Category: Frazer

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My Look at an R1a Administor’s Review on Frazer BigY Results

Sorry for the awkward title on the Blog. Things are moving quite quickly after a 4 month wait for Frazer BigY results. I wrote my first review the day the initial results came out on December 29th. Martin’s initial review came out on January 2, 2021. Happy New Year.R1

Martin’s New S2880 Tree

Martin, who live in the Netherlands, is the L664 Project Administrator for FTDNA’s R1a YDNA Project. Here is L664 on the left of the image below:

 

This is from a 2015 R1a Tree.  At that time, L664 was dated around 3,000 BC.  L664 is in blue on the bottom left of the image above. Martin has updated what he calls Section 2b or S2880 as of January 2, 2021. Here is where that is on the bottom left side of the 2015 tree:

 

Here is where S2880 is on Martin’s new tree:

The date for S2880 is about 1800 BC:

Here are the four Frazer BigY testers on the tree:

Here is a more close-up version:

Above YP6489 is the date 1200 AD. Below that box is 1600 AD. That is an important jump as it brings us into more of a genealogical time-frame. It is also important to understand the what these two dates mean. It says that the SNP YP6489 (which is actually a group of SNPs) formed about 1200 AD. The shared group of Frazers go back to 1600 AD (by DNA). This is probably 1690 or so by our genealogy, so a pretty good agreement. However, others outside our group who descend from our 1690 Roscommon Frazer and who share YP6489 could have have an earlier shared date. We are currently awaiting BigY results for a Frazier/Frasher who may fit into this category. His results should show where he fits in.

The last four vertical lines are the Frazers in our group. They are Rodney and Jonathan in the James Frazer Branch. The last two are Paul and Rick in the Archibald Frazer Line. They are the two with all the projected private SNPs.

Martin’s Review

Rick and Paul’s Shared Private SNPs

This is the most important part, because these shared private SNPs willl become a new Frazer YDNA branch. Martin writes:

You have 13 private SNP’s and I found that you share 3 of your private SNP’s with the private SNP’s of Frazer #[number deleted for privacy]. This means you both create a new subclade downstream Subclade YP6489, which I have called Y85652.  

In my first review, I only found two private SNPs that Paul and Rick shared. Martin was able to find three:

These three are shown in the block where the bolded Y85652 is. Here were the two variants that I found:

Positions 8162400 and 21457649

These were the two that I found. Martin has these as SNPs Y85652 and Y112046. In my previous Blog, I had identified that Rick and Paul had matching SNPs Y85652 and Y112046. So that looks like we agree.

Position 16784516 aka Y102972

This is the posiition that Martin found and that I didn’t see in my initial review. Here is my spreadsheet:

I Show that Rick and Rodney have position 16784516 as a non-matching variant but that Rick and Jonathan do not. I may have deleted this entry by mistake. Actually I see this variant above on Jonathan’s list, so I just did not match these correctly:

You have to think backwards with these lists. So if Rick has non-matching variants with both Rodney and Jonathan who are in the James Line. That means that he must have matching variants at those locations with Paul in the Archibald Frazer Line.

Here is Richard Frazer born 1830:

Here is George Frazer born about 1838:

Assuming that this is right (and it appears to be) that means that there was on average one SNP mutation every generation for Archibald Frazer born 1720, Philip Frazer born 1758 and James Frazer born 1804. Also this assumes that we have the genealogy right. We don’t know which ancestor had which mutation. However, it would be possible to find that out if we had descendants from each of these lines test. That is also assuming that there is an unbroken male descendant in each of these lines.

Here is one of Martin’s comments:

Normally we find in the BigY-700 on average a number of 100 years per SNP (or one SNP mutation in every 4-5 generations). So when we assume the Frazer family splits around 1600 AD in 4 branches, then you expect on average for each about 4 private SNP’s. You and #444958 have now about 12-13 SNP’s downstream subclade YP6489 and the other two Frazer’s only 1-3 SNP’s. But sometimes we see large differences in the SNP mutation rate in individual cases.

My opinion is that a male generation was longer between 31 and 38 years so on average 34.5 years. Of course this varies at different times and in different places. Still, with my version, there would be a new SNP every three generations as opposed to the one generation we are seeing here.

The bottom line is that I see my mistake and Martin and I are in agreement on the number of matching private variants that Rick and Paul have in the Archibald Frazer Line.

A Side Thought on Male Frazers

A little ways above, I mentioned the need for an unbroken male line for Frazer YDNA testing. Here is the line of Archibald Frazer born about 1778 and Ann Stinson. This Archibald was the son of Archibald born about 1720 and Mary Lilley:

Out of about 27 or so who tested for autosomal DNA under the Archibald Line born about 1720, I see only about two who would be eligible for YDNA testing. If these two tested, it would confirm this line by YDNA. Their common ancestor would be Archibald born about 1778.

On the James Frazer Line the first two circled on the bottom have taken the BigY test.

There are two others on the left hand side who haven’t taken the YDNA test.

Rick and Paul and Private Variants

To me the private variants are not as important as the shared SNPs. These are variants that should describe a line after the shared ancestor of the two testers.

So Rick’s Private Variants would describe his line starting with Richard Patterson Frazer. Paul’s private variants describe his lineage starting with George Frazer born about 1838. George is my second great-grandfather.

Here is what Martin has to say about Rick’s Private Variants:

You and #444958 have now about 12-13 SNP’s downstream subclade YP6489 and the other two Frazer’s only 1-3 SNP’s. But sometimes we see large differences in the SNP mutation rate in individual cases. I have also checked your 10 private SNP’s in the Yfull results of #444958, but for these 10 private SNP’s of yours, 8 gave a negative result and 2 gave a “no-call” because these two were not tested in his BigY-500 test.  

I am a bit confused by Martin’s use of what he calls downstream SNPs or private SNPs.

These are the numbers in the last yellow boxes for Rodney, Jonathan, Paul and Rick. Paul currently has 4 private SNPs. Because of his three matches with Rick, that will go down to one. However, Martin adds in private eight private SNPs identified by YFull.

Here are some of Paul’s ‘Novel’ Variants at YFull:

I highlighted the first Private SNP that Martin has identified on Paul’s yellow box above. Paul has two more Novel SNPs under his Best quality tab. I see that some on the YFull list say private and some say up to R-YP6489. According to YFull:

The words up to [name of subclade]  after a Novel SNP means that the eventual location of the SNP may be as far in the past as the named subclade or closer to the present than the current Terminal Hg.

That means that they aren’t sure if those SNPs belong in with YP6489 or after it. Just another way to slice and dice things. For the SNPs that say ‘private’, they must be after YP6489 for sure.

Rick then shows 10 private variants. These also don’t make sense in a way. If these are valid, then these would all be in five generations of his Richard Patterson Frazer line. That would mean that there were two mutations per generation. I’ll just depend on Martin’s analysis for now and wait to see if FTDNA’s manual review reduces these SNPs at all.

Dating the YDNA Tree

We can use what we know about Frazer genealogy to get better dates on this tree. The date of ca 1600 is probably a bit early. We think that the father (probably Archibald) of the Archibald and James Lines was born around 1690. Our best bet at dating is from the Elphin Census:

For sake of argument, we’ll say that Archibald Sr was born in 1690 and died at age 50 or so around 1740.  Perhaps Mary was younger and born in 1695. Let’s say she had Archibald in 1718 and James in 1720. We’ll say they both married at age 25. We know that James married in 1745. He had two children by 1749. We’ll say they were only age 1 and 3 at the time. Archibald could have married in 1743 and had children aged 1 3 and 5 in 1749. Just a guess.

All this to say that Archibald Frazer Senior could not have been born 1600. I would stick to 1690 and put that date in where the 1600 is. Then we know that the common ancestor for Rick and Paul is James Frazer who was born about 1804:

Summary and Conclusions

  • I appreciate Martin’s quick and thorough review of Rick’s test results and his incorporation of those results into Setion 2b of his L664 Tree
  • The new name Frazer Branch in the Archibald Frazer line will include three SNPs
  • I was able to identify four people who would qualify for YDNA testing from my charts of Frazers who have already taken autosomal tests. These people are rare because they have to have unbroken male line Frazer ancestry
  • I looked at Rick and Paul’s private variants briefly and will wait for the FTDNA manual review on these.
  • I looked at fine-tuning the dating of the Frazer YDNA BigY Tree based on what we know about our Frazer genealogy.
  • Next on the horizon is the Frazier/Frasher test we are waiting for and Rick’s FTDNA manual review.

Addendum on 16784516 and New Information from David Vance

This is the extra SNP that I missed. Here it is at YBrowse:

This would have been discovered at the time of my cousin Paul’s initial BigY test. David Vance recently posted a chart with the regions of the Y Chromosome:

DaveidVance has this as a good region even though it shows in a darker region on the YBrowse browser.

So SNP Y102972 is a SNP that Rick and Paul share. We’ll have to wait and see which SNP FTDNA calls this portion of the Archibald Frazer Branch.

