Hartley DNA & Genealogy

February 17, 2020

Waiting for My Hartley Big Y 700 Manual Review: Part 2

My Big Y 700 upgrade results came in on January 16, 2020. I had upgraded because another Hartley had tested for a new Big Y 700. Steve’s results came in on January 21, 2020. I wrote Part 1 while awaiting my Big Y manual review here. My thinking was that if Steve and I both had the Big Y 700 test done, then our results would be more consistent. I now see that I would have been better off testing my brother for Big Y.

Big Y and the Rule of Three

Bill Wood from the FTDNA BigY Facebook group developed what he calls the Big Y Rule of Three. Here is the short version of the Rule of Three:

The first candidate was me. So I’m all set there. These slides are from Bill Wood:

This is where I should have had my brother tested. The importance of this test is that my brother should match me on all or nearly all of my SNPs. These matches will then result in a terminal haplogroup for my branch of Hartley. So my next step will be to have my brother tested. Here is what I understand to be current pricing for Big Y:

Big Y is $449. I must have paid about $189 for my upgrade.

Here I have a lot of 2nd cousins, so that could have worked. One other person, Michael had already taken the Big Y (now called 500) test. Now we have Steve also. Steve and Michael are both greater than 4th cousin to me, but I don’t know exactly how we connect genealogically.

Alex Williamson and the Big Tree

I mentioned the Big Tree in my previous Blog on Hartley YDNA. On January 13, 2020, an administrator for the R L513 and Subclades FTDNA group wrote a message requesting that Big Y 700 results be posted to the Big Tree:

I posted my new results and they showed up at the Big Tree under my Unique Mutations. My new results are under the heading of BigY3:

My understanding is that the entries with a plus sign are the important ones:

That means that the SNPs numbered 26539382, 13658297 and 4317527 are newly detected for me by the Big Y 700 test. 13658297 is interesting because in the previous test, it was rejected.

** indicates “REJECTED” with just a single variant

Also 13658297 is important as it is listed as being in the combBED Region. My understanding is that the combBED Region is a highly reliable region for SNP detection. This is indicated by a Y in the second column of Y’s.

Of the above three unique mutations, two show up in my FTDNA Big Y list of Private Variants:

What About 13658297?

I used to show 13658297 as a private variant, but it is no longer on the list:

That could mean that it is no longer a private variant, because Steve also has that variant. I suppose that means that FTDNA is working on its manual review. I previously had 10 private variants. Now I have 6.

Where Does That Leave Me and the Hartley YDNA Tree?

This is the chart that I came up with previously:

I had highlighted in gold those matches that I had with Steve. There are 6 variants that are not highlighted which is what I now show as having for Private Variants now at FTDNA. I don’t see any matches between Steve and Michael. I take that to mean that Steve and I will be named on a newer Hartley Branch and that Michael will remain on the older branch of A11132. We will have to wait to see what the new branch is named.

Summary and Conclusion

FTDNA’s manual review of Steve and my Big Y 700 results seems to be moving along
The upload of some of my Big Y 700 results to the Alex Williamson Big Tree web site was helpful in my understanding what some of the results meant.
I will be seriously considering getting Big Y 700 results for my brother when a new sale comes along. These results will get me a terminal haplogroup for my very specific branch of Hartley’s.
My prediction is that Michael will retain the A11132 designation and Steve and I will have a new downstream haplogroup. It will be interesting to see how many SNPs make up this new haplogroup.

January 31, 2020March 27, 2020

Finding My DNA Cousin Brenda at 23andMe

In my previous Blog, I figured out who my 23andMe cousin Kat was. I have another DNA cousin at 23andMe Brenda. I’d like to figure out where she fits in. 23andMe thinks that Brenda could be my third cousin:

Brenda and I share some DNA on 4 different chromosomes.

Here is another hint:

Brenda and I also have DNA matches with Kat and Stephen. The match with Kat is more important, because if it is right, then Brenda is a 2nd cousin to Kat. Here is a DNA matching Frazer tree that I have:

If I am a third cousin to Brenda and she is on the Frazer tree, then our common ancestors would be George Frazer and Margaret McMaster. If Brenda is a second cousin to Kat, then Kat and Brenda’s common ancestors should be William Frazer and Amanda Skoog. There are other possibilities, but that seems the most likely.

A Look at Stephen

Actually Stephen’s match is interesting also:

Stephen is on the lower left. If I’m right, Brenda is in the Frazer section in the middle. Steve and Brenda would be 5th cousins on the McMaster side. I am a closer match to Stephen on our Clarke side.

Painting Brenda

Using DNA Painter, an online utility, I can put Brenda’s matches next to my other matches. Here are some of Brenda’s details:

Here are a few possible surprises. I painted Brenda to George Frazer and Margaret McMaster based on Brenda’s match to Kat and me. However, DNA Painter has hints that Brenda is related further out at the level of James Frazer, Violet Frazer and Richard Frazer.

When I choose “show overlapping segments”, I get this:

When I look at my larger DNA map, I see this:

My cousin Paul and Brenda have a small overlap, but not enough to be picked up by DNA Painter as being significant.

Pro’s and Con’s of Putting Brenda on My DNA Tree Where I Did

I put Brenda as having the common ancestors with me of George Frazer and Margaret McMaster.

Pro’s:

At third cousin to me and 2nd cousin to Kat, it seems like Brenda should be a great-granddaughter of William Frazer.
William Frazer had three sons. Kat descends from James Robert Frazer. That means that Brenda could descend from Albert William Frazer or Walter Stanley Frazer. I don’t know much about Walter Stanley, so that is a possibility.

Con’s

I would expect Brenda to have more overlap with other descendants of George Frazer and Margaret McMaster. Instead Brenda overlaps with more distant Frazer relatives.
With Margaret’s double McMaster parentage, I would have expected more matches with McMaster descendants – though she does match Stephen.

Walter Stanley Frazer 1924-1996

On October 10, 1937, Walter was 13 and sailing out of Galway – apparently on his own:

This stone at the National Cemetery in Culpepper, Virginia gives a very short summary of Walter’s life:

The affidavits for Walter’s Petition for US Naturalization were taken in London in 1944:

Here is some more personal information from the same document when Walter was 20:

Here is some information on Walter’s wife:

Julia was flying from Paris to New Jersey with her husband and three young children in 1959. They lived in Miami. If Brenda was part of this family, perhaps she was too young to take this trip.

I did find one of the daughters. I think that this is her school photo from Vienna Virginia, but I’m not sure. The other information would be right.

Findagrave.com mentions her two brothers but not a sister. So this may not be the family for Brenda.

One Other Possibility for Brenda

I have that my great-grandfather’s brother Hubert Alexander Frazer had a son named Calvin Coolidge Frazer and Calvin had a daughter named Brenda. I will try to get in touch with at least the most likely candidate I find on Facebook. The problem with this possibility is that Brenda should be a first cousin once removed to my second cousin once removed Paul. Brenda only shows a small overlap with Paul. That may be because I show a smaller than average match with my cousin Paul.

At some point Calvin Coolidge Frazer ended up living and dying in Sacramento. That is interesting as some Frazer’s from other branches ended up in that city also.

Summary and Conclusion

After figuring out one of my Frazer DNA matches at 23andMe (Kat), I tried to set out to figure out how I matched Brenda. Based on how Brenda matched Kat and me I guessed that Brenda might descend from a Great Uncle of Kat. There was one person who fit that category: Walter Stanley Frazer. I looked up some information on Walter, but I couldn’t find any record of Walter having a daughter named Brenda.
I painted Brenda’s match to me with DNA Painter and found that she did match me on my Frazer side. However, I was expecting some more matching on the McMaster side.
I looked into a Brenda Frazer who was the granddaughter of Hubert Alexander Frazer. She is a good candidate as she has the right first name. I’ll give a shot a contacting her through Facebook. I’m pretty sure given the level of match Kat and I have with Brenda, that our common ancestors were George Frazer and Margaret McMaster. However, I am still interested in confirming that belief.
I thought this exercise would be easier than it was. Due to the randomness of DNA inheritance, matches do not always match up with each other at the same place.
Even if I don’t figure out who Brenda is, I have found out some more information about two branches of the Frazer Family.

Addendum

I did hear back from Brenda through 23andMe. She said I was right in my guess:

Brenda and I are at opposite ends of the tree. Brenda is also a first cousin to Paul. I had Paul’s DNA tested at FTDNA and uploaded his results to Gedmatch.com for analysis. Brenda got my painted chromosome up from 41% overall to 42%:

I changed my matches with Brenda to gold colored for those matches where DNA Painter showed we had an overlap with another Frazer match.

January 29, 2020January 29, 2020

A 23andMe DNA Match with Frazer Relative: Kat

It took me a while to figure who Katherine was at 23andMe. Here is how Katherine and I match by DNA at 23andMe:

Here is what 23andMe says:

Katherine and I should be in the range of third cousins. Fortunately, Katherine posted a photo at 23andMe. After looking at Facebook photos, I found some that were the same as Katherine’s photos at a Frazer Family Facebook page we are both on. The mystery is solved.

