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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

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.

Visual Phasing My Father-in-law’s Butler Side: Part 3

Here is where I am with visual phasing of my father-in-law’s Butler side:

I started about four or five years ago and recently have been updating their visual phasing. Visual Phasing maps out in what way three siblings got their DNA from their four grandparents.

I’ll look at the chromosomes that I haven’t completed and see if I can complete or improve on any of them.

Chromosome 1

I’ll update this to Excel and start over. The crossovers seem straightforward until we get to the right end. Then there are three in a row:

Here is my attempt at visual phasing:

When there are two crossovers in a row for the same person, it means that there is usually a Half Identical Region (HIR) which goes unidentified.

If I add some more Pouliot to Virginia’s DNAPainter map, it will help. I will also add more LeFevre:

This brings Virginia up to 18% painted.

Next, I’ll add the LeFevre matches to Lorraine’s map:

This doesn’t add any new LeFevre information for Lorraine, but may be helpful for other chromosomes. Next, I put the DNAPainter maps below the Visual Phasing Chart. This will tell if the theoretical and actual matches agree:

The scales may not match here. For Lorraine, it is clear that there is a crossover from LeFevre (blues) to Pouliot at 205:

:

I checked Richard vs. Virginia and that crossover is actually 204, not 202.

Virginia has a crossover from Pouliot to LeFevre at the same location:

That likely means that Richard does not have a crossover at 204. That is good to know.

Now Chromosome 1 is starting to come into it’s own. I see that Richard has a crossover here:

At 217, the crossover goes from Pouliot to LeFevre. I also see that Richard matches a LeFevre here:

I now have Richard and Virginia’s maternal sides finished and identified:

I think that this is as far as I can get, unless I find more matches between 0 and 70:

Chromosome 5

I had that this Chromosome was not started.

I recopied these comparisons from Gedmatch as he previous ones didn’t seem right. This is what I get without looking at Half Identical Regions (HIRs):

When I add my one allowed HIR, I get this:

Next I added in matches from DNAPainter:

Virginia has a large match that Lorraine and Richard do not have. This match is from 75 to 118. Michelle represents LeFevre, so green must represent Lefevre. Dark blue on Lorraines bar is also Lefevre, so that would support salmon being Lefevre.  Then there are the three Michelle matches near the beginning of Chromosome 5.

  • Lorraine: 18-31
  • Virginia: 28-34
  • Richard: 18-34

This suggests that Lorrain has Lefevre to Pouliot crossover at 31 and that Virginia has a Pouliot to Lefevre crossover at 28. That is good, but it means that I have to adjust my crossovers. Instead of two Richard crossovers, there is a Virginia crossover and then a Lorraine crossover. I think the problem is that I didn’t add enough detail to the comparisons. For that, I will need to lower the match level to 3 cM:

This shows another segment from 35 to 38. I may have to come back to this Chromosome as it seems quite complicated – especially in the region around the 30’s.

Chromosome 8

Here is the work I had done in 2016:

I redid Chromosome 8 in Excel:

This time I saw an R and L crossover where I saw a V crossover previously on the right side of the Chromosome. This is what I get this time:

The small blue segment on Lorraine’s top bar looks ridiculous, so I will take that out. Next, I add information from DNAPainter. However, these matches are Lefevre only:

This tells me that Lefevre is salmon and Pouliot is green.  This completes the mapping for Lorraine and Richard, but it does not identify and paternal segments. The arrows point out where the crossovers were for Richard and Lorraine, that I had previously identified as a Virgininia crossover:

It may look like Virginia should have a maternal crossover, but that is only because I did not map one of her segments. I just did that and here is here extra segment:

Joseph Methot was the father-in-law of Edmund LeFevre, so on the LeFevre side.

Chromosome 13

Here is what I had done with Chromosome 13 in 2017:

An identifying match for Virginia would help between 39 and 59.

