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My Father’s Cousin Joyce and Snell Clusters

I was hoping that the DNA results from my father’s cousin Joyce would result in new revelations on Hartley genealogy. So far, the results have been confusing. Joyce has a second cousin on the Snell side, so let’s look at those clusters.

Here is Joyce’s 2nd cousin on the Snell side:

I should note that Isaiah was married to a Bradford, so they should also factor in. I chose chd as the person of interest to cluster on and the range of clusters between 20 and 150 cM. This resulted in three clusters.

Here is the first cluster:

I already have a large Snell DNA Tree. Here is part of it:

The person I chose to cluster on is Chuck in the DNA tree above.

Cluster one is quite tight. We can see many of the people from that cluster in my tree. Trey is not on my DNA tree as he has no tree of his own identified. Shared matches shows that Jessica is his first cousin or half niece. I remember Florence from childhood and another child Janice not shown in the chart above. Florence and Janice attended the same church as me. Here is a photo of Florence from Ancestry:

Now that I am looking at Jessica, I see that I have the tree wrong. Here is the right relationship:

Jessica is Janice’s granddaughter. Here is the fix:

2nd Snell Cluster

We see the original Snell/Denault cluster from Trey to bessey.

Here is Y.R.:

YR is not on my tree. I will try to add her by evaluating the tree as Ancestry suggests. Here is part of a document that tells about Helen’s mother who died young:

Here is the couple in 1930 just before Helen is born:

Mildred did not marry until she was 31.

Here is the Washington Death Index:

Here is Mildred in 1900 on Perry Hill Road in Acushnet:

The person listed before this as the head of family was Jerome B. Tripp.

Jerome’s wife Marcia must be the Marcia Snell we are looking for. This seems to be checking out easily.

Here is Nancy’s birth record:

My tree agrees with Ancestry that YR is a third cousin once removed to Joyce.

In Cluster 2, there is also a small group of two in the bottom right. Andrew has an interesting Snell connection 7 generations out:

I don’t see Susannah on my Snell web page. That means that if this is the connection, it would be quite ancient.

The Third Snell Cluster

These are the clusters I see within the cluster. I’ve already looked at the YR cluster. I looked at the Trey cluster, but now it is larger. I’ll look at Wendy in the second box. She has this tree:

I’ll add Wendy to my Ancestry tree to see if she connects anywhere. I found a tree that has John Snell of Westport, MA as the father of Xenophon:

Unfortunately, Roy’s father Guy passed away when Roy was young. I will just take the Ancestry suggestion of Guy for Roy’s father. Here is Guy in 1880:

Here is Xenophon’s marriage record showing his father as John Snell:

Here is what I have so far:

Snell Locations in the Wendy Line

I have:

  • Roy born North Dakota
  • Guy born Fond Du Lac County Wisconsin
  • Xenophon born in New York

It would be helpful to figure out more about where Xenophon was born. The tree I borrowed from above, has Xenophon born in Homer, Courtland County.

I am tempted to go with Randy’s Tree suggested at Ancestry:

He has John living in Forest, Wisconsin in 1860:

That is the same town that Xenophon is living in at that time:

Here is Forest:

John and the Squire Snell family are on the previous page of the 1860 Census:

Notice that Squire is also listed on the above genealogy. I have already connected Xenophon to my tree:

I just need to link all the other children to Phoebe Head. I fixed this by merging Phebee Snell with Phebe Head:

Adding Xenophon’s Line to my Snell DNA Tree

Here is my existing tree:

Phebe at the red arrow must be the sister of the John Snell who moved to New York and then to Wisconsin.  This shows the likely relationship between Joyce and Wendy:

It appears that there are two Heads in Wendy’s Line, so there may be more DNA represented on the Head line than the Snell Line. Here is what Joyce has on her ThruLines in this area:

I did not add OT here before as he is already on the Snell line in a closer relationship. See above under Jerome Peckham Tripp. However, perhaps I should add him as there is a new match: Carol under Mary Polly Snell. It looks like I have already checked out the OT line as the ancestors are in white on the ThruLines.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I did not see any obvious connections to the Bradford family. However, I did not look at all the clusters. I can address Bradford in a subsequent Blog perhaps
  • The smaller earlier clusters are the easiest to figure out. The later later Snell clusters were more difficult.
  • I enjoy using my Snell DNA tree to keep everyone straight
  • I was able to update and correct my Snell DNA tree
  • It could still use some work. For example, I did not add Carol above.

 

 

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Hartley Genealogy and Playing with Ancestry’s Custom Clusters

Quite a while back, I took a sample from my father’s cousin to get a better representative sample of Hartley DNA. I will look at Joyce’s custom clusters. In the past, I have built a Hartley/Bracewell Tree on the assumption that that could be the correct genealogy:

The tree looks promising in that it is large, but I have trouble proving the genealogy. The part that is proved is on the Burrows > Rasmussin Line:

This gets the common ancestors back to Hartley and Emmet. The common matches also filter out the large number of Snell relatives. Kristen has a good match to Joyce, so would be a good pick for custom clusters:

A Custom Cluster between Joyce and Kristen

There are 4 small clusters. The first cluster:

This has Kristen and Emily who have been identified, but also Jennifer who I have been unable to place. The next cluster:

Zachary and Rachael are related to Jennifer. They are niece and nephew. I do see from previous correspondence that Jennifer’s father was John Williams:

Jennifer’s father or grandfather could be the John B Williams born in 1906. Here is the family in 1906 in Fall River:

But perhaps that is the wrong family. This is John A. Here is John B. Williams in 1940:

This could be the same family if John Williams remarried. This is John Burroughs Williams in October, 1940:

Here is 291 Maple Street:

Earlier in the year, the family lived here:

I won’t clear up where Jennifer fits in, but it is clear it is part of the Williams’ family.

Here is the next Cluster:

Kristen is the match in common with the others.  Ruth fits in on the Pilling family:

Mary was a single mother, so that means I do not know who the father of John Pilling was. Perhaps that adds some uncertainty to the Cluster. [Actually, it would not, as I do not desend from the unknown father of John Pilling.]

