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Two New Whitson U106 BigY Results

It is always big news when BigY test results come in. The BigY is probably the most important test that can be taken for a surname project. That is because YDNA defines a specific male line going back from son to father to father and back to the beginning of all men.  The BigY is the pinnacle of the definition of the YDNA results for a male line.

I had an email from Pete who is very active in the Whitson YDNA Project. He informed me of new BigY tests in his group and asked me to take a look. I last looked at Pete’s BigY results in May of this year.

Here is the small Whitson/Butler Project which I manage:

The group includes Butlers, Whitsons and Whetstones. The Whetstones are not believed to be related, but they didn’t have their own group, so wanted to join ours. Pete is in the last group which has a yellow heading. In the case of this project, it appears that those who have a green Haplogroup result have taken the BigY test. That means that there is a good percentage of members who have taken the test. Actually, in reviewing my previous Blog, I see that the first tester and last tester in the U106 Group only took the individual SNP tests previously. That single SNP test had them at the older R-S23139. The two new BigY tests brought the first and last testers under U106 up to Pete at BY97752.

The Newest Whitson Tests

Here is Norton’s completed date:

The first person in the group’s results were even more recent at July 2, 2021.

Note in the last group, that all three testers have the same result in green. They are all (for now) R-BY97752. Because the test is so new, FTDNA has not had a chance to do a manual review. That means that there may be more branching for this group.

Looking at the STRs

Here it looks like Pete has the oldest STRs and then Norton has newer STRs and the other Whitson has the newest STRs:

My guess is based on these results. The first row is the minimum, the second row maximum value and the third row is the mode. Peter is in the 5th row. His results are the same as the mode. All things being equal, the mode should be the oldest results. However STRs are somewhat unpredictable and may be misleading. The other Whitson in row 4 has two changes from the mode. Norton has only one change from the mode.

Whitson U106 Variants

Pete asked me if I could look at the variants. Previously, when I looked at Pete’s variants, he had 21 Private Variants. The thought was that the other two testers should share some of those variants. Here is what Pete’s Block Tree looks like now:

Pete is now down to 20 Private Variants. His two matches are Whitson and Norton. Here is Pete’s Match List:

To get a clear picture, we need to look at the Match List from the perspective of the other Whitson tester and the Norton tester.

Here is the other Whitson tester:

The last column is the number of Shared Variants. The middle column is more important.  Of course the other Whitson tester to Pete is the same as the first row in the results above. In the first image above, we see that Pete has non-matching Variants BY44298 and BY55572 with the other Whitson and with Norton. That means that it could be that these are Pete’s Private Variants.

Let’s look at the Norton results next:

Here I just copied the first two rows. So far, I haven’t figured a lot out except that Pete probably has two private variants. The Block tree for each of the testers presently shows that they have 20 private variants each which is at odds with the Non-Mathcing Variants List as I understand it.

Private Variants

My next step is to look at each testers’ Private Variants. After a bit of cutting and pasting, I get these results:

We see that Norton has 22 Private Variants, Whitson has 21 and Pete has 23. We note that a lot of the Variants are the same and these will have to form a new Whitson YDNA Branch. Next, I sort the Variants:

This appears to show that, roughly, the three testers share 21 of their private variants. That means that one of the results of this testing is that it will move the Whitson about 2,100 years forward from their closest matchs who are R-BY97752. In my previous Blog, I had mentioned that the Whitsons were likely Saxons in Germany at this time in their history (before the time of Christ).

More Details on Non-Matching Variants

The next Variants that are interesting are the ones that don’t match:

Recall above, I had said that it appeared that Pete had two matching Variants. In one list they have a name. In the list above, they have a number. My assumption is that these are the same Private Variants. However, when I look up 3242552 at YBrowse, I see this:

I was thinking that Pete’s Private Variants were going to be BY44298 and BY55572. Did FTDNA change the numbers? Or is there another explanation?

Here is 6464378 at YBrowse:

These SNPs were apparently named in 2019 when Pete did his BigY test.

I can do a back search for Pete. Here is BY44298:

This shows as Position 26645003 which is not even on Pete’s Private Variant List. Here is Pete’s other apparent non-matching variant as seen at YBrowse:

This position is also not on Pete’s Private Variant List. So it is clear that FTDNA did not change the SNP names.

Norton’s Non-Matching Variant Has a Better Match with His Private Variant

In the comparison lists above, I have that Norton and Whitson had a non-matching variant at 5014418. From that, we can’t tell whether it was Norton or Whitson who had the non-matching Variant. However, from the Private Variant List, we can tell that belongs to Norton. At YBrowse, we see that position was named in 2020:

However, in the list of non-matching variants between Norton and Pete, this position does not show up. This could be due to this position not being covered by Pete’s BigY test or by inconclusive results.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I looked at the STR results which suggested that Pete could have the oldest Whitson profile followed by Norton and the other Whitson tester. Once FTDNA’s manual review is complete, it may be possible to date these three matches more closely. Right now it appears that the other Whitson tester may have no private Variants, Norton may have one and Pete may have more than one. That would seem to be consistant with the STR results.
  • The main takeaway is that the large block of 20 Private Variants now shown on the three Whtison Project BigY Block Trees will turn into a block of SNPs. One of those SNPs will be chosen as a  new SNP name to define the branch consisting of the three Whitson testers.
  • Normally for the formation of a new branch, a manual review will be performed by FTDNA. Once that manual review is performed, that will finalize any new branching based on the recent testing
  • There seems to be some discrepancies between the non-matching variants and Private Variants lists. Some or all of these may be resolved by FTDNA’s manual review. One reason for discrepancies can be when one test covers an area of YDNA and the other test does not cover that area or gives poor reads.
  • In my review, I didn’t look at all the specific testing data. That data shows if a position or variant was covered by the BigY test and what was the quality of the test of that position or variant.

The new branch will be analagous or parallel to R-BY62217:

There will be a new large blue Whitson block of SNPs on the right with about 2 average private variants shown below. It is also possible that there could be additional branching below the new branch. However, in order for that to happen, two of the three testers would have to match on a SNP and the third would have to have tested negative for that SNP.

