from there.

Here are nine children of Christopher who have matching DNA with Esther:

  1. John Michael – before 1808 – I haven’t been following this Branch. Has some Joseph’s in this Branch
  2. Elizabeth – 1809 – Married Thomas Adams
  3. Joseph – born 1810
  4. Frances born 1811 – Married Charles Burton
  5. Christopher Born 1812 – covered in previous section
  6. Rachel born 1817 – married James Joyce
  7. James Dicks born 1830 – also has a Joseph Dicks son. I haven’t been following this Branch either.
  8. George born 1832
  9. Robert born 1824 – so should be above

I trace six children in my Dicks Gedmatch DNA project. I didn’t have John Michael, James or Joseph. Altogether, there are 77 DNA matches represented in these 8 proposed children. That would be too many matches to check for this Blog.

Joseph Dicks

Although I don’t have Joseph Dicks on my Dicks DNA Chart, I have that Esther descends from Joseph Dicks on her maternal side:

I have Joseph Dicks born at Famish Gut in 1810 to Christopher and Margaret. However, this does not appear on Esther’s ThruLines or on my own Dicks DNA Chart.

I’ll look at the genealogy behind the John Michael and James DIcks Branches as I am unfamiliar with them.

John Michael Dicks Born 1808

The ThruLines Profile for John Michael shows this:

This information is a bit sparse. It shows that John Michael would have been over 105 years old when he died.

In a previous Blog I note this Joseph:

My thought was that this was a more likely ancestor for Esther.

Joseph Dicks and Violet

After changing Esther’s Jane Ann Line, I noticed that ThruLines did have a Joseph Dicks Branch with one large match:

However, this follows from the way I had Esther’s tree. Violet has a huge match with Esther at 359 cM. Here is a much closer relationship between Violet and Esther at 2nd cousin:

My mother-in-law, Joan also has a good match with Violet:

Violet’s Tree

Now I’m suspicious that Tulk may be related to Upshall.

Upshall of Dorset ThruLines

Newfoundland is too complicated with the intermarriages and lost records. Lets go back to Dorset, England:

My current thinking is that Peter Upshall born in 1800 in Dorset was the daughter of Sarah Upshall. Sarah is shown here with three of her siblings. This Dorset, England ThruLines appears to confirm that Sarah was the sister of Joseph, George and Charles who shows a Private above. This is a chance to find out what my wife’s Upshall relatives have been up to since 1737. Judy above is probably in Australia. Margaret’s paternal grandmother was born in England and died in Rhode Island.

The Charles Upshall Branch

Ross and Peter’s parents were both from Dorset, England.

Here is one of the trees I had been working with:

For some reason I am missing the Jane Upshall/Tulk Branch. I also need to go up two levels to John Upshall.

I had previously added an additional sibling Ann Upshall due to a match with my wife’s Aunt Elaine. Due to the fact that none of Peter’s Aunts or Uncles did not live in Newfoundland, my guess is that the DNA matches represent John and Elisabeth Upshall.

Here are some potential siblings to Sarah Upshall that I took from an online Ancestry Upshall Tree:

After quite a bit of typing, I get this:

This is a small version of the Upshall DNA match tree. I didn’t add in Ann Upshall or many of the Newfoundland Upshalls.

Shared DNA Matches

When I check how Judy on the bottom left of the chart above matches Esther, I get these shared DNA matches:

Many of these shared matches are with descendants of Newfoundland Upshalls.

Elaine and Joan’s Hazelbury Bryan Thrulines

One of Elaine’s Hazelbury Bryan Thrulines is with Peter on the Charles Upshall Branch shown above. The other is with Hazel on the Joseph Branch.

It looks like Hazel’s Branch stayed in England while Judy’s branch went to Australia:

Joan also has a ThruLines match with Hazel.

More of Esther’s English Upshall Shared DNA Matches

Elaine and Margaret from the George Upshall Branch have a shared DNA match named Trenton. Trenton has a good sized tree:

Trenton’s father’s mother’s father was Peter Upshall Boutcher. This sounds suspicious. There must be an Upshall in Peter’s ancestry. The Collett Genealogy that I referred to above is very helpful:

Here is one relationship that ThruLines didn’t figure out, but it helped in conjunction with Shared DNA Matches:

Putting the Upshall’s Together

Here I added a representative person from the Upshall/Tulk Branch:

Based on the ThruLines there are over 10 matches each on the Sarah Upshall Collett and Jane Upshall Tulk Branches. So the above tree is just a skeleton.

One Last Shared Match Between Esther and Judy

I don’t want to leave too much low hanging fruit. AU is a shared match with Dorset descendant Judy and Esther. Here is his three person tree and his DNA match:

AU and Esther have a DNA match of 69 cM. Here is Jacob in 1935 in Harbour Buffett:

Edward and Martha married in 1916:

Unfortunately, I soon got stuck at the level of Edward Upshall:

Summary and Conclusions

  • Going Through many of Esther’s ThruLines was a large undertaking. I may have been better off just looking at the Upshall ThruLines.
  • It was helpful have two of Esther’s 1/2 Nieces to compare the results. This is because Esther matches on many intermarried lines and Joan and Elaine only match on Esther’s paternal side.
  • Esther’s ThruLines complemented and expanded upon the previous DNA work I have done on the Upshall and Dicks Families.
  • I compared Esther’s Upshall ThruLines with her AutoCluster results. The Jane Upshall/Tulk Line showed clearly in one of Esther’s Clusters.
  • I brought Esther’s ThruLines back to John Upshall born 1737 in Dorset, England and his wife Elisabeth Ellis. To me, the results clearly show that Esther descends through John Upshall and his daughter Sarah Upshall to Peter Upshall who was an early settler in Newfoundland in the Harbour Buffett area.
  • I was a little surprised that Esther had four DNA matches going back to a common ancestor who was born in 1737
  • ThruLines work well with Shared DNA Matches. I was able to find at least one new Upshall Line using Shared Matches to ThruLine Matches.
  • In the future, I would like to concentrate more on the Upshall Branches and build them out in my Excel spreadsheet.
  • It may be helpful to also check to see how many Upshall descendants have their DNA at Gedmatch, FTDNA and MyHeritage. This would allow for more detailed DNA analysis.
  • ThruLines are able to put together many trees and DNA matches in order to see a possible big picture solution to some genealogical problems.

 

 

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AutoClustering Aunt Esther’s Newfoundland DNA

In previous Blog, I looked at the autoclustering of my mother-in-law Joan’s DNA. Esther is Joan’s half Aunt. That means that Joan and Esther have a connection on only one of Joan’s grandparents. All of Esther’s four grandparents were from Newfoundland. I am hoping that the AutoClustering process will make sense of Esther’s Newfoundland DNA.

Esther’s AutoCluster

This is the overall chart:

The 54 clusters are difficult to see because Esther has 612 matches. I set Esther’s autoclustering limits between 30 and 600 cM and was a little surprised at how many matches Esther had at that level.

Esther’s Family Tree

There are a few holes in Esther’s family tree:

The Peter Upshall born 1800 above is also a guess.  I’m not as familiar with the Shave and Kirby sides as my wife is not related on that side. The Clusters should identify some of them.

Here is a spreadsheet that I will need to fill in.

My wife is at the top of the list with the largest match in Cluster 1. In a way that is not good because my wife will be related to two of Aunt Esther’s grandparents: Henry Upshall and Catherine Dicks. Perhaps that is why the Cluster 1 is so large. I will try another AutoCluster for Esher between 40 cM and 250 cM. That should be clearer. Also Marie’s niece Tina is the top match for Cluster 6. Tina will also share Upshall and Dicks matches. However, lowering the upper match limit to 250 cM will not solve all the problems. Even though Marie and Tina share both Upshall and Dicks, it is possible that many in the clusters will only have either Upshall or Dicks DNA. Or they will have more Upshall than Dicks or the other way around.

