Category: Newfoundland

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Edward and the Dicks Family Autosomal DNA

My last Blog was about Edward and his Newfoundland Dicks YDNA. In this Blog, I’ll look at the autosomal side of Edward’s DNA.

Edward’s Newfoundland Genealogy

Edward descends from Christopher Dicks who was believed to be from Harbour Buffett, born 1812:

This Christopher was believed to be the son of another Christopher who was born around 1784. The 1784 Christopher had many children and their ancestors have had their DNA tested. I have been trying to tie that DNA as best I can back to Christopher. This is somewhat complicated by intermarriages. My wife has also tested. She is the daughter of Joan. Esther is a half Aunt of Joan and has Dicks on her father and mother’s side. By this chart, Edward is Esther’s 2nd cousin, once removed, Joan’s third cousin and my wife Marie’s third cousin, once removed.

Edward’s Dicks DNA

Here is Edward’s match with Esther:

The estimated number of generations to their common ancestor is about what one would expect for a 1st cousin once removed. That could mean that Edward and Esther share ancestors outside of their Dicks ancestors shown above.

Here is Edward’s match with Joan:

Joan and Edward also share more DNA than expected. The 3.5 generations estimated to a common ancestor would usually indicate a 2nd cousin once removed. However, this is still within normal ranges. Also note that Joan shares some DNA with Edward that Esther does not. See Chromosome 6, for example.

My wife, as expected also got a little more DNA than average for a 3rd cousin once removed:

The DNA that Esther, Joan and Marie share with Edward should represent the DNA shared with Christopher Dicks b. 1812 and his wife Elizabeth. This is especially true for Joan and Marie. Remember I said that Esther has a Dicks ancestor on her maternal side, so this is a complicating factor.

The Autosomal Matrix for Dicks Descendants

I’ll do a multiple kit analysis at Gedmatch with 24 descendants of Christopher Dicks b. 1784. Then I put the results in a matrix:

I’m quite happy with the results as all the Christopher Dicks descendants scored well (inside the bold box). Everyone is well behaved. Hayley has slightly lower scores with Joan but that is expected as she is one generation removed from Edward, Barry and Joan. Edward has some notable matches outside the Christopher Line of around 100 cM with Molly and Ken that could be worth pursuing. I’m still a bit puzzled with the large match that Ken has with Esther.

Triangulating

Next I take all the specific segment matches between the 24 Dicks descendants and compare them to each other. Actually, I have done this already for 23 of the Dicks descendants, so I need to look to see what difference Edward makes in all these comparisons. Now we will be unlocking the secrets of Edward’s genetic past. The say something like that on the Finding Your Roots TV show that I watch.

Triangulation Group (TG) Chromosome 5

The first significant TG is see is at Chromosome 5. It looks like this in spreadsheet form:

Gedmatch repeats the matches, so each match shows up twice. Here we see that Esther, Edward and Joan all match each other.

It would be logical to assume that the common ancestors for this TG are Chritopher, born about 1812 and his wife Elizabeth. The theory is that the TG points to only one ancestor, so the DNA for this TG is only from Christopher or Elizabeth. So, what about Hayley? She is not in the TG. She shows as matching Pauline who is also not in the TG. That tells me that their match is coming from a different direction. Hayley does have Christopher and Elizabeth as ancestors, but Pauline does not. We would have to look for another common ancestor that these two have. Pauline is on the Dicks/Joyce Line.

Grace, Dorothy and Catherine are all from the Dicks/Adams line, so it could be likely that they are matching on that line only.

A nested TG on Chromosome 5

This next TG on Chromosome is a little more complicated:

In my previous work on Dicks DNA, I had noted the TG with Wallace, Judy, Katherine and Cathy. I also had Nelson in there, so I probably lowered some thresholds for that. This time, there is also a TG with Edward, Esther and Barry above, and Edward is added to the TG below. I interpret this as meaning that the top TG harks back to Christopher and Elizabeth and the second one is for the elder Christopher b. 1784 and his wife Margaret.

This should be an interesting visual:

The black TG is the first TG that is more recent (Christopher of the early 1800’s). The second TG goes back to the elder Christopher (from the late 1700’s) and wife in red. Edward is in both TGs. My strong guess is that the red TG is truly a TG for Christopher and Margaret. This is because the DNA is coming from four of the children. It is possible, but not likely that each of these four lines has a common ancestor with a surname other than Dicks.

Why is Edward in two TGs and Barry and Esther only in one. I can only guess. My guess is that Edward inherited DNA from Christopher b. 1784 and Margaret. Perhaps Esther and Barry inherited DNA from only Christopher or Margaret. Any more guesses would make my brain hurt too much, so I’ll stop there.

TG Chromosome 6

There is a similar situation on Chromosome 6.

At the top, there is Grace, Sandra and Dorothy. They are from the Elizabeth Dicks/Thomas Adams Line. Katherine, also a part of that line, pops in below. Wallace, Judy, Molly and Howie are in the Rachel Dicks/James Joyce Line.  So picture these Dicks line outside of the highlighted TGs.  The highlighted TG could be one TG where Cathy opts out and decides to start matching Cheryl. Edward opts into the TG not far from where Cathy opts out. The other way to look at it would be like the previous TG. Barry, Edward and Hayley all have Christopher b. 1812 and his wife as ancestors.

Well, that’s pretty ugly. In this situation, I’m not sure if Cathy, Barry, and Hayley might not have another common ancestor. My best guess right now is that I have the ancestors right.

another brain twister on chromosome 6

 

Here Edward is in the middle of two new TGs. Edward matches Esther and Pauline in one TG and Joan and Ken in the other. Here are the two TGs in a Chromosome Browser from Edward’s point of view:

  1. Esther
  2. Pauline
  3. Joan
  4. Ken

We know that neither of these TGs have Christopher b. 1812 and his wife in them. That is because, as far as we know, Pauline and Ken do not have these two as ancestors.

I have shown in the past from DNA that Esther and Joan have Crann in their ancestry. One place where Crann may have come in could be that the Margaret that married the Christopher in the top red circle was a Crann. That would make the red TG a Crann TG and the yellow one a Dicks TG. Again, it is a bit of wild speculation, but it does help explain why Ken has such large matches with other Dicks. He is likely related on many lines.  Note above that he descends from a Dicks/Crann Line.