8162400

David Vance lists this in not the best region:

Here is more from David:

21457649

David doesn’t list this as the greatest either. Based on David’s chart Y102972 would be the best SNP name for this section of the Archibald Frazer Line. Whatever the name, I think that it is interesting that the BigY test has defined a specific area of the Archibald Frazer Branch of the Frazers from Roscommon, Ireland.

 

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A New BigY Test for the Archibald Frazer Line

Back in August of 2020 a BigY test was ordered for Rick. I was just notified that his results have started to come in. Rick’s STR results came in last August and I wrote about them here. However, now we have the more important SNP results. SNPs are the part of a man’s YDNA that mutate in a way that give a precise indication of his line back to the earliest men on the planet.

Frazer YDNA

This is the YDNA tree for the Frazers who were from Roscommon, Ireland. They have lived there since the early 1700’s. It is believed that there were two brothers at that time: Archibald and James:

The older brother was Archibald. I am not a Frazer by YDNA as my grandmother was a Frazer, but I had my second cousin once removed Paul take a test. Paul, Rick and I and many others are on the Archibald Line. Rodney and Jonathan and many others are on the James Line. Paul, Rodney and Jonathan already have BigY tests, but they are the older BigY 500 tests. Rick has the newer more accurate and thorough BigY 700 test. Rick was needed to better define the Archibald Line specifically.

Rick’s New Results

Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) will likely perform a manual analysis of Rick’s results which will result in a further wait, but I’ll look at what the results show so far. Based on the tree above, Rick and Paul’s matching SNPs should show what SNPs their common ancestor James Frazer (born about 1804) had.

Rick’s Block Tree

Here is Rick’s Block Tree:

 

Right now, Rick is shown with Frazers from the Archibald Line and James Line. They share the SNP name of R-YP6849. I am hoping that, after FTDNA’s manual review, that Paul and Rick will form a new YDNA line with a new SNP name.

Rick’s BigY Matches

The next step is to look at Rick’s matches. He shows matches to Rodney, Jonathan, Paul and the Grant above. These results can be misleading due to the criteria that FTDNA uses for matching. For example, the Frazers, Stuarts, and Grant testers all share the common SNP of R-YP6488. Rick also matches Hayes with whom he shares the even older SNP of R-YP6480. However, Rick shows as a match to Grant and Hayes, but not to the two Stuart testers. This may be because the Stuarts also took the more expansive BigY 700 and thus have more Variants that don’t match.

Here are some more BigY match details:

 

FTDNA lists non-matching variants between Rick, Rodney and Jonathan. That may seem confusing but it is easier than listing the 600,000 plus matching Variants that go back to genetic Adam. A non-matching variant may be several things which is also confusing. It may be a variant that Rodney has and Rick doesn’t have. It may be a variant that Rick has and Rodney doesn’t have. It may be a variant that Rick’s newer test covered and Rodney’s didn’t. Then there are test results which may be inconclusive that complicate things.

What I should be looking for is a SNP (or Variant) that Rick and Paul share and that Rodney and Jonathan don’t have. That would create the new Archibald Frazer Line that I am looking for. The goal is to get the newest or most recent SNP possible for the Frazer family.

Variant by Variant Analysis

Here are Rick’s non-matches to Rodney, Jonathan and Paul by Variant in a spreadsheet:

This shows why Paul shows as a match that is further away to Rick than he really is. Paul and Rick have the most non-matching Variants. Another point to the exercise, is that Rick will have have Variants that he validly does not share with Rodney, Jonathan and Paul. Those will be the Variants that Rick has that define his own line since James Frazer born about 1804.

Next, I separate out the Variants and compare them.

 

Candidates for a New Archibald Frazer Line

I would like to look at the two variants I have highlighted below:

It stands to reason that for a new branch to formm Rick should have non-matching variants with Rodney and Jonathan but not with Paul. The two highlighted Variants could meet that criteria. In order for these two or one of the two to meet that criteria, Rick and Paul would both have to have tested positive for these Variants and Rodney and Jonathan would have had to be tested negative for thes Variants.

Variants 8162400 and 21457649

Rick currently has 13 Private Variants. I think that these should change after FTDNA’s manual review. I’ll show what they look like now:

On Rick’s second page I see 8162400, so that is a start. 21457649 is on Rick’s first page of Private Variants.

Next, I have to log into Paul’s results:

Paul has 8162400 and 21457649 which mean that they are not really Private Variants after all. Or, they will no longer be Private Variants now that Rick’s results are in. That is because we are looking at preliminary results that will change.

To be really sure, I need to show that Rodney and Jonathan both tested for these two variants and the results showed that they did not have them. However, that is a little difficult. It involves looking at all their results. I know I have access to Jonathan’s results, so I’ll give that a shot. I think that I need to download Jonathan’s results as a csv file. That is a very large file.

Here is 8162400. The reference and Genotype are the same, so I think that means that Jonathan is not positive for mutated DNA at that position. Or in FTDNA terminology it is not derived. I assume that the fact that this Novel Variant is on Jonathan’s list means he was tested for this Variant. That means that 8162400 should form a new branch for the Archibald Frazers.

The same is true for 21457649 on Jonathan’s test list:

This makes sense because if Paul had these two Variants on his Private Variant list, it likely meant that Jonathan and Rodney did not test positive for derived Variants at these two positions. I included a known SNP above in Jonathan’s list to show that FTDNA only shows the derived information for those known SNPs. Both of these Variants show beyond line 600,000 on the spreadsheet for Jonathan’s BigY results.

Here is what my cousin Paul’s results look like for the same Novel Variant:

The reference T has changed to C. That is what should define the new Archibald Frazer Branch.

What Will Be the Name of the New Archibald Frazer Line?

Assuming my analysis is right, we can go to YBrowse to find the names for these two positions that Paul and Rick share. YBrowse is a YDNA Chromosome Browser.

This shows the Y Chromosome with over 50 million positions. The lighter regions are the ones best used for genetic genealogy. I put in the Variant that Rick and Paul share that is around 8,000,000 – where the red vertical line is on the depiction of the Y Chromosome. It turns out that 8162400 has two names:

I”m guessing that this name came out when I first did the BigY 500 for Paul in 2017. Note the derived is from T to C. That is what Paul had at this position:

This is also within the R1a Haplogroup which is where the Frazers are.

Here is the other SNP:

This is BY155971. Here the reference T has changed to G. Aslo the haplogroup is unknown. I would rule out this Haplogroup for the Archibald Frazer Line.

I’ll try the other position:

This only has one SNP associated with it but it is in a dark region. I thought that was not as reliable.

That means that the new branch for the Archibald Frazers (or even more specifically the James Frazer Line of 1804) will be Y85652 and Y112046. One of the two will have to be chosen to be representative of the line.

Anything Else?

Rick also has a bunch of Variants that don’t match with Rodney, Jonathan or Paul:

My guess is that these Variants are mostly due to Rick taking the BigY 700 test and testing regions that were not tested. These Variants may come into play when the results of the other Frazier test come in. Those results should be due any day now.

Rick Solves a Problem

The problem is with the existing R-YP6489. Here is what SNP Tracker shows:

This has R-YP6489 forming in the Middle Ages. That is because there are other SNPs within the group of R-YP6489:

Each one of the SNPs takes time to form. Up to 144 years based on the older BigY 500. Somewhat less with the newer BigY 700. Say it took about 100 years for each SNP in the top block to form. That would be 500 years. Then that is to the common ancestor who may have been born around 1690. That seems to compare well with what the SNP Tracker has:

That brings us to about the year 1200. According to thefraser.com:

The earliest Fraser found on record was Gilbert de Fraser, who, in 1109, witnessed a charter to the monastery at Coldstream, along the southern border. In 1160, Sir Simon Fraser, who possessed half of the territory of Keith in East Lothian, made a gift of the church to the monks of Kelso Abbey. Through marriage the Frasers acquired Castle Oliver on the Tweed and became the Sheriffs of Peebles.

That means that there were Frasers around before the year 1200. The question is, were they our Frasers and were our ancestors Frasers at that time? Some of the early Southern Frasers were interesting as I had thought that the earliest Frasers were from around Inverness. At any rate, the point is that even though our Frazer testers’ common ancestor was from around 1690, the origin of R-YP6489 is around the year 1200. If Rick creates a new Archibald Frazer branch, that should bring the Frazer YDNA ahead about 600 years to 1800.

Having said that, SNP Tracker has a new feature for the ‘British Isle’:

This seems to contradict the previous SNP Tracker Map. However, the legend at the top says ‘SNP Formation Eroas for Descendants of YP6489’. So this SNP Tracker feature has a bit of prediction to it. I can’t say I get how this works but it is interesting.

The problem that Rick solves is that his test should form a Haplogroup for the Frazers that is undoubtably Frazer and even specific to the Archibald Branch and James Frazer Line of 1804.