Here is the last cluster:

I guess that Emily down and to the right is a Pilling Cluster. That means that Sheryl up and to the left could be a Hartley Cluster. Interestingly, Sheryl’s match shows this:

In this Blog, I questioned the connetion shown above. That leaves me with confusing DNA and confusing genealogy.

Maurey and Kristen

Another of my father’s cousins has tested his DNA at Ancestry. I can try the same shared clusters with Kristen as I did for Joyce. This resulted in three clusters. I’ll skip to the third:

Derek and Ruth are on the Pilling Line. Jane and Catherine are related on the more recent Hartley/Snell Lines.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Questions on Jennifer’s ancestry lead me to previous enquiries which revealed that Jennifer is the daughter of John Williams. However, is this the John born in 1906? There is some confusion on the genealogy in that line.
  • I have questions on Hartley genealogy and DNA. How do the Pilling and
    Emmet Lines fit in as well as Hartleys.
  • There are other lines in there that should fit in but cannot be placed.
  • Overall, it is helpful to observe to observe the arrangement of families in the clusters. This may result in some fresh thinking on the problems in the genealogy.

 

 

 

 

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Updating My Children’s Maternal DNA and Genealogy: Part 2

In my previous Blog, I updated my daughter’s DNA profile using DNA Painter. I can do the same for my son using Gedmatch. I have a maternal profile for JJ at Gedmatch. JJ’s match with his second cousin Robert at Gedmatch looks like this:

This match goes back to their maternal great-grandparents:

These grandparents are Jarek and Wozniak and represent JJ’s Polish side.

Mapping this to JJ’s maternal side gives him a huge increase from 16% to 22% mapped or painted as per above. However, most of the matches are on the Polish side. Only one is on the Cavanaugh (really Warren) and Morrow side.

JJ at MyFTDNA

In order to look at JJ’s results, I need to update his password. JJ has 130 matches in common with Martha who is the Warren/Morrow match. I can check some of the Autosomal Transfer matches to see if any of those are on Ancestry. Here are some top transfer matches to JJ:

Unfortunately, Ancestry is not working right now.

JJ at Gedmatch

I went through many of the matches with trees. I found this match:

Louis has a wiki tree:

Here I see the Tacy/Tessier Line which is in my children’s ancestry. I would like to see if I can find a genealogical connection. If there is a connection, it must be quite old. According to WikiTree:

Here is the tree I have:

There is a connection on Jean Baptiste Tessier. Here is some information from WikiTree:

Louis’ tree has Jacques Tessier as his ancestor. My tree has JJ’s ancestor as Jean-Baptiste Tessier. Louis also has Richard Tacy as an ancestor. He gives his birthplace as Helena, New York in 1859:

Here is Helena:

Here is JJ’s family in nearby Fort Covington in 1860:

Here is JJ’s tree:

I can draw a tree to see how it looks. This is the tree I have now:

It seems odd to add three generations to an already long tree. There appear to be possibilities:

  • The connection to the 1600’s is correct
  • The connection is on another line
  • The genealogy may be wrong on one of the lines.

The other odd thing seems to be that Tessier would change to Tacy in two lines that are about 6 generations apart. Perhaps this was just the standard name change at the time. As I look at it, it is possible there is a Boudria connection also, so I will keep Louis off my Tessier DNA Tree for now.

Updating Maternal Trees by JJ

It appears that the Walter Line of my Jarek Tree has many missing matches. Here are JJ’s ThruLines for Walter:

Here is what I have:

Here is the update under Walter:

Kristina

Kristina does not show a common ancestor at Ancestry as she does not have a linked tree. I don’t see her on my Jarek DNA tree, but she shows a Jarek in her tree on her maternal side:

As this is her maternal side, that must mean that Kristina must be either a cousin or sister to Seth. I should be able to figure that out by shared matches. I’ll sort Kristina and JJ’s matches by those closest to Kristina. Seth shows up as Kristina’s 1st cousin or half uncle.

Seth must be a first cousin to Kristina.

JJ and Susan

JJ and Susan are 2nd cousins. And a lot of Kristina’s children have tested at Ancestry:

Here we see Kristina is a daughter, so I will go with that:

Next, I see that cat is a sister to Isabelle:

I have to pay to see these shared matches, so I may as well use them.

Charlotte and JJ

Charlotte and JJ are in the 2nd cousin range:

Using Shared matches again, I see that she is the daughter of Laurie:

So far, pretty easy for these 2nd cousin level relatives.

Richard and JJ

Richard has Polish ancestry:

Ancestry thinks the connection should be in the 2nd couisn range, but that does not seem possible. It seems like the connection should be here:

This tree in my hints has Joesf Jarek :

I believe that these two places are the same place. Ordrzykon is in SE Poland:

Here is Zarnowiec:

Lea maintains Richard’s tree. Here is another tree by Lea:

Here is JJ’s tree:

My conclusion is that Weronica Dziuria born 1861 is the sister of Anna Dziuria born 1869.

A Dziuria DNA Tree

I gave this tree a different look. JJ and Richard are third cousins once removed. According to Ancestry, Richard and JJ could be as close as 2nd cousins once removed. But the chance that they are 3rd cousins once removed is 13%:

This could also mean that Richard and JJ connect on other Polish lines. I would like to note that I do not have evidence currently that Anna Dziuria was the sister of Weronika, but the DNA strongly suggests that.

Now that I have made this change, it seems that Ancestry has changed.

New Dziuria ThruLines

Here are Richard and Beverly:

Lea seems to be the driving force behind the DNA and genealogy in the family:

The only issue seems to be that the DNA levels are higher than should be expected for the relationship of 3rd cousin once removed, 4th cousin and 4th cousin once removed. That means that there may be other connections. However, this is the earliest and only connection that I see right now.

Further DNA Proof for the Dziuria Tree?