Esther’s Shared Ancestor Hints (SAHs)

At AncestryDNA, Esther has some Shared Ancestor HInts. Here is one:

Pat is a 2nd cousin once removed. Esther and Pat share the common ancestors of Shave and Burton. I was looking for easy answers but got thrown for a loop because Pat is in Cluster 1. She is in Cluster 1 with Marie who is not related on the Shave side. Interesting.

Here is some more of Pat’s paternal side lineage:

This tells me that perhaps Pat is in Cluster 1 because of her Upshall match and not her Shave/Burton match. That could mean that Margaret Upshall is a sister to Esther’s grandfather. If that is the case, then Esther and Pat may be 2nd cousins once removed on the Upshall side also. It’s a possibility.

A Kirby/Emberley SAH

Here Esther and M.B. are shown as 3rd cousins. AncestryDNA thinks they share enough DNA to be 2nd cousins, so something is going on. Not only that, M.B. is also in Cluster 1. Martha is the administrator for M.B. Look at Martha’s tree for M.B.

There is Upshall again. I have been in touch with Martha and we both agree that Peter is a pretty good potential ancestor. He was born to Sarah Upshall who was a single mother in Haselbury Bryan, Dorset, England.  So far, I’m thinking that there is more than meets the eye to these SAHs.

This Just In: Another AutoCluster for Esther

While I am thinking about the Upshalls in other SAHs, I’ll look at another AutoCluster for Esther. Things are still a bit muddy. I changed the lower limit to 40 and the upper limit to 250cM and got almost 300 fewer matches for Esther. However the picture is still muddy:

Esther is down to 33 clusters, but the grey dots between clusters represents crossover in ancestral lines. M.B. who was previously in Cluster 1 is now in Cluster 19. Changing the thresholds changes the delicate balance of the clusters and the relationship between the clusters apparently.

Which AutoCluster Version Should I Use?

It seems like Newfoundland genetic genealogy is already complicated enough. There are intermarriages of lines and missing lines. I have just put in for a third AutoCluster for Esther at the default thresholds of 50-250cM. I am hoping that those thresholds will simplify things.

Take 3 with Esther’s AutoCluster

You can’t say I’m not trying.

This looks more manageable with 20 clusters and 220 matches. I’m ready to rock this AutoCluster.

Cluster 1: Dicks?

My notes for many in this Cluster indicate the Dicks family. D.M. in Cluster 1 has a good match and Dicks on her maternal side:

I was able to build out D.M like this:

However, I have been proposing that Elizabeth Collier could be Elizabeth Crann. That is something to keep in mind. It looks like D.M. matches Esther on Kirby, Dicks, Dicks wife Elizabeth, Shave and Burton. That is quite a bit.

Cluster 14 – Kirby/Emberley

My notes for this Cluster say Kirby and Emberley. AutoCluster sorts the clusters by size of match and this cluster has the second largest match.

Cluster 8 – Upshall?

I’d like to make a guess that Cluster 8 could be an Upshall Cluster. There are a lot of high matches but not a lot of answers there:

I’ll make it a working theory. The first person on the list is Jane. I couldn’t see any connection to Esther in her tree. The second person James said that his grandmother was Laura Upshall.

Laura Upshall’s Tree

I found a Laura Upshall from England and a Laura from Newfoundland born in Harbour Buffet. So I chose the Laura from Harbour Buffet and built out a fast tree at Ancestry:

Assuming this tree is right, Esther and James are 2nd cousins twice removed with the common ancestors of Peter Upshall and Margaret Burton. While I’m at it, I’ll add Margaret Burton to Esther’s tree. The good thing about Laura’s tree is that I don’t see any Dicks in it. This could rule out Cluster 8 from being a Dicks Cluster. Here is what I have so far:

I still don’t see any Shave Clusters.

Another Cluster 8 Tree

Next down on the list of Esther’s matches on Cluster 8 is someone I call Hat. Here is what I think is his tree:

I think the person taking the test is the son of Ella Grace Upshall, but I’m not sure. Again, I don’t see Dicks in there which is good. One other thing is that these trees also have Shave. So that is a possibility.

Cluster 8: Shave Or Upshall?

One way to tell might be by comparing Esther to her half Niece Joan, my mother-in-law. Joan is related on Esther’s Upshall side but not her Shave side. The Jane that I couldn’t connect to Esther from Cluster 8 is in Joan’s Cluster 41. I had that listed as an Upshall Cluster for Joan. James is also in Joan’s Cluster 41. Finally Hat is in Joan’s Cluster 41, so that is three for three.

A Tree for Eileen from Esther’s Cluster 8

Christina has a short tree, but her mother’s Reid name looks like a possible Newfoundland name. I assume that Christina’s mother Eileen is the one that took the test. I see from the 1940 Census that Eileen’s father was born in Newfoundland, so I guessed right:

Will Flint, Michigan lead back to Upshall?

The answer is no.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Sarah Ann Dicks was born in Harbour Buffet as I couldn’t find records for her birth and Harbour Buffett records are poor. I have that William Reid was born in Harbour Buffett in 1811.

Here is a tree for Lorna in Cluster 8:

I don’t see Upshall here. But Margaret Burton may have married Peter Upshall and she may be the daughter of Charles Burton. She did name what appears to be her second son Charles. It would have been customary to name the wife’s second son after her father. I know, a lot of if’s.

Christina From Cluster 8 and Her Tree

Christina’s tree looks hopeful.

Here is Madge and family in 1935 St. John’s West:

I can’t tell if Hattie is the same as Ethie. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get much further than Christina’s tree.

A Possible Upshall Tree

Now that I’ve reduced the possibility of Cluster 8 being Shave, it is more likely an Upshall Cluster. I’ll build a theoretical tree for Upshall with theoretical but possible common ancestors Peter Upshall and Margaret Burton:

 

I put this out there to see if it makes sense genealogically and with the DNA evidence.

Summary at Mid-Point

Here is my spreadsheet so far:

Subject to change.

An Upshall in Cluster 11

Here is Barbara’s paternal side of her tree:

Peter and Alice Upshall married in 1916:

Here is a marriage for Henry Upshall to an Elizabeth Smith:

Henry was said to be living at Little Harbour at the time of the marriage.

Madonna’s Cluster 11 Tree

Madonna shows her maternal grandparents at Ancestry:

I recognized the Collett name and built out Madonna’s tree with some help from other Ancestry Trees:

It’s not my greatest tree as I didn’t build out Susan Collett. I see a record showing a Peter Collett marrying a Susanna Hann in 1905:

That gives me a new line for my horizontal Upshall Tree:

B,A. On Cluster 11

B.A. appears to have an Upshall on his tree. I say appears because there are many trees posted by B.A.’s administrator. I picked the tree that most looked like B.A.’s initials and it had an Upshall in the line:

Solomon Upshall 1921

In 1921 Solomon was living among many Upshalls in Little Harbour:

I wasn’t able to build out past Henry Upshall. I did note one Ancestry Tree had this:

I suppose that is possible.

Cluster 10 and Phyllis’ Tree

Phyllis is missing her paternal side, but her maternal side has some familiar names:

A lot of these names are beginning to sound familiar after a while.

Building out Phyllis’ tree:

Dicks is a common ancestor, but there are other possibilities. With these clusters, I am looking for trends. The clusters are saying to me, in a particular cluster the DNA says that you are more related within this group than outside of this group. So in a sense, the clusters may be clearer than what the genealogy is showing.

Another Cluster 10 Tree: Not All Trees Are Created Equal

This tree is better, in a way, than Phyllis’. Tha maternal side is England and Toronto. That leaves the paternal side:

I built out this tree and found some common ancestors:

This person goes by ‘it’ for short at Ancestry. It is 2nd cousin once removed to Esther. I prefer it’s tree because it is less ambiguous. It’s one Shave/Burton line is the one that is in Harbour Buffett where Esther’s ancestors lived. Where was Shave on Phyllis’ tree? Shave may have been on her paternal side that Phyllis didn’t show

Richard’s Cluster 10 Tree

I could use another tree to confirm, even though I am pretty sure of Shave/Burton already. Richard has a small, but high-grade tree:

The reason I like his tree is that maternal side and paternal side are shown. Also it narrows down to a name I know instead of expanding out to many ambiguous matches. I sort of cut off Lucy Shave. Sorry, Lucy. Richard’s Tree shows two lines of connections:

However, the closer Shave/Burton connection puts Richard also at 2nd cousin once removed to Esther. Cluster 10 represents Esther’s fourth grandparent Line of Shave:

A Shave/Burton Tree

 

Here is Esther’s Cluster 10 Shave/Burton Tree:

Cluster 4

Cluster 4 is next on the GeneticAffairs Report. Daisy is Esther’s first match with 177 cM. Her tree says that she shares the Dicks ancestral name with Esther.

Daisy has a good tree:

Daisy has Joyce and Dicks at her 2nd great-grandparent level above. Here are two more generations on Daisy’s Tree:

This shows Christopher Dicks and his wife twice. Daisy descends from Rachel and Robert Dicks. I’m sure there is a Crann connection also, but this should be overshadowed by the Dicks connections.

That means that Esther and Daisy are 4th cousins once removed twice on the Dicks Line.

Match #2 on Cluster 4 – Julie

Julie shows her two parents on her Ancestry Tree. My first attempt to build out Julie’s tree was a disaster. I think that Julie attached her DNAresults to her mother’s side. I was able to fix this by going into Julie’s tree and going down one lever from her mother. This worked better and I came up with a Newfoundland Tree for Julie’s paternal side:

None of the names sound familiar, but at least I’m in Newfoundland instead of Ireland. I built out Julie’s tree a bit but didn’t find a connection to Esther.

I was able to build out Julie’s tree a little more:

The tree has William Henry Dicks from England. That means that the match could go back to England or that a descendant of Christopher Dicks moved back to England and then back to Newfoundland.

I’m ready for a new cluster.

Cluster 12 – Bridget and bam

I’ll start with bam because he has Newfoundland ancestors in his tree. Here is my build-out based on some Ancestry suggestions:

 

There are a few interesting things about this tree. First, it is possible  that this Charles Burton could be an Uncle or father of Esther’s ancestor Margaret Burton born 1825. Also The Frances Dicks could be the Frances Dicks I have as daughter of Christopher Dicks. I have this tree, roughly based on DNA testing:

However, I see that the first George in the tree must be wrong. He should be in a later generation. Also there is a discrepancy on the birth date of Frances Dicks. I have her here are born 1811, but 1805 may make sense also.

That still leaves the question as to whether this is a Burton or Dicks Cluster (or something else!). I think I may be able to figure out the answer to that question, but not today.

Cluster 20

This could be the last Cluster for now. The top match with a tree is G,K. Here is a clue from AncestryDNA:

G.K. and Esther both have a Joseph Dicks in their tree. I had added in Joseph on Esther’s maternal line. She had a Jane Dicks there that I couldn’t place. The Dicks on Esther’s paternal side were easier to place.

My Theory on Joseph Dicks

I think that the Joseph Dicks in G.K’s tree and the one in Esther’s tree could be the same person. In G.K.’s tree Joseph is born in 1818 in Oderin and has son Michael in 1869 with Mary Murphy. She could have been a second wife. In Esther’s tree, Joseph is born in 1810 in Famish Gut and has Jane Ann Dicks with Mary Griffith in 1841. If I’m right, that would make Esther and G.K. half third cousins. I had that Esther’s Joseph descended from Christopher Dicks. However, the tree that I made for G.K. has Joseph’s parents as John Dicks and Mary Corbett. That may make more sense.

One point is that the tree I make for G.K. has Joseph Bulley Dicks born in 1818:

However, G.K. has Joseph born in 1849.

Jerome’s Cluster 20 Joseph Dicks Tree

I notice that Jerome follows G.K with a later birth date for Joseph Dicks:

It appears that Jerome is 2nd cousin to G.K and they both descend from different daughters of Michael Dicks.

Beth in Cluster 20

Beth in Cluster 20 also has a Joseph Dicks tree but with the earlier Joseph Dicks birth date:

Esther’s Cluster Summary

This is a start:

I’m sure that the more I work on this, the more it will come together:

In general the matches between clusters seem fewer as you go down and to the right. That would mean that if I am right with Joseph Dicks, then that is one of the more unique lines. Cluster 20 represents a Roman Catholic Line also, and I believe that most or all of the other lines are Church of England. I see that I already had a 14 and 15 Cluster label, so my newer label for Cluster 15 should refer to the lower right of the green box.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Looking at Esther’s 20 Cluster Report was helpful. It was also a lot of work to build out and analyze trees.
  • I forgot to mention the Crann connection in New Zealand. This is the small Cluster 2. I believe that the younger Christopher Dicks married Elizabeth Crann, so it may be fitting that the small Crann Cluster was next to the large Dicks Cluster 1.
  • The clusters help to focus on where to look when comparing trees. The clusters at least suggest that the ancestors should be along the same line as each other.
  • Clusters are a good place to try out theories on ancestors. The theory I had on Joseph Dicks seemed to play out well. From my previous Dicks DNA project, I had tried to connect Esther’s Joseph Dicks line and was unsuccessful. This would explain the fact that the Joseph Line appears to be differenrt than the Chirstopher Dicks Lines.
  • I hope to continue looking at Esther’s DNA clusters at some point and comparing them with her half-niece Joan’s. For example, I would not expect that Joan would be matching Esther’s Cluster 20 as that is Esther’s maternal side and Joan matches Esther on Esther’s paternal side.
  • A lot of the progress is from reviewing the matches’ trees, but the AutoClustering helps focus and direct the analsysis of trees.

 

 

 

 

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My Mother-In-Law and Her FTDNA AutoClustering

Joan’s Genealogy

I find Joan’s DNA fun to work with. Even though Joan has Canadian background, she has no French Canadian which can muck up the works. I don’t mean to sound prejudice in a DNA sort of way. Joan is 1/4 Newfoundland, 1/4 Daley which is from Nova Scotia and the other half is from Prince Edward Island. Out of Joan’s four grandparents, the Daley side seems to be most obscure. However, the Newfoundland side is problematic due to poor records there. The Church in Harbour Buffet burned down at one point.

  • Ellis and Rayner – PEI
  • Upshall – Newfoundland
  • Daley – Nova Scotia

AutoClustering Joan

For some reason, Joan’s results came through as untitled text files:

I was able to change the first two files to csv files and the last one to an html file and that solved the problem. I chose a range between 12 and 400 cM.

How Many Clusters?

Joan had so many clusters that they ran off the graph:

I’ll say Joan has over 80 clusters. 

This represents about the first 25 of Joan’s clusters. Here is the total at the bottom of the report:

I forgot that FTDNA add small segments to make the matches larger, so I should have had a higher bottom cutoff point.

Joan’s Cluster #1 – Newfoundland

A journey of 1,000 miles starts with one step. Joan’s top match is Ken. I’ve looked at his DNA before and had trouble figuring out where all of his DNA came from. If you look real close, you will see Ken’s grey dots going toward other clusters. Those are other places where he is related to Joan. I mentioned that French Canadians mucked up the works with intermarriage. This would be true of islands also – like Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island.

Joan’s #1 AutoCluster Match: Ken

Ken and Joan both descend from Christopher Dicks born in the 1780’s and his wife Margaret. I have run a DIcks DNA project and I recognize a lot of people in this Cluster.

Joan and Nancy

I didn’t recognize Nancy’s name in the group. Here is her tree:

I don’t get a lot of Upshall leads, so this is interesting. I assume that Nancy also has Dicks ancestry at some point. See, AutoClustering leads to good things.

That was quite easy. Here is the spreadsheet I use to keep track:

Cluster 2: PEI

I recognize some PEI descendants in Cluster 2. I have written about Glenda. She descends from Elllis and Rayner and matches Joan equally on those lines. That means I need to look at other Cluster 2 people and their trees.

Barbara and Lee

Barbara and Lee from Cluster 2 both have McArthur or MacArthur in their trees. That would seem to favor the Ellis side over the Rayner side:

However, I am just matching surnames, I am not matching actual shared ancestors. That would take more work.

Agnes’ Tree

It seems that there a lot of good trees at FTNDA. Agnes matches on the Rayner side.

Agnes’ maternal side has an Edward Rayner. His parent are the Edward John Rayner and Mary Watson in Joan’s tree. Of course, that favors the Rayner side. However, I note that there is an Ellis on Agnes’ Rayner side also.

Jane’s Tree

Here is where I need Ancestry to pull the trees together for me:

Jane has McArthur and Ellis on her paternal side.

I guess I’ll call this cluster Ellis/McArthur for now.

I spent a bit of time on this cluster, but it is Joan’s second largest cluster.

Joan’s Cluster Three People Don’t Look Familiar

Unlike the first two clusters, I don’t recognize these matches. There were four trees for the 13 people in this cluster. I think I’ll skip this one. By the little dots to the left and above this cluster, I would say there is some connection to the previous PEI cluster. It seems like an odd group. At least one tree was from New Zealand and one was from Ireland.

Skipping on to Cluster 4

As I look at the names and trees, it appears that this Cluster is from Newfoundland. I’ll just call this a Newfoundland Cluster:

That also gave me an idea for a name for Cluster 3.

DNAPainter to the Rescue?

I’m getting stuck on these Clusters, so I’ll take a look at what I have already painted for Joan. Here is the key to Joan’s painted Chromsomes:

One problem I see with this is that DNAPainter takes from many places – not just FTDNA.

Melissa in Cluster 34

Melissa has a common ancestor of Ellis/Gorrill with Joan.

I’m not so sure about the other two matches in the group. So I didn’t find a lot by that method.

The Clicking on Trees Method

Next, I’ll just click on trees to see if anything shows up. This resulted in a few general discoveries. I then clicked on the highest cM button to try to overcome FTDNA’s over-counting of their DNA matches.

Here are some of the clusters partly identified:

Summary and Conclusions

  • I had trouble finding specific ancestors for many of these clusters. I think it may be related to FTDNA having higher cM matching than is warranted. This may be partially fixed by raising the lower threshold to 20 cM when running an AutoCluster Report at FTDNA.
  • At Joan’s 2nd great-granparent level, I can identify 16 ancestors. In this analysis, I got 92 clusters. That is too many. 
  • Even though the cluster identification was difficult, it was good to take a fresh look at Joan’s FTDNA through the eyes of AutoClustering. I have at least one new lead to follow up on.
  • Another issue that makes Joan’s cluster identification difficult is that her ancestors come from two islands: PEI and Newfoundland. There was some intermarriage going on there. Joan is also once quarter from Nova Scotia. I’m not aware of intermarriage there, but matches with these relatives are relatively rare (no pun intended). 
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Brenda’s DNA from the Dicks Family of Harbour Buffett

Brenda came up as a new match recently at Gedmatch.com. She is a good match to my mother-in-law Joan at 9th on Joan’s match list. Brenda tells me her great great-grandfather Samuel Dicks was from Harbour Buffett where my mother-in-law Joan’s maternal grandfather came from.

Joan’s and Brenda’s Genealogy

It would make sense, then, if Joan and Brenda connected on the Dicks Line.

Here is Joan’s maternal side tree:

Joan’s 2nd great grandfather was Christopher Dicks. He married an Elizabeth. I have theorized that this Elizabeth could have been a Crann. This complicates matters, as I have this tree for Brenda’s paternal side:

This shows that Brenda’s great-grandmother was a Crann. This is pretty normal for Newfoundland genealogy. I’ll try to connect Brenda and Joan by the Dicks family and see if there is a possible Crann connection also.

Joan’s 1/2 Aunt Esther

I have also tested Joan’s 1/2 Aunt Esther. Joan and Esther match on Esther’s dad’s side but not on Esther’s mom’s side:

I’ve circled some places where Brenda and Esther could match. Notice that Esther also has a Dicks on her maternal side. Joan doesn’t match Esther on her maternal side, but if we went back far enough could match somehow with this Dicks Line also.

More on Brenda’s Genealogy

My tree for Brenda has that Samuel Dicks married a Julia. Here is the 1935 Census:

This does not state, but seems to imply that Julia is Stanley’s mother. She would have been about 44 at the time of Stanley’s birth. If Julia’s age is right, she would have been born about 1857. Here is a marriage record for Flat Island:

This shows a Samuel Dicks marrying an Eliza Joyce who was 16-1/2. That would put her birth at 1857. Many online trees show that Samuel Dicks married Julia Rodway.

Here is the birth of Albert George Dicks:

This shows that Albert’s mother was Julia, but doesn’t give Julia’s last name. It is possible that Eliza died and Samuel remarried Julia. This record would support that:

 

Here a Samuel was born to Eliza and Samuel Dicks in 1877. Here is Samuel’s marriage to Juila Rodway:

Samuel Dicks Father Was?

All the trees I found on Ancestry support the following:

So I’ll go with that. Note yet another Crann in the line. This brings me up to the Dicks DNA Project that I have been working on.

The Dicks DNA Project

Here is part of the tree of the people descending from Christopher Dicks who have had their DNA tested:

The Robert Dicks/Crann Line is on the right. Joan and Esther descend from a brother of Robert named Christopher and go off the above image to the left.

Here is Brenda added to the Robert Dicks/Crann Line:

Brenda is 4th cousins to everyone on her level. She is third cousin once removed to Kenneth Albert and Diddie and 4th cousin once removed to Sandi. One issue is that this DNA tree does not match exactly with the tree I just made.

However, I just used someone else’s tree to get the above tree. William Henry matches on both trees. Also Priscilla and Samuel are on both trees. I don’t see John and Rebecca Dicks on the Ancestry tree.

Looking at the DNA Matches

First, I’ll compare all the descendants of Christopher Dicks born about 1784 to each other. Theoretically the DNA will sort out to these five different lines:

The green boxes represent those who have had their DNA tested. I say the DNA theoretically sorts out. However, some people are in more than one line, and some people are related on other family lines such as the Crann family that I have mentioned. Further, the DNA can get a bit fickle.

These are all the comparisons, though I may have missed a few. The way it is supposed to work is that the brighter colors would be within the outlined boxes. This worked for the Adams, Christopher and Joyce Lines. Not so well for Frances and Robert Dicks.

Dicks Triangulation Groups (TGs) and Brenda

Next, I look at Triangulation Groups. These are groups of three people or more that match each other on the same segment of Chromosome. This is supposed to indicate a common ancestor. To simplify things, I’ll concentrate on the TGs that Brenda is in.

TG02

This TG is made up of Forrest, Brenda, Joan and Esther.

Here is how it would look:

This has the lines going up to Christopher Dicks born 1874. However, I suspect that Esther’s great-grandmother was Elizabeth Crann, so this TG may be from the unproven Crann side on Esther and Joan’s side. Later I hope to bring in some people who are only related on the Crann side to see if I can tease any of this DNA out.

TG03: Brenda, Randy, Forrest and Joan

These are interesting TGs as they are from such far-flung families. These are actually the best TGs. I think of them as having a broad, steady base. Also, like the previous TG, there is a good possibility that the connection could also be on the Crann side.

TG06 – A Simpler Triangulation Group

This TG only includes three people.

The TGs between these two groups tend to confirm my theory that the unknown Elizabeth on Barry’s Line is a Crann.

TG06 – Another Far-Flung TG

In this case, there is not another additional Crann family involved, so this is more likely to be Dicks DNA. This tree is between the Adams Line and the Crann Line of Dicks.

TG07 – On Robert Dicks or Jane Crann

TG08 – Another TG from the Christopher Line

Again, it is possible that this is a Crann DNA match. Another thing is, that I was expecting Brenda to be in the Christopher (born 1812) group as her Dicks ancestor was from Harbour Buffet. It wouldn’t hurt to check the genealogy at some point also.

TG09

This TG is from three Lines of Dicks and more likely to be just Dicks DNA.

TG11 – Another Dicks or Crann TG?

I won’t bother putting up the circles and lines. This is another TG with Christopher Dicks descendants Esther, Joan, and Elaine.

An Interesting Possibility for TG16

Here Brenda is in a TG with Brenda, Esther, Molly and Howie. However, Karen matches Esther in the same area of the TG, but isn’t in the TG. My understanding is that Karen matches Esther on Esther’s paternal side – that is, the Upshall/Dicks side. That could mean that this TG represents the Dicks from Esther’s maternal side. I haven’t figured out where the Joseph Dicks Line fits in yet. The Joseph Dicks was also partially a guess based on a suggestion from a Dicks genealogist.

I have Esther’s maternal Dicks going to Joseph Dicks. He was supposed to have been born in 1810 at Famish Gut.

TG16B – Howie, Diddie and Brenda

This should represent the same more recent common ancestors as TG07.

TG18 – Diddie, Nelson, Brenda, and Esther

Apologies to Diddie as she went off the page to the right. This is most likely an older Dicks TG.

TG20

This is like TG18, except Nelson is not in this TG and Kenneth is. Kenneth could be in the Burton or Crann Line, so that makes this one confusing.

More on the Cranns

In my analysis above, I was having trouble figuring out often which DNA was Crann and which was Dicks. There is one possible way to determine this. That is to look at things through the Crann side. Here is a tree I have:

This is a Crann tree that I came up with based on, again, guesses, suggestions and DNA. The green line on the right is especially interesting. That is because these two lines are in New Zealand. That means that they have had no intermarriage with Newfoundland people. There is also a Samuel Crann Line. The Jane Crann/Robert Dicks Line is now outdated. Here is an updated tree:

Brenda Has Two Crann Lines

This is if I have my Dicks chart right:

Brenda descends from John Crann twice because Albert George Dicks married Jane Eliza Crann. Jane Eliza also descends from John Crann through Henry William Crann.

Looking at Crann DNA

I have already looked at Crann DNA in the past. At the top of the page, there is a caterogry for Crann Blogs. In a previous Blog, I started with Chromosome 22 as many people matched there. Why not start with the most complicated?

From what I can tell the people in orange or gold are in a Crann TG. Heather, Wayne and Marjorie have no Newfoundland ancestors as they are from New Zealand. Here is how I have it:

The ones in orange have as their common ancestor Henry Crann born 1757 and her wife Elizabeth Collens. Ironically, I haven’t proven this relationship by genealogy. I did show somewhere that there was an Elizabeth Crann who could have married Christopher Dicks. Now Brenda and Richard are not in the TG. Richard is interesting as he is a Crann descendant with no known Dicks ancestry. It looks like the connection between Richard and Brenda would be on the wife of John Crann born 1791. One good thing about genetic genealogy is that very often there are only two choices. We have two of each chromosome, so if it is not one chromosome then it is the other. If Brenda and Richard had Crann DNA at this segment of Chromosome 22, it should have matched with the other Crann DNA. Another interesting point is that Richard matched with Esther from position 17-22M on Chromosome 22. This would technically be Crann DNA as Esther is in the Crann TG at that point. At position 22, Richard’s DNA switched from Crann DNA to John Crann’s wife Elizabeth’s DNA.

TG02 – On to Simpler Things

There is some irony in this TG. Karen was put into the Christopher Dicks Line by DNA and now she is put into the Crann Line by DNA. I won’t bother drawing this out. However, the presence of the people from New Zealand highlighted in green brings the common ancestors back to Netherbury, Dorset, England.

Crann TG04

This is one of those triangles with a very stable base. I suspect that Brenda’s actual path of DNA should be through her great-grandmother Jane Eliza Crann as she is a much closer relative than her third great-grandmother Jane Crann.

Crann TG08 – No Dicks Required

Richard is the only one on the left side of the chart with no Dicks ancestry:

Crann TG10

We generally want a relationship further away than a sibling for a TG. Heather is the one that isn’t a sibling and she makes this a TG:

Molly and Howie are in more than one Dicks Line. This segment of Chromosome 10 identifies which lineage this is.

Crann TG11 – Heather, Esther and Joan

Crann TG18 – Very Similar

Here Elaine fills in for her sister Joan. There is one difference. It appears that Ken, Richard and Barry are in a TG. This looks a lot like TG22:

So if we ever want to figure out who married John Crann born 1791, we may be able to find out through other people that match on these segments of Chromosomes 18 and 22 that didn’t match our New Zealand friends.

Next Painting Joan’s Chromosomes

I have been painting Joan’s chromosomes. Perhaps there is some more painting I could do here. I’m not sure if I should just paint the Dicks DNA or also the Crann. I’ll go for both. Here is where Joan matches Brenda:

However, there is a problem. I have a Crann Tree and a Dicks Tree. If these trees are right, then there may be more of a chance that Brenda would match Joan along Brenda’s two Crann Lines. I guess I’ll skip that for now. Joan’s matches with New Zealand seem more unambiguous, even though I haven’t proven the genealogy.

Here is where Joan and Heather match:

Here is what I have so far for Joan:

In the key, the part below the line is Joan’s maternal side. I have up to Christopher Dicks. I’ll add Crann and Collens with Heather’s matches to Joan:

On Chromosome 8, there is new DNA. On Chromosome 11, the DNA is overlapping with Fred Upshall.

That is not a problem. It is telling me that Joan matches her Upshall grandfather there, but her grandfather got at least that portion of his DNA from Crann or Collens on Chromosome 11.

Adding Anne

Anne is a good match to Joan:

Unfortunately, I left her out of the Crann analysis. Sorry, Anne. I’ll paint her in as Dicks/Crann:

I just included Joan’s maternal side above for clarity. This shows that Joan’s maternal side is 37% painted in.

Others in the Dicks/Crann Line:

Randy

I circled that part that was not overlapping with others. Actually Chromosomes 14 and 21 overlap with Fred Upshall’s DNA, but Chromosome 3 is totally new.

 

Edward

Karen

Karen is a special case as she was added based on her DNA match more than documented genealogy. She should also have Upshall and Dicks DNA. It looks like I hae already painted Karen to Joan’s DNA. Chromosome 9 is interesting. The fact that Edward matches there tells me that long segment is DNA from Catherine Dicks. That is because Edward matches on the Dicks side.

Wallace

Wallace is someone else, like Anne, that I forgot.

I think that Wallace is on MyHeritage, so that makes it difficult to compare with others that have uploaded to Gedmatch.

Painting in Christopher Dicks Born 1784 Married Margaret

I’ve got the matches. I might as well paint them onto my mother-in-law’s chromosomes. That will give me a new color.

The Adams, Burton and Joyce Lines

I’ll assume that a match with someone from the Adams Line will have as their common ancestors Christopher Dicks or his wife Margaret.

The first match in the Adams Line is with Sandra:

Sandra showed a new maternal segment on Chromosome 2 for Joan. One Chromosome 11, Sandra shows that the matches above her are from Dicks and not Crann.