Paul’s Private Variants

Right now Paul has 4 private variants which is a lot considering the time between his birth and 1690 is about 260 years. It would have been more likely that two SNPs would have formed in that time.

Here are Paul’s current Private SNPs:

As mentioned above, Paul’s private Variants should go down to two. That means that in 140 years, Paul’s line had two SNPs which seems a little more reasonable. On the other hand, the James Frazer Line seems to have had fewer SNPs or Variants, so perhaps it all averages out.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Currently the YDNA defining SNP for Roscommon Ireland Frazers is R-YP6489. This haplogroup is assumed to be unique for these Frazers but that is not known for sure due to the age of its formation.
  • Now that Rick has tested, it appears that there will be two new defining SNPs for the Archibald Frazer line and even more specifically the James Frazer Line of 1804. This gives a concrete date that will define these two SNPs.
  • I think that the FTDNA manual review will confirm my findings.
  • The next BigY 700 test for Frazier that is coming in should further define early Frazer genealogy and history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Another Frazer DNA Match at 23andMe

I get emails from 23andMe on a regular basis telling me I have new DNA matches.

I don’t usually recognize who they are. This time I saw a closer than usual match with a name I recognize: Frazer.

My other new matches were predicted 4th cousins and shared less DNA. 23andMe’s Relatives in Common helped me figure out who he is:

Stan is related to Katherine and Brenda. In fact, Brenda is Stan’s sister. I wrote about Brenda here. Here is where Stan fits in:

All these people have had their DNA tested. I am at the bottom left as I descend from the eldest son and Stan is on the right as he descends from the youngest son of George Frazer. According to this chart, I am a 2nd cousin once removed to Stan. Stan is Paul’s first cousin.

Here is a photo of the five brothers:

Hubert is back right. I have more and better photos of Hubert, but I have not scanned them.

Stan’s DNA

I see that I now need Stan’s permission to see his DNA results. Here is how I match Stan’s sister Brenda on Chromosome 6 and 7:

I share three segments with Stan, so my DNA match with Stan could represent Frazer DNA that I have not yet identified. The other yellow matches are other matches with people who descend from George Frazer and Margaret McMaster.

Stan’s YDNA

23andMe gives a haplogroup for Stan’s YDNA. YDNA is interesting as it is only from the male line – in this case Frazer.

My R-L21 Haplogroup represents my Hartley lineage. Stan is R-L664 which represents Frazer YDNA. We know a lot about Frazer YDNA. There have been three Frazer BigY DNA tests done which describe Frazer YDNA in great detail. Every hundred years or so, there is a mutation in the YDNA which is passed down from father to son. Based on these changes, we can create a YDNA tree.

L664 is actually a Germanic Haplogroup going back to about 3,000 BC. That means that before our family was from Scotland, it was from Germany:

However, much has happened in the last 5,000 years. Here are some of the SNPs that have formed in the past 5,000 years:

Here are Paul’s matches:

Paul and his two Frazer YDNA matches are all R-YP6489. We awaiting two BigY tests to refine this tree. One test is from a Frazer with known ancestry. He is more closely related to Paul than to Rodney and Jonathan. The other tester is a Frazier. We don’t know how he is connected, but the connection probably goes back to Scotland before our Frazers moved to Ireland.

Here is the SNP Tracker map:

Here are some more details since L664:

Summary and Conclusions

  • It is somewhat rare to find a 2nd cousin once removed show up as a DNA match
  • Stan’s YDNA type fits in perfectly with other Frazers who were from Ireland
  • If Stan shares his autosomal DNA results, I will be able to tell how we match. This matching DNA is the same DNA that we inherited from Stan’s great grandparents and my 2nd great grandparents George Frazer and Margaret McMster.

 

 

 

 

 

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A New Frazer STR Tree with Associated Families

First, I don’t like to make STR trees. They take a while to build and then when the SNP results come out, I can be proven wrong with my previous STR trees. Nonetheless, I’ll forge ahead based on the new 111 STR results from a Frazier relative.

First, Who Are the Associated Families

My understanding is that our Frazer ancestors came to Scotland at some time around the time of Christ. They probably formed a small group of people around the Inverness area. At the time when people were taking on surnames, they probably took on the surnames of the people who were surrounding them at the time. This would likely account for the names of Riley, Hayes, Stuart, Grant and Frazer/Frazier below. There were likely other names adopted. The name of Chisolm comes to mind and perhaps other names that haven’t had YDNA tests.

Building a STR Tree

First I extracted STR results from Frazers and other more distantly related families:

These are 25 STR results for Riley, Hayes, Stuart, Grant and Frazer/Frazier. From this, it appears clearly that a DYS447 of 24 defines Frazer/Frazier and a DYS447 of 25 defines the families above. It appears that the value of 25 is older as there are more of that number and it is applied to three different families.

Without getting into the details, here is a simple tree:

The important thing here is that our most recent Frazier tester falls solidly in with our North Roscommon Frazers.

Further, there is a clear break between Riley and Hayes/Stuart/Grant:

This is just with 25 STR testing.

Frazer and Related Families at 37 STRs

Here is the testing up to 37 STRs:

I took out the markers that were all the same. There was a further distinction I didn’t note above in the first 25 markers that identifies the Archibald line of the North Roscommon Frazers. That is a DYS391 of 11. This is where I was before Richard’s 111 STR results came in. It looked like he was fairly closely related to the Roscommon Ireland Frazers. At the 37 STR level, one of the Stuarts drops out as he only tested to 25 STRs.

111 STRs

At this level, some more families drop out:

There is still one Riley and one Stuart left. In the last column, there was a 16, 17 and 15 for results. In that case, I assumed that the 16 was the ancestral value and that Riley mutated up and Stuart mutated down. I made a similar assumption in the column that had 12, 13 and 14.

It is in the lighter blue 38-111 STRs that Richard shows some of his differences from the North Roscommon Frazers in DYS710, 717 and 712. These are the three markers that appear to put Richard further back as a match with our Roscommon Frazers before they were in Roscommon. Again, the SNP results should give a better idea if this is indeed the case.

This is my best guess for a STR tree:

The big question is whether Richard is under Archibald Frazer or further back as I have it in the above diagram. The main reason for putting Richard’s common ancestor with Archibald Frazer descendants back before the Irish Frazers is that Jonathan’s matches with other known Irish Frazer descendants appears to be closer than with Richard. Here are Jonathan’s STR matches:

Jonathan matches known North Roscommon Frazer descendants at a GD between 1 and 4. He matches Richard at a GD of 7 which is about the same level at which he matches two Stuart descendants.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I built a Frazer STR tree which tries to take into account other related families of Riley, Hayes, Grant and Stuart.
  • Frazier seems solidly in the Frazer camp based on one of the STR markers
  • However, based on genetic distance, it seems like Richard should have a common ancestor with the North Roscommon Frazers at some point before they moved to Ireland.
  • These findings seem consistent with what I looked at in my previoius Blog on Richard’s 111 STR results
  • My guess is that Richard’s BigY SNP results will confirm what appears to be happening with his less reliable STR results

 

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Initial Frazier YDNA Results Show Connection to North Roscommon Frazers May Be Further Back in Time

I mentioned in a previous Blog that a Frazier has recently ordered a BigY 700 test. The first step in this test is going from his previous 37 STRs to 111 STRs. Richard’s BigY test is now at the stage where his 111 STRs have been completed.

Richard and Rick

Rick also ordered a BigY test and I am also awaiting the results of his tests. I was checking out Rick’s test and saw that he also matched Richard:

Rick matches Richard at 111 markers at a Genetic Distance of 8. That is out at the level that Rick matches two people with the Stuart surname. Initially, that seems to suggest that Richard’s match could be more distant to the Frazers of Ireland than originally thought. This has implications on Richard’s genealogy. If he matched Rick more closely, then we would be looking for Richard’s ancestors in Ireland. If they are matched more distantly, which seems to be the case, then it is likely that the common ancestor for Frazer and Frazier is in Scotland prior to the Frazer move to Ireland. At the the 37 STR level, it seemed like Richard would be more closely related to the Frazers. These 111 STRs give a more accurate level of information.

It would make more sense to show the connection from Richard’s perspective:

Richard is a GD of 7 to Jonathan and a GD of 10 to Paul. However, he is also a GD of 9 to a Stuart. What will be more important to know is Richard’s Haplogroup. That will be revealed when the results of his BigY are completed. However, based on this, my guess is that Richard’s connection should be further back than the time that my Frazer ancestors arrived in Ireland.

Here is a chart which I just saw today:

This chart was done for a different project (R-U106), so the numbers may not be the same for our R1a Frazers. However, based on the above, Richard’s most likely match with the Frazer family was a GD of 8. This translates to between 180 and 720 years. The midpoint of this range is 450 years, which is around the time-frame that I am guessing could be right for a common ancestor between Richard and our North Roscommon Frazers.