Cathy and TG7

Cathy was in a TG above with Barry and Haley on Chromosome 6. Here she is in a TG with Edward and Esther:

This makes me wonder what Cathy has in common with Edward, Esther, Barry and Haley. I see by her family tree that she had Harbour Buffett ancestors.

One or two new TGs Chromosome 9

This was a little difficult to see, so I hid some of the duplicate matches:

Aah, the mysteries of DNA. There is one good thing about my mother in law being in TGs. She is a half niece to her Aunt Esther, so that cuts down on some of the possible lines. Below is Esther’s family tree. Joan is only related on Esther’s paternal side which includes those ancestors within the red box.

The bad news is that there are a ton of gaps in the tree. The only two surnames I have for sure are Upshall and Dicks. Plus it is difficult to be sure about the two oldest Dicks families on the tree. The point is that the TGs on Chromosome 9 have to be on the top part of the tree highlighted in red.

TG10

Esther and Edward have at least one ancestor in common with Ken who is from the Dicks/Crann Line:

TG11 Christopher b. 1812

 

TG13 – Dorothy from the Adams Line

 

I must be near the end.

TG14 – back to home base and Christopher

 

This is all solidifying that Joan, Edward and Esther have the same relatively recent common ancestors.

TG18 on the Adams Line with Grace and Nelson

TG19 – With Wallace and Judy on the Joyce Line

 

Those are all the TGs. Now I just need to summarize them.

TG Matrix

The matrix is getting big, so I will have to show it in two screen shots. I hid a few of the people. One person, I don’t see in Gedmatch anymore. Sandi was in only one TG and Forrest was in none. I hid Clayton as he is unsure of his Dicks ancestry.

Assuming that all these TGs represent Dicks, we should be amassing quite a bit of information on the various Dicks Lines and for their parents Christopher Dicks and his wife Margaret. In fact, I show at least one triangulated segment for each chromosome.

Filtered TG matrices

Here I filtered just by Edward’s TGs:

Esther:

Joan:

Finally, the Matrix filtered for Ken’s TGs:

This further shows Ken’s affinity to the Christopher Line by TGs.

I’ve gone on way too long, so it’s time to quit.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Edward has contributed a substantial amount of information to the Newfoundland Dicks DNA Project
  • Edward is clearly in the same group as Esther, Joan, Barry and Hayley and has formed many new TGs
  • The arrival of DNA results recently for Edward, Barry and Hayley has more than doubled what was available for the Christopher DIcks b. 1812 descendants.
  • Ken continues to play an interesting part in his matches and TGs
  • Filtering the TG Matrix showed some promise. It appears that Ken is more closely related to Joan than to Edward based on filtering.  However, Ken showed up most in Edward’s TGs other than TGs Edward had within the Christopher Line.
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Edward and the Dicks Family YDNA

I recently had an email from Edward. He had found my Blogs on Dicks DNA via Google. He had done a lot of Dicks genealogy in the past and now has had his DNA tested. That is great news. Edward is someone with a great knowledge of Dicks genealogy and has tested his Autosomal and YDNA.

First, Dicks YDNA

Seeing as I knew nothing up until now about Dicks YDNA, I’ll start with that. Edward is R-L371. That needs a bit of explanation. In very broad strokes, that shows that the branch of Dicks that we are looking at is R1b > L21 > L371. L21 is an interesting branch. L21 has been called the Celtic branch. This may be inaccurate, but to me it typifies the old inhabitants of the British Isles. As you know, the British Isles have been invaded by many different groups. I suppose you can say the L21’s are the invaded rather than the invaders of the British Isles.

Here is L371 on the L21 Tree:

This is from an outmoded tree. The creator of the tree gave up updating it in 2015 as so many L21 branches have been discovered. You will notice that some groups have more branches than others. L371 has very few branches. YFull tracks (for a fee) branches for people that have taken the BigY YDNA test or equivalent.

The interesting thing about the YFull Tree is that it gives dates. It shows that R-L371 was formed 4300 years ago. However, it has R-Y15149 right under it formed only 350 years ago. That is a long time span.

For R1b, Alex Williamson’s Tree is another resource. This tree also analyzes BigY testers.

I erased the ID’s for privacy. From the above, it looks like there are three L371 people that have taken the BigY test and uploaded to the Big Tree. This shows that McKee and Stewart share one variant (with a number) and two SNPs. SNPs are the ones starting with letters, like BY11922. If two Dicks descendants were to take the Big Y test, it would be likely that a new SNP would be found that would be unique to the Dicks family.

STRs Vs SNPs

I started out discussing SNPs above as they are more certain than the STRs. SNPs are Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms. The Single is the important word and it means that they are singular or unique. STR stands for Short Tandem Repeat. A repeat is a number of copies of a position at your YDNA that gets repeated more or less due to a mutation. Because the value of the STR can go up or down over time, this makes for some ambiguities.

STRs and SNPs have an interesting interplay. For example, STRs are used to estimate a SNP, then SNPs are further tested for verification. This is unless a BigY or similar test is taken. The BigY finds all your named SNPs and then discovers new or unnamed SNPs which would be named at a future date once someone else tests positive for them. Once one has tested for a SNP or Haplogroup that is as close to the present as can be found, the STRs can be used as a sort of fine tuning within that SNP.

Ed and Harold’s STRs

Ed forwarded me the results of his 111 STR test. 111 STRs are a lot. That is pretty much the maximum number of STRs that people take at FTDNA. Ed also sent me Harold’s 111 STR results. Harold is a Henry Dicks (b. 1774) Line descendant and Ed is a Christopher Dicks (b. 1789) Line descendant.

This came out quite small. Harold is listed first. the value in red is Harold’s Haplogroup. It is in red because this SNP is a very general SNP estimated on his STRs. Ed has the haplogroup or SNP of R-L371 that I mentioned above. This is in green indicating that Ed has tested for that Haplgroup or SNP confirming that he has it. Ed highlighted in yellow the STRs that differed between him and Harold. He noted that there were only 4 out of 111 STRs that were different. That likely means that Harold and Ed share the same Haplogroup of R-L371.