 

It turns out that Virginia’s match with Philip that I just added is helpful. The match was between 40 and 60:

It appears that there was a match to a Rooney descendant which is on the Kerivan side. That helped identify the maternal side of Chromosome 13. While I’m at it, I’ll add Philip to Richard’s DNA Painter Map:

Richard’s match with Philip starts at 36, so it defines Virginia’s crossover from Pouliot to Lefevre at 39 or 40.

Chromosome 16

I had origingally worked on this Chromosome in Word. I redid the work in Excel and came up with the same basic results:

Next, I look at DNA Painter. Here is what I have for Richard:

He shows Pouliot at the start and near the end. then in the middle, there is some really old Lefevre DNA going back to 1715. This is from a match from Christine, that I found at Gedmatch. She had uploaded from Ancestry, but I can’t find her at Ancestry right now. However, I assume that I had the common ancestors correct. I see that Richard also has a match to Doris at MyHeritage. This common ancestor is on the Pouliot side:

This should define a Pouliot to Lefevre crossover at about 50. The problem is that I haven’t identified a crossover for Richard or any crossover at the 50 location on Chromosome 16.

One thing that I do know is that all three Butler siblings match on the Pouliot side at the beginning of the Chromosome:

 

Virginia and Lorraine do not match on the Pouliot side near the end of the Chromosome, so I came up with the above map. I think that French Canadian intermarriage may have messed with the middle of the Chromosome, so I may have to change this at some point.

Looking for Paternal Matches

I went to Gedmatch to download 1,000 of Richard’s newest matches. Most of these should be from Ancestry. As Richard tested at FTDNA, I would be better off downloading VIrginia and Lorraine’s results. They tested at Ancestry. However, I did find something interesting on Richard’s old spreadsheet:

Here is a match James who I have on Richard’s maternal side. My note says he has Cincinnati roots. Here is  the maternal side of his tree at FTDNA:

The least documented side is Branch where I think the connection is. Alma’s mother was Rebecca Butler based on Alma’s marriage record:

Here is Rebecca in the 1870 Ward 17 Cincinnati Census:

My working theory is that my wife’s Butlers are related to these Butlers. That helps me solve Chromosme 16:

Here is how Richard and James match:

This is how I have connected the two trees, but I don’t have the genealogy to do it at the top level.

Lorraine Matches James Also

Lorraine matches James here on Chromosomes 4 and 16:

Virginia  matches James on Chromosome 4 only.

Summary and Conclusions

  • 9 out of the Butler sibling’s chromosomes are believed to be completed
  • While looking for paternal matches for Visual Phasing, I found one that I had discovered in 2015. It turns out that this match was a descendant of the Cincinnati Butlers who are related to my wife’s Butlers by DNA.
  • DNA Painter has been helpful in identifying matches also and I have been adding to these three Butler siblings’ maps
  • The only cousins on the Butler grandparent side used to check the visual phasing are those that have not been proved by genealogy, but are certainly cousins by DNA.
  • I will continue on with Chromosomes 17 through 22 in a subsequent Blog

 

 

 

Updating the Visual Phasing of My Father-in-law’s Butlers: Part 2

In my previous Blog, I was successful in updating the visual phasing for the four grandparents of my father-in-law. I was able to complete several of the 23 chromosomes. This was my previous summary:

Chromosome 11

It appaears that I should be able to find some maternal matches to complete Chromosome 11. This is what I had come up with in 2016:

Here is what I have for Richard on his Chromosome 11 in DNAPainter:

I found this match for my wife from a previous Blog:

This indicates that Kbou would be on the Pouliot side for my father-in-law. From the key for Richard’s DNAPainter map, it appeared that Gagne/Girard was improperly put in a group with LeFevres, so I will move that down:

That means that Richard’s crossover at position 117 is his change from Pouliot to LeFevre:

Here is the finished Chromosome 11:

Kbou is also an X Chromosome match.