Here is the view from Jonathan’s results:

Based on my previous analysis, it appears that Jonathan’s YDNA results are more typical of our Irish Frazer ancestor. As such, Jonathan matches Richard between two Stuarts by STRs. However, as I mentioned above, what will be more important is Richard’s Haplogroup. Above, my Irish Frazer relatives are R-YP6489 and the Stuart Haplogroup is R-BY26344. That can be better seen on Jonathan’s Block Tree:

Further out, Jonathan matches a Hayes at R-YP6480. The question is, what will Richard’s Haplogroup be? My guess is that Richard could match Jonathan, Rodney and Paul with a Frazer (or variant spelling) somewhat further back than Jonathan’s, Rodney’s and Paul’s common ancestor who lived in Ireland. Further, Richard may break up the block of SNPs in the white box above starting with R-YP6489.

What Does It Mean to Break a Block?

Here is the block that needs breaking:

My Frazer relatives (Jonathan, Rodney and Paul) have five SNPs defining them all. R-YP6489 was chosen to represent this block of SNPs that defines the North Roscommon Frazers. That means that since before the time when surnames were popular, these SNPs have been collecting every 144 years or so in our North Roscommon Frazer line. We don’t know which SNPs happened first or last. Suppose that when Richard’s BigY results come in he is tested positive for three of the SNPs above, but not the other two. If one of Richard’s positive SNPs turns out to be YP6489, he will be called YP6489 and the other three Frazers will be named for one of the SNPs that Richard did not test positive for. Also, depending on the results, we should be able to figure out around what year our Frazers split off from Richard’s Fraziers/Frashers.

There is also a possiblilty that Richard’s YDNA will be more alignted with Grant and Stuart on the right. They are under BY26344. Right now, I am thinking that this possibility will be less likely.

Dating the Haplogroups from the Block Tree

In the image above, there are an average of two private variants between Jonathan, Paul and Rodney. One way to estimate the date of their common ancesor is to use 144 years per variant. That would put their common ancestor at about 244 years before their birth (say 1950) or about 1706. This is very close to when we believe that their common ancestor was born.

However, between Frazer, Grant and Stuart above, a lot more time has passed. Between YP6488 and our Frazer testers there are 7 SNPs. Between YP6488 and Stuart/Grant, there are 8 SNPs. I’ll average that out at 7.5 SNPs. Multiply that by 144 years and get 1,080 years.  My guess is that Richard’s results will fill in part of the gap between  the 11th century and 1706.

Our Frazers are documented to North Roscommon in the first half of the 1700’s. Clans associated with the Frazers by YDNA bordered each other to the SW of Inverness. By YDNA, the common ancestor of these associated clans could have been living around 1,000 AD. By family tradition, the Frazers were living in Ayrshire prior to their arrival in Ireland. It may be this time period (1600 or so) that Richard could tie into.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Richard’s 111 STR results have come in as the the first part of his BigY 700 test
  • These STR results suggest that he matches our North Roscommon Frazers more distantly than suggested by his 37 STR results
  • My guess is that Richard’s results will fill in the YDNA gap between the Stuart, Grant and others whose common ancestor could go back to about 1,000 AD and the North Roscommon Frazers whose common ancestor lived in the early 1700’s.
  • Frazer/Frazier/Frasher descendants should be expectantly awaiting Richard’s results.
  • In addition to Richard’s results, Frazers are awaiting the new BigY 700 results of Rick. Plus Rodney will be getting an upgrade from BigY 500 to BigY 700. That is a total of three Frazer/Frazier BigY 700 results we are waiting for.
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The First BigY 700 Frazer Results Starting to Come In

I wrote about the ordering of Rick’s new BigY 700 test here. This is good news for at least a few reasons. One is that he is on my particular Archibald Branch of the Frazer family. The second is that his is the first BigY 700 test ordered. There have been three other of the older BigY 500 tests that have been taken – two on the James Line and one on the Archibald Line:

Paul on the left is my second cousin once removed. His grandfather Hubert was my great-grandfather James Archibald’s brother.  Rick on the bottom left is the subject of this Blog.

Rick’s YDNA Order History

This shows that Rick’s BigY-700 has been completed. However, that is only part of the story. The only results I can see so far are his 111 STR results. Three years ago Rick’s Y-DNA67 results came in which were for 67 STRs. Now we can see how Rick matches Paul, Rodney and Jonathan at 111 STRs:

Rick’s first match is with my cousin Paul as expected. Second is with Jonathan, and third with Rodney. The last two matches are with Stuart surnames which is interesting. It appears that there is not much difference between Rick’s match with Rodney and the Stuart matches. However, that is where the BigY test comes in. Rick’s next to last match took a BigY test and that Stuart is at BY26344. This Stuart branch is on a parallell branch to the Frazer branch. This is how it appears at YFull:

The common SNP for Frazer and Stuart is YP6488 which was formed 1150 years ago and our common ancestor was 800 years ago, so say 1200 AD. The takeaway is that the BigY test with its SNPs is superior to the STR test.

A 111 STR Frazer Tree

With Rick’s results it will be possible to buiild a 111 STR tree for the four Frazers who have now tested to that level. To do that I first go to the Fraser and Septs YDNA Project Page.

These are the four Frazers who have tested plus one person who fits in with Frasher ancestry. I will just look at the four Frazers. There are 111 STR results but I have not shown that many. Rick is the one who doesn’t show his ancestor. The fourth row down gives the Mode. I will assume that is the oldest value for the STR.

Next, I take the results from the Fraser and Septs Page and put them into an Excel spreadsheet. Then I take out all the results that are the same:

I have Richard in for reference. He tested to the 37 STR level. However, based on that testing, I see how he seems to fit in with the others. When I copied the DYS385 results, Excel interpreted 11-14 and 11-15 as 14 and 15 Nov.

This appears to be the ancestral STR signature for our branch of Frazers:

Archibald Branch STRs

The Archibald Branch which Rick and I are on is defined by these STRs:

Note that the CDY had a double change. The James Line appears to have kept the older STR values.

Further Frazer Branching

Here is the tree I came up with:

I tried to combine the genealogy with the STR values. The Archibald Branch is defined by the three STRs on the left. These mutations ocurred sometime between 1720 and 1804. Rick has DYS444=13. This happened sometime between Richard of 1830 and our current Rick. Paul has DYS575=19 which ocurred sometime between his great-grandfather George and Paul.

For some reason I don’t have a date for William Fitzgerald Scarsfield Frazer. I have that Edward Fitzgerald Frazer was born in 1867. So the William Frazer Line has the DYS552 value of 24 which ocurred sometime between before 1867 and the birth of Rodney.

One interesting thing about Jonathan is that he shows no STR mutation between himself and Archibald Frazer of about 1690. This could be the case due to the randomness of STR mutations or it is possible that there could have been a mutation and a back mutation in his line. If this was true, we wouldn’t know it. Scanning across Jonathan’s line we can see that all his values are the same as the mode for the Frazers which we take to be the ancestral STRs:

This is offset by Rick and Paul who both had changes in four STRs.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Rick’s first change in his BIgY test is that he now has his 111 STR results.
  • These results are consistant with what we have for the Frazer genealogical tree.
  • A was able to build a 111 STR tree as all four Frazer testers have now tested to that level.
  • The STRs are the preview. The most important part of the BigY 700 test with SNP results is still to come.

 

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A New Frazier BigY 700 Ordered

Thanks to Joanna, she got Richard and me talking. That lead to a new BigY being ordered. That means that two new Frazer/Frazier BigY 700’s are in the pipeline right now. I wrote about the previous new BigY here. That previous test was for Rick and this one is for Richard.

Richard’s Previous YDNA Testing

Richard has tested test to the 37 STR level and matches my second cousin Paul at that level:

Rick is in the first orange box and Richard in the second orange box. They are both considered to be R-M198 by FTDNA. Rick has tested to 111 STRs. Rick is a fairly close relative to Paul in terms of YDNA. He is a third cousin once removed:

The exciting thing about Richard is that we don’t know how he is related. We are hoping that the BigY 700 will shed some light on that. So far, on the above chart, Paul, Rodney and Jonathan have taken the BigY 500 test. Rick and Richard will be the first to take the BigY 700 test. The good thing about the BigY 700 test is that it is more accurate and tests for more SNPs. SNPs are what we are looking for to define the Frazer lines on the YDNA Tree.

I also wrote a Blog on Richard’s results back in 2018 when he first had his YDNA tested. At that time, I concluded that Frasher and Frizelle were related to the North Roscommon Frazers.

On this chart:

I notice that some are classified as R-M198 and some are R-M512. As far as I can tell, there is no distinction between these two Haplogroups:

My guess is that R-M512 was the older names because those that have that designation tested in 2015. The date for these two haplogroups is about 6,500 B.C. From an older Blog I wrote, our branch of Frazers are on the Germanic side:

However, this is a tree from about 4 years ago. A lot has happened since then. S2880 is the last Haplogroup on our Frazer Line showing on this tree. According to YFull:

S2880 formed about 3700 years ago. That gave our Germanic Frazer ancestors plenty of time to make their way to what is now Scotland. These are the dates that YFull has for our present-day Frazer BigY testers:

Richard in the Fraser and Septs Project

Richard has joined the Fraser and Septs Project. In that Project, the R1a Frasers/Frazers, etc are in the minority. Most Frasers are R1b. That is because our Frazers as being Germanic were relative late comers to Scotland, having arrived perhaps around the time of Christ. Here are the results from that Project:

Here I have only gone to the 37 STR level as that is what Richard tested to. The administrators of Fraser and Septs placed Richard in with our North Roscommon Frazers:

First is Rodney from my tree above, then Jonathan, then Richard, Rick and Paul.

