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Genealogy for Heather and JJ: Part 10 – Cavanaugh/Warren

I last discussed Heather and JJ’s Cavanaugh side in Part 4 and Part 6. I came to the conclusion that Cavanaugh should really be Warren:

That has a lot of implications for Heather and JJ’s maternal grandmother’s father’s genealogy. John E Cavanaugh’s mother is the same, but I have the father as John J. Warren.

Warren Genealogy and DNA

Ideally, the DNA should confirm the Warren genealogy. However, so far, I have not found a lot of matches on the “Cavanaugh” side of Heather and JJ. I’ll start with Heather’s DNA matches. There could be Warren’s on the paternal side, so I need to disregard paternal matches.

I found one match at 4th cousin level or closer, but the Warren matches were not obvious. Also this person had some Polish matches, so the matches could have been on JJ and Heather’s Polish lines.

DNA Matches At FTDNA

Family Tree DNA or FTDNA allows you to upload your DNA results from Ancestry to see if  you have matches with others who have tested at FTDNA. I did that for Heather and JJ. Here is JJ’s match with Martha at FTDNA:

Martha shows as a 1st to 3rd cousin to JJ by DNA. Martha doesn’t match on JJ’s paternal side or on the Polish side, so that should mean that Martha matches on JJ and Heather’s Cavanaugh side. The problem is that Martha doesn’t show a tree at FTDNA. I’ve sent Martha an email and will have to wait and see if she writes back.

Warren Genealogy – John J. Warren 1845-1882

What do we know about John J. Warren? He did not live long. It looks like he died at age 37. Here are records from Lowell:

On the next page:

Actually, I should be looking at John’s most recent records first and working back.

This shows a John J Warren died in Lowell of an accidental drowning in 1882 at age 38. The record says that he was born in Lowell, but that his parents, Jeremiah and Mary were both born in Ireland.

John J Warren – 1880 Bleachery Street

John J was living as a widower in 1880 with his family on Bleachery Street in Lowell and worked at the bleachery:

This Census was June 7 and I have that John Edward Warren aka Cavanaugh was born on August 24, 1880.

The Warren Family in 1855 Lowell

Above in the Lowell Birth Records, I had birth records for Jeremiah, John and Thomas. This must be them in 1855 in Lowell:

This is a little confusing, but it is the best that I have. Patrick appears to show as being under 5 years old and born in Ireland. Then Robert shows as born in Ireland. Thomas, Jeremiah and John match what is in the Lowell Birth Records Book.

This is what I had for the Warren family:

I had that Bridget got married on 25 May 1855. The Massachusetts Census was on 1 May 1855, so she may have just moved out of the house (assuming I have the right person). Her marriage and death record says that she was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her death record says that her father was John Warren, however, this may be in error. Bridget’s death recored shows her mother’s name as Mary Kelly.

Thomas A Warren

After the Civil War, Thomas moved to Boston with his wife and two children. Here we see Patrick Warren who was mentioned in the 1855 Lowell Census.

Unfortunately, this Patrick died in Lowell in 1875. From Patrick’s death record, his mother is given as Mary, but on his birth record, his mother’s name is given as ‘Margret’. This makes more sense the way the 1855 Census was written.

Here is a possible death record for Jeremiah on 31 August 1857:

This record shows Jeremiah, son of another Jeremiah and Mary, as being married at the time of death. He appears to have died at Crop Street? Maybe Cross Street makes more sense.

According to the 1855 City Directory below, the corner of Cross and Marion would have been right across from Saint Patrick’s Church.

In the 1858 City Directory, I see no Jeremiah:

Back To Martha and FTDNA

Martha was nice enough to get back to me and figured out who I was. Then I thought to look at the information my former wife sent me and found Martha there.

Now I see why Martha was able to figure out who I am:

 

Martha is 1st cousin once removed to Heather and JJ.

Summary and Conclusions

  • In this Blog, I mixed some genealogy research with DNA research
  • I had trouble finding matches on JJ and Heather’s Cavanaugh/Warren side, so I uploaded their results to FTDNA
  • At FTDNA I found a match who is Heather and JJ’s 1st cousin once removed.
  • In my next Blog, I will use Martha’s DNA matching to help visually phase JJ and Heather.
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My Son’s AncestryDNA Results Are In

I recently got an email saying my son JJ’s DNA results were in. JJ shows this on his main AncestryDNA page:

There is a third box for DNA Circles, but those take a while to form after JJ’s DNA is linked to a tree. Here is how JJ compares to his sister Heather:

Both JJ and Heather come out as mostly England, Wales and Northwestern Europe. However, JJ’s #2 Ethnicity is Eastern Europe and Russia and Heather’s #2 is Germanic Europe. Another thing that stands out is that JJ has about 150 more 4th cousin or closer matches.

JJ and Heather’s Ethnicity

One would think that the ethnicity would come out the same for Heather and JJ as siblings, but it doesn’t. Here is what JJ shows:

JJ shows 3% Baltic within the larger Eastern Europe and Russia.

Heather doesn’t show the 3% Baltic but has 3% France instead:

The overall effect is the same.

JJ and Heather Each Have One SubRegion of England

These are subtle differences. JJ has Yorkshire & Pennines within Northern England and the Midlands:

Heather has the SubRegion of Northern England & the Midlands, but doesn’t have it broken down further like JJ has:

That means that while JJ and Heather both have the subregion: Northern England & the Midlands, JJ has the sub-sub region of Yorkshire & Pennines.

JJ and Heather At Gedmatch Genesis

As siblings, JJ and Heather match each other in a way that they match no one else. Here is how JJ and Heather compare to each other on Chromosomes 19-21:

We each have a male and female copy of our chromosomes. However the results don’t distinguish which is which and combine the two. On the bottom of each chromosome above is a blue or black region. Blue is where JJ and Heather match each other and black is where they don’t match. On the top part, there is either green, red or yellow. Red is where there is no match. The yellow above the blue is called a half match also known as an HIR. The green is called a Fully Identical Region (or FIR).

What Do These Three Regions Mean?

No match means no match. However, a good way to look at this is in terms of grandparents. JJ and Heather got their DNA from their four grandparents: Hartley, Rathfelder, Jarek and Cavanaugh.

  • No Match – An example would be if JJ got his paternal DNA From Hartley and maternal DNA from Jarek in a no match region, that would mean that Heather must have gotten her paternal DNA from Rathfelder and her maternal DNA from Cavanaugh
  • HIR – These regions are a little trickier. This means that if JJ and Heather both got their paternal DNA from Hartley and JJ got his from Jarek, then Heather got her maternal DNA from Cavanaugh in that half matching region.
  • FIR – This means that if JJ got his DNA in this region from Hartley and Jarek, then Heather also would have to have gotten her DNA from Hartley and Jarek.

Visual Phasing for JJ and Heather

Visual Phasing is more difficult for two siblings than for three or more, but let’s try it on Chromosome 19. First I put some information onto a spreadsheet, but it is just a place for phasing:

In the middle no match, I represented the four grandparents as four different colors:

There looks like there may be a tiny match in the middle of the non-match, but I am ignoring that for now.

Cheating on the Rathfelder Side

JJ and Heather’s Rathfelder grandmother has been tested so this should be a big clue. Here is how JJ and Heather match their paternal grandmother:

What does this mean? This means that Heather matches her paternal grandmother on the whole length of the Chromosome. Again, I’m ignoring the non-match in the pink area (called the centromere).

In the chart above, I had Heather’s paternal as blue in the middle region. Let’s call blue Rathfelder.

 

The places where I have the vertical lines in the spreadsheet above correspond the changes in the ways that JJ and Heather match each other. These are called crossovers. That means that at these spots the DNA that they got from one grandparent will cross over to the DNA that they got from another one. These crossovers are either maternal or paternal.

