Summary of Frazer Triangulation Groups

Here I will attempt to summarize the Frazer Triangulation Groups (TGs). Not all the Frazer TGs in the World. I will be looking at just the Frazer TGs from this Project.

How to Organize TGs?

In organizing the TGs for this Project, I have a lot of options:

• In the order they were found
• In the order of chromosomes
• By family
• By level of relationship

And the answer is: by level of relationship. This perhaps isn’t as intuitive as by family. I would like to look at the closer relationships first and then those that are not as close. The reason I would like to do this is that the closer relationships are the most certain ones and the TGs representing the further out relationships would be the less certain. It is generally a good idea to go from the known to the unknown (or certain to less certain).

Unfortunately, I started out looking at level of relationship, but it seems too disjointed. I’ll organize this blog by order of chromosomes, but consider the relationship levels as I go.

Frazer DNA Project Participants

At a certain point, TGs are not needed. For example, I form a TG with my 2 siblings. The common ancestors are my 2 parents. Now if my parents were unknown, the TG would be more useful. Perhaps a look at the relationships that we have in the project would be useful. First, who is in the project? The core of the project are those that have built out Frazer genealogies and are related by genealogy and DNA. A second group is related by DNA and have a Frazer ancestor from the area of North Roscommon, Ireland, but can’t really place that ancestor. The third group is related by DNA but don’t even know of a Frazer ancestor or perhaps even an Irish ancestor.

We have:

• 27 Testers – These are split into the 2 Frazer Lines of 14 Archibald Line testers and 13 James Line testers
• 9 of the Archibald Line Testers have multiple Frazer ancestors

Frazer Chromosomes By the Number

Chromosome 1 – The Triangulation Super Group

I call this a super group for a few reasons. It was the first one found. It was very easy to find due to the large matches that made it seem obvious.

TG 1A: Violet frazer b. 1803 tg – Third Cousin level

This TG is thought to represent Violet Frazer who was married to James Frazer. I’ve guessed that the TG was specifically for Violet as she is the daughter of Richard Frazer and this TG is also in the middle of a Richard Frazer TG. She is my third great grandmother.

Here my sister Heidi (HHM), my second cousin Paul, once removed Paul (PF), Bill and his Aunt Gladys are in a TG. We all descend from Violet Frazer as well as James Frazer her husband. Each of these 4 people are related to the other three in overlapping areas of Chromosome 1. That is what makes up the TG.

TG 1B: The richard frazer tg on chromosome 1 (4th Cousins)

Here I have widened the net a bit to include others that are out at about the 4th cousin level with a common ancestor of Richard Frazer born about 1777:

Note at the bottom, I added Bill, Gladys and Pat. These last 2 entries are not part of the TG. At this point, it is likely that other factors took over. One possibility is that this could represent the Price DNA that Bill, Gladys and Pat share. Note that the TG stops at 230.2 and the possible Price DNA starts at about 230.7. This is what is called a crossover point. If Michael or Jane were mapping their DNA, they could map a fairly large slice to Richard Frazer on this Chromosome.

TG 1C: the third TG at chromosome 1 – out to the mid 1700’s

There is yet another TG on Chromosome 1. This one is out to Archibald Frazer b. 1743 and his wife Mary Lilley. Now we have a solid chain of evidence. I have mapped my sister Heidi’s DNA to our grandmother Marion Frazer, b. 1894. We know Paul and our family have a common ancestor of George Frazer b. about 1838. We have a Triangulation Group identified for Violet Frazer b. 1803. We have a TG for Richard Frazer, her father. Then we go one step further out.

In this old TG, we have Jane (US), Vivien (AUS) and Michael (UK).

I find this quite interesting. A few points:

• How do I know that Jane, Michael and Vivien are matching as shown and not as part of the Frazer/Stinson Line on the right? This is because Jane is in the Richard Frazer TG as well as this TG. She is the bridge between the two TGs.
• This shows that Michael, Jane and Vivien could have matched as 4th cousins (and probably do on the Frazer/Stinson Line) But on Chromosome 1, they are matching here as 5th cousins. This gets to the Frazer endogamy discussed in my recent Blog.
• Note that Vivien’s 5th cousin matches with Jane and Michael above are smaller, indicating a more distant relationship. This does not always hold true as also note that there are small matches with Gladys and her family representing a 3rd cousin level relationship. A smaller match at a closer relationship can be due to the DNA crossovers that I mentioned earlier.
• I mentioned that there is a sort of chain of custody going back to Archibald Frazer and Mary Lilley. Now that we know that, there is also a chain of Frazers going from top to bottom. That means that because we know the same DNA came down, that the middle TG represents Richard Frazer and not his unknown wife. Likelwise, the newer TG represents Violet Frazer, daughter of Richard and not James Frazer who was Violet’s husband.

Chromosome 4 – Two TGs

TG 4A

Here is a problem. There are really two TGs here. One is for Bill, Gladys and Pat. The second has Jane, Gladys and Bill. Then there are Ros and Vivien who don’t appear to fit in the TG. The first larger TG is easy. That is just for the common ancestor of Gladys, Bill and Pat who is George Frazer b. 1858. The second one is more difficult. This is because Jane, Bill, Gladys and Pat all are believed to descend from the same two lines. Now note that Ros and Vivien have a small match to each other. Let’s assume that is a valid match even though it is quite small. If that is the case, then this TG 4A would have to be on the Richard Line and not the Frazer/Stinson Line. However, due to TG 4B, this could also be a Frazer/Stinson TG.

TG 4B – The Frazer/Stinson line

TG 4B is easier to figure out.