Richard’s Family Tree

I think that I found Richard’s tree:

This tree starts with Richard’s grandfather. I am mostly interested in the Frazier/Frasher line as that is what YDNA looks at. I think that other Frazers that descend from the Frazers of North Roscommon, Ireland may be interested also. At this point, I usually try and do my own tree to see if it comes out the same way. At best, this will be a second opinion. I don’t have the time to go into it in great detail, but may find out if the tree is obvious or if there are problem points.

Richard’s grandfather is found in the 1920 Census:

His father, Frank was the enumerator:

Frank and his father were both born in Tennessee according to the 1920 Census. Here is Dickson to the West of Nashville:

Frank Frazier

I think that this is Frank in the 1900 Census:

Interestingly, this family is listed as Frasher. This is consistent with Frank’s death record which has his mother as Mary Graham born in Pennsylvania:

Interestingly, the marriage record spells the name Frasher also:

Morgan and Anderson Frazier/Frasher

Here is Anderson Frasher with his large family on the farm in Dickson:

Here Morgan is William M. It helps that the family lived in Dickson for so long. here is the family in 1870. Now Anderson just has initials none of which are ‘A’:

Findagrave has Anderson’s name as William Pellen Frasher:

This appears to reconcile the names:

However, the name is Frasher on the stone:

Here is a photo of W.P.A. that I found from an Ancestry Tree:

This was a Southern family and W.P.A. served for the Confederate army during the Civil War as a blacksmith. He was also a prisoner of war.

David Frazier/Frasher (1803-1890)

Here is W.P.A. in 1850:

William A was a farmer in Dickson. His father was a blacksmith:

They were both born in Tennessee. From this point, without a detailed Census before 1850, tracking this family should be more difficult. The 1880 Census gives a hint.

David’s father was born in Virginia and his mother in North Carolina. His wife, Elizabeth’s parents were both born in Georgia.

William Frazier/Frasher

All the Ancestry trees have William as the father of David. When I put in William Frazier as the father of David at Ancestry I get 7 hints Here is one from 1828:

It appears to me that the Frazier/Frasher name was phonetically spelled. Here we have a combination that came out as Frashier. This was in Hickman County. Hickson is quite close to Dickson:

In the record above, George Harvell is listed as an assignee of William Frashier. I am not sure what this meant. It seems like land was granted to William, but he gave it George? This seems to be our William Frasher due to the proximity to Dickson County. Here is the 8th District mentioned in the land record above:

However, there was a William Frasher listed in the 1790 Census for Randolph, North Carolina:

Here is Randolph, NC:

Here is the 1830 Census:

The simple interpretation is that William was between 60 and 69 and that his wife was between 50 and 59. It is likely that he was living with his four sons and one daughter. It appears that his son David was not included here as he is listed elsewhere on the Dickson 1830 Census:

Here is a good land deal in Hickman. One cent per acre for 100 acres:

Here is a portion of some tax records for Hickman:

The left part is cut off, but it looks like there is a David, William and Robert Frasher listed there.  My thinking is that Frasher was a fairly rare name. Meanwhile, in Dickson the tax record has a William Frasher and a David Frazier:

Of course, none of this shows that William was the father of David. I suppose it must be from family tradition.

 

Back in 1827, there was a William Frashier buying land in White County at 12 and a half cents per acre:

White County is to the East of Nashville:

Here is an 1825 tax record for White County:

Perhaps Thomas, William, Alexander Senior and Junior and Munford were related.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Richard has ordered a new BigY 700 test. These results will first show his 111 STRs, then extended STRs, then the SNPs which give the most accurate reading of his male line.
  • Richard’s past testing of 37 STRs has put him in a grouping with my Frazer family with roots in North Roscommon, Ireland. That means that it is possible that Richard’s ancestors came from that same place.
  • Richard’s ancestors had the last name of Frazier, Frasher or Frashier, but I haven’t seen their name spelled Frazer.
  • I took a look at Richard’s genealogy. His ancestors lived for quite some time in Tennessee. Before that they were proably in North Carolina and possibly Virginia. There is a lot of speculation on where William Frasher was born including one document claiming he could have been a German mercenary during the Revolutionary War. As it is claimed that William was born in 1765, that would have made him a very young mercenary during that War.
  • Next, I will review Richard’s 111 STR results when they come in.

 

 

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A New Frazer BigY Test Ordered

A new BigY 700 YDNA Test has been ordered for Rick. This is big news for my Irish branch of the Frazer family. This branch can be traced to the Northern part of County Roscommon in the early 1700’s. Rick had taken the 67 STR test previously, but not the BigY test until now.

The Two Roscommon Frazer Branches

The two Frazer branches are divided into the Archibald branch and the James Branch. These two were likely brothers living near the Northern border of County Roscommon in the early 1700’s. Here are the four Frazer YDNA testers:

Rick is on the lower left. His second great-grandfather Richard Patterson or Paterson Frazer left Ireland for upstate New York. From there the family moved to Canada where many of his Frazer descendants live today. Paul is my second cousin once removed. That means that Paul’s great grandfather George Frazer was my 2nd great-grandfather. Paul’s grandfather Hubert moved from Ireland to the Boston area after my his brother, my great-grandfather moved to Boston. This branch moved to America a generation after the Richard Patterson Frazer family.

History of Frazer YDNA Testing Back to 2015

YDNA testing for our branch of Frazers began in 2015. At that time, STRs were tested. A STR is a Short Tandem Repeat. These repeating markers have values that may go up or down. The combination of differences of these STRs can define a group of people. However, the STRs are not a accurate or precise as a SNP. A SNP only mutates once. The STRs were used to predict SNPs. I believe that Joanna’s brother Jonathan was the first of our Frazer group to test for 37 STRs. This put him into the very general R1a SNP group.

The R1a group is a bit of an oddball SNP for Frasers or Frazers. Most Frasers going back to Scotland are in general R1b. That means that before there was a Frazer surname our Frazer ancestors arrived from Scandinavia to the Inverness area to join a group of people that were to become Frasers/Frazers. This probably happened about 2,000 years ago. So there are the old Scot Frazers who were already in present day Scotland before 2,000 years ago. These would be the R1b Frazers/Frasers. Our ‘newcomer’ branch is R1a.

Here is my wild guess on the movements of our branch of Frazers:

Because YDNA reaches so far back, it is possible to know the general areas that Frazer ancestors lived thousands of years ago. Based on YDNA matches with other clans, it appears that the Frazers lived in the Inverness area since before the time that surnames were adopted. After that, family tradition says that our Frazers probably lived in Southwest Scotland before moving to Ireland.

I had my 2nd cousin Paul tested and he was a match with Jonathan. This showed that we were on the right track and that the Archibald and James Lines were connected. Paul’s testing seemed to indicate that his YDNA had changed more than Jonathan’s over the past 300 years or so. That means that Jonathan’s YDNA should be more representative of their common ancestor who was Archibald Frazer born perhaps in 1690.

Frazer YDNA 2017

In May 2017 Paul’s BigY results came in. This moved his Haplogroup down the R1a Tree to R-YP432. This SNP was still very old. The common ancestor for this SNP was 2800 years old, but this was an improvement on Paul’s previous STR testing. Based on that testing his common ancestor was over 14,000 years old!

In June 2017, Jonathan’s BigY results came in. These seemed to indicate that Paul and Jonathan should move down at least one step to R-YP5515. However, the company YFull was ahead of FTDNA in that analysis. Around July 2017, The R1a Administrator for FTDNA with expertise in the Frazer area of R1a came up with this tree in 2017:

This put the Frazers down the tree three levels below R-YP5515 and gave a common ancestor date for the two Frazer lines of about 1600 AD. This is certainly in the area of when we think Archibald, the father of the Archibald and James Lines was born (around 1690).

Rick tested for 67 STRs and his results came in also in July 2017. Rick’s closest match was with Paul. This makes sense as both Paul and Rick are on the Archibald Line and both descend from James Frazer born about 1804.

Here is a possible tree I made based on the STR testing:

The State of Roscommon Frazer YDNA to This Point

Basically, we have four YDNA testers. Three of these testers have taken the BigY test and one, Rick is in the process of having his BigY taken. When Rodney and Jonathan had their BigY, I was hoping that they would have a matching SNP that Paul did not have that would define the James Branch of the Roscommon Frazers. However, that did not happen. There could be a few reasons for this. The most likely reason is that no new SNPs formed between about 1690 when we think Archibald Frazer was born and Jonathan and Rodney’s common ancestor who was Thomas Henry Frazer born 1836:

That means that between Paul and Rick, I will be hoping to catch a new SNP between Archibald Frazer born about 1720 and James Frazer born about 1804.