Already, I also know that JJ’s Yellow will be Hartley. That is his only other choice for a paternal grandparent. Next I put the JJ’s Rathfelder DNA in:

Now JJ has two paternal crossovers. His paternal DNA goes from Rathfelder to Hartley and then back to Rathfelder. JJ’s crossover is at 7 Million, because that is where the DNA match with is Rathfelder grandmother stops.

Next, because JJ has a paternal crossover at position 46, that means that he probably doesn’t have a maternal crossover at the same spot. Because of that, I’ll move JJ’s green DNA a little to the left and all the way to the right:

On the right hand side there is a half match. That half match is blue, so the orange can extend to the right on Heather’s maternal side:

Using the same logic for the small segment on the left, I can move the orange a little way to the left:

 

Now I am stuck on the left HIR segment. I don’t know if the maternal crossover goes to Heather or to JJ. If it goes to Heather, then that means that the left maternal segment for JJ will be green. If JJ has the crossover, it will be orange. A maternal cousin match could solve this.

Painting JJ’s Chromosomes

I’ll come back to visual phasing later. Now I’d like to paint JJ’s chromosomes. I had painted Heather’s previously. This shows Heather’s known maternal matches on her Jarek side:

These appear to be four siblings or close relatives. They are not relatives that Heather knows, but relatives with known Jarek ancestors. I could use this information for visual phasing as these chromosomes should be easier to visually phase.

The Same Matches But Matched To JJ

Back To Visual Phasing

JJ has a pretty good match on Chromosome 18, so I’ll try that one next:

Here we have almost the same scenario as in Chromosome 19, except that there is one more crossover on the right. I put in numbers at 9.8 and 53 to give a general idea of where we are. These correspond to where JJ and Heather match each other.

Here is how JJ and Heather’s paternal Rathfelder grandmother match them on Chromosome 18:

This time JJ gets a full dose of Rathfelder DNA.

 

I put in Heather’s Rathfelder DNA also.

Next, I want to visually phase Heather and JJ’s first maternal side DNA. Actually, I phased it on Chromosome 19, but I couldn’t identify it due to lack of DNA matches with known ancestry. Now we can do that. My guess is that green will be Jarek and orange will be Cavanaugh. By eye it looks that way.

JJ’s match with one Jarek descendant goes from 33 to 53.8, so that is the case.

I filled in the yellow Hartley for Heather as it should go up to where Heather matches her Rathfelder grandmother. Now I am stuck, but I have identified a Cavanaugh segment for Heather based on JJ’s Jareck DNA.

Chromosome 4 – Some Cavanaugh DNA for JJ

From DNA Painter, here are JJ’s Jarek DNA matches:

Here are Heather’s Jarek DNA matches:

Heather has extra Jarek matches that JJ doens’t have. That means that JJ probably has Cavanaugh DNA where Heather has her first two Jarek DNA matches.

Unfortunately, Chromosome 4 is longer and will have more crossovers:

This time I’ll start at the FIR. That means that JJ and Heather have the match on the same two grandparents on their paternal and maternal sides. I’ll have to switch the colors to keep them consistent. I said that JJ should be going from Cavanaugh to Jarek:

Here is JJ’s first identified maternal crossover.

Next, I’d like to add in the Rathfelder DNA:

The blue is Rathfelder. The matching segments information is how Heather and JJ match their grandmother. This is the same as the blue Rathfelder segments above. Where there isn’t blue Rathfelder DNA, I have put in yellow Hartley DNA.

Heather’s first Jarek descendant match goes from 85M to 109M:

At this point, I am stuck again:

There is a maternal crossover at 85, but I can’t tell if it belongs to JJ or Heather.

A Spreadsheet For JJ and Heather Using Gedmatch Genesis

At Genesis, I used JJ’s and my own DNA to make two more kits for JJ. One has an M1 designation and one is P1 for maternal and paternal. Genesis has a utility called Segment Search. I’ll use this once for JJ’s maternal matches and once for his paternal matches.

JJ’s Maternal Matches

Here are some of JJ’s maternal matches. I downloaded about 1,000 of them:

I made them pink for maternal. The green matches are the ones over 15 cM. JJ’s largest match above is with Heather. Note that JJ has maternal matches on Chromosome 4 between 80 and 89M. That means that he should not have a maternal crossover at 85M. That means that Heather should have the maternal crossover at 85M. Let’s look at Heather’s maternal results next.

Heather’s Maternal Matches at Genesis

Here are Heather’s Chromosome 4 maternal matches:

Notice that Heather has no matches going through position 85. Actually, Heather has matches going up to 84.3 and then starting again at about the same spot or at 85M. This tells me that Heather has a maternal crossover where I thought.

If I did this right, I should find Cavanaugh ancestor matches for Heather and JJ in their orange areas and Jarek ancestor matches in their green areas of Chromosome 4. Unfortunately, Heather and JJ have small matches in their orange areas which means that the relationships represented by those matches could be quite distant.

Near position 14, there aren’t a lot of matches, so I would be guessing more than usual there as to where the crossover goes. What about the right side of Heather and JJ’s Chromosome 4? First I need to figure out where the crossover is. For that I need to look at how JJ and Heather match each other at full resolution:

Each  ^ is 1M, so the change from all green to more yellow is at about 167.6M. Again, neither JJ nor Heather have good matches in that area, so I can’t tell where their maternal crossover is using that method.

Summary and Conclustions

  • I started looking at JJ’s AncestryDNA test results. I first compared JJ’s ethnicity with what his sister Heather showed. JJ shows a more detailed sub-region in England compared to Heather. JJ shows a Baltic region that Heather doesn’t show and Heather shows a France Region that JJ doesn’t have. The overall effect is the same, but the smaller details vary a bit.
  • I looked at how JJ and Heather compare to eatch other with HIRs, FIRs and no-match areas. Using these, I was able to start to visually phase Heather and JJ. I haven’t been able to identify matches along JJ and Heather’s Cavanaugh maternal grandparent side, so that made the phasing a little more difficult. JJ and Heather’s paternal side is already phased by comparing their results to their Rathfelder grandmother.
  • I downloaded JJ and Heather’s maternal matches from Gedmatch Genesis. Some of these matches were helpful in assigning maternal crossovers for their visual phasing maps.
  • Some other things that I could do would be AutoClustering JJ’s AncestryDNA results, more DNA Painting and more match identification. I would still like to figure out at least one match on JJ or Heather’s Cavanaugh side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A DNA Match With Kristin Who Has Hartley Ancestry and a Possible Hartley Genealogical Breakthrough

I recently noticed that my daughter had a Shared Ancestor Hint with Kristin. Not long ago,  had my daughter Heather’s DNA tested. Kristin is Heather’s first Shared Ancestor Hint (SAH). An SAH means that two people have a DNA match and have a common ancestor or ancestors. Here is what that looks like for Heather:

This shows that Heather and Kristen are 4th cousins. Here is the amount of DNA that Heather and Kristen share:

AncestryDNA predicted that Heather and Kristen would be 4th cousins and they guessed right.

The Hartley Branch of Fall River

Many of my closer Hartley relatives are perhaps not aware of the Fall River branch of the Hartley family. They know that the Hartley family lived in Rochester, Massachusetts. Many know that Greenwood Hartley and Ann Emmet lived in New Bedford before that. However, not many know that Greenwood and Ann were first in Fall River for a short time. Here is the Hartley Family in 1870:

This Census record is very difficult to find in that the last names are all written wrong. Here is how Ancestry sees the name:

I’m glad the Hortcliffe name didn’t stick. Soon after this time, the Hartley family moved to New Bedford. They lived in Fall River for only one or two years.

Abel Burrows

Mary Ann Hartley married Abel Burrows on 12 February 1874- probably in New Bedford.

Abel was later to be a jeweller in Fall River, but at this time he was a weaver. Perhaps Abel and Mary Ann met while she lived in Fall River.