 

 

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Two New Nicholson DNA Matches

I just noticed that I had a new Nicholson DNA match named Jessica:

Jessica shows to match on my mother’s side. Ancestry has already figured out that Jessica and I have a common ancestor:

Ancestry would like me to evaluate Jessica’s tree. The Docrill threw me off a bit, as I have a Maria Baxter Nicholson in my tree:

I also had that Maria died in 1866. I wonder where I found that. Perhaps I got the wrong person:

In 1861, I have that Maria Baxter Nicholson was living in Liverpool with her grandmother Ann Ellis:

This is why I like Census records so much. They tell quite a story. Here we have three generations of Nicholsons. From a previous Blog, I have that Ann Baxter is Ann Ellis who is the daughter of the elder Ann Roebuck Ellis listed in the Census:

I see this record online:

One reason this marriage to George Dockrill makes sense is that the Dockrill name is carried down in the US in Walter Nicholson’s Line:

This name must have been given in this family to rememer the Nicholson sister Maria who stayed in England. Assuming we have this right, Walter would have been a younger brother of Maria Baxter Nicholson. He named his son George Dockrell or Dockrill Nicholson.

More DNA Matches for Jessica

As it was not easy to find a marriage record between Maria Baxter Nicholson and George Nehemiah Dockrill, let’s look at some more DNA matches. Jessica matches my mother at 128 cM:

That is a substantial match. That means that I need to erase the early death record I had for Maria Nicholson. I’ll also add Jessica to my Nicholson DNA match Tree:

Jessica is in the first column.

Another DNA Match with Michelle

I can look at DNA matches that are shared between Jessica and my Mom. I see an interesting shared DNA match with Michelle and my Mom. They share 59 cM across three segments. Here is Michelle’s tree on her paternal side:

My attention is drawn to Michelle’s ancestor Francis Nicholson. When I search Ancestry for Francis, I find this record in someone’s tree:

My web page on the Nicholsons has a Henry here:

There is also a Matthew Henry on my web page, but this one makes more sense as Henry is the older brother of William who is my 2nd great grandfather. The tree above has this Henry born 1831 and I have him born 1822, so that is a bit of a discrepancy. The tree above has Henry married to Ann Bainbridge. I have Matthew Henry married to Mary Ann Bailey.

Here is Matthew Henry and Mary Ann Bailey in 1861:

Matthew Henry was a boss of some type and his sister-in-law was the housemaid. It looks like he had an adopted daughter Mary. That seems to rule out Matthew Henry as Michelle’s direct ancestor.

More on Henry Nicholson

Here is Henry and family in 1861:

Here we still have the age discrepancy. If Henry was 29 in 1861, then that is where the later birth of 1832 must come from. I believe that this is the same Henry in 1841:

Concerning Henry’s age:

Ages in the 1841 Census

The census takers were instructed to give the exact ages of children but to round the ages of those older than 15 down to a lower multiple of 5. For example, a 59-year-old person would be listed as 55.

That means that Henry would have actually been around 18 in 1841. Henry’s father Matthew had died the year before in 1840. In 1841 Henry was a cutler and in 1861, he was a table knife [hafter?].

Here I have added Michelle and Henry Nicholson into my DNA/Ancestry tree. That means that Michelle is Gladys’ (my mother’s) third cousin once removed. This is where the DNA gives some confidence to the relationship when some of the genealogical records are missing.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I don’t get many new third cousin DNA matches, so Jessica was a good find
  • Jessica descends from Maria Nicholson. I was not aware of this Nicholson Line before I found out about the DNA match with Jessica.
  • Jessica and my mother have a shared match with Michelle. Michelle descends from Henry Nicholson. The DNA connection fills in some of the missing or not yet found yet genealogical records.
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Eubanks Genealogy

I saw my friend Pastor Eubanks recently. We both attend the same church. I said I’d look into his genealogy. He wasn’t terribly interested in his family history except that he had heard that the Eubanks were from the Banks of the River Eu in Liverpool. Jim aslo mentioned that his father was a radio announcer.

Ancestry Search

With the little I know, I did an Ancestry search and came up with a birth certificate for Jim:

I was thinking I’d find the 1940 Census, but this is good. Here is 855 Clinton Street, South Bend, Indiana where Jim was born:

Joseph Blair Eubanks (Born 1913) and Family

It appears that the Eubanks family moved to Norfolk, Virginia not too long after their son Jim was born. Here is the 1940 Census for Norfolk, VA taken May 15th:

Here is Joseph’s WWII Draft Card:

Joseph Eubanks Born 1888

This Joseph had a father named Joseph. Here is the family in Chicago, Illinois in 1920:

Joseph was an accountant. He was born in Michigan as was his father. However, other records have these two born in Illinois.

Thomas Eubanks (Born About 1845)

Thomas was Joseph’s father and was a farmer. Here is the family in 1900:

He had a pretty big family. This says his father was born in Kentucky. Here is Thomas in 1850 in Illinois with the rest of his family:

The father of Thomas was James. He was born in Kentucky and his mother Polly was born in Tennessee.

Thomas appears to have served in the Civil War:

Some of Thomas’ children were baptized in the Presbyterian Church in 1880:

James Eubanks Born About 1810 in Kentucky

Now I am running out of useful Census records. James was also a farmer.

Jim has the same name as his 2nd great-grandfather. My guess is that Jim’s 3rd great-grandfather will also be a James Eubanks.

James Eubanks Sr. Born About 1790

In 1850, James was living with Nancy and another James Eubanks in District 13, White County, Illinois:

James Sr and Nancy were both born in North Carolina.

James is buried in Norris City:

Actually, the Cemetery looks closer to Omaha, Illinois:

William Henry Eubanks Born About 1770

Here is the hint that Ancestry has for the father of James Eubanks:

I don’t know much about North Carolina, but here is Albemarle:

I have included Norfolk, VA for reference.  I don’t think that Albermarle existed in 1770, but William Henry Eubanks could have been from the area.

John Eubanks 1755

According to Ancestry, there was a John Eubanks born in 1755 who was the father of William Henry Eubanks:

That same reference has John from Germany:

If that is right, then Jim’s ancestors were not from the banks of the River Eu in Liverpool. The area of Amberg-sulzbach is highlighted below and is to the East of Nuremberg:

Other Trees?

I found three trees at Ancestry with John T Eubanks:

Here he is said to be born in Talbot Maryland.

This tree is similar, but Henry William is also called Alex:

Here is Talbot, Maryland, possible ancestral home of Jim’s Eubanks:

If this John T Eubanks is Jim’s ancestor, then it is likely he would have been involved in the Revolutionary War.

DNA

If Jim or one of Jim’s male Eubanks relatives were to test their YDNA, we may learn more about the ancient roots of the Eubanks family. This test may also show if Jim’s roots are in England or in Germany. I only found one reference to Eubanks being from Germany, so that may not be correct. The YDNA test may also tell if the different branches of Eubanks in the US are related.

An autosomal DNA test would also be an option, but the results are not as accurate, the more distant the relative. Also autosomal DNA will match with relatives on every line of Jim’s ancestry – not just Eubanks.

According to Ancestry, Eubanks is an English name:

Here we return to Jim’s father’s story of a bank of yew trees.

Summary and Conclusions

I have laid out a skeleton of history for Jim Eubanks which includes eight generations

:

Jim’s family history is deeply intertwined with the history of our Country and goes back to when we were still colonies of England. I hope that my research has been accurate. If not, it at least has given some information for further research.

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Updating My Wife’s Mother’s Ellis DNA

I manage my wife’s mother’s DNA kit and my wife’s mother’s sister’s DNA kit. Their names are Joan and Elaine. I was looking at Elaine’s DNA this morning.

Ellis Line Match with Joseph

The match I found for Elaine this morning was with Joseph. He is a good match because he is on Gedmatch and Ancestry. He also has trees on Ancestry and Gedmatch. Using DNA Painter, I added Joseph’s match to Elaines DNA Map:

Joseph matches Elaine on Chromosomes 7 and 14. The match appears to go back to 1775. Here is how Elaine and Joseph connect:

Elaine and Joseph show as 4th cousins going back to 1775. Ancestry also has this highly unlikely scenario:

Joseph has a smaller match with my mother-in-law Joan. They only match on Chromosome 7. I’ll add that match in:

 

Here Joseph in orange is bumping into Debbie in green. That could mean that I have some of the genealogy wrong. I can’t find the Debbie’s DNA match anymore, so that doesn’t help.

Elaine’s DNA Map makes more sense:

Here we see the split between Rayner and Hopgood:

Elaine’s great-grandfather is Abraham Rayner and her great-grandmother is Henrietta Hopgood.

A Rhynold Match with Stuart at MyHeritage

MyHeritage shows this Theory of Relativity between Joan and Stuart:

Rhynold is on Joan’s maternal side. Here is what DNA Painter has to say:

They are finding DNA overlap with other ancestors, so is this really Rhynold DNA? I’m curious, so I’ll try painting him in.

There is no overlap on Chromosomes 7 and 20 and only a minimal overlap on Chromosome 1, so I think that we have the right common ancestors.

I had already painted Stuart onto Elaines Chromosomes 7, 9 and 20. Elaine doesn’t match Stuart on Chromosome 1, because she has larger Upshall matches on that Chromosome:

Rynault is on the Daley side:

James Robert Theory of Relativity: Ellis/MacArthur

Joan and James Robert show as third cousins:

I’ll paint James Robert in to see if that makes sense. Here is how I painted James Robert in to Joan’s map:

James Robert is the orange match on Chromosomes 1, 2, and 5. The reason is that there are two entries for James Ellis born 1801 is that James had two wives. His first wife was Jane Ramsay. However, Joan descends from the second wife who was Marion MacArthur. In some cases, the DNA match is just with James Ellis, in other cases, it is with James and his wife Marion MacArthur.

Next, I’ll paint James Robert onto Elaine’s map. She already has an Ellis/MacArthur entry:

For some reason, there was not any overlap between Elaine’s DNA matches with James Robert and Robert who I show as also descending from James Ellis and Marion MacArthur.

Painting MacArthur/MacDougall

MG has a double Theory of Relativity with Elaine. However, MacArthur/MacDougall is the closer relationship:

The other common ancestor is with James Yeo, but is a half 5th cousin relationship. Let’s paint Elaine’s DNA match with MG to see what happens. When I go to paint MG, I get this message:

That actually makes sense because Marion would be a daughter or Malcolm MacArthur:

MacArthur/MacDougall is painted in in maroon in Chromosomes 4, 17, 18 and 19. This gets Elaine up to 20% painted on her paternal side. Chromosome 19 is where the small overalp occurs:

I also reorganized the key so it makes more sense.  MacArthur is on the Ellis side.

For Joan, I already had a listing for MacArthur/MacDougall:

Elaine’s match with Barry and MG overlap on Chromosome 4. I assume that would be considered triangulation:

MyHeritage shows triangulation by circled segments.

Edna on the Dicks Line

Edna fits in well with my Dicks DNA Project:

Edna also has this Theory of Relativity:

I’m not as sure that this is right. Here is the DNA tree I have:

I added Edna in under the left circle. HereI have painted Edna on to Joan’s DNA Map:

Edna has good overlap with other Christopher Dicks descendants. I think that Henry Dicks is from a more distant line. There is also overlap on Chromosome 21:

Edna overaps with Joan’s Aunt Esther. Esther overlaps with a more recent Dicks Line. So while Edna adds no new Dicks DNA to Joan’s map, this exercise places Edna within the DNA framework I have for Christopher Dicks born 1784 and his wife Margaret.

For some reason, I could not find Edna on Elaine’s MyHeritage match list.

Nat’s Theory on the Ellis Side

Nat has three Theories of Relativity with Elaine at MyHeritage. Here is the closest:

Theory two is similar to Theory one but involves a 4th cousin once removed. Theory three is more distant on the MacDougall side.

Here we have a problem on Chromosome 6:

Hopgood (yellow) and Ellis (blue) should not be sharing the same space on the Paternal side of Chromosome 6. That means that there is a problem with the genealogy or some mixing of lines. I see that Jo-Ann has three Theories of Relativity. Here is Theory Three:

Turns out that Jo-Ann’s Chromosome 6 match with Elaine is most likely on the Ellis/Tawton side. I can fix this in DNA Painter:

Unfortunatley, that changed all of Jo-Ann’s matches. Here is the screen I should have used:

This is what I had wanted:

After checking chromosomes, I found another issue:

Jo-ann is bumping into Robert on Chromosome 4. I’m in deep on this one. I’ll assume that Robert has no Hopgood ancestry and change this segment also.

I hope that Jo-ann doesn’t mind me messing around with her DNA!

Next, I paint Nat onto Joan’s map:

Nat and Joan only match on Chromosome 6. Here I need to switch Jo-ann from Hopgood to Ellis like I did above:

That looks better. The three yellow segments now match up.

AutoClusters at Gedmatch

Here are Joan’s AutoClusters at Gedmatch between 35 and 250 cM:

This is how I see Joan’s matches shaking out. What about the clusters inbetween the two connected sets of clusters? Green Cluster 8 has someone with Guysborough, Nova Scotia ancestry. That is likely on Joan’s Daley side, but I was not able to match up the genealogy.

Elaine’s AutoClusters

Elaine, as may be expected has a similar profile to her sister Joan between the levels of 35 and 250 cM.

The configuration is inverted for Elaine. Her Newfoundland cluster group is in the top left and her PEI cluster group is in the bottom right. Elaine has four clusters in the middle compared to Joan’s three. My guess is that all or most of these clusters could be on the Daley side.

Barry is in blue Cluster 9. He appears to have PEI ancestry.

This shows Barry’s connection to Joan but the connection to Elaine would be the same.

Tammy is in brown Cluster 10. She has Rhynold in her tree. Tammy’s tree goes back a bit further than what I have.

Tammy’s maternal side goes back to Johann Rheinhold:

He apparently married Ann Lowry and had Tammy’s ancestor John Gleason Rhynold and Frederick born 1792 who was my wife’s ancestor. Tammy has Johann Capar Rheinhold born in Frankfurt and marrying in Cornwall, then settling in Guysborough, Nova Scotia.

I can add this couple to my wife’s family tree. I’ll add Tammy to DNA Painter:

Tammy is right below Stuart mentioned earlier in the Blog. Actually, the four in  Cluster 10 are probably all closely related.

Cluster 11 has Susan. She has PEI MacArthur ancestry.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I started updating the four grandparents of my mother-in-law. They are Ellis and Rayner from PEI. Also Upshall from Newfoundland and Daley from Nova Scotia.
  • One easy way to update DNA matches is through MyHeritage’s Theories of Relativity. I like to use DNA Painter to map out those DNA matches.
  • I also used Gedmatch AutoClusters. In this case, it was easy to pick out the large amount of Newfoundland matches as well as the PEI matches. There are not many Daley side matches.
  • It was possible to connect many of the Ancestry uploaded Gedmatches to their Ancestry profiles to check on family trees.
  • I found a new connection to Germany through the Rheinhold line connected with the Ellis’ Dale side. Johann Caspar Rheinhold apparently was born in the area of Frankfort, married in England and moved to Guysborough, Nova Scotia. I have not tried to confirm the genealogy, but it is in several trees and the match by DNA supports or confirms those trees. This surname was later changed to Rhynold and Rynault
  • In using DNA Painter, it is possible to sort out the DNA matches where there is more than one possible pair of common ancestors that the DNA may have come from.
  • DNA Painter also points out that the DNA matches are not evenly distributed by the four grandparents. There were very few matches shown on the Daley side at the match levels chosen. Most matches were on the Upshall side.
  • I didn’t break down the clusters between Ellis and Rayner, but I think that there are more Ellis matches than Rayner matches as there were many large Ellis families.
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Playing with Phased Grandparent DNA at Gedmatch

Some kind person worked on my DNA to phase it to my four grandparents and uploaded the results to Gedmatch. One of those 4 grandparents was my my maternal grandmother Frazer side. This is exciting territory as this is an area of genetic genealogy that I haven’t looked at before in over 500 Blogs that I have written.

My Top Frazer Match at Gedmatch

I can run this kit which would be equivalent to my siblings’ Frazer matches at Gedmatch. My top match at Gedmatch is Tony. Let’s see if that match pans out. The phasing was not perfect, so there could be some errors.  The largest match with Tony is 193 cM, but when I run the details, it is only a small match:

My guess is that other matches with large largest segments are not correct. My first real match appears to be my second cousin once removed Paul. Here is what the match with my composite Frazer kit looks like:

Matches in Common with Paul

I ran matches in common with Paul and the composite Frazer Kit and then put those matches in a matrix:

I recognize at least half of these matches.

Painting My Frazer Matches

It occurs to me that I can paint my Frazer matches. As this DNA painting represents my grandmother, I’ll say that the person is female:

The first person on the match list under Paul is rosco. This is actually Keith:

Keith is in the last green box on the right next to Paul. I put that Keith is on my grandmother’s paternal side:

DNA Painter has my grandmother <1% painted. The next question is how closely should I ‘paint’ my grandmother’s DNA? In the past I have only gone to grandparent level. I think I’ll change and go to 1st cousin level. A first cousin shares two grandparents.

Adding Paul

Paul would be a first cousin once removed to my Frazer grandmother:

This gets my grandmother up to about 2% painted. I next added Emily. Emily’s common ancestors with mine are the same as Paul’s: George Frazer and Margaret McMaster.

Adding Gladys

Gladys’ common ancestors go back a generation to James Frazer and Violet Frazer:

Here, I changed the dark green to a lighter green, so it wouldn’t blot out the older DNA. So far, I have been only painting the Frazer paternal side. The maternal side is Clarke and I know less about Clarke genealogy than Frazer genealogy.

Painting Michael: Common Ancestor Richard Frazer

Notice Chromosome 1. The blue segment shows as all Richard Frazer. However, this is how it breaks out:

That means that the green segment is really Frazer and not McMaster. The Orange segment under the blue is Violet Frazer as she was the daughter of Richard Frazer.

Clarke DNA

My grandmother’s mother was Margaret Clarke. However, Margaret died when my grandmother was young.  I have a few fairly good DNA matches on the Clarke side, but the best matches are not at Gedmatch. Stephen is probably the closest match. Here is Stephen:

Stephen is also related on the McMaster side which confuses things. However, the closer match is on the Clarke side.

Now my grandmother is about 6% painted. Yellow is her first maternal DNA. I haven’t looked at X Chromosome matches as those are treated separately at Gedmatch.

Next, I looked for matches in common with Stephen and my phased Frazer kit:

The problem is that some of these matches are the same that were in common with my cousin Paul. Paul has no Clarke relatives. That means that this comparison is probably picking up the McMaster connection also. However, it may be possible to tease the two apart.

Grandmother Frazer AutoCluster

I thought that I had done these before, but perhaps not. At standard Gedmatch defaults, I get 19 clusters for my Frazer Grandmother:

There are a narrow range of DNA matches. They range from about 19 to 23 cM. I recognize matches from the last three clusters. Cluster 17 has Jonathan. Our common ancestor goes back to about 1690, but I have a feeling that there is a more recent match – probably on the James Line. James Frazer was born around 1717. Here is where Jonathan matches:

There appears to be a small overlap between Paul and Jonathan.

Pat and Bill are in Cluster 18. Here is how Pat and Bill fit in:

Our common ancestors are James Frazer and Violet Frazer.

In Cluster 19, I recognize Marilee who is related on one of my Frazer lines also.

I changed the limits to between 22 and 250 cM and got this autocluster:

In this AutoCluster reiteration, Clusters 11-14 are the Frazer Clusters. The good news is that I can identify 4 clusters. The bad news is that there are 16 clusters which I cannot identify. Actually, Jonathan is in Cluster 2, so that is one more Frazer cluster that I am aware of. However, the match for this Frazer Cluster ois probably through my McMaster side:

This is the ancestry of my 2nd great-grandmother Margaret Frazer. Turns out that she had a Frazer ancestor that went to a common ancestor with Jonathan. They were James Frazer and Katherine Fitzgerald, born in the first half of the 1700’s.

Barry is in Cluster 11. This is how I think I am related to Barry:

For some reason, I don’t see Barry on my DNA Painter profile. I’ll add him in:

This shows that Barry overlaps with Michael who I match on the Richard Frazer Line. Richard was a brother of Philip. We are showing we match on the common ancestor of Archibald Frazer who was born about 1720. Some of these dates are relative. I have a chart showing Archibald born in 1743. Also many charts have Philip and Richard born earlier than the 1770’s.

Charles in Cluster 12

Charles is in Cluster 12 with Shelly and Martha. Charles has not been on my radar before. His tree is helpful in that he has a shamrock for his Irish ancestors:

The red symbol indicates Scotland. Shelly has a match in common with Gladys. I’m related to Gladys on my Frazer side. Martha from Cluster 12 is here:

One guess is that Charles could be related from this Philip tree or from the wife of Philip.

Cluster 13

I recognize three out of four in Cluster 13. They are Jane, Doreen, and Susan. Here is how they match my family by genealogy:

These families go back to Richard Frazer. The one I don’t recognize if Elizabeth. I can’t figure out how she fits in.

One Last Frazer Cluster Between 23 and 250 cM

By just shifting the lower number up to 23 cM, I go from 20 clusters to 13:

Now my Frazer Clusters are 1 and 2. Cluster 2 is interesting, beause it includes both my Frazer and McMaster Lines. Those are both double lines because two Frazer cousins married in that Cluster and two McMaster cousins married. The 145 cM match has a common ancestor with my family of James McMaster and Fanny McMaster. They had Margaret McMaster who was my 2nd great-grandmother. That match matches my closer matches in the cluster – those who descend from Margaret but not my more distant Frazer relatives. The only one in the green Cluster 2 who I don’t recognize is Nicolas and I have written to him. He appears to be a fairly close relative of Emily who my Frazer kit matches at 125 cM.

In Cluster 1, I know how I am related to all but Gary at 26 cM. However, I have been in touch and he knows my Frazer relatives in Ireland. In the above analysis, I went from further out clusters to more closely related clusters. It probably would have made more sense to start with the more recognizable clusters, but I had to start somewhere.

The last cluster is the false one I mentioned further up in the Blog.

Downloading Frazer Segment Data from Gedmatch

This could help in identifying other match groups or clusters. Roberta Estes has a helpful article on how to do this. Once I get the data from Gedmatch, I like to put it into my own format in an Excel spreadsheet. For example, I should be able to look at the region where I have Clarke matches to identify other potential Clarke Clusters. Unfortunately, when I got to the Download button at Gedmatch, it didn’t work.

I guess I’ll have to explore these matches later.

Grandfather Hartley DNA

This is all exciting and new territory for me. This time, I will start my grandfather Hartley Cluster with the range of 23-250 cM:

Even at this level, I get a lot of unrecognizable clusters. Cluster 11 has Lee in it. He has Hartley ancestry in the area of Colne where my Hartley ancestors were from, but I was unable to make a connection.

Hartley Clusters 25-1,000 cM

This brings in some of my 2nd cousins and 1st cousins once removed. Here Cluster 2 is Lee again with the Hartley ancestry. He has a shared match with my 1st cousin once removed. That shared match has Shackleton ancestry, so that is a possible connection.

For some reason, the AutoCluster at Gedmatch does not work as well on my Hartley side as it did on my Frazer side. This is possibly because I have worked to have a lot of my Frazer relatives out to the level of clustering upload their results to Gedmatch.

My Maternal Grandfather: Rathfelder

My maternal grandfather was German but grew up in Latvia. Here are some of the clusters for that side. The limits I set were between 20 and 1,000 cM:

The purple cluster has some relatives that are still in Latvia. The top match in red Cluster 3, Otis, has Schwechheimer ancestry in common with my mother’s side.

My Maternal Grandmother’s AutoClusters

This should finish off the Blog. My maternal grandmother was a Lentz. However, I get many matches to her Nicholson mother’s side. This run is between 19 and 500 cM:

Many of these names and clusters are identifiable. Cluster 3 is Nicholson. Cluster 4 has my mom’s relative who is both Nicholson and Lentz.

Sadie, Joan, Linda and Carolyn are in the red Cluster 3. The largest match in Cluster 4 is with Judy who is a first cousin once removed to my mother. As such, she is related on the Nicholson and Lentz side.

Father and Daughter in Different Clusters?

Yes it happens:

Robert is in brown Cluster 5 and his daughter Sadie is in red Cluster 3. As these both have the common ancestors with me of Nicholson and Ellis, my guess is that one cluster could favor Nicholson DNA and the other Ellis DNA.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I took one of my first looks at my four synthetic grandparent kits at Gedmatch
  • I had the best luck with my Frazer side. This is probably because I’ve spent a lot of time working on getting Frazer relatives to upload their results to Gedmatch.
  • I started a DNA Painter map for my paternal grandmother’s Frazer side.
  • I tried clustering my four grandparent results. I recognized the fewest clusters on my Hartley side.
  • I found an interesting match with Elaine on my Frazer side using clustering. However, I couldn’t find further information on her family tree and couldn’t find her Ancestry account.
  • I tried downloading segment information for my grandparents, but I couldn’t get that utility to work at Gedmatch
  • There is still a lot of work that could be done with these four Gedmatch kits that represent the DNA for my four grandparents.

 

 

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McMaster ThruLines Through William McMaster and Margaret Frazer

AncestryDNA uses ThruLines. These are usually good hints that connect DNA matches and genealogy. Here is my ThruLines match with Deborah:

I have written about Deborah’s ancestor Jane in past Blogs. I have mentioned her genealogy, but I don’t think that I have written about DNA matches from her line until now. Here is a photo of Jane:

Jane is in the middle. I descend from her sister Fanny who stayed in Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo, Ireland. Jane and the rest of her family traveled to Ontario.

My DNA match with Deborah is not that large at 9 cM.

Jane McMaster ThruLines for My Sister Heidi

Here is what my sister Heidi shows for the Jane Line of ThruLines:

 

It looks like I cut off Joseph’s child Kelci who is also a DNA match. My sister Heidi also matches Deborah. Deborah is from the McMaster Line. Jane first married George McMaster, then a Thompson.

My Brother Jon’s ThruLines

My brother shows goosie on the Thompson side of the Jane McMaster Line:

Jon doesn’t match Deborah. Jon has a discrepancy on the James Line. How can Robert Trent have two different mothers?

My Siblings’ Summary

This chart doesn’t get to the strength of the DNA matches. However, the more of my siblings match a person, the better the match. We had more matches on the Fanny line, but I didn’t include the closest matches.

Here are the matches that only matched on of my siblings:

Frank on the Robert Line

Of the above, Frank is interesting, because it adds another McMaster Line. Here is what AncestryDNA shows:

Ancestry would like me to evaluate Frank’s ancestry. This should be interesting as McMaster genealogy can be confusing. It turns out that I have already started a tree for Frank:

Here are wedding the same year for two Margaret McMasters:

The first was my 2nd great-grandmother and the daughter of James McMaster. The second was Frank’s second great-grandmother and the daughter of Robert. These two were both married at Kilmactranny Parish. That means that Frank’s Margaret’s father was Robert.

I have this Robert on my genealogy website:

That means that Frank’s Margaret could be Margaret Mae McMaster. In fact, I am leaning that way:

I also note that Lori and Frank have shared a shared DNA match with Ron who I circled. I added in Frank in the Abraham McMaster tree:

If this is not right, then there would have been three Margaret McMasters around the same time! I have Frank in a different color which means I am not positive. Under this scenario, my ancestor Margaret and Frank’s ancestor Margaret Mae would be first cousins. Here is the baptismal record for Margaret Mae:

Goosie on the Jane McMaster Thompson Line

Goosie matches my four siblings who tested at Ancestry (but not me). It should be easy to trace her tree back.

My tree apparently already goes down to Robert Henry Lowry. In this case, it would be easier to work my tree down. That way, I won’t have to create a new tree for goosie.

 

I found a photo of Lee Senior at his 50th wedding anniversary:

The caption:

I was able to build my tree down to Lee Robert Lowry Jr. I couldn’t easily make the connection to goosie, but I assume that she knows who her parents were.

Here is goosie on the first row of the William McMaster tree:

The tree is getting quite large and I am missing a lot of DNA matches.

Deborah Also from the Jane McMaster Line

I first mentioned Deborah above.

She shows as my half 5th cousin, but is likely a full 5th cousin. I’ll try taking her genealogy down from mine like I did with goosie.

I’m already confused as this view is different than the ThruLines:

However, I see the confusion as Jane McMaster married George McMaster. This is the connection I was looking for:

Here is the family in 1880 in Iowa:

William was clearly born in Ireland, but many of these Irish McMaster families liked to stress that they were from Scotland. Here is William’s baptismal record from Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo, Ireland:

George was no doubt named for his father’s father:

Here is George’s daughter Ethel in Nebraska in 1910:

Here is how I worked my tree down:

I didn’t enter all the maiden names of the spouses. In this case I was able to see the connection to Deborah from an Obituary Index at Ancestry. Here is my family’s connection to Deborah:

That is just one connection. We are also connected through George McMaster – apparently on a differnt line.

Summary and Conclusions

  • In this Blog, I looked at some of my unexplored ThruLines on one branch of my McMaster ancestors. This branch starts with William McMaster and Margaret Frazer.
  • One of the ThruLines went through a Robert McMaster. After lookinng at the genealogy, it appears that this Robert Line belongs on a different Branch of McMasters. This branch is likely related to the other branch but beginning with Abraham McMaster born about 1764.
  • I looked at Deborah and goosie. They both descend from Jane McMaster. Deborah descends from Jane’s first McMaster husband and goosie descends from Jane’s second Thompson husband.
  • I have tried to combine the McMaster trees in the past, but it is difficult to tell how the lines tie together. Here is one guess that I have made in the past:

My ancestors are James McMaster Sr and Fanny McMaster who married each other. Under this scenario, they would be 1st cousins once removed. Of course, there are other possibilities.

 

 

 

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Melissa: A DNA Match on My Clarke Line

I recently found a small match between Melissa and a few of my siblings at AncestryDNA. However, Melissa does not match me. She shows up also on my siblings’ ThruLines. Here is a summary at AncestryDNA:

This shows that Melissa has Clarke ThruLines with my siblings Jon and Lori. Here is Lori’s connection:

This could be easy to verify. It appears that I already have Melissa’s grandmother in my tree. I checked and as Melissa’s father had passed away, there was information on him and his family. The above connection is the most likely. There are more distant connections through my family’s McMaster ancestors.

Adding Melissa to My Clarke DNA Tree

I have a Clarke tree that combines DNA and genealogy:

This tree has extra matches that are not from Thrulines. These would be from other testing companies such as FTDNA, 23andMe and MyHeritage. I need to add Melissa in to the Catherine Line. I have been in touch with Fred and Diana but I don’t think that they have taken DNA tests.

That means that Melissa is my familys’ first DNA match from the Catherine Clark Line that I know of. These relationships are a bit confusing. Celia Clarke and Catherine Clarke both married McMasters. Margaret Clarke (my great-grandmother) married a Frazer who was the son of a McMaster.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Melissa matches my brother and sister at Ancestry with a small DNA match. She also appears on their ThruLines
  • The closest connection my family has to Melissa is with our common ancestors Thomas Clarke and Jane Spratt
  • I have other DNA matches from this line but this is the first match through Catherine Clarke who married William McMaster.
  • As Melissa is a small match, there are no other shared DNA matches at AncestryDNA between her and my brother and sister.

 

 

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Elizabeth: A DNA Match from the Cincinnati Butlers; Lisa’s Butler Connections

I recently discovered that Elizabeth was a match to my late father-in-law Richard. I found her by doing a Tier 1 Cluster Analysis at Gedmatch. Richard’s clusters look like this:

All the gray squares connected to the colored squares probably indicate Richard’s French Canadian side. The last two small clusters likely represent Richard’s Irish side as they are not connected to the other clusters. The last two people in the last cluster are Elizabeth and Nathan. I wrote to Elizabeth and she confirmed that she was from the Cincinnati Branch of Butlers. I probably would not have known about Elizabeth if she had not uploaded her DNA to Gedmatch as Richard did not test at Ancestry. His two sisters tested there, but they don’t match Elizabeth by DNA.

Here are Nathan and Elizabeth on a tree:

The green boxes are for people who have detailed information on their chromosomes. They have tested at FTDNA, MyHeritage or 23andMe or uploaded their AncestryDNA results to Gedmatch.  The people in the bottom white boxes are connected by DNA and genealogy at Ancestry, but don’t have detailed information on their DNA.  This is what I call the Cincinnati Branch of Butlers. Nathan descends from the first wife of George Butler and Elizabeth descends from a second wife. Nathan’s ancestors moved to Nova Scotia where my wife’s ancestor married. Because of the genealogy, any DNA that Nathan and Elizabeth share have to come from George Butler but not either of his wives.

Here is the whole tree:

Because there are so many DNA connections between these two lines, I have proposed a Butler father to Michael Butler the earliest known ancestor of Richard and Henry Butler, the earliest known Butler ancestor of Elizabeth.  There are other possibilities.

Lisa with Possible Butler Ancestry

I wrote to Lisa about a year ago, because she had a large match with my wife’s two Aunts. Lisa would like to know how she fits in. Here is my wife’s side of the tree:

If I put up some DNA match numers for Lisa, it should tell where Lisa fits in on this tree:

That means that Lisa most likely descends from Marguerite Butler born in 1912. Here are some possible relationships between Amanda and Lisa:

My guess would be that Amanda and Lisa could be 1/2 first cousins or first cousins once removed. When I look at shared matches between Lisa and Amanda, I see a Herman in there which means that Lisa may have Herman and Butler ancestry somehow. This should give Lisa something to work on.

Lisa and Elizabeth

I bring Lisa up here because she also has a small match with Elizabeth:

That means that Lisa also has ancient Butler DNA links going back to Ireland.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was fortunate to find Elizabeth through Gedmatch’s Cluster Program
  • Elizabeth is from the Cincinnati Butlers which link my wife’s Butlers back to Ireland
  • Lisa, who I had corresponded with previously also has a small match with Elizabeth
  • Lisa was unsure of her ancestry
  • Lisa gave me access to her DNA results at Ancestry. I compared her results to my wife’s Butler lines and she matched best with the Marguerite Butler Line.
  • Lisa and Marguerite’s granddaughter Amanda also have a shared match with a Herman which means that Lisa and Amanda could be as close as first cousins once removed.

 

 

 

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Butler Visual Phasing: Part 4

In my previous Blog, I worked on updating the visual phasing for my late father-in-law and his two sisters. While doing this, I updated their DNA Painter Maps. I made an interesting discovery based on an old Cincinnati Butler descendant match that I had found back in 2015. The old spreadsheet that I had on Richard was helpful, so I updated that for him and one of his sisters. I will next update Virginia’s spreadsheet from Gedmatch.

Chromosome 17

My note says that this is done but  the paternal side needs to be idendified:

On Chromosome 17, I was trying to figure out what DNA my wife inherited from her father based on the Chromosome Mapping.

The key to Chromosome 17 is finding paternal matches. Not unlike the key to all the chromosomes. I’ll run Virginia against Jack, who is a top Kerivan match. I’ll look for the matches in common at Gedmatch and then run a Matching Segment Search. I come up with one match on Chromosome 17:

It looks like Virginia’s paternal crossover is around 6. That would mean that paternal GP1 would be Kerivan. I see that Richard has a match with Jane also:

I don’t see a DNA match between Jane and Lorraine.

I’m ready to declare victory over Chromosome 17 and move on to the next battle.

Chromosome 18

Assuming my previous work was correct, I first need to identify the easier maternal side:

Next, I’ll add DNA Painter information:

This works well, except for Richard’s purple match with Fortin/Tremblay. Based on my visual phasing, there should be no crossovers in that purple area. My guess is that orange is LeFevre and that the purple match that Richard has with Gerry is not right.

Here is Gerry’s tree at MyHeritage:

MyHeritage was not able to figure out our common ancestor. I’m not sure how I came up with what I did. I would say now that it is not right or that there is a closer common ancestor. I decided to delete Gerry from Richard’s map until I can figure out how he belongs.

The remaining question is the location of Virgina’s maternal crossover. That can be found at the Gedmatch full resolution image of the match between Richard and Virginia:

 

That happens here at about 42.5. That fits in with Virginia’s Lefevre match on Chromosome 18:

Next, I need to find a paternal match to identify the paternal side of Chromosome 18.

It appears that the salmon colored paternal side is predominately all Kerivan or all Butler. An in common match between Jack (who represents Kerivan) and Virginia didn’t show any matches on Chromosome 18. That means that I should run an in-common match for one of the Butler matches. Lorraine has a pretty good match with Kim at Gedmatch:

I haven’t connected these two families by genealogy but they are connected by DNA and many circumstantial incidences. I had no luck finding Chromosome 18 matches with this comparison either.