FTDNA L371 YDNA Project

FTDNA has many Projects for surnames and different Haplogroups. I find the Haplogroup Projects to be more helpful. Ed is in the Dicks surname group and the L371 Group. I haven’t seen Harold’s results in either group. Here is the grouping that Ed is in within the FTDNA L371 Group:

Ed is placed with six other YDNA tested people because they have similar STRs. The heading he is under is called Modal 1.3. When I look at the L371 Group description, it says that:

Modal 1, R-L371+                   Represents an early Briton (Celtic?) group found heavily today in Wales and scattered across south England.

The modal for this group is important. The modal is basically the number for the STR that occurs most often. This modal is considered to be the representative number for the group or can be considered the older number. The colored numbers are the ones that deviate from the Modal. So in this case, I take the modal to be the modal for the group that consists of Thomas, Monroe, Reese, Phillips and Dicks. As there are five different surnames, I am guessing that this group has been around since before there were surnames in that area. That area probably being Wales according to the information above.

A Dicks YDNA Signature STR

A signature STR would be a set of STRs that would define the Dicks surname. I looked at the places where Ed and Harold were different than the Modal 1.3. It turns out these were the STRs that Ed and Harold were different from each other:

The exception was for DYS534. However, without Harold, the Modal was tied between 15 and 17. With Harold added the modal would have been 17, so I’ll leave that one out. Assuming that the Mode is the older, that means that Ed would have the older STRs for DYS449, CDY and DYS710. Harold would have the older STR for DYS549. Another point is that the STRs in maroon are the faster moving STRs.

A Simple Dicks STR Tree

Here is one guess of how a STR tree could be drawn for the Dicks family including Harold from the Henry Dicks Line and Ed from the Christopher Dicks Line.

Keep in mind that these trees are not an exact science. This is just one possibility of how to draw a tree. More information would refine this tree. You may wonder why Harold had three STR changes and Ed had only one if they were the same distance from a common ancestor. All I can say is this is pretty typical. DNA seems to have a mind of it’s own. Harold’s first two changes were the fast STRs, so that makes sense. Harold and Ed only had one STR change each for non-fast STRs. Some people even tend to disregard some of the fast moving STRs such as CDY as they can be misleading over a long time period. Another interesting fact is that the difference between the mutation rate of the fastest and slowest mutation STRs could be as much as a factor of 1,000 times.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I didn’t know anything about Newfoundland Dicks YDNA. Now I do.
  • Even though some complicated things happen with YDNA, the changes are confined to one long line going from father to son where all the fathers and sons follow a straight line – in this case Dicks line.
  • The Newfoundland Dicks Haplogroup appears to be R-L371
  • Harold is almost certainly R-L371 based on STR similarities to Edward
  • There is likely at least one haplogroup below R-L371 that would further define the Dicks surname. However, finding new haplogroups requires the BigY or similar testing.
  • In a previous Blog I tied together the Henry Dicks and Christopher Dicks Lines together by looking at autosomal DNA matches. The YDNA matches between Edward and Harold do the same thing in a more precise manner.
  • I’ll look at Edward’s autosomal DNA in an upcoming Blog.

 

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Marie’s Connection to Richard and Newfoundland by DNA

Marie is my wife. Richard is a person on Marie’s Gedmatch match list. In fact,  Richard is, at the time I write this, Marie’s 495th match on her ‘one to many’ match list. Marie and Richard don’t know each other, so how do I know they have a Newfoundland connection?

Marie and Richard’s DNA Match

Marie and Richard’s DNA match looks like this at Gedmatch:

This shows that Richard and Marie share modest amounts of DNA on three of their Chromosomes. By DNA they could have a common ancestor about 5 generations ago. That means that they could be roughly 4th cousins. Marie could have gotten this DNA from her mom or dad, but she got it from her mom, Joan. This is how Richard and Joan match:

Joan shows as 4.3 generations away from Richard. The difference between Joan and Richard and Marie and Richard should be 0.5 generations roughly. This is because Joan is one generation closer to Richard and her common ancestor, but Richard is no closer or further. So it should average out to 0.5 generation difference roughly. Richard and Joan should be about 3rd cousins once removed, or something similar. Now I’ve narrowed down Marie’s match to about half of all her DNA matches.

Marie’s 1/2 Great Aunt Esther

Marie’s Aunt Esther is the key to understanding her match to Richard. Richard and Esther also match by DNA. Both of Aunt Esther’s parents were from Harbour Buffett, Newfoundland. So if Richard matches Esther, Joan and Marie and Esther, Joan and Marie match each other in the same DNA segment, that means they all have a common ancestor. Here is Richard’s match to Esther:

This shows that Esther, Joan, Marie and Richard only share DNA on Chromosome 11 from about position 12-19 M. That shared DNA would likely represent the common ancestor between Richard, Esther, Joan and Marie. Here is Marie’s family tree up to Aunt Esther:

Fred Upshall’s first wife Elizabeth died in the flu epidemic. Marie descends from Elizabeth. Esther descends from Fred’s second wife Margaret who was also from Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland. Any shared DNA with Joan, Marie and Esther must come from Frederick or one of his ancestors and not from the Shave side. That is how I know that Richard and Marie connect through Newfoundland and more specifically through Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland. Even more specifically, the Upshall side of the Harbour Buffett tree. We have narrowed down Marie’s DNA match with Richard to her mother’s side. Then to Marie’s maternal grandmother, Florence. Next, Marie has eight great grandparents, but we have narrowed down the DNA she shares with Richard to one of her eight great grandparents, Fred Upshall. Put another way, Marie has 2,000 matches on her ‘one to many’ match page at Gedmatch. This would narrow those matches down to 250, on average.

Richard’s Genealogy

So far, I haven’t looked at Richard’s genealogy at all. Richard and Esther have both tested at AncestryDNA. Richard shows as a predicted 3rd cousin to Esther at AncestryDNA. Above, Gedmatch estimated 3.5 generations to a common ancestor. This would be equivalent to a 2nd cousin once removed.

Richard’s Newfoundland side is through his father. Here is Richard’s paternal Newfoundland Line:

Two Trees Together: Where Are the Common Ancestors?

This is the difficult part. The genealogy of Newfoundland is missing much information. Here are Richard’s and Esther’s trees side by side:

Ancestry points out that Richard and Esther have the common Kirby surname. It could be that Joseph and John Kirby were brothers.

The Crann Connection

In a previous Blog, I show a triangulation between Esther, Joan and a Crann back to England. I show that Elizabeth and an Upshall spouse could have come from John Crann, but I now see that they could have come from another child of Henry Crann. I’m sure there are other possibilities.