I can now see special Clusters at Ancestry. Perhaps this will help. I will choose Richard as a match of interest:

Then I chose JJ’s sister, Robert who represents Jarek and Lea who represents Dziuria. Perhaps I didn’t have to choose Lea. That gave me this:

Next, I will try with just Richard. Actually, I chose Robert by mistake. He represents all the Polish relatives:

For some reason, I do not see Richard on this list. Next, I will choose Richard, but lower the upper limit to 150 cM as JJ matches Richard by 125 cM:

The 19 match cluster is interesting:

Here I see two clusters within this cluster. Richard of interest is about two thirds down the list. The first cluster has a lot of Lea’s family in it. In the second cluster, the last Richard has a good tree:

He shows that his mother’s mother’s mother’s mother was a Wozniak.

The 27 Match Cluster

This one is intersting:

Here I see two major clusters, but Richard does not seem to match the cluster in the lower right. It turns out that Liz has a great tree:

Liz has the Such family on her paternal side:

JJ’s third great-granmother was Marii Such:

This must be the connection. From another tree, I see that Joseph Jarek was born in 1841. That means that Marii Such could be a sister of Michal.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Of the major DNA companies, Ancestry is the easiest to work with
  • I was able to build a new Dziuria tree based on DNA matches mostly, but also previous genealogy I had done on my children’s Dziuria Line
  • I see that Ancestry has now made their Clusters more flexible taking the level down to 20 cM. This resulted in findin

 

 

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Updating My Children’s Maternal DNA and Genealogy

I see that the DNA profiles for my children’s DNA matches is a out of date. Here is my daughter’s maternal profile:

Heather is only 15% identified and of these there are only three common ancestor choices. The blue match is Marti:

This is the one non-Polish match mapped. I am more interested in my children’s maternal side as I already know about their paternal side.

Here is my son’s profile:

JJ has one more ancestral couple mapped compared to Heather. I changed some of the colors.

How to Get More DNA Mapped for My Children?

The places to get matches are at FTDNA, MyHeritage and Gedmatch. I don’t have my children tested at 23andMe and Ancestry does not support DNA mapping. I’ll start with FTDNA which is the only place to get information on the X Chromosome. This route was not easy, so I tried Gedmatch. There, I have Heather’s kit split into a maternal and paternal kit. Here is a match on her maternal side:

This is the ideal match, as I can easily find it at Ancestry. Ancestry even shows the common ancestors:

This match represents all Heather’s Polish matches. This is the information I give to DNA Painter to paint the match:

This brings Heather up to 19% painted on her maternal side:

The last two entries in the key represent my children’s maternal grandparents:

These are Jarek and Cavanaugh. However, going back, Cavanaugh is really Warren. On the maternal side, less is known about the Cavanaugh/Warren side.

In Common with Martha

At FTDNA, I can run an in common with Martha. Martha is on the Cavanaugh/Warren side. I found 155 matches in common between Heather and Martha, but it is difficult to see how they may be related. So the disconnect is that Martha is on FTDNA, but it is difficult to find other easily identifiable matches that are in common with Heather.

Not in Common with Robert

I had an idea. I can go to Gedmatch and look for matches that do not match Robert. Those maternal matches of Heather should be on the Cavanaugh/Warren side.

Here are some of the ones that match Heather and Robert:

Here are some of the ones that match Heather:

I take these to be the non-Polish matches, though the first match is Robert. Next, I need to track down any of these that are on Ancestry. One has a tree. Let’s start with Betty. I think this is Betty’s tree from Ancestry:

Unfortunately, I do not see the connection. However, Suzanne is a shared match between Heather and Betty at Ancestry:

Gatley is on the Cavanaugh/Warren side, so this makes sense. Here is another of Heather’s matches:

Some Gatley Genealogy

Next, I should try to evaluate the Gatley connection. I see that my son also has a Gatley connection:

I’ll start with Patrick. There is some confusion as to where his father, John Joseph was born, but his draft card gives the birth places as Yonkers, New York:

John’s grandmother’s name is from this death certificate:

Here is the birth information:

I’ll choose Ellen for Henry’s mother’s name as it is the older record.

The 1901 Census for Hamilton City seems important:

This gives a birth date and place for Ellen or Helen.

Ellen Hardman

From the 1901 Census, we see that Ellen’s first 4 children were born in England. This tells me that the couple was likely married in England not too long before 1880. Also the family must be on the 1881 Census. This must be the family in Warrington:

John was Irish and a wire drawer as in Ontario. Further, this shows that Ellen was born in Warrington:

It looks like I have gone off track. I should have been tracking Lillian Hardman.

Oops, Lilly Fee

Here is Lilly’s Naturalization Record:

It turns out that Lily was also from Warrington. She was born there in 1897 and married in 1920. I assume that marriage was in Winnipeg. The birth place of John Joseph is still a mystery.

Child Newman Henry identifies Lily as a Hardman:

According to this record, the couple married in Warrington:

The picture of Lily’s life is coming into focus. But maybe not. This marriage is in Winnipeg:

Here is Warrington in 1901:

All does not appear to be well as mother Elizabeth is listed as a widowed charwoman and there is a male boarder living in the house. I assume this is Great Sankey:

This appears to be the family in 1891:

Father Thomas is a Tanner and Eliza is a Fustian Cutter.

This appears to be the marriage:

Here is the 1871 Census. Elizabeth’s father had already passed away:

Here is James in 1861:

Next, I need to see if this James is the same as the one I have in my tree.

Two James Gatleys?

Here is the James I already have in my tree:

He is born in Salford and dies in Fall River in 1881.

The James that I am looking at above:

He is born also in 1821 but in Martin Croft.

Checking Heather’s Gatleys

Perhaps these Gatleys will link up better.

Here is Suzanne’s tree:

 

Her tree matches with the one I have (assuming I have it right):

I’ll accept the hints for Suzanne’s grandparents on the Harris line to save time. Here is a birth record for one of the Harris boys:

Here is Middlesbrough:

Here is Thomas in 1921:

Here is the family in 1911 living with the in-laws:

Here is the marriage:

Frederick dies in WWI.

