Hartley DNA & Genealogy

I mentioned in a previous Blog that a Frazier has recently ordered a BigY 700 test. The first step in this test is going from his previous 37 STRs to 111 STRs. Richard’s BigY test is now at the stage where his 111 STRs have been completed.

Richard and Rick

Rick also ordered a BigY test and I am also awaiting the results of his tests. I was checking out Rick’s test and saw that he also matched Richard:

Rick matches Richard at 111 markers at a Genetic Distance of 8. That is out at the level that Rick matches two people with the Stuart surname. Initially, that seems to suggest that Richard’s match could be more distant to the Frazers of Ireland than originally thought. This has implications on Richard’s genealogy. If he matched Rick more closely, then we would be looking for Richard’s ancestors in Ireland. If they are matched more distantly, which seems to be the case, then it is likely that the common ancestor for Frazer and Frazier is in Scotland prior to the Frazer move to Ireland. At the the 37 STR level, it seemed like Richard would be more closely related to the Frazers. These 111 STRs give a more accurate level of information.

It would make more sense to show the connection from Richard’s perspective:

Richard is a GD of 7 to Jonathan and a GD of 10 to Paul. However, he is also a GD of 9 to a Stuart. What will be more important to know is Richard’s Haplogroup. That will be revealed when the results of his BigY are completed. However, based on this, my guess is that Richard’s connection should be further back than the time that my Frazer ancestors arrived in Ireland.

Here is a chart which I just saw today:

This chart was done for a different project (R-U106), so the numbers may not be the same for our R1a Frazers. However, based on the above, Richard’s most likely match with the Frazer family was a GD of 8. This translates to between 180 and 720 years. The midpoint of this range is 450 years, which is around the time-frame that I am guessing could be right for a common ancestor between Richard and our North Roscommon Frazers.

Here is the view from Jonathan’s results:

Based on my previous analysis, it appears that Jonathan’s YDNA results are more typical of our Irish Frazer ancestor. As such, Jonathan matches Richard between two Stuarts by STRs. However, as I mentioned above, what will be more important is Richard’s Haplogroup. Above, my Irish Frazer relatives are R-YP6489 and the Stuart Haplogroup is R-BY26344. That can be better seen on Jonathan’s Block Tree:

Further out, Jonathan matches a Hayes at R-YP6480. The question is, what will Richard’s Haplogroup be? My guess is that Richard could match Jonathan, Rodney and Paul with a Frazer (or variant spelling) somewhat further back than Jonathan’s, Rodney’s and Paul’s common ancestor who lived in Ireland. Further, Richard may break up the block of SNPs in the white box above starting with R-YP6489.

What Does It Mean to Break a Block?

Here is the block that needs breaking:

My Frazer relatives (Jonathan, Rodney and Paul) have five SNPs defining them all. R-YP6489 was chosen to represent this block of SNPs that defines the North Roscommon Frazers. That means that since before the time when surnames were popular, these SNPs have been collecting every 144 years or so in our North Roscommon Frazer line. We don’t know which SNPs happened first or last. Suppose that when Richard’s BigY results come in he is tested positive for three of the SNPs above, but not the other two. If one of Richard’s positive SNPs turns out to be YP6489, he will be called YP6489 and the other three Frazers will be named for one of the SNPs that Richard did not test positive for. Also, depending on the results, we should be able to figure out around what year our Frazers split off from Richard’s Fraziers/Frashers.

There is also a possiblilty that Richard’s YDNA will be more alignted with Grant and Stuart on the right. They are under BY26344. Right now, I am thinking that this possibility will be less likely.

Dating the Haplogroups from the Block Tree

In the image above, there are an average of two private variants between Jonathan, Paul and Rodney. One way to estimate the date of their common ancesor is to use 144 years per variant. That would put their common ancestor at about 244 years before their birth (say 1950) or about 1706. This is very close to when we believe that their common ancestor was born.