This is where things get interesting. The John Crann in the diagram above is the same as in Richard’s tree. Remember when I said that Richard, Esther, Joan and Marie all matched on only one segment? That is the same segment represented by the Triangulation Group (TG) in the diagram above:

All I have to do is to see if Richard matches Heather from New Zealand. The good news is that he matches Heather. The bad news is that it is not on Chromosome 11:

Sometimes the DNA doesn’t behave like I would like it to. This could be a case where Richard and Heather are matching on the Collins side and Esther, Joan and Heather are matching on the Crann side (or the other way around). A TG only points to one ancestor. Here is Richard added to the Crann Tree:

In this tree, Richard matches Forrest (his third cousin twice removed):

Richard matches Wayne:

And Heather matches Wayne for a triangulation on a specific segment on Chromosome 8:

What I’d like to make clear is that the line is green is from New Zealand. The line in white is from Newfoundland. The ancestors Henry Crann and Elizabeth Collens were from Netherbury, Dorset, England and their children headed off in opposite directions. So this is a long range triangulation. This helps those with intermarried Newfoundland roots as the New Zealand descendants have just the Crann/Collens ancestors. This makes finding common ancestors easier clearer.

Summary and Conclusion

In this Blog I traced a DNA match between my wife, Marie and Richard. This match went up through Marie’s mom and through a common match with Marie’s 1/2 great Aunt up through one of her eight great grandparents. This greatly narrowed down where the match came from.

Then I looked at common ancestors. Richard and Esther have a Kirby surname in their ancestry, but the Kirby isn’t in Joan and Marie’s ancestry. After that, I looked at the Crann connection that Richard has. This was based on previous DNA work I had done. It turns out that Richard triangulates with Crann descendants from New Zealand that have never had ancestors in Newfoundland. This New Zealand triangulation removes some of the complications of intermarriage in Newfoundland. The Crann connection also confirms the previous work I did showing that there must be a Crann somewhere in the ancestry of Esther, Joan and Marie.

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Fitting Barry into the Dicks Genealogy by DNA

My wife’s mom and 1/2 great Aunt Esther seem to be getting some good Dicks descendant matches at Gedmatch recently. One of the newest ones is Barry. Barry is match #5 on Esther’s ‘One to Many’ list at Gedmatch. Barry is match #8 for my mother in law Joan. #8 out of 2,000 matches is not bad.

The Genealogy

Barry tested at Ancestry. He hasn’t linked his tree to his DNA test, but I have found a little tree that Barry put together:

I quickly started off by recreating the tree. However, I headed in the wrong direction. There was a Harbour Buffett marriage on-line for a William Dicks and Edith Hann which I assumed was the right one. Apparently there were two William Dicks/Edith Hann married couples. One was in Harbour Buffett and the other in Little Harbour East. Here’s a map posted at the Newfoundland Gedmatch Facebook Page that I high-lighted:

Little Harbour East apparently is adjacent to Little Harbour.

Barry’s tree connects to Hayley’s tree.

My previous Blog was on Hayley’s DNA. According to Barry, this branch of Dicks moved from Harbour Buffett to Little Harbour East in the 1860’s. Hayley helped me out by sending along the Little Harbour East Censuses for 1921 and 1935:

I was unable to find Bertram on my own, probably due to a Census misspelling. Here is a photo of the twice-married William Dicks sent to me by Hayley:

Barry’s DNA

Hayley is Barry’s first match on his ‘One to Many’ list at Gedmatch:

They have all sorts of DNA shared. A common ancestor of 2.5 usually means a 1st cousin, once removed. That is what we have here:

Esther is a 2nd cousin once removed to Barry based on the chart above. By DNA, on average, their common ancestor should be 3.5 generations away. Here is what the DNA match between Esther and Barry shows:

This shows that either Barry and Esther share more than the average DNA for a 2nd cousin once removed or that they have extra ancestors in common. Based on Newfoundland genealogy, I would guess the latter. By DNA, Barry and Esther look to be more like 2nd cousins.

Joan and Barry should be 3rd cousins by their common ancestor, Christopher Dicks. At Gedmatch, that would be on average 4.0 generations to a common ancestor. Here is what Gedmatch shows for the DNA match between Barry and Joan:

The difference isn’t as pronounced with Joan. Perhaps because her ancestry is one quarter Newfoundland and Esther’s is 100% Newfoundland.

The Autosomal Matrix

I like to look at the matches in Gedmatch’s Autosomal Matrix as the different lines of descent sometimes become apparent.

If I look at Barry going across, his largest non-close family match is with Esther. This tells me that compared to all these other Dicks descendants, he fits in the Christopher Dicks group.

  • Barry has a good match with Ken in the Crann group, but not with others in that group. This could indicate a non-Dicks match between Barry and Ken.
  • Ken has large DNA matches with many of the Dicks descendants on the Matrix.
  • I had forgotten that Ken has a Dicks ancestor on the Burton line also. The matrix seems to show he is more closely matched to that line than the Cran Line. I had forgotten about Ken’s Dicks/Burton ancestors, so the Matrix didn’t highlight that.
  • Esther and Nelson match others more as they are one generation closer to their common ancestors than others.
  • Esther has an additional Dicks line that I haven’t figured out yet.
  • Others will have other relationships with families outside the Dicks family which would cause interference.

Triangulation Groups: A Better Way

A Triangulation Group (TG) is a group of three or more people. All their DNA matches each other in every combination. When this happens, the group should have a common ancestor. In a group of all Dicks descendants, the common ancestor is more likely to be a Dicks ancestor (or spouse). The problem with creating a large Dicks TG Matrix is that it takes a while to look at all the possible matches.

The goal when I have done all the Dicks triangulation is to put all the results into another matrix. I had done that before with the Henry line which is a brother line to Christopher Dicks, b. about 1784. I took out the Henry Line for simplicity below:

Looks like I am missing at least Ken, Sandi, Hayley and Barry. I should also add in Clayton, as there is some question as to which line he is in. The pink TGs indicate that the DNA could be coming from the spouse of a Dicks. For example, an all Adams line TG, could be DNA coming just from Adams and not Dicks. Marilyn aka Molly and Howie are siblings. If two siblings plus another match, this is not usually considered a TG as the siblings have the same parents. Esther and Joan are in many TGs, but as they were the only two at the time from the Christopher b. about 1813 Line, those TGs go outside that line (or are from the unknown wife of Christopher).

