Category: Butler Autosomal DNA

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Anastasia and Adam Butler Born Around 1800 Wexford, Ireland

I have interest in Anastasia and Adam Butler based on my wife’s Butler genealogy.

Anastasia ThruLines

One Butler researcher supposed that the father of Anastasia was George Butler. This is reflected in the ThruLines for my wife’s late Aunt Lorraine:

I am not sure how my Butler researcher friend came up with George as the ancestor. However, it appears that Henry Butler named his first son George. Adam was also a popular name. Henry mentions that George is also known as Adam in the baptismal record:

We know Adam better as George who moves to Cincinnati, Ohio.

Here is Lorraine’s late sister VIrginia’s ThruLines:

Adam Butler’s Connection

Here is part of my Butler DNA Tree:

Again, I am not sure of the George at the top. That could also be an Adam Butler.

I found James as a shared match with someone on the right side of the tree (not shown) named Patty. I found Marie from a match at MyHeritage. Now, if I know the first male child of Adam and the second male child of Anastasia, I may have a good guess as to who the father of Adam and Anastasia were.

The Genealogy – Patrick and Will Back to Anastasia Butler

It looks like I may have not connected these trees in my Ancestry Tree. I will need to do this properly. I will create a floating tree for Patrick. Here is his tree on his paternal side:

The Hanrahan (nee Butler) should be Anty or Anastasia. Perhaps the tree has been changed. I will start with Patrick’s father Will as he is a match also. I suspect the jump from England back to Ireland could be difficult. I am not easily finding records for Will’s father, so I will assume that Will knew who his grandparents were. I will accept the Ancestry hints as they are what Will has. Here is a bit of detail from the Evening Express on Adam dated 20 December 1934:

Poor Adam died at the age of 49. Here is Bootle:

Here is the marriage of Adam and Bridget:

In 1901, Adam is living with his Uncle William who was a widower:

Here is the previous page of the 1901 Census:

This Census leads me to believe that Richard and William were brothers and Uncles of Adam, but that also seems to contradict Adam’s wedding record.

However, Will’s tree has William as Adam’s father. Here is an 1891 Census that has a William Hanrahan with a Thomas as a father:

I do see that the Adam’s marriage record has his father as William and his mother as Margaret.

In 1911, Adam is in a Royal Naval Hospital:

Here is Adam in 1921:

Now Adam is out of work and living in the house of his Aunt Anastasia who was born in Wexford, Ireland.

Here is a birth for Adam William Hanrahan in the 2nd quarter of 1887:

The three likely siblings are:

  • Anastasia – 64 in 1921 (widow) so likely born in Wexford in 1857
  • William – 37 in 1901 (widower) so likely born in 1864 said to be Liverpool
  • Richard – 40 in 1901, married to Margaret so liikely born in 1961 in Liverpool

I see the mistake I made. Adam is listed as Anastasia’s nephew which does not rule out his being William’s son. In fact as Adam is listed under WIlliam, that likely indicates that he is William’s son. Good.

This record gives the family name of William’s wife:

Here is the family in 1881:

William is now born in Ireland.

This is an update on my floating tree:

The proposed father ot Adam is Richard and I did find a Richard on one of the Census records above.

The death record for Adam broadens his birth range:

This looks like Adam’s Marriage in Wexford:

Here is an interesting birth record:

I don’t imagine that Sidon is a proper name, so Adam could be correct.

The writing is quite poor. The A of Adam is going into the crack of the page. Here we are, finally to Anty or Anastasia Butler.

This is the information I can easily glean from Ancestry:

Anastasia has a son Adam which may or may not reflect her father’s name. I am interested in when Anastasia was born, but that information appears to be missing:

Perhaps Anastasia married around 1825.

Catholic Parish Registers at the NLI

I found this:

I’m not sure if Anne Butler is related. Mary Sinnott is standing in for her. Recall that George Butler of Cincinnati married a Margaret Sinnott as his second wife after first having a child with her out of wedlock before his first marriage.

More importantly on the same page, I found on the same page:

Anty’s maid of honor or whatever was Eleanor Lambert and Richard’s was Adam – perhpas his brother?

Here is my Butler DNA tree again:

Notice I have an Adam Butler married to Magaret Lambert.

Not too long after:

Henry’s best man is Martha? Well, witness.

A possible relative:

Going back to 1821:

How Does Neil Fit In?

Neil is a perfect match at 37 STRs on a YDNA test:

However, the 37 test is a low level test and not very accurate. Neil lists his ancestor as Richard Butler born in 1817 in Wexford.

In an email from 2 years ago, Neil says he has a match to Marie at 23.2 vM. Marie also matches my wife’s late Aunt Lorraine:

Here is Marie on my Butler DNA Tree:

Marie has this paternal side tree:

Marie has a shared match with Lorraine named Kerrie. Here is Kerrie’s maternal side tree:

Kerrie’s great-grandmother is listed as Mary Butler. Now I need another floating tree for Kerrie. Here are Kerrie’s grandmother with parents and siblings in 1926:

Here is Mary in 1901 with her parents and siblings:

This Walter is in Marie’s tree. Unfortunately, I do not have Marie’s tree in my tree. Poor Walter gets squeezed to the bottom of the page in May of 1854:

I would not like to make a guess as to the sponsors.

Some nice person posted a photo of Wexford:

I don’t know how many Walter Butlers were roaming around Wexford at the time, but this is likely Walter:

Here is Walter Butler’s father’s marriage:

Catherine is born in November 1856:

I have seen the name Wade around.