Here is the Burrows family in 1880 at 63 Pleasant Street, Fall River:

This appears to be Mary Ann Hartley Burrows at a Hartley family gathering in Rochester, MA around 1921:

Looking at the photo, my grandmother is to her right.

Connecting the DNA and the Family Tree

Here is the tree that I have so far:

The people in green have had their DNA tested and uploaded to Gedmatch where the DNA can be compared. Emily in yellow has tested at Ancestry, but has not uploaded her results to Gedmatch which is now Gedmatch Genesis. Mary Pilling at the top of the chart is Mary Wilkinson in the 1870 Census. I mentioned Emily here in a Blog on AutoClustering Joyce’s AncestryDNA results.

It looks like Kristin is a close relative to Emily:

Adding a Pilllng Line

Mary Pilling was a single mother before she married Robert Hartley and had Greenwood. Robert then died ans she married Robert Wilkinson:

Ruth is a Shared Match with Kristin and my father’s cousin Joyce.

Shared Matches Between Kristin and Joyce

Kristin may be the key to unlocking clues on my Hartley genealogy. Here are Kristin’s shared matches at AncestryDNA with Joyce, my father’s 1st cousin.

  • Jennifer – I messaged her. She has Williams ancestry and is checking on possible connections
  • Emily and Ruth – They are in the chart in yellow above.
  • Paul – shows two parents in his tree. This could be built out.
  • Luke – He has a private tree. I have sent him a message.
  • Sheryl – She has an ancestor from Colne

Colne is next door to Trawden where my ancestors lived. My ancestors were born, married and buried at the Colne Church.

Bracewell came up in another tree of a shared match of a shared match if that makes sense.

Building Out Paul’s Tree

At the risk of making this a long Blog, I’ll try and build out Paul’s tree. Paul’s parent’s were both from New Bedford, so that is interesting already. My guess is that my match with Paul is on his mother’s side. I wasn’t able to easily fill in all the names, but did make it back to a Hartley and a Bracewell. The Bracewell name is new to me but apparently common to some of these shared matches:

Robert Hartley is an ancestral name, so that is hopeful also. Robert Hartley in the tree above would be Paul’s 5th great-grandfather if I have the tree right. However, having said that, there still are many gaps in the tree and the connection is quite a ways back.

Sheryl’s Tree

This is the one with the Bracewell born 1778 from Colne:

This is as far as I got with the Ancestry suggestions. It seems like the father of Susy Hartley should be John Hartley like in Paul’s tree:

Combining Paul and Sheryl’s Trees

When I combine the two trees, it looks like this:

 

This means that, on paper, Sheryl and Paul are potentially 6th cousins with each other. I also see that Sheryl has potentially two Bracewell lines. All this gives me a lead to check into.

A Third Bracewell Tree?

I had mentioned above that I had seen a third Bracewell tree. This was from a Shared Match of a Shared Match. My father’s cousin Joyce and Kristin have a shared match with Luke. I mentioned him above, but his tree is locked. So I looked at Shared Matches between Between Luke and Joyce and came up with an additional Shared Match. This shared match is Mark and he is on a list of Shared Matches with Kristin, Paul and Sheryl, so he is in good company, so to speak.

Mark’s Bracewell Ancestors

Here are Mark’s Bracewell Ancestors:

This looks like Ellin Bracewell married John Hackin and they had a child named Margaret Hakin. Mark’s ancestral location map shows his ancestors in orange:

Margaret Hakin is Mark’s ancestor who was born in the area that I am interested in. Does it make sense that Margaret’s mother Ellin was born in New York?

This appears to be the marriage record for John and Ellin:

Here are a few choices for Ellin’s birth record. I’ll go with the more recent one as it has George as the father and it seems more reasonable:

Here is a hint for Ellin’s mother’s name:

Here is a guess for George’s birth:

Here is what I get:

This tree is more confusing as Reuben Speak is shown as the father of Susannah Cronshaw. There is no father’s name given on Susannah’s birth record. It is possible that this is right and that there is another link in Mark’s ancestry to Hartley/Bracewell. However, this route does not easily match with the same Hartley/Bracewell family as the other two DNA matches. The other possibility is that this DNA match is on the Bracewell side only and that Mark matches further back in his ancestrry.

Building Down from Hartley/Bracewell

The next logical step would be to build down from John Hartley born 1730 and his wife Anne Bracewell to see if I can link up my tree to this line.

Here is a tree from Ancestry with John Hartley born 1733 and Anna Bracewell:

This tree has two John’s as sons. A previous tree I looked at had three sons named John.

It looks like John and Anne were married on 23 September 1752 and they both lived in Trawden:

Trawden is good in that my known Hartley ancestors came from there. At this point, I assume that the family stayed in Trawden. I then looked for children born to John Hartley in Trawden:

If Anne lived long enough, she could have had children for 25 years or more. So, until about 1777. Here is the start of my tree:

Then I ran into a snag:

Here is another Robert. Also the mother is called Nanny now which could be a nickname for Anne.

Next is another John:

The mother’s name is back to Anne. If the first John died, then it would make sense if they have another John.

Finally, in 1772, we are back to Nanny:

I’ll add in the extra John above, just in case. I’m looking for a Hartley connection, so I’m more interested in the male Hartley’s.

James Hartley and Betty Baldwin

One of my top guesses for the parents of my ancestor Robert Hartley (father of Greenwood Hartley) is James Hartley and Better Baldwin. What if the James above born 1763 married Betty Baldwin?

One Holgate Tree I see at Ancestry has Elizabeth Southgate as the wife of James Hartley:

I don’t know if the creator had special knowledge of this marriage or if they were guessing.  I searched for this marriage at the Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerks Website and coud not find it.  I would follow up on the tree, but when I search for Elizabeth in trees, I find this:

Perhaps Elizabeth got attached to James above by mistake. It appears that the tree intended to have her married to John Hartley.

Did James the Son of John Hartley and Anne Bracewell Marry Betty Baldwin?

My best guess when I was researching Hartley genealogy was that James Hartley and Betty Baldwin were the most likely parents for Robert Hartley born about 1803. Now shared DNA matches with a good Hartley DNA matches Kristin and Joyce show a common ancestor of John Hartley and Anne Bracewell. This couple has a son named James. I’ll combine these lines and see how it looks:

  • Kristin and Joyce have a Shared Ancestor hint with Greenwood Hartley and Anne Emmet. This genealogical and DNA connection is quite certain.
  • Kristin and Joyce also have shared DNA matches with Sheryl and Paul
  • This shared DNA could be on the Hartley side (Trawden) or the Emmet side (Bacup). Sheryl and Paul have ancestors in the Colne/Trawden area.
  • Sheryl and Paul appear to have the shared ancestors of John Hartley and Anne Bracewell.
  • John Hartley and Anne Bracewell had a son James who could be the father of Robert who was the father of Greenwood Hartley.
  • This would combine my genealogical research with DNA evidence. There may be other explanations, but this one looks good right now – at least good enough to flesh out.

Fleshing Out the New James Hartley (Born 1763) Connection

One other item I see for James in Ancestry trees is his death:

This seems a bit sketchy to me. I have found no marriage record in Ancestry Trees for this James. Why would James be born in Trawden and die in Lancaster?

Lancaster is quite a ways from Colne. Unless, the record means to say that Lancaster represents the County of Lancashire.

Here is the record:

This does show that a James Hartley, son of John Hartley was buried in Lancaster. However, I’m not convinced that this is the same person.

Here is a James Hartley who was buried in Trawden in 1769:

and:

There are many other James Hartley burials in the Colne Parish. Here is another possibility:

This James was 82 in 1845, so he was born about 1763. Here is the same person in 1841:

Little Lather in the Burial record is better rendered on page 2 of the 1841 Census as Little Laith.