When I do this comparison of Dicks DNA, I get 1620 lines of matches. However, each combination is repeated, so it is only 810 lines really. When I make the new TG Matrix, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that Ken and Barry especially have created a lot of new TGs. The bad news is that it makes the TG Matrix show up very small:

I made a slight adjustment in the TG Matrix. I put Molly and Howie in just one row, but that row is for Joyce and Crann. A few other observations:

  • Barry appears to be in TGs 7 times with the Christopher Line. That appears to place him solidly in the Christopher (born about 1813) line
  • Barry appears to be in TGs 3 times with Nelson of the Adams line. This could be partially because Nelson is one generation closer to common ancestors.
  • Ken’s results are confusing to read. He seems to be in TGs outside the Cran group more than in it.

Ken’s results

Ken’s closest relationship in his Dicks/Cran line is 3rd cousin, once removed. That is with the common ancestor of Robert Dicks and Jane Cran.

However Ken is also 3rd cousin once removed with Esther and Nelson with the common ancestor of Christopher Dicks, the father of Robert Dicks born about 1784. It may also be that Ken is in many non-Dicks TGs with Dicks descendants as he may be more closely related on those lines than the Dicks lines. For example, I know that Ken has an Upshall ancestor. The TG that he has with Esther and Joan could be a Dicks TG, an Upshall TG or some other name where we have a missing ancestor. Compare the Christopher Line to the Cran Line:

Barry is only 2nd cousin once removed to Esther and 3rd cousin to Joan. This makes a big difference in the DNA comparisons compared to Ken’s Cran relative results. Another thing that I forgot was that Ken has ancestors in the Dicks/Burton line also:

Let’s say that Ken’s case is advanced DNA analysis and I don’t have to figure out all his matches right away.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Barry and Hayley appear to be linked closely by DNA to Esther and Joan. The interpretation is that they are linked in the same Christopher Dicks Line.
  • Without Barry’s results, it would have been difficult to interpret Hayley’s results by the TGs. However, as we know that Hayley is closely related to Barry, his results apply to Hayley’s
  • Ken’s results aren’t easy to interpret just within the context of the Dicks DNA study. I left my previous Blog on Ken thinking there was more to be discovered about all his matches and I still feel that way.

 

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Hayley’s Harbour Buffett Dicks

I was glad to find a DNA match between Hayley and my wife’s family. This DNA match represents a shared Harbour Buffett, Newfoundland heritage. Here is a painting of Harbour Buffett I found on the internet by Charlene Pafford Sharpe:

I can tell I’ve been doing this research for a while, as I recognize the Pafford name.

Here is how the tree was for my mother in law Joan and her Aunt Esther:

I was beginning to think that there was something wrong with my narrow Christopher Dicks, Jr. tree. However, I am happy to now see Hayley on that tree also:

See, much better. Esther is at Ancestry where Hayley shows as a 3rd cousin as predicted by DNA. Hayley is actually a 2nd cousin twice removed to Esther, which by DNA is virtually the same level of match.

Matches Between Hayley, Esther, and Joan

These matches should zero in on their common ancestors of Christopher Dicks born around 1812 and his wife Elizabeth. I put these matches together in a spreadsheet:

Here we have two categories of matches. The gold highlighted matches triangulate. That means that Hayley matches both Joan and Esther. Also Esther and Joan match each other at those areas.

Hayley Compared to the Larger Dicks DNA Project

Here is Hayley in a Matrix of Dicks descendants:

  • These matrices work better when people aren’t related different ways.
  • The Adams dark box makes the most sense as they have higher numbers among their own group.
  • Adams refers to the married name of the female Dicks, daughter of the Christopher Dicks that was born around 1784.
  • Esther has more than one line of Dicks in her ancestry, but I don’t know what the second line is.
  • Molly and Howie descend from two Dicks Lines
  • Hayley has matches with Forrest, Ken and Sandi from the Dicks/Crann line. Perhaps Hayley has some Crann ancestry also?

Hayley’s Dicks Triangulation Groups (TGs)

This is the part I don’t like to do as it is a bit of work. I choose all those who have said that they are descended from the Christopher Dicks born around 1784. I check how to see they match each other. I look for TGs out of that group of matches. Gedmatch will run a TG report, but it will include all of your ancestors. The TGs that I want to look at here are supposed to be specifically narrowed down to the Dicks family as much as possible.

Here is where Hayley triangulates with Nelson and Sandra from the Dicks/Adams Line:

This means that these three have a common ancestor. As Nelson and Sandra are closely related, I could not guarantee that the common ancestor would be Dicks. Assuming the common ancestor is Dicks, the TG would look like this:

Hayley has another TG with Nelson on Chromosome 18:

Nelson is a good choice to be in a TG with as he is closer to the common ancestor than many. Also if only Grace’s sister had tested and not Grace, we would not know about this TG. Note that Esther and Joan are not in this TG, but match each other. That would mean that the DNA that Esther and Joan got in that Chromosome 18 match was probably non-Dicks and probably Upshall.

That’s It

  • I didn’t see any more TGs for Hayley. Looking over her tree perhaps there was not a lot of overlap with other Dicks collateral names.
  • I’m glad to have another DNA-tested Christopher Dicks, Jr. descendant on the tree.
  • Hayley’s DNA testing supports her tree. That tree shows a common ancestor of Christopher Dicks, Jr. and his wife Elizabeth for Hayley, Esther and Joan
  • Hayley matches with three Crann line testers. This connection may be worth looking into.

 

 

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A New Harbour Buffet DNA Match

My wife’s great Aunt Esther is Ms. DNA for Harbour Buffet. She likely matches anyone else by DNA who has Harbour Buffet ancestors. Both Esther’s mom and dad were from Harbour Buffet:

I noticed recently that Esther has a new match at Gedmatch named Doug. Doug is Esther’s fourth match on her ‘One to Many’ list at Gedmatch. Her first is my mother in law. The second is my wife. The third is Ken who I blogged about here.  I have a feeling that Ken and Doug will match by DNA.

Here is Doug’s tree:

A lot of Douglas’ ancestors were from Harbour Buffet. Douglas has two Samuel Kirby’s in his ancestry. Also an Upshall which is great. Notably missing from Douglas’ ancestry is the Dicks name. I have written many blogs about the Dicks family.