I am interested in Frederick’s mother. Here is young Frederick in 1881:

Mother Mary Ann is born in Manchester. I assume that this is the couple’s marriage banns in 1866:

The 1871 Census has Mary Ann born in Salford and some of her children born in Warrington.

Here is Mary Ann’s baptismal record from Manchester Cathedral:

Here is the 1861 Census:

Mary Ann’s parents are born in Salford and Waterford, Ireland. When I search for a marriage for this couple, I get this:

I tend to think that this is right, as James is listed as a Fustian Cutter. Here is Eccles, which is right near Salford:

When I turn the page of the 1861 Census, I see this:

Here is Jane Gatley – perhaps the mother of James Gatley. She is listed as being born in Warrington.

This is likely the baptism of James Gatley:

After looking at many records, I would say that the ThruLines are correct.

A First Gatley DNA Tree

This shows that my children are 5th cousins with Suzanne.

Summary and Conclusions

  • The Blog got a bit long which was unavoidable due to adequately checking out genealogies.
  • There are two second cousins on my children’s maternal side. One represents the Polish side and the other represents the non-Polish or Irish/English side.
  • The ThruLine for JJ is incorrect as shown, though there may be a Gatley connection further back in time for him.
  • Due to a correct ThruLine for Heather, I was able to draw my first Gatley DNA Tree
  • I also added some DNA to DNA Painter on the Polish side for my children.

 

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A New Latvian DNA Match at MyHeritage

Occasionally, I find an interesting match at MyHeritage. Here is my match with Juris from Latvia:

Fortunately, there is also a tree for Juris:

As my grandfather’s mother was a Gagnus from Latvia, this is clearly a match.  Here is the detail from Juris’ tree:

I also have a book on the Gangnus family which should be helpful. The good news is that I found her in the book. She was at the end of a long list of Emmas. Here is her birth record found at Ancestry.com:

I would recommend anyone researching the Gangnus family purchase the book by Gustav Gangnus written in 2003.

Emma’s father was Johann Peter Gangnus. It turns out I already have him in my tree:

He shows as my 2nd great-granduncle. The means that his parents were my direct ancestors. According to the Gangnus book, Johann Jacob had two wives, but Peter and my ancestor Johann Philipp were both from the second wife.

My Gangnus DNA Tree

Next, I will look for my Gangnus DNA Tree. This is the tree of Gangnus descendants that match by DNA:

The chart is quite large, so I show where our common ancestor is.

Matthew’s line comes down from Johann Jacob’s first wife who was a Bohler. I descend from Johann Philipp who was the first child of the second wife who was a Biedermann. I need to add Peter who was a younger brother of Johann Philipp.

Juris is from my late mother’s generation, so that explains why the match is quite close. This shows that Juris and I are 3rd cousins once removed. It makes sense that I would have several matches descending from Johann Jacob as the Gangnus Genealogy book shows that he had 19 children.

Mapping the DNA

I like to map the DNA. I do that using DNA Painter. Here are my DNA matches with Juris as shown by MyHeritage:

Here is my current DNA Painter profile:

This shows overall, I am 54% mapped. Ancestry is not a help in this mapping as they do not tell me where my matches are on the the chromosome. Here is my maternal map:

Here I am only 48% painted. I’ll add in Juris:

Juris did not raise any percentages but did add a large segment on Chromosome 1 where I didn’t have any matches. Notice that I have a separate entry for just Gangnus 1777. That is from the descendant of the first wife, Matthew. As he descends from the first wife, I know that the DNA had to come from the Gangnus side. I also have an entry for just Anna Biedermann. I suppose I must know that from X Chromosome inheritance patterns.

My Late Mom and Juris

These two had a much higher DNA match:

However, some matches were small. By default, DNA Painter maps only the matches of 7 cM and over.

My mom is 39% mapped:

Gangnus is on her paternal side where she is 47% mapped:

Juris adds a lot of DNA but does not get my mother’s percentages above what was already mapped:

Summary and Conclusions

  • Due to my previous work, a great Gangnus genealogy book, and a good tree on Juris’ side, I was easily able to place Juris on my tree and find our common ancestors
  • With the help of DNA Painter, I was able to add Juris to my profile and my mother’s profile.
  • I could also add Juris to my siblings’ DNA Painter profiles but did not
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More DNA Evidence for My Childrens’ Warren Ancestry

I have that my two children descend from Jeremiah Warren:

From Ancestry ThruLines for my daughter:

 

This shows a DNA connection between children of Bridget Warren and John J  Warren.

Here is a Warren DNA Tree I built in 2020:

Mary is a new DNA match to the tree since 2020.

Adding Mary to My Tree?

Ancestry suggest that I evaluate Mary’s tree. Here is what Mary has:

I only need connect Mary back to Francis J. Sullivan. Here is the family in 1910:

Here are the children I already had for Frank J. Sullivan:

Notice this is the same family due to Blanche, Henry and Russell Sullivan. That means that Douglas Sullivan must be George Douglas Sullivan, the great-grandfather of Mary. The Roman Catholic records show Douglas’ full name:

The Massachusetts records only have him as Douglas:

Next, we need the connection from Douglas to Mary’s grandfather.

Frank passes away in 1917:

George is a single truck driver for the City of Lowell in 1930:

Here is Mary’s grandfather Jerry in 1950:

Jerold appears to have been in the Navy:

Here, I have added Mary to my Warren DNA Tree:

A Tale of Two John Cavanaughs

All the DNA connection is important as there is some confusion between two John Cavanaughs in Lowell. I previously set out the genealogy of my children in this 2019 Blog.

My Childrens’ John Cavanaugh

This John was born in 1880 to John Warren and Louisa Kavanaugh:

As stated in the Roman Catholic record, he was illegitimate. This John went by John Warren sometimes and John Cavanaugh at other times. Here is his marriage record:

Despite going by John Cavanaugh, he chooses to use his birth name at the time of his marriage in 1911.