Another Elderly James Hartley Farmer South of Trawden Village

Just to confuse things, there is another elderly James Hartley South of Trawden Village:

 

Little Laithe is listed in the Census as near New Laithe and Hole is listed as near Naze End on Page 11 of the 1841 Trawden Census. These places would be a short walk from each other. I like the second James for a few reasons. One reason is that he is married to Betty, The second is that he lives near Seghole. Mary Pillng who married Robert Hartley was born in Seghole in 1802. I haven’t found death records for this James and Betty Hartley. Perhaps they moved to be with relatives after this time.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Kristin’s DNA match with the Hartley family and especially with Joyce has been helpful
  • Kristin descends from Ann Hartley born 1855, so shared matches with her would be more likely to represent Hartley ancestors from England.
  • I looked at the Hartley’s of Fall River
  • I looked at shared matches between Joyce and Kristin. They had two shared matches that both had the same ancestors: John Hartley born 1730 and Anne Bracewell.
  • I started to build a case that John Hartley had as his son, James Hartley who married Betty Baldwin. They had Robert Hartley who was my 3rd great-grandfather born 1803 in Trawden.
  • I looked at two elderly James Hartley’s in the 1841 Trawden Census. I favored the elder one as a potential 4th great-grandfather because he was married to a Betty and because he lived very close to the birth home of Mary Pilling who was my 3rd great-grandmother.
  • Before I had this match with Kristin, I had no known DNA connection to my Hartley ancestors in Trawden, Lancashire. Kristin’s DNA results appears to have provided that DNA connection and given good evidence and direction for genealogical research.
  • This is a potential break in my genealogical brick wall that I have had for around 25 years. I will do some more work to see if this theory makes sense.

 

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Genealogy for Heather and JJ: Part 8 – More French Canadian Ancestry

In my previous Blog, I wrote about Heather and JJ’s Tacy and Tessier heritage. I was able to trace Tacy back to Tessier in Canada outside of Montreal. They were farmers from the Parish of St. Benoit:

I couldn’t figure out Phoebe’s maiden name or much about her, but I traced Tessier and Bernard back to France in the 1600’s. I had some trouble tracing back the lines of Barbary, Boudria and Lejuiller.

Barbary

Barbary is a surname that I am unfamiliar with. A search on WikiTree shows about 82 Barbary’s there.

Marguerite Barbary

Let’s start with Marguerite. I have that she married Solomon Tessier. That was based on the baptismal record for their son Joseph Claude Tessier:

This shows that Joseph Claude Tessier was born on 20 February 1834 at the Parish of St. Benoit.

I had a surprise at WikiTree:

I was surprised to see someone had Maguerite Barbary married to Benjamin Clement on 21 Nov 1831. I have that she married Salomon Tessier on 16 May 1831.

Perhaps there were two Marguerite Barbary’s that got married in the same year in the same area outside Montreal. Wouldn’t that be confusing? I went forward in the St. Benoit Parish records and found this:

This is actually good to know as I was thinking that our Marguerite was the daughter of Francois Barbary. Let’s take a closer look. The November wedding has the bride being Marie Marguerite Grand maison. The Barbary is missing.

From the marriage record, I can’t figure out who the parents are of this Marie Marguerite. What this means is that I need to be very careful when I pick out the parents for Marguerite Barbary. Here is the WikiTree Marguerite:

The problem is that I don’t know if this tree is right or not. I think that the WikiTree Marguerite should be Marie Marguerite.

Finding the Right Marguerite Barbary

I see that Ancestry shows two Marguerite’s when I do a search:

Our Marguerite is supposed to be born about 1809 and the WikiTree Marguerite 1810. Here is the 1806 Baptism:

Here is the summary:

I can make out Amable on the record, but not so much Barbary after her father’s name. I’ll move on the to next record and come back to this if I have to.

Here is the 1814 Baptism:

Here is the summary:

It appears that this baptism is for the WikiTree Marguerite. I can read the parents and they are Francois Barbary and Marguerite Duroscher.

Back To 1806

That leaves the previous Baptismal record as the best available for Marguerite. However, it brings up a few questions. Why is she called Marguerite Amable? Perhaps Amable was a middle name for Marguerite. I don’t see much online for Amable genealogy. According to Ancestry, the Amable surname is very rare with only a handful in the US in 1880 and 1920.

Let’s try another route. Marguerite had a daughter named Harriet. She married Charles Jay or Gay in 1871 in Lowell. Charles was a 37-year-old mason:

Charles was living in Tewksbury at the time of his marriage. This was Charles’ second marriage.

Charles was born in Canada. Harriet’s birthplace is listed as Fort Livingston, but I think it should be Fort Covington.

I found a Charles Joy in the Massachusetts Marriage Index. I could also try that. I had trouble tracking this couple after they married. Perhaps it was due to confusion over the husband’s last name. My idea was to find a death record for Harriet but I had trouble finding the correct version of her last name.

Back To Giles At Geneanet

I had mentioned Giles in my previous Blog. He maintains quite the Tessier Tree. Perhaps Giles has some more clues for me:

Of note here is that Joseph’s wife is given as Phebe Sawyer. I had that as a possibility and then took the Sawyer name out. It looks like Joseph had quite a few siblings.

Giles used the same baptismal year that I used:

He also notes the day of birth.

Giles and Salomon

Here is Giles’ tree for Salomon:

 

Here it is easy to see why The marriage for Joseph Tessier and Marie Louise Boudrias was earlier than I thought it would be. They were busy having many babies before they had Salomon. Marie had children for 29 years? She must have started young. She was perhaps 16 when she had her first child.

Checking Boudria With Giles

Giles has this information for Marie Louise Boudrias:

Given the timing of her children, she would almost have to be born then. That makes my date wrong:

Giles to the rescue. I see that I have Marie Louise born in Aquitane France which doesn’t make sense either. I’ll just use Giles better information. While I’m borrowing information, I’ll check out another web site:

This site has a fleece waterproof trouser ad. This tree even cites sources which sounds reputable. Again, this seems to show that my tree was wrong. Perhaps the Ancestry hints were not so good here. Using that site and a couple hopefully better Ancestry hints, I get this for Salomon Tessier’s ancestry:

Barbary At the Genealogy of Canada Website

I had good luck at the Genealogy of Canada Website, so I’ll continue on with Barbary.

This site has the same parents that I had for Marguerite, but it includes dates. I think I’ll stop here and continue in my next Blog.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Thanks to other websites, I was able to check the work that I had done – mostly on the ancestors of Salomon Tessier aka Solomon Tacy.
  • The different spelling of names, dit names, faded French writing and similar names in a similar area and time make it difficult to put a tree together.
  • The Ancestry Hints apparently run into the same problem and gave me some wrong hints.
  • All these families have interesting histories. However, I have to get the names and dates down first. For example, I read that the first Tessier to come to Montreal, Urbain, fought the Iriquois in the 1600’s. He was captured and managed to escape. However, he was missing one of his fingers as a result of his ordeal.

 

 

 

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Genealogy for Heather and JJ: Part 7 – Tacy/Tessier

In my previous Blog, I made an important discovery. I found the birth record for my children’s maternal third great-grandfather Joseph Tacy baptized Joseph Claude (or Plaude?) Tessier. It is difficult to trace one’s ancestor across a border. This is due to language differences, changes in names, different political systems and differences in recording and availability of vital records.

Taking Tessier Back

French Canada has a very good and complete set of records. Once one is back to a certain time period, a lot of these records are in books. Let’s see how easy it is to trace Tacy, which we now know is Tessier, back into the history of Canada. In my previous Blog, I had this 1860 Census record:

This shows that there were three generations of Tacy living near each other. Now I know that Solomon is indeed the father of Joseph Tacy.

Solomon Tessier Born about 1808

When I search for Solomon Tessier at Ancestry, here is the first suggestion:

Here we have the French spelling for Solomon and Margret: Salomon and Marguerite. I’d like to take a closer look at this record:

I have to try to figure out the writing and then use an online translator. It looks like this couple married on the 16th of May 1831. I think that the names of Marguerite’s and Salomon’s parents should be in this record if I can find them.