Here is Doug’s match to Esther by DNA at Gedmatch:

Remember that I thought that Doug would have a big match with Ken above? Well I checked and didn’t see Ken on Doug’s ‘One to Many’ match list at Gedmatch. This is a little surprising as they appear to share at least two surnames.

Doug and My Mother in Law, Joan

My mother in law, Joan is related to her 1/2 Aunt Esther on the Upshall line, but not the Kirby line. Here is how Joan matches Doug by DNA:

When I add in Esther to the mix, here is a simplified view of their combined ancestry:

  • It is simplified to show common ancestors and potential common ancestors
  • Further it is missing two of Douglas’ Kirby lines
  • It is meant to show that Joan does not descend from the Kirby family
  • It is possible that Henry and Jane Upshall could have been siblings.
  • Note that the two potential Upshall siblings Henry and Jane are shown in different generations.

DNA Triangulation – Upshall?

Triangulation as implied by the name requires the DNA matching between three people. The potential for this happens at Chromosome 2. Esther and Douglas match between about 209 and 243M. Douglas and Joan and Esther and Joan match between about 238 and 243M. When this happens, it is likely that the three people share a common ancestor. In this case, an Upshall common ancestor would be possible based on the genealogy. That is, possible, until I consider Molly.

Molly is in the Dicks DNA Project that I have been working on for some time. She also matches Douglas on Chromosome 2. Here is how Douglas matches Esther (1) Molly’s brother Howie (2), Molly (3) and Joan (4):

This shows that Molly and her brother Howie are in a Triangulation Group (TG) with Douglas and Esther. Then Douglas, Esther and Joan are in a TG. How can this be?

A Possible Crann Explanation for Douglas, Esther, Molly, Howie and Joan

The problem above is that Molly has no known Upshall ancestry but has Crann and Dicks ancestry. Douglas has no known Dicks ancestry but has Upshall ancestry. In a previous Blog, I had theorized that either an Upshall or a Dicks had married a Crann:

This was based on Crann lines in green above with no Newfoundland ancestry. What if the father of Henry Upshall above married a Crann? Supposing that Crann was also the mother of Jane Upshall? This is perhaps a house of cards, but an interesting theory that would explain the DNA matches. Under this scenario, the TG for Molly, Howie, Esther and Douglas would represent Crann DNA. The TG for Douglas, Esther and Joan could either be Upshall or Crann DNA.

a few arguments against my theory

The theory above is not without its problems. One is that Douglas doesn’t match any of the non-Newfoundland people with Crann ancestry. The other problem is that I notice Douglas has a tree on Ancestry with different ancestors for Jane Upshall:

This would also be confusing, if true, as Esther has Burton ancestors on her maternal side.

Well, as they say, Rome was not built in a day.

Summary and Conclusions:

  • Douglas and Esther have a large DNA match
  • Douglas and Joan (who doesn’t have Kirby ancestry) match to a lesser extent
  • I assume that most of Douglas and Esther’s DNA matching has to do with their common Kirby and Emberley ancestors. However, as these names are not in my wife’s and mother in law’s ancestry, I have not been following these names.
  • Douglas, Joan, and Esther share the ancestral Upshall name which appears to be somewhat rare.
  • Some of the DNA shared between Douglas and Joan appears to be from a common Upshall ancestor
  • A Triangulation group between Molly, Howie, Douglas and Esther could be from a Crann line. However, this is a theory at this time. As part of that theory, a Crann would have married an Upshall.
  • I was expecting Douglas to match Ken who I had looked at before. Ken also has an Upshall in his ancestry. However, I could not find a DNA match between Douglas and Ken.
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Ken’s Newfoundland DNA & Genealogy

A while back, I had emails from FTDNA saying that they had found a close relative for my mother in law Joan and her 1/2 great Aunt Esther. That match was to Ken who had ancestors in Harbour Buffet, NL where my wife’s Upshall family came from. This was good news. I even found an Upshall in Ken’s FTDNA tree. It seems Upshalls are quite rare.

Some Newfoundland Genealogy

Here are Ken’s ancestors:

Compare this to Esther’s Newfoundland genealogy:

Esther’s tree has a few more holes. Also note that her Upshall grandfather was born in 1841, so those holes go back some time. Esther matches Ken on the following surnames:

  • Shave
  • Upshall
  • Dicks (2)
  • Burton

That could be a lot of DNA to untangle. My mother in law Joan only matches Esther on the top half, so that is Upshall and one of the Dicks lines. That is because Esther is her 1/2 Aunt. Fred Upshall married Margaret Shave after his first wife died during the Flu Epidemic.

Ken’s wife Sandi

Ken’s wife Sandi has a Dicks in her genealogy who is from the Robert Dicks line. As a result, Ken and Sandi share some DNA:

Gedmatch estimates them to have a common ancestor at 4.5 generations. Here is Sandi’s tree. She is 6 Generations from Robert Dicks while Ken is only 4 generations away. That averages out to 5 generations to their common ancestor.

Triangulating on the Robert Dicks/Cran Line

When I compare Ken to Sandi, Marilyn, Howie and Forrest, I get this on Chromosome 14:

This shows Ken’s matches with #1 Marilyn and #2 Sandi. This looks like a Triangulation Group (TG). All that is needed is for Marilyn and Sandi to match each other. However, surprisingly, Marilyn and Sandi do not match each other there. They do match each other in a lot of places but not on Chromosome 14:

How can Ken match Marilyn in the same area of the Chromosome where he matches Sandi and not have Marilyn and Sandi match each other? I think that the only way this could happen is that he has to match these two on different copies of the Chromosome. We each have maternal and paternal Chromosomes. That means Ken matches Marilyn on the maternal side and Sandi on the paternal side (or the other way around).

Next, I’ll look at Chromosome 18

This shows Ken matching Molly, Sandi and Forrest. This time, we see from above that Marilyn and Sandi do match each other on Chromosome 18 between 11M and 33M. Here is how I picture their TG18:

From this it would appear that the DNA is coming from Robert Dicks or Jane Cran. The theory is that a TG points to one ancestor. However, in this case we don’t know whether that ancestor is Dicks or Cran. I would guess that the DNA is from Cran. I’ll say why I think that below.