The Mistaken John Cavanaugh

The mistaken John Cavanaugh was born about 10 years earlier than my children’s’ John.

The people in this neighborhood of Lowell worked in a bleachery.

Confusingly, the two Johns were also half brothers according to my research:

The chronology is that Louisa Gatley marries Michael Cavanaugh. They have two children, but Michael dies in 1872. Louisa then has a child with widower John Warren who already has a family. John Warren drowns two years later. Massachusetts records list John’s death as ‘accidental drowning’. However, he had two half siblings who were Cavanaughs.

More on DNA and Shared Matches

So far, Mary has supported my genealogy showing that my children’s great-grandfather was actually a Warren and not a Cavanaugh. Eileen is Heather’s closest match for the Jeremiah Warren ThruLines:

On Heather’s Shared Match list, Eileen and Mary share 72 cM. Also I see a Kevin who is Mary’s father.

Summary and Conclusions

I have not reviewed the Warren ThruLines for many years. Now there are a few more matches. Some are on the ThruLines and some are not. The matches support my assertion that my children do not technically descend from a Cavanaugh Line but from a Warren Line.

 

 

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My Wife’s Side Clusters at Ancestry

Ancestry has a new feature which shows clusters of DNA matches. These clusters can represent particular ancestors or ancestral couples. Here are my wife’s clusters:

These clusters are in Beta which means that Ancestry wants to use smaller matches to get more clusters. Right now, the matches go down to only 65 cM and the cross matches go down to 20 cM. My wife’s five clusters are sorted by size starting with the largest one in the top left. This shows that clusters 2, 3, and 5 are related to each other and that clusters 1 and 4 are on their own.

Here are Marie’s paternal clusters:

Here, the red and blue clusters are more related to each other than the orange cluster. Here is one match from the orange cluster:

Marie and Debbie share Butler and Kerivan ancestors.

This is the Irish side of the family. That leaves the red and blue clusters to the French Canadian side of the family. This makes sense as French Canadian genealogy tend to have a lot of matches. As far as the red and blue goes, my assumption is that on favors LeFevre and the other favors Pouliot, but I am not sure which is which. I will look more into my wife’s Aunts’ clusters.

I will look at my wife’s maternal side in a subsequent Blog. This will include Ellis and Upshall.

Aunt Lorraine’s Clusters

Aunt Lorraine has 8 clusters:

Three of Lorraine’s clusters are paternal:

Brian is the most interesting match in the red cluster. He does not show his family tree at Ancestry, but I have the common ancestor here:

This goes back 225 years to Henry Buter and Anne Russel in Wexford, Ireland.

The Blue Cluster

Here is a match from that Cluster:

What is Left for the Teal Cluster?

The teal cluster also has Kerivan and Rooney, so my assumption is that one cluster favors Kerivan and the other Rooney, but I do not know which. It may be possible to tease out which cluster is Rooney and which one is Kerivan with Shared Matches, but it is probably not worth the effort at this point.

Aunt Lorraine’s Maternal Clusters

Here we are in the world of French Canadian ancestry:

It may be easier to start with the small yellow cluster:

If Ancestry has the right common ancestor, this goes back to the year 1800. Another match agrees:

 

My Wife’s Aunt Suzy’s Clusters

This provides a sort of DNA fingerprint for my wife’s late Aunt Suzy. She has 7 clusters. This could roughly represent her 8 great-grandparents.

Here is Suzy’s paternal side:

Emily is in the blue cluster:

I don’t have Emily in my Butler DNA tree. Apparently, I do not have James Alfred Butler in my Ancestry Tree. He should be easy to figure out. From the tree, it appears that Emily Mary married a Butler.

Emily’s Genealogy

Here is the Emily Mary Butler family in 1930:

Emily’s husband, William Butler was a house painter. James Alfred was not likely born yet. Emily has her father’s birth place as Illinois. The family lived in Watertown, Massachusetts. Here is James in 1940:

James is still at home in 1950 working in a plastic factory:

A further revew of information at Ancestry including an obituary for Michael W Butler confirms the connection. I will add Emily to my Butler DNA tree:

Suzy’s Orange and Green Paternal Clusters

A review of a few matches looks like the Orange Cluster is Kerivan/Rooney:

Blue was Butler/Crowley. What does that leave for the green cluster? Turns out that green or teal is also Kerivan/Rooney. So both orange and green are either Kerivan or Rooney, but I am not sure which. That is why there are not many matches between the blue Butler/Crowley and the orange and teal Kerivan/Rooney:

Or more specifically, the areas I have highlighted between blue and teal have no matches. So orange seems to be Kerivan/Rooney with matches to Butler and teal is Kerivan/Rooney with no matches to Butler/Crowleyy descendants.

Suzy’s Maternal Clusters

Here is where things get a little wilder due to the French Canadian Heritage.

Without looking at the names, I see that Cluster 1 and Cluster 3 have no interaction (matching). Cluster 1 and 2 have a lot of matches with each other and Clusters 2 and 3 have a lot.

Suzy’s Cluster 1 – Orange

There are 28 matches in this cluster. 19 show common ancestors. I went through the suggested common ancestors and got these:

The fact that there are two matches that go further up on the LeFevre side indicate to me that this cluster belongs to Edmund LeFevre:

If I am right, then this rules out the Methot Line.

Suzy’s Pink Cluster 2

Here there are only 14 matches. Here is what I show for common ancestors:

Joseph Martin LeFevre marries twice and the last three matches are to the second wife.

Cluster 1 is Edmond LeFevre and Cluster 2 is Joseph Martin LeFevre.

Suzy’s Purple Cluster 3

Unfortunately, I cannot explain these results well:

The only difference between Clusters 1 and 2 are that Cluster 1 has 2 first cousins and that Cluster 3 has a 2nd cousin with a common ancestor of Pouiot/Fortin.

I also find it curious that there are many matches between Clusters 1 and 2 and many between Clusters 2 and 3, but none between Clusters 1 and 3.

