Hartley DNA & Genealogy

January 8, 2016August 8, 2016

More James Line Segments

In the last 2 blogs, I wrote about segments and crossovers. In this one I am continuing on with James Line Segments. The James Line is from James Frazer b. in the early 1700’s from North Roscommon, Ireland. I am looking at Chromosome 14, because there seems to be a lot going on there. Here are some of the Frazer matches from my master list of matches from testers in the Frazer DNA Project:

Not all of these matches will come into play, because we are looking at the family of Jonathan, Janet and Joanna. Here Jonathan matches JFS on the Michael Frazer Line b. 1764 (a branch of the James Line). Janet matches the same person at 2 different places. Janet and Jonathan match BZ their 2nd cousin at differing levels. Also Jonathan matches BR from the Archibald line (brother of James Frazer) at a smaller amount. This may or may not hold up.

Remember, we can do this analysis because siblings have what are called Fully Identical Regions (FIRs). This means that they match their same paternal and maternal grandparents (but we don’t know which initially). Then by comparing the Half Identical Regions (HIRs) and places they don’t match, it is possible to map out all 4 grandparents. With matches to known people, it is possible to fill in which grandparent is which.

Chromosome 14 appears to be more simpler than my earlier examples:

Here, there are only 5 crossover points. The crossover is where the DNA recombines. Janet has only one crossover point and Jonathan and Joanna each have 2. Note above that Jonathan (1) and Joanna (3) have a FIR in the first segment indicated by the green bar in the middle row. That means they have the same Paternal and Maternal grandparents. I’ll give those grandparents a green and blue color for both Jonathan’s (1) and Joanna’s (3) DNA segment below.

The crossover point is where something is going to change due to DNA that got recombined from Joanna’s family’s grandparents via their parents. I suppose you might say we are recreating how this family was formed by the different combinations of their grandparents’ DNA. I can’t extend Jonathan’s grandparents at this point (at crossover 1). I can extend Joanna’s as her crossover point doesn’t occur until line 3 (which is her crossover or recombination point).

Now note in the gedmatch browser comparison above that Janet and Joanna have no match in the first 2 segments. That means that Janet will have the opposite grandparents in those segments shown as being orange and purple.

Next, I see that in the 3rd segment, Joanna matches Janet perfectly (FIR). We will note that and extend Janet’s segments to the right hand side as she only has one crossover point.

Next I filled in some opposite regions between Janet and Joanna and Jonathan to Janet.

However, note that in the comparison between Jonathan and Janet, there is something odd.

In the third segment, there is no match as shown by a grey underneath (no blue). However, on the top there are no red marks. I though that it was too easy. Next, I will add an HIR from Jonathan to Janet in the last 2 segments.

Next Jonathan and Joanna have a no match on the last chromosome, so they are opposites. There seems to be no easy solution for the middle part of Jonathan’s Chromosome 14 – or rather there could be more than one solution, so I’ll just pick one for now and see how it fits with the matches.

And there you have my version 1 of Jonathan and his sisters’ Chromosome 14. It doesn’t look that great. Janet’s chromosome looks too symmetrical. Also Jonathan has one of his crossovers on Joanna’s crossover point (3).

Now for the Frazer DNA Project matches to Jonathan and family.

Here’s where the puzzle begins. We don’t know which of the 4 colors that the Frazer could be. That could be either

Janet has matches from 32-50; 59-100; and 92-101. This means I drew Janet wrong. I have her with a break in the middle of these. That is, unless, the match with JFS is a false match.

Jonathan has matches from 80-99; 92-101; and 99-102. That could either be green or purple, but his first match at 80 would make it look like the green. I’ll give it another try with Janet having her green be the Frazer for the whole length. This is what I came up with:

Joanna and Family Version 2 Chromosome 14

That looks better. Now Janet’s segments are not so symmetrical and Jonathan’s crossovers are at his own crossover points. Joanna has a crossover on Janet’s crossover point, so maybe she should have solid orange, but that would cause other inconsistencies.

Now I’ll add the Frazer to the green areas and Seymour grandparents in orange showing where some of our Frazer DNA testers match.

I know that Joanna is looking for other relatives to test on her mother’s side. So once those DNA results are in, that will further confirm which maternal grandparents the blue and purple segments belong to.

This was not as easy as I thought it would be.

January 5, 2016August 8, 2016

Segments and Crossovers: Part 2

In my last blog I took a look at the DNA my 2 sisters and I inherited from our grandparents. This was based on how we matched each other, where our crossover points were and whether we match by Half Identical Region (HIR) or Fully Identical Region (FIR), or not at all. I wasn’t totally satisfied with the result but noted that Chromosome 1 was probably the most difficult to analyze as it is the longest Chromosome. I still need to tweak this Chromosome a bit. Another way to figure out where the segments are is by looking at Triangulation Groups. On my Hartley (green) line below (horizontal line J), I have a TG going through the little orange segment at position 203, so the orange is likely not correct there.

Part of my reason for choosing this Chromosome was to show how my sister Heidi was in a Triangulation Group (TG) for Richard Frazer b. 1777 starting at position 205 and my other sister and I were not. My best shot at splitting up Chromosome 1 looked like this:

James above is my father’s 1st cousin and represents the Hartley line. Jane is Jane from the Frazer DNA Project and represents the Frazers. This is the segment where Jane matches my sister Heidi.

And here is what the Frazer TG looks like:

Note that the TG for Heidi’s matches starts at position 205 million. That is where Heidi’s Frazer segment starts above. MFA and Jane’s match with each other start earlier than that, but they have a different segment map than my family does, so that is OK.

Chromosome 12

Chromosome 12 is where all my siblings are in another TG for Richard Frazer b. 1777. The map for that is a bit cleaner and more simple. As Chromosome 12 is shorter than #1, there are fewer segments and crossover points.

Note that Sharon has all Frazer on this Chromosome. That means that on her paternal side, she only inherited DNA from her Frazer grandmother, Marion Frazer
The TG representing Richard Frazer b. 1777 was again on the right hand side where my 2 sisters and I have Frazer (blue) segments
This TG is from position 124 to 129 and includes myself, both my sisters, and David, Bill, and Jane from this DNA Project among others.
The colors are reversed from what I had on Chromosome #1 as those colors are only relative until we find the grandparent that matches the color. At that matching time, we discover which side of the line is maternal and which side is paternal. For Chromosome 12 my paternal side is on the bottom.

I got the relative colors of the segments from these sibling comparisons:

The procedure I used was in my previous blog. The names I got from looking at my matches to cousin Paul. I didn’t have enough matches on my mother’s side to nail those grandparents down. Those were the orange and green colors.

On To the James Line

Joanna and I wisely (or more likely luckily) had 2 of our siblings tested for autosomal DNA. This means that I am able to do the same analysis for her. As we know in the Frazer DNA project, her line starts with James Frazer as opposed to my side which starts with Archibald Frazer. They were both born in the early 1700’s as they had families and farms in North Roscommon, Ireland in 1749.

Chromosome 2

My 2 sisters match Joanna’s brother on Chromosome 2

Here is how Joanna’s family lines up compared at gedmatch.com

Jonathan has more than the usual matches with his sisters. Janet and Joanna have only one long match made up of HIRs and FIRs. This is looking complicated already! Now lets see where all the crossover points are and who owns them. I had to give numbers to the family due to overuse of the initial ‘J’ in that family.

As we might’ve suspected by the number of matches between the family, there are a lot of segments and crossover points. I had a little trouble with Janet’s (who I have as #2) third crossover point, but moved the line a little to the right (judgement call). This could be challenging. I’ll start by adding the bottom left FIR match between Janet and Joanna and see where that leads:

I got this far, but I got a lot of position numbers due to all the little matches between the family. I’m really interested more in the right side of the Chromosome, so I’ll start over on the 3rd FIR match between Janet and Joanna:

That’s not even as good. I think I’ll try the upper right Jonathan to Janet FIR match, as that is the only FIR match Jonathan has. Plus this is even closer to the area of the Chromosome I’m interested in.

Now here comes the critical move to the right of the orange-purple area. Jonathan has a half match in that area with Janet. So I’ll extend the purple and green to that area to create the half match. It’s critical, because way back I said that Jonathan had a match with my 2 sisters from 205 to 222. Once I extend the purple that has to be the Frazer area as the match wouldn’t go through two different grandparent segments (i.e. orange and green at the top right).

Here I added Edward Frazer who is Joanna’s paternal grandfather (actually b. in 1867). Because we identified Edward through a match between Jonathan and my sisters, the other person on that line in blue has to be Joanna’s paternal grandmother Seymour. In order to figure out Joanna’s maternal grandparents we would need to have matches through known relatives on those lines.