Here is Salomon’s father:

Joseph is the first name followed by Tessier and the occupation. Looking at a French genealogical word list, this is my guess:

journalier day laborer, farmworker

Salomon’s mother’s name is not as simple:

I get the idea of the first two names. The last, I’m not so sure. Hopefully, someone else has figured this out before me.

It looks like I cut off the last part of the name in the previous image. Perhaps Baudria. [Looks like this ends up being Boudria.]

Marguerite’s Parents

Marguerite Barbary’s dad’s name is also Joseph with the nickname grand maison (large house?). He looks to be a farmer also.

It looks like Marguerite’s mom was also a Barbary:

These last four ancestors must have been born in the 1700’s:

A Marriage for Joseph Tessier and Marie Louise Boudria

This marriage appeared at an earlier date than I expected. It is in the Drouin Collection, 1748-1786:

This must be 1785.

This document is easier to read, but doesn’t have much detail:

These are Notarial Records. Now Joseph Tessier is J Bte Texier. I think I see what happened:

Back up to the Drouin record. This says that Joseph Tessier is the son of Jean Baptiste Tessier, hence J. Bte. Texier. I wouldn’t recommend this Notary.

Joseph’s mom appears to be Marguerite Bernard:

Fortunately, at this point, I am beginning to get suggestions from Ancestry:

Both Jean Baptiste and Marguerite were entered under Ancestry suggestions. I note that Jean Baptiste is also Lavigne. This is a dit name which is sort of a nickname. I read under a family tree owner from my last Blog that Lavigne was so-called because one of the early Tessier’s liked wine.

Getting Past Marie Louise Boudria

Here is another Notarial Record for Marie:

This record is a Testament. Genealogical dictionary says that means last will which makes sense. Here is Terrebonne to the North of the Northernmost of the Three Montreal Rivers:

Marie’s dad is Joseph:

Marie’s mother:

After waiting a bit, I get a hint for Marie Louise. The hint is either Lejuiller (7 hints) or Leguiller (3 hints). I’ll play the odds with Lejuiller.

Here is a new tree:

This gets back to the 1600’s on some lines.

Chalon Sur Saone

One of Heather and JJ’s ancestors was from Chalon Sur Saone (or at least he died there). This is interesting as my wife, Marie, has been having a French exchange with this place for several years:

Here is one of my wife’s photos of Chalon from last year:

Jolicoeur was Jean Baptiste’s dit name: pretty heart?

Urbain Tessier

Urbain was the first Tessier from France. Here is where he appears to be from in France:

Urbain arrived in Montreal in 1648. The family stayed in the area for about 200 years. One part of that family then moved to New York. I read on one web site that Canada was running out of farm land around Montreal so French Canadians moved over the border to Upstate New York. Then opportunities were available for work in New England factories and many moved there for work. It was at that time that some of the Tacy’s moved to Lowell.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was able to find many marriage and birth records for the Tessier family and their ancestors and spouses. These records in French handwriting are difficult to read but not impossible and follow a certain order or formula.
  • Once back to about the mid 1700’s, these ancestors were written into books which are available on Ancestry.com.
  • It is interesting to fairly easily follow these lines back to where these famiilies lived in France in the 1600’s. One line went back to a small town in France called Chalon sur Saone. Coincidentally, my French teacher wife has been having a school exchange with this Town for many years.
  • I still have not been able to identify the wife of Joseph Tessier who lived in Fort Covington, NY.
  • I also have not taken the Barbary and Boudria Lines back.

 

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My Children’s Genealogy Part 6 – Continuing on the Cavanaugh Side

I took a break on my children’s maternal genealogy while I was waiting for Heather and JJ’s DNA results to come in. Those results have come in and I have some additional genealogical information from their mother Linda. The DNA so far has helped with the Jarek side. However, I’d like to get back into the Cavanaugh side.

The Cavanaugh Tree So Far

This is what I have:

The Cavanaugh/Warren Mystery

The controversial part may be that I have John J. Warren as the father of John E Cavanaugh. This is based on a few reasons. Basically, I have that John E Cavanaugh was going by John E Warren at the time of his marriage record and listed his father as John Warren. I have that Lousa Gately’s husband Michael Cavanaugh died 13 July 1872 – about 8 years before John E Cavanaugh was born. Finally, I have that there was a John J Warren who was a widower living in the neighborhood of Louisa Gately Cavanaugh at the time of John E Cavanaugh’s birth. For these reasons, Heather may have more English heritage vs. Irish than previously thought.

My former wife Linda sent me this information concerning John E. Cavanaugh:

DATE OF MARRIAGE:   1/16/1911–****??? Marriage record(Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915 index) of Laoner Morrow(Cavanaugh) shows her marrying a John E. Warren on 1/16/1911 listing Louisa Gately as his mother and a John Warren as his father.  Everyone in the family believes Laoner married John E. Cavanaugh and so is John E. Warren actually John E. Cavanaugh???? Or did Louisa have a baby by John Warren and Michael Cavanaugh raised him as his own?  Why did this man put John Warren down as his name when he went by John Cavanaugh????  Are all the Cavanaughs actually Warrens?  Also note that John E. Warren listed his age as 30—if he is actually John Cavanaugh, he was 41-he also falsified his age on his draft card in 1916.  John Cavanaugh is listed in birth records as the child of Louisa Gately and Michael Cavanah.

When Was John E Cavanaugh/Warren Born?

This family researcher, went down some of the same paths that I did. The major discrepancy between me and the Cavanaugh researcher above has to do with the date of birth of John E Cavanaugh. The Cavanaugh researcher has:

DATE OF BIRTH:    4/3/1870 on Lowell records; he put 8/24/1880 on WWI draft card

The Cavanaugh researcher favors the earlier birth date for John:

Births & Christenings record for Lowell shows him born on 4/3/1870

1870 census-  John Kavanagh  3 ½ m in home with father Michael, mother Louisa and sister Ellen

1920 census- age 39 in Providence, RI with Laoner and 4 daughters

If I can show that John E Cavanaugh aka Warren was born in 1880, then I think my version makes more sense. I think that I may have already shown this, but I’ll put it down again.

Two John Cavanaugh’s Born in Lowell

Above, the Cavanaugh researcher shows a John Cavanaugh born 4/3/1870. This is true, but I believe that this John died young. Here is John who died 13 May 1871 in Lowell:

This John  was born to Michael and Lizzie. Note how old he was at death. If I subtract one year, one month and 10 days from 13 May 1871, I get 3 April 1870 which was the day when John Kavanaugh was born.

The Chronology

  • Louisa Gately marries Michael Cavanaugh 1864
  • A Daughter Ellen is born to the couple in 1865
  • John W is born in 1870 but dies the next year.
  • Michael dies 1872
  • John E Warren aka Cavanaugh is born 1880 to widow Louisa Cavanaugh and likely widower John J Warren

This proves to me that Michael Cavanaugh cannot be the father of John E Cavanaugh. He was, however, the father of John W Cavanaugh who died 1871. I have evidence that John J Warren was the father of John E Cavanaugh. I’m quite convinced. A birth record would prove it for me.

The Tacy Line

I will get back to the Warren Line, but I want to look at the Tacy Line as I am stuck on this one.

Nellie H Tacy and Family

According to Nellie’s marriage record, she was born in Fort Covington, NY to Joseph and Phebe about 1861. Here is the Tacy family in Fort Covington in 1860:

Solomon and Margaret are the likely parents of Joseph and Phebe. Harriet Tacy is said to be born in NY, so that could put a date on when the family moved to NY.

Here is Nellie in 1889:

This is from a directory and the first record I have of Nellie right now. This means that Nellie made her way from Fort Covington, NY to Lowell, MA.