Fred’s Tree

I do see one error. I have been in touch with Fred who is an excellent genealogist. He should be related on the Pouliot side. Here is a simple tree I have for Fred:

Aunt Suzy’s birth name was Virginia. That means that Ancestry’s common ancestor was wrong.

Here is Robin’s tree:

She descends from the same Wilfred Joseph Pouliot that Fred does. I will put Robin into my Pouliot DNA Tree:

Here, I’ll also add Belharuk:

Here is what I have:

My assumption is that Ancestry got John’s common ancestors with Suzy wrong also. I could figure out how he fits in, but I will assume that he is a 2C1R with Suzy in the Pouiot/Fortin column. So that was not as easy as I thought. Moral of the story: don’t trust Ancestry’s common ancestors.

Aunt Suzy’s Green Cluster 4

Here there are 5 matches. Four have unlinked trees and one shows a common ancesetor:

Here is the common ancestor match:

A fifth cousin once removed that matches at 100 cM is quite unusual. That common ancestor was based on this tree:

It would take me quite a while to figure out the seven generations of this tree. My reasoning is that the match is on the Fortin/Gagne side:

In summary, this is my best guess for Aunt Suzy’s Maternal Clusters:

  1. Orange Cluster – Edmund LeFevre 1834
  2. Red Cluster – Joseph Martin LeFevre 1873
  3. Purple Cluster – Joseph Pouliot 1848
  4. Green Cluster – Fortin 1804/Gagne

It may help to look at her sister’s clusters. I suppose that can wait for a subsequent Blog.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I looked briefly at my wife’s paternal clusters
  • I then looked at my wife’s paternal Aunt Suzy’s Clusters.
  • I had thought that Aunt Suzy’s maternal French Canadian Clusters would be straightforward, but there were mistakes on the common ancestors for one of those lines. These mistakes were on a line that I have had no previous questions due to my working with a relative who has a great French Canadian Tree.
  • As a result of this Blog, I was able to augment and improve my wife’s paternal side DNA trees.
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Ancestry Clusters

Ancestry Clusters is a new feature for those who have Pro Tools. According to Ancestry:

DNA matches sharing between 65 and 1300 cM of DNA are grouped into grids as shown below (if you have more than 100 clustered matches, you will not see this grid view). Each group or cluster represents DNA matches that are shared with each other, and represent a branch of your family tree. 

My Clusters

I have four Clusters:

The large one is my Hartley side Cluster. My great-grandparents had 13 children, so I have a lot of relatives in that one. The next three Clusters are on my mother’s side.

I have left out the names on the left side of the clusters. RB is my first cousin Rusty. I know that the purple cluster is my mother’s Rathfelder side. That is due to CW and DD who are Rathfelder cousins from England. That leaves the orange and dark grey clusters. These are Nicholson or Lentz.

These clusters did not pick up my Frazer ancestors. Additionally, it is difficult to tell which cluster is Nicholson and which is Lentz.

My Mother’s Clusters

My mother only has maternal clusters.

This is odd as my own clusters picked up her paternal Rathfelder side and my mom’s clusters did not pick that up.

BL is in the coral colored cluster. He has Nicholson only ancestry. My guess is that the orange cluster is Lentz (but includes Nicholson). I further suppose that the coral and purple clusters represent Nicholson but further break it down between Nicholson and Ellis:

However, as the matches are both Nicholson and Ellis through Nicholson, it is not possible to tell which matches are more Ellis versus more Nicholson. Furthermore, it appears that all the orange Lentz matches have Nicholson in their heritage also.

My Father’s Cousin Joyce

This is a more detailed view of my large orange cluster.

I only show Joyce’s maternal side as that is the Hartley side where I am related to her. Here is the genealogy:

One theory is that the four clusters could represent Hartley, Emmet, Snell and Bradford. I do know that the blue cluster represents Snell. Here is CH from that Cluster:

Making an Educated Guess for Joyce’s’ First Three Maternal Clusters

Here is how Joyce is related to some of the Bradford descendants:

Joyce has a higher match to Pat as she is a Hartley also. Here is Pat  in Joyce’s second cluster:

Therefor, my assumption is that the second cluster favors Bradford. I would not like to guess about the other two clusters. However, I do know that I have a lot of matches to Hathaway descendants.

My Sister Heidi’s Clusters

Where I have four clusters, my sister Heidi has 6. The first two are paternal and the last 4 are maternal. The paternal clusters are on the 2nd cousin level. I can only assume that these are Hartley and Snell clusters, but I cannot tell which is which.

Heidi’s Maternal Clusters

Here is what I think:

  • Purple is clearly Rathfelder
  • Teal is Nicholson or perhaps Ellis
  • Red and blue are either Lentz or Nicholson

My Brother Jon’s Clusters

Jon’s Clusters are halfway between mine and my sister Heidi’s. The first match in the second cluster has Frazer ancestry as she is Aimee, a first cousin once removed. But because the other matches are from the Hartley side, this must be a Hartley paternal cluster. The purple cluster is Rathfelder. Blue is Nicholson and pink is Lentz/Nicholson.

Sister Lori’s Clusters

All Clusters are listed from largest to smallest. Lori’s largest and smallest cluster are both paternal and the other three are maternal. Aimee is is the first match in the fifth cluster. My assumption is that this Cluster is the first Frazer Cluster.

Loris’s Frazer Cluster

Here are the details from the Cluster:

Although John does not have a searchable tree, I have figured out who is on the Frazer tree.

Lori is John’s second cousin once removed. Aimee is John’s second cousin twice removed.  I need to add Aimee to my chart as she is an important match:

Matthew

That leaves Matthew in the Frazer Cluster. Shared matches shows that he is related on the Hubert Frazer Line:

John’s father was born in 1919, so my guess is that he is Matthew’s granduncle.

I’ll add Matthew to my Ancestry Tree as a floating tree. Here is what Matthew has:

Matthew has followed his paternal grandmother’s line. I assume that the connection is not on that line. I found this information at Ancestry:

From an obituary index, I see that Matthew’s mother was a Frazer. that means I am getting close to figuring out where Matthew fits in.