Here is how I show Kat on our Frazer tree:

I recently wrote a Blog on Rebecca and our match at AncestryDNA. So it has been good to find these Frazer DNA matches. My blog on Rebecca showed that I matched her more on the McMaster side than the Frazer side. This was not surprising as our common ancestor Margaret McMaster had two McMaster parents. Also Kat’s grandfather James Robert Frazer born 1927 married a McMaster. The advantage of Kat’s test compared to Rebecca’s DNA test is that I will be able to see how Kat and I match on specific chromosomes.

Painting Kat’s DNA Match

There is a web tool called DNA Painter that I use to show where my DNA matches are. Here is my current DNA Map:

This shows my paternal and maternal sides. My Frazer matches are on my paternal side. This shows I am 41% painted overall. I circled some of the areas that Kat could match me.

Here is just my paternal side where I am mapped at 50%:

I have a lot of green as I have a lot of Hartley 2nd cousins.

Adding Kat to the Mix

Kat got my DNA mapping up a percent from 50% to 51% on my paternal side. I mapped our DNA matches to “Frazer McMaster 1838” because that is where our shared DNA comes from.

Next, I’ll expand Chromosome 19 as that is where our largest match is:

Kat’s match with me in maroon overlaps with Keith’s match with me in blue. Keith has McMaster ancestry. That means that my match with Kat on Chromosome 19 is from the McMaster side. But which McMaster? For that we have to look at Keith’s genealogy.

Keith descends from Fanny and James McMaster. That means that the DNA that Kat and I share on Chromosome 19 must be from Margaret McMaster. For simplicity, I didn’t make a new box for Kat as Kat and Rebecca both have similar genealogy. Here is Margaret McMaster on the left who married George Frazer :

Because I know something more specific about this DNA, I’ll make a new category for Margaret McMaster’s DNA.

I added a dark green for Margaret McMaster’s DNA.

Emily’s McMaster DNA

The reasoning is the same for Emily who matches me on Chromosome 19, but the common ancestor goes back another generation:

This match with BV seems to indicate that the DNA is coming down from the McMaster side. BV also has Frazer ancestry, but that Frazer connection is too far back in time to consider.

My Chromosome 1 Match with Kat

Most of my paternal Chromosome 1 matches are on my Hartley side:

That explains why I don’t have room for a larger match with Kat. I can’t tell if my match with Kat is Frazer or McMaster, so I’ll leave it maroon which means it could be either.

Chromosome 7

Here I have a pink arrow pointing to my match with Kat. Right below Kat is a match with my cousin Paul and I have that as a George Frazer DNA segment in yellow. If I did that right, then my match with Kat also came from George Frazer. My reasoning is based on the two blue matches. They are from Susan and Ken:

Susan and Ken are related on the Frazer side. That means our overlapping segments came from the Frazer and not the McMaster side.

Here I have turned the match that I have with Kat from maroon to gold to indicate that it is a Frazer match. Right after that I have two blue matches. That represents a crossover that my father had from his mother. My dad’s mother had a Frazer father and a Clarke mother. Where I have the arrow pointing represents the change from Frazer to Clarke in the DNA that my father got from his mother and passed down to me.

Chromosome 10 – More Frazer DNA

I have a small match with Kat on Chromosome 10 that is right below a match I have with Michael in red:

Here is Michael:

This DNA comes down from Richard Frazer to his daughter Violet Frazer. I don’t want a new entry for Violet, so I’ll say that this DNA is from George Frazer. However, the DNA Kat and I share is actually from George’s mother Violet Frazer.

Chromosome 12

Chromosome 12 gets a little tricky, but it looks to be McMaster DNA for sure:

The first maroon match is with my cousin Paul. The second maroon match is my match with Kat. The purple match is with BV. BV had that small match with Emily on Chromosome 19 above. I have the other two pink matches going back to Abraham McMaster born in 1764. There is a lot of confusion about McMaster genealogy and how all lthe McMasters fit together. This cluster of matches may be a hint to unravel that confusion.

For right now, I’ll sign over to the two maroon segments to Margaret McMaster DNA (green segments):

I also showed some of the detail of my match with Warwick and our common ancestor of Abraham McMaster.

Here is Kat’s summary from DNA Painter:

The maroon is George Frazer or Margaret McMaster DNA
The yellow is George Frazer DNA
The green is Margaret McMaster DNA

Kat and I have a lot more McMaster and Frazer DNA, but this is just where our DNA intersects or matches.

Summary and Conclusions

The fact that Kat tested at 23andMe made it easy for me to see where we matched, and by how much on each chromosome
Once I added Kat’s matches to my other matches using DNA Painter, I could see whether our match was on the Frazer side or McMaster side for each segment where we matched.
One match that I had with Kat and descendants of Abraham McMaster may be a clue as to how Abraham McMaster fits in with the other McMaster genealogy.
If Kat uploads her DNA results to Gedmatch.com, she will be able to see how she matches other Frazer descendants by DNA.

January 29, 2020

A New AncestryDNA Match with McMaster and Frazer Ancestry and My Sister Lori’s Shared Clusters

I was checking my new matches at AncestryDNA and came upon a match named Rebecca who has a Frazer ancestor from Sligo. This got me interested.

Rebecca’s Frazer Genealogy

Rebecca has a small tree. Here is Rebecca’s maternal side:

I sent a message off to Rebecca, but I’ll also try to build out her tree. It seems like this James may be the James Robert Frazer I have in my tree:

The death date is close.

My guess is that here is how I am related to Rebecca:

That makes us third cousins. She is also the first DNA match that I know of from the William Frazer Line. I did hear back from Rebecca who confirmed that James Robert Frazer was her grandfather.

My DNA Match with Rebecca

Rebecca and I match at 64 cM over 6 segments. Rebecca shows on my list as a 4th cousin, however, the AncestryDNA table for a match of 64 cM shows this:

We have a 37% chance of being third cousins and a 4% chance of being fourth cousins. Rebecca and I don’t share Whitney as a DNA match. Whitney also tested at AncestryDNA:

It gets complicated because Rebecca’s grandmother was also a McMaster. Here is Rebecca’s grandmother’s McMaster side:

I also descend from James and Fanny McMaster. Here is another way to show this:

This shows that Rebecca is Keith’s 1st cousin once removed. Also Rebecca is both my third cousin as well as my fourth cousin. This shows how Rebecca would be related to me on my McMaster side. Rebecca descends from Margaret and Hubert McMaster who were the children of Fanny and James McMaster. The people in green have uploaded their DNA results to Gedmatch.com. If Rebecca did this, I should be able to tease out the Frazer DNA from the McMaster DNA. A further complication is that Fanny McMaster who is at the top of the tree is the daughter of Margaret Frazer. However, this Margaret Frazer is from a different Frazer line than George Frazer who is in the tree.

Shared Matches With Rebecca

Here are my shared DNA matches with Rebecca in addition to the shared matches of my siblings and Rebecca at AncestryDNA:

I have information on how I match BV:

BV is a third cousin, twice removed to me, my siblings and Rebecca. This seems to indicate that the DNA connection is on the McMaster side.

Lori and Marshall

In doing the shared matches, with Rebecca, Lori and Rebecca have a shared match with Marshall:

Here is what Marshall has about George McMaster – his 2nd great-grandfather:

It would be nice if I could fit George into the William McMaster/Margaret Frazer Tree above. Margaret Frazer moved to Ontario with most of her children. The best way I know to review Marshall’s tree is to create my own Marshall Tree.

Here is Frederick McMaster with his family in 1911:

Father George was a farmer and Frederick Herbert appeared to be a young twin.

1871 Census

Here is Abraham McMaster and probably his father George in the 1871 Census:

1861 Census

I am finding the 1861 Census difficult to interpret:

There is a note by Abraham which appears to say married. These appear to be the same people as in the 1871 Census. However, the last name is spelled McMastrin. Also Jane shows an “m” for married but also appears to be only 10 years old! I assume that this is the same Jane who shows as 27 in the 1871 Census. A little squiggle in the 10 could be interpreted above as an 18. Here, at least George and Catherine are the same age.

1851 Census

The 1851 Census is stranger still:

Here are 5 McMasters and the oldest is 12. Did the family leave them temporarily? I assume that this is the same family, but I am not sure. If this is correct, and two year old James McMaster was born in Ireland, then that means that they must have moved to Canada around 1850.

The assumption is that Abraham was born about 1837. This seem born out by this grave marker from St. Mary’s Anglican Cemetery in Osprey, Ontario:

Getting from Abraham Back to George McMaster

If Abraham was born in Kilmactranny Parish, that would have been during the time when records were missing. Here is one George shown in the Kilmactranny records:

William son of George and Jane McMaster

Born Bapt. Aug 18, 1843

However, the timeframe is off for the William above unless he was born a while before he was baptized.

Here is where Osprey or Ospry is:

Another George McMaster?

I mentioned another George McMaster in this Blog. This George was married to a Jane and had a son named George Arthur McMaster:

This George was in Vaughan as early as 1847 when his son George Arthur was born:

Vaughan is in York County a little above Toronto.

The question is, was this George, the same as the father of Abraham above? Or put another way, did this George and Jane McMaster have a son named Abraham? The George from my previous Blog married Jane McMaster. The Jane above is believed to be Jane McMaster who is a sister of my ancestor.

Just to confuse things further, Ancestry gives this hint for the George in my Tree:

That hint was based on this tree:

I put a box around my ancestors.

Any Conclusions?

From the above, I would say that the George McMaster who married Jane McMaster is most likely not the same as the George McMaster listed above in the 1861 Census along-side of Abraham McMaster. Two trees at Ancestry have the George who married Jane McMaster dying in 1847. This is likely right as Jane marries William Thompson in 1851.

The fact that Abraham was living in the same or next house as George McMaster in 1861, implies but does not prove that George was the father of Abraham:

My further guess based on the genealogy and DNA is that the shared match between Lori, Rebecca and Marshall goes back further into McMaster history. I have been unable to connect all the McMasters, but the DNA seems to be pointing in the direction of that connection.

More DNA

It seems I have made this simple match with Rebecca into a complicated Blog. That is because Rebecca’s DNA match with my family seems to point to the McMaster side of my genealogy which is a bit convoluted – not unlike the Frazer side.

Here is some more detail on Rebecca’s shared DNA matches with my family:

Here I have added my match numbers with Rebecca as well as my siblings’ match numbers. I have also add match numbers where they appear with shared matches. In scanning from left to right, it appears that Lori has the most shared matches. After that, I added whether the match had an Ancestry Tree. CA means that they have a tree and Ancestry indicates that we share a common ancestor. I share common ancestors with Rebecca, but either Ancestry hasn’t picked up on that yet or Rebecca’s tree is not detailed enough. There are few directions I could take at this point. I could look at more trees or at more DNA. I’ll try the DNA route.

My Sister Lori’s Shared Clusters

Jonathan Brecher has a utility called Shared Clustering. I’ll run Lori through that program as she has the most shared DNA matches with Rebecca. Here is how the Lori’s shared clusters look at a limit of 40 cM:

At that level, Lori has 4 clusters. Cluster 1 represents her paternal grandfather side. Cluster 2 represents Lori’s maternal side and Clusters 3 and 4 on Lori’s paternal grandmother’s side. Rebecca’s match is right in the middle of Cluster 3. Right above Cluster 3 is a match with Michael. He and Lori have a Frazer common ancestor, but because Cluster 3 appears to be a McMaster Cluster, Michael is not in Cluster 3.

I have circled the different Clusters in green.

Whitney also shows up in Lori’s Cluster 3:

Melanie, Emily and Paul don’t show up because they had their DNA tested at different companies. Melanie doesn’t show up on Lori’s shared match list with Rebecca. However, because both Rebecca and Melanie match other who are in the Cluster, they are included in Cluster 3.

Bringing Lori’s Shared Clusters Down to 30 cM

I’ll try Lori at 30 cM to see who we pick up along the way. At this point, I’m just interested in the Cluster Rebecca ends up in:

Now Rebecca is in Cluster 1. A new Cluster for Frazers has appeared in Cluster 2. A few matches who were previously in Rebecca’s cluster jumped ship to the new Cluster 2 at this level. The last two members of Cluster 1 appear to be fairly closely related to Cluster 2.

Here is a summary of Lori’s clusters so far:

Bringing Lori’s Shared Clusters Down to 25 cM

At this point, Lori has gone from 9 clusters to 19:

Rebecca is now in Cluster 9 with a Frazer Cluster 10 right below.

Bringing Lori’s Shared Clusters Down to 20 cM

At this level, I should see Marshall. I had looked at his Irish/Canadian McMaster ancestry earlier.

Believe it or not, I find this cluster detail very interesting.

Clusters 27 – 33

Here is my markup:

There is a connection between the two pink squares. These represent Lori’s Frazer ancestry.

It appears that Violet Frazer and James Frazer were first cousins. The second pink chart above Represents Richard Frazer and his daughter Violet. That leaves the first pink box in the Shared Cluster Chart which should represent the James Frazer side.

However, notice that the second pink square is split into two. A possible explanation is that one of the two clusters could represent the unknown spouse of Richard Frazer born about 1777. I would assume that Cluster 30 could represent Richard’s unknown spouse. Whitney is in this cluster, so I am proposing that Whitney may have gotten more of the DNA from Richard Frazer’s wife:

It’s a theory.

A Clue to Marshall’s Ancestry?

Marshall is in Cluster 29 which subtly separated from Cluster 28. However, notice that Cluster 28 has more matches with other clusters. Cluster 29 has fewer matches. That leads me to believe that Marshall’s genealogy goes back on the James McMaster Line.

This leads me to another observation. That is that Cluster 29 appears to match up better with Cluster 33:

I had that Clusters 32 and 33 probably represent William McMaster and Margaret Frazer. So that tells me that William McMaster could be represented by Cluster 33.

Lori’s Final Shared Clustering

Lori’s final shared clustering should look the same as the 20 cM clusters. The difference is that small matches are added in down to 6 cM. My understanding is that these matches will generally be outside the clusters but associated with the clusters. Let’s take a look:

Here is the detail for Rebecca and Marshall. They are now in Cluster 40 and 41. In the past two runs Lori had 46 clusters. However, in this final run, the clusters got shuffled around – I suppose due to the smaller matches being added in.

Well, I could keep on going, but I’ve gone on too long already.

Summary and Conclusions

I was happy to find a DNA match with Rebecca. We are third cousins through our common ancestors of George William Frazer and Margaret McMaster.
Based on the DNA, Rebecca and I are more related on the McMaster side. That is not a surprise as our common ancestor Margaret McMaster had two McMaster parents and Rebecca’s grandmother is also a McMaster.
I also looked at some more distant DNA matches going back William McMaster born about 1790 and his wife Margaret Frazer. They left for Ontario in the 1800’s with their children but left one daughter Fanny stayed behind in Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo, Ireland.
I then did a somewhat complicated cluster analysis focusing in on my sister Lori, her match with Rebecca and their common matches.

January 29, 2020January 29, 2020

My Mom’s Lentz Family and Roberta Estes’ Lentz Family

Roberta Estes has blogged about her Lentz family. I have also blogged about my Lentz family. Roberta and I have checked to see if there was an autosomal DNA match between our two families, but we were unable to find any significant match. Recently, in checking my 23andMe results, it seems like there may be a way to see if we are related by YDNA.

My Mom’s Lentz Family YDNA

I have tested my DNA at 23andMe and have a few Lentz matches there. One good thing about 23andMe is that when you take an autosomal test, they also give you a rough estimate of your YDNA haplogroup. I have has two Lentz matches at 23andMe who are brothers. They both have this Haplogroup:

I’ve sent off messages to the two brothers. I don’t know exactly how we are related, but based on the size of the autosomal DNA match and where they live, my guess is that our common ancestors must be Jacob George Lentz and Annie Nicholson:

I don’t have record of William Lentz born 1892 as having any sons. William did have a brother named Stanley who had sons, so that may be where the two matches fit in. At any rate, their YDNA would go up through the Lentz side.

What is R-Y4355?

I would expect that 23andMe has an accurate haplogroup though not recent. Here is what YFull has on Y4355:

Above the tree, YFull gives the YDNA Line for this branch of Lentz back to Genetic Adam (listed as Home). This shows that Y4355 is about 4200 years old, so fairly old. I recognize R-U152 in that line as a major branch.

Roberta Estes’ Lentz YDNA

Here is what Roberta has in one of her Blogs:

Roberta has invested in the Big Y test for her Lentz relatives, so this is likely to be extremely accurate and fairly recent. YFull does not have BY39280, but has some information on KMS75:

Actually KMS75 is listed as +1SNPs above. The equivalent at YFull is Y20993 which was formed 4800 years ago. So this particular SNP is not that recent. BY39280 would be more recent but perhaps not by much.

The Short Answer

I would say that based on the 23andMe Haplogroup and the work that Roberta has done, these two families are not related. The common ancestor is R-L23 which was formed 6400 years before present. I’ll draw a tree for the two Lentz families:

I would have thought that Roberta’s Lentz Line would be longer, but it must be an older branch or a branch with less branching in it. So from the top of the tree to the bottom is about 2,000 years, but we still have about 4,000 years to get to the useful genealogical time.

Here is an R1b Tree:

I have an arrow pointing to where my Mom’s Lentz family and Roberta’s Lentz family split. The split goes to Western Altantic for my Mom’s Lentz family and Eastern for Roberta’s Lentz family. Interesting. U152 is a major branch. U152 begins below the ‘ic’ of Atlantic. Checking the YDNA was pretty easy. That concludes the YDNA part of the Blog. Next I’ll add my Lentz autosomal DNA to DNAPainter

Adding Lentz DNA to DNAPainter

I can add the autosomal DNA to DNA Painter for the two Lentz matches I have at 23andMe. Here is one match added to my Lentz/Nicholson common ancestors:

Jereme adds important DNA that I didn’t know about before. I didn’t have any DNA from these two common ancestors previously on Chromosomes 2, 3, 4 and 15. I have less of a match with Jereme’s brother Will:

I’ll paint in Will also even though he doesn’t add new information. Jereme matches me by 95 cM compared to Will’s 72 cM.

Jereme and Will upped my percentage of maternal mapped DNA from 30 to 32%. That is a significant jump at this stage of mapping:

Here is the maternal and paternal side:

I changed Lentz/Nicholson to a sort of pea green because it was the same blue as Clarke on my paternal side. I now have 41% DNA painted overall. I assume that this went up although I didn’t check to see what it was previously.