Now I’m stuck as the segments are HIR and I would have to guess. Here’s my guess for Jonathan, Janet and Joanna on Chromosome #2

This means if I am right and Jonathan, Janet and Joanna are looking for Frazer matches on Chromosome #2:

Jonathan should look between 9 and 129; 142 and 219 and 241 and over (these are positions all in millions)
Janet would look for any thing under 119 and over 238
Joanna would look before 27 and between 129 and 152

However, the catch is to make sure the match isn’t on the maternal side. However, it should be possible to double check this using Triangulation Groups (TGs). These TGs will fall within the segments as shown above.

How My Family Compares to Joanna’s Family On Chromosome 2

Unfortunately, the colors don’t match up. Joanna’s Frazers are purple and mine are green. As can be seen above, my sisters got their Frazer DNA in the area of around 200 where I got Hartley DNA as shown in orange. This explains the matches between Sharon, Heidi and Jonathan.

January 5, 2016December 1, 2016

atDNA Under the Hood: Segments and Crossovers

In this blog, I would like to look at segments and crossover points. Kathy Johnston has a method in which she compares the DNA matches between 3 siblings. These matches are then used to show how the 4 grandparents contributed DNA to each of these 3 siblings. She states in her directions:

The goal is to use crossover lines in PowerPoint to determine segment matches with grandparents among siblings when no parents are alive.

In this blog, I will use Chromosomes 1 as an example. I would like to use this Chromosome because of the Frazer DNA project I am working on. In this project, there is a very clear Triangulation Group at Chromosome 1 that leads back to Richard Frazer, b. about 1777 in North Roscommon, Ireland.

The Technique Depends on Gedmatch

Gedmatch is used because gedmatch.com comparisons show not only matches, but which matches have Fully Identical Regions (FIRs) and those with Half Identical Regions (HIRs). HIRs are the normal matches that we have with everyone except our siblings. Half Identical means we match either on our mother’s side or our father’s side. According to the ISOGG Wiki,

Identical twins are fully identical at every point in their DNA. Other full siblings, including non-identical twins, share around 50% of their DNA, and have both half-identical regions and completely identical regions. The expected percentages for full siblings are 50% half-identical, 25% completely identical, and 25% not identical for an overall average of 50%.

Me and My Two Sisters

This is how I look compared to my two sisters and how they compare to each other at Gedmatch. The green indicates FIR, the yellow area is HIR and the red is no match. The blue is FIR or HIR match and is also represented in the table above the graph with start and end points. Vertical lines are drawn through each crossover where there is any change from HIR to FIR to no match.

According to Kathy Johnston,

Only one sibling can own a crossover point (with few exceptions); identify that sibling. The owner of the crossover is the one who is in-common with
that point for two comparisons.

For the first vertical line, I have an ‘S’ for Sharon as the owner of that crossover point. She has a crossover, from a HIR match to no match in the comparison of Sharon to Heidi and a crossover from no match to a HIR in the comparison between Sharon to Joel. Note that the 3rd ‘S’ should be a’?’ as Sharon has only one crossover out the the 3 comparisons. I had originally left it as an ‘S’ for simplicity. The segments between the lines will represent the DNA the 3 siblings got from our 4 grandparents.

How Do We Get 4 Grandparents’ DNA Out Of This?

Let’s look at the next to the last segment and the one before it. Sharon and Joel have a green area there. This means that Sharon and Joel got their DNA from both their mother and father. However, this DNA was from one of the mother’s parents and one of the father’s parents. These 2 Fully Identical matches are represented by green and blue. These are 2 of our 4 grandparents, but we don’t know which ones they are yet – except that one is a maternal grandparent and one is a paternal grandparent. They are put on Sharon and Joel’s horizontal lines (represented by an ‘S’ and a ‘J’) as Sharon and Joel match each other on both parent’s sides represented here by green and blue.

By the way, I picked the most difficult Chromosome to look at. Chromosome #1 is the longest chromosome and has the most crossovers. Note that the green and blue are bounded by 2 J’s on my line. However, the green and blue are not bounded by an ‘S’ on Sharon’s line. So I will extend her DNA match to where it is likely to change (either at Sharon’s crossover point or at the end of the Chromosome – whichever comes first).

Looking For Two More Grandparents

This is starting to fill out, but Heidi has no DNA and we only have 2 grandparents. Now look again at the Gedmatch chart. Heidi has no match with Sharon or Joel on the next to last segment as indicated by grey in the bottom part and red in the top. We know that she does have DNA at all parts on her chromosomes, so she must have gotten her DNA from neither of the green or blue grandparents on her paternal and maternal side.

Our new grandparents are going to be orange and purple. I hope they don’t mind.

I extended the colors to the right as Heidi has no crossover point in that direction. Also note as a check that in the last segment Sharon and Heidi have no match, so they have to have opposite grandparents contributing to their DNA there. Now in my 3 Gedmatch comparisons, there is a spot where all 3 siblings have a FIR shown in green. These means all 3 siblings got their DNA from the same 2 blue and green grandparents. I’ll extend the blue and green down and to the right and left to the appropriate crossover points.

Looking good for my green and blue grandparents. In the first J-H segment, Heidi and Joel have no match. This means opposite colors/grandparents. I blasted through the ? crossover as it doesn’t involve Heidi.

Next, I’ll fill in the rest of the no match areas with opposite colors/grandparents. I only see one more segment to add.

Time for the HIR’s

So far, we have only added opposites. Now it is time for the Half Identical Regions (HIRs). That would be a green on the top with a purple on the bottom or orange on the top with blue on the bottom. On the Sharon to Joel comparison below there is a long yellow HIR. I will give that a shot.

That means that I need to keep one color the same between Sharon and Joel and change the other. I randomly extended the blue and put the orange on top. I don’t know what to do at the ?, so I stop there. Up until now all the colors have been relative. However, once a half identical color is chosen, it locks in where the grandparents are (even though we don’t know which grandparents go on which segments yet).

Also notice that I put numbers on the bottom. Those are the positions of some of the crossover points. Sharon’s first match with Heidi stops at about 8 million. Sharon’s first match with Joel starts at the same spot.

Now Sharon to Heidi has no match in the large middle segment. That means I need to add the opposite colors/grandparents. Joel to Heidi is HIR, so we can continue Joel’s colors to the left. Sharon to Joel needs to be opposite in the first segment.

That seems to be all the easy segments. Actually, the upper left space can be filled in as Sharon and Joel match with a FIR. That leaves the lower right hand side. I’m not supposed to guess here, but I’m tempted to go with orange/blue to fill in my missing middle segment. The tiny segment below that is opposite. I guess again and pull the orange to the left and the blue to the right to fill the larger segment. My last guess is on my own segment where I extended the blue and added some orange.

That fills everything in, but with a bit of guessing. Note that the tiny crossover point at 205 has not been used, but that is a fine point.

Now For the Reality Check

I would be nice to put some names on these grandparents and check to see if I got these segments straight. Here are some of my sister real life Sharon’s matches.

Catherine is on my mother’s father’s side and James is on my father’s father’s side. The rest are Frazer relatives, but the matches are small. My results are somewhat similar to my sister Sharon’s. The difference is that I tested at 23andme and found a relative on my mother’s mother’s side (Judith).

Let’s see if Heidi’s matches shed any further light.

Now we are getting somewhere. We see the Triangulation Group that I was interested in. This is on the right between Frazer relatives Michael, Paul, Jane and Bill. This is good because the Frazers are on my paternal mother’s side and James is on my Hartley side which is my paternal father’s side. Heidi matches James between the locations of 107 and 155 million. And she matches the Frazers from about 205 to 237 million. Now all I have to do is find an open segment on Heidi’s line from 205 to 237 that is a different color on Joel and Sharon’s line. That is orange.

Will the Real Grandparents Please Step Forward?

Here is my first shot. I can already see it will need adjustments.

My paternal Frazer/Hartley Frazer side isn’t too bad. The bottom right in orange is where the Triangulation Group is that indicates the Richard Frazer family (b. 1777). This explains why Heidi was in the triangulation group and Sharon and I weren’t. We inherited the opposite set of DNA on the paternal side. Also note on my line I have James who represents my Hartley side. I match him from 204-233. So that green segment needs to move to the left a smidgen. I had trouble the first time I tried to figure this out also. After a little fiddling, this is what I come up with:

In a future blog, I’d like to try the same technique with the DNA results of Joanna and her 2 siblings on the James Frazer line.

Observations:

Kathy Johnston has developed an excellent tool for seeing where all your grandparents’ DNA ended up in you and your 2 siblings.
Phasing can determine whether a match is on your paternal or maternal side, but requires that you have a tested parent. This technique does not require a parent and goes one step further – to the grandparents.
If the procedure is done right, I will know which grandparent all my matches match and which grandparent all my siblings’ matches will match. This is a big help when looking at 3-4,000 matches.
The procedure requires other relatives be tested to put names on the 4 grandparents. I am glad to have at least one relative tested to represent each of my 4 grandparents.
The technique takes a bit of practice and can be a bit of a puzzle. However, the results are interesting, instructive and informative.
The results show the need for additional DNA testing. If I had only tested my sister Sharon and myself, I would not have proof of being in this particular Frazer Triangulation Group on Chromosome 1 going back to the late 1700’s.