Next, I look in my tree and find a perso with the same name as Matthew’s mother. I’ll take that to be the same person. Here is tree I already have for Matthew’s mother:

I merged the two people that I have which should also add Matthew to my tree. Next, I need to add Matthew to my Frazer DNA Tree.

This now describes Lori’s smallest cluster. It turns out I already had MatthewI on my Frazer DNA tree. It also turns out that John and Matthew are first cousins once removed.

My Sister Sharon’s Clusters

Sharon has three simple clusters:

  1. Hartley
  2. Lentz/Nicholson
  3. Rathfelder

My Daughter’s Clusters

These would make more sense if they were sorted by Paternal and Maternal instead of by size. When I look at the names, I see that Clusters 1 and three are paternal and 2 and 4 are maternal. Cluster 1 is Hartley and Cluster 3 is Lentz/Nicholson.

My daughter’s mother was a Jarek, so that would account for Clusters 2 and 4. Here is Heather’s mother’s tree:

Here are my daughter’s maternal clusters:

The second cluster has a match to a man named Matusik. His common ancestor with my daughter is Jarek/Ras. I would say that the first cluster represents Jarek/Wozniak and the second could represent a generation old: Jarek/Ras.

My Son’s Clusters

I suspect they should be similar.

The difference is that JJ also has some Rathfelder mixed in with his Lentz/Nicholson in Cluster #3. That explains the gap in matches in Cluster #3 as the Rathfelders and Lentz families are not related. Also JJ has a Snell not related to Hartley in Cluster #1. JJ’s match with Matusik is in Cluster #3 indicating an older connection to the Jarek line.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Ancestry has a new Cluster feature which is at a basic level of 65 cM for now. At this level there should be no surprises. These will be the lines with the best level of DNA matches
  • My sister Lori had the only Frazer Cluster, so she should be the best person to check for Frazer matches.
  • It is interesting how the clusters represent some lines well and others not at all well. I assume that this has to do with the number of desendants there is in a given line and how many of those descendants took DNA tests at Ancestry.

 

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Looking for Parents for Robert Hartley born in Colne Parish 1803-1804: Part 2

A few Blogs ago, I had shown the possible births of my ancestor Robert Hartley:

  1. Betty was my choice on my Hartley web page. I had also guessed that Betty Baldwin was the Betty. On the plus side the couple was from Trawden. However, the Betty name did not get passed down in the family. Perhaps because she died young?
  2. This Robert lived in Reedy Moor.

The faint red arrow near the word ‘Tunnel’ is where Reedy Moor Line. This is a little way from Trawden. However, the name Ann comes down in the family as the only daughter of Robert Hartley

3. Bough Gap is in an area near Trawden.

In order to give this Robert a chance, I will have to change his birth date and place in my Ancestry Tree. This is what I currently have:

I was a little unsure as to how to enter Bough Gap as it appearst to be part of Winewall which is part of Trawden.

Next, I wait to see if any ThruLines appear. My mistake in my earlier Blog, was that I did not change the birth of Robert Hartley on my family tree. I also need to remove the old birth reference that I had:

Re-Playing Out the James and Mary Scenario

Here are potential marriages for James Hartley and Mary

  • Mary Holmes would be around 44 when she had Robert if she was 20 when she married
  • The James Mary Stansfield married was a weaver. However, I suppose there were many Hartley weavers
  • The James that Mary Berry married was a widower
  • A witness for the marriage of Mary Robinson was John Shackleton. Mary Pilling’s mother was a Shackleton. Mary Pilling’s grandfather was named John Shackleton.

Based on the above, I am leaning toward Mary Robinson in this scenario. Here are some baptisms for Mary Robinson:

None of these place names sound familiar. Here is Barrowford:

I must say that ‘ye Call’ and other locations sound mysterious, but I do not know where that is.

Bough Gap Robert, Son of James and Mary Hartley

I think I now have what I was trying to achieve in my previous Blog:

It looks like it took a while to baptize this Robert. He was born in May and baptized in July:

I have left Robert’s mother vagues in my Tree as just Mary and the father is James Hartley.

ThruLines Compared

I can only look at ThruLines for DNA testers that I have access to. An important testers is my father’s cousin Joyce.

Joyce has only one ThruLine for Helen and that is through William who I supposed would be a son of James and Betty, so that doesn’t really count.

However another of my father’s cousins who has a tree showing Betty Baldwin as the mother of Robert fares no better:

Here the extra Robert Hartley Line should be a Pilling Line.

MM’s ThruLines do better a generation earlier where the tree has John Hartley as the father of James:

Here MM has four ThruLines. This could mean that:

  • John is right, but Betty Baldwin is wrong
  • James and Betty Baldwin had few children
  • Going back a generation gives the chance of there being more Hartleys to have ThruLines for even though they are wrong.

The other two ThruLies are Brian and Sue:

I like the chances of John Hartley being a Hartley ancestor based on the DNA matches of my father’s cousin Maury.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Due to the number of Robert Hartleys from the area of Trawden around the birth of my ancestor Robert Hartley in about 1803, it is difficult to try to find out which Robert is which.
  • My father’s cousin Maury’s DNA administered by his daughter has a genealogy which includes John Hartley and Ann or Anna Bracewell.
  • This couple appears to have a good series of DNA matches.
  • If this John Hartley is indeed my ancestor and had a large family, that could account for the number of DNA matches.
  • If this John had a son James who had a small family or a smaller number of descendants who had their DNA tested, this could account for a smaller number of descendant DNA matches.
  • It may make sense to try to start with John Hartley and Anna Bracewell as the grandparents of Robert Hartley and try to fill in the middle with a likely son James being the father of Robert Hartley.

 

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Mawdsley, Holland and Hartley YDNA

I recently got an email that there was a new YDNA BigY test on the Mawdsley Line. From previous testing it would appear that Mawdsley broke off from Hartley not too long before the appearance of surnames in England. Here is the new test from my perspective on the Block Tree:

Going from right to left would be more chronological.