Marie Girard was my father-in-law’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother. If Richard or one of his sisters were to have the mitochondrial DNA test, that would pass to the mother’s only side also.

Chromosome 17

This was some of my early work in Visual Phasing as it is in Word:

As paternal matches are very scarce, it is difficult to identify whether blue or purple is Butler or Kerivan.

Chromosome 22

Unfortunately, I could find no paternal matches on Chromosome 22.

Chromosome 5

The crossovers were complicated in this Chromosome which is perhaps why I did not pursue this Chromosome previously:

I’ll give this a shot now. I’ll start in the middle:

Things seem clearer there. The confusing par is around 30 to 40. I’ll work on solving the right side and hope for good matches on the left side. Here is a partial solution:

Lorraine and Alan have a small match on Chromosome 5:

Lorraine has a better match with Yvonne:

This would be a good match to compare with Richard and Virginia. Here is Richard’s match with Yvonne:

I don’t see a match for Virginia.

Unfortunately, Richard and Lorraine have a Fully Identical Region from 77 to 116:

That means that this hint does not help.

Back to Alan

Virginia and Richard show no match with Alan on Chromosome 5. If Lorraine’s match is valid, I show this:

That match identifies the top bar as maternal and the bottom as paternal. That would also meanj that Lorraine and Richard would have LeFevre DNA between 77 and 116 which corroborates with the Yvonne match. I’ll leave Chromosome like this for now:

Chromosome 1

I worked on this Chromosome in 2016:

On Richard’s DNAPainter map, he has this second green match with KK:

Thjat match represents LeFevre which I have a purple:

Chromosome 2

This Chromosome is interesting as it has some Butler DNA from an unidentified Butler ancestor. I will re-do this Chromosome in Excel. Richard’s DNAPainter map shows that he has Kerivan DNA on the right side of his paternal copy of Chromosome 2:

Light blue represents Kerivan and dark blue is unknown Butler DNA.

It would be helpful to ‘paint’ Lorraine’s paternal Chromosome 2 as well as Virginia’s.

Here is Lorraine:

As a bonus, Lorraine’s match with Kim shows a bonusk segment of unknown Butler in Chromosome 4.

I don’t have anything mapped for Virginia yet. I’m not showing a match between Virginia and Kim. Here is Virginia’s matches with Jack who has Kerivan ancestry:

This mapping is not necessary, but it is helpful to see where Virginia’s Kerivan matches are. At the right side of Chromosome 2, I also see the possibility of a double crossover:

Instead of two Virginia crossovers, the last Virginia may be a Richard and Lorraine crossover. Here is what I get for the right side of Chromosome 2:

Next, I need some more maternal side for Lorraine. I unlocked something at FTDNA so I could get a good match. This is with Michelle – on Lorraine’s LeFevre side:

Next I unlock Virginia’s FTNDA results. Here is how she matches Michelle:

I have not been consistent with the colors between siblings. From just cousin matches, the Chromosome 2 Map looks like this:

I can expand some of the segments like this:

That leaves the left side of the chromosome undone. I can pretend I don’t know the results for the right side, solve the left side and then add in the right side.

The bottom three pairs of bars were visually phased.

Michelle’s DNA Matches with Richard, Lorraine and Virginia

I am hoping that key to solving Chromosome 2 lies in Michelle. Michelle matches:

  • Lorraine 31-69
  • Virginia 37-115
  • Richard 38-75

The key appears to be in the beginning of the matches. My guess is that Michelle who represents LeFevre is the salmon color:

That also means that the map would be the same except that the colors for LeFevre and Pouliot are switched. Virginia will still have the blue Kerivan on her paternal side. Green will be Butler and orange will be Pouliot.

And the answer is:

The key to solving this Chromosome:

  • Matches with Michelle and Jack
  • Solving the left side as if I didn’t know about the other DNA matches and then adding them in.
  • A double crossover for Richard and Lorraine at position 227.6.

The Importance of Chromosome 2 for Butler Genealogy

The green Butler segments of Chromosome 2 are where Richard and Lorraine match Kim and Nathan. This is my best guess of how the Butler families tie together:

Kim and Nathan descend from George Butler who lived in Cincinnati . My wife’s 2nd great-grandfather Edward Butler also lived in Cincinnati for a while – not too far from George Butler. Here is how Nathan and Kim match each other:

This is the DNA that Kim and Nathan share that came down from George Butler who was born in 1826 in Ireland.

Summary and Conclusions

  • 12 of the chromosomes have been completed.
  • It takes time to get matches to confirm and improve the work
  • As Butler matches are scarce, it would be better to try to get some Butler matches from AncestryDNA to upload to Gedmatch, MyHeritage or FTDNA.
  • It takes a long time to figure out who matches you on a specific chromosome. If you have a profile on DNAPainter, that makes the job easier.

 

 

Updating My Wife’s Father’s Side Butler Visual Phasing

Several years ago, I worked on the visual phasing of my wife’s paternal side. I administer the DNA for my wife’s father and two aunts. That gives me enough information to do visual phasing. I downloaded the Stephen Fox spreadsheet, but this does not work well now. That means that I can just update my old excel individual Chromosome maps.

New Butler Matches

Part of the problem I had with visual phasing of the Butler family is that there were a lot of matches on their maternal French Canadian side, but not as many matches on their Irish side. In there past several years, there should be new matches that could help in identifying the paternal grandparents.

Chromosome 2

This is what I had for Chromosome 2 – last worked on in 2018:

Here Gaby is not very helpful as she is a first cousin. Here is another match on Chromosome 2:

Lorraine and John are 2nd cousins, once removed on the Kerivan side. Here is how John and Lorraine match:

John will be even more helpful on Chromosomes 7, 15 and 20.

The position of 227M is significant as it occurs at a crossover. Here is John’s match with Virginia:

Here is John and Richard:

This shows that my former Chromosome 2 map was wrong on the right. All the DNA on the right should be Kerivan and not Butler. I’m a bit out of practice with these, so I’ll move on to Chromosome 7 which I hope will be easier.

Chromosome 7

Here is what I had for Chromosome 7 back in 2017:

It looks like I was having trouble with this one also as I have two different tries. I can now see by Richard’s match with John, that his crossover at 83 is on the paternal side:

Following John’s matches, it appears that this could be the answer:

This is a case where one good match can map both the paternal and maternal sides of a whole Chromosome. While that is good, you can see that there is quite a bit of Butler [green] DNA missing between these three siblings. It would be a good idea to verify the maternal side. I checked MyHeritage and Fred matches Virginia there on Chromosome 7 where I show Fred’s sister matching between about position 70 and 80. That confirms my earlier work. It is satisfying to have this Chromosome finished.

Summary of Butler Chromosomes

It would make sense to summarize the condition of the Butler 23 chromosomes in a spreadsheet.

It took a while to go through all my files. This shows that six out of 23 chromosomes are phased by grandparent. At this point, I will assume that the green highlighted chromosomes are correct. Next I can leither look at the yellow highlighted chromosomes or revisit the Butler matches with John on the Kerivan side.

Chromosome 4

This Chromosome was analyzed in PowerPoint which is not ideal:

These larger chromosomes can have a lot of crossovers. Fortunately, we now have John’s DNA match at Gedmatch. From above, I see:

  • John doesn’t match Lorraine
  • John matches Virginia in three places
  • John matches Richard in one place near the right end of Chromosome 4 (at 183 to 185)

From this it seems obvious that Butler is green and Kerivan is blue on the map above. This is how the paternal side comes out:

Richard’s match to John ends at 185, so that describes his last paternal crossover at 185. VIrginia’s match to John is from 183 to 189. The question then is why doesn’t Lorraine match John on the right side of the Chromosome if she shows blue Kerivan there? I can show more detail on the match between Lorraine and John:

I’m really showing nothing – especially on the right hand side. That means that Lorraine should be all Butler maternally and other adjustments have to be made. Here is my correction for the right side of Chromosome 4 which appears to be closer to the truth:

I moved Richard’s crossover to 185. I ignored the two crossovers for Lorraine.

Back to Chromosome 2

I will stay with the John matches and see if I am closer to tackling Chromosome 2. Here I added John’s DNA matches at the bottom:

Because Virginia matches John sooner than Richard and Lorraine do on the right, this could indicate multiple crossovers. I’ll take out the last Virginia crossover and add in two for Richard and Lorraine.

I’m not sure how I would have figured out that there was a double crossover at 227.5 were it not for the match the Bulter family has with John.

Chromosome 6

Here John matches only Virginia:

That small match identifies green as Kerivan:

However, it raises the question as to why Lorraine does not match John between positions 103 and 108. When I lower thre threshold, I see that she does:

That tells me that this was a valid match between Lorraine and John. It just got clipped on both ends. This also confirms Lorraine’s paternal crossover at about 107.5.

John’s DNA Match and Chromosome 8

John matches Virginia only on Chromosome 8:

Here is what I had done previously on Chromosome 8:

John’s match with Virginia is to the far right of Chromosome 8. That means that blue is Kerivan and Green is Butler.

John’s match with Virginia did not define any new crossovers but it did make the work that I did previously more useful. For example, if Richard comes across a paternal match on the right side of Chromosome 8 at 75 or higher, it will be on the Butler side.

Chromosome 9

John matches Virginia and Richard (but not Lorraine) on the same area:

I had already ‘solved’ Chromosome 9 previously, but let’s see if John’s two matches fit in:

I see already that I had a labeling error as I have Butler in the orange and green segments. Also I have Lorraine and Virginia as the same paternal color which is wrong. Problems. Here is the link to the Blog where I made the mistakes. This was how I had Chromosome 9 before I went wrong:

It seems like this is a better rendering of Chromosome 9:

I changed Virginia’s first crossover to her  maternal side. This is because she matches John who has Kerivan ancestry at position 8-14. I notice again, if I mapped this right, that the Butler DNA is skimpy. If there is a big Butler match waiting to be found in the middle of Chromosome 9, it will not be found by these three siblings.

Chromosome 10

Virginia and John match on Chromosome 10:

Right now I have no names on Chromosome 10:

I would need more matches to figure out if that is maternal or paternal.

At MyHeritage:

Here is the DNA match:

Lorraine’s match to Philip looks the same:

Philip and Richard do not match on Chromosome 10:

Unfortunately, even that does not help. Thinking a bit more, the first match between John and Virginia does help:

That match with John representing Kerivan must be on the salmon color. That is because no one else matches Virginia’s salmon color in that area of the match. If the match was in the green, then Lorraine would also have to match John there. This appears to be the answer:

From looking at first cousin matches previously, I seem to have figured out the maternal and paternal sides of this Chromosome.

Chromosome 12

John matches Virginia and Richard here:

I had already figured out Chromosome 12:

The match with John supports the mapping on the right as Lorraine shows Butler in yellow.

Chromosome 15

Just two chromosomes to go. John matches Lorraine here:

Some of my early visual phasing was done in Word:

Virginia matches known 2nd cousin Fred at MyHeritage:

Here is the DNA match:

Here is Lorraine and Fred:

This suggests a maternal crossover for Virginia at about position 28

I’m going to try to start Chromosome 15 again. This time in Excel:

I put in who owns the crossovers and most of the positiongs. I started at the right where Lorraine and Richard have no matches, so opposite colors. I then moved Lorraine’s colors to her next crossover. Lorraine and Virginia have a Fully Identical Region (FIR) in green so I added that in. Next, I’ll do a random half identical region between Lorraine and Virginia and see where that goes.

That looks better. It is all done except for the left side. I now see that John’s match with Lorraine must be on the salmon color. That is because John matches only Lorraine and not Virginia nor Richard. That means that salmon represents the Kerivan quarter and blue the Butler quarter.

Now I just need to look at the two Pouliot matches from MyHeritage. This should be the finished Chromosome 15 for Richard, Lorraine and Virginia:

That match between Fred, Lorraine and Virginia helped define two maternal crossovers. One was at 28 and one at 33. These were a little off from where I drew the original crossover lines at 27 and 31. On this Chromosome, some Pouliot DNA was lost between the three siblings from 60 to 95. I put Richard’s crossover at35 on his paternal side as he should have had a match with Fred (Pouliot side) if his crossover was on the maternal side.

Chromosome 20

Chromosome 20 looks fairly simple. I used a first cousin match somehow to come up with the map. Lorraine and Richard have this match with John (Kerivan side):

The way I mapped it, Virginia and Richard have the same Paternal grandparent. That means that I made a mistake or that the match is wrong. The one place I can go to for matches by Chromosome is DNAPainter. I have painte some of Richard’s DNA there:

This shows no paternal matches for Richard, but matches with two people on the maternal side. Michelle is at FTDNA here grandfather was Joseph Martin LeFevre. Richard descends from a first wife and Michelle from a second wife. That means that there is only one common ancestor between Michelle and Richard. From DNAPainter, I see that the match is from 0-8. That means that LeFevre is right for the left part of Richard’s

Line is at Gedmatch and goes back to Delisle who is on the LeFevre line. This would also be correct for the right side of Richard’s Chromosome 20. Here is Line and Lorraine:

That means that the right side of Lorraine’s Chromosome 20 is right. I don’t see Line matching Virginia at Gedmatch, so that would support the right side of Virginia’s Chromosome 20 also.

At this point, I’m at an impasse. It could be that Virginia has two extra crossovers here:

I’ll just leave this Chromosome as is for now and try to solve it later.

Summary and Conclusions

Here is my spreadsheet:

  • I went from 5 to 10 chromosomes completed.
  • I corrected one Chromosome I thought had had completed previously (Chromosome 9).
  • I improved some chromosomes without solving them, making them more useful
  • The chromosomes were helped by a match to second cousin once removed  John. He has his DNA at Ancestry and at Gedmatch.
  • MyHeritage was also helpful as they have ‘Theories of Relativity’ which give likely common ancestors and have detailed chromosome matching information.
  • Finally, DNAPainter is helpful in looking at specific chromosomes to see who the matches are there.
  • I will need to follow up on ‘painting’ Virginia and Lorraine.
  • I will also need to follow up on working on completing more of the visual phasing for the DNA of siblings Richard, Lorraine and Virginia.

My Mother-in-Law’s Ellis DNA Match Virginia

I manage my mother-in-law Joan’s DNA at Ancestry and saw not too long ago that she had a 2nd cousin DNA match in Virginia:

This is not too surprising as I have that James Henry Ellis had 13 children. I’m not sure how well George Ellis knew Eva Ellis he immigrated to the US from Prince Edward Island the year before his sister Eva was born.

Virignia also uploaded her DNA to Gedmatch which means that we can see how Joan and Virginia match by DNA:

They match by quite a bit.

DNAPainter

I can ‘paint’ this match onto Joan’s Chromosome match using DNAPainter. This is what Joan has so far:

I have 30% of Joan’s DNA identified. Most of that DNA is on her maternal side which is the second bar of each chromosome eabove. Joan only has 19% painted on her paternal side:

Joan and Virginia have the common ancestors of James Ellis and Clarinda Gorrill, so that will bring the green DNA way up. When I add Virginia in, Joan is now 22% painted on her paternal side:

Overall, Joan is now 32% painted:

That’s a good increase. Here is the DNA passed down to Joan from George Henry Ellis and Clarinda Gorrill, as shared by four DNA 2nd cousins on Joan’s paternal chromosomes:

Virginia filled in some important missing gaps on Chromosomes 11, 18 and 20 as well as smaller gaps elsewhere.

Some Genetic Genealogy

I have a chart of Ellis DNA matches on a tree:

This chart is quite out of date. Joan only shows one 2nd cousin. Mariann was noted above on the DNA map. Here is Virginia added:

I need to add Melissa and Ronda. Here is Ronda:

Turns out Ronda is Virginia’s 1st cousin once removed.

Here is Melissa, the daughter of Mariann:

Melissa is at Gedmatch, so I was able to map her DNA. Her mother’s DNA is not there, but she tested at FTDNA which is where I found here DNA results. that means that Melissa’s DNA didn’t add anything new to Joan’s DNA map.

Debbie’s DNA Match at MyHeritage

Melissa is also at MyHeritage. She has a shared match with Debbie. Debbie had enough of a tree at MyHeritage, that I was able to trace her line back to James Henry Ellis also:

This brings in one more of James Henry Ellis’ 13 children:

While I’m adding to Joan’s DNA map, I’ll add Debbie’s Ellis/Gorrill DNA. Debbie brings Joan up to 25% painted on the paternal side:

That is a milestone. Joan is now one third painted overall:

Here is Debbie’s contribution in gray:

Debbie added significant portions of DNA on Chromosomes 1, 7 and 17. It is perhaps a bit unusual that Debbie’s match does not include any overlap with the other three Ellis/Gorrill DNA. Altogether, James Henry Ellis and Clarinda Gorrill account for one quarter of all of Joan’s DNA or one half of all her paternal DNA.

Here is Joan’s DNA map – now at 33% overall:

The paternal side where Ellis and Gorrill are are the top bar of each chromosome. Second cousin level is an ideal level for mapping. I don’t like to map 1st cousins as they include two grandparents as common ancestors.

Kerri at Ancestry

I would like to figure out how Kerri fits in at Ancestry as she is also at Gedmatch. Here is her tree:

I need it to get back a bit further to 1846. Kerri’s maternal side seems to favor Ireland, so I’ll take a look at her paternal side:

That means I need to build my own tree to try to get her family back to Prince Edward Island. I wasn’t able to do this easily, so I pulled the plug on Kerri at this time.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Virginia tested at AncestryDNA and uploaded to Gedmatch. To me, that is the best of both worlds. She has good tree matching and DNA matching at AncestryDNA and DNA details at Gedmatch.
  • I was able to update my mother-in-law’s Chromosome Map using DNAPainter
  • I was also able to update my Ellis DNA/Genealogy chart. I hope to find more Ellis relatives as James Henry Ellis born 1846 in PEI had 13 children

 

My Frazer DNA Relative Suzzanne

I was recently informed by another Frazer relative, that she had a new match at AncestryDNA named Suzzanne. I checked and saw that AncestryDNA had matched Suzzanne to me via ThruLines:

We show as 6th cousins which is pretty remote. Jane who mentioned Suzzanne descends from Richard P L Frazer above so they would be in the third cousin range. Here is Jane on my ThruLines:

However, something seems off as there shouldn’t be two Archibalds as son of Archibald. When I expand the tree, I see that Jane and Suzzanne should be 2nd cousins once removed:

The DNA match amounts of 15 and 11 cM are how much these two match me. They must match each other by quite a bit more. From Jane’s view, the relationship looks better:

I have one shared DNA match with Suzzanne at AncestryDNA:

That match is with Rebecca who is my 3rd cousin. This is my own DNA match chart as Rebecca does not show on ThruLines. Also, based on my own chart, I should be closer than a 6th cousin to Suzzanne. When I add in Suzzanne to my chart, I see we are actually 5th cousins:

In both our trees we have Frazers who married Frazers. Also we don’t know the wife of Richard Frazer who was born in 1777. She may be related to us in more than one way. This was all a bit too complicated for AncestryDNA apparently.

More on Suzzanne’s Frazer Ancestry

Here is what I have on my website:

Suzzanne descends from Anne. Anne apparently went with her father to Scotland. It looks like Anne went by Fannie in 1891:

Suzzanne and Shared Matches at AncestryDNA

I mentioned above that Suzzanne and I have a shared match with Rebecca. Rebecca and I are third cousins:

I checked my four siblings who I have tested at AncestryDNA and they do not have a match to Suzzanne. This is not unusual for 5th cousins.

Suzzanne and Jane’s Shared Matches

These two have a lot of shared DNA matches. One that I am interested in is Gary. Gary is Jane’s third cousin:

AncestryDNA suggests evaluating Gary’s tree. I want to devote a later Blog to Gary.

Suzzanne at MyHeritage

I see that recently Suzzanne has also showed up as a DNA match to me at MyHeritage. That is good because that will give more detail as to which Chromosome we match on.

We have a small match on Chromosome 14, but mostly math on Chromosome 17:

That would most likely be the DNA that came down to both of us through Richard Frazer born around 1777 or his unknown wife. I already have a lot of my DNA mapped by DNAPainter. Here is my Chromosome 17:

The area where I match Emily in the middle is where I also math Suzzanne. According to MyHeritage, Suzzanne, Emily and I triangulate:

That means that this segment of DNA points to a common ancestor. We already identified that common ancestor as either Richard Frazer born about 1777 or his unknown wife. I had previously mapped my match with Emily to our common ancestors. They are my 2nd great-grandparents George William Frazer and Margaret McMaster. I now know that this match is on my Frazer side, going back to the late 1700’s.

Here I have painted Suzzanne’s match to my DNA Map:

Notice that Suzzanne’s match overlaps with Emily’s. That means that my match with Emily is actually an older match and I can change her match from maroon to red to represent Richard Frazer’s (or his wife’s) DNA.

Suzzanne and My Cousin Paul

I have my 2nd cousin Paul’s DNA at MyHeritage and Suzzanne matches him also:

The match on Chromosome 9 is under that threshold that DNAPainter uses, but the one at Chromosome 12 is not.

Here, Paul has a lot going on on his paternal DNA side. We see Emily again. This is the first yellow mapped DNA. This will represent either Richard Frazer or his wife.

Suzzanne and Paul Triangulate with Lorraine

This is potentially important as this DNA points to a common ancestor.

Next I look at Lorraine’s tree, to see if there are matches:

This tree does not go back as far as I would like. However, Paul, Lorraine and Cindy triangulate:

Cindy has a good tree. Her paternal tree has some Irish lines:

 

I see the Tighe name come up. This name has come up before in DNA matches. Perhaps Richard Frazer married a Tighe?

Here is another match that is closer to Suzanne:

Here, Paul, Suzanne and Douglas triangulate on Chromosome 12. Also Douglas shows a McMaster in his tree:

Douglas has that Catherine was from County Sligo:

Summary and Conclusions

  • Because Suzzanne has tested her DNA at Ancestry and is also at MyHeritage, we have a lot of information about her DNA matches.
  • From what I can tell, Suzzanne descends from the two brothers: Archibald and Richard Frazer born in the 1770’s. This is not unusual in Frazer genealogy
  • I am a 5th cousin to Suzzanne, but we are still a DNA match
  • Suzzanne’s Frazer ancestor Annie ended up in Scotland
  • I looked at some DNA matches from MyHeritage. They may give some hints as to who Richard Frazer’s wife was.
  • I was reminded of another common DNA match, Gary, who I would like to write about.
  • Bottom line is that Suzzanne fits into the Frazer genealogy and DNA matching just as she should.