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). 

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.

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.

 

 

 

Adding 300 Years of Upshalls by DNA and Genealogy

In my last sprawling Blog, I wrote an Upshall update and had a breakthrough as to the English origins of the Upshalls. In this Blog, I’d like to summarize some areas and expand on some areas of that Blog.

The Key to the Breakthrough: Peter, Sarah, and John Upshall

Martha is an Upshall relative by DNA and genealogy. I have been in touch with her by various avenues. She has suggested a father for Henry Upshall. His name is Peter. She also suggested a mother of Peter named Sarah and a father of Sarah named John.

In the Hazelbury Bryan, Dorset Parish Registers Peter was ‘base-born’ to Sarah in 1800:

Base-born is such a heavy term. It seems like it could be used in some 1800’s English novel. The story seemed to go that Peter, being base-born, likely had no inheritance or much of a future in Hazelbury Bryan, so sought his fortune in Newfoundland. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But how could this theory be verified?

Confirming Henry Upshall’s (born about 1841) Ancestry by DNA

First I looked at my wife’s Aunt Elaine’s DNA matches at Ancestry. I used her matches because she has fewer Newfoundland matches than my wife’s great Aunt Esther. That narrows down the matches to Esther’s Upshall and Dicks ancestry. I checked for Elaine’s Upshall DNA matches.

Things got interesting when I started looking at Elaine’s more distant Upshall DNA matches at Ancestry. One was with Allen. Allen descended from Bethia Upshall who was the grandson of John Upshall born in 1739. Assuming that was the same John that Martha had as Sarah Upshall’s dad, I drew this tree:

From what I can tell, Allen lives in England and has no Dicks relatives. Next, I found Barry from New Zealand. Barry also has the same John Upshall in his tree and is also a DNA match to Elaine.

However, another important thing about Barry from New Zealand’s tree: it shows Sarah Upshall and Allen’s George Upshall as siblings.

 

Here I have circled Ann, Sarah and George Upshall. I also circled their father John. I note that Aunt Esther also matches Allen and Barry by DNA. That means that the person in common by DNA and genealogy with Allen, Barry, Elaine and Esther is John Upshall born 1739. Descendants of these three children apparently ended up in England, New Zealand and Newfoundland. However, the DNA and genealogy ties them back together to Hazelbury Bryan, Dorset, England.

A Ninth Upshall Great-Grandfather for Esther

Previously, Esther had her grandfather Henry Upshall documented and no Upshall before that. Now, thanks to work done by Allen and Barry, she has Upshalls going back to the 1500’s:

The first Upshall in the line is William Upshall born in 1543 – about 300 years before Henry Upshall of Newfoundland. William also lived in Hazelbury Bryan (spelled Haslebury at the time).

300 Years of Upshalls in Hazelbury Bryan

What do we know about Hazelbury Bryan, Dorset? Here is the Church:

I imagine that this is where the Upshalls were born, got married and were buried. Here is some more information from the internet:

Hazelbury Bryan is situated in the Blackmore Vale five miles south west of Sturminster Newton. The Parish was formerly in the hundred of Pimperne and has an area of 2359 acres. Today the village has a population of 800 (2001) slightly more than the 761 recorded in the 1861 census. The village consists of seven hamlets, namely DroopKingstonParkgatePidneyPleckWonston and Woodrow.

In 1201 the village name was spelled Hasebere. The name is derived from the Old English hæsel bearu, meaning a hazel grove or wood, plus the manorial name of the Bryene or de Bryan family; Sir Guy de Bryan, of Woodsford Castle, gave his surname to the village in the 14th century when he married the daughter of the First Earl of Salisbury.

The original settlement in the village is the hamlet of Droop, which is the location of the parish church. The 14th century church dedicated to St Mary and St James is a handsome edifice with a fine square tower. The north aisle is considered a good specimen of the Perpendicular style. Beside the church are dwellings some 400 years old. Miss Violet Cross from the Manor House, a benefactor of the church, gave these dwellings to provide homes for widows and daughters of the clergy.