December 2016 Update to my January 2016 Blog

The above attempt was an early try at visual phasing. Chromosome 1 is the longest Chromosome and therefore one of the most difficult ones to try to visually phase. Since then, I have had more experience at doing this. M MacNeill [prairielad_genealogy@hotmail.com] also has done some raw data phasing which is more accurate. Here is his result for Chromosome 1:

By comparing the two images, you can see the mistakes I made in my early try at visual phasing. There are some things that I see now on my initial try that scream out at me that they are wrong. The major mistake is the small segments that are internal to the Chromosome (i.e. not right at either end).

December 17, 2015April 13, 2017

My Mother’s Rathfelder DNA: An Initial Look

My mother is a Rathfelder. That is a fairly uncommon name. According to forbears.io, it is the 413,549th most common name in the world. By comparison, my last name, Hartley, is in the 6,000’s. My mother’s father Alexander grew up in Latvia. He worked on a ship and jumped ship in New York City in the early 1900’s. So he doesn’t have a lot of relatives around here. My mom’s family tree at Ancestry.com looks like this:

On the bottom left, are the Nicholson and Lentz families. Ann was born in Sheffield, England. The Lentz family was in current day Philadelphia by the time of the American Revolution.

Here are the DNA testers:

Me – tested at all three DNA companies for autosomal DNA. I also tested for mitochondrial DNA. This covers the line on the bottom of the chart only.
My 2 sisters – Tested at AncestryDNA and transferred to FTDNA
My mother – tested separately at FTDNA and AncestryDNA
Judy – a second cousin. She tested at 23andme, but hasn’t uploaded her results yet to gedmatch.com for comparison. Our common ancestors are Jacob Lentz and Annie Nicholson.
Catherine – a Rathfelder second cousin in England. Our common ancestors are Joahnn Rathfelder and Maria Gagnus.

I have also test results from my father’s side. When I put all my known test matches together, it looks like this:

The matches we are looking at here are on my Maternal side, so that would be the red (Lentz/Nicholson) and flesh colored (Rathfelder/Gagnus) segments at the bottom of each Chromosome. Note that we receive DNA from both our parents on each chromosome. This means that if someone matches me and Catherine on the same segment of Chromosome 13 that is colored in, I will know that person matches us on my mother’s side. And more specifically, the match will be along one of the ancestors of this Rathfelder/Gagnus couple.

My Mother’s Rathfelder/Gagnus DNA

My mother will have more Rathfelder/Gagnus DNA than I do, because my DNA is watered down with my father’s DNA. If I look at cousin Catherine’s DNA matches with my mother, me and my sisters, this should show us the DNA the 3 of us got from this Rathfelder/Gagnus couple that were born in the mid 1800’s. That’s what I did, and it looks like this:

Here, my mother, Gladys, is in orange, I’m in blue. My sister Heidi is green and sister Sharon is pink. On Chromosomes 2, 8 and 14, some of the Rathfelder segments didn’t make it to me or my 2 sisters. Also note, that I am missing Rathfelder segments from Chromosome 4, 6 and 10, that the rest of my family have.

Does Anyone Else Match the Rathfelders?

As one might guess, this line is German. I checked at gedmatch.com using a utility showing people that matched both Catherine and my mom, Gladys. Then I compared them in something called an autosomal matrix to see how they all matched each other.

The upper left part of this matrix represents matches between Catherine and my family. The upper right part shows our matches to others that match Catherine and Gladys. The lower right part shows how the people that match Catherine and Gladys match each other. This is important for triangulation and finding common ancestors. From this, we can see that Michael and Tara match each other closely. In fact, they have the same last names, although I don’t show it here. Christine and Kenneth match each other at 20.8 cM, so let’s look at that. It turns out that they don’t match Catherine or my family where they match each other, so there is no triangulation there.

Let’s try something else. On the Excel spreadsheet I have created of my mother’s matches, I show where she has triangulated groups already. Here is the most promising Triangulation Group as seen from Gladys’ matches:

I went in to gedmatch.com and made sure that Catherine matched the last 2 matches and that the last two matches matched each other. All these overlap on the same Chromosome 13 and at the same areas of that Chromosome. This makes a TG or Triangulation Group. This means that these last 2 people will have the same ancestors as Catherine and Gladys, somewhere up on our shared Rathfelder or Gagnus family tree. Perhaps these 2 people have good family trees and it will be easy to see. Or they may not know much about their family history. At this point, one could contact these people by email to try to find out if they know where we match.

What About the Lentz/Nicholson DNA?

This is a bit more difficult. Cousin Judy has tested at 23andme. I have tested there, but no one else in my family has. I have downloaded Judy’s results to my spreadsheet. There I can check other matches around her matches to see if they match on my mother’s side. Not many do. Here is one spot where there are a few matches at Chromosome #17:

The blue matches are on my paternal side. We can ignore those. The pink is my maternal side. The white don’t match either side so are IBC (Identical By Chance) or they go below the threshold when checking which side they are on. At any rate, I can ignore the unhighlighted names for now. LinnyLou and Douglas are closely related. However, they do triangulate with my mom and Judith. That means we likely have a set of common ancestors out there.

DNA the Ancestry Way: Trouble With Schwechheimers

Ancestry automates all this work: easy for me and easy for them. Right? Actually, easy, but not accurate. Here is another mistake I notice that they’ve made. They see where I have a DNA match and then they find if there are common ancestors in our trees and say this is a likely match. The problem is is they don’t triangulate. And Ancestry doesn’t know if our trees are correct. For my Ancestry kit, this is what they found:

Ancestry found that I (represented by the line on the left) matched the person represented by the line on the right. We matched at 5.4 cM on one segment. That is tiny, but Ancestry puts the results through a filter, they reason, which filters out the bad matches. So what is wrong? The problem is that I tested my mom and she doesn’t come up with the same match. That means if she doesn’t match, I can’t match with this Schwechheimer as I would have gotten all my Schwechheimer DNA from my mom.

Conclusions:

I’m glad to have the testing results of Judy and Catherine because they each represent one side of my mother’s family – Paternal for Catherine and Maternal for Judy
Even with these testers, it is difficult to find many matches that triangulate
Don’t always trust Ancestry. Upload your results to gedmatch.com where you can see where the match is on the Chromosome and check for triangulation there.

December 16, 2015April 13, 2017

3 Generations of Upshall DNA

My wife Marie is not an Upshall. Nor is her mother Joan. However, her mother’s Aunt Esther is. The Upshalls were from Newfoundland and lived in a fishing village called Harbour Buffet. This is what it looked like in 1907

Harbour Buffet is in Placentia Bay. Here is a map showing Harbour Buffet on the left side in relation to St. John’s on the right. As you can see, Harbour Buffet is quite an isolated area.

The genealogical records are sparse in Newfoundland. In Harbour Buffet, the church burned, so vital records are missing.

Are Your Parents Related?

I have had my wife’s, her mother’s and her mother’s Aunt’s DNA tested. Living in isolated Newfoundland many people have ancestors of the same name more than once. I have uploaded these 3 people’s DNA results to Gedmatch.com. They have a utility there called “Are Your Parents Related?”. I ran this and, sure, enough, as Aunt Esther expected, her parents were related. She shows a relatedness on Chromosome numbers 2, 11, 15 and 20.

My understanding is that this report looks at Esther’s mother’s and father’s side of her DNA and where there are matches between the two, it shows where they had a common ancestor. In fact, this report indicates that Esther had a common ancestor 4 generations ago. At 4 generations ago, we had 16 2nd great grandparents. This means that Esther likely only had 14. This could also mean that Esther is a s 3rd cousin to herself! A scenario could be that Esther’s mother and father could be 2nd cousins to each other. I tried to sketch out some of the relationships here:

I am still working on Esther’s ancestry, so I haven’t gotten too much past the diagram above. My understanding is that Melinda Jane Kirby’s mother was a Dicks. That means that her two grandmothers, Catherine Dicks and Melinda Kirby could have been 1st cousins. This is helpful in tracking the ancestry. Dicks is a name that comes up quite a bit when looking at Esther’s DNA matches also.

