Research for the family history of the Frazers in Ireland has been going on for at least 60 years. Recently DNA testing has been used to supplement that paper research. Documented Frazers in my line brings us back to 1749 where 3 Frazers were living in the northern part of County Roscommon in Aghrafinigan.
The 3 Frazers were heads of households and their names were Archibald, James and the widow Mary. In the map above, the Townland is called Agharafinigan. In the Census of 1749, the Townland is called Ahrefinican.
My goals in using autosomal DNA are the following:
- Verify whether the 2 Frazer lines of Archibald and James are related
- Verify the existing paper genealogy
- Find new Irish Frazer relatives and confirm existing ones
I had originally thought that goal number 1 would require the use of YDNA testing which tests only the male line. I believe that the autosomal testing has already answered that question.
Goal #2 involves the analysis of the autosomal DNA using a process called triangulation. If there are 3 people who have tested who are not closely related and they all match each other on the same segment of a Chromosome, then they would have a common ancestor or ancestral couple. Here is an example of triangulation shown on a spreadsheet on Chromosome 1.
| Chr | Start Location | End Location | Centimorgans (cM) | SNPs | Match |
| 1 | 205,319,654 | 237,417,351 | 43.7 | 8,565 | HHM/Jane |
| 1 | 222,994,591 | 230,852,310 | 8.4 | 2165 | HHM/BR |
| 1 | 223,053,736 | 230,852,310 | 8.4 | 2,140 | BR/Jane |
Here is what the Chromosome 1 match looks like from my sisters perspective as per gedmatch.com:
On the right in yellow is my sister’s match to Jane and the blue on the right is her match to BR who is Bill Richards.
This represents 3 people who match each other on Chromosome #1. These 3 people all have traced their ancestry through the Archibald line. From what we can tell, they all have as a common couple:
Archibald Frazer b. about 1743 and
Mary Lilley
Now the interesting thing is that this couple is 7 generations away from my sister Heidi. However, based on the size of the match she has with Jane Fraser, gematch.com interprets her common ancestors as being about 4 generations away. This could be because my sister and I have 3 different Frazers in our lineage. This would make the relationship seem closer than it really is. Also I don’t know for sure if this match represents Archibald Frazer or Mary Lilley.
Another Triangulation Group
There is a similar Triangulation Group found in Chromosome 12. I sometimes find these Triangulation Groups in pairs. This makes sense as each one could represent one of the analogous ancestral couple. I expect this match represents the half of the couple that wasn’t represented in Chromosome 1, namely Archibald Frazer or Mary Lilley. It looks a lot like the Chromosome 1 Group except it has a few more people in it. It has as before, my sister Heidi, Jane Fraser and Bill Richards. In addition there is myself, an Irish Frazer descendant from Canada and at least 2 other people who likely don’t know they are related. I had contacted the Irish Frazer descendant from Canada early on. He has an ancestor named James Frazer who gave birth to a John Fraser in Enniskillen in County Fermanagh in 1832. So who is this James Frazer of Enniskillen?
Above is a representation of research that was done over 60 years ago. These are the sons of the the Archibald Frazer and Mary Lilley. Under Richard, there is a James with no other information. He would be a candidate for this James of Enniskillen.
Well I’m tired of writing. There is much more that can be addressed in future blogs. This represents 4 known Frazer descendants from the Archibald line that have tested. Plus one person who is unsure that he is from this line – although DNA shows he is related in some way. There are many others who have tested who are also from the James line and others who have had their DNA tested who may not know they are even related.
Joel Hartley