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Some Butler DNA Clusters at Ancestry

Since Ancestry enhanced their clusters, I thought that I would try them out on my wife’s Butler Line. I have two of my wife’s tested at Ancestry.

Here is my wife’s father’s paternal line:

Here is my wife’s Aunt Lorraine’s ThruLines on the third cousin level:

Patty seems like a good choice to try to cluster on.

I got some results, so that is good. Here is the 6 match cluster:

I believe that all these descend from George Butler of Cincinatti.

Here is the 19 Match cluster:

Here Patrick is interesting. What I am seeing is that there are two major clusters and Patrick is in-between the two. Patrick is the son of Will:

The common ancestor between Patrick and Lorraine is likely George Butler. He was born some time in the 1700’s and likely from Wexford, Ireland. Lorraine is Will’s 4th cousin once removed and an important DNA match.

Patty is in the cluster above Patrick. This is likely the Cincinnati cluster descending from the George in the DNA tree above.

The cluster below Patrick appears to be from another George. This George was the son of Edward Butler who confusingly also had the birth name of Adam. Edward was the brother of the George who moved to Cincinnati.

So here is what I think I have:

This is what one blogger calls walking back the ancestors.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Georges here. The lower right corner of the pink cluster is from George Butler born 1872 and brother of Edward Henry Butler born 1875. Patrick descends from the George in the upper right hand corner of the Ancestry tree above. The upper left corner of the pink cluster descend from George Butler born 1826 and brother of Edward “Adam” Butler. I find it satisfying to be able to see all these connections in one place using Ancestry Clusters.

Lorraine’s 30 Match Butler Cluster with Patty

This is no doubt a more detailed picture of the previous pink cluster:

T

Top right is Cincinnati Butlers. Will and Patrick are from Butlers that never came to the US. The tighter cluster is from George Butler. He moved to Massachusetts. I cannot place the last 5 in the bottom right. Lisa has Murphy and other ancestors from Wexford. It is possible that some matches go beyond what we know about in the area of genealogy. This view also includes Patrick’s father Will.

Virginia and Brian

Brian comes up as a large match to the Butler family. He is a fourth cousin to Virginia who is another of my wife’s Aunts. My guess is that Virginia’s clusters with Brian should look very similar ot Lorraine’s clusters with Patty.

 

 

It is a little different. The upper left cluster is the George Butler born 1826 in Wexford, moved to Cincinnati. Actually the common ancestor between Brian and Virginia should be Henry Butler born about 1800 in Wexford – not George born 1826 as stated earlier in the Blog.

Then within that Cluster is Will and Patrick. The common ancestor between them and Virginia is Henry Butler’s father and George Butler and his unknown wife.

The third cluster would also have the common ancestor of Henry Butler but this cluster represents the desendants through Edward Henry Butler down to his son George Butler born in 1872.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Running clusters for my wife’s two late Aunts confirm my previous DNA and genealogical research.
  • Two important matches are Will and Patrick. They bring the Butler connection back another generation in Wexford, Ireland. Their DNA matches also tie together two other branches descending from two son sons of Henry Butler of Wexford: a George Butler Branch who remained in Cincinnati and a Edward Butler Branch who lived for a while in Cincinnati but who eventually moved to Massachusetts.
  • There is also a connection with Brian who descends from the Cincinnait branch, but one branch moved to St Johns, New Brunswick. This connection is important as that is where Edward Butler lived briefly and married Mary Crowley before moving to Cincinnati and eventually to Massachusetts.
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Clusters from My Mom’s Latvian Side

Let’s look at my mom’s clusters. These should include Rathfelder, Nicholson and Lentz for starters.

Standard Clusters for Gladys Rathfelder

These had to be refreshed:

  • Orange is Lentz, but really Lentz/NIcholson.
  • The next cluster is Nicholson/Ellis
  • The third cluster is also NIcholson/Ellis. So perhaps one cluster favors Nicholson and the other Ellis
  • For some reason there are no Rathfelder or Latvian clusters

A Custom Rathfelder Cluster

My mom has a good match here with Donna:

Maria was the wife of my mother’s grandfather who was Johann Heinrich Rathfelder. I’ll choose Donna as the match of interest for the custom Rathfelder Clusters.