What DNA Came From Whom

In the chart above, you can see that Frederick Nelson Upshall had 2 wives. The first wife died in the Flu Epidemic in the Boston area and he remarried. That means my wife and my mother in law are descended from the Daley (non-Newfoundland) side and Esther is descended from the [Newfoundland] Shave side. Gedmatch has another report called “People who match one
or both of 2 kits”. When I run this for Joan and Esther it shows people that match both of them, or just one or the other. The people that match both should correspond to the purple in the diagram above and below. The people that match only Joan and not Esther would represent the left side of the chart. The people that match Esther and not Joan would represent the upper right had side of the chart. Except that there is one hitch. Thanks to some collaboration with at least one helpful DNA match’s research on Ancestry, I have been able to expand Aunt Esther’s ancestors further back.

Now we can see that Esther has Dicks family on her mother’s and father’s side. The dotted lines at the top are inferred from the DNA and a guess on my part. I am assuming that the Dicks ancestors are the reason for Esther’s parent’s relatedness. This means that Joan would also be related to Jane Ann Dicks but not as closely as Esther. Likewise, Joan would be related to Melinda Kirby but not her father John and is related to Margaret Shave (her step-grandmother) but not George Shave. Further, I may assume that the parents of Jane Ann Dicks may be the same as the grandparents of Catherine (or Kate) Dicks. If I have it right, that also means that my wife’s step great grandmother nee Shave was also her 2nd cousin 3 times removed.

The Chromosome Browser

Here are the places where Esther matches her (half) niece and grand niece (my mother in law and wife). These matches represent the DNA From Esther’s father as that is the person these 3 women have in common as an ancestor.

Esther and my mother in law match on every chromosome except for #22 which is the shortest Chromosome. I am also interested in the X Chromosome. This is because these matches will be very specific. Let’s look back at the diagram with the purple squares and circles. These are the only places where Esther and Joan can share the X in a normal situation. Then Fred Upshall doesn’t get any X Chromosome from his father so the X matches must be from Kate Dix, born around 1851.

Unfortunately, this is not a normal situation. Here we have Esther who has parents that are related. I think that the relation is through the Dicks family. That means that Joan could also be matching Esther on Esther’s mother’s side. That would be Margaret Shave, up through her mother Melinda Kirby and Melinda’s mother Jane Dicks. Isn’t that confusing. However, as the most recent common ancestor between Esther and Joan is Esther’s father Fred, the matches most likely should be from him.

It actually gets even more complicated. Christopher Dicks didn’t get any X Chromosome from his father. However, Jane Dicks did. The unknown mother of the 2 sent her X Chromosome down to her 2 children. If any of those X Chromosome segments came down to my mother in law, she could have segments in common with both sides of her Aunt Esther’s parents. However, this would not be Dicks’ X Chromosome but the wife of a Dicks. Joan’s X matches on the Dicks’ side can only go back as far as Christopher Dicks.

X Triangulation

Triangulation is trying to figure out a common ancestor between using the matches of 3 people or more. The 3 people have to match on the same segment and match each other. What I did was choose Esther’s top 8 X Chromosome matches.

Joan is #1. My wife is #3. My wife isn’t supposed to have a match that her mother doesn’t have, so I’ll disregard the blue match. It looks like the clusters could triangulate, but they don’t. Here is the X Matrix.

This time my wife is last on the list. Note that Marie and her mom Joan only match each other and don’t match Esther’s other 6 top X Chromosome matches. That means there is no sense trying to triangulate these. These segments are likely to be from Esther’s mother’s side. That is, except for match #8 in the previous figure. That is Molly and her match doesn’t overlap with Joan’s or Marie’s, so we can’t tell which side of Esther she is matching (maternal or paternal/Shave or Upshall). It makes sense that Joan and Marie don’t match the other people. As I showed earlier, Joan and Marie’s X Chromosome match on the Dicks’ side ends with Chris Dicks. However, Esther’s X Chromosome match goes back a generation earlier, so she has many more chances for matches.

Autosomal DNA Matches: Not All One Way Or the Other

In looking at autosomal matches or triangulation groups, it is important to make sure that the matches are either on the maternal side or paternal side. However, what if the parents of your match (in this case Esther) had parents that were related to each other? It is not so clean cut.

Here are some of Esther’s top matches compared to Joan and each other:

Note that Joan has a larger match with Wallace than Esther does. Perhaps Wallace matches Joan on her father’s (non Upshall) side in addition to the Upshall side. Also Joan has no match with Nat. Either Joan didn’t get any of the DNA that Nat did or more likely this match is on one of Esther’s mother’s non-Dicks lines. Also some of these people may be matching Esther on her maternal and paternal sides where Joan only matches her on her Paternal side.

Just for fun, I checked if anyone else on the list had parents that were related. It turns out that Michael did. But not to the extent that Esther was. His common ancestor was about 5.6 generations back.

Effects of Endogamy On DNA Matches

Jim Bartlett explains the effect of relatives that marry in this Blog. When Esther’s parents married as the descendants of the same ancestor, they theoretically doubled their match with Joan. This effect multiplies when other matches also have the same ancestor more than once. Joan and Esther might expect an average match amount of 850 cM as half aunt/neice. Their actual match total is 1090 cM. Also at the above chart, see how much more Esther matches people than Joan. I believe that this could be due to Esther’s multiple Dicks ancestors. This is true except for the match with Donald. Perhaps Donald is not related to the Dicks. When I check his ancestry, I don’t see any familiar surnames. Also no ancestry is mentioned in Newfoundland. So, maybe something to consider.

In Summary

My contact with Esther’s matches have resulted in good leads with people who have Newfoundland ancestry
Esther has, as expected, parents that are related
This relation appears to be on the Dicks side, based on both genealogy and surname ancestors of DNA matches
Further research should lead to linking up both sides of these Dicks family to a common set of ancestors.
Due to the irregular inheritance pattern of the X Chromosome, not many common matches were found
Endogamy results in more [presumed Dicks descendant] matches for Esther. This is compounded if her matches also have the presumed Dicks ancestor more than once.

December 7, 2015April 13, 2017

Moving the Frazers Down the YDNA Tree

We have new YDNA results in for Jonathan and Paul. That’s good news. As you may recall, Jonathan had his YDNA tested about a year ago. He represents the James Line of Frazers. Then this year, Paul from the Archibald Line of Frazers tested. The tests were for 37 markers. The new tests are for 67 markers. Here is a tree that I sent to my cousin Paul who is not on the internet. Archibald, born around 1690 is believed to be our common ancestor and the husband of Mary Frazer at the top. Paul and Jonathan are 6th cousins, once removed based on our research. Paul is 2 generations below Hubert Frazer on the Archibald Branch and Jonathan is one generation below Walter Frazer.

Some Unexpected Results

Jonathan and Paul both showed a type of YDNA called R1a. I expected they would be R1b which is one of the most common Haplogroups in Europe. R1b is especially prevalent the further Northwest one travels in Europe.
Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) showed 3 mutations between Jonathan and Paul. I was expecting about zero to one. It turns out that all their mutations were on relatively fast moving markers.
Based on the markers, FTDNA puts people in a rough Haplogroup. Jonathan was put in R-M458 and Paul in R-M198 which is an even more broad or general category. With the new results, FTDNA has apparently backtracked and put Jonathan back into the more broad R198 Haplogroup. Usually, with more STR testing the Haplogroup should be more refined, not less.
At the different levels that FTDNA looks at (12, 25, 37 and 67 STRs), Paul matches on 4 people each. Normally there are many matches at the 12 level and the matches drop down to the 67 level. The apparent answer for this is that Paul has had more than the expected mutations in the earlier testing compared to Jonathan.

Genetic Distance

The Genetic Distance (GD) is the measure of how many differences there are in the STRs of 2 people. In the case of Jonathan and Paul, the GD was 3 for the 37 STRs and also 3 for the recent 67 marker test. That means all the differences were in the first 37 markers. Here are Jonathan’s results for the 37 STR test. The results of this test are also called a Haplotype.

Here is what Paul has for STR results with the differences from Jonathan highlighted.

Note that the there were 2 changes in the CDY marker. FTDNA informs me that they count this as one change as the markers represent a relatively fast mutating section of the YDNA. So in the roughly 260 years or 7 or 8 generations, there have been 4 mutations or a GD of 3 between Jonathan and Paul, assuming our genealogy is correct.

Refined TIP Report

FTDNA has a TIP Report that estimates the relationship likelihood of 2 YDNA matching people. For the previous 37 STR marker test, FTDNA thought that there was about a 44% chance that Jonathan and Paul were related at 8 generations apart. Now with the 67 marker test, that has gone up to about 65%. The percentage went up, because the GD was the same for 67 markers as it was for 37 markers. So it is more likely that these 2 are closely related. It is all based on statistics and probability.

Haplotypes and Haplogroups

The STR signature for Jonathan and Paul now consists of 67 markers. The combination of these markers is called a Haplotype. A Haplogroup is based on SNPs and is found one of 2 ways. The most accurate is by testing of the SNPs. The other way to estimate a Haplogroup is by the Haplotype. Jonathan and Paul have not had their SNPs tested, but have their STRs tested resulting in a Haplotype. Based on these STRs, people who are experts in looking at results can tell what your Haplogroup likely is. In our case, the L664 administer for the R1a project knew that if a DYS338 was 10, then it was veritably inevitable that if the SNP test for L664 was taken, then the tester would be positive for that SNP.