Richard’s baptismal record is not clearly written:

The Ancestry hint does not match my Butler DNA Tree:

However, this hint appears to be from County Roscommon.

From here, I can add in children:

This is George born 1822. I did have an Anne Butler marriage shown above in this Blog.

Adam and Margaret make the bottom of the page for their June 1815 wedding:

At this point, I have two Adam Butlers in my tree, so I need to combine them.

This appears to be a mistake:

I take this to be Margaret, not Mary Lambert.

I don’t know how old Adam was when he got married, but if he was 25, he would be born in 1790.

I was trying to show that Adam, Anastasia and Henry named their children a certain way to show who their father was:

Adam’s first son appears to be Richard, which favors the name of Richard for his father. Also recall that there are gaps in the Baptismal Records for Wexford Town during this time period:

That means that it could be difficult to trace Adam further back. That being the case, it will be necessary to infer the parents names by the naming patterns of the children and by DNA matches. Once likely parents’ names are found, then it may be possible to find marriages for those names.

Normally, I would add Kerrie to my Butler DNA tree, but that tree is on my desktop and I am on my laptop which only has an older version of that tree.

Kerrie descends from Mary Butler.

Kerrie is three generations down from Mary Butler born in 1886, so would be on a level with James.

Kerrie’s DNA

The DNA that Lorraine and Kerrie share should represent their two common ancestors. These, right now would be George Butler and his wife. However, I believe that George could have also been an Adam.

The DNA that these two share is on Chromosome 4:

Here is the match that I have between Marie and Lorraine currently believed to represent the DNA of George Butler or his wife:

Next, I will add in the DNA from Kerrie:

Notice that the matches between Lorrain and Kerrie and Lorraine and Marie do not overlap. However, Lorraine’s matche with Kerrie overlaps with her match with James who I have descending from George Butler (identified in green on DNA Painter). The overlap in DNA matches is significant as it shows triangulation. Triangulation is virtual proof that these matches share a common set of ancestors.

Summary and Conclusions

  • From previous DNA and genealogical research, I have proposed that Adam, Anastasia and Henry Butler are siblings
  • I had this relationship represented in my Butler DNA tree but not in my genealogical tree at Ancestry
  • I added the Adam Butler Line to my Tree at Ancestry
  • I focused on a match that I did not have in my Butler DNA tree. Kerrie shared a DNA match with my wife’s late Aunt Lorraine.
  • I added that match to Lorraine’s DNA profile as DNA from their common ancestor believed to be George or Adam Butler.
  • The Match between Lorraine and Kerrie overlapped with a match Lorraine had with James from the same Adam Butler line. This represents a sure sign of a pair of common ancestors. It also indicates that DNA would be from one of those two ancestors but does not indicate which one.
  • More work needs to be done identifying DNA matches and cataloguing the genealogical connection between those matches.
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Butler DNA and the 1880 Census

I have been having a good working relationship with my wife’s niece Tina. She has been enthusiastically looking at the Butler genealogy that I have been looking at for many years. Before me, my wife’s Aunt Lorraine has been looking at the genealogy. Unfortunately, she had picked one of the wrong Edward Butlers’ death records which threw me off the track for many years. Tina picked up on the mistake which has helped a lot.

The 1880 Census

As I mentioned in my previous Blog, Tina also found the Butler familly in the 1880 Census. I had them in the 1860 and 1870 Census in Cincinnati. I had them in the Boston areas based on City Directories, but I could not find the family. Tina found them transcribed as Edward Butter and family. Here are the parents at the bottom of the page listed at Friend Street, Boston:

I am sure I have walked down Friend Street near North Station many times and not realized my wife’s 2nd great-grandfather and family lived there.

Tina has questions about the two sons in the 1880 Census:

I believe that both sons were born in the Chicago, Illinois area as shown on the marriage and death records. However, we have not been able to find their birth records. Assuming they were both born in Illinois and the parents should show as the father born in Ireland and the mother born in N.B. (New Brunswick). However, that is not the case.

  • The elder son George shows that he was born in Illinois and that his father and mother wAunere born in Ireland where the mother should be born in New Brunswick.
  • Son #2, Edward shows as born in New Brunswick where he should show Illinois and his parents are shown correctly as being from Ireland and New Brunswick.

To me, that was a simple slip up by the enumerator. Tina, however, feels that this means that the two sons had a different mother. And that Edward was indeed born in New Brunswick. She seemed to think that her DNA results corroborated this view as she shows as a 1/2 third cousin to a George Butler Descendant.

Edward and George Butler DNA

It should be easy to look at matches between the Edward Butler and George Butler descendants to see if this is the case. I have in the past taken DNA samples of my wife’s two Aunts: Lorraine and Suzy. Ancestry gives ranges of likely relationships given the DNA matches. I can put those matches into a spreadsheet and see what comes out. I also have access to my wife’s DNA results.

Aunt Lorraine

Aunt Lorraine has 7 matches to known descendants of George Butler:

Here are the first three matches:

 

These all show as 1/2 relationships which seems to support Tina’s theory, but that often happens when Ancestry is unsure of relationships. I do not take these literally in most cases.

Here is the relationship to H.O:

Here is a predictor from the Shared cM Project 4.0:

Here I have highlighted what I think the relationship should be and what Tina thinks it is. This first match supports the 1/2 2C1R. One for Tina!

Another interesting thing is that Ancestry has 25% of a 1/2 relationship and a 7% chance of a full relationship whereas the Shared cM Project Relationship predictor has 12% and 4% respectively. For my spreadsheet, I used the Shared cM Project Relationship Predictor as it was easier to use.