Donna is the fourth match down. The first cluster is along the Gangus Line:

Here is the second cluster:

Here is the only hint I see from that Cluster:

However, I have never checked this out. One tree at Ancestry has this:

That means the Johann on the right above could be Johann Jacob. I suppose mine could be Cornelius Johannes. However, for now, I will leave it be.

Clusters with Gladys and Catherine

Catherine has a slightly lower DNA match to my mom compared to Donna, but a closer relationship:

Catherine is a 2nd cousin once removed and Donna is a 2nd cousin twice removed to my mom.

It is interesting how different the two clusters look (between Gladys and Donna and Gladys and Catherine). Under this, there are two sub-clusters. Here is the first:

Here are some more loose clusters. Here is match number 5:

Match number 4 has a similar connection and is probably a sister. This Hans Jerg Rathfelder married a Biedenbender.

Here is how Valdis matches:

Here is a guess as to what is happening:

Here is some more support. Karin is related to Valdis. Here is J.S.:

But how does Kirk fit in?

This tells me that the second cluster is actually a Gangnus Cluster:

Valdis, Karin and JS were Schwechheimer/Gangnus. But Kirk show that the match was really on the Gangnus side of that couple. This cluster also distinguishes from the Gangnus line on my Rathfelder grandfather’s maternal side.

 

The clusters are very specific.

Matthew appears to be a new match:

Checking Out Matthew’s Line

I don’t see Matthew on my Gangnus DNA Tree:

I do see Maria Senta in the excellent genealogy on the Gangnus family by Gustav Gangnus. I can trace the line back to Johann Jacob Gagnus, but it gets confusing as this man had 19 children with two wives. Matthew descends from the first wife and Patrick, Kevin, Leva and my mom descend from the second wife.

Here I have added in Matthew to my Gangnus DNA Tree:

This makes Matthew a half third cousin twice removed to Gladys. The shared DNA is all Gangnus.

How Does Reinhold Fit In?

Here is what Ancestry shows:

However, Reinhold shows up in my Gangnus DNA Tree:

He is also a fourth cousin once removed. On Matthew’s side of the tree, Reinhold is a 5th cousin once removed also:

The left side of the tree represents the paternal Gangnus side and the right side of the tree above represents the maternal side of the Gangnus matches. Rienhold appears to be matching on the maternal Gagnus side if I understand the clusters correctly even though that is the more distant relationship.

This is the part of the cluster that is easier to figure out due to common ancestors that have been confirmed by genealogy:

Summary and Conclusions

  • By using different matches of interest, I was able to get very different results. The second person of interest gave easier answers, probably just by the chance people they matched by DNA.
  • I added a new match to my Gangnus DNA Tree
  • I was able to identify a likely Rathfelder cluster and two different Gangnus clusters: one on my grandfather’s paternal side and one on his maternal side.
  • I was able to identify in this way about one third of my mother’s Rathfelder clusters.
  • I assume that the further one goes down on the clusters, the further out the matches are.

 

 

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More Frazer Clusters from Gladys

Gladys is a Frazer relative here:

Gladys’ great-grandfather Richard was the brother of my 2nd great-grandfather George Frazer. In my previous Blog, my thinking was that if I used Gladys for clusters, I would get better or older matches. Also these clusters would likely eliminate some of the McMaster Matches as my 2nd great-grandfather married a McMaster.

I chose as a person of interest Mabel for Gladys’ clusters:

Here is Cluster 3. This discovered my family even though they were not explixitly included in the inputs to the cluster:

Jonathan is my brother and the rest are my siblings, my niece, my nephew, my two children and myself. This suggests that of my siblings who have tested at Ancestry, Jonathan should have the most Frazer DNA and I should have the least.

Cluster 4 for Gladys

This cluster has just one more match than the pink cluster above, but my family are now out of the cluster:

I noticed that Zara was a new match. She is also the daughter of Susan:

I’ll assume that Susan knew who her mother and grandmother were. This is Susan’s maternal line from her Ancestry Tree:

It turns out I already had Susan:

I got a little confused. This is an older Richard Frazer Line. The 1830 Richard and the 1852 Richard must have been named for the 1700’s Richard.