The parish was also home to a Primitive Methodist Chapel built in 1863 which remains in use to this day, part of the North Dorset Circuit.

That gives some general information. Hazelbury Bryan is old and small is the message I am getting. I suppose that makes it a good place for tracking Upshalls. Here is the 1841 Census with what appears to be Sarah’s brother Benjamin Upshall:

He is living in the Hamlet of Droop. He appears to be an agricultural laborer. The person above Benjamin was listed as a Farmer. I suppose that meant that Benjamin worked on someone elses’ farm. Living with Benjamin was Elizabeth Upshall. She could have been Benjamin’s wife or George’s widow Elizabeth Whiller Upshall or some other relative.

Here is a Droop Farm Cottage for rent. Perfect for Upshall descendants looking to visit their roots:

Summary and Conclusions

  • DNA matches compared with associated trees has pushed the knowledge of my wife’s Upshall line back about 300 years.
  • Base-born Peter Upshall appears to be the first in my wife’s line of Upshalls to travel to Newfoundland.
  • Before relocating to Newfoundland, Peter’s ancestors lived in Hazebury Bryan as long as the Parish records have existed.
  • Tracing ancestors from Newfoundland back to England can be nearly impossible due to the lack of records in Newfoundland. However, the use of DNA matching paired with good on-line Upshall records from Hazelbury Bryan has resulted in a breakthrough in Upshall genealogy.

2018 Upshall Update – English Roots Discovered

 

Upshall is my wife’s mother’s mother’s side. Even more specifically, her mother’s mother’s father’s side. Upshall represents my wife Marie’s Newfoundland heritage.

The Genealogy: It’s Complicated

It’s complicated as Aunt Esther’s ancestry is from Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland. There were only so many families to marry into there. However, in some ways it is simple as we cannot right now go back too many generations:

Above is the tree for Fred Upshall. He is Marie’s great-grandfather, my mother in law’s grandfather and Marie’s 1/2 great Aunt Esther’s father. I can only go back one generation from Fred to Henry born 1841 likely in Harbour Buffet, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. The records are not that good for Harbour Buffet.

Who Was the Father of Henry Upshall?

One guess is Peter Upshall born in December, 1800:

His mother was Sarah Upshall and he was baptized on the 21st at the Parish of Hazelbury Bryan. I suppose the story could be that Peter, not having a good future in England, set off to Newfoundland. Here is Hazelbury Bryan and its proximity to Bournemouth:

Here is something I wrote on the Upshalls years ago:

“Some of the earlier written information about Newfoundland comes from Edward Wix, an Anglican Missionary. On Thursday, March 5, 1835 in his journal, he mentions both Harbour Buffet (Beaufit) and Upshall (Upshore):

Was up before day-light, and after full service, administered the holy communion to this respectable old planter, who had for many years been desiring such an opportunity. A snow-storm prevented my proceeding to-day to Harbour Beaufit, upon Long Island, where I was very anxious to visit a family whom I had known at Petty Harbour, near St. John’s. I did not allow it, however, to prevent my walking by Red Cove and Back Cove to Famish Gut, which I reached by ten, A.M., and assembled nine adults, besides children, at the winter house of Thomas Upshore, where I held full service, and baptized two children. It was providential that a man, who lived some two miles from his summer house, in the interior, in a spot which it would have been most difficult, nay, quite impracticable, to have found, in the untracked snow, which was falling fast at the time, should have come out for some family supplies to his summer house, just as I reached the harbour. He was delighted at the encounter, and was rejoiced at the opportunity of introducing to the little settlement a minister of his church. By one, P.M., as the weather cleared up, I left this place, and took the ice upon a level lead of ponds, expecting to find my way to the adjoining settlement of Pinch Gut.