Paul’s Private Variants

One of the reasons that I think that there may be a new SNP on the Archibald Branch is that Paul has four Private Variants:

FTDNA lists the private variants as position location numbers until they get a match.  So far, Paul’s Private Variants do not match any that Rodney or Jonathan have on the James Line of Frazers. That means that Rick, if he has any of these Private Variants, will match with Paul. Then that matching variant will be named and will be the new name for the Archibald Branch of the Frazers of Roscommon. So getting one more SNP will put a cap on the process. The BigY describes a person’s SNPs from genetic Adam up to present day. This last SNP will be the closest to present day for the Frazer Line. Also Rick will be the first Frazer to take the newer BigY 700 test which is more accurate and complete. The previous three testers took the BigY 500 test. I don’t feel any need to upgrade Paul at this point as he already has four private or unknown variants.

If Paul and Rick match on one of their Private Variants, that will be good news for those on the Archibald Line of Frazers. That will mean that, assuming we got the genealogy right, the new SNP will be from either Archibald Frazer born about 1720, Philip Frazer, or James Frazer born 1804.

Next Step: Waiting

Next up is waiting for Rick’s BigY 700 results to come in. Once they are in, we need to wait again for FTDNA to do a manual review on Rick’s results. There is also a chance that someone else will decide to have the BigY test done.

Summary and Conclusions

  • The history of YDNA testing for our branch of Frazers is about 5 years.
  • This 5 years of testing has resulted in several thousands of years of Frazer history going back way before surnames were being used. Tracing those results show where Frazer ancestors likely lived in pre-historic times.
  • Additional testing is needed to bring the Frazers into more modern times. It appears that we have a SNP that is so far, at least specific to the Frazer or North Roscommon surname. That SNP is R-YP6489.
  • It is hoped that Rick’s BigY 700 test, in conjunction with Paul’s BigY results, will give a name to the Archibald Line of Frazers. This is one of the main Frazer Branches that formed in the early 1700’s. The other is the James Line.
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Looking at Madeline’s AncestryDNA Frazer Shared Clusters

I hope the title makes sense. I just finished working on Joanna’s Shared Clusters here. It turns out I generated more questions than answers in that Blog. One question had to do with the lack of DNA matches that Joanna had with Madeline’s line.

Madeline’s Genealogy

Here are Madeline and Joanna. They show as third cousins. Third cousins should match each other about 90% of the time according to FTDNA:

However, in my previous Blog, I didn’t see consistent matching between Joanna and Madeline’s branch which should have showed up in Shared Clustering.

Madeline’s Shared Clustering

I’ll just jump into Madeline’s Shared Clustering. The good (and bad) thing about that is that I’ll need to know a little more about Madeline’s genealogy. It looks like I have access to Madeline’s sister Charlotte’s DNA also. Well I’ve already downloaded all of Madeline’s matches, so I’ll go with her.

Here are Madeline’s matches according to the Shared Clustering Program:

Here is Madeline’s sister Charlotte’s tree:

The basic things I need to know is that Madeline’s and Charlotte’s four grandparents are:

  • Crowley
  • Cronin
  • Emmet
  • Frazer

I’ll start with the basic matches for Madeline at 50 cM or greater. This was a bit basic as it gave me just one embryonic cluster.

I say embryonic, because I can see things happening within Cluster 1 and outside of it. Next I’ll ratchet Madeline’s matches down to 35 cM.

Madeline’s 7 Shared Clusters at 35 cM

This is everything you need to know about Madeline’s AncestryDNA matches at 35 cM and above:

Madeline has a large Cluster 4. The next step is to do some basic identification of the Clusters and narrow down to Madeline’s Frazer side. The easiest way to identify common ancestors is by the Common Ancestors column in the image above.

Cluster 4 appears to be on Madeline’s paternal side which is Crowley and Cronin. Kathy who is Charlotte’s daughter has done some work and she has the small Cluster 1 as Frazer:

Kathy’s code for pink in the second colored column is for Catherine Matilda Frazer and the reddish color in Cluster 1 is labeled Frazer.

The next Cluster that has mostly Frazer is Madeline’s Cluster 7:

However, Kathy has Lyall coded as yellow which is Crowley.

Madeline’s Clusters at 27 cM

Ancestry’s shared matches go down to 20 cM, so 27 cM is about halfway down from 35 cM. Kathy shows some possible Frazer connection in Clusters 5, 8 and 9.

 

Basically Clusters 5-9 may have a connection with each other. However, still no common ancestors have been identified by AncestryDNA.

Madeline’s 20 cM Clusters

This is the lowest level Ancestry has Shared Matches. The Shared Clustering Program calls this ‘all visible shared matches’. At this level, Madeline has 45 Shared Clusters. Now Madeline has some clusters with identified Frazer common ancestors:

One thing I notice is that the clusters with Frazer common ancestors don’t have affiliated clusters. That is the last column before the colored columns. The other observation is that the Cluster 8 Frazer is separated from the Frazers at the bottom of the list in Clusters 38 and 40.

Madeline’s Cluster 8 match is Clyde:

I see that I also have access to Toni’s AncestryDNA matches. In order to see this tree from the sides of the three brothers (William Fitzgerald, Edward Wynn and Thomas Henry Frazer, it would be a good idea to look at Toni’s shared clusters also. However, due to changes at AncestryDNA, it has been difficult to download to Shared Clustering lately, so this third analysis may have to wait.

More on Cluster 8 and David

David from Cluster 8 has a Fraser in his ancestry, so let’s take a look:

Hopefully this is more than a coincidence. I’ll see if I can build out David’s tree. According to the 1930 Census,

Keith’s father was from Canada and mother from Ohio.

Further, I see from the 1910 Census, that Augusta’s parents were from Ireland. That means I may have been on the wrong track with the Fraser lead:

It turns out that the Wilson side was from Ireland also:

The clusters are easy, but the genealogy is a pain. I did find this information at Ancestry, but I don’t know if it is accurate:

This family would have been in an area of County Roscommon that would not have been too far from where the Frazers lived.

Gerald From Cluster 8

Gerald is the only other match from Cluster 8. I notice that Gerald has Michigan ancestry which makes me curious.. That means that I get to build out Gerald’s tree. Fortunately, I don’t enjoy watching TV much. This is what Gerald has:

That means in Madeline’s Cluster 8, we see 100% of the matches have trees. Here is where I got with Gerald’s tree:

The paternal side seemed to be going to French names, so I looked at the maternal side and found Gertrude Dwignan. This sounds like the Duigan that I found above.

Here is Getrude “Dwignan” in the 1900 Census:

Things get a little complicated with the extended family. Gertrude is living in her husband’s mother’s house. There is a boarder named William Duignan also living in the house who is likely Gertrude’s brother. 

Here is Gertrude in 1880:

We see Gertrude’s brother William and her father John also. Unfortunately, her father was a widower at age 30. You may recognize Augusta from the previous genealogy I did above.

That leads me to this tree:

I have seen Henry Fry from a marriage certificate. I have seen Abigail Knott in many trees, but I have not verified that. However, my assumption is that Madeline’s Cluster 8 goes back to the Knott name. Here is one Archibald Frazer who married a Knott:

All this to say that it appears that Cluster 8 could be a Knott Cluster. I notice that Clyde who matches Madeline from Cluster 8 has a William Knott who married Elizabeth Knott in her tree also – though not as a direct ancestor.

Taking Shared Clustering Down to 6 cM

This doesn’t add new clusters, but adds matches around the clusters that are associated with the clusters. For Cluster 8, there was not a lot of change:

Madeline’s unaffiliated matches above Cluster 8 are associated with Cluster 7.  Madeline’s unaffiliated matches below her Cluster 8 are affiliated with Cluster 9 except for two matches. These matches were above 20 cM, so could have been in a cluster but they didn’t have enough matches. Again, Cluster 8 is not associated with any other cluster, so that makes me think that it could be an old cluster, perhaps going back to a Knott or other Irish ancestor.

Madeline’s Clusters 38 and 40

I had identified these two Clusters as having Frazer common ancestors:

However, as I look at Cluster 38, I see some connection with Cluster 37 and no connection with Cluster 36. That means that it would make sense to look at Cluster 37 also.

Cluster 38

Let’s see what we are dealing with in this Cluster first. Madeline has two matches: SC and LC. From checking AncestryDNA, I see that these two are siblings. Here are Madeline’s ThruLines for her common ancestor James Frazer born in the early 1700’s:

LC and SC are shown above. My claim to fame in the James Line is that I descend from Margaret Frazer. I am also a match to CK. I am pretty sure that this is the line that Margaret Frazer fits into.