Here is the 1886 Lowell Directory:

This lists a Miss Peoebe Tacy. Perhaps this was Nellie’s mother and Nellie at age 25 could have been living with her mother. This same Phoebe was listed in the Lowell 1875-76 Directory:

This Phoebe is perhaps more accurately listed as Mrs Phoebe in 1875. The 1894 Lowell Directory shows no Tacy. Perhaps Phoebe moved away, passed away or was living with her now married daughter. I also see no Tacy in the 1870 Lowell Directory.

Here is perhaps the same Phebe in 1870:

If this is Phebe Tacy, the mother of Nellie Tacy, then where is Nellie who would be 9 by now?

A Boston Marriage Hint?

I found a marriage record for Alfred Joe Tacy. He married on 21 July 1892 in Boston. His parents are listed as Joe and Febey. He was 24 then and born in Malone, NY. Malone is about 15 miles from Fort Covington, NY:

I’ll assume for now that Alfred Joe is Nellie’s brother. There was an Alfred Tacy who died in Lowell in 1940.

I found another marriage for Alfred. Alfred remarried as a widower on 27 December 1899 in Boston. Now his parents are listed as Daniel J Tacy and Phoebe Sawyer. If this is who I think he is, I may have a last name for Phoebe. Perhaps Daniel J is Daniel Joseph. This Alfred was also born in Malone, NY. Whether or not Alfred can be considered Nellie’s brother depends on how many Joseph and Phoebe Tacy’s you think may have been in the area of Fort Covington and Malone, NY in the 1860’s. One possible scenario is that Joseph (or Daniel Joseph) Tacy could have had Ida and Nellie before the Civil War. He then comes home after serving in the Civil War and lives in Malone and has Alfred Joseph. Another factor in considering whether Daniel Joseph is a brother to Nellie is how accurate his marriage records are.

Ida Tacy

Ida is Nellie’s older sister. I found this on an Ancestry Tree:

 

This gives us a birth date and husband for Ida. Ida ended up in Chicago. This means Heather and JJ likely have Puterbaugh relatives somewhere.

Before I leave Nellie’s generation, here is one more Lowell City Directory entry for 1918:

Here Nellie is living with her husband and I assume her son Jeremiah at 58 Church Street, Lowell.

Daniel Joseph Tacy Born 1833 and Phoebe Sawyer Born 1842

My next goal is to try to find a marriage record for Daniel Joseph Tacy and Phoebe Sawyer. I got these names from the marriage record of Alfred Joe Tacy who I assume is Nellie Tacy’s brother.

Another Lowell Tacy Marriage Clue: Daniel Tacy

On 27 September 1870, I see this marriage record in Lowell:

Daniel was a 31 year old painter born in Canada. His parents were Solomon and Margaret Tacy. This of course, raises a lot of questions. This could make him the brother of Daniel Joseph Tacy. If he is the brother, then why does he have the same name? Perhaps the Daniel Joseph is really only Joseph. [Note: I show that to be the case later in the Blog.]

Harriet’s Lowell Marriage

Harriet Tacy shows up in the 1860 Fort Covington Census as the 17 year old daughter of Solomon and Margaret Tacy. Here she is 11 years later in Lowell getting married in 1871 at the age of 28:

There was definitely some connection going on between upstate New York and Lowell, MA. However, in this record, her father is listed as Sullivan Tacy. This makes me think that Harriet could have been in Lowell in 1870. Here is the 1870 Lowell Directory which should be reflective of 1869:

This is the same Daniel Tacy that married in 1870 in Lowell.

Moving Up a Generation To Solomon Tacy Born About 1806 and Margaret Born About 1809

I got stuck on Joseph or Daniel Joseph Tacy born about 1833, so I’ll look for his parents. Here is a much younger Solomon Tacy who married in Northampton in 1886:

He is listed as 19, so that would put his birth around 1867. He lists his birthplace as Dannemora, NY and his parents as Joseph and Delia Mitchell.

Solomon is a potential son of Joseph Joseph Tacy who was born about 1833. At any rate, this area of New York has many Tacy’s.

Solomon and Mary married in the Roman Catholic Church:

This means that Delia Mitchell and Phoebe could potentially be the same person. We can add this to the possibility that Phoebe is Phoebe Sawyer.

A Tacy – Tacy Marriage 1893

This looks to be the same Solomon marrying Elizabeth Tacy seven years after his first marriage:

The plot thickens. Now Solomon’s mother is Sophia and Elizabeth’s mother is Phoebe Riel. They are both from Dannemora, NY. These are all hints. I just don’t know if they are good hints or bad hints. I assume that Solomon and Elizabeth are related.

More Tacy’s In Northampton, MA 1880

Here is a household full of Northampton, MA Tacy’s in 1880:

Here Edward Tacy appears to be 51 or 57. That would mean he was born in the 1820’s. Ellen was born in 1868, so would not be the Nellie we are looking for. I would connect this family to the young Solomon above as Solomon worked in the silk mill also at the time of his first marriage. I have a lot of dots that need connecting. Edward’s mother Rose is 73 in 1880. That means that she was born about 1807. That means that she would be the right age to have been a sister-in-law to the elder Solomon:

What a mess.

Other Clues? WikiTree

I Googled Tacy Genealogy which lead me to WikiTree. WikiTree has this Joseph Tacy:

This Joseph Tacy is the son of Amable Tessier and Rose Luck. Perhaps this is the same Rose who was living in Northampton, MA in 1880. The problem is that I don’t see any Solomon Tacy. That is not necessarily a problem as I have no clear, convincing evidence that Solomon was the father of our Joseph other than Ancestry Trees.

Fortunately, this WikiTree entry has a reference that leads me to Geneanet:

This page is maintained by Giles in French and I used a translator function to put the headings into English. Unfortunately, Giles has this further information on Joseph Tacy:

Here is Mooers Forks where Giles has Joseph marrying:

So the above apparently links to Northampton and the family I found living there in 1880 but not to Heather and JJ’s Joseph Tacy.

More On Young Solomon

Young Solomon was the one who moved from Dannemara, NY to Northampton MA and then to Burlington, VT. Judith maintains a profile for Solomon at WikiTree:

This is all very interesting, but I am still having trouble connecting with the Tacy family in Fort Covington, NY.

Joseph Tacy/Tessier Birth Record Found

I finally put in a search for Joseph Tessier, born 1834 into Ancestry and found this record:

 

How is your French? This is the record that I have been looking for. This is for Joseph Claude Tessier. I think that this is St. Benoit:

Joseph Claude was baptized on the 20th of February 1834. Unfortunately, I am having trouble making out his mother’s name. It looks like Marguerite, but after that, I’m not sure. Also Joseph Claude looks a lot like Joseph Plaude. I see that Solomon was a cultivateur which would be a farmer. My guess at Marguerite’s last name is Barbary:

I am not familiar with that surname. I have heard of the Barbary Coast, but that is in North Africa.

After that is given the sponsor and godmother’s names.

That was the break that I was looking for. Now, I should be able to trace the Tessier line back through Canada and perhaps to France:

I am quite sure on the Tessier connection to Quebec. I’m not so sure on the Sawyer Line.

Summary and Conclusions

  • First I clarified and summarized my reasoning for having John Warren as the father of John Cavanaugh aka Warren.
  • Next, I looked into the Tacy family.
  • I looked at Tacy’s in Lowell and in Northampton, MA. I had some trouble in connecting the two families.
  • Many Tacy’s originate in upstate New York.
  • I saw that the Northampton branch of Tacy was from the Montreal area and were originally Tessier. I had assumed that Tacy was an Americanization of a French name.
  • I did a search for Joseph Tessier and found his birth record from St Benoit to the West of Montreal. This was the hump I needed to get over.
  • Next, it should be easier to trace the Tessier line back through Canada and perhaps to France.

 

 

 

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Heather’s DNA at Gedmatch Genesis

This is my fourth Blog on my daughter Heather’s DNA. Here are the first three:

  1. A First Look at Heather’s DNA
  2. AutoClustering Heather’s DNA
  3. Heather’s Jarek DNA matches

Heather’s DNA at Genesis

Genesis is the new version of Gedmatch. I uploaded Heather’s DNA there for analysis. I am getting used to Genesis and Genesis is still being upgraded. Heather has three kits at Genesis. I uploaded her DNA from AncestryDNA, then I made two more kits for her. These nest two kits separate out her paternal DNA and her maternal DNA based on my DNA.

Heather’s Maternal Matches

Because I know a lot about my genealogy and DNA matches, I would like to look at Heather’s maternal side matches. Fortunately, Heather’s first four matches (after matching herself) are matches that I discussed in my previous Blog on the Jarek Family. When I look at Heather’s maternal DNA compared to everyone at Genesis, here are the top 5 matches:

The first match is Heather’s maternal side matching with all her DNA. Here is where Heather matches the other four on the list:

Heather and her first four matches have as a common ancestor Joseph Jarek and Marianna Ras.

DNAPainter

It is possible to paint these four matches to Heather using a web utility called DNAPainter. DNAPainter is quite easy to use. I set up a profile for Heather. Here is her blank canvas:

I just told DNA Painter Heather’s name and that she was female. DNA Painter wants to know if Heather is female so it can give her two X Chromosomes.

First, I painted in Heather’s match with Robert:

The common ancestors are Jarek and Ras and they appear on Heather’s maternal side chromosomes in yellow. I painted in the other three matches who appear to be siblings and got this:

That brings Heather up to 2% painted with 26 segment. That 2% includes her paternal and maternal side, so that would be more painted on just her maternal side.

Painting Heather’s Paternal Side

The fastest way to paint in Heather’s paternal side is to paint in her match with my mother:

This quickly gets Heather up to 26% painted. Heather’s X Chromosome should be all blue but for some reason she has a gap in the middle. I added some more paternal matches and got this:

This gets Heather up to 34% painted. Heather’s paternal side is 63% painted and her maternal side is 5% painted.

Betty at Genesis

Heather’s first maternal match after the known yellow Jarek matches painted is Betty. This looks to be Betty’s tree at Ancestry:

I’m skeptical of finding a match with Heather’s tree, but I’ll try Here is the tree I came up with:

I feel as though the connection may be with Annie Parson who was born in England – probably Lancashire County. But I don’t have a solid connection.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was able to find Heather’s top AncestryDNA Jarek matches at Gedmatch Genesis.
  • I mapped these matches to Joseph Jarek and Marya Ras.
  • I also mapped many of Heather’s paternal matches using DNA Painter.
  • I tried figuring out how Heather’s first unknown match at Gedmatch Genesis fits in. I suspect that it is through Lancashire, England, but I haven’t made an exact connection.

 

 

 

 

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Heather’s Jarek Line At AncestryDNA

In my last post, I took a look at my daughter Heather’s autoclustering. The autoclustering included most of Heather’s 4th cousins or closer. I had trouble finding and identifying many matches on Heather’s Cavanaugh Line. In this Blog, I’ll look at her Jarek side which I could find through DNA matches.

Heather’s Jarek Ancestry

Here is what I have so far on Heather’s mother’s father’s side:

Ancestry has a few ideas for a few of Heather’s ancestors on this line with green hints. In my first post, I found Heather’s closest identifiable Jarek relative. This was H.G.

 

I can draw a simple Jarek Tree for Heather and H.G.:

Next, I can look at H.G.’s and Heather’s Shared Match list. This should give me some more Jarek relatives. The next one on this list with a tree is Melanie. Melanie descends from Helen Jarek. I already have Helen on Heather’s tree:

Melanie is Heather’s 2nd cousin:

I had the wrong birth date for Helen in Heather’s Ancestry Tree above, so I corrected it from 1907 to 1917.

M.W.’s Shared Match With Heather

M.W. has a shared match with H.G. and Heather and has this paternal side tree:

At first, I thought that the match was on the Wozniak side. Then I started to build out M.W.’s tree:

I noticed a Cecylia Jarek born in 1873 in Odrzykon, Rzeszow, Austrian Poland. She could be a sister to Francis Jarek, who was born in 1879. Here is Cecylia’s ‘Potential Mother’:

Marianna Rasz looks a lot like Francis Jarek’s mother Marya Ras.

M.W. is Heather’s 3rd cousin by genealogy and DNA.

S.M. On the Matusik Side

Here is S.M’s tree on his paternal side:

This must be where Ancestry gave me the hint of Joseph Jarek and Marianna Ras for Heather’s tree.

All these people are in Heather’s tan Cluster 5:

Cluster 5 is at the top left. However there are links to some of the other clusters going down to the right. These links are indicated by the gray boxes outside the clusters.

R.M.’s Bigger Tree

R.M. appears to be the brother of S.M. and has an expanded tree:

Assuming the genealogy is right, this pushes back the Heather’s Polish genealogy several generations into the 1700’s.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was able to link Heather with those that show as her 3rd cousin or closer at AncestryDNA. For those that show as matches at the 4th cousin level, it has more difficult to link the matches’ trees with Heather’s tree.
  • Heather has some good matches with people who have Jarek ancestry. Thanks to research with one of the matches, Heather has likely ancestry going back into 1700s Poland.
  • In this Blog, I didn’t do any independent Polish research, but depended on the research of others in conjunction with their DNA matches. At some point, it would be a good idea to go over the research to see if I come up with the same tree.
  • Once Ancestry has had a chance to go over Heather’s tree, it might find more tree connections that match up with Heather’s DNA matches.

 

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AutoClustering My Daughter’s DNA

In my previous post, I took an initial look at Heather’s DNA. In this Blog, I’d like to look at AutoClustering Heather’s DNA. AutoClustering puts Heather’s AncestryDNA matches into groups or clusters. Then those clusters are grouped together. This makes it easy to see which matches go where.

Heather’s AutoCluster

Based on Heather’s number of 4th cousin matches or closer at Ancestry, I chose a lower limit of 20 cM and an upper limit of 600 cM. 20 cM is the limit AncestryDNA uses for 4th cousin matches.  Currently, Heather has 297 in that category.

Here are Heather’s 41 Clusters:

Some of these Clusters will be on her maternal side and some on Heather’s paternal side. The clusters with gray dots between them mean that these groups of matches match each other.

Heather has 283 matches in these clusters minus 22 that didn’t fit into any cluster.

Let’s Identify Some of Heather’s Clusters: Her Highest Matches

AutoCluster puts Heather’s clusters in the order of the match level. So the highest match in a cluster shows first. I’ll creat a spreadsheet for Heather:

This mimics the way AutoCluster lists its clusters with the highest match in the cluster listed first. I can recognize some of these names right away.

D.J. is a close relation to Heather on her mother’s side. I have not yet identified anyone on Heather’s maternal grandmother Cavanaugh side.

Next, I’ll sort by cluster, to get a skeleton for Heather’s clusters:

This brings me down to Cluster 21 or 22. I only identified one Jarek Cluster, but based on the gray dots between clusters, the Jarek or Polish relatives appear to go down as far as Cluster 14. I should have included Wozniak in those clusters.

The Bigger Picture

This shows that we have some gaps to fill in between clusters 23 and 39. I’m looking to locate some Cavanaugh ancestors. Clusters 23-39 would be one place to find them.

Cluster 32 – Cavanaugh Side?

I will be happy to find someone from Heather’s Cavanaugh grandmother side. Glenn from Cluster 32 has a tree:

I’d like to match Glenn’s tree above to Heather’s tree:

Ancestry puts Glenn and Heather at estimated 4th cousins. That means that if Heather and Glenn are in the same generation, then they will need to go back to Heather’s column starting with Jeremiah Warren and one row past where Glenn has gone.

I tried building out Glenn’s tree, but couldn’t find a connection to Heather’s tree. I think that I was on the right track as another person in the Cluster has a common ancestor with Julius Lafantasie and Emma Chamberland. So, no luck right now with Cluster 32.