In the Anglican records we find that Sarah, daughter of Peter and Margaret Upshore was baptized on March 5, 1835 at Famish Gut, Placentia Bay. Interestingly the same day and at the same place, Joseph Shave was baptized. The following year we find that Elizabeth daughter of Peter and Margaret Upshall was baptized at Famish Gut on September 7, 1836. This Peter Upshall is likely an ancestor or related to Henry Upshall. Famish Gut is probably the current day Fair Haven.”

I suppose that one could say that this Peter named his daughter after his mother. However, that does introduce now a Thomas Upshall. The next record I have is from 1855:

Here we have a sort of census of Harbour Buffet. I no longer see a Thomas Upshall. Perhaps he went back to England or died. Perhaps Mrs. Upshall was Thomas’ wife. There are now 8 Upshalls. My assumption is that the listing is by age. If Peter was the only one having kids, then I could assume that George, Christopher, Henry, Eligh(?), Jane and Joseph were all his children. If Thomas had children also, then that confuses things. Further, if we assume that our Henry was born in 1841, then he would have only been 14 in 1855. Perhaps he was older. The records for the Upshalls give their donations to the Church in quintals of fish. I don’t know if there was a standard age at which donations would be given. Also, considering that most of the names are males, it is curious that there is a Mrs. Upshall and a Jane listed. I might assume that these were heads of households(?)

I note that one tree at Ancestry has a George and Sarah as Henry’s parents:

This tree has this further reference about George:

However, that George appeared to have a son that was living at Sturminster-Newtown in 1861:

For this reason, I would rule out this George.

That leaves the following options for the father of Henry Upshall:

  • Thomas Upshall mentioned in the Wix journal. However, I am not aware of the name Thomas being passed down in the Upshall family.
  • Peter appears to be a good choice. There was a Peter in the Harbour Buffet area in 1835 and 1836. The name Peter carries down
  • To be named later – This would be an unknown Upshall. One source even mentions that the original name of Upshall was Baker and that they changed their name. However, I am not so sure of this. Why would a person change their name and why from Baker to Upshall?

Children of Henry Upshall and Catherine Dicks

I have this list of children at my web site:

Based on DNA, I have added Jessie Kate:

This is a DNA tree of Upshalls, so it only includes DNA-tested people in it that are known to descend from Henry Upshall based on genealogy or appear to descend from Henry Upshall based on the DNA. Karen and Ruby were in the latter group. Unfortunately, Jessie’s marriage record did not give her parents’ names and the birth registrations started around 1891 after she was born. That means that I have 4 children of Henry Upshall on my web site plus Jessie.

Other Ancestry Trees

Some trees have a lot more in them than I do. Here is one that has quite a few:

 

Note that they have Henry passing away in 1891 and Walter being born in 1893, so something is wrong. Assuming I have the right Henry dieing in 1891, that must mean that there is another Henry and Kate.

Perhaps that Walter born 1893 was from the Little Harbour East Upshalls. Quite a few were there in 1921:

That also makes me question the Peter that I have being born at Flat Island in 1885.  Here is a portion of Peter L. Upshall’s death record:

So it appears that if this other Henry Upshall from Little Harbour East didn’t marry a Catherine Dicks, then I’m all set.

A Few Recent Facebook Posts

Here is one post by Martha:

more Upshall mystery: Peter Upshall born 1892/1893 in Little Harbour East (died 1968) married Alice Upshall born 1894 or 1897 in Chants Cove (died 1992) to George Upshall and Bridget Peddle. their children include Thomas, Nelson, George, Blanche, Lizzie, Joseph, Douglas, Ralph, & Gerald. does anyone know who Peter’s parents or siblings were and also who George’s parents were? Peter’s parents may have been Henry Upshall (b.1863) and Elizabeth Smith. 
Thanks.

I don’t have a good answer for Martha, but it answers my question of who the other Elizabeth was from Little Harbour East.

Here is a death record from the New Anglican Little Harbour East Cemetery:

 

Here is the post that got me going on this Blog. This one is also from Martha. I wrote a Blog on Martha here.

Have stumbled on yet another Upshall….. Elizabeth born 1837 to George Upshall and Elizabeth Dicks. Married John W Evans. at least one daughter, Fannie Belle who died in Gloucester, Massachusetts (husband Douglas McLean)

Elizabeth died in Gloucester, too, in 1908 and her parents’ names come from her MA death certificate. am guessing her father / mother would have been born about 1810-1820? her death cert also says father was born in England.

do these Upshalls tie into anyone’s research?
thanks

Gloucester rang a bell with me as my wife’s great-grandfather spent some time there:

But back to Martha. She mentioned a George Upshall. I have this reference:

This mentions a George Upshall settling in Buffett in 1856. Here is the death record that Martha mentioned:

A tree that has Elizabeth in it has a Chelsea, MA marriage record for the second marriage of Elizabeth’s daughter Fanny Tucker. Fanny was 24 in 1890 and said to be born in Fortune Bay, NL. So that would be about 1866.

Back to George Upshall. Assuming that he was born in England, there are a few choices:

Sturminster-Newton is nearer to where Peter may have been from:

Poole is near Bournemouth.

Upshall DNA

The simplest way to check for Upshall DNA is through AncestryDNA. First, I’ll check by my wife’s Aunt Elaine. That is because she has less Newfoundland DNA to confuse things with. Her main two known Newfoundland names are Upshall and Dicks. Elaine’s first two matches by DNA are Aunt Esther and Karen. I mentioned Karen above. I connected her to Henry Upshall through his likely daughter Jessie Kate.

Barbara>George>Peter

Here is Elaine’s third Upshall DNA match. Ancestry thinks Barbara and Elaine could be 4th cousins by DNA. Here is Barbara’s paternal side:

Barbara’s maternal side is also from Newfoundland: Scott and Hodder, but we’ll go with her paternal side as being the likely side where the match is.  Unfortunately, a 4th cousin means the common ancestor is at rhe third great-grandfather level. Peter is Barbara’s grandfather. That means we could be as many as three generations away from a common ancestor. This also gets to Martha’s first Facebook post. I see Martha must have also matched Barbara.

Elaine and M.B. (Administered by Martha)

Here is Martha’s pretty good guess for a common ancestor: Base-born Peter, base born in 1800:

 

That would make Elaine and M.B. third cousins. That is pretty close to where AncestryDNA has them at 4th cousins. However, Martha has uploaded M.B. to Gedmatch. At Gedmatch, M.B. shows a common ancestor with Elaine at 3.9 generations. M.B. shows a common ancestor with Elaine’s sister Joan at 4.1 generations. That averages out to 4.0 generations which would be equivalent to a third cousin. That is the same as shown above. That tells me by the DNA that Peter Upshall is a good guess for a common ancestor. That further tells me that Jane Upshall is probably the sister of Henry Upshall. If Peter is not their father, then whoever is would also be a good candidate for Joan, Elaine and M.B.’s common ancestor. If Barbara would upload her DNA to Gedmatch, it may become more apparent whether she is related on the Upshall Line or not. When I check M.B. and Elaine’s shared matches Barbara does come up, so there must be some common ancestor somewhere.

Elaine and Son of Jacob Neil Upshall, b. 17 Sep 1923, Harbour Buffett

Martha posted on Jacob already, so I’m one step behind her. Here is my guess from the 1935 Harbour Buffet Census:

Next to this family:

This couple looks old enough to be the parents of Edward. I am reminded that Aunt Esther’s father was Frederick Nelson Upshall. Frederick was born perhaps 8 years after this Nelson.

Here is the 1921 Tickles Census:

Nelson is in this Census also but appears not to be living very close by. Here there is an elder Thomas born 1851 and a Peter Upshall born 1854. I guess it would take a while to sort out all these Upshalls.

Here Edward is marrying Martha Temple.