Climbing Down the YDNA Tree

FTDNA has Jonathan as R-M198 Haplogroup. This was from 6,500 B.C. Not good. Our astute L664 Dutch Administrator Martin got us down to 3,000 B.C. by noting that the Frazers are in the L664 Haplogroup. We appreciate him getting us an extra 3,500 years, but that still leaves us quite a way back in time. In my previous blog, Martin at first thought that the Frazers would not be in a SNP called S3477. Subsequently, Martin reasoned that we may be S3477 based on some similarities that he saw in the location of the Frazers and Prendergasts in Ireland. I made a prediction that the Frazers would be negative for S3477. The proof would be in the 67 STR test. If the Frazers did not have a value of 13 at DYS617, they would not belong to subgroup S3477. Let’s look at those results.

It looks like I was right this time. Put another win in my win-loss column. The Frazers are not S3477. Speaking of SNPs, FTDNA recently came out with a new R1a panel for testing.

All the grey hi-lighted SNPs above would apply to L664 Frazers. FTDNA boasts of over 40 L664 SNPs that they test for just under L664. This is a good introductory deal for $99 as it costs $39 to test a single SNP at FTDNA. To put these SNPs into context, here is how they look below our L664 Frazer Group.

The way it works, FTDNA doesn’t have to test 40 SNPs. For example, once they test S3477 and find it to be negative, they would not need to test the 10 SNPs below it. Remember, we were told that if the DYS617 STR marker was not 13, then we would be negative for S3477. In my previous blog, I mentioned that the L664 administrator didn’t think we belonged to the popular YP282 SNP. If that were true, then that would eliminate 13 SNPs. Likewise, Martin didn’t think we were part of the YP358 Haplogroup. It would be nice to know which branch the Frazers are on.

YDNA Matches

I had mentioned in an earlier blog that Paul had 4 matches at all of his levels of testing. This is quite unusual. Usually people have a large number of matches at the lower level of STR testing and fewer at the higher level. Apparently all of Paul’s mutations happened at these lower level of STR testing and wasn’t spread out over the 67 STRs. Here are his matches:

These 4 matches are different than all the other levels of STR matches. At this level, Mr Frizelle drops out. This is not because he is not a match, but because Mr. Frizelle only tested up to the 37 STR level. Mr Latham was in the same category. Replacing those 2 are a Stuart and a Grant. However, the GD for these 2 are quite high and the relationship could go back to before the use of surnames. Jonathan’s matches appear to be with the same people that he matched at the 37 STR minus those who didn’t test at the 67 STR level.

Here we see all of Paul’s YDNA relatives are on Jonathan’s list. So the YDNA relatives are starting to converge at this level – give or take 300 years! The Grants seem to be the most common name. It is possible that all these people came from the same area of Scotland and were related many years ago.

Summary and Future Considerations

A Genetic Distance of 3 at 67 STRs is closer than a match of 3 at 37 STRs for Jonathan and Paul. This was expected and supports the assumptions of our Frazer genealogy.
We are no further down the YDNA tree than L664 at this point. We know which part of the tree we are not on (S3477). To get further down the tree will take further analysis of the recent 67 STR test or additional SNP testing.
We may want to look into the SNP panel for Jonathan and/or Paul to see where they are further down on the YDNA tree. I would assume that they both would have the same terminal SNP, so only one person would need to test for the panel of SNPs and the second could verify the terminal SNP with a single SNP test.
I will check with the L664 Administrator to see if he has any other analysis of the 67 STR results that would fine tune our Frazers’ place in the R1a Project

November 25, 2015April 30, 2020

More On Frazer DNA

In this blog, I’d like to finish a few thoughts on Frazer YDNA and look at some new Frazer autosomal DNA Results.

YDNA Thoughts and Summaries

The 2 Frazer Lines have now successfully tested their YDNA. The YDNA test Jonathan and Paul took is called a 37 STR (Short Tandem Repeat) test. This test has indicated a common SNP Haplogroup for the 2 lines called R1a-L664.
As the 2 Frazer Lines indicate a match, this gives us confidence in our genealogy and in the autosomal DNA matches testers have between the Archibald and James Frazer Lines.
These 2 tests have resulted in a unique STR signature for each line. This STR signature is called a Haplotype.
The difference in the STR values between the 2 Frazer Line YDNA test results is called the Genetic Distance (GD). The GD between the 2 lines is 3 by FTDNA.
When I count the GD by hand, I get a difference of 4, but FTDNA tells me this about the CDY marker: “CDY is counted using the infinite allele method. Basically this marker is so volatile we can see multiple numeric value jumps in a single mutation. So even if it is off by five it would still only be counted as a genetic distance of 1.” So that explains the anomaly.
I had expected the GD to be lower between the 2 lines. The 2 testers should have a common ancestor 7 generations from present if our genealogy is correct. This person is believed to be Archibald Frazer b. about 1690.
Some STRs have a rate of change much faster than others. The markers that have changed between the 2 lines are the faster moving markers.
The haplotype for the YDNA test representing the James line appears to me to be more likely to be the haplotype of the Archibald Frazer b. about 1690. This is difficult to determine based on only 2 YDNA tests. However, I base my theory partly on the fact that the haplotype representing the Archibald line has many fewer matches to other testers than the one representing the James Line. My theory is that the Archibald Line YDNA has mutated to a more distinct state from that of the original YDNA and thus has fewer matches.
More STR testing has been ordered to further refine the 2 Frazer Line Haplotypes. These results should be out by the latter part of January 2016.

I hope that makes sense. Please email me if you need further clarification.

You Gotta Lovat

All this YDNA testing has created renewed interest in some of the Project Members concerning family lore of descent from the Lord Lovat Branch of the Frasers. YDNA can certainly reach to that era and beyond.

Part of Jonathan's YDNA Match Map — Part of Jonathan’s YDNA Match Map

These striking results show that 3 out of 4 of Jonathan’s YDNA mapped matches have their most distant ancestors located in NE Scotland. At least one part of the family lore has the earliest Frazers at Keith. Notice on the map above that Keith is located to the East of the middle marker. To me, this supports traditions of the Frazers being in NE Scotland at some time before being located in Stirling and Ayrshire to the SW of Scotland. The leap of faith part is believing that both these families were in that area about 500 years or more before our respective families’ earliest verifiable ancestors.

Back to the Autosomal DNA

While we’ve been pondering our Frazer YDNA results, the autosomal testing has been moving on apace. Patricia (or Pat’s) results have come in. I was interested in her results for the following reasons:

Her second cousin Bill had many matches. Some of these were also with the James Line Testers
Pat, Bill, Paul and I also share a pair of Frazer cousin ancestors who married. These were James Frazer and Violet Frazer. DNA representing Violet’s father has already been found by triangulation. However, James’ DNA and certain genealogy have been more difficult to nail down.

Pat’s Genealogy

In an earlier Blog, I touched on Pat’s second cousin Bill’s genealogy. I’d like to expand on that here. Bill and Pat have as their common ancestors, George Frazer b. 1858 in Martinsburg, New York and his wife Susan or Susanna Price. According to one Ancestry tree, the handsome family looked like this:

I mention this, because half of the autosomal DNA that Pat and Bill share would be from Susan Price. Now, again, according to Ancestry, Susan Price’s parents were John Price and Margaret Stinson both born in or around Enniskillen, Ireland. Perhaps this Margaret Stinson was related to this George’s mother’s grandmother Ann Stinson. If so, do you think that will complicate the DNA results?

Here is the DNA that Pat and Bill share in orange (representing George Frazer and Susan Price) as seen on FTDNA’s Chromosome Browser:

Frazers in Martinsburg, New York in the 1850s

Here on the bottom 3 lines of the New York State 1855 Census are George Frazer’s parents: Richard Frazer and Ellen Hassard or Hazard. As mentioned above, Ellen is also the granddaughter of Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson.

I have included the Johnston family above because the father William Johnston was married to Mary Frazer, daughter of Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson. So you are perhaps seeing a Stinson pattern here as well as a Frazer pattern. In fact, in the 1901 Census for Clanwilliam, Marquette, Manitoba, we see a William Stinson b. in Ireland living near the George Frazer family. Also living in the Frazer house was George’s mother, the (by 1901) widowed Ellen (Hassard) Frazer.

Then on the previous census page of the 1855 New York Census for Martinsburg:

Here is yet another Frazer. Ann Frazer is the younger sister of Mary Frazer Johnston. I have that Ann married a John Hazard on 24 Dec 1824 at Ardcarne, Roscommon, Ireland; by licence. John tried to confuse me by going by William in the US, but apparently he is one and the same.

Let’s go back 5 years to the US Federal Census of 1850 in Martinsburg:

and on the next page:

Here is a James Line Frazer. Patrick Frazer would be a second cousin once removed to Mary Frazer Johnston and Ann Frazer Hazard. We have this Patrick married to a Jane Lacy. However, other Ancestry trees have him married to a Jane Mostown. In the 1855 census, Jane appears to have a middle initial of M. However, the 2 Janes are either the same, or Patrick remarried a second Jane. Or, less likely, there was more than one Patrick Frazer! This sidetrack shouldn’t effect the DNA results, but it is interesting to see how these Irish families stayed together in the US.

Two Side by Side Triangulation Groups

When I started looking at Pat’s results, I noticed a new Triangulation Group (TG) right near an existing one.

The existing TG has Jane, Doug and Michael and clearly indicates that the DNA represents that of Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson. We know this because Doug does not to his knowledge have multiple Frazer lines – that is, Frazer ancestors marrying Frazer ancestors.

The newer TG is on the top and includes Bill, Pat and Jane. Note that Jane is in both groups. Also note that this could indicate the common ancestor the 3 have in Richard Frazer b. about 1777. Frankly, I’m quite puzzled and stumped as to who this TG represents. I have ordered a book on Endogamy by Israel Pickholtz. Perhaps that will help. Note also that Bill and Pat match each other to location 170,00,000 (say 170) This is the area where Jane, Doug and Michael match each other, but they don’t show a match with those 3 in that area. This will take some thought to decipher.

DNA Going Two Different Ways

In a previous blog, I noted difficulty in finding the DNA from my Frazer ancestor James Frazer. He was married to a Violet Frazer who I could find due to triangulation with her father Richard. Some matches with Pat may indicate additional DNA Pat and my family share that came down from this Frazer couple.

Here, I have Pat’s match with me (JH) on Chromosome 6. I included above that, Pat’s cousin Bill’s match with Cathy. See they are at similar locations. However, these 2 sets of matches indicate different ancestors. The Bill and Cathy match represent DNA from the Archibald Frazer Line. I am not related on that line. So even though this segments overlaps, it could never triangulate. The match I have with Pat is most likely with James Frazer and Violet Frazer. This is what I think the above means. Remember George Frazer who was born in Martinsburg. Also remember, on each Chromosome we get DNA from both our parents or rather 2 sets of Chromosomes (one Paternal set and one maternal set). George had on one Chromosome #6 DNA from his father Richard Frazer and and on the other Chromosome #6, DNA from his mother Ellen Hazard.

It looks like George passed on his father’s Richard Frazer DNA to Richard Price “Pat” Frazer. This is easy to remember because “Pat” is the ancestor of our Frazer DNA tester Pat. This is the line that would match with me, as Richard is the son of James Frazer and Violet Frazer. The maternal Hassard Line carrying the Archibald Frazer/Ann Stinson DNA went to George Harvey on our tester Bill’s line. This is the line that matches with Cathy. So in these 2 set of matches, we appear to be splitting out the related ancestors. Complicated. But at least I have an explanation for it, unlike the previous triangulation case.

Finally, here’s a match on Chromosome 9 between Pat and Sharon for about 11 cM. I take this to represent the DNA of my kissing cousin ancestors James and Violet Frazer.

A Triangulation Group with a Genetic Genealogist: But Who Are the Common Ancestors?

The next Triangulation group is with a genetic genealogist named Jennifer (JZ below). I mentioned that she was in a TG with Cathy and Jane in a previous blog about Cathy’s DNA results written August 2015.

This TG has Pat, Cathy, Jane and Jennifer. But wait. I don’t see a match between Pat and Jane. I lowered the levels a bit at Gedmatch.com and see that all four women match each other on Chromosome 5 and that they do indeed match and triangulate:

We know that Cathy and Jane have a Frazer ancestor born about 1802. Cathy and Pat share a Frazer ancestor b. about 1778. There is still a mystery as to how Jennifer fits in. She had a J. Frazer ancestor, that I guessed was a Jane Frazer. I further guessed that this Jane was a sister of the Archibald that married Catherine Parker. This theory still makes sense. Jennifer has subsequently found out that her ancestor was indeed named Jane Frazer/Frazier.

Summary on Pat’s Autosomal DNA Results

Pat didn’t seem to have as many matches as her second cousin Bill. This means that Bill just seemed to get extra Frazer DNA including from the more distant James Line.
Pat did shed some light on the common cousin Frazer ancestors that her family and my family share: James and Violet
Pat’s DNA resulted in a new TG. This will need more analysis as to where that TG is pointing to as far as in common Frazer ancestors
A comparison of Pat and her 2nd cousin Bill’s matches on Chromosome 6 helped to untangle some endogamy in the family (multiple Frazer lines due to marriages of relatives).
Pat’s DNA solidified a TG with a genetic genealogist who didn’t originally test to show any specific Frazer ancestry

November 18, 2015April 13, 2017

Frazer YDNA: Part 4

In the previous post, I wrote of how our Frazer testers Jonathan and Paul matched in their YDNA. This match, based on STRs, was not perfect but was a genetic distance of 3 at a level of STR testing of 37 markers. Perhaps more importantly, Jonathan and Paul both had a DYS388 Marker value of 10. This places them solidly in SNP group called L664. Here is the nice R1a Chart I had shown in Part 2 of the Frazer YDNA series from the R1a Project Page.

The L664 SNP group is on the left side of the Chart in a medium blue color. This gets us to about 3,000 b.c. Now according to the L664 Administrator:

In our FTDNA R1a1-project only 5% belongs to R1a1-CTS4385 and therefor 95% belongs to R1a1-Z645.Probably R1a1-CTS4385 is also over-represented in our FTDNA R1a1-project, because many participants of FTDNA are American emigrants who have their roots mainly in NW-Europe and not so much in eastern Europe and India, where the majority of R1a1 lives.

Now see the Chart above. CTS4385 is directly above L664. Most of the Haplogroups are to the right of CTS4385. This means that the Frazers are rare birds within their R1a YDNA classification. And, R1a is not the most common Haplogroup to begin with for people of the Northwestern Atlantic area.

More on L664?

Yes. More from our most helpful Dutch Administrator, Martin. This is what he wrote about Jonathan (which applies also to Paul):

We expect you will not belong to the largest subgroup under R-L664, which is subgroup 2.D (classified by SNP YP282) and also not to subgroup 2.A (classified by S3477) and also not to subgroup 2.C (classified by YP358).

So most probably you will belong to subgroup 2.B which is more or less a restgroup under S2857.

For this subgroup S2857 there is on the moment no relevant SNP’s which you can order separately.

So If you want to know more about your exact position in the halpotree of R1a you need to order the BigY test.

Here is a portion of the L664 Tree, which is a portion of a much larger tree.

This is analogous to the left side of the Chart above (Northwestern Europe/Germanic). Martin says we Frazers are not likely part of the popular YP282 group. He doesn’t say how he knows that. Mysterious. YP282 is third from the right on the bottom row. For the same mysterious reason, Martin casts doubt on the Frazers being YP358 or S3477. So Martin seems to eliminate most of the above tree and places us somewhere under S2857 (Is that YP943?)

The groups that Martin mentions above (i.e. 2.A, 2.C, 2.D) appear to be different L664 groups that the administrator has put Y Testers into based on the combination of STR values. Lastly, he recommends the Big Y test. This is the ultimate dream test to find out where you are on the Y Tree. This would further Frazer DNA research and help many others who are in this area of L664. However, at over $400, only the hard core YDNA researchers will likely pay for that test.

Are Our Frazers from County Mayo or Arberdeenshire?

Even though we crossed out the S3477 above, Martin had a subsequent theory in a follow-up email. His theory is that the Frazers are indeed S3477 and related to the County Mayo Prendergasts. These Prendergasts supposedly were in the County Mayo area of Ireland since the 1200’s along with the Normans. They also are L664 and apparently have some other STR similarities. I sort of doubt Martin’s theory based on our own Frazer traditions. However, Martin says, “You can also order 67 STR-markers and when your DYS617=13, then you also know you belong to this subgroup S3477.” I’m guessing that DYS617 will not be lucky 13 for Jonathan and Paul, but we’ll see. I’m willing to keep an open mind. Both Joanna and I have ordered additional STR testing for Jonathan and Paul. That will tell whether or not we are in subgroup S3477.

The County Mayo, IRE Norman Frazer connection does not have the right ring to me. Would any Frazer descendants vote for that option? I prefer the Aberdeenshire tradition. According to our Aunt Mabel researcher, the Frazers were in Keith in the late 1100’s. Now that’s a ways back. She thinks that not long after this time, they made their way down to Stirling and over to Ayrshire before they traveled to Ireland. Here is a map for some of Jonathan’s YDNA matches:

These are 3 of the 4 matches that show up on Jonathan’s YDNA match map. The other match was Chisholm in North Carolina. Without a European location, that match location is unhelpful and inconclusive. I’m not sure why Paul doesn’t show up on the map. At any rate, I was struck by the number of YDNA matches that Jonathan has in this Northeastern part of Scotland at the 37 STR level. It seems more than coincidental. The marker in the middle is a Grant. The other two do not have their names listed. Note that Keith is in the area to the East of the middle marker. This is the place where Aunt Mabel had our first Frazer.

I’m not thoroughly endorsing the old research, but it is interesting that there can be some parallel conclusions between it and modern DNA testing. Also note that this would be about as early as there would be surnames. According to Scotlandspeople.gov.uk,

Norman influence filtered into Scotland after their invasion of England, and was actively encouraged by Scottish kings. Anglo-Norman nobles acquired grants of land around Scotland and introduced the feudal system of land tenure. For example, Robert The Bruce was a descendant of Robert de Brus who fought with William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. Bissett, Boyle, Colville, Corbett, Gifford, Hay, Kinnear and Fraser are all originally Norman names, which first appeared in Scotland in the 12th century. Menzies and Graham are recognised Anglo-Norman surnames also first seen in Scotland at this time.

Paul’s Other YDNA Matches

There are a few odd things about Paul’s matches. First at the level of testing that he did (37 STRs), he only has 4 matches where Jonathan has 13 matches. My unsupported theory on this is that the James Line as seen in Jonathan has more of the original Frazer STR type and the Archibald Line as seen in Paul’s results branched off or mutated away from the original STR type. Here are Jonathan’s 13 matches at the 37 STR level of testing:

I don’t show it, but Jonathan has:

One match at GD=1
Two matches at GD=2
Five matches at GD=3, and
Five matches at GD=4

William Frizelle is at the top of both lists. However, Jonathan has a GD of 1 to him, where Paul has a GD of 3. That means that genetically, and without taking into effect the speed of mutation of the individual STRs, Jonathan is more closely related to Frizelle than our Frazer tester Paul. It does not mean that he is actually more closely related. This is due to the fact that DNA can mutate whenever it wants. Apparently it wanted to more between Jonathan and Paul than between Jonathan and Frizelle. Also, there is a phenomenon called back mutation which can confuse the issue. If a line had a specific STR value of say, 10 and it mutated to 11 and then back to 10, there would be 2 mutations, but it wouldn’t be easy to detect and it would look like there was no mutation at all. I’m not saying that is what happened here, or that it is common, but it is possible.

Obviously, Jonathan and Paul match each other. Other than that, Latham and Chisolm are on both lists. In additions, they have a GD of 4 on both lists.

Another interesting thing is that Paul does not show a match at this level with Stuart/Stewart or the many Grants that Jonathan matches.

Matches at the 25 STR Level

FTDNA posts matches at the different levels of YDNA testing. They turn out to have different matches in some cases, due to the specific STRs tested. At the 37 level, above, the cutoff for matches is a GD of 4. At the 25 level, they only allow a GD of 2 or less. Here, the differences between Jonathan’s and Paul’s matches are even greater. Jonathan has 20 matches and Paul has, again, 4. However, Jonathan’s 1st 4 matches match Paul’s 4 matches. At this level, Jonathan has a perfect match with Frizelle, where Paul has a GD of 1 with Frizelle. This tells me that Frizelle must be L664. Remember that a DYS388 Marker value of 10 means one is an L664. DYS388 is the 8th value. A 25 STR test includes the 8th value. A perfect match between Jonathan and Frizelle means that Frizelle must have a DYS388 Marker value of 10.

By the way, I wrote to Frizelle asking if he had a 10 at that marker level. It would be good to hear from him, but even if I don’t we now know he is L664. At this level of matches, Latham drops out (although, he still matches Jonathan). The common match that is replaced does not have a most distant ancestor, but the tester’s last name is listed as Plate.

Way Down to the 12 Marker Level

Here the matches between Jonathan and Paul are even greater than before. Now Jonathan has 2 pages of matches for a total of 38 matches. Paul, again, has only 4 matches. At this level, FTDNA only allows a GD of 1 or less. Here are Paul’s matches at the 12 level:

Some facts and/or observations:

Paul has no perfect matches at any level. Again, I take this to indicate that Paul’s line has some unusual mutations in the YDNA compared to Jonathan’s YDNA.
If we hadn’t collaborated in this Project I wouldn’t know the STR values for Jonathan. So we wouldn’t know that Jonathan and Paul were both L664’s
Jonathan has 10 perfect matches. These all must be L664’s.
I wonder if testers #2 and #3 (Riley) in Paul’s match list above were testing to the same distant ancestor. It looks that way.
Tester #2 has a terminal SNP of L664, but we know that already as this person is a perfect match with Jonathan who is has the STR of 10 at DYS388.
Even at a level of 12 markers, Paul has a GD of greater than 1 with Frizelle.
Although the 12 marker and 25 marker results are interesting, the highest level of testing is most accurate and important.

Next up: I believe we have some more Frazer autosomal DNA results.

November 16, 2015April 13, 2017

The Frazer YDNA Reveal: Part 3

In a previous Blog on the YDNA of the Frazers originating in North Roscommon, Ireland, I promised a reveal on the YDNA of my cousin Paul. As you likely recall, Paul is from the Archibald Line originating about 1715. Jonathan, who represented the James Line originating about 1717, had his YDNA tested a while back. This is what we were hoping to find out by having these two people test their YDNA:

Are the Archibald and James Lines related to each other?
Were the two Frazer Lines unbroken from the early 1700’s (or earlier) to now?
Were Archibald and James Frazer brothers?

YDNA, Autosomal DNA, Mitochondrial DNA, X Chromosome?

There are different types of DNA testing. They are well explained at 4 Kinds of DNA for Genetic Genealogy. Basically, with YDNA, we are looking at the father’s father’s father going back tens of thousands of years. The more you test the YDNA, the closer you get to present day. So this starts at the beginning of mankind and work toward the present. This type of testing is critical to one name studies. As we are looking the one name of Frazer, it makes sense to test YDNA. Autosomal DNA (atDNA) is pretty much the opposite of YDNA. This starts at the present and works back along all your lines. However, the further back you go, the more diffused the atDNA becomes. Some ancestors’ atDNA may drop out altogether.

First, the FTDNA Comparison

In my last Blog, I mentioned how Jonathan was R-M512. FTDNA has a computer program that looks at Jonathan’s 37 STR test. The STR test is like a YDNA fingerprint. Except in this example, the fingerprint is not always unique. FTDNA then classifies those STRs and determines what SNP test Jonathan would be positive for if he took the SNP test. The SNP is more of a positive unique ID test where the STRs can sometimes be ambiguous. However, R-M512 was not terribly helpful for Jonathan as it occurs sometime in the Stone Age. Ugh. Joanna put Jonathan’s results into an FTDNA Project called R1a1a Subclades. Based on the expert talents of the administrator there, that administrator was able to place Jonathan further down on the R1a tree at a place called L664.

Now last Sunday, when I was in New Hampshire, I got news that Paul’s YDNA results were in. This is what I was waiting for. This would tell us if the 2 branches were the same family and if the lines were unbroken. If this were to be the case, then the YDNA results would apply to all Frazers in the project and tell them about their deep ancestry.

FTDNA simply said that Paul’s Haplogroup (estimated SNP) was R-M198. This was further back in the Stone Age and less helpful than Jonathan’s results. For some reason, the combination of STRs did not compute well with FTDNA’s algorithms and they gave a very conservative answer. The good news was that both Jonathan and Paul were R1a which is a fairly rare YDNA for Northwestern Europe.

Jonathan and Paul by STRs

The STRs are the markers used to fingerprint the YDNA. According to Paul’s match list, Jonathan and Paul differ by a GD of 3. Now a GD is not a swear, it is something called Genetic Distance. It is simply how far off the markers are from another set of markers. So out of the 37 markers tested, there were 3 differences between the markers of Jonathan and Paul. The R-M512 is Jonathan and the R-M196 below is Paul. Can anyone spot the 3 differences?

I had to look very closely at the screen. The first difference between the 2 Frazer lines is at the fourth STR. Jonathan has a 10 and Paul has an 11. The other differences are on the right. 3 from the right end we see Jonathan with a 35-38 and Paul with a 35-40. The difference between 38 and 40 is 2 accounting for 2 of the 3 GDs. All of these positions have names.