Cluster 35

As I go down the clusters, I notice some match me or my siblings, so they are likely Hartley Clusters:

Donna has a 10 person tree in Cluster 35. Let’s see if that tree leads anywhere familiar.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Using Clusters, I was able to identify specific regions for three out of four of Heather’s grandparents
  • I had trouble pinning down Heather’s Cavanaugh grandmother side.
  • Once Ancestry has a chance to analyze Heather’s tree, it may make it’s own suggestions as to her Cavanaugh side.
  • One issue with the AutoClustering is that it requires you to build out a lot of trees to try to find connections. Then once the trees are built out it is very rare that a connection is made.

 

 

 

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A First Look At My Daughter’s DNA

I recently got an AncestryDNA kit for my daughter Heather and son JJ. My daughter’s results came in first and she gave me access to her results. The first thing that I did was to link my tree to her results.

That way Ancestry can figure out where the matches are between Heather’s tree and her DNA matches.

What I’m Looking For

  • I now have my mother’s DNA, and mine. With Heather, I’ll have a better look at how DNA is inherited down through three generations.
  • Heather has some Polish ancestry which is different than mine. It will be interesting to see how that shows up in the DNA.
  • I have been working on Heather and JJ’s maternal genealogy. One of the lines came out differently than expected and I wanted to see if the DNA confirms that. Also I want to see if the DNA helps in other areas of their maternal genealogy.

So I’m looking for quite a bit.

Heather’s Ethnicity

At first blush, I don’t see any special indication of Polish:

Perhaps Polish fits into Heather’s 26% Germanic Europe.

I pressed ‘Discover Your DNA Story’, and saw this:

I never see that big blue blob on my ethnicity. That refers to Eastern Europe and Russia. Heather has 17% of that. That must be from her Polish Dziadziu. I had to look that one up:

The Polish name for grandfather is dziadek, used when speaking about one’s grandfather. It is pronounced “jah-deck.” Dziadziu, sometimes spelled dziadzio, is used when speaking to one’s grandfather. It is pronounced “jah-goo.”

Theoretically, Heather is 1/4 Polish, however, the DNA can vary and perhaps Dziadziu had some other non-Polish mixed in with his ancestry.

Also above there is a sub-group called Northern England & the Midlands. My father’s side has ancestors from there. Also Heather has some ancestors on her mother’s side from that part of England.

Migration Routes

On my Ethnicity Report, there is also a section for Migration Routes. This does not show up for Heather as I just linked her to an ancestral tree this morning. Here is what I show:

This basically shows how my ancestors migrated from Europe to North America. It uses ancestral trees for that. For example, my mother’s German ancestors migrated from Germany to Philadelphia. Some of my father’s ancestors came over on the Mayflower and some came to Massachusetts later from Lancashire County in England.

Heather’s Genealogy

This is what I have so far:

Jarek is Heather’s Polish side. The controversial part is where Cavanaugh goes to Warren on the tree. I’d like to see if Heather shows any Warren DNA.

Heather’s DNA Matches

Heather has no Shared Ancestor Hints (SAHs). It will take a while for Ancestry to figure these out. These are based on Heather’s tree also. These hints show when Heather shows a common ancestor with a DNA match.

Heather has 297 4th cousins or closer. These are estimated to be 4th cousins or closer based on the level of Heather’s DNA matches.

Heather’s Match List

Heather’s first category is under Parent/Child. She shows me there. Ancestry can tell we are in this category from the amount of DNA we share. The next category is close family. Here Heather shares more DNA than she would with a 1st cousin. In the Close Family category are my siblings, Heather’s Aunts and Uncles and my mother – Heather’s grandmother. Heather has one person in her 1st cousin category. Justin recently took an AncestryDNA test.

Heather’s Second Cousins

This is where the list gets more interesting.

These are Heather’s top 5 matches in the 2nd Cousin Category. Cindy is my 1st cousin, so she is Heather’s 1st cousin once removed. D.J. and H.G. are people I don’t know, so they must be on Heather’s maternal side. S.W. is my second cousin, so Heather’s 2nd cousin once removed. Joyce is my father’s 1st cousin, so would be Heather’s 1st cousin twice removed.

D.J. and H.G.

D.J. doesn’t have a tree, so I don’t know how he is related to Heather. Perhaps the J is for Jarek? However, when I look at D.J.’s shared matches, one of those shared matches is H.G. That means that D.J. and H.G. are related.

Here is H.G.’s tree:

 

Ancestry shows that H.G. and Heather share Jarek and Wozniak. Ancestry knows this already, because I just linked Heather to a tree. One confusing thing is that H.G.’s profile shows as a female but H.G. in the above tree shows as male. Francis Jarek and Antonina Wozniak are H.G.’s grandparents. These two are Heather’s great-grandparents. That means that Heather and H.G. are 1st cousins, once removed. My guess would be the same for D.J. Heather or I could get in touch with D.J. to find out.

Comparing Heather and H.G.’s Ethnicity

If I push the Compare button for Heather’s DNA match H.G., I get this:

This shows that H.G. hasn’t updated her ethnicity report. She still has the old estimates.

This shows that H.G. is 98% Eastern Europe and Russian. I take that to mean that H.G. is almost all Polish and Heather is much less so.

Downloading Heather’s DNA

Next, I’d like to download Heather’s DNA. Ancestry doesn’t have a way to look at the individual chromosomes for comparison, so I have to download Heather’s DNA for that.

Once I have downloaded Heather’s DNA, I can upload it to Gedmatch Genesis. This used to be plain Gedmatch. I uploaded Heather’s DNA to Genesis and it gave me a PW number to identify Heather.

Heather and Her Grandmother At Genesis

It takes a while for Heather’s DNA to ‘tokenize’ at Genesis. After this happens, Heather will have a list of matches with other relatives who have uploaded their DNA to Gedmatch or Genesis from different DNA testing companies. Right now I can make single comparisons. I can compare myself to Heather, but that will just show that we match everywhere. That is because Heather has a maternal and paternal copy of her chromosomes. Naturally, she got all her paternal part from me. However, Heather got about one half of her paternal chromosomes from my mom:

This shows that Heather doesn’t match her grandma on Chromosome 17, but does match her all the way across on Chromosomes 19-21. On Chromosomes 18 and 22, Heather matches her paternal grandmother for parts and doesn’t on other parts. Why is that? Heather must match her paternal grandfather in the black areas.

Crossovers Or Recombination Points

The spot where Heather’s DNA goes from her grandmother’s DNA to her grandfather’s DNA is called a crossover or recombination point. When Heather’s DNA was formed, her dad’s maternal and paternal DNA split up and recombined to make Heather’s DNA. The same happened with Heather’s mom. Heather had no paternal recombination on Chromosomes 17 and 19-21. This is normal on the higher-numbered shorter chromosomes. This means that though Heather got her DNA from her mom and dad, it is made up from the recombination of the DNA from her four grandparents.

There were over 400,000 SNPs used to make the comparison. These SNPs are Heather’s individual DNA markers that I downloaded from Ancestry.

Other Cool Things To Do With Heather’s DNA

This is the introduction. There are other cool things to do:

  • Though it is difficult to do with just two siblings, it is possible to use visual phasing to map out how Heather and JJ got their DNA from their four grandparents but comparing their DNA results to each other.
  • It is possible to use a program called DNAPainter to map out Heather’s matches on her chromosomes.
  • AutoCluster looks at Heather’s AncestryDNA matches and clusters them according to how they match each other. This does not required the detailed chromosome information from Genesis.
  • I haven’t looked at DNA to confirm Heather’s genealogy except for two close maternal relatives.
  • I’ll be able to create a maternally phased and paternally phased kit for Heather at Genesis. This will show which of Heather’s matches are on my side and which ones are on her mom’s side.