 

John is the witness (his brother?). A guess could be that Peter was the father of John and Edward. This marriage took place after the marriage of Peter and Alice Upshall mentioned earlier in the Blog.

Elaine’s Match with Pat

Pat is Elaine’s Last 4th Cousin by DNA match. Here is where it is helpful to look at Elaine and not Esther as Esther has Shave ancestry. Here is Pat’s paternal side tree:

Pat’s great-grandmother was Margaret Upshall (Sep 1857-15Jul 1924). This time I’m going to cheat a little and sneak a peak at Martha’s tree. Martha has Margaret as daughter of George and she has George as daughter of Peter the base-born.

I’m going to stick Martha’s tree for Pat onto my DNA tree like this:

This is quite small, but I have a Peter up there also. I wonder if this is the same Peter that was in the 1921 Census, born 1854. That would be interesting. That would mean that Margaret wife of the base-born would be 44 when the younger Peter was born. Under this scenario, Elaine would be third cousin once removed to Pat on the lower left. Another possibility is that there is another Upshall between the two Peters.

 

I just moved Peter, Jr. to the right side in case the Peter of the 1921 Census was the son of the Peter at the top. I also color-coded the people that had their DNA tested:

  • Green – people are uploaded to Gedmatch
  • Pat – in AncestryDNA
  • Wallace – at MyHeritage

Elaine’s Distant Cousin Matches at AncestryDNA

Allen from Bethia Upshall

Here are some of the names in Allen’s Ancestry Tree:

The names and places look like they could work. Here is some more from Allen’s tree:

I note that Martha has Sarah, the mother of Peter Upshall, having a father named John. Martha has Sarah born in 1774 in Hazelbury Bryan. That could mean that Allen’s John Upshall III could be the same as the one that Martha has. Here is a possible scenario:


That would make Elaine and Allen 5th cousins, twice removed. From what I can tell of Allen’s tree, Allen probably lives in England.

Elaine’s AncestryDNA Match with Barry from New Zealand

Here is part of Barry’s tree:

I even note that Barry’s tree appears to have the Sarah that Martha and I had that gave birth to the Peter that we believe is an early Newfoundland Upshall.

The John in Barry’s tree sounds familiar, so let’s add him to the tree I made:

It looks like my theory is working out – also Martha’s. This makes Barry and Elaine 5th cousins. Esther also shows as a DNA match with Allen and Barry, but she shows a closer match with Barry which would make sense.

Charles from Peter and Sarah

Now we are back to Newfoundland with Charles. Charles is Elaine’s last DNA match when I search for the Upshall name. I notice some Newfoundland names like Burton, Kirby and Pike. Charles has his line coming down from Peter b. 1800.

One interesting thing about this tree is that it takes the Dicks family out of the equation. Henry Upshall married Catherine Dicks. The Dicks family is large in Newfoundland from what I can tell. So the Dicks family could cause some interference as far as interpretation of the DNA.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It looks like I have found out where in England the Newfoundland Upshalls came from – at least my wife’s branch.
  • The Upshalls appear to have come from a Sarah Upshall from the Parish of Hazelbury Bryan, Dorset, England
  • Sarah in turn was the daughter of a John Upshall III, who would have been the son and grandson of a John Upshall if Allen’s tree is right.
  • This discovery used the AncestryDNA matches and good trees that those matches had. The combination of those two resources work well together.
  • This discovery is quite a breakthrough. Given the lack of records in Newfoundland, I am not sure that this breakthrough would have been possible had it not been through the use of DNA matching.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

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.

Mandy’s Upshall Connection

I had a response as a follow-up on a Blog I wrote about Martha and her family. Martha mentioned Mandy who also descended from her great great grandmother Jane Upshall . Mandy is on AncestryDNA, Gedmatch and has an Ancestry Tree. That is a combination for making things easy for me to look at.