However, between Frazer, Grant and Stuart above, a lot more time has passed. Between YP6488 and our Frazer testers there are 7 SNPs. Between YP6488 and Stuart/Grant, there are 8 SNPs. I’ll average that out at 7.5 SNPs. Multiply that by 144 years and get 1,080 years.  My guess is that Richard’s results will fill in part of the gap between  the 11th century and 1706.

Our Frazers are documented to North Roscommon in the first half of the 1700’s. Clans associated with the Frazers by YDNA bordered each other to the SW of Inverness. By YDNA, the common ancestor of these associated clans could have been living around 1,000 AD. By family tradition, the Frazers were living in Ayrshire prior to their arrival in Ireland. It may be this time period (1600 or so) that Richard could tie into.

Summary and Conclusions

• Richard’s 111 STR results have come in as the the first part of his BigY 700 test
• These STR results suggest that he matches our North Roscommon Frazers more distantly than suggested by his 37 STR results
• My guess is that Richard’s results will fill in the YDNA gap between the Stuart, Grant and others whose common ancestor could go back to about 1,000 AD and the North Roscommon Frazers whose common ancestor lived in the early 1700’s.
• Frazer/Frazier/Frasher descendants should be expectantly awaiting Richard’s results.
• In addition to Richard’s results, Frazers are awaiting the new BigY 700 results of Rick. Plus Rodney will be getting an upgrade from BigY 500 to BigY 700. That is a total of three Frazer/Frazier BigY 700 results we are waiting for.

I wrote about the ordering of Rick’s new BigY 700 test here. This is good news for at least a few reasons. One is that he is on my particular Archibald Branch of the Frazer family. The second is that his is the first BigY 700 test ordered. There have been three other of the older BigY 500 tests that have been taken – two on the James Line and one on the Archibald Line:

Paul on the left is my second cousin once removed. His grandfather Hubert was my great-grandfather James Archibald’s brother.  Rick on the bottom left is the subject of this Blog.

Rick’s YDNA Order History

This shows that Rick’s BigY-700 has been completed. However, that is only part of the story. The only results I can see so far are his 111 STR results. Three years ago Rick’s Y-DNA67 results came in which were for 67 STRs. Now we can see how Rick matches Paul, Rodney and Jonathan at 111 STRs:

Rick’s first match is with my cousin Paul as expected. Second is with Jonathan, and third with Rodney. The last two matches are with Stuart surnames which is interesting. It appears that there is not much difference between Rick’s match with Rodney and the Stuart matches. However, that is where the BigY test comes in. Rick’s next to last match took a BigY test and that Stuart is at BY26344. This Stuart branch is on a parallell branch to the Frazer branch. This is how it appears at YFull:

The common SNP for Frazer and Stuart is YP6488 which was formed 1150 years ago and our common ancestor was 800 years ago, so say 1200 AD. The takeaway is that the BigY test with its SNPs is superior to the STR test.

A 111 STR Frazer Tree

With Rick’s results it will be possible to buiild a 111 STR tree for the four Frazers who have now tested to that level. To do that I first go to the Fraser and Septs YDNA Project Page.

These are the four Frazers who have tested plus one person who fits in with Frasher ancestry. I will just look at the four Frazers. There are 111 STR results but I have not shown that many. Rick is the one who doesn’t show his ancestor. The fourth row down gives the Mode. I will assume that is the oldest value for the STR.

Next, I take the results from the Fraser and Septs Page and put them into an Excel spreadsheet. Then I take out all the results that are the same:

I have Richard in for reference. He tested to the 37 STR level. However, based on that testing, I see how he seems to fit in with the others. When I copied the DYS385 results, Excel interpreted 11-14 and 11-15 as 14 and 15 Nov.

This appears to be the ancestral STR signature for our branch of Frazers:

Archibald Branch STRs

The Archibald Branch which Rick and I are on is defined by these STRs:

Note that the CDY had a double change. The James Line appears to have kept the older STR values.

Further Frazer Branching

Here is the tree I came up with:

I tried to combine the genealogy with the STR values. The Archibald Branch is defined by the three STRs on the left. These mutations ocurred sometime between 1720 and 1804. Rick has DYS444=13. This happened sometime between Richard of 1830 and our current Rick. Paul has DYS575=19 which ocurred sometime between his great-grandfather George and Paul.

For some reason I don’t have a date for William Fitzgerald Scarsfield Frazer. I have that Edward Fitzgerald Frazer was born in 1867. So the William Frazer Line has the DYS552 value of 24 which ocurred sometime between before 1867 and the birth of Rodney.

One interesting thing about Jonathan is that he shows no STR mutation between himself and Archibald Frazer of about 1690. This could be the case due to the randomness of STR mutations or it is possible that there could have been a mutation and a back mutation in his line. If this was true, we wouldn’t know it. Scanning across Jonathan’s line we can see that all his values are the same as the mode for the Frazers which we take to be the ancestral STRs:

This is offset by Rick and Paul who both had changes in four STRs.

Summary and Conclusions

• Rick’s first change in his BIgY test is that he now has his 111 STR results.
• These results are consistant with what we have for the Frazer genealogical tree.
• A was able to build a 111 STR tree as all four Frazer testers have now tested to that level.
• The STRs are the preview. The most important part of the BigY 700 test with SNP results is still to come.

 

Thanks to Joanna, she got Richard and me talking. That lead to a new BigY being ordered. That means that two new Frazer/Frazier BigY 700’s are in the pipeline right now. I wrote about the previous new BigY here. That previous test was for Rick and this one is for Richard.

Richard’s Previous YDNA Testing

Richard has tested test to the 37 STR level and matches my second cousin Paul at that level:

Rick is in the first orange box and Richard in the second orange box. They are both considered to be R-M198 by FTDNA. Rick has tested to 111 STRs. Rick is a fairly close relative to Paul in terms of YDNA. He is a third cousin once removed:

The exciting thing about Richard is that we don’t know how he is related. We are hoping that the BigY 700 will shed some light on that. So far, on the above chart, Paul, Rodney and Jonathan have taken the BigY 500 test. Rick and Richard will be the first to take the BigY 700 test. The good thing about the BigY 700 test is that it is more accurate and tests for more SNPs. SNPs are what we are looking for to define the Frazer lines on the YDNA Tree.

I also wrote a Blog on Richard’s results back in 2018 when he first had his YDNA tested. At that time, I concluded that Frasher and Frizelle were related to the North Roscommon Frazers.

On this chart:

I notice that some are classified as R-M198 and some are R-M512. As far as I can tell, there is no distinction between these two Haplogroups:

My guess is that R-M512 was the older names because those that have that designation tested in 2015. The date for these two haplogroups is about 6,500 B.C. From an older Blog I wrote, our branch of Frazers are on the Germanic side:

However, this is a tree from about 4 years ago. A lot has happened since then. S2880 is the last Haplogroup on our Frazer Line showing on this tree. According to YFull:

S2880 formed about 3700 years ago. That gave our Germanic Frazer ancestors plenty of time to make their way to what is now Scotland. These are the dates that YFull has for our present-day Frazer BigY testers:

Richard in the Fraser and Septs Project

Richard has joined the Fraser and Septs Project. In that Project, the R1a Frasers/Frazers, etc are in the minority. Most Frasers are R1b. That is because our Frazers as being Germanic were relative late comers to Scotland, having arrived perhaps around the time of Christ. Here are the results from that Project:

Here I have only gone to the 37 STR level as that is what Richard tested to. The administrators of Fraser and Septs placed Richard in with our North Roscommon Frazers:

First is Rodney from my tree above, then Jonathan, then Richard, Rick and Paul.

Richard’s Family Tree

I think that I found Richard’s tree:

This tree starts with Richard’s grandfather. I am mostly interested in the Frazier/Frasher line as that is what YDNA looks at. I think that other Frazers that descend from the Frazers of North Roscommon, Ireland may be interested also. At this point, I usually try and do my own tree to see if it comes out the same way. At best, this will be a second opinion. I don’t have the time to go into it in great detail, but may find out if the tree is obvious or if there are problem points.

Richard’s grandfather is found in the 1920 Census:

His father, Frank was the enumerator:

Frank and his father were both born in Tennessee according to the 1920 Census. Here is Dickson to the West of Nashville:

Frank Frazier

I think that this is Frank in the 1900 Census:

Interestingly, this family is listed as Frasher. This is consistent with Frank’s death record which has his mother as Mary Graham born in Pennsylvania:

Interestingly, the marriage record spells the name Frasher also:

Morgan and Anderson Frazier/Frasher

Here is Anderson Frasher with his large family on the farm in Dickson:

Here Morgan is William M. It helps that the family lived in Dickson for so long. here is the family in 1870. Now Anderson just has initials none of which are ‘A’:

Findagrave has Anderson’s name as William Pellen Frasher:

This appears to reconcile the names:

However, the name is Frasher on the stone:

Here is a photo of W.P.A. that I found from an Ancestry Tree:

This was a Southern family and W.P.A. served for the Confederate army during the Civil War as a blacksmith. He was also a prisoner of war.

David Frazier/Frasher (1803-1890)

Here is W.P.A. in 1850:

William A was a farmer in Dickson. His father was a blacksmith:

They were both born in Tennessee. From this point, without a detailed Census before 1850, tracking this family should be more difficult. The 1880 Census gives a hint.

David’s father was born in Virginia and his mother in North Carolina. His wife, Elizabeth’s parents were both born in Georgia.

William Frazier/Frasher

All the Ancestry trees have William as the father of David. When I put in William Frazier as the father of David at Ancestry I get 7 hints Here is one from 1828:

It appears to me that the Frazier/Frasher name was phonetically spelled. Here we have a combination that came out as Frashier. This was in Hickman County. Hickson is quite close to Dickson:

In the record above, George Harvell is listed as an assignee of William Frashier. I am not sure what this meant. It seems like land was granted to William, but he gave it George? This seems to be our William Frasher due to the proximity to Dickson County. Here is the 8th District mentioned in the land record above:

However, there was a William Frasher listed in the 1790 Census for Randolph, North Carolina:

Here is Randolph, NC:

Here is the 1830 Census:

The simple interpretation is that William was between 60 and 69 and that his wife was between 50 and 59. It is likely that he was living with his four sons and one daughter. It appears that his son David was not included here as he is listed elsewhere on the Dickson 1830 Census:

Here is a good land deal in Hickman. One cent per acre for 100 acres:

Here is a portion of some tax records for Hickman:

The left part is cut off, but it looks like there is a David, William and Robert Frasher listed there.  My thinking is that Frasher was a fairly rare name. Meanwhile, in Dickson the tax record has a William Frasher and a David Frazier:

Of course, none of this shows that William was the father of David. I suppose it must be from family tradition.

 

Back in 1827, there was a William Frashier buying land in White County at 12 and a half cents per acre:

White County is to the East of Nashville:

Here is an 1825 tax record for White County:

Perhaps Thomas, William, Alexander Senior and Junior and Munford were related.

Summary and Conclusions

• Richard has ordered a new BigY 700 test. These results will first show his 111 STRs, then extended STRs, then the SNPs which give the most accurate reading of his male line.
• Richard’s past testing of 37 STRs has put him in a grouping with my Frazer family with roots in North Roscommon, Ireland. That means that it is possible that Richard’s ancestors came from that same place.
• Richard’s ancestors had the last name of Frazier, Frasher or Frashier, but I haven’t seen their name spelled Frazer.
• I took a look at Richard’s genealogy. His ancestors lived for quite some time in Tennessee. Before that they were proably in North Carolina and possibly Virginia. There is a lot of speculation on where William Frasher was born including one document claiming he could have been a German mercenary during the Revolutionary War. As it is claimed that William was born in 1765, that would have made him a very young mercenary during that War.
• Next, I will review Richard’s 111 STR results when they come in.