Summary and Conclusions

23andMe has a useful feature that predicts your YDNA Haplogroup at no extra charge.
This feature can be used to see if you are related to male relatives of the same surname. In this case, I was related to two Lentz brothers with a predicted haplogroup. Roberta Estes had Lentz relatives tested for YDNA resulting in a known Haplogroup. I checked on Roberta’s Lentz relative’s YDNA haplogroup and it didn’t match up with my Lentz relative’s Haplogroup. I then found the common Haplogroup for the two Lentz families. The common haplogroup was over 6,000 years old.
It would be interesting to see if this could be used in other situations.
This Blog was short so I painted the autosomal DNA of my Lentz relatives using DNA Painter.

January 28, 2020May 4, 2020

Getting Ready for My Hartley BigY 700 Results

According to Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) my BigY 700 results are in, but it appears that the analysis has not completed.

I am told that it can take two weeks to perform a manual analysis once the results are in. The good news is that FTDNA does this analysis. The BigY Facebook Page reports this manual review could take as long as 12 weeks.

My Block Tree

One way I can tell that things are still changing is by looking at my Block Tree results:

Above I highlighted the private variants. Yesterday I had an average of 10 shared variants. Today I had 12 shared variants. That tells me that things are still happening.

At the same time that I upgraded my BigY from 500 to 700, DNA relative Steve also did a BigY 700 test for the first time. Previously, there were only two people in my branch of the Hartley YDNA tree that had taken the Big Y test. They were Michael and myself. By getting Steve to test, we should be able to get a tie-breaker. By STRs, it seems that I am more closely related to Steve than to Michael, but STRs can be unreliable. The Big Y produces new SNPs which can place us in a different Hartley branch. As the Hartley YDNA branch seems to be fairly old, it is important to find more recent branching. I know that Michael’s genealogy goes back quite far. He has Hartley Quaker ancestors that moved out of the area that my ancestors were living in to find peace from persecution. They moved to Quaker-friendly Pennsylvania. Michael’s ancestor was Edward Hartley. He was born in 1666. He married in 1693 and moved to Pennsylvania probably in the early 1700’s.

Private Variants

Previously, I only had an average 2 private variants between myself and Michael:

The Private Variants are the ones I have and Michael does not have (or that Michael has and I don’t have). This is an average, so it may be two for each, one for one and three for the other or four for one and none for the other.

How Did We Get From 2 Private Variants to 12?

The first answer is that the BigY 700 tests SNPs that were not tested in the BigY 500 test. That means that the new test may be finding new SNPs along the route between Michael, Steve and myself as well as new upstream SNPs. However, I would imagine that the further upstream these SNPs are going back to genetic Adam, the more likely it is that these SNPs have already been discovered by thousands of other BigY testers.

SNP Matching Details

Here are the details of how I do and do not match Michael and Steve:

Looks like a bunch of numbers. From this, I take it that Steve’s test finalized 5 days after mine. If I add up all the Non-Matching Variants and divide by 2, I should get 12. When I add the two, I get 31, so that must be the wrong way to do it.

I put the non-matching and Shared Variants into a spreadsheets:

The only thing that did was show which variants I have that don’t match with both Steve and Michael versus those that don’t match with only Steve or Michael.

FTDNA’s Y-Chromosome Browsing Tool

Under the BigY Results tab, I find this:

Under named variants, I had no results which is confusing because under the BigY matching tab, I had 10 non-shared variants with Michael. Then I had 6 non-named non-shared variants with Michael. With Steve, I had more non-named non-matching variants than named non-matching variants. So I could say that I have no match between my non-matching variants and my Private Variants.

The browser above basically gets at the quality of the SNP. I like to look up positions at YBrowse. Here is what I get when I do that:

According to this list, I have two totally new Private Variants out of 17. Five were previously named by William Hartley – probably when I took my first Big Y. The rest have been named by FTDNA or Full Genomes Corp. The ones that FTDNA and FGC named, they didn’t know where these SNPs appeared on the haplotree. Here is the last SNP I looked up at YBrowse:

When I click on the circled SNP, I get this further information:

Under ycc_haplogroup for the FGC and FTDNA SNP, the comment was ‘unknown’.

My take-away is that I have 17 Private SNPs. There are an average of 12 private SNPs between Michael, Steve, and myself. That would be a total of 36 Private SNPs. That means that Michael and Steve must have a total of 19 Private SNPs between them.

Next, I looked at my non-matching variants and looked those up at YBrowse:

This told me that of my 17 Private Variants, 5 were the same as Non-Matching Variants between me and Steve. I suppose that makes sense because Steve just took a new test and I just upgraded mine.

Now I see my named variants. I must have missed them before or they weren’t there yet:

The list doesn’t say if they are matching or non-matching variants and there are 1775 of them. One issue that I have is with A11130, for example. It shows as non-matching to Michael and Steve, yet it does not show up as a Private Variant for me. Originally when people were naming SNPs, someone thought that A11130 would be a good name for my branch. However, it was later found out that this was a private SNP. That is why people wait for other Big Y matches before they name a branch. That brings up another point. My current SNP name is A11132:

However, A11132 is only representative of the above 7 SNPs. It looks like A11132 was chosen as it was the lowest number in the group.

Alex Williamson’s Big Tree

The Big Tree was used as the model for FTDNA’s Block Tree. Although the Big Tree is slowly being phased out, it still has useful information in it. This is what the Big Tree as my ‘Unique Mutations’:

The BigY2 was from my BigY 500 test where I uploaded additional information.

Here are some notes from the Big Tree Website:

In the table above, the meaning of the confidence field depends on whether the data comes from an FTDNA kit or an FGC kit. For FTDNA kits, + implies a “PASS” result with just one possible variant, * indicates a “PASS” but with multiple variants, ** indicates “REJECTED” with just a single variant, and *** indicates “REJECTED” with multiple possible variants. ‘A*’ are heterozygous variants not called by FTDNA, but still pulled from the VCF file. For FGC kits, + indicates over 99% likely genuine (95% for INDELs); * over 95% likely genuine (90% for INDELs); ** about 40% likely genuine; *** about 10% likely genuine. Manual entries read directly from a BAM file will be either + indicating positive, or * indicating that the data show a mixture of possible variants.

For the FTDNA kits, the BED data is encoded in the background color of the cells. Those cells with a white background have coverage, those with a grey background indicate no coverage in the BED file, and those with a pink background indicate the mutation is on the edge of a coverage region. These pink regions often indicate that the individual may be positive for a SNP even if there is no corresponding entry in the vcf file.

The good thing about the Big Tree is that it also shows details for Michael. Here are his unique mutations:

Here are some further notes:

The mutations unique to this man are summarized in the table below. Those with a ‘+’ or ‘*’ confidence level are considered by FamilyTreeDNA or FullGenomesCorp to be high quality SNPs/INDELs. For completeness, all other mutations of lesser confidence are included as well. These additional mutations may be useful for distinguishing between very closely related men.

I don’t know how much further light this sheds on the situation. It appears that both Michael and I have have 5 SNPs marked with a ‘+’. However, our average number of unique SNPs used to be three at FTDNA but this later went down to 2 for some reason. Also note that Michael shows A16717, but with a ** designation. The BigY 700 showed that I had A16717 as a Non-Matching Variant with Michael. That could mean that we are both positive for that, but that Michael didn’t have a good read, so it was rejected on his side. I suppose that these are some of the issues that FTDNA needs to sort out.

Shared Variants

While we are being confused, I’ll add this in. FTDNA shows that I have one Shared Variant with each of my five matches.

I don’t know what this means. However, going to the learning center explains it:

I think this should have said “…the number of known variants…” I probably used to know this. The confusion is that the column before this is Non-Matching Variants and the position number or name of the Variant. I interpreted the Shared Variants to be a uniquely shared variant with the position number. However, this is the number of variants I share. For example, with Steve we have both taken the Big Y 700. So out of 695, 105 variants or SNPs we share 675, 590. I share much less with Michael as he has not upgraded to BigY 700. Here, it would help if FTDNA told you if your match took the old BigY 500 or the new BigY 700. That makes one thing I understand.

Checking My Logic On Non-Shared Variants

According to the FTDNA Learning Center:

I take this to mean that this list does not just include variants or SNPs that I have and my match doesn’t have, but could include variants or SNPs that my match has and I don’t have.

FTDNA – BiGY Facebook Group

This Facebook Group has been helpful. They have a document there called: BiGY-700 I am a Newbie. The last bullet on Page 13 of that document says:

Check your Private/Unnamed Variants, and see if they are found in
your BiGY Matches’ Kits. If so, your Haplogroup will change after a
Manual Review.

Here are my Private Variants:

All I have to do is ask Steve if he has any of these and the ones that match with me should form a new Branch. However, I already know that the Variants in blue will not form a new branch. That is because the SNPs or Variants in blue are already on the list of Non-Matching Variants between Steve and myself. I really need clear instructions like the ones on the BigY Facebook Page because the terminology is so counter-intuitive. Why would I even think of finding a match with my Private Variants list? How are they Private if they match?

News From Steve

Steve wrote back to me with his private variants:

Steve has 19 altogether. The following is actually his first 10 Private Variants:

This is almost like looking at a secret decoder ring.

I put Steve’s Private Variants next to mine and found quite a few matches:

The matches are in gold on my list. The blue Private Variants are ones that are specifically listed in the Non-Matching Variants between Steve and myself. There are 11 Private Variants that match between Steve and me.

Next, I just have to wait for FTDNA’s manual review to see if a new Hartley YDNA Branch is formed.

Summary and Conclusions

The purpose of Steve and I doing this BigY test is to see if a new Hartley Branch forms from YDNA.
My assumption was that Steve and I are more closely related to each other than to Michael. If Steve and I form a new Hartley Branch and Michael stays in the existing Haplogroup, then that will prove my assumption to be true.
YDNA is basically a simple concept. However, the terminology and instructions make things more complicated than they really are. The only part that probably is complicated is the interpretation of the quality of the test results.
The FTDNA BigY Facebook site has some good information which counteracts some of FTDNA’s confusing information.

January 23, 2020January 23, 2020

Figuring Out a Frazer Photo From Ballindoon, County Sligo

Recently I posted a photo at the Frazers of Roscommon, Sligo and Leitrim Facebook Pa ge. Joanna who started the Page asked me if I could identify the people in the photo. That is a fair question, so I thought that I would give it a shot in the Blog. Also other may chime in. Here is the photo:

I got this photo when I visited Eileen McMaster Frazer in Ballindoon in County Sligo. She generously loaned it to me so I could make a copy. It looks like the photo has been folded in the past and that someone scribbled on the face of George Frazer, the father. Here is what I have at my web page:

For some reason, these children are out of order.

The Two Girls in the Photo

I show above that there were only two daughters in this family and the rest were boys. That means that it should be easier to start with the girls. My assumption is that as the family had two girls and that there are two girls in the photo that these two girls are:

Violet Frances born 1872 and
Susan Jane born 1887

That tells us that Violet was about 15 years older than Susan. First, I need to get the Frazer children in chronological order.

Fixing My Frazer Ancestry Tree

Fixing trees is always good:

This is better, but I have no date for George Frazer. I suspect that George Russell Frazer died in 1875:

Perhaps George Russell was named after his uncle:

George William’s older sister Sidney or Sydney married John George Russell in 1869.

Here is a better list:

I’m just missing death dates for William and Susan. So far, this tells, me that out of the six children in the photo, I know that George Russell Frazer had passed away and that my great-grandfather was in the US. He arrived in the US in 1887.

Back to Violet Frances and Susan Jane Frazer

This is my top choice for Susan:

Joanna’s tree has Susan born 27 Oct 1886. How old is Susan here? If I guess 12, then Violet would be 27. That would also date the photo at about 1899. But then there is a younger person with George and Margaret. I have that Susan was the youngest. If she is the youngest, then is that a grandchild with George and Margaret?

This appears to be a boy to me.

Violet Frances Frazer 1872-1934

I was told by a relative that this is Violet on her wedding day:

Violet married on 7 Jan 1901. That would mean that Violet was 28 in the above photo.

In the other photo, the person who I assume to be Violet is on the crease:

So I’ve gotten myself into a pickle.

Where Were the Frazer Children in 1899?

One guess is that the photo I’m looking at was taken in 1899. Where were all the children around that time? There was a Census in the US in 1900 and one in Ireland in 1901, so that might help. I know that my great-grandfather James Archibald Frazer was in the US at the time. Here is James in the 1899 Boston Directory:

William Frazer

William Frazer married Amanda Skoog in Boston in 1910:

He must have been living with my great-grandfather James then as James had a house at 35 Alaska Street in Boston. It looks like William and Richard made their way to Boston in 1896:

They planned to stay with their brother in Boston:

So that makes me think that neither William nor Richard were in the photo in Ballindoon.

Frazers in Ireland

So that leaves these potential children in the photo:

We know that Violet was in Ireland as she married there in January 1901. Next is Hubert.

Hubert Frazer 1878-1954

Hubert made his way to Boston in 1901. So he could be in the photo. It looks like William and Richard went to Ireland to bring him to Boston:

Both these ships left from Queenstown which is current Cobh, Ireland:

Which One is Hubert?

That leaves me with these two choices for Hubert:

Then that leads me to this photo:

I’m not sure who labelled this photo, but if they were right, it would appear that Hubert is in the upper right. Here is my version of the same photo:

My vote for Hubert is on the left in the photo of this Blog:

Because Hubert and George were close in age, I guess the the brother on the right was George:

If the photo was in 1899, then George would have been 20 and Hubert would have been 21. That seems possible to me.

John Edward Frazer 1882-1870

Here is where I run into a problem. If the next boy was John Edward and the photo was taken in 1899, then John Edward would have to be 17 years old. The boy on the left doesn’t look 17 to me.

According to the 1911 Census:

Edward is 21 so he would have been born about 1890. The 1911 Census further indicates that Edward is younger than Susan:

This is consistent with the 1901 Census:

That means that I need to adjust the birth date for John Edward. The findagrave.com website agrees with a later birth date:

That gives me a revised birth order:

My Current Guess

I have tried to identify these six children previously. This time I went into a little more depth in identifying them.

Hopefully, I came up with the same answer last time.

More on the Dating: 1897?

Now that I have identified John Edward, I would like to date the photo on him. My original guess for the photo was 1899 on how old I thought Susan Jane might be. Here is a chart using 1897 as a possibility:

John Edward looks fairly young. He seems sort of clingy. I’m not sure a 10 year old would be that way. That would put Susan at 10. She looks fairly tall, though girls can can tend to grow faster than boys. David is looking to me like a young 13. George and Hubert at 18 and 19 doesn’t look wrong. Violet at 25 could be right also. One temptation would be to say that everyone was dressed up for Violet’s wedding. However, that doesn’t seem to make sense given the look of the age of the children.

More on David Frazer 1884-1953

Violet Frazer married James Fairbanks in January 1901. That means that David would have been about four months short of being 17 years old:

Also David is wearing the same style of boots tucked into his pants as in the earlier photo. According to this ship record, David made his way to Boston in November 1912. David is the second person on the list.

This record shows that David had previously been in Boston in July of that year.

A Frazer Chronology

With all that was going on with this family, it would be interesting to do a chronology. This may tell an interesting story. It appears that George moved to Ballindoon in 1866:

Charles Sproule was living in Lot 5a. His name is crossed out on the sheet and George Frazer’s name is added. In the right column titled Observations is 66 which I take to mean 1866. This was probably right around the time he married Margaret McMaster who was from the area and before my great-grandfather James Frazer was born. I was told that the previous person occupying the house could not afford to live there. The Immediate Lessor is listed as John Gethen.

George Frazer 1879-1960

For some reason I am having trouble finding some records for George Frazer in the Irish Census and for his marriage. However, Frazer researcher Joanna has these records in her tree:

George helped out his Aunt Isabella Frazer at the Derrycashel farm:

George took over the Derrycashel farm in 1917. He had five children that were presumably born at that location.

David Frazer 1884-1953

I seem to be missing some information on David Frazer also. We have two photos of David. The second was taken around the time of the 1901 Census:

According to this record, David married in 1915 in Norwood:

Here is David’s petition for naturalization:

Here he says he arrived in the US in 1908. David’s petition was signed by his brother James and Robert McMaster:

I’m curious as to who this Robert McMaster is. Here is a Robert McMaster who is a Chef in Boston on 1910:

Here is Robert on one of my web pages:

Here is Dereentunny in Roscommon near the County Sligo border:

Ballindoon is to the NE of Lough Arrow. Another interesting thing about Robert is that he stated his intentions to be a citizen in the State of Michigan:

This next record shows that Robert went back to Ireland and traveled with some of his Johnston relatives in 1912:

Robert lists a John McMaster in Ireland that he visited. This was probably his brother John James McMaster born 1858.

Back to David Frazer After a McMaster Detour

David had a daughter named Eleanor Maude Frazer. One reference has her mother as Annie Gray which doesn’t seem right:

I believe that David death certificate also has Annie Gray as David’s mother, so there is some confusion. Eleanor’s mother should be Eleanor Taylor Frazer:

David is shown on the previous page of the 1920 Census. Here is a definitive record:

More on John Edward Frazer 1889-1970

John Edward was the little boy in the photo. He married Margaret Lillie McMaster in 1917 and had a daughter Lily Margaret Frazer in 1918 in Ballindoon. That same year, John Edward’s wife died. John Edward married Waitie Covell in New Hampshire in 1931. John Edward who usually wend by Edward died in Marlborough, Massachusetts in 1970.

Here is Edward in 1940:

Edward was a cook at a private school in 1940. I’m curiouis who Walter Stanley was. In 1935, he was living in Ballindoon. This was actually Walter Stanley Frazer, son of William Frazer and Amanda Skoog. According to the 1940 Census, Edward was naturalized.

At 5 foot 11 inches, Edward is no longer the little boy standing between his parents. Edward is living at 38 Batavia Street. That sounds familiar. I’m guessing this was Edward in the 1923 Directory:

Unfortunately, I can’t find Dover or Batavia in a current Google search. Here in 1926, Edward was in Roxbury:

There was also another Edward Frazer who was a fireman in East Boston at the time.

Apparently Batavia Street is now Symphony Road:

Apparently Dover Street is now East Berkeley Street:

However, there was an Edward Frazer who was a cook at Dover Street in the 1920 Directory. Edward’s petition says he showed up in the US in 1922. Here is the other cook Edward Frazer who was born in Rhode Island shown in the 1920 Census:

Forest Street in Roxbury would have been near where my great-grandfather James lived:

Here is more Naturalization information:

Edward is listed as a chef living at 26 Montrose Street, Boston in 1928. The affidavits were signed by Edward’s brother, my great-grandfather and Edward’s nephew George Frazer:

James’ son George Frazer was born in 1896, so he was actually a little less than three years older than his Uncle Edward. This shows that Edward had a close relationship with my great-grandfather’s family.

In fact, James lived at 26 Montrose Street in 1927, so Edward must have been living with him at the time.

I believe that was this house that I have a photo of:

This looks to be the same house today:

In the older photo there was a porch over the entranceway. Here is another view:

When Edward arrived in New York City from Ireland, he was 33 years old. Edward gives this for his nearest relative in Ireland:

He also knew that he was headed for Roxbury in Boston.

Edward appears to have a lot more money than the average traveler if the handwritten amount is right The story I heard was that my great-grandfather was sending money back to help get his brothers to the US. Interesting to note also that Edward intended to stay in the US for 10 years.

The Chronology

Here is what I have up to 1900:

1900-1920:

1920-1975:

The last entry was meant to be 1975. I have something in every decade except for the 1850’s. This would have been during the height of the potato famine. Margaret McMaster had these siblings born around that time:

Summary and Conclusions

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, and I have proved that to be true in this blog two times over.
I feel as though I have been able to identify each person in the photo.
This lead me to identify David Frazer in the Frances Violet Frazer wedding photo.
I also updated some information on each of the children of George William Frazer and Margaret McMaster
I came up with a timeline of what was going on in Ireland and in the US.

Here is a color-coded timeline:

Addendum – William Goes Back to Ireland

This was an important event. On the 8th of February 1919, William and his family arrived in Liverpool on their way to Ballindoon with his wife Amanda and three children after sailing from Portland, Maine:

This brings up another point. I don’t have Elsie in my tree. She was born 30 Jun 1914 in Mansfield, Massachusetts:

The William Frazer story is quite compelling. William moved to the Boston area in 1896. After living in the US for 18 years, he decides to go back to Ireland with his now American family. In a sense, he went against the trend and against those staying in the US for economic improvement. He left his new friends and family in the US for his parents and family in Ireland and a simpler but more difficult economic situation.

Addendum #2 – Telling the Stories

George William Frazer and Margaret McMaster – They remained on the farm in Ballindoon. In 1901, they have David, Susan and John Edward at 16, 14 and 12 helping out on the farm. In 1911, George William is listed as 75 and Susan and Edward are with them listed as 23 and 21. Susan and Edward each married in 1918. Edward has a daughter born May 1918 but Edward’s wife dies less than a month after the birth of their daughter. In February 1919, George and Margaret’s second oldest son William returns to the farm in Ballindoon with his wife and young family. Edward’s infant daughter Lilly dies within days of the return of William Frazer and family. Edward leaves Ireland for Boston in 1922 two months after the death of his mother. George Frazer the father lives to an old age until 1928.
Violet Frances (1872) She married James Fairbanks in 1901. After marriage, she went to live on James’ mother’s farm in Drumvoney, County Sligo. I have that she had four children and died in County Sligo in 1934. Violet’s husband James died in 1912.
Hubert (1878) – He came to the US in 1901 shortly after his sister Violet married. He married Annie McKinnon in 1917. He had three boys and two girls and became a store owner in Squantum, Quincy, Massachusetts.
George (1879) – He moved in with his Aunt Isabella and worked his grandfather’s farm in Derrycashel, County Roscommon. He married Annie Craig in 1915 and had one girl and three boys and died in 1960.
David (1884) – He arrived in the US in 1908. He married Eleanor (Elsie) Taylor in 1915 and had a daughter born in 1919 in Boston. David’s wife died in 1927. He married Annie Gray in 1931 in Milton, MA and died in Milton in 1953. David was a cook in 1920 and also have that he was a grocery clerk, but I am missing some information about him.
Susan Jane (1887) – She married Edward Crawford in 1918. He was likely the son of Joshua and Kate Crawford from Derreenasoo, County Roscommon. Edward was present at the death of his mother there in 1931. My notes say that they moved to Northern Ireland. Edward, also known as Stuart Edward died in Linaskea, Fermanaugh in 1963. Susan died there at the age of 85 in 1972.
John Edward (1889) – I mentioned some of Edward’s earlier life surrounded by tragedy above. After moving to the Boston area, Edward married Waitie Covell in 1931. Edward was a chef. He died in Marlborough, MA in 1970. I don’t have any record of surviving children of Susan Jane or John Edward.
I don’t mention the three older Frazer brothers directly as they are not in the photo. However, I have already mentioned James and William Frazer. The other brother Richard has a son who marries David’s daughter.

January 21, 2020

A DNA Review of Joanna’s Paper on Her Ancestry

In this Blog, I’ll do something that I don’t usually do. I’ll be looking at the DNA aspects of Frazer researcher Joanna. Here is the title of Joanna’s paper:

I feel I’m in a bit over my head on the land deeds as well as the surnames other than Frazer, but I’ll look at some of the paper’s DNA aspects.

Joanna’s Family Tree

Here is Joanna’s tree on her paternal side:

We see Joanna has Frazer and Fitzgerald in her tree. I don’t see McDermottroe or O’Farrell in her tree, so those must be collateral lines. As such, I won’t need to consider them while looking at the DNA aspects. That should simplify matters.

Joanna’s DNA Match of Concern

Joanna’s sister Janet matches a Marcas which Joanna finds significant. Here is a depiction from Joanna’s paper of Janet and how she matches Marcas and other Frazer relatives by DNA on Chromosome 14:

Janet and Shared Clustering

Before I look into Chromosome 14, I will look at Janet’s Shared Clustering at AncestryDNA. Shared Clustering is a program developed by Jonathan Brecher that is similar to AutoClustering. First I download Janet’s matches and shared matches at AncestryDNA. This is what Janet shows for DNA matches at Ancestry DNA:

In theory, the shared clusters should break down into four categories. Those would represent matches for Janet’s four grandparents. I don’t have Janet’s grandparents memorized, so I’ll have to look them up:

They are:

Frazer
Seymour
Dickins
Williams

Here is Janet’s match with Marcas at AncestryDNA:

Marcas shows as a distant cousin at 16 cM. Here is Marcas’ McPartland side:

Marcas and Janet have one shared DNA match who is Gail. Gail is Janet’s second cousin:

Starting Janet’s Shared Clustering

Picking a level to start Janet’s shared clustering is a bit of trial and error. I’ll try 40 cM:

This results in four clusters. However, this does not necessarily mean that these four clusters have a one to one relationship with Janet’s four grandparents. Clusters 1, 2 and 3 seem to indicate that they are related to each other. However, part of the reason for this is that Shared Clustering includes Janet’s two siblings.

Next, I like to open up the Common Ancestor column:

I blurred some common ancestors out, because they are still living. It looks like Cluster 1 could be Edmonds, Cluster 2 Dickins and Cluster 3 Frazer/Palmer. Cluster 4 is not identified. As Janet’s Seymour side is missing some ancestry, that is a possible area for Cluster 4.

Summing up the first run, I have this:

Putting Cluster 4 on the Seymour side is a guess. Fortunately, Dickens had more than one wife, so we can trace the common ancestor to him specifically in at least one case.

Janet’s Shared Clustering at 30 cM

This brings Janet up to five clusters.

I was able to trace four of the five clusters. Cluster 5 is now the Frazer Cluster.

Two identified common ancestors go back to Archibald Frazer in 1795:

The fact that both these matches are in the same cluster seem to support the genealogy.

Janet’s Shared Clustering at 25 cM

Now the Frazer Cluster is #11. There are 12 Clusters. Cluster 12 seems like it could be related to the Frazer Cluster:

Janet’s 23 Clusters at 20 cM

Now the Main Frazer Cluster seems to be Cluster 10. Janet’s close relatives are in Cluster 11:

The Correlated Cluster column is important. Cluster 10 has some connections with Clusters 2, 4, 17 and 19. However, there is only one connection with Cluster 2.

Here are Clusters 17 through 19:

These are interesting because Cluster 19 is the McPartland Cluster.

Here Cluster 10 is at the top left and Cluster 19 is at the bottom right.

Janet’s Clusters Down to 6 cM

At this level, Janet won’t have any more clusters than at 20 cM, but she will have more matches, such as Marcas. However, when I look for Marcas on the 6 cM, he doesn’t show up. So what does that mean? At the top of the Blog, I mentioned that Marcas and Janet only had one shared match who was Gail. Gail is in Cluster 10. The McPartlands broke away from Cluster 10 to form their own McPartland Cluster 19. However, Marcas doesn’t show obvious affinity to either of those clusters.

Marcas’ McPartland Genealogy

Marcas has his ancestor Thomas or Hugh or Michael McPartland being born in the early 1800’s and coming from Arigna, County Roscommon:

The McPartland Cluster 19 Group have their earliest ancestor as Patrick McPartland:

Here is a map of Derreenargan:

This is not far from Arigna. However, I believe that this McPartland family actually lived in Dereenagan:

These were ancestral lands of the Frazers and would explain why Owen McPartland born 1813 would have married Ann Frazer.

I see one problem with the McPartland connection. The first, is that there is no obvious connection between the two McPartland families. However, even if there was it wouldn’t matter, because the Cluster 19 connection to Janet and other Frazers is through Ann Frazer and not the McPartlands.

What all this means is that Marcas’ connection to Janet and Gail is likely not on the Frazer side like Cluster 19 connection is. It is likely due to a McPartland marriage into a non-Frazer family.

Back to Shared Clustering

I notice that Judith who was not in a cluster previously is at the level of 20 cM:

Judith is found here in the Frazer tree:

Cluster 7 appears to represent the whole Michael Frazer Born 1764 Branch of Frazers. It might be interesting to try to build out the trees of the other Cluster 7 matches to see if they lead back to the Michael Frazer Branch.

Janet and Marcas at Gedmatch

Here is how Janet and Marcas match at Gedmatch:

When I run who is matching Janet and Marcas at Gedmatch, I recognize Betty, Kim, and Rodney:

As there are no other shared matches from known Frazer descendants, it makes me wonder if the match between Janet and Marcas could be happening on Janet’s Palmer side.

Janet and Marcas at MyHeritage

The first person that Janet and Marcas triangulate with at MyHeritage is Gerry:

Gerry also shows up at Gedmatch and Ancestry. My suggestion would be to try to triangulate between Gerry’s, Marcus’ and Janet’s family trees to see if there is a connection between the three – either in name or location. That may give a clue as to where the common ancestors came from.

Summary and Conclusions

I ran shared clustering for Janet hoping to figure out in which cluster Marcas fit in.
It turned out that Marcas didn’t fit into any of Janet’s clusters. However, the fact that he doesn’t fit in could be significant.
I looked at Janet’s and Marcas’ McPartland genealogy. Janet has no known McPartland ancestry and her connection to them on another McPartland Line is only by marriage. That means that Janet’s match by DNA to Marcas should not be on the McPartland side. In addition, it is probably not on the Frazer side as other known Frazer descendants would probably be matching also.
I then looked at Janet and Marcas’ shared DNA matches at Gedmatch. Those known shared matches were only within Janet’s known second cousins. Because other Frazers were not involved with this match, it seemed possible that the match could be somewhere down the ancestry of Janet’s Palmer side.
I then looked at Janet and Marcas’ DNA match at MyHeritage. Janet and Marcas triangulate with Gerry there. Gerry also has his DNA at Ancestry and Gedmatch. It may be possible to triangulate between Marcas’, Janet’s and Gerry’s tree to find a common ancestral location and/or ancestors.

January 17, 2020March 16, 2021

Where Did My Pilgrim White Ancestors Live?

I have already looked at some of the places where my Pilgrim Bradford ancestors lived. The last in my line of Bradfords was Hannah T Bradford who lived in Rochester, Massachusetts where I grew up.

My White Ancestors

I only have half as many White ancestors as my Bradford ancestors:

William White

William White had a bit of a sad start in Plymouth Colony. According to the Mayflower Families:

In 1651 Gov Bradford wrote: “mr. White and his two servants died soon after their landing. His wife married with Mr. Winslow. His 2 sons are married and Resolved hath 5 children; Peregrine 2, all living.”

I can only assume that William died in the harsh New England Winter. I descend from Resolved. Peregrine was the one who was born on the Mayflower. William’s wife Susanna married Edward Winslow in May of 1621, not long after William’s death in February. That means that Edward Winslow would have raised Susanna’s young boys.

Edward Winslow (1595-1655)

After Susanna married Edward Winslow, she had a child who died young, then three boys and a girl. Here is the Winslow Property:

I didn’t realize that there was an early burial place by the water. My understanding was that the Pilgrims lived on board the ship when they first arrived. I assume that William never lived in a dwelling in Plymouth. At any rate, Resolved and his brother Peregrine must have lived at the highest location in early Plymouth.

The Bradford property is where the brick building is now on the left. That means that the Winslow property was probably near or to the right of the white building in the current photo above. The white building in the photo above is now the 1749 Courthouse Museum.

Here is Edward Winslow:

Resolved White

Here is some information from Wikipedia:

This gives a good summary of some of the places that Resolved lived including Plymouth, Scituate, Marshfield, Salem and Barbados for a short time. I haven’t found anything easy about where Resolved lived specifically other than in his early Plymouth days.

Here is where his brother Peregrine lived in Marshfield:

Here is the Winslow Cemetery where Resolved may be buried:

I also highlighted the Winslow House. This is actually the Isaac Winslow House built around 1700. So this is where Resolved perhaps ended up.

Resolved also visited Barbados:

I wonder how long it took to sail to Barbados. Resolved was there in 1657 for the sale of 1/5 of a plantation there that was in the Vassal family. Resolved was married to Judith Vassal. This is interesting due to the fact that a plantation probably involved slaves and Resolved observed this. Perhaps he had a chance to remain in Barbados but did not. At the time Resolved visited Barbados, his children were between the age of about 1 and 15.

Here is the Parish of St Michael in Barbados where the Plantation was:

Here is where Resolved lived in Massachusetts:

Resolved must have had some prior connections with Salem as he married his second wife Abigail Lord there in 1674. I would assume that his wife was a Puritan rather than a Pilgrim (who were called Separatists). This brings up the point that the White family may have not been part of the Pilgrims from Leyden but may have joined the Mayflower in London.

Samuel White Born 1646

Samuel is someone I am interested in. From what I understand he was influential in the beginnings of the Town I grew up in which is Rochester, MA. Samuel was born in Scituate. According to the Scituate Historical Society:

William Vassall of Stepney, Middlesex, England, merchant, age 42, was a passenger on the ship Blessing which arrived in New England by July, 1635. A few of the other passengers were Thomas King, age 21, Jo: Stockbridge, age 27, Ann Stockbridge, age 21 and Sara Tynkler, age 15. Vassall was granted 150 acres on Belle House Neck by the Plymouth Colony Court in 1638 and was one of the founders of the second church (South Scituate); he died at Barbados in 1655. The Lothrop records note that he was the first person to join the Scituate church “in our new meeting house, Nov 28, 1636.” Vassall’s daughter Judith Vassall, age 16, was also a passenger on the Blessing. She married Resolved White and was one of the original members of the second church (South Scituate).

Second Church Scituate is in current day Norwell. Here is a map of the Second Church Cemetery in relation to Norwell, Scituate, Marshfield and the North River:

Here is an excerpt from History of Scituate, Massachusetts: From Its First Settlement to 1831:

If this is accurate, then the places mentioned are in proximity to the Stockbridge Mill Dam shown in red below:

Here is an older map from the 1850’s:

The reddish outline is current-day Norwell. The Yellow is Marshfield. My guess is that Resolved lived in this general area. That means of course, that Samuel, his son, also lived with him here at this time.

Samuel White: From Scituate to Sandwich

According to the Mayflower Families Book,

Samuel White was in Sandwich as early as 20 May 1667 when Maj. Josiah Winslow of Marshfield, half brother of Samuel’s father, deeded “for love and good will to my kinsman Samuel White now of Sandwich.”

There must be a transcription of this deed somewhere:

Here is my attempt at figuring out the first part:

Winslow Gov

Winslow Gov

To all Christian [people?] to whom these ? ? shall come Major Josiah Winslow of that Towne? Of Marshfield in the Collonne of New Plymouth in New England ? ? And know yee that the said Major Josiah Winslow out of his ? Good Affection Love and Good Will unto his Kinsman Samuel White Now of the Towne of Sandwich in the Jurisdiction of New Plymouth in New England aforesaid and for? ? good considerations, him hereunto? Moving? Hath given granted conveyed…. Enfeoffed and confirmed; and by these? ? ? doth? Give grant convaye in feoff and confirmed? Unto the said Samuel White and his heirs for ever all that ? and ? of Land by the hounored Court of Plymouth unto him Granted ? by Rewards? Of the said Cout ? ? June? the ninth 1664 and June the Seventh 1665 ?; and is ? of those lands; lying upon the Easterly syde of Narrawakett? River in the Township of Middleberry; between the old and New path that goeth from the wading lake? On the said River towards Lakenham; and is commonly called the Wagons ? ; the said land given as aforesaid is four or five acres? of Meaddow lying upon the said River and West adjoining unto the Said upland, so? ? found, not ? Granted to any other ?; and the ? is an hundred and fifty acres? Most on ? bounded by said River all the northerly ?, buy the old path on the Mortherly syde; by the New Path on the Southerly Syhde; and all the easterly side? By a Marsh? ? oak ? Marsh? ? the old path; and against the Land of George Vaughan being? The Nrothward Bounds; and all the ? ? ? ; by a Marshed? Walnutt? ? standing ? unto the New Path and all the ? and the above mentioned Lands, both upland and meddow; ? with the…

Well, at least I tried. I take it the land was near a river, a new path, and old path and George Vaughan’s land. The Mill River would be a wild guess for the River mentioned:

Josiah Winslow, put another way, was Samuel’s half Uncle and a nice guy to give his nephew land in Sandwich. Here is Josiah:

Any family resemblance? Josiah was about 18 years older than Samuel.

I’m not sure why, but it appears that Resolved and Peregrine signed the deed that gave Samuel White the land in Sandwich. Perhaps this was because Samuel was in Sandwich and the deed could have been signed in Plymouth or Marshfield?

I read something like Signed, sealed and delivered in the presence of Resolved White; Peregrine White. I find it fascinating to see a record of these two. One brother took the trip across the Atlantic as a 5 year old boy. The other boy was the first born of the Pilgrims in the New World.