  • Smith is in the oldest group and has no matches
  • A11132 is empty but all those below it are A11132 historically speaking.
  • Holland and Mawdsely are a branch under A11132 called R-FTB95522.
  • R-A11134 – There are three Hartleys under this branch with no further branching. My assumption that all that are under A11134 are Hartleys and this SNP came out after the advent of the Hartley surname.
  • R-FTE2655 – There are two Channon testers under this branch. This name was historically associated with the Nutter surname. However, the assumption is that before Nutter the surname should have been Hartley.
  • R-A16717 – This SNP is associated with an early Quaker Hartley branch that fled religious persecution around the year 1700 and reloacted to Pennsylvania. This branch appears to have the oldest verified genealogy of the Hartley Branches that are on this Block Tree.
  • R-FT225247 – This branch contains the largest number of SNPs. My brother and I are in this branch.

Why is This Test Important to the Hartley Branch?

If I am right, then the boundary between Mawdsley/Holland and Hartley should start the dating for when the Hartleys began as a surname. Here is the Time Tree:

This still needs updating as it shows Mawdsley and Holland under A11132. A11132 is dated on this tree at around 1163 CE.

How Old is R-FTB95522?

When I was notified of the new SNP, there was no date on FTDNA or SNP Tracker. I tried FTDNA and the web site was not working well. I see this from SNP Tracker:

Here are some details from SNP Tracker:

Where the date represents the tMRCA date. That means that the common ancestor between Hartley and Mawdsley/Holland is around the year 1160. To put that into perspective, the Magna Carta was signed in the year 1215. The orange color represents the Medieval Period. However, a quick look at the the internet suggests that the Medieval Period could have ended around 1500. At any rate, this should surely be within the period of surnames in England. The problem is that the two testers have different names: Mawdsley and Holland. As I am not familiar with these two genealogies, I am not sure which name may be more likely for the common ancestor. SNP Tracker further shows 12 testers under A11132 which corresponds to the BigY testers listed at FTDNA.

FTDNA is working better now and I see this note on the Match Tree feature:

More from FTDNA

When FTDNA was not working right, I could not find the Private Variants. Now they are back:

The greenish block shows that Private Variants. Mawdsley and Holland have an average of 7 private variants which suggests that their connection could be quite old. Above, from SNP Tracker, the tMRCA for FTB95522 is the year 1590. Visually, the Private SNPs from Mawdsley/Holland fit in between the long list of SNPs from my branch and the short list of SNPs directly to the left of Mawdsley/Holland. I still believe that A11134 and below are all Hartley and that FTB95522 is the split for non-Hartleys. In other words, Hartley and Mawdsley/Holland appear to have a common ancestor which predates the advent of surnames.

Another point from the Block tree above: FTB95522 did not split off the 8 SNP block which is called A11132. FTB95522 was apparently a private Variant of Mawdsley until Holland tested and that became their new Branch of the YDNA tree of mankind. Also, Mawdsley was previously A11132 which is now vacant. His tMCRA has moved, according to SNP Tracker, from 1160 to 1590.

Some Variant Information

Holland is my 10th match out of 14:

I do not know if 5/20/2025 was when the Holland BigY test finalized. If so, it has taken a while to get the new SNP onto the FTDNA Time Tree. Holland and I have 23 non-matching Variants.

Nine of the non-matching variants are numbers, so are likely to be the private variants for Holland.

These are the SNPs under A11134:

That appears to account for two of the non-matching variants:

Here are the 7 SNPs my brother and I have:

This accounts for 6 non-matching variants:

I should have included A11136, so that accounts for all 7 of the SNPs in the branch my brother and I are in.

That means that I have not accounted for the following non-matching variants:

A11136 should not be on the list.

FGC6800

This appears to be a SNP that my brother and I have. This is how it appears at YBrowse:

This appears to be under I2a rather than R where I am, so there is some confusion about this SNP:

I would think that this should be given another name for my branch of the YDNA tree, but I’m not in charge of these things.

BY26739

I also show this as a non-matching variant between myself and my brother. That means that it is likely I have this variant and my brother does not, making it a new variant. Here is what YBrowse shows:

This has a date of 2018. It is unclear where this appears on the YDNA tree. There is also a strand. I do not know what a strand means. I ordered my BigY500 in 2016 and my BigY700 in 2019. So the date of this SNP does not match up with my two BigY dates.

BY28775

It appears that only Holland has this SNP:

YBrowse results are similar to the previoius SNP I looked at:

FT27444

This is a SNP that I have, but the reads were low quality.

When I check Mawdsley for FT27444, there are some positive reads, negative ones and lower quality reads. When I check Mawdsley for this SNP, the readings seem to be inconclusive:

FTB95522

This SNP is about three years old:

This actually was accounted for as this is the new Branch for Mawdsley and Holland. This was formerly a private SNP of Mawdsley and when Holland tested, it formed a new group.

FTDNA Update

A date of 1386 is earlier than the estimate at SNP Tracker of 1590. If SNP tracker is right, then it is likely that Mawdsley and Holland descend from the same surname. If FTDNA is right, then the Mawdsley and Holland surnames could be on separate parallel tracks. I prefer the FTDNA rendition as it gives the most recent common ancestor of Holland and Mawdsley as before A11134 which I believe to be reserved for Hartleys. Here are some names and dates:

Mawdsley/Holland represents the first non-Hartley branch under A11132:

 

It appears the the new test has pushed back A11132 a little. Here is a screen shot from a Blog I wrote last February:

Summary and Conclusions

  • The new Holland BigY is good for Mawdsley as it gives the two a new Haplogroup
  • Before we suspected that Mawdsley was pre-Hartley. This new test further supports that.
  • The new test pushes back A11132 by 75 years.
  • The new test aslo pushes back the Hartley SNP of A11134 by 10 years.
  • I also looked at some of the non-matching variants between myself and Holland.