I looked at the lower right cluster but could not see an easy connection to any of my identifiable ancestors.

Cluster 5 for Gladys

This looks like two major clusters with perhaps some clusters within the clusters.

I recognize Jane in the major 2nd cluster. Jane and Siddon descend from Richard Frazer born perhaps 1777. I also descend from that line but from Violet Frazer who married James Frazer. So that should be the two major clusters above. First Violet and then Archibald born 1804 – both children of Richard.

 

The last cluster had 60 matches. This expanded things far out:

This one gives me a bit of a headache.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Using Gladys and Mabel to cluster gives some more detail on the different Frazer Lines
  • However, because Gladys is a bit removed from me at 3rd cousin once removed, the results are more obscure than ideal.
  • Ancestry suggests using someone in the 2nd cousin range. I think that makes sense.

 

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Ancestry’s Expanded Clusters and Frazers

I would like to see what there is of the new expanded Clusters at Ancestry on my Frazer Line. Here are some choices to cluster with:

Mabel is not my closest match by DNA, but she is my closest Frazer relative. George Frazer married a McMaster, so some of them should show up.

Creating a Custom Cluster with Mabel

First, I chose Mabel as a person of interest. The I added a few more Frazer relatives good matches. This gave me 6 custom clusters:

Here is the first 7 match cluster:

Matthew, Mabel and Faye are on my ThruLines.

I see that John’s DNA is managed by Dawn. She has a tree and her father appears to be John:

John is already on my Frazer DNA Tree:

Rebecca is on my tree. She descends from the branch that returned to Ireland from Massachusetts.

Whitney is on my tree already. She descends from my great-grandfather’s brother Richard Frazer.

That leaves Stephen. According to my shared matches, Whitney is his niece. Here, I added in Stephen next to Lisa on my Frazer DNA Tree:

I also added Stephen to my Ancestry Tree.

I was able to place each person in that cluster, so that is good.

The next 8 person cluster adds one more Matthew:

Strangely, Matthew is in the cluster and not his mother Karen. That must be because he shares more DNA with me than his mother. That makes me want to add in Matthew on my Frazer DNA tree:

This was the branch that went back to Ireland.

Frazer Cluster 3

The previous cluster is on the bottom but a few people dropped out of it. The new people are on the top.

Gladys is easily identifiable:

Gladys brings us back a generation on the Frazer tree. Richard Frazer was one of my earliest finds by DNA. In other words, he was discovered first through a DNA match from one of his descendants and then connected by genealogy. It is clear that it will be more difficult to get all the relatives at this level of relationship.

Kathryn and Others in the Cluster

Kathryn has no tree, but it is clear from shared matches that she is also from the Richard Frazer Branch. I sent an email to see if she has any information on her tree.

I looked at all others and they were in the same group – descending from Richard Frazer. However, I could not figure out easily how they fit in easily. Here is what I have now on my Frazer DNA Tree from the Richard Branch:

Cluster 4 and 5

Cluster 4 is very similar to Cluster 3, so I’ll skip to Cluster 5:

The top three are on the McMaster side.

mtrent is on my McMaster DNA Tree already as son of Robert Trent:

Here is BV:

As far as the bottom right group in Cluster 5, I am not sure. Clif is related to Gladys, who descends from Richard Frazer, but there is another connection that I cannot identify.

Cluster 6

Cluster 6 just adds some more matches to the groups:

The DNA is likely messed up as Frazers married Frazers, McMasters married McMasters and Frazers married McMasters. Also, some of my Frazer ancestors do not have the spouses identified. That makes for some genealogial uncertainty.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It was interesting to see how my Frazer ancestors grouped together in clusters
  • Matches were either easy or difficult to identify
  • The easy matches were already in my Frazer or McMaster DNA trees
  • I feel like some of my other siblings or matches have better DNA connections to the Frazer family, so it may be best to use them in the future. For example, Gladys would be a good choice as she is a generation older than me on the chart and I can access her DNA results.

 

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My Father’s Cousin Joyce and Snell Clusters

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

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

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

Here is the first cluster:

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

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

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

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

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

2nd Snell Cluster

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

Here is Y.R.:

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

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

Mildred did not marry until she was 31.