Mandy’s Third Great Grandmother – Jane Upshall

This is what I find from Mandy’s paternal grandfather’s line:

That means that Mandy is one generation further away from the Upshall connection than Martha. Here is how the connection looks from the Upshall standpoint:

Hey, how did my Garmin get in there? By this, Mandy would be 2nd cousin three times removed to Esther. But I need to go through Joan and Elaine, because Mandy is also related in other ways to Esther. This relation is by the Kirby and Emberley Lines (and possibly others). Joan and Elaine are not descended from Esther’s maternal side, so that will eliminate as far as possible the non-Upshall DNA matches.

Mandy’s DNA

It turns out that Elaine is not on Mandy’s match list. However, Mandy does match Joan, Martha’s Aunt and my wife in that order on Chromosome 17.

 

That’s interesting becuase Joan and my wife got some Upshall DNA that Elaine and her 1/2 Aunt Esther did not. M.B., Mandy and Joan form a Triangulation Group. Here is how the Triangulation Group (TG) looks like:

Here Mandy is 1st cousin twice removed to M.B. and 3rd cousin twice removed to Joan. I don’t show my wife, Marie. They would be 4th cousins once removed. In order to be sure this is a TG, I had to make sure that Joan and M.B. match by DNA. They do.

As I mentioned, Mandy and Joan are 3rd cousins twice removed. That would be equivalent to 4th cousins. They have better than 50% chance of matching. That would explain why Mandy and Elaine didn’t match. Another reason could be the Upshall Chart I have above. I don’t really know if it’s right. It’s a trial chart. And even if it was right, we don’t know Peter’s wife – or if he had the same wife for both potential children of Peter Upshall.

Upshall TG Summary

Based on three Blogs, here is a summary of the TGs I have found so far that appear to hark back to an Upshall ancestor:

Due to Mandy being further out as a relative, she gets only one TG. Bob is in there due to a previous Blog I wrote. His results were inconclusive.

Mapping Chromosome 17

If I want to use this information, I could try to visually map Elaine and Joan’s DNA on Chromossome 17. Here is the chromosome browser showing how Joan and Elaine match each other.

It turns out that the crossovers were a little difficult to figure out. I wasn’t sure if there were crossovers at 13.3 and 13.8M or not. A crossover is where you have DNA on your chromosome from one of your grandparents and it crosses over to another grandparent, Mandy and M.B.’s Upshall  match is on the right of the Chromosome where I have a large segment shown:

Next, I look for more places where Esther matches Elaine and Joan:

There are two long matches. This shows that Joan has a maternal crossover at 30M and Elaine has a maternal crossover at 39M.

A Paternal Match is Needed: Melissa

Melissa is the best paternal match for Joan and Elaine. She matches Elaine and Joan with a common Ellis ancestor:

Melissa’s match translates to these blue Ellis segments for Joan and Elaine:

This tells me a few things:

  • The two crossovers at 13 can be eliminated. The only place to put them in now would be on Joan’s maternal side and that is too small a segment in the middle of a Chromosome.
  • Joan’s Ellis blue will go to the right as she already has a maternal crossover at 30.
  • The same applies for Elaine

Elaine has a maternal crossover already at 38, so that means that the blue Ellis can continue to the right:

Now it looks like I’m stuck going to the left of the Chromosome. But I’m not really. Logic dictates that Joan and Elaine’s Ellis DNA segments will continue to the left. How do I know that? The segment between 2 and 10 is FIR (Fully Identical Region). That means that Joan and Elaine must share the DNA from all 4 grandparents in the HIR (green) region. If I change one of the blues going left, that would make the area a non-identical region or a no-match area. So the crossover must be a maternal one. Joan has to switch to Upshall or Elaine has to switch to Daley.