Ken’s Tier 1 Triangulation Report

Gedmatch.com has a utility called a Tier 1 Triangulation Report. I ran this for Ken and found three TGs near each other on Chromosome 18:

The first TG has a lot of people in it that I don’t know. It is represented by the first green segment. There were many other overlapping green segments each representing Ken and two others that I didn’t include in the image above. Molly and Sandi were not in that TG.

The second green segment represents the TG I have above which has Ken, Molly and Sandi in it circled.

The third green segment overlaps with the second green segment. It has has Molly, Cheryl and Ken in it. Prepare to squint:

Cheryl is way over on the bottom left. She is on the Elizabeth Dicks/Adams Line. The Roberts Dicks/Cran Line is cut off on the right. Here I have Ken triangulating from his Frances Dicks/Burton Line and Marilyn triangulating from her Rachel Dicks/Joyce Line. This is truly a Dicks TG as it is coming from three lines. I am thinking that the previous TG with Ken, Sandi and Marilyn is a Cran TG. That is because I wasn’t able to get Cathy and Marilyn to match. If both these overlapping TGs were Dicks, I would think that there would be some match between Cathy and Marilyn. Given the complexities of Newfoundland genealogy, there could be other explanations, but that is the way I see it at this point. Another way to look at it is if the TG is quite wide on the Dicks project, the DNA is probably Dicks. If the TG is narrower, it is more likely that the TG is from the associated surname – in this case Cran. The other point is that Cheryl and Sandi were important in this analysis as they only appear to descend from one line of Dicks each. They helps ground the double Dicks descendants Ken and Marilyn.

The Triangulating Ken and esther

I am interested in how Ken and Esther triangulate. When I searched for Esther in Ken’s Triangulation Report, she came up 45 times. I also looked at TGs that had my mother in law Joan in them. There were about 15 TGs with Ken that had Esther and/or Joan in them. I have done a lot of work on the DNA from the Dicks lines. As a results, I came to the following conclusion:

  1. TGs with Ken, Esther, not Joan and not Dicks descendants were more likely on the Shave or Burton lines.
  2. TGs with just Ken, Esther and Joan are more likely on the Upshall line.
  3. TGs with Ken, Joan and others (not known Dicks descendants) are probably also on the Upshall line.
  4. TGs with Ken, Esther, Joan and known Dicks descendants are probably represents Dicks ancestors.

I also noticed a lot of TGs that Ken had with Esther and people that descended from the Elizabeth Dicks/Adams Line. They are represented in a peach color below:

This TG came up four times. I’m not sure of the significance of this.

Triangulating Ken’s X Matches

Here are a few of Ken’s X Chromosome matches:

#1 is Esther, #2 is Joan and #3 is Molly aka Marilyn. I don’t know 4-7, so I suppose they are not related to Esther, Joan and Molly. It looks like Ken, Esther and Joan are in a TG. They are in a TG as Joan and Esther match from 47M to 115M. We can probably find a common ancestor based on this.

Ken only got an X from his mom, so we can eliminate the whole paternal line:

The purple circles indicate possible lines of X Chromosome inheritance for Ken.

Here is the X inheritance pattern for Esther:

However, here, we need to eliminate the bottom part of the tree as Joan is only related to Esther on the top half of the tree.

Next is Joan’s tree:

This is where things narrow down. I didn’t include Joan’s paternal line as she is related to Esther on her maternal side only. Christopher Dicks the father of Christopher Dicks got cut off, but he wouldn’t be in line for the X Chromosome anyway as the X never travels from male to male. That leaves a connection to Margaret the wife of Christopher who I have as living from 1789 to 1867. That means where Ken, Esther, and Joan match, they can map that bit of X Chromosome all the way back to the Margaret with the unknown last name who married Christopher Dicks.

Margaret goes off Ken’s chart but was the mother of Robert and Frances Dicks as far as we can tell:

We don’t know if Ken’s X Chromosome came through Robert Dicks or Frances Dicks. Molly isn’t in this X TG, so we will say Ken’s X inheritance came more likely through Frances Dicks than her brother Robert.

Molly, Esther and Ken’s TG on the right side of the x chromosome

Esther and Ken have the same X inheritance patter for this TG as previously shown. Here is how Molly connects. All I have to do is show that there is a likely X path to Margaret with no male to male in the line:

I started with Molly’s paternal grandmother. From there I went to Sarah Slade’s mother’s mother who is Priscilla Dicks. From there we go to Robert Dicks and Robert’s mother Margaret who is Molly’s 4th great grandmother if I have it right. The X connection makes for a zig-zaggy route.

The only step I forgot to prove the TG was to show that Molly and Esther match each other at the end of the X Chromosome.

That match completes the TG for Molly, Ken and Esther. That means that if people are mapping their X Chromosome:

  • Ken and Esther can map their middle and last segments to Margaret
  • Joan can map her middle segment to Margaret
  • Molly can map the end of her X Chromosome segment to Margaret

Homework Assignment

All we have to figure is what all these matches represent between Ken and Esther:

Actually, I think that we are on our way to figuring this out. Here is another peek at some of Ken’s TGs with Esther and Joan:

As I mentioned above, it is possible to guess the TG’s routes based on who is in the TGs. My guesses are:

  • TG1 for Ken could be on Esther’s maternal Shave side.This also includes a Dicks and a Burton.
  • TG2 could be on the Upshall side as Upshall is a rarer name and there aren’t others in the TG
  • TG4A has Joan and not Esther, which narrows things down. This has at least on UK person in it, so perhaps this goes back to Upshall in the UK or Upshall ancestors there.
  • TG4B and TG5 have people that are not known Dicks descendants, so that could narrow things down a little. We would have to look more into their genealogy to figure out the connections.
  • TG9A has Joan which probably narrows the lines down to one Dicks and one Upshall. There is also one Elizabeth Dicks/Adams descendant in this TG.
  • These assumptions would have to be checked with the genealogy of the people that are in the TGs.

Diminishing Matches

I showed above how Esther matches Ken at 389.1 cM. This is how Ken matches Joan, who is Esther’s half niece:

The match went down by about half, which isn’t bad considering the half relationship Joan and Esther have with each other.