Judy is the first that I mapped on Joan’s chromosomes from the Burton Line. Judy seems to have an affinity to Wallace:

The Other Wallace

Next I painted Wallace from Burton Line. I was glad I did because the DNAPainter showed that I had already painted in this Wallace under Upshall Dicks by mistake. There are two Wallace’s: one on the Dicks/Burton Line and one on Joan’s Upshall/Dicks Line. Judy’s affinity to Wallace should have been where Wallace was in Green, not blue.

I corrected my mistake and now have a Wallace L on the Dicks/Burton Line and Wallace C on the Upshall/Dicks Line.

Now that I corrected my mistake, Joan is up to 30% mapped overall and 41% mapped on her maternal side.

One Step Back on the Dicks Line

Then there is the father of Christopher Dicks. I think his name was Christopher Dicks also, but I’m not sure. One tree has him born 1748 and his wife as Susannah. Here he is on top of the Henry and Christopher Dicks Lines:

That means that if Joan matches people on the Henry Dicks Line, one probable set of common ancestors would be Christopher? Dicks born 1748 and Susannah. That added a little to the map:

 

Summary and Conclusions

  • First I looked at Brenda’s family tree. There are two places where Brenda could match my wife’s family on the Crann Line. There is one place on Brenda’s tree where they could match on the Dicks Line.
  • Next I looked at Triangulation Groups. There were a lot of Triangulation Groups found between the Dicks/Crann Line that Brenda is in and my wife’s family’s Christopher Dicks Line. Based on DNA, I suspect that Christopher Dicks born 1812 married Elizabeth Crann.
  • Next I looked at trees from a Crann perspective. The advantage of this was that there were Crann descendants in that group that did not have Dicks ancestry. Matches with them would be on the Crann side. The down side was that I did not look at other people outside those I suspected of having Crann ancestry. I also note that the common ancestors from Dorset, England also had a Collens name. I don’t know if this Collens is the same as the Collins from Newfoundland.
  • Finally I looked at DNA Painting for my mother-in-law Joan. By painting the matches it was also possible to separate some lines where the DNA could be from one common ancestor or the ancestor’s wife. I was also able to correct a previous DNAPainting error that I had made.
  • This exercise helped me to re-start the DIcks DNA Project and update it.
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Bob, a Harbour Buffet Descendant’s DNA Results

I haven’t written about the Dicks family for a while. Clayton told me recently that his cousin Bob had his DNA tested and uploaded to Gedmatch. I had written a Blog about Clayton  here in May, 2017. In that Blog, I found that Clayton did not have a lot of obvious matches to others in the Dicks Project that I was working on. His biggest match of people in that project was with my wife’s Aunt Esther:

Bob’s Genealogy [Note, I Show This to be Wrong Below ]

Here is what I get for Bob and Clayton’s tree:

It would be tempting to think that Clayton and Bob’s John is the same that I now have in the Dicks DNA Project:

At the time I wrote about Clayton, only Esther and Joan were in the Christopher (born 1812) LIne. Now this Line is quite large.

Looking at Bob’s DNA

I’ll run Bob’s DNA against all the people in the Christopher Dicks Line. That is, the line of Christopher born 1812 shown above. If Bob and Clayton are in the John Dicks Line b 1844, they will show as 1st cousins twice removed to Anne above.

More DNA Problems

I circled where the problem is:

Published matching results for 1st cousins, twice removed show that the match should be within these ranges:

Clayton and Bob match Anne at 10.1 and 24 cM. Normally, I could not say that someone is not related by not matching at DNA. However, in this case, I can say that Anne is not a 1st cousin, twice removed to Bob and Clayton.

What Are the Possibilities?

Now that we know Anne is not related to Bob and Clayton in the way that the genealogy was suggesting, what are the possibilities?

  1. Anne’s John Dicks and Bob’s John Dicks may have been two different people. However, Bob and Clayton don’t seem to match other Dicks Lines well by DNA.
  2. It is possible that Clayton and Bob carry the true Dicks Line and that William Dicks was adopted into the Dicks Line. However, this doesn’t seem possible due to the same reason that Clayton and Bob do not have good, consistent matches with other Dicks descendants.
  3. Charles Dicks born 1886 may have been adopted by John Dicks. This seems more likely than scenario #1 or #2. John’s wife may have been married previously and had a child. Many parents died in these days and others raised the children.

An Email to Clayton and Re-Grouping [This is Where the Mistake is Fixed]

I told Clayton my initial results and got some more information. It appears from his email that there was more than one John Dicks. That means that my assumption in #2 above was wrong. Here is what Clayton had to say:

from what I’ve collected is Me 1985-> Dad 1961-> Leslie Dicks 1930 -> Charles Dicks 1886 -> John Dicks 1857 -> David Dicks 1831 -> Chris Dicks 1812.  These records were from two Dicks relatives who had sent my dad their records sometime in the 90’s and he had kept around.   Both of them we’re connected through Henry Dicks 1775. Their info is a little muddy though as David seems to have died in a fishing accident only a few months after John was born so the records on him are basically non-existent.

Clayton sent a screenshot of his Ancestry Tree which was helpful. His understanding of his ancestry was something like this:

Clayton’s tree had his ancestor David (born 1831) as a brother of Catherine Dicks who married Henry Upshall. I added in other lines I’ve been working on. Green means that the person has tested their DNA and uploaded to gedmatch. Now rather than Bob and Clayton being 1st cousins once removed to Anne, they are second cousins three times removed. That is quite a difference. This may not be the right configuration, but it should be closer than what I had. Under this proposed tree, Clayton and Bob are also 2nd cousins three times removed to Esther.

Any Triangulation Groups for Clayton and Bob?

If Clayton and/or Bob are in any Triangulation Groups (TGs) that would give strong evidence to their place in the Dicks Line.

We Have Triangulation on Chromosome 5

This is what a Triangulation Group (TG) looks like. This one has Bob, Dorothy, Grace, Barry, Anne, and Nelson. The gold region indicates those that are in the TG. Actually, Edward, Molly, Howie and Diddie are in a different TG, so I added that also to my list.

In order to draw this TG, I put Bob and Clayton in the Christopher Dicks b 1812 Line:

 

Assuming the configuration is right, these six triangulate on Christopher Dicks born about 1774. Another point is that Bob, Barry and Anne triangulate on the Christopher Dicks born 1812.

TG10A

 

This TG has Clayton, Edward and Diddie in it. I haven’t introduced DIddie to a Blog yet, but she is Marilyn’s Aunt. Note that Diddie is on two Dicks Lines. I favor the Crann Line on the right as my theory is that Christopher, born 1812 married a Crann. However, the TG could be on either one of the lines.

TG10B

The spreadsheet version:

 

Ken is in two differnt Dicks Lines also.

Ken is in the Burton Line on the left and Crann Line on the right. Barry is in the Christopher Line. I mentioned my preference for the Crann line above.

TG18

There are others that almost make it into this TG but the matches must be under 7 cM. Forrest (again from the Crann Line) would also be in a TG with Anne and Randy.

Here is the Bob, Randy, Anne TG

It is difficult to explain why there could be two TGs in the same place. This may be due to intermarriage. The only other non-intermarriage explanation would be that there are maternal and paternal TGs.

Here is the mysterious TG with Forrest, Anne and Randy almost in the same spot as the one with Bob, Randy and Anne. I tried to get Bob to match with Forrest, but had no luck.

If I had to choose one TG over the other, I would choose the second as the match levels are higher. It is possible that Bob’s low matches on Chromosome 18 are false matches. That brings up an interesting point. On Chromosome 5, Bob’s matches are higher outside the Christopher DIcks (born 1812) than inside that group. This may just be the DNA messing with us. However, he does have a lot of matches with people within the Christopher group. They are just smaller matches. That brings up my two laws of genetic genealogy.