Here is my spreadsheet:

By the time I fill it all in, I should know if the DNA is saying that George and Edward were full brothers or half brothers.

Here is the Lorraine filled in for what she has a ThruLines:

 

I plugged in the predicted relationship as above and where the 1/2 relationship was more likely than the full relationship, I chose that. This was the case for all of Lorraine’s ThruLine matches. There are other matches, but these are the matches with trees. This matches with what Tina says she is seeing with her DNA results. This makes me more convinced with what Tina is saying but not completely yet until I look at Suzy and Marie. Lorraine may have inherited less of the George side DNA for some reason.

Aunt Suzy AKA Virginia

Aunt Suzy also has 7 matches to the George H Butler side:

However, her matches are much larger. Now the tables have turned:

For H.O. and Suzy, there is a 50% chance they have a 2C1R relationship and 7% chance of a half 2C1R relationship.

The results are not totally convincing for Aunt Suzy:

More matches suggest the full relationship, but Lorraine’s result strongly favor the 1/2 relationship. One thing the chart does not represent is how strongly the match favors a half or full relationship. However, that would be more difficult to show and evaluate. For example in Lorrine’s example with H.O., the half relationship was only 12% likely and and the full relationship was 4% likely. I do not know how that compares with Suzy and H.O. where the full relationship was 50% likely and the 1/2 relationship was 7% likely.

Marie

Marie would have to have a lot of full relationships indicated to overturn Lorraine’s results.

Marie only has 2 George Butler side matches and those matches are quite low.

So for 16 matches, 12 favor the 1/2 relationship. To me, that says that there is a 75% chance that George and Edward are half brothers. Still, there is a 25% that they could be full brothers. I think that I would be more convinced if I saw all pink on the chart above.

Still, Tina has a theory and the DNA certainly give more credence to her theory.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I checked the DNA matches between descendants of the George Butler who was born 1872 and my wife and her two Aunts
  • I used the relationship predictor at the Shared cM Project. At the level of relationship, say 2nd cousin 1 removed the predictor would favor a full relationship or 1/2 relationship.
  • I put the results of a full or 1/2 relationship in a spreadsheet. 3 out of 4 DNA matches favored the half relationship. That suggests that it is three times as likely that the George H Butler born 1872 and Edward Henry Butler are half brothers. However, that does not rule out the 25% chance that they were full brothers.

 

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Who Is My Wife’s Cousin Adria?

I recently had a notification that my wife had a close relative match named Adria:

Adria has two Boggy trees and one Butler tree, so I assume the match is on the Butler side:

Fortunately, I had tested my wife’s Aunts before they passed away. When I check the Aunt with the biggest match I see that Adria is likely a grand niece. When I check Lorraine’s shared matches with the closest match to Adria, I find Jasmine:

This could be a short Blog, because the two people icon near Jasmine means that Ancestry likely knows how Lorraine and Jasmine are related:

 

That meansn that the private box above Jasmine must be Adrai. The John Butler above was my wife’s Uncle Jake. Adria apparently lives in Illinois which is perhaps why my wife had lost touch.

Updating Jake

This would be a good time to update Jake in my Anestry tree:

I don’t even have his wife.

I added some information to my Tree. I see now that Jasmine, her mother and grandfather John have all tested at Ancestry. Here is a photo of Uncle Jake from Findagrave:

Summary and Conclusions

  • My wife’s match with Adria was a bit of a mystery at first
  • Shared matches solved that problem as Adria’s daugther Jasmine had a good tree
  • I was able to update my Ancestry tree for John “Jake” Butler and his children, most of whom are still living.

 

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My Wife’s Side Clusters at Ancestry

Ancestry has a new feature which shows clusters of DNA matches. These clusters can represent particular ancestors or ancestral couples. Here are my wife’s clusters:

These clusters are in Beta which means that Ancestry wants to use smaller matches to get more clusters. Right now, the matches go down to only 65 cM and the cross matches go down to 20 cM. My wife’s five clusters are sorted by size starting with the largest one in the top left. This shows that clusters 2, 3, and 5 are related to each other and that clusters 1 and 4 are on their own.

Here are Marie’s paternal clusters:

Here, the red and blue clusters are more related to each other than the orange cluster. Here is one match from the orange cluster:

Marie and Debbie share Butler and Kerivan ancestors.

This is the Irish side of the family. That leaves the red and blue clusters to the French Canadian side of the family. This makes sense as French Canadian genealogy tend to have a lot of matches. As far as the red and blue goes, my assumption is that on favors LeFevre and the other favors Pouliot, but I am not sure which is which. I will look more into my wife’s Aunts’ clusters.

I will look at my wife’s maternal side in a subsequent Blog. This will include Ellis and Upshall.

Aunt Lorraine’s Clusters

Aunt Lorraine has 8 clusters:

Three of Lorraine’s clusters are paternal:

Brian is the most interesting match in the red cluster. He does not show his family tree at Ancestry, but I have the common ancestor here:

This goes back 225 years to Henry Buter and Anne Russel in Wexford, Ireland.

The Blue Cluster

Here is a match from that Cluster:

What is Left for the Teal Cluster?

The teal cluster also has Kerivan and Rooney, so my assumption is that one cluster favors Kerivan and the other Rooney, but I do not know which. It may be possible to tease out which cluster is Rooney and which one is Kerivan with Shared Matches, but it is probably not worth the effort at this point.

Aunt Lorraine’s Maternal Clusters

Here we are in the world of French Canadian ancestry:

It may be easier to start with the small yellow cluster:

If Ancestry has the right common ancestor, this goes back to the year 1800. Another match agrees:

 

My Wife’s Aunt Suzy’s Clusters

This provides a sort of DNA fingerprint for my wife’s late Aunt Suzy. She has 7 clusters. This could roughly represent her 8 great-grandparents.