I have noted before that Doug (DV) has very few matches but he has made them count by being in a Triangulation Group. Also note that Michael (MFA) and Jane should be 4th cousins, not 4C, 1R as I show above. Here is how their  Chromosome 4 TG looks on our genealogy chart:

TG 7 – Does This Represent the First Frazer in Ireland – Born Around 1690?

I mentioned this TG last month in a blog called A New Frazer TG and a New Gedmatch Tool. This is the only known TG with someone from the James Line and the only known TG between the James Line and the Archibald Line.

Janet is from the James Line. Michael and Vivien are from the Archibald Line. I need to pull out the big chart for this one. Note that Michael descends from 2 Frazer Lines, so he is included twice.

Here is how the TG matches look on the Frazer DNA relationship chart:

• The blue matches are the 2 places where Michael could match Janet and Vivien. He only matches once, but we can’t tell which.
• The match between Janet and Vivien is in red as they only had one known chance to match by DNA.
• The area within the square are the matches between the Archibald and James Line of Frazers. In that box there are 13 James Line people related to 26 Archibald Line People. That is a potential of 338 matches. There were actually only 2 matches in our TG. That represents about 0.6% of the possible matches between the Archibald and James Lines.
• The matches to the left of that box are Archibald line matches. The 2 blue matches in that area are the 2 places where Michael and Vivien could match each other.
• The matches below the box are James Line only matches.
• Michael and Vivien would be related to Janet by 6th cousin once removed under this scenario.
• There is also a possibility that they could be just 6th cousins. This is because the box in the top left representing an additional Archibald on the genealogy chart was added to try to make better sense of dates. However, if that person does not belong there, the relationships will be slightly closer. This would result in the whole left side (Archibald Line) moving up a step with respect to the right side (James Line).
• Another option is that these three may be triangulating on a collateral Line. That is, a line that married into the Frazers. However, as we are all descended from the Frazer line, I would tend to go with the Frazer option first.

TG 8 – A Double TG

Here is another case where we have a chain of custody so to speak. We will start with the newer TG, which in fact is not that new.

TG 8a with Bill, gladys and vivien

Here are the three in this TG on the Archibald/Stinson Chart:

That was the easy one. TG 8B is a little more difficult to see.

TG 8B – Archibald frazer and mary lilley

Here I zoom out a bit on my previous chart. That previous chart is just the right hand side of the chart below.

Look at all the chances to match by DNA. My guess here is that Paul is matching Bill from the left hand blue line where to the right hand yellow line. The reason I think that is:

• The earlier TG that Paul was not in was through the Frazer/Stinson Line on the right.
• Michael and Jane are not matching with Vivien. Michael and Jane are not in Paul’s blue line on the left.

Confusing? Yes.

Chromosome 12 TG – Back To the Richard Frazer Line

Here is a double TG also. TG 12A would have as common ancestors James Frazer and Violet Frazer b. in the early 1800’s. TG 12B is Richard Frazer b. about 1777 who was the father of Violet Frazer. So that means that TG 12A should only include Violet Frazer.

• TG 12A has Joel, Heidi, Sharon, Bill and Gladys
• TG 12B has the above plus Jane and David (DF) from Canada.
• Cathy, Ros and Vivien  have DNA in the same areas of Chromosome 12, but don’t match the others in this Richard Frazer TG. Their DNA is perhaps from another Frazer line or a collateral line (perhaps a spouse of one of the Frazers).

TG 18: Back to the Archibald/Stinson Line

That’s last TG that I see for now. This could be a Parker TG as we have no proof that it is specifically a Frazer TG. If there was another TG on Chromosome 18 to the Frazer/Stinson Line, that would prove that the TG above would have to be a Frazer TG.

Summary by the Numbers

This chart shows the TGs by Chromosome. GBP means Generations before Present. I used the people in blue for this number as they were a little closer to the common ancestors than the others. The cousin level used was also for the people in blue. For example, I am 2nd cousin once removed with my cousin Paul, because I am one generation further away from Violet Frazer than he is.

• This chart above shows 11 TGs
• This represents 7 groups of TGs as there are 2 purple groups (TG01 and TG12) and one green group (TG08) with overlapping TGs.
• The chart shows that 14 people from the project are in TGs 45 times.
• As expected, the people in blue are usually in TGs more than the ones that aren’t. Bill was an exception to that rule.
• The people that have more than one Frazer ancestor are more likely to be in the TGs. Vivien was an exception to that rule.
• The first purple group contains 3 overlapping TGs. As these TGs go back to an early Frazer, we expect that the middle TG is for Richard Frazer and not his unknown wife. Likewise, the later TG is for Violet Frazer, Richard’s daughter and not for James Frazer, Violet’s husband.
• TG04A is not colored in, because I can’t tell which line the TG is for. In addition, I can’t tell if the TG is for a Frazer or the spouse.
• TG04B, I can tell that the TG is for the Frazer/Stinson Line, but I can’t tell if the TG is for the Frazer or Stinson Line.
• TG08A I can tell that the TG is for Archibald Frazer b. about 1778 and not his wife, because there is an overlapping TG for Archibald Frazer’s parents
• TG18 I don’t have colored in, because I can’t tell if the TG is for Archibald Frazer or his wife Catherine Parker.

Here is the same chart sorted from newer TG to older TG:

This basically shows that most of the TGs that have been found for this Project are at about 5 generations before present or at the 3rd cousin level.

Things Learned About TGs

• A critical mass of testers is needed to form a TG.
• TGs are formed more easily when people have more than one Frazer in their ancestry
• For overlapping Frazer TGs we can tell that the newer Frazer TGs have to be for Frazers also and not the spouses’ lines.
• An Archibald Line/James Line TG seemed improbable due to the distance of relationship of the matches. However, that seems to have been overcome by the sheer mass of potential matches (338).