My Two Laws of Genetic Genealogy

  1. The DNA is messing with us. DNA has been around for a longer time than we have and wants to prove that it is smarter than we are. It knows that it has random qualities and uses that fact to throw us off track.
  2. The ancestors are messing with us. Our ancestors did things to throw us off track also. They overused the name Christopher, for example. They married very young or very old and had children at a very young or old age. They also decided to move to places where there were no records or where the churches burnt down with the records inside. Then they married cousins, and so on…

As you can see, both of those laws are in play in the case of Bob and Clayton.

TG Summary for Bob and Clayton

  • Bob had low-level matches with others in the Christopher (born 1812) Line, but had quite a few of these matches
  • I found two new TGs that Clayton was in and two new ones that Bob was in. Often at this stage of a DNA project, people will be joining existing TGs, but Bob and Clayton made new TGs.
  • When I looked at Clayton’s DNA previously, I didn’t find him in any TGs. However, since that time new people have been added to the Christopher (born 1812) group
  • Every TG that Bon and Clayton were in had at least one other person from the Christopher Group in it.
  • Clayton was in a TG with Diddie and a TG with Ken. Both Diddie and Ken descend from a Crann Line. However they also descend from two other Lines.
  • I had a few ideas how there could be overlapping TGs on Chromosome 18 that included two of the same people.

One Last Revision

I had some correspondence with Bob following the initial publication of this Blog. He felt that there was some good reasons to have his line under the Robert Dicks/Crann Line. I am not a specialist on Dicks genealogy. This is the line of my wife’s mother’s mother’s father’s mother. That is perhaps a bit obscure for me. I didn’t have a strong feeling from the DNA that the family had to be in the Christopher Dicks Line. I was noting connections to the Robert Dicks/Crann Line. I have also mentioned that I believe that Christopher Dicks married Elizabeth Crann, so there is also that connection.

 

Summary and Conclusions

  • I initially came to a bad conclusion based on a misunderstanding of Bob and Clayton’s family tree. DNA has to work together with genealogy for it to work right.
  • I tend to leave my mistakes in my Blogs as a warning to others (and myself)
  • Thanks to input from Clayton, I got the genealogy more in line
  • Clayton’s best shot at his genealogy put him and Bob further away from other Dicks cousins. This was more in accord with the DNA results I was seeing.
  • By running Bob and Clayton’s results against all the Dicks DNA Project, I found 4  new TGs that Bob and Clayton are in.
  • One of the TGs was confusing as it overlapped with another TG and had two of the same people in each TG
  • The TGs that Bob and Clayton were in always included someone else from the Christopher Dicks (born 1812) Line. That leads me to believe that Bob and Clayton are in the Christopher Dicks Line as proposed by Clayton’s genealogy.
  • I’m quite amazed at the growth of the DNA-tested Christopher Dicks Line in that past year
  • I mentioned the Crann connection briefly and would like to look at that more closely in the future. Perhaps in my upcoming Blog on Diddie.

 

 

 

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Aunt Esther’s Top DNA Match at MyHeritage: Wallace

Lately, I have been uploading DNA kits that I manage to MyHeritage. One of those kits was for my wife’s great Aunt Esther. Esther’s parents were both from Harbour Buffett, Newfoundland. I was surprised to see that her match, Wallace, had a grandparent with the Upshall surname.

Here is one of my favorites photos of Harbour Buffett. It looks quite tranquil.

A Little Upshall Genealogy

As genetic genealogy looks at how the DNA and the genealogy match up, I tend to draw simple trees with just the descendants in them that have tested their DNA. This is what I have before adding Wallace:

This tree is based on genealogy, conjecture and DNA. Karen and Ruby were added based on the DNA. Based on their DNA testing, we supposed that Frederick Nelson had a younger daughter named Jessie Kate. This still needs to be proved by genealogy. Also the Peter at the top has not been proven.

Here is Wallace’s paternal tree at MyHeritage:

Wallace’s paternal grandmother is listed as Elizabeth Upshall. That name sounded familiar. I had researched her before. Wallace had the marriage date and place for Elizabeth. The Cambridge, MA marriage record showed that Elizabeth’s parents were Henry and Kate. The marriage record’s stated birthplace for Elizabeth was a bit inaccurate –  St. John’s, Newfoundland. But close enough.

Here is how Wallace fits in on the Henry Upshall Line:

 

Wallace is Esther’s 1st cousin once removed. I also added Catherine Dicks to the top. She is important as I run a Dicks DNA Project. There are many Dicks descendants around that have had their DNA tested. About half of the DNA that Wallace and Esther share is Upshall and about half is Dicks. In addition, I have tied in the Crann family to the Dicks family by DNA. By comparing Wallace to other DNA testers, I should be able to further confirm this relationship. For example, at MyHeritage, Richard shows as a common DNA match between Wallace and Esther. I wrote a Blog about Richard’s connection to the Crann family here.

Looking at Wallace’s DNA

Here is how Wallace matches Esther looking at the MyHeritage Chromosome Browser:

In general, the larger matches indicate more recent ancestors. The smaller matches indicate more ancient ancestors. However, there are exceptions to that rule.

Wallace and DNA Triangulation

MyHeritage has a new feature that shows when people triangulate. Triangulation happens when three or more people match each other on same part of their DNA. I can check for triangulation for Esther, her two half nieces Joan and Elaine and Wallace as they are all at MyHeritage. When triangulation occurs, it is a strong indication of a common ancestor.

This is how Esther matches Joan in Red, Elaine in Orange and Wallace in Yellow:

The boxed areas at Chromosome 1 and 13 are the areas of triangulation. This feature works better when comparing only three people as there is more of a chance of triangulating.

Here is how Esther triangulates with Joan and Wallace:

This added triangulation Groups (TGs) on Chromosomes 3 and 9. Also the TG on Chromosome 13 is larger.

When I take out Joan and add Elaine, I get these TGs:

These TGs are more helpful for people when they are unsure if they have a certain ancestor. In this case, we already know that the common ancestors are Henry Upshall and Catherine Dicks. However, if Wallace uploads his DNA results to gedmatch.com, we will be able to test others there to see if they triangulate. This will be helpful both for those with Upshall ancestry and with Dicks ancestry (and perhaps other ancestries).

Summary and Conclusions

  • I’ve gone over some of the basic matches between Wallace, Esther and Esther’s two half nieces Joan and Elaine.
  • The DNA agrees with the paper trail that shows that Wallace and Esther both descend from Henry Upshall and Catherine Dicks of Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland
  • There may be more analysis that is possible at MyHeritage, but the best DNA analysis can be done if Wallace uploads his results to gedmatch.com. There, he would find matches with many Upshall and Dicks descendants – as well as many others.

 

 

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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.
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Edward and the Dicks Family Autosomal DNA

My last Blog was about Edward and his Newfoundland Dicks YDNA. In this Blog, I’ll look at the autosomal side of Edward’s DNA.

Edward’s Newfoundland Genealogy

Edward descends from Christopher Dicks who was believed to be from Harbour Buffett, born 1812:

This Christopher was believed to be the son of another Christopher who was born around 1784. The 1784 Christopher had many children and their ancestors have had their DNA tested. I have been trying to tie that DNA as best I can back to Christopher. This is somewhat complicated by intermarriages. My wife has also tested. She is the daughter of Joan. Esther is a half Aunt of Joan and has Dicks on her father and mother’s side. By this chart, Edward is Esther’s 2nd cousin, once removed, Joan’s third cousin and my wife Marie’s third cousin, once removed.

Edward’s Dicks DNA

Here is Edward’s match with Esther:

The estimated number of generations to their common ancestor is about what one would expect for a 1st cousin once removed. That could mean that Edward and Esther share ancestors outside of their Dicks ancestors shown above.