Here is Suzy’s paternal side:

Emily is in the blue cluster:

I don’t have Emily in my Butler DNA tree. Apparently, I do not have James Alfred Butler in my Ancestry Tree. He should be easy to figure out. From the tree, it appears that Emily Mary married a Butler.

Emily’s Genealogy

Here is the Emily Mary Butler family in 1930:

Emily’s husband, William Butler was a house painter. James Alfred was not likely born yet. Emily has her father’s birth place as Illinois. The family lived in Watertown, Massachusetts. Here is James in 1940:

James is still at home in 1950 working in a plastic factory:

A further revew of information at Ancestry including an obituary for Michael W Butler confirms the connection. I will add Emily to my Butler DNA tree:

Suzy’s Orange and Green Paternal Clusters

A review of a few matches looks like the Orange Cluster is Kerivan/Rooney:

Blue was Butler/Crowley. What does that leave for the green cluster? Turns out that green or teal is also Kerivan/Rooney. So both orange and green are either Kerivan or Rooney, but I am not sure which. That is why there are not many matches between the blue Butler/Crowley and the orange and teal Kerivan/Rooney:

Or more specifically, the areas I have highlighted between blue and teal have no matches. So orange seems to be Kerivan/Rooney with matches to Butler and teal is Kerivan/Rooney with no matches to Butler/Crowleyy descendants.

Suzy’s Maternal Clusters

Here is where things get a little wilder due to the French Canadian Heritage.

Without looking at the names, I see that Cluster 1 and Cluster 3 have no interaction (matching). Cluster 1 and 2 have a lot of matches with each other and Clusters 2 and 3 have a lot.

Suzy’s Cluster 1 – Orange

There are 28 matches in this cluster. 19 show common ancestors. I went through the suggested common ancestors and got these:

The fact that there are two matches that go further up on the LeFevre side indicate to me that this cluster belongs to Edmund LeFevre:

If I am right, then this rules out the Methot Line.

Suzy’s Pink Cluster 2

Here there are only 14 matches. Here is what I show for common ancestors:

Joseph Martin LeFevre marries twice and the last three matches are to the second wife.

Cluster 1 is Edmond LeFevre and Cluster 2 is Joseph Martin LeFevre.

Suzy’s Purple Cluster 3

Unfortunately, I cannot explain these results well:

The only difference between Clusters 1 and 2 are that Cluster 1 has 2 first cousins and that Cluster 3 has a 2nd cousin with a common ancestor of Pouiot/Fortin.

I also find it curious that there are many matches between Clusters 1 and 2 and many between Clusters 2 and 3, but none between Clusters 1 and 3.

Fred’s Tree

I do see one error. I have been in touch with Fred who is an excellent genealogist. He should be related on the Pouliot side. Here is a simple tree I have for Fred:

Aunt Suzy’s birth name was Virginia. That means that Ancestry’s common ancestor was wrong.

Here is Robin’s tree:

She descends from the same Wilfred Joseph Pouliot that Fred does. I will put Robin into my Pouliot DNA Tree:

Here, I’ll also add Belharuk:

Here is what I have:

My assumption is that Ancestry got John’s common ancestors with Suzy wrong also. I could figure out how he fits in, but I will assume that he is a 2C1R with Suzy in the Pouiot/Fortin column. So that was not as easy as I thought. Moral of the story: don’t trust Ancestry’s common ancestors.

Aunt Suzy’s Green Cluster 4

Here there are 5 matches. Four have unlinked trees and one shows a common ancesetor:

Here is the common ancestor match:

A fifth cousin once removed that matches at 100 cM is quite unusual. That common ancestor was based on this tree:

It would take me quite a while to figure out the seven generations of this tree. My reasoning is that the match is on the Fortin/Gagne side:

In summary, this is my best guess for Aunt Suzy’s Maternal Clusters:

  1. Orange Cluster – Edmund LeFevre 1834
  2. Red Cluster – Joseph Martin LeFevre 1873
  3. Purple Cluster – Joseph Pouliot 1848
  4. Green Cluster – Fortin 1804/Gagne

It may help to look at her sister’s clusters. I suppose that can wait for a subsequent Blog.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I looked briefly at my wife’s paternal clusters
  • I then looked at my wife’s paternal Aunt Suzy’s Clusters.
  • I had thought that Aunt Suzy’s maternal French Canadian Clusters would be straightforward, but there were mistakes on the common ancestors for one of those lines. These mistakes were on a line that I have had no previous questions due to my working with a relative who has a great French Canadian Tree.
  • As a result of this Blog, I was able to augment and improve my wife’s paternal side DNA trees.
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Kerivan Matches at Ancestry

I’ll take a look at my wife’s late Aunt Lorraine’s tree first:

Based on the high DNA match, this connection seems likely. Here is my Kerivan DNA tree which needs some work:

This should start with John Kerivan, not Alice Rooney. Also, I need to add Suzy’s siblings Lorraine and Richard. I already have William Kerivan in my Ancestry tree, so this  line should be an easy add. Here are more of Aunt Lorraine’s Kerivan relatives:

Here there are 9 matches and I have four in my Kerivan DNA tree.

William A Kerivan

I ususally do not start from the past and work to the present, but I’ll make an exception here.

Here is the famlly in Needham, Massachusetts in 1880:

The parents are said to be born in Ireland.

Willie was born in 1876 in Needham.

On this record, his father John was said to be born in Newton, MA and his mother in Ireland. Some records have John born in Marblehead. Here is a Census for Salem in 1850 which would support that John was born in that part of Massachusetts:

Note here that son William was a shoe maker. Patrick was born in Ireland, but the apparent chidren were born in Massachusetts. By 1855, the family moves to Needham:

This is surely the same family. I have that Catherine died in 1845, so Mary must be a second wife. Now Ellen is added to the family in 1855. Patrick is shown as born in Ireland.

 

Social Security has William’s wife as Beatrice Curtis:

George F Kerivan

George is mentioned in his father’s obituary:

The obituary for George appears to link him to the John who tested at Ancestry.

This Kerivan Tree is much better, but a proper tree should go back at least to Patrick Kerivan.

ThruLInes for Patrick Kerivan

Here is what Lorraine has. William and Richard P must be in my Ancestry Tree already. We were already introduced to Richard and William the shoemaker in the 1850’s censuses for Salem and Needham.

Joseph and Lorraine

Here a few of the names appear to be misspelled.

I’ll add Joseph to my Ancestry tree as a floating tree and then attach him if the genealogy checks out.  However, already I see that Joseph and Lorraine have a shared match named Robert:

Ancestry thinks that Robert descends from John Kerivan.

Joseph has his father being born in 1949 in Clinton, Iowa. That would mean thta he should be in the 1950 Census.

Next, I have to figure out if Bernadine was in fact a Kerivan.

Here is where some of the strange spelling gets introduced.

William Joseph Kerivan is said to be born in Maine according to the 1920 Census but his father was from Massachusetts:

This William Joseph also married later in life:

I now have this floating tree for Joseph:

However, my non-floating tree has a William and Bridget already:

That means that I need to merge Wm with William and Bridget Kerivan with Bridget Norton.

This is the first step in bringing the Kerivan DNA Tree back a generation.

Manassas and Lorraine

I think that masassas is Francis but I am not sure:

Francis’ mother lived on Maxwell Street in Boston, MA in 1930:

In not too long, my floating tree is at the point that it can be connected:

Now the Kerivan DNA tree is taking shape. DNA and genealogy are bringing back this Irish family.

Summary and Conclusions

  • In this Blog, I updated my Kerivan DNA Tree using my wife’s Aunt Lorraine’s ThruLines
  • The DNA matches give credence to the genealogy and vica versa
  • The many children of Patrik Kerivan makes it easier to trace the DNA matches

 

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More Butler DNA Review and DNA Painter

I need to do some extra review now that I have a new set of ancestors for my wife’s Butler Line. I had previously thought that the immigrant ancestor Edward Butler was the son of Michael Butler and Margaret Croke. This has turned out to be extremely unlikely. A more likely candidate now is Edward, son of Henry Butler and Anne Russel. This man was actually born Adam but went by Edward.

Gedmatch

I had an early match between my late father-in-law Richard Butler and a Murphy descendant from New Brunswick. I can now map his DNA to Richard’s profile at DNAPainter. I have the match’s name as Nathan on my chart:

By the chart, Nathan is Richard’s third cousin twice removed. Here are some expected shared DNA amounts for that relationship:

Here is the match at Gedmatch:

Here is Richard’s DNA Painter map currently:

He shows Kerivan, Rooney and an unknown match. I’ll add in Nathan which represents Henry Butler or Anne Russell’s DNA:

When I do that, I see that I already have Nathan, but listed as an unknown branch. Now that I know that Branch I can make the necessary changes.

Note that there is no light blue bar for the X Chromosome as men do not receive on from their father – only their mother.

Virginia and Butler DNA Matches

I have the same unknown Butler in VIrginia’s DNA Painter profile:

We now know the common Butler ancestral couple to be Henry Butler from Wexford and his wife Anne Russel.

Virginia is Lorraine’s sister and the Henry Butler DNA on Chromosome 4 is shared with James from FTDNA. Fortunately, I made that note on my chart. Also, I was fortunate to find her old FTDNA code in an old address book of mine.

Here is Lorraine’s DNA Painter Profile for comparison:

I should note that the birth years for George Butler and Henry Butler are guesses.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I didn’t find any new DNA matches but I was able to sort out some old ones
  • Previously I was searching for the wrong Edward Butler. This lead me in the wrong direction for DNA matches
  • I now appear to have the right Edward Butler. Previously, I had to fill in ‘unknown Butler Ancestor’ in DNA Painter. Now that I know that the common ancestor is Henry (born Adam) Butler, I am able to fill in the unknown DNA matches using DNA Painter.

 

 

 

 

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Butler Enhanced Shared Matches

Shared enhanced matches is a new feature at Ancestry under their Pro Tools. They are helpful in ferreting out matches or identifying matches with no trees by associating them close matches that do have trees.

In my previous Blog, I looked at the Butler ThruLines for two of my wife’s late aunts. It turns out that recent revisions to the Butler tree have made a lot of my older Blogs obsolete. Here is one of my wife’s Aunt Lorraine’s matches:

Lorraine’s match with Will is interesting as it brings us back an additional generation from what we had. Here are Lorraine and Will’s shared matches:

 

These are shared matches where will also matches Lorraines match by at least 20 cM. There are more matches going down. Virginia is Lorraine’s sister. Barbara descends from Edward Butler and his son George. Brian descends from Edward’s brother George of Cincinnati as does Patty. The blue dots for Charles and Jennifer mean that I have not looked at these matches. There are additional matches not shown above.