It is not clear when Resolved moved to Marshfield. Resolved sold land in Scituate in 1662 and was elected surveyor of highways in Marshfield in 1668.

So we see that wherever Samuel White came from, he was living in Sandwich as of 1667 when he had just turned 21 years of age. Back to the Mayflower Silver Book:

He was still in Sandwich 8 June 1671 when he and his wife Rebecca deeded land to Benjamin Church, acknowledged 8 June 1677. In 1679 he was listed as one of the proprietors of Rochester.

This shows the importance of land records. There is no record of Samuel’s marriage to Rebecca, but this shows that Samuel likely married between 1662 and 1671. I assume that Samuel sold the land to become a proprietor of Rochester.

Here is an excerpt from the History ol Mattapoisett and Old Rochester:

That means that Samuel White was one of the first inhabitants and first Selectmen of the Town of Rochester.

In 1684, Samuel would have been about 38 years old.

Where Did Samuel White Live in Rochester?

Samuel drew a home lot at Mattapoisett as opposed to Sippican. However, some of those people never occupied their lots and people were allowed to swap or take other land. According to Mattapoisett and Old Rochester:

That may be as close as I get for now:

That turns out to be less than a mile from where I live.

Penelope White 1687-1738

According to the Mayflower Families, Penelope was born in Rochester. She married Peter Crapo in 1704. The Crapo family lived on the West side of Snipatuit Road. This is perhaps the same house that Peter lived in:

Penelope would have been about 17 years old when she married Peter. Tradition says that as a boy Peter was shipwrecked on the coast of Cape Cod in 1680. If that is true he could have been born about 1670 and been about 17 years older than Penelope – say twice her age at 34 when they married.

Here is a map from the 1850’s showing where some of the Crapo’s lived at that time:

Unfortunately, most of the Crapo properties are miss-spelled. After he was shipwrecked Peter or Pierre lived with a Francis Coombs of Middleborough. At the top of the map above there is a Coombs listed. I believe that this location was an inn or tavern. Perhaps Peter’s son, my ancestor, Francis was named for Francis Coombs. I have read that Peter Crapo got together with other land owners to create a connection between the Mattapoisett River and Snipatuit Pond so the alewives (herring) could spawn in Snipatuit pond. That would have been in the area shown as Randall above. I believe that the Randall house was once a Crapo property also.

My ancestor, Greenwood Hartley bought the Philip Crapo house at the bottom right of the map. Philip was the great-grandson of Penelope White.

Summary

My last White ancestor Penelope died about 282 years ago. That is a long time. However, she lived in the same Town that I grew up with. That speaks of a great amount of continuity. She probably lived on the West side of Snipatuit Road on the West side of Snipatuit Pond.
Penelope’s father Samuel White was one of the founders of Rochester. He moved to Rochester sometime around 1675. 345 years ago!
I descend from Governor Bradford on another line. I hadn’t thought as much about my connection to Governor Josiah Winslow. I don’t descend from Josiah, but he was the half brother of my ancestor Resolved White and was generous to his son Samuel White. Part of the interest in descending from Josiah is that there is a painting of him and could give some indication of what Resolved looked like. Josiah was Governor of the Plymouth Colony during King Philip’s War. I’m sure that made life difficult for Josiah.
I perhaps feel less connected with Resolved White. He was born into some amount of privilege and also married into a wealthy family. He sold his holdings in Barbados. Whether this was from moral or personal reasons is not certain. He lived a long a prosperous life. I suppose I hadn’t thought of Resolved living in Salem which adds some interest to life. That, and his trip or trips to Barbados.
Unfortunately, little is known about William White. It is even uncertain as to whether he was born in England or Holland. Many trees have him from Holland, but things I have read lately lead me to believe that he may have been born in England.

January 8, 2020March 16, 2021

My Distant Pilgrim Relative Gary

I was surprised to find out while pursuing my genealogy hobby that I was related to my friend Gary. We both descend from William White of the Mayflower. Gary goes all the way with the Whites. My White line drops off at Penelope White who was born in 1687:

Tracing Gary Back to William White

Here is Gary’s dad Donald who passed away in 2015:

A quick search for Donald gave me this tree:

That gets me quickly back to 1873.

However, I’ll make my own tree also.

Donald W White 1930-2015

Donald was born in Acushnet, but lived with his family nearby in New Bedford in 1940:

Donald’s father was listed on the previous page of the Census:

Raymond and family were at 2135 Acushnet Ave:

This is the address of Kentucky Fried Chicken today. Raymond had only completed 3rd grade. His occupation was dairyman.

Raymond White 1906-1978

Apologies to Donald, but I have a long way to get back to William White of the Mayflower. Here is Raymond’s birth record from 1906:

Raymond’s father was Walter and was listed as a farmer.

Here is Raymond’s stone at the Long Plain Cemetery in Acushnet:

Only 300 more years to go.

Walter Augustus White 1873-1956

Augustus was a popular family name. Walter died the year I was born. Walter was also born in Acushnet, but his father who was also a farmer was born in Fairhaven and his mother born in Freetown based on this birth record:

Here is Walter in the 1880 Census with the rest of his family:

Augustus White 1832-1917

Findagrave.com has a lot of information on Augustus:

Augustus White, son of Phineas and Betsey (Walker) White of Livermore Maine was born September 26, 1832, in the house where he has since resided on the Mill Road at the head of White’s Factory Road in this town.

Mr. White comes from Mayflower stock, his ancestor William being one of the passengers of that good ship. The line down is as follows: William White, Resolved White, Samuel White, John, John, William White, William White, Phineas White and Augustus.

The only education Augustus received in his boyhood days was in the district school near his home, but he has been a diligent student all his life and has acquired useful knowledge from much reading and careful observation.

His chief occupation has been the tilling of the farm on which he was born and he now has one of the largest, most productive dairy farms in this country. Assisted by his sons, he makes milk for the New Bedford market, all of which they deliver. Mr. White has served the town 12 years as school committee and been several years surveyor of highways. He was one of the leading men in the erection of the Advent chapel in the Whelden neighborhood, 44 years ago and has been a deacon of the society and superintendent of the Sabbath school during those years. Mr. White has always been a man of industry and push and now at 75 years of age, is remarkably vigorous in body and mind.

He married June 7, 1869, Angeline M. White the daughter of Merchant and Melora A. White.

Now I’m getting somewhere with this excerpt from the History of Acushnet. Gary and I have the common ancestors of Samuel White which I would have suspected. That is where Gary’s family and my family went their separate ways:

My quick version, if I got it right, is that Gary and I are 9th cousins once removed:

Another Look at My Hartley Tree

The first time I didn’t notice Gary in my tree. Now I see that he is there:

Ancestry shows as 9th cousins:

Apparently we are more closely related than I realized through John Jenkins. Who knew?

That means that John Jenkins’ granddaughter Mercy married John White and had Thomas White who had Merchant White. Then there was another Merchant white who had Angeline White who married Augustus White. It gets confusing when White marries White. The interesting thing is the Jenkins family was from Barnstable on Cape Cod originally. Who know? Perhaps Gary and I are related other ways also.

Who Was John Jenkins 1609-1685?

John Jenkins bought land in Plymouth in 1640:

Here is some more I found out about John in the Great Migration Project:

Above are Mary Jenkins who I descend from and Thomas Jenkins who Gary descends from.

That’s quite a bit about John Jenkins.

Back to the White Tree

Here is where Mary Jenkins came in on Gary’s line:

Also Augustus White married his third cousin Angeline White.

John White Born About 1689

Here is an interesting item that surprised me about John White the son of John White. According to the Mayflower Families Book:

Son John is apparently an illegitimate child by Martha Doty (See Plymouth Co Ct Recs 1:205). This may explain why he is not named in John’s will even though he was alive and living in Rochester when the will was written.

However, there is a much more complicated lengthy discussion on Rootsweb not all of which I can easily follow:

I think the upshot of the above discussion is that the author believes that Martha Doty had a child John White out of wedlock but that the father was John White.

DNA Testing

Some Mayflower White descendants have been tested, so it may be possible to settle the issue through YDNA testing. YDNA tests the DNA from father to son to son. There is a Mayflower YDNA Project that has three Whites in the group. They have tested markers called STRs:

I didn’t show all the results. The first two testers have tested 67 STRs and the last person tested 37 STRs. One study reported that for the 67 STR test, one STR should change, on average, every 3.5 generations. So that means that for a common ancestor such as William White of the Mayflower, some changes would be expected. So if Gary were to have his YDNA tested and the STR results were consistent with other William White descendants, it should prove that John White of 1689 was the son of John White of 1669. It would be even easier to tell if Gary did not match the haplotype of Mayflower passenger William White.

Summary and Conclusions

I ran into a few surprises while looking at Gary’s Mayflower lineage and how he matches with my lineage
The first was that Gary and I are more closely related on the Jenkins Line. I looked into some information about John Jenkins who was born about 1609.
The second surprise was that there was some question about Gary’s Mayflower lineage on the White Line. That is because Gary’s ancestor Martha Dotey was brought up on charges of fornication. Martha confessed to the charge though apparently no father was named. This brings into question whether her first son John was the son of her later husband John White.
This issue could be cleared up if Gary took a YDNA test.