I’m happy enough to leave Chromosome 17 as is for Joan and Elaine. This would be a good one to check for Ellis descendant DNA matches.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Mandy had one good Upshall certified match with Joan
  • Mandy has other matches with Esther, but they are likely on her maternal side where they share Kirby and Emberley ancestors.
  • Elaine and Esther did not have the same Upshall DNA match with Mandy. That gets to the importance of testing multiple people.
  • Elaine and Joan’s DNA results were important in filtering out the non-Upshall DNA matches that Mandy has with Esther.
  • For fun, I mapped most of Elaine and Joan’s Chromosome 17 to see where they got their DNA from. I did this using a method called visual phasing. To do this between two siblings, it is important to have good matches on the maternal and paternal side.

 

My First Try at Two Sibling Visual Phasing

I recently had my wife’s Aunt Elaine’s DNA tested. She is the only sibling of my mother in law Joan. I would like to try to visually phase these two. Fortunately, they have have a half Aunt Esther. She is related on only one of their grandparent’s sides. That side is Upshall from Newfoundland. I am hoping that Esther’s DNA results will be helpful in visually phasing.

Aunt Esther’s Upshall DNA

Here is how Elaine matches Aunt Esther:

Here is how my mother in law Joan matches Esther:

It looks like Esther will be a big help in identifying Elaine and Joan’s maternal grandfather side.

Chromosome 1

I’ll just jump in and try Chromosome 1. That is the big one.

Already I have a bit of a problem. There is some green within the second HIR or Half Idendical Region (yellow area). I am ignoring it for now. This graphic shows that Joan and Elaine have no FIRs on Chromosome 1.

Next I add Esther’s DNA to the mix:

This is interesting. I see two maternal crossovers for Joan. Joan’s maternal grandparents are Upshall and Daley. Esther represents Upshall. So at 17.4M, Joan must go from Upshall to Daley. I say this because Elaine continues to match Esther (Upshall) after 17. 4M. The same thing happens at marker 117.6. Now look at Esther. She must have a maternal crossover between 70 and 117.6M.

Actually, it looks like I made a mistake. My first comparison of Joan and Elaine is the same as Esther and Joan, so I must have done it wrong. I’ll make sure I have Joan and Elaine this time and lower the levels to 3 cM and 300 SNPs. Now my results look more reasonable.

That looks a lot better. Forget my comment about there being no HIRs. There are at least five green HIRs between Elaine and Joan. Things didn’t line up perfectly, but I tried to fudge them in. Upshall is shown in orange which corresponds to the matches with Aunt Esther. Next, I add in some more Maternal segments for Elaine and Joan:

Again, the orange pretty much mimics the matches that Joan and Elaine have with Esther. The difference is with Elaine’s last orange segment. That goes more to the left as I don’t show a crossover there. There should also be a maternal crossover for Elaine to the left of her second orange segment. That means that to the left of that middle orange segment, there should be some green Daley.

The Paternal Part of the Puzzle

It would help to have some paternal matches at this point. Melissa is one match that I have mentioned in at least one previous Blog.

I like Melissa’s matches, because she doesn’t show any obvious Rayner in her ancestry. A Rayner would mess things up as that is Elaine and Joan’s maternal grandmother’s name. Jane would also be a good choice here.

Melissa adds some information. She represents the Ellis side. She matches Joan, but not Elaine. As Melissa does not match Elaine in this location, I have put down the paternal grandmother Daley in Elaine’s segment below Joan’s Ellis segment:

[Edit: the reddish paternal segment on Elaine’s bar should actually be Rayner.]

Now I have a little bit of paternal informatiion, but I appear to be at an impasse. Next, I will look at Joan’s Excel spreadsheet of matches. I see a Hayley there that matches through the Dicks Line. Dicks is a mother of Upshall, so that counts as an Upshall for my purposes.  Here is Joan’s match with Hayley:

This does not help as Esther already matches in this area. However, it does point out that I missed a crossover at the beginning of the Chromosome where the FIR (green) between Elaine and Joan goes to HIR (yellow).

I’ll take a break for now and move on to another Chromosome.