Again a bit of an eye strain, but the differences between Jonathan and Paul are at DYS391 and CDY. Notice that these STRs have different colors. That is because the different STRs mutate at different rates. The red STRs have faster mutation rates. The blue ones change more slowly. The differences in the blues just represent different levels of testing. The higher the number of STRs tested, the lighter, the color of blue. So CDY where there was a GD of 2 is a fast moving STR. One would expect this would be where there would be a difference of 2 if there was to be one. The other marker of DYS391 is a slower mover. However, each STR has a published mutation rate. I have seen published rates for DYS391 that are faster than DYS385 which is shown as a fast mover. So there is more than meets the eye.

FTDNA’s TiP Report

FTDNA has a tool called the TiP Report. This is another mechanized way to estimate how closely you are related to a YDNA match. First, here are Paul’s YDNA matches:

I left out the tester’s names on the left. These are Paul’s 4 YDNA matches. He has fewer matches than Jonathan. Perhaps this is because he has a more unusual combination of STRs. Paul’s first 2 matches have a GD of 3, the last 2 have a GD of 4. That is why they are further down on Paul’s match list. When I run the TiP Report, this is what I get for Jonathan and Paul.

This works out well, as our best guest is that Paul and Jonathan should have a common ancestor 8 generations ago. Given that, FTDNA thinks there is a 44% chance of Archibald, born around 1690 as being the common ancestor of these two. Hey, it could happen. FTDNA takes into account the speed of the mutations mentioned above, but as I mentioned above, there are differing opinions as to which mutation rates to use.

R1a1a Project Administrator to the Rescue

When I had my own Hartley R1b YDNA a while back, I found the Project Administrator to be dedicated, intelligent and helpful. So I didn’t hesitate to join Paul to the R1a and Subclades Project as soon as I got home from New Hampshire as I had a feeling that the Administrators would have some good advice and information. I was surprised to get an email the next day from Martin from the Netherlands. He had written Joanna and myself and had some recommendations. Part of what he had was generic for the L664 group. Part of what he had to say was specific to Jonathan’s and Paul’s YDNA results.

The Reveal

I had promised a reveal. And the answer is…. [Break for commercial] Yes, they are related. Based on Martin’s expert opinion, he was able to determine that both Jonathan and Paul were from the L664 group. I had mentioned in my last blog that Jonathan appeared to be in the process of being placed in an L664 Group. I counted and there were 61 different L664 groups, so quite a few. Here’s where Martin’s experience came in. He could tell without testing for L664 that Jonathan and Paul were L664. Here is part of the standard L664 introductory email:

Because your haplotype shows DYS388=10 this means you are part of the subclade 2. (North-Western European Branch). For all other members of haplogroup R1a1 the value of DYS388 is nearly always 12, this means DYS388=10 is an unique marker for our subclade 2. This subclade 2. is further identified by the SNP’s CTS4385 and L664.

So back on the STRs above. DYS388 looks like the 7th marker. Actually it is the 8th as one marker before it is a double marker. Your will see that both Jonathan and Paul have a value of 10 there. This is the marker that sets the Frazers apart. Further I responded to Martin’s email and he wrote back:

I think both Frazers must be related because their STR-haplotypes are very rare in Ireland.

This is why I was surprised at the initial results from Jonathan: due to the unusual YDNA type he had. However, I’m glad that Paul matched him. I found this statement also interesting:

It is very remarkable that nearly all members of R1a1-CTS4385 (about 97%) have their origin only in the countries around the North Sea (British Isles, Norway/Sweden, Denmark, NW-Germany, Netherlands). The subclade R1a1-CTS4385 is represented by only 0,2 – 0,9% of the total population in the countries around the North Sea.

For clarification, R1a1-CTS4385 is the branch of the Frazer Tree above L664, so essentially the same thing. So L664 is rare, but rare can be good in identifying relatives. Here’s the North Sea for us geographically-challenged Americans:

One point of putting this map up is that Ireland does not border on the North Sea. If L664 types are 0.2-0.9% around the North Sea, they must be quite a bit less in Ireland. But how did these ancestors make their way from the circumference of the North Sea to North Roscommon. The answer to that question could lend or take away credence from some family traditions linking the Frazers to the Highland Clan Fraser of Lovat.

More On L664?

Nah, that’s enough for now. There will be more time later.

What Did I Learn?

The YDNA testing answer to whether the Archibald and James Lines are related was not as simple as I thought it would be. It took some digging and Project Administrator expertise to find the answer.
The 2 Frazer Lines are indeed related. This adds to family lore, older research and the Elphin Census of 1749 which shows the 2 families plus a third widow family living in Aghrafinigan, County Roscommon.
The 2 Frazer Lines as seen in the YDNA results have not changed from the time of the common ancestors. That is, other than expected minor mutations that occur in the STRs over time on a regular basis.
This strengthens the case for our autosomal matches between the 2 lines being just that (as well as being matches between related families).
It looks like we are on the right track with no skeletons in the closet
Asking whether 2 early 1700 men were brothers should be too much to ask of DNA results.
I am thankful for all those who have tested their YDNA in the past and provided information for YDNA trees which can be used today.
I am also appreciative of dedicated and talented Haplogroup Administrators.
A lot of other stuff, but I don’t want to be that boring right now. Wait until later.

November 11, 2015April 13, 2017

Frazer Y DNA: Part 2

My first blog on Frazer Y DNA was called Why Test the Y? In that Blog, I introduced the concepts of STRs, SNPs and discussed some of Jonathan’s initial test results. Jonathan is the only male Frazer direct line descendant that has YDNA results so far. As such, we are assuming that his results apply to all Frazers. I’m not putting all my eggs in one basket, so I have had my second cousin, once removed, Paul, take a YDNA test also to confirm Jonathan’s results. A match should show that Jonathan from the James Line of the Frazers and Paul of the Archibald Line are most likely brothers. It would also show an unbroken line from these early 1700’s brothers to these 2 modern day male Frazers.

Joanna posted Jonathan’s results on the Fraser and Septs web page where anyone who has the remotest inkling of being a Fraser has posted their DNA results.

However, as it turns out, there are not many Frasers/Frazers with the brand of YDNA that Jonathan has. Jonathan’s brand is R1a which took a Northern European route to Scotland – perhaps via Vikings. The majority of those in the Fraser group are R1b. These people took the Southern European route out of SW Asia to get to Scotland. As the common ancestor of these 2 is probably in the 10,000 year range, you can see we are not closely related to the R1b. However, there were two other Frazers in the R1a group. They are a Frazer and a Frazier. Interestingly they both have a ‘Z’ in their names, so that was encouraging.

The R1a Project

The Frazer and Sept Group has about 1879 members. The R1a Project has 4390 members. I asked Joanna, Jonathan’s sister, to make sure that Jonathan was in the R1a Project. She did that as soon as she got back from a visit to France. R1a administrators would be able to further classify Jonathan. Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) had Jonathan as a R-M512. This is what they are sure he would test out if he had done a SNP test. This was based on the 37 STR YDNA test that Jonathan had. 37 STRs is a pretty basic level. 12 STRs and then 25 used to be the basic level. This R-M512 designation gets us up to about 6,000 years ago. It’s better than 10,000 years, but still not very helpful. At that point Jonathan’s ancestors were roaming around Asia according to the map below.

Above is the new R1a Tree which has changed since my last blog on YDNA of less than a month ago. Notice that M512 is actually 6,500 B.C. and R1a goes all the way back to 16,000 B.C.! Let’s see if we can get Jonathan out of Stone Age Asia.

So, What is Jonathan’s New Classification?

People who are skilled at looking at the STRs can determine, based on the results, a better estimate of where Jonathan should be on the SNP tree. Each SNP can have a signature STR which can be determined by spreadsheet or a skilled interpreter. This interpreter would also be able to recommend focused SNP testing to get further down the YDNA R1a Tree. Previously, when I looked at Jonathan’s results, it said something like, “Awaiting Classification”. Now it looks like this:

The note in red now says, “L664 results ready for classification”. My interpretation of this is that the administrators took Jonathan out of the unclassified bin and put him with the L664’s. They will then likely separate him into the group of L664’s where he best fits.

An Unexpected L664 – Is This Right?

First the good news. L664 is about 3,000 B.C. So that moved Jonathan up 3,500 years and got him out of the Stone Age. Not bad. The shocker is that L664 is Germanic. From the R1a Tree above, I would’ve assumed that the Frazers were more in the Z284 Branch. These are the Norsemen on the R1a Chart. Below this branch is seen the Scots. However, the Germanic L664 did migrate North to Scandinavia, so the results apparently are the same. How we got there was different than expected. Note on the map, some of the L664’s made their way to SE Britain. This could have been a less likely path to Scotland.

What’s Next?

We’ll wait to make sure the L664 designation was correct. Then we’ll see on what branch of the L664 Jonathan is. I expect in a month, we will have Paul’s YDNA results. I am eagerly awaiting those results.

I wonder if the other 2 R1a’s in the Fraser and Septs project (Frazer and Frazier) are also L664. If they had uploaded their results to the R1a project, perhaps we would know the answer to that question.