Here is Edward’s match with Joan:

Joan and Edward also share more DNA than expected. The 3.5 generations estimated to a common ancestor would usually indicate a 2nd cousin once removed. However, this is still within normal ranges. Also note that Joan shares some DNA with Edward that Esther does not. See Chromosome 6, for example.

My wife, as expected also got a little more DNA than average for a 3rd cousin once removed:

The DNA that Esther, Joan and Marie share with Edward should represent the DNA shared with Christopher Dicks b. 1812 and his wife Elizabeth. This is especially true for Joan and Marie. Remember I said that Esther has a Dicks ancestor on her maternal side, so this is a complicating factor.

The Autosomal Matrix for Dicks Descendants

I’ll do a multiple kit analysis at Gedmatch with 24 descendants of Christopher Dicks b. 1784. Then I put the results in a matrix:

I’m quite happy with the results as all the Christopher Dicks descendants scored well (inside the bold box). Everyone is well behaved. Hayley has slightly lower scores with Joan but that is expected as she is one generation removed from Edward, Barry and Joan. Edward has some notable matches outside the Christopher Line of around 100 cM with Molly and Ken that could be worth pursuing. I’m still a bit puzzled with the large match that Ken has with Esther.

Triangulating

Next I take all the specific segment matches between the 24 Dicks descendants and compare them to each other. Actually, I have done this already for 23 of the Dicks descendants, so I need to look to see what difference Edward makes in all these comparisons. Now we will be unlocking the secrets of Edward’s genetic past. The say something like that on the Finding Your Roots TV show that I watch.

Triangulation Group (TG) Chromosome 5

The first significant TG is see is at Chromosome 5. It looks like this in spreadsheet form:

Gedmatch repeats the matches, so each match shows up twice. Here we see that Esther, Edward and Joan all match each other.

It would be logical to assume that the common ancestors for this TG are Chritopher, born about 1812 and his wife Elizabeth. The theory is that the TG points to only one ancestor, so the DNA for this TG is only from Christopher or Elizabeth. So, what about Hayley? She is not in the TG. She shows as matching Pauline who is also not in the TG. That tells me that their match is coming from a different direction. Hayley does have Christopher and Elizabeth as ancestors, but Pauline does not. We would have to look for another common ancestor that these two have. Pauline is on the Dicks/Joyce Line.

Grace, Dorothy and Catherine are all from the Dicks/Adams line, so it could be likely that they are matching on that line only.

A nested TG on Chromosome 5

This next TG on Chromosome is a little more complicated:

In my previous work on Dicks DNA, I had noted the TG with Wallace, Judy, Katherine and Cathy. I also had Nelson in there, so I probably lowered some thresholds for that. This time, there is also a TG with Edward, Esther and Barry above, and Edward is added to the TG below. I interpret this as meaning that the top TG harks back to Christopher and Elizabeth and the second one is for the elder Christopher b. 1784 and his wife Margaret.

This should be an interesting visual:

The black TG is the first TG that is more recent (Christopher of the early 1800’s). The second TG goes back to the elder Christopher (from the late 1700’s) and wife in red. Edward is in both TGs. My strong guess is that the red TG is truly a TG for Christopher and Margaret. This is because the DNA is coming from four of the children. It is possible, but not likely that each of these four lines has a common ancestor with a surname other than Dicks.

Why is Edward in two TGs and Barry and Esther only in one. I can only guess. My guess is that Edward inherited DNA from Christopher b. 1784 and Margaret. Perhaps Esther and Barry inherited DNA from only Christopher or Margaret. Any more guesses would make my brain hurt too much, so I’ll stop there.

TG Chromosome 6

There is a similar situation on Chromosome 6.

At the top, there is Grace, Sandra and Dorothy. They are from the Elizabeth Dicks/Thomas Adams Line. Katherine, also a part of that line, pops in below. Wallace, Judy, Molly and Howie are in the Rachel Dicks/James Joyce Line.  So picture these Dicks line outside of the highlighted TGs.  The highlighted TG could be one TG where Cathy opts out and decides to start matching Cheryl. Edward opts into the TG not far from where Cathy opts out. The other way to look at it would be like the previous TG. Barry, Edward and Hayley all have Christopher b. 1812 and his wife as ancestors.

Well, that’s pretty ugly. In this situation, I’m not sure if Cathy, Barry, and Hayley might not have another common ancestor. My best guess right now is that I have the ancestors right.

another brain twister on chromosome 6

 

Here Edward is in the middle of two new TGs. Edward matches Esther and Pauline in one TG and Joan and Ken in the other. Here are the two TGs in a Chromosome Browser from Edward’s point of view:

  1. Esther
  2. Pauline
  3. Joan
  4. Ken

We know that neither of these TGs have Christopher b. 1812 and his wife in them. That is because, as far as we know, Pauline and Ken do not have these two as ancestors.

I have shown in the past from DNA that Esther and Joan have Crann in their ancestry. One place where Crann may have come in could be that the Margaret that married the Christopher in the top red circle was a Crann. That would make the red TG a Crann TG and the yellow one a Dicks TG. Again, it is a bit of wild speculation, but it does help explain why Ken has such large matches with other Dicks. He is likely related on many lines.  Note above that he descends from a Dicks/Crann Line.

Cathy and TG7

Cathy was in a TG above with Barry and Haley on Chromosome 6. Here she is in a TG with Edward and Esther:

This makes me wonder what Cathy has in common with Edward, Esther, Barry and Haley. I see by her family tree that she had Harbour Buffett ancestors.

One or two new TGs Chromosome 9

This was a little difficult to see, so I hid some of the duplicate matches:

Aah, the mysteries of DNA. There is one good thing about my mother in law being in TGs. She is a half niece to her Aunt Esther, so that cuts down on some of the possible lines. Below is Esther’s family tree. Joan is only related on Esther’s paternal side which includes those ancestors within the red box.

The bad news is that there are a ton of gaps in the tree. The only two surnames I have for sure are Upshall and Dicks. Plus it is difficult to be sure about the two oldest Dicks families on the tree. The point is that the TGs on Chromosome 9 have to be on the top part of the tree highlighted in red.

TG10

Esther and Edward have at least one ancestor in common with Ken who is from the Dicks/Crann Line:

TG11 Christopher b. 1812

 

TG13 – Dorothy from the Adams Line

 

I must be near the end.

TG14 – back to home base and Christopher

 

This is all solidifying that Joan, Edward and Esther have the same relatively recent common ancestors.

TG18 on the Adams Line with Grace and Nelson

TG19 – With Wallace and Judy on the Joyce Line

 

Those are all the TGs. Now I just need to summarize them.

TG Matrix

The matrix is getting big, so I will have to show it in two screen shots. I hid a few of the people. One person, I don’t see in Gedmatch anymore. Sandi was in only one TG and Forrest was in none. I hid Clayton as he is unsure of his Dicks ancestry.

Assuming that all these TGs represent Dicks, we should be amassing quite a bit of information on the various Dicks Lines and for their parents Christopher Dicks and his wife Margaret. In fact, I show at least one triangulated segment for each chromosome.

Filtered TG matrices

Here I filtered just by Edward’s TGs:

Esther:

Joan:

Finally, the Matrix filtered for Ken’s TGs:

This further shows Ken’s affinity to the Christopher Line by TGs.

I’ve gone on way too long, so it’s time to quit.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Edward has contributed a substantial amount of information to the Newfoundland Dicks DNA Project
  • Edward is clearly in the same group as Esther, Joan, Barry and Hayley and has formed many new TGs
  • The arrival of DNA results recently for Edward, Barry and Hayley has more than doubled what was available for the Christopher DIcks b. 1812 descendants.
  • Ken continues to play an interesting part in his matches and TGs
  • Filtering the TG Matrix showed some promise. It appears that Ken is more closely related to Joan than to Edward based on filtering.  However, Ken showed up most in Edward’s TGs other than TGs Edward had within the Christopher Line.