Here is the Washington Death Index:

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

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

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

Here is Nancy’s birth record:

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

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

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

The Third Snell Cluster

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

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

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

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

Here is what I have so far:

Snell Locations in the Wendy Line

I have:

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

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

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

He has John living in Forest, Wisconsin in 1860:

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

Here is Forest:

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

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

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

Adding Xenophon’s Line to my Snell DNA Tree

Here is my existing tree:

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

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

 

 

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Hartley Genealogy and Playing with Ancestry’s Custom Clusters

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

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

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

A Custom Cluster between Joyce and Kristen

There are 4 small clusters. The first cluster:

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

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

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

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

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

Here is 291 Maple Street:

Earlier in the year, the family lived here:

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

Here is the next Cluster:

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

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

Here is the last cluster:

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

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

Maurey and Kristen

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

 

 

 

 

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

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

This match goes back to their maternal great-grandparents:

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

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

JJ at MyFTDNA

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

Unfortunately, Ancestry is not working right now.

JJ at Gedmatch

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

Louis has a wiki tree:

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

Here is the tree I have:

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

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

Here is Helena:

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

Here is JJ’s tree:

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

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

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

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

Updating Maternal Trees by JJ

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

Here is what I have:

Here is the update under Walter:

Kristina

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

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

Seth must be a first cousin to Kristina.

JJ and Susan

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

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

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

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

Charlotte and JJ

Charlotte and JJ are in the 2nd cousin range:

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

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

Richard and JJ

Richard has Polish ancestry:

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

This tree in my hints has Joesf Jarek :

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

Here is Zarnowiec:

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

Here is JJ’s tree:

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

A Dziuria DNA Tree

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

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

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

New Dziuria ThruLines

Here are Richard and Beverly:

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

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

Further DNA Proof for the Dziuria Tree?

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

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

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

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

The 19 match cluster is interesting:

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

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

The 27 Match Cluster

This one is intersting:

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

Liz has the Such family on her paternal side:

JJ’s third great-granmother was Marii Such:

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

 

 

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Updating My Children’s Maternal DNA and Genealogy

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

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

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

Here is my son’s profile:

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

How to Get More DNA Mapped for My Children?

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Common with Martha

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

Not in Common with Robert

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

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

Here are some of the ones that match Heather:

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

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

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

Some Gatley Genealogy

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

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

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

Here is the birth information:

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

The 1901 Census for Hamilton City seems important:

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

Ellen Hardman

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

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

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

Oops, Lilly Fee

Here is Lilly’s Naturalization Record:

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

Child Newman Henry identifies Lily as a Hardman:

According to this record, the couple married in Warrington:

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

Here is Warrington in 1901:

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

This appears to be the family in 1891:

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

This appears to be the marriage:

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

Here is James in 1861:

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

Two James Gatleys?

Here is the James I already have in my tree:

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

The James that I am looking at above:

He is born also in 1821 but in Martin Croft.

Checking Heather’s Gatleys

Perhaps these Gatleys will link up better.

Here is Suzanne’s tree:

 

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

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

Here is Middlesbrough:

Here is Thomas in 1921:

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

Here is the marriage:

Frederick dies in WWI.

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

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

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

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

Here is the 1861 Census:

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

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

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

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

This is likely the baptism of James Gatley:

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

A First Gatley DNA Tree

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

 

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A New Latvian DNA Match at MyHeritage

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

Fortunately, there is also a tree for Juris:

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

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

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

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

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

My Gangnus DNA Tree

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

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

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

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

Mapping the DNA

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

Here is my current DNA Painter profile:

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

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

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

My Late Mom and Juris

These two had a much higher DNA match:

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

My mom is 39% mapped:

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

I have that my two children descend from Jeremiah Warren:

From Ancestry ThruLines for my daughter:

 

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

Here is a Warren DNA Tree I built in 2020:

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

Adding Mary to My Tree?

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

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

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

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

The Massachusetts records only have him as Douglas:

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

Frank passes away in 1917:

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

Here is Mary’s grandfather Jerry in 1950:

Jerold appears to have been in the Navy:

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

A Tale of Two John Cavanaughs

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

My Childrens’ John Cavanaugh

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

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

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

The Mistaken John Cavanaugh

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

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

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

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

More on DNA and Shared Matches

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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