I haven’t written about the Dicks family for a while. Clayton told me recently that his cousin Bob had his DNA tested and uploaded to Gedmatch. I had written a Blog about Clayton here in May, 2017. In that Blog, I found that Clayton did not have a lot of obvious matches to others in the Dicks Project that I was working on. His biggest match of people in that project was with my wife’s Aunt Esther:
Bob’s Genealogy [Note, I Show This to be Wrong Below ]
Here is what I get for Bob and Clayton’s tree:
It would be tempting to think that Clayton and Bob’s John is the same that I now have in the Dicks DNA Project:
At the time I wrote about Clayton, only Esther and Joan were in the Christopher (born 1812) LIne. Now this Line is quite large.
Looking at Bob’s DNA
I’ll run Bob’s DNA against all the people in the Christopher Dicks Line. That is, the line of Christopher born 1812 shown above. If Bob and Clayton are in the John Dicks Line b 1844, they will show as 1st cousins twice removed to Anne above.
More DNA Problems
I circled where the problem is:
Published matching results for 1st cousins, twice removed show that the match should be within these ranges:
Clayton and Bob match Anne at 10.1 and 24 cM. Normally, I could not say that someone is not related by not matching at DNA. However, in this case, I can say that Anne is not a 1st cousin, twice removed to Bob and Clayton.
What Are the Possibilities?
Now that we know Anne is not related to Bob and Clayton in the way that the genealogy was suggesting, what are the possibilities?
- Anne’s John Dicks and Bob’s John Dicks may have been two different people. However, Bob and Clayton don’t seem to match other Dicks Lines well by DNA.
- It is possible that Clayton and Bob carry the true Dicks Line and that William Dicks was adopted into the Dicks Line. However, this doesn’t seem possible due to the same reason that Clayton and Bob do not have good, consistent matches with other Dicks descendants.
- Charles Dicks born 1886 may have been adopted by John Dicks. This seems more likely than scenario #1 or #2. John’s wife may have been married previously and had a child. Many parents died in these days and others raised the children.
An Email to Clayton and Re-Grouping [This is Where the Mistake is Fixed]
I told Clayton my initial results and got some more information. It appears from his email that there was more than one John Dicks. That means that my assumption in #2 above was wrong. Here is what Clayton had to say:
from what I’ve collected is Me 1985-> Dad 1961-> Leslie Dicks 1930 -> Charles Dicks 1886 -> John Dicks 1857 -> David Dicks 1831 -> Chris Dicks 1812. These records were from two Dicks relatives who had sent my dad their records sometime in the 90’s and he had kept around. Both of them we’re connected through Henry Dicks 1775. Their info is a little muddy though as David seems to have died in a fishing accident only a few months after John was born so the records on him are basically non-existent.
Clayton sent a screenshot of his Ancestry Tree which was helpful. His understanding of his ancestry was something like this:
Clayton’s tree had his ancestor David (born 1831) as a brother of Catherine Dicks who married Henry Upshall. I added in other lines I’ve been working on. Green means that the person has tested their DNA and uploaded to gedmatch. Now rather than Bob and Clayton being 1st cousins once removed to Anne, they are second cousins three times removed. That is quite a difference. This may not be the right configuration, but it should be closer than what I had. Under this proposed tree, Clayton and Bob are also 2nd cousins three times removed to Esther.
Any Triangulation Groups for Clayton and Bob?
If Clayton and/or Bob are in any Triangulation Groups (TGs) that would give strong evidence to their place in the Dicks Line.
We Have Triangulation on Chromosome 5
This is what a Triangulation Group (TG) looks like. This one has Bob, Dorothy, Grace, Barry, Anne, and Nelson. The gold region indicates those that are in the TG. Actually, Edward, Molly, Howie and Diddie are in a different TG, so I added that also to my list.
In order to draw this TG, I put Bob and Clayton in the Christopher Dicks b 1812 Line:
Assuming the configuration is right, these six triangulate on Christopher Dicks born about 1774. Another point is that Bob, Barry and Anne triangulate on the Christopher Dicks born 1812.
TG10A
This TG has Clayton, Edward and Diddie in it. I haven’t introduced DIddie to a Blog yet, but she is Marilyn’s Aunt. Note that Diddie is on two Dicks Lines. I favor the Crann Line on the right as my theory is that Christopher, born 1812 married a Crann. However, the TG could be on either one of the lines.
TG10B
The spreadsheet version:
Ken is in two differnt Dicks Lines also.
Ken is in the Burton Line on the left and Crann Line on the right. Barry is in the Christopher Line. I mentioned my preference for the Crann line above.
TG18
There are others that almost make it into this TG but the matches must be under 7 cM. Forrest (again from the Crann Line) would also be in a TG with Anne and Randy.
Here is the Bob, Randy, Anne TG
It is difficult to explain why there could be two TGs in the same place. This may be due to intermarriage. The only other non-intermarriage explanation would be that there are maternal and paternal TGs.
Here is the mysterious TG with Forrest, Anne and Randy almost in the same spot as the one with Bob, Randy and Anne. I tried to get Bob to match with Forrest, but had no luck.
If I had to choose one TG over the other, I would choose the second as the match levels are higher. It is possible that Bob’s low matches on Chromosome 18 are false matches. That brings up an interesting point. On Chromosome 5, Bob’s matches are higher outside the Christopher DIcks (born 1812) than inside that group. This may just be the DNA messing with us. However, he does have a lot of matches with people within the Christopher group. They are just smaller matches. That brings up my two laws of genetic genealogy.
My Two Laws of Genetic Genealogy
- The DNA is messing with us. DNA has been around for a longer time than we have and wants to prove that it is smarter than we are. It knows that it has random qualities and uses that fact to throw us off track.
- The ancestors are messing with us. Our ancestors did things to throw us off track also. They overused the name Christopher, for example. They married very young or very old and had children at a very young or old age. They also decided to move to places where there were no records or where the churches burnt down with the records inside. Then they married cousins, and so on…
As you can see, both of those laws are in play in the case of Bob and Clayton.
TG Summary for Bob and Clayton
- Bob had low-level matches with others in the Christopher (born 1812) Line, but had quite a few of these matches
- I found two new TGs that Clayton was in and two new ones that Bob was in. Often at this stage of a DNA project, people will be joining existing TGs, but Bob and Clayton made new TGs.
- When I looked at Clayton’s DNA previously, I didn’t find him in any TGs. However, since that time new people have been added to the Christopher (born 1812) group
- Every TG that Bon and Clayton were in had at least one other person from the Christopher Group in it.
- Clayton was in a TG with Diddie and a TG with Ken. Both Diddie and Ken descend from a Crann Line. However they also descend from two other Lines.
- I had a few ideas how there could be overlapping TGs on Chromosome 18 that included two of the same people.
One Last Revision
I had some correspondence with Bob following the initial publication of this Blog. He felt that there was some good reasons to have his line under the Robert Dicks/Crann Line. I am not a specialist on Dicks genealogy. This is the line of my wife’s mother’s mother’s father’s mother. That is perhaps a bit obscure for me. I didn’t have a strong feeling from the DNA that the family had to be in the Christopher Dicks Line. I was noting connections to the Robert Dicks/Crann Line. I have also mentioned that I believe that Christopher Dicks married Elizabeth Crann, so there is also that connection.
Summary and Conclusions
- I initially came to a bad conclusion based on a misunderstanding of Bob and Clayton’s family tree. DNA has to work together with genealogy for it to work right.
- I tend to leave my mistakes in my Blogs as a warning to others (and myself)
- Thanks to input from Clayton, I got the genealogy more in line
- Clayton’s best shot at his genealogy put him and Bob further away from other Dicks cousins. This was more in accord with the DNA results I was seeing.
- By running Bob and Clayton’s results against all the Dicks DNA Project, I found 4 new TGs that Bob and Clayton are in.
- One of the TGs was confusing as it overlapped with another TG and had two of the same people in each TG
- The TGs that Bob and Clayton were in always included someone else from the Christopher Dicks (born 1812) Line. That leads me to believe that Bob and Clayton are in the Christopher Dicks Line as proposed by Clayton’s genealogy.
- I’m quite amazed at the growth of the DNA-tested Christopher Dicks Line in that past year
- I mentioned the Crann connection briefly and would like to look at that more closely in the future. Perhaps in my upcoming Blog on Diddie.