Chromosome 19

I’ll add the DNA Painter map to the bottom of the work I had done previously:

It looks like Lorraine should have a maternal crossover where her match ends, but Richard’s Lefevre green is actually two matches:

The problem is that I have not mapped Jane to Lorraine’s map. Mapping Jane onto Virginia’s map helps show Virginia’s Pouliot segment between the two Lefevre segments:

It looks like there should be a crossover for Lorraine on the right side of her match with Jane. However, it appears that the match between Jane and Richard was larger previously. Now it is in line with the matches between Lorraine and Virginia:

I guess the algorhythm changed at Gedmatch. I don’t feel like changing Richard’s results right now.

A Paternal Match for Chromosome 19?

Using my previous in-common analyses, I have this Kerivan-type match for Lorraine:

I have this Butler-type match – also for Lorraine:

Unfortunately, that does not fit in with the way I have Lorraine mapped, unless I change the visual phasing. Due to uncertainties, I’ll leave Chromosome 19 for now.

Chromosome 20

Here is what I had done previously for Chromosome 20:

I’ll convert this to Excel from Powerpoint. I also want to look at the DNA Painter maps for these three siblings. Here is Lorraine:

She has LeFevre DNA at the beginning and Kerivan DNA at the right end of Chromosome 20. Lorraine’s matches appear to define Paternal GP1 as Kerivan.

Virginia shows Pouliot up to position 60:

Here is what Richard has:

When I re-do this Chromosome, I’ll start from the righ hand side as the left-hand first crossover is not as important. I did this but got the same results:

However, now I know the paternal side. At some time, I need to look at Virginia’s match list to see where her matches are falling out after position 60.

Chromosome 21

Here is what I had done previously in Powerpoint:

I’ll start by looking at the three DNA Painter maps. Only Richard has one match so far. That is for Pouliot between 10 and 22:

When I bring this into Excel, I need to see the left-hand side:

With the left side completed, I see the only color that Richard has uniquely there is blue, so that has to be Pouliot. That defines the maternal side of the three siblings’ Chromosome 21 and defines the maternal grandparents. However, it leaves a gap in Lorraine’s Chromosome 21.

Chromosome 22

Here is the work I did previously:

All l need to do is identify the two paternal grandparents. I checked the three DNA Painter maps and saw no paternal matches that would help me.

Summary and Conclusions

My list of completed chromosomes is getting larger:

I now have only 8 chromosomes that are not completed. If I do some more work on these, I may be able to complete one or two more.

  • It was helpful referring to the DNA Painter maps for these three siblings.
  • Looking at in common matches was helpful at Gedmatch
  • I will likely continue working on these unfinished chromosomes and follow up on some of the paternal in common DNA matches – especially on the Butler side.
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Pete’s BigY Results from the Whitson/Butler YDNA Project

I had this email recently from Pete of the Whitson YDNA Project:

Joel, I am terminal SNP R-BY97752. Do the large number of ‘private variants’ suggest that I may potentially have a whole mess of possible SNPs between my Y-111 terminal SNP of R-S23139 and the ‘BIG Y 700’ terminal SNP of R-BY97752 that have not been seen in other test to this date? If so, isn’t that a large number of possible SNPs?

This was a reasonable question. My short answer was yes, but I said I would give some more detail. Pete sent me a screen shot of his BigY Block Tree. I’ll insert my own version here:

I had to shrink the block tree down a bit to show everyone. Pete shows no matches. He does have a name who is Milos listed to the right. FTDNA’s matching formula is strange, because Pete should be more closely related to the two testers under BY62217 which is under Pete’s BY97752.

Pete at the Whitson Project

Pete is broadly under the U106 section of the Whitson project:

Pete has close STR matches to the other STR testers in the project. However, Tom and Dan have not taken the BigY test. They did take a single SNP test for R-S23139 which is higher up on the SNP Tree. One easy to understand site for SNPs is the SNP Tracker web site. My guess is that Pete’s BY97752 is about 2,000 years old. S23139 would be even older.  Here is the overall map:

U106 is an Anglo-Saxon SNP. At this time, according to the map, Pete’s branch of Anglo-Saxons hadn’t made their way to England. Here is the SNP Tracker timeline:

For some reason, the SNP Tracker gives the same date for S23139 as it does for BY97752. This doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I guess they are saying that these four SNPs are all around the same date. The three matches under BY97752 are Pete and the two who are under BY62217 which is under BY97752.

Here is a closeup of Pete’s private Variants:

Let’s say that BY97752 is 1,600 years old. There is another SNP in there with it called FT136511. Let’s add those to Pete’s 21 Private Variants and get 23. When I divide 1,600 by 23, I get about 70 years. That means that these variants or SNPs are forming about every 70 years on average on Pete’s line.

The block tree acts as a very accurate family tree. However, this tree is very old right now. If Tom or Dan from the U106 Branch of the Whitson Project were to test for the BigY, that would bring their branch of humanity into the genealogical timeframe and start to name SNPs that are uniquely Whitson. To me, that is the goal of BigY testing. The other goal is to find one’s deep roots. In Pete’s case his roots were in Germany – perhaps fighting or joining with the Romans. In fact the other tester under BY62217 which is the parallel branch to the Whitson branch lists his background as German. So, if there was another Whitson U106 tester, the branch would end up looking similar to the BY62217 branch. Most of Pete’s Private Variants would then be subsumed into his new SNP in a blue box. One of those SNPs would be named as representative of the new group. Then Pete and the new tester would have a smaller number of their own private variants which would be averaged in the Block tree.

BigY and the Rule of Three

Bill Wood from the BigY Page on Facebook promotes the Rule of three. In my own words, that rule is to test yourself for deep roots information. That is what Pete did. Then test a relative  – say 4th cousin or 6th cousin. That will get you more information. However, look at BY62217. The common ancestor between the two of  the testers in that group is roughly 4 private variants away. So that could be roughly 280 years. Yet the date of their named SNP is still quite old as it formed probably not too long after BY97752. The third tester which is a close relative then names most or all of the remaining private variants and forces further branching and a newer terminal SNP.