Some SC Genealogy

This is what SC’s administrator has for a maternal side tree for SC:

This answers a question I had as Kathy had a category for Catherine Matilda Fraser and mentions her a lot. Here she is above in SC’s tree.

Here is Catherine in Leeds, Ontario in 1871:

This shows that George and Catherine were born in the United States, which may be wrong. Here is Catherine and family in 1851 in Leeds, Ontario:

Now she shows that she was born in Ireland. There appears to be some confusion as to the parentage of Catherine Matilda Frazer. Ancestry suggests that her mother could have been Mary Wooleghan and that Mary Wooleghan’s father was Michael Frazer. However, I am not seeing an obvious connection there. The tree that has Mary Wooleghan has this:

From this tree, it looks like Mary is the daughter of Michael Frazer and Margaret Stuart. I assume that the intention was to have William the son of Michael Frazer and Margaret Stewart.

Claire from Cluster 38

I’m hoping that Claire will shed some light on Cluster 38:

I took a guess on building out Claire’s maternal side. I got a little lazy and accepted some of Ancestry’s suggested hints. On that side I saw three of Claire’s ancestors from Ontario:

I have that Fanny Bellows was from Beachburg, Ontario. Beachburg is WNW of Ottawa. I have that Crysler Cook and Susan Wallace were from Stamford Township, Welland County, Ontario. Here is Susan Wallace in 1851:

Susan’s father appears to be Alex ‘Wallis’ a Presbyterian from Ireland. Crysler’s father was a Baptist named Abner who was born in Canada. I see that Madeline has Wallace in her tree but she was on the Emmet side.

Madeline’s Cluster 40

The next and last Cluster that Madeline has with Frazer common ancestors is Cluster 40.

This is a fairly small cluster with five people in it. However, there are many people outside the cluster. Those outside the Cluster have a low DNA match below 20 cM which could mean a more distant match that 4th cousin. Ancestry uses 20 cM as its cutoff for 4th cousin and for shared matches.

Gail

Here is Gail:

By the chart, Madeline and Gail are third cousins.

NB and BZ

NB has the largest match with Madeline in the cluster (33.9 cM). She has a large tree, but unfortunately, it is private. BZ is Betty on the chart above.

DO and PO

D.O.’s tree is confusing because the tree opens up to one person who I assume is DO’s spouse. Here is the tree I get for the spouse:

I assume that the O in the DO is for O’Hair, but I can’t be sure. Here is the Henry name mentioned as a possible common ancestor between Madeline and Gail:

Archibald Frazer, Mary Ann Henry (?)

Here is what DO’s tree has for Anne Henry:

If the connection is with Henry, then that could mean that Cluster 40 is a Henry Cluster and not a Frazer cluster. Also I see Palmer in the tree which is also in Gail in Betty’s tree.

PO is one generation younger than DO. Here is PO’s tree:

This means that Madeline matches PO on POs paternal side.

Matches Affiliated with Cluster 40

From the small sampling of matches in Cluster 40, the common denominator could be Henry. Let’s look at some of the other matches affiliated with Cluster 40 that are genetically more distant.

Toni

Toni does not have a tree, but I have her in my tree here:

Toni and Madeline have a small match of 7 cM.

SH

Madeline also has a match with SH of 16.2 cM. SH shows as the child of Walter Frazer along with Gail here:

Kay

Kay appears to be Betty’s niece and matches Madeline by 17 cM:

WG

Going down the list of those affiliated with Cluster 40, I see WG. WG only matches Madeline by 7 cM. As WG should be Madeline’s second cousin once removed, this seems like a very small match.

According to AncestryDNA, this is the chance of WG being Madeline’s 2nd cousin once removed:

The closest shared match between WG and Madeline is Sandy. Sandy and Madeline share 188 cM. Sandy is in Madeline’s Cluster 16 where Madeline has a White and Burrows common ancestor:

Here is Sandy’s tree:

I see that I already made my own tree for Sandy, so I must have gone down this road before:

These ancestors have New York State births, so fit in geographically with Madeline’s ancestors. However, I don’t see the specific matches as I probably didn’t go back far enough in time. The name of Susan Price is interesting as there was a Susannah Price who married a George Frazer who was born in Martinsburg, NY in 1858. However, he was from a different Frazer line.

Remember Sandy is in Cluster 16. She is not in Cluster 40 like WG, but is related in some secondary way.

Timothy

Timothy is next in the list of small matches above Madeline’s Cluster 40 that are affiliated with that Cluster. Here is his tree:

Here I notice a Mary Fraser married to Hugh McKay. I have come across Mary in the past and have built my own tree here:

Above is the paternal side for Timothy. There is even a photo for Mary M Fraser. I have that she was born in New York, but I think that Canada is a possibility also. The last time I looked at Mary Fraser, I was looking at the Michael Line:

However, I don’t think I made the genealogical connection.

Patricia

Patricia is the 6th person associated with Cluster 40, but outside the cluster due to her DNA match of less than 20 cM with Madeline. Here is her tree:

The maternal side of Patricia’s tree goes back to a Mary Armstrong who was born in Manorhamilton. Patricia has her mother as Margaret Palmer.

Joanna’s Brother and Sister

Madeline also matches Frazer researcher Joanna’s brother and sister in the group of DNA matches that is affiliated with Cluster 40. They should be third cousins, but by the DNA they would be less than that.

One of Joanna’s siblings matches Madeline at 9.4 cM and matches four out of five in Cluster 40. The other sibling matches Madeline by DNA at 10.0 cM and matches 3 out of 5 in Cluster 40. However, it is not totally clear to me that the match is on the Frazer side. Note above that Patricia also has a Palmer ancestor as does Joanna’s family. Kimberly also shows between Joanna’s two siblings but does not have a tree.

SW

SW shows this connection to Madeline:

SW is not on my chart.

I’m not sure if SW is the daughter of Sharon or of another daughter of Walter James Frazer. However, SW would be a second cousin once removed to Joanna. SW matches Joanna at 93 cM across 5 segments, which is about right for a 2nd cousin once removed. That tells me that something strange may be going on in the Edward Wynn Frazer line as Madeline has a low match with WG and a low match with Joanna’s family.

After SW there is a small match with WW, but I can’t figure out WW’s tree.

Below Cluster 40

Below Cluster 40, Madeline has four matches affiliated with Cluster 40:

Dean and Dot

Dean has a large tree, but it is private. Dot has a smaller tree, but I can see it:

Dot’s maternal side goes back to Henry. That was a possible spouse for Archibald Frazer born about 1795. I see there is some circumstantial evidence for the Palmer name also:

I’m too lazy too do my own tree for Dot, so I’ll skip that part.

Pamela and Christy

Pamela has no tree. Christy has this one:

A quick look at this tree shows Buchanan in common with the previous tree. Francis was from Belfast and his two parents are listed as being from Ireland.

Where Are Madeline’s Frazer Matches?

Madeline is one quarter Frazer, so theoretically one quarter of her matches should be on her Frazer side. As I saw above, it seems like some of the matches that are attributed to Frazer could be explained by matches to other ancestors. The problems seem to start here:

Madeline has normal matches to Mike, Charlotte, Kathy and Mary, but the match to WG is small.

At one step out, the matches on the to Thomas Henry Frazer Line are small also.

Let’s check WG, to see how this person matches others. Madeline has shared matches with WG:

David has no tree. NB has a large private tree. NB and DO are managed by the same person. BZ is the great grandaughter of Thomas Henry Frazer. It seems significant that none of Madeline’s very close relatives match WG – at least not at 20 cM or more.

An Analogy from My Own Genealogy

Actually the analogy is from my mother’s genealogy. My mother’s mother was a Lentz. My mother is one quarter Lentz and one quarter Nicholson. However, a lot of the closer matches are both Nicholson and Lentz, so it is difficult to separate the two. Here is my Lentz DNA/genealogy tree:

The Lentz/Nicholson relatives are on the left. The common ancestors go back to Jacob George Lentz and Annie Nicholson. The were born in the 1860’s. The DNA matches that are only Lentz have an common ancestor that goes way back to 1792 or three generations further back. It would be possible that Madeline has this same type of issue with her Frazer ancestors. However, Madeline’s situation seems a little different in that she has WG that she should match and doesn’t also other Frazer branches that should match more closely do not. But they do match faintly, so it gets confusing. Madeline could be matching on a more distant Frazer line or a more distant line that is collateral to the Frazers.

Summary and Conclusions

  • The small DNA matches suggest that something could be amiss with Madeline’s Frazer side genealogy.
  • However, she does have some small matches which suggest a match further back in time on the Frazer side or on lines that married the Frazers.
  • Madeline has a very small match with her second cousin WG. If WG matched other Frazer lines, that that would tell me that his genealogy is right and that Madeline’s is wrong. However, he doesn’t, so that means that there could be a double problem in the genealogy.
  •  I had looked at Joanna’s line [Thomas Henry Frazer] in a previous Blog. I had also wanted to look at the Willliam Fitzgeral Frazer Line (born 1821) to see how they fit in with the other two lines, but there was a trouble with Ancestry working with Shared Clustering, so that will have to wait.