This is one way that it could work. Charles is a shared match with Lorraine and Will, but he has no tree posted. I choose Charles to get his shared matches:

 

Charles is in the the second cousin range compared to Bobbi. I know that Bobbi descends from Mary Ann. She was the son of George Butler of Cincinnati. She moved to St. John, New Brunswick and had a family. That means that Charles must be related to the New Brunswick side of the Butler family. In fact, Charles is from Halifax, Nova Scotia:

Here is the relationship between the two places:

Bobbi is on the bottom left of the image above. She is with two other DNA matches from the New Brunswick Branch started by Mary Ann Butler. Mary Ann’s sister Rebecca remained in the Cincinnati area.

Lorraine and Will’s Shared Match Jennifer

Jennifer also has no tree, but I shared match between her and Lorraine does:

Based on other matches, the link is probably on the Kirwin side:

Maureen and Lorraine are related to Michael, but Michael is much more closely related to Maureen:

Michael’s 2nd great-grandfather was from Waterford:

This may be the connection. I believe that Maureen and family are from New Jersey.

Lorraine and Patty’s Shared Match List

Patty is one of Lorraine’s biggest matches from the Cincinnati Branch:

Jeremiah is the first on page 2 of Lorraine and Patty’s Shared Match List, but he is already on my Butler DNA/Genealogy Chart. James is someone new. Here is James’ Family Tree on his maternal side:

I see three Butlers. Richard Butler was from Wexford and Adam Butler is a name that comes up in the new Butler genealogy. This is worth tracking, so I’ll create my own tree for James focusing in on the Butler connection. Even better, I contacted a Butler relative in England and he assures me that his tree is right for the Butler part.

Here is James added to the Butler DNA/Genealogy Chart:

Here are the shared connections by DNA:

 

A Peek at MyHeritage

Lorraine has a match with Marie at MyHeritage:

Marie’s tree has some familiar names:

I’ve added Marie to my Butler Chart:

I didn’t check Marie’s tree, but I’m guessing that it is right. One good thing about MyHeritage is that they show where the match is between Lorraine and Marie:

Here I added that information to Lorraine’s profile:

This is the first Butler DNA I’ve added for Lorraine and it goes back to the 1700’s. I even have an unknown category. Hopefully that will be identified at some point.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It was helpful looking at enhanced shared matches. I don’t always find out who the match is if they don’t have a tree, but I get a much better idea of what branch of the family they are from.
  • I was able to enlarge my Butler DNA/Genealogy Tree. This is a tree of DNA matches that also show an ancestral connection.
  • I looked at one match at MyHeritage and was able to map it to Lorraine’s profile using DNAPainter.
  • This is still more searching to be done for matches at Ancestry, MyHeritage, FTDNA, and Gedmatch.

 

 

 

 

 

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Checking DNA ThruLines for a Newly Revised Butler Ancestor

In my previous Blog, I mentioned that I needed to exchange an Edward Butler ancestor on my wife’s side for another one. Now I would like to look at some of the new DNA connections based on that exchange.

Michael Vs. Henry Butler Connections

I previously noted that there were no Ancestry ThruLines for supposed ancestor Michael Butler:

However, I would not expect any. I did expect some on the Henry Butler side:

I just made the change in ancestors today and already there are four matches. These are all from the George H Butler side who was from Cincinnati.

Let’s start with Patty. She matches Lorraine by 39 cM and shows on the chart as a 3rd cousin. Ancestry shows this:

This shows that 3rd cousin is the most likely choice for this level of match. I’ll start a spreadsheet to compare the matches:

kziemann

kziemann actually has a larger match than than expected, so there is only 28% chance of being the right match. Still, that is quite close to the highest likelihood:

Regina and Joey

Regina’s match comes in at 22%

Here is the rest of the chart:

The Frequency Column does not compare well. For example, for Regina and Joey, the frequency is 22%, but they are both still top choices. kziemann at 28% is a second choice (but not by much) and then only because her match is too high and not too low. My takeaway is that all these matches fit very well for my new Butler ancestor configuration.

My Butler DNA/Ancesty Chart

I currently have this chart which I now believe to be incorrect:

I need to move the right side so that Edward is George’s brother.

Here is the new chart showing the relationship between Patty on the George side and Lorraine on the Edward side:

It shows these two as third cousins. That is what they are, but it is good to check to make sure I have thre tree right.

Patty, Kim and Regina are already on the chart. I just need to add Joey:

An Extra Generation

Now that I have added in Edward Adam Butler, I get a bonus generation:

Lorraine’s ThruLines shows George Butler, father of Henry Butler. This name was provided by my most helpful Butler Genealogy friend Peter.

Here are two extra matches for Lorraine:

Here, Peter and Will are shown as half 4th cousins once removed. However, I suspect that is because the wife of George Butler above is not known. I have previously looked into the match with Will, but not the match with Peter.

This Peter is different than the genealogy friend Peter. When I click on the George Butler above, I see one tree from Peter:

Here is what Peter’s tree shows:

One interesting thing is that Peter of the DNA match above and Will are both from England. These two descend from Anastasia Butler of Wexford.

I’ll add George to my Butler DNA/Genealogy Tree:

I put Anastasia’s family on the left, though I do not know the birth order. My genealogist friend Peter made an educated guess on the George at the top and his children. However, an educated guess plus DNA matches makes for a more educated guess. The red lines and circles indicate that Peter and Will are fourth cousins once removed to Lorraine. The chart also shows the impressive amount of DNA matches to my wife’s family in support of the new family tree.

Here is my finished ThruLines Chart for my wife’s Aunt Lorraine and her sister Virginia:

Where the freqqency is on the lower side it is because the match is larger than average. I think what happens often is that there is either a  match or not. When there is a match, it tends to be larger thana average.

Summary and Conclusions

  • After correcting the Butler genealogy back to Ireland, I picked up some Ancestry ThruLines right away
  • I added those DNA matches to my corrected Butler DNA/Genealogy Chart.
  • The seven in the ThruLines amount to only about half of the total matches on the non-Edward Butler descended side of the chart. The other matches were from other testing companies or matches that didn’t have trees or linked trees and I was able to find out the genealogy.
  • I was a little surprised that the ThruLines added a potential ancestor of George Butler. He would have been born in the late 1700’s. This George was added in by my researcher friend Peter.
  • The ThruLines corroborate the corrected Butler ancestry on my wife’s side
  • I intend to do further analysis of the Ancestry DNA in a subsequent Blog.

 

 

 

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Swapping Out Butler Ancestors

Ever since I have been working on my wife’s Butler genealogy, I have been assuming that the parents of her Irish immigrant ancestor, Edward Butler were:

  • Michael Butler and
  • Margaret Croke

Now due to recent events I believe that Edward’s parents were:

  • Henry Butler and
  • Ann Russell

Here is Edward, now believed to son of Henry Butler from Wexford:

The Catalyst for the Change

The catalyst for this is that my wife’s niece and recently my wife’s sister have been looking into the genealogy. They convince me that, based on Mary Crowley’s death certificate of 1905, that she was a widow at the time. This means that Edward, son of Michael Butler and Margaret Croke who died in 1915 could not have been Mary Crowley’s husband. Mary Crowley was the husband of immigrant Edward Butler.

Major Reasons for the Swap

  • None of Edward’s children had the names of Michael or Margaret
  • A Blog I wrote in 2019 showed that Michael Butler and Margaret Croke were probably not the parents of Edward Butler based on DNA analysis. They were more likely in the Henry Butler and Ann Russell family
  • Immigrant Edward Butler lived in Cincinnatti during the 1860 and 1870 Census. Also living in Cincinnati was a George Butler, son of Henry Butler and Ann Russell.
  • George Butler had a brother named Edward (born Adam) who died in Boston in 1891.
  • There have been many autosomal DNA matches between the Edward Butler and George Butler family descendants.

Correcting the Genealogy

In my past research, I have a lot of information on Edward Butler. However, a lot of this is from the Edward Butler born in Poulrone, County Kilkenny and who died in Newton in 1915. I need to separate the two Edward Butlers and replace the wrong ancestral couple with the correct one. Once I do that, I believe that Ancetry ThruLines will begin to populate for Henry Butler and Ann Russell. Right now, my wife’s late Aunt Lorraine has no Michael Butler ThruLines (nor should she if I am right):

Downsides to Swapping the Edward Butlers

  1. I was used to researching the Edward from Poulrone
  2. Edward Adam would have been quite young when he married Mary Crowley

This is from my Butler researching friend Peter from England:

If Edward Adam Butler was born 24 July 1839 he would have been a few months shy of 16 when he married in St. John, New Brunswick in 1855.

Taking the Plunge

The first step is changing my records at Ancestry.

I also had to remove records that were associated with Edward Butler of Poulrone. Here I have that George of Cincinnati and Edward are brothers:

So there is a bit of sorting out to do.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It is difficult to swap out one ancestor for another. This is especially true as I have been researching this ancestor for so long. It is sort of like saying goodby to a family friend who is no longer family.
  •  There is also the nagging questiion of, did I get the right guy this time? Most signs point to adding in Edward (Adam) Butler of Wexford. The major problem right now is that he was born a bit later than I would have thought he should have been. The possible explanation is that he padded his age to sound older.
  • However, overall, there were many reasons to remove Edward Butler of Poulrone, County Kilkenny with Edward (Adam) Butler of Wexford.
  • One reason why Edward (Adam) was added in was due to DNA matches between the one who I now believe is his brother (George Butler of Cincinnati) and my wife’s Butler family.
  • I am looking forward to exploring more of these DNA matches in a subsequent Blog.

 

 

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Adding DNA to My Butler In-Law’s Map Using DNAPainter

My late father-in-law was Richard Butler. Richard is 24% ‘painted’ overall:

Most of that is on the maternal side. Richard is 8% painted on his Irish paternal side and 39% painted on his French Canadian maternal side. First, I’ll look at Gedmatch. I see a Melanie there that I don’t see mapped. She is also at Ancestry.  Here is how Melanie and Richard match at Gedmatch:

By Melanie’s last name, I am guessing that the connection is on the French Canadian side. Richard did not test at Ancestry, but his two sisters did. Here is how Richard’s sister Lorraine matches Melainie:

This relationship is quite distant. Richard’s sister Lorraine has a large amount of DNA shared for a 5th cousin, once removed relationship. Richard’s amount of shared DNA is considerably higher at 88.7 cM.  I’ll just go ahead and paint Melanie’s DNA match onto Richard’s map and assume that the common ancestors are correct.

Painting Melanie’s DNA Match to Richard

I see that Richard already has Louis Girard mapped by others, so I don’t have to add the Girard/Tremblay couple.

I see that the previous Girard/Tremblay DNA that I had added to Richard’s map was from Doris:

I might have expected some of these matches to overlap, but they did not. The only place there was overlap was on Chromosome 14:

That overlap was with Doris who had Delisle/Lanouette shared ancestors back in 1715. Melanie raises Richard’s mapped percentages to 40% maternal and 25% overall.