Mapping the X

I mentioned that Chromosome 1 was the largest Chromosome. The X Chromosome is fairly large also. There are some advantages to mapping the X Chromosome. One advantage is that Elaine and Joan’s paternal X is already mapped to their father’s mother (Daley).

See, I already mapped both of their paternal side X Chromosome. Joan and Elaine both get the same X Chromosome from their dad. This is the same one he got from his mom (Elizabeth Daley). Here is the genealogy:

See, that is why I check. Joan and Elaine’s dad was an Ellis and his mom was a Rayner, so I got that backward.

That leaves Upshall and Daley for the maternal side. I mapped three maternal crossovers, but there may be more that I don’t see.

Again, Esther will represent Upshall and not Daley. That is because Elizabeth died in the flu epidemic. Fred Upshall remarried a Shave and had Esther.

When I check Esther’s X against Elaine’s, I get no match. Joan and Esther, however, do match:

In fact, Joan’s matches with Esther line up with the crossovers I have. That is good news. Here I also changed the color of Rayner to be consistent with Chromosome 1.

 

I’m pretty sure the end result should look like this:

Back to Chromosome 1

In the Dicks DNA Project I have been working on, I have a Triangulation Group Summary. The mother of Fred Upshall was a Dicks, so Dicks helps to identify Upshall DNA.  Here is a partial shot of that Summary for Chromosome 1:

I have not added Elaine to the Summary yet. This shows that Cheryl, Charles, Joan and Elaine match on Chromosome 1. Here is how Cheryl matches Esther, Elaine and Joan:

Adding Cheryl and Position Numbers

I got the numbers on the top of the Joan/Elaine comparison from Gedmatch’s full resolution option on their chromosome browser. A few observations:

  • Cheryl’s matches confirm Elaine’s crossover at 94 and Joan’s at 118M
  • Cherlys’s match with Joan also indicates a likely Paternal crossover for Joan at 70M
  • Elaine and Esther match to 158M. That means that Elaine likely does not have a crossover at 152
  • Due to the centromere of Chromosome 1, the two browsers align very poorly around 152M. Note on the original comparison between Joan and Elaine how quickly the numbers go from 118 to 152M.
  • As mentioned above, Elaine’s Upshall segment should go past 152, but then there is a FIR. That means that Joan will have an Upshall segment above Elaine’s. That means that her Daley segment will look tiny, but it will actually go from 118 to 152M which is not so small.

Based on my above observations, I have this new map:

I gave Joan a paternal crossover at 70.5M. I also gave her a paternal crossover at 152M. This leads to another observation. The area between 60.5 and 70.5M is a FIR. That means that for Joan and Elaine, their paternal grandparent and maternal grandparent have to match. That means that at 60.5M, Joan’s Ellis DNA has to turn into Rayner DNA or Elaine’s Rayner DNA has to turn into Ellis DNA. Either way, there will be a Paternal Crossover for either Elaine or Joan at 60.5M. That means that there is not a maternal crossover at 60.5M for Elaine nor Joan. That will expand the maternal Daley to the left for Elaine and Joan:

This leads to more observations:

  • One I could have noted before. Betwen 17 to 26.6M Elaine and Join do not match each other. Elaine has Upshall DNA there, so Joan has to have Daley there.
  • Elaine has a Maternal Crossover at 26.6M. That means that there is no Paternal Crossover there. That means that I can move the two paternal segments to the left.
  • The fact that Elaine has a Maternal Crossover at 26.6M means that Joan has no maternal crossover there, so the Daley segment can be moved to the left also for Joan.

Moving the Daley segment to the left for Joan created a Maternal Crossover for her at 17. That means that there is no Paternal Crossover there and the two Paternal segments can be moved to the left:

So Chery’s matches were a help.

Summary and Conclusion

  • A first shot at two person visual phasing has shown promise.
  • Chromosome 1 is a difficult one, but I got a start on it
  • The X Chromosome was mapped for Elaine and Joan.