 

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Looking At Joanna’s Frazer Shared DNA Matches and Shared Clustering

Frazer genealogist Joanna recently expressed some interest in Shared Clustering, so I thought I’d take a look at her shared DNA matches and shared clusters. I won’t go into how shared clusters work, but the output is supposed to organize your DNA matches into ancestral lines.

Joanna’s Ancestry

I am mostly interested in Joanna’s Frazer ancestry, as I am distantly related to her on at least one of her Frazer lines. Here is what I see for Joanna’s tree:

Joanna is divided into four parts: Frazer, Seymour, Dickins and Williams.

Shared Clustering

Shared Clustering has a basic 50 cM setting. Here are Joanna’s matches sorted at 50 cM and above:

Cluster 1 looks like Joanna’s Williams side. Cluster 2 is Joanna’s close relatives and Dickins side. Cluster 3 is Joanna’s Frazer side. I didn’t see anyone from Joanna’s Seymour side. That means that she doesn’t have close matches on that line or not enough close matches to make a cluster. Because Joanna has many close relatives tested, the demarcations between the clusters don’t show up well. Close relatives will be in all clusters. I put a yellow box around the Frazer Cluster 3.

At 30 cM Joanna Has 7 Clusters

Here is a shrunken down image of all of Joanna’s matches and how they are clustered into 7 groups:

The places where the red markers go a long way in a line are Joanna’s closest relatives.

The Cluster that I recognize at this level is Cluster 2 – Gail and Sharon are in this Cluster. They are Joanna’s second cousins with common ancestors Thomas Henry Frazer and Eliza Jane Palmer. Gail and Sharon also show that they have a correlated cluster in Cluster 1. I take that to mean that Cluster 1 could be a Palmer Cluster.

More on Joanna’s Cluster 2 at 35 cM

Joanna’s Cluster Two is a bit of a compound Cluster:

The first part of Cluster Two is somewhat separated from the second part but not totally.  Let’s look at my Frazer DNA/Genealogy Chart:

Here I’m at a bit of a loss as I am not an expert on Joanna’s side of the Frazer tree. However, one interpretation is that the two sides of Cluster Two could be for William Fitzgerald Frazer and Thomas Henry Frazer. The question could then be: what happened to the descendants of Edward Wynn Frazer born 1830? There has been a problem with Joanna’s family matching this branch in the past, so let’s keep an eye on this branch. I see that I have permission to look at Madeline’s DNA, so it may make sense to look at her shared matches to see how they fit in. This will probably require a separate Blog.

Kelly in Cluster 2

Joanna has a match in Cluster 2a with Kelly who has Frazer genealogy. Let’s take a look. Cluster 2a is the William Fitzgerald Frazer Branch.

Here we see that Kelly shows her ancestry goes back to a William Frazer born 1824. Also notice that Kelly’s ancestor has a middle initial of W. Here is how Joanna shows Kelly’s ancestor:

So while I was thinking that Kelly would fit into the William Fitzgerald Line, the genealogy shows that she is in the William Wynn Line. Here is Kelly’s ancestor grave marker:

This seems further supported by the 1851 Census of Ontario:

That leaves me with this possible interpretation of Joanna’s Cluster:

 

 

This shows that Joanna matches Thomas Henry closely (through second cousins). She matches William Fitzgerald descendants who are third cousins once removed. Then she matches a group that appears to be descended from William (not Edward) Wynn Frazer. This is probably William Frazer:

That leads to this crazy situation:

This shows that Joanna is a 5th cousin twice removed to Kelly. I say it’s crazy because the relationship is so far out. Joanna matches Kelly on two segments which means that they could be related on more than one line. For example, Joanna doesn’t have a wife for her ancestor Archibald Frazer born 1792. Perhaps his wife was a Knott. Or Kelly and Joanna just have a randomly large DNA match considering the relational distance.

A Transitional Clustering at 30 cM

I already ran this Shared Clustering for Joanna, so I’ll show it.

Here, Joanna’s second cousins popped out into their own Cluster 3. Cluster 2 now appears to just be William Wynn Frazer and Kelly and William Fitzgerald Frazer in the lower right part of the Cluster.

Thomas From Cluster Two

Because I only have one known person (Kelly) in the first part of Cluster Two, I’ll look at Thomas. He has an Alexander Frazer in his tree from Pennsylvania. I’ll take what Thomas has and see if I can make a connection:

This appears to be Alexander and family in 1920:

Alexander’s brother William was said to be born in Connecticut. Here is Archey’s Declaration of Intention:

Archibald was transcribed as being born in “Roocommon”.  That narrows it down. It appears that Joanna was ahead of me and already has this line:

However, this is in a different Frazer Line than Joanna is in, so more mystery. I’ll be glad to add him to my Frazer/Stinson Tree:

So the mystery deepens. Joanna, what is going on? Again, I suspect that there could be a non-Frazer connection somewhere. The question now is how Kelly and Thomas are related?

Joanna also matches Emily on this Line. My guess is that Emily is Thomas’ daughter. In fact, that is how Joanna has Emily.

Taking Joanna’s Shared Clustering Down to 20 cM

At this level of DNA matches, Joanna has 31 Clusters. Let’s see what they show.

Emily, Thomas and Kelly are still in the same Cluster, but now it is Cluster 22. The fact that these three are still in the same cluster tells me that this could be a fairly old set of common ancestors. This is one possibility in addition to this being a non-Frazer cluster (or a cluster that has Frazer and another common ancestor).

Going Down to 6 cM for Joanna’s Clusters

Doing this doesn’t create any new clusters, but it shows people that probably would be in clusters if clusters did go down that low. I am setting my expectations low here. I am just hoping for not too many more questions to come out of this.

The extra matches that Joanna has are above and below Cluster 22. Here are the ones above:

What I find interesting is that the top part of Cluster 22 has a pink designation. Joanna has this as McMaster/Frazer/Haire/Bowles if I am reading it right. The green is Frazer.

Here are the extra matches at the bottom of Cluster 22:

They form at transition between Clusters 22 and 23. Cluster 23 has Toni from the William Fitzgerald Frazer Branch. Notice that Joanna’s pink designation has mostly gone away for Cluster 23.

Joanna’s Other Clusters

Joanna’s Cluster 26 is the McPartland Cluster:

There are only three in that Cluster. That McPartlands can trace back to an Ann Frazer. Here is where Joanna has Ann:

However, this is genealogy is just a guess at this point. I have written many Blogs about the McPartland including one on Joanna’s sister.  However, after looking at how the clusters are associated, I can see where Joanna would come to the conclusion that this is the place to put the McPartland family in her genealogy. The McPartland Cluster 26 has an affinity for Joanna’s Cluster 27:

Cluster 27 and Different Common Ancestors

Here is another thing to sort out. Cluster 27 and matches associated with that Cluster have differrent common ancestors:

 

As per above, the McPartland Cluster had common ancestor Archibald of Tullynure. That Cluster had an affinity for Cluster 27. It looks like all the Common Ancestors that are in Cluster 27 proper have Archibald of Tullynure (or Thomas Henry Frazer). It doesn’t seem normal that there should be a group that is associated with Cluster 27 includes Palmer in Notley. If these were really Palmer and Notley, I would assume that these matches should be associated with Palmer and Notley Clusters. That leads me to believe that could be some relationship between Archibald of Tullynure (or his wife) and Palmer or Notley (or their spouses).

Here I have filtered Joanna’s clusters and matches by Palmer and Notley common ancestors:

 

I also included the row number to the left. Cluster 1 has a Notley common ancestor in the cluster. Cluster 10 has a Thomas Palmer common ancestor. Then rob has a Notley common ancestor associated with Clusters 1 and 10 which makes sense. I’m saying that it doesn’t make as much sense that Claire, Alexander, etc have Notley and Palmer common ancestors that are associated with Cluster 27 which is a Thomas Henry or Archibald of Tullynure Cluster.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Many Blogs I set out trying to solve all the genealogical problems, but in reality I end up inching toward the truth
  • The Blog raised more questions than providing answers
  • One question: How does the Edward Wynn Frazer/Ismena Jane White branch fit in as the DNA connection is not clear? I hope to look at the DNA from this branch in my next Blog
  • Next questions: Joanna is in a cluster with Kelly who appears to be a 5th cousin twice removed.
  • This Kelly is also in a Cluster with Thomas who is in an even more distant Line of Archibald Frazer/Stinson. How are these two connected?
  • My last question had to do with Joanna’s Cluster 27 at the lowest resolution of clustering. She had many matches with Palmer or Notley ancestors in a Cluster which had her ancestor Archibald of Tullynure. This suggests that the two families could be related.
  • I looked at a small McPartland Cluster. This cluster seems to support the way Joanna has this family in her genealogy. However, I also match this family through X Chromosome matches. It would be interesting to try to integrate the connections between Joanna, McPartlands and my family.

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