Richard and Benoit – Same Girard/Tremblay Ancestors from MyHeritage

Richard has this “Theory of Relativity” at MyHeritage:

Let’s paint in Benoit:

Benoit’s DNA makes sense compared to Doris and Sleuth as Girard and Tremblay go back from the Pouliot Line. Above, Melanie had an overlap with Charlotte. Charlotte goes back to Delisle who is on the LeFevre Line, so this made less sense. It shows that there may be other connections or the genealogy may be off. Other connections would be my first guess. Benoit raises Richard another percent on his maternal side:

Richard and Alan at MyHeritage

Richard has a Theory with Pierre, but there are two possible pairs of common ancestors. I’ll skip Pierre for now. Alan and Richard only have one pair of common ancestors shown:

These common ancestors are on the Bulter’s Lefevre side.

Alan overlaps on Chromosome 2 matches who have Lefevre ancestors.

The overlap with the brown DNA represents Edmond Lefevre and Leocadie Methot. That means that, if these matches are accurate and the genealogy is accurate, then the green DNA on Chromosome 2 that overlaps with yellow would be from Leocadie Methot and not Edmond Lefevre. It further means that  the brown DNA that overlaps with yellow would be from Joseph Martin Lefevre and not Emma Pouliot. Richard’s match with Alan gets him up to 42% painted on his maternal side.

Reina at Gedmatch and Ancestry

Here is how Reina matches Richard:

Reina represents a new set of common ancestors:

Reina brings Richard up to 44% painted maternally and 26% painted overall.

Richard and Germain at Gedmatch and Ancestry

An Ancestry/Gedmatch combination is good for painting Richard’s DNA map. Here is how Ancestry shows Richard’s sister Lorraine and Germain connectiing:

the connection is so far out (back to 1690), it makes me wonder if there are other connections. Germain matches on Richard’s Pouliot side. Germain’s match is on the Pouliot side also in DNAPainter:

On Chromosome 9, Germain’s match overlaps with Benoit’s.

Here is Chromosome 17:

The area between Michelle and Germain would define a crossover. Michelle represents Richard’s Lefevre side and Germain (and the purple matches) represents Richard’s Pouliot side.

Richard is now 27% painted overall. Progress.

Richard and DR

Here is DR and Richard’s DNA match at Gedmatch:

Here is DR’s paternal tree:

The connection appears to be on the Rooney side which is Richard’s paternal side. That is where a lot of Richard’s DNA mapping is missing.

Here is a Rooney tree which I had built previously:

I’m not sure why I put the green as a different color. It could be because Daniel disagreed with the way I came up with the genealogy. Also I now see that I had two wives for Timothy Rooney. That first I have as Margaret Ann Gorman. If that is true that Richard and DR are half third cousins once removed. I just need to add in DR:

I note that in DR’s tree, his marriage record for John Rooney has Terence and Ann Rooney as his parents, but his death record has Timothy and Margaret Rooney.

Painting DR (Daniel at Gedmatch) to Richard’s Map

As it appears that Daniel and Richard are 1/2 cousins, that would mean that their only common ancestor is Timother Rooney.

This brings Richard up to 10% painted on his paternal side (from 8%).

More Painting of Daniel to Richard’s SIster Lorraine

Lorraine has a match similar to Richard’s with Daniel, but slighter larger on Chromosome 14:

My colors are not consistent between siblings.

Visual Phasing Butler DNA

I had visually phased Richard, Lorraine and Virginia:

This means that Virginia should not match with Daniel as Rooney is on the Butler’s Kerivan side. Virginia only recieved Butler DNA on her Chromosome 13.

Here is how I had visually phased Chromosome 14:

Again, Virginia has no Kerivan DNA on Chromosome 14, so has no match with Daniel. Lorraine has all Kerivan DNA, which explains her larger match with Daniel on Chromosome 14.

When I was doing the phasing, I also show why my wife Marie did not recieve any Kerivan DNA from her father:

Where Marie would have gotten green Kerivan DNA from her father, it was replaced by Richard’s maternal side Pouliot and Lefevre DNA.

Shared AncestryDNA Matches with Daniel

The largest shared match that Lorraine and Daniel have at Ancestry is with FG. Here is her tree:

I hope that, if I build out FGs tree, I will bump into a Rooney.

Here is a Rooney three generations out from FG. It turns out I already had Frances in my tree:

As Frances has a common DNA match with DH and Lorraine, the above connections are suggested.

People Who Match Richard and Daniel at Gedmatch: Jeanette

Gedmatch also has a utility to look for common matches. Jeanette matcches Richard and Daniel and also has a family tree:

Surprisingly Rooney is the first name on Jeanette’s tree. I have looked at a lot of Gedmatch trees and it is unusual to find what you are looking for. Now I need to check out Jeanette’s tree.

According to Findagrave.com, John H Rooney is John Henry Rooney. That means that I can add Jeanette to my tree:

My thinking is that Jeanette is a 1/2 third cousin once removed to Richard.

Adding Jeanette’s Match to DNAPainter

First, I’ll go with Richard:

The blue DNA in Chromosome 11 represents Tim or Terence Rooney’s DNA that came down to both Jeanette and Richard.

Jeanette and Virginia

Virginia is Richard’s sister:

So far, that is Virginia’s only match going back to Tim Rooney (in pink here).

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was able to paint some extra DNA onto Richard’s map and some onto his two sisters.
  • I was happy to find some Rooney matches as they are on Richard’s mostly unpainted paternal side
  • Many Rooney families had large families which is good for DNA matching
  • To me the DNA matches tie together two branches of the Rooney famiiy.
  • I didn’t mention the genealogy here, but I have looked at the genealogy in older Blogs.  I also mentioned a Jenny there which is the Jeanette in this Blog.