Here is Ken’s match with my wife, Marie, who is Joan’s daughter:

Wow, look at that. All the DNA matches dropped out except for the one at Chromosome 9. On average, a parent would pass down half the DNA. However Marie got less than average. I’m sure a lot of this DNA went to Marie’s other siblings. The moral of the story is to test the older generation for DNA. Esther shares about 18 times the DNA with Ken compared to Marie and Ken.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Ken and Sandi have provided a lot of information and matches to consider – too much for one Blog
  • I need to do a fuller review of Ken and Sandi’s matches for the Dicks DNA Project
  • I am interested in trying to figure out more about any potential Ken/Esther/Joan Upshall DNA matches. Esther is on AncestryDNA and has some interesting matches with people in Dorset, England.
  • The good news is that there are a lot of DNA matches on a lot of different lines. The challenge is figuring out which matches go with which lines and where to make the connections in looking for missing ancestors.
  • This match between Ken and Esther should be a benchmark for those who have Harbour Buffet ancestry.

 

 

 

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Another DNA Tested Dicks Descendant

I was recently contacted by Eric who told me about another Dicks descendant named Clayton. Clayton tells me his grandfather was Leslie Dicks from Harbour Buffet. That is good news as my wife’s Dicks ancestors must have come from Harbour Buffet also.

Here is the match between Clayton and my wife’s 1/2 Great Aunt Esther:

Next, I checked to see if Clayton matched my mother in law. He didn’t. Esther and my mother in law, Joan match on Esther’s paternal side. The fact that Clayton and Joan don’t match could mean that Clayton matches Esther on her maternal side:

Here is where it gets a bit tricky as Esther has Dicks on both sides. I am leaning toward Clayton matching on the Jane Ann Dicks side.

Here is the existing summary of Dicks Triangulation Groups:

I note that Clayton’s matches are in places other than identified Dicks Triangulation Groups (TGs). That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t match. That just means that I can’t prove that he does match based on existing TGs.

Next, I compared Clayton with other Dicks descendants in the 3D viewer at Gedmatch:

Look at all the ‘None’s under Clayton. This tells me either that his match with Esther is on the non-Dicks side, or that he matches a Dicks line that has not been identified well.

Clayton’s Genealogy

From my emails, I get this sketch of Clayton’s ancestors:

Clayton says that John at the top was supplied by Eric. One of the best places for Newfoundland research is called Newfoundland’s Grand Banks Genealogical and Historical Data. At that site, I found a 1945 Census of Harbour Buffet with a Leslie Dicks:

Going back to 1935 shows about the same information:

The only difference being that Ronald is no longer with the family. Also the ages don’t seem to add up all the time. Let’s go back to the 1921 North East Harbour Buffett Census:

This is quite helpful as it gives more relationships, month and year of birth and place of birth. And we finally find Charles.  Here we see that Charles is the brother of Alfred. The two families apparently lived in the same house that year.

Next, I was able to find a marriage record for Charles near the end of 1908:

The best I can figure is that Delilah and Jessie are the same person. I note that one of the witnesses was Elsie Kirby. Esther has Kirby ancestors.

Second Cousins, Twice Removed?

What I notice when doing the genealogy is that Clayton is off by two generations from Esther:

If Clayton and Esther are 2nd cousins twice removed, then the yellow circles indicate where the match could be. Unfortunately, for Clayton, that is in the area of eight unidentified 3rd great grandparents. Actually one of Clayton’s 3rd great grandparents is a Dicks, but the DNA match is not leaning toward that name, from what I can tell. Due to a lack of match with my mother in law, and lack of matches with other Dicks descendants, the match would most likely be on the Shave, Burton or Kirby Lines. In my spreadsheet of matches for Esther, I note that Esther’s matches with Clayton seem to coincide with her Pafford matches. I have noted that the Paffords have Shave ancestors. That may be something to look into. This all confirms the inter-relatedness of Harbour Buffet people.

Summary

  • Esther and Clayton match by DNA and both have Dicks ancestors
  • Analysis of the DNA match show that the match is not likely on the Dicks Line
  • Esther and Clayton also share ancestors from Harbour Buffett
  • Esther and Clayton share matches with the Pafford Line
  • Further investigation of common Pafford matches coupled with further research into Clayton’s ancestry may result in a common ancestor.
  • Also common ancestors along Clayton’s Gilbert Line need to be explored
  • Autosomal DNA can and will come from any ancestor, so all ancestors need to be evaluated.

Addendum

After posting this Blog, I had a few comments. Here is an update from Eric:

I found some of the Charles Dicks data on various trees from ancestry.com.    They indicate he was married to Jessie Trowbridge  (this could be a variation of Strowbridge).    The Delilah Gilbert marriage seems to be a new discovery.    I dug a bit more and I think only Sarah from 1910 was a child of Delilah.    Delilah dies 5 Feb 1917 of TB.   Charles marries Jessie on 29 Nov 1918.

 Just based on the ancestry trees without further research, it appears that the father of Charles was John and John was of Christopher 1829.    That should make John the brother of Catherine who married Henry Upshall.    Because John Dicks apparently married Mary Ellen Shave, Esther could very well be related in more than one way.   The common DNA on chromosome 1 seems to triangulate with A144898 Tracey Crann.

His comment fits well with Molly’s comment:

In reference to the Gilberts, Delilah’s mother is Sarah Jane Kirby who married Thomas Gilbert. Delilah is a sister to my husband’s grandmother, Mary…

It looks like I had a 50/50 chance of guessing right on Delilah and Jessie and guessed wrong. Here is a quick fix on the small Ancestry Tree I made for Clayton:

Here is Charles’ 2nd marriage, with Charles listed as [W]idower:

 

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More Crann DNA

In my previous Blog, I looked at creating genealogical trees using proposed Crann DNA matches. The matches I looked at were primarily at AncestryDNA. The advantage of Ancestry is that if the matches have trees, they are easy to find. Since that Blog, I had a question from Molly in my Newfoundland Dicks DNA Study Group. Molly would like to know if the DNA shows that she is descended from the Cranns. Molly has two lines of Dicks ancestry. One of them leads back to an early Crann connection.

Molly (or Marilyn) and her brother Howie are on a Dicks/Crann line on the right. They are also on a Dicks/Joyce line. My wife’s mom Joan and Joan’s half Aunt Esther are on another Dicks line. In my previous two Blogs, I got around a lot of the non-Crann common ancestors by finding a Crann descendant who moved from England to New Zealand. This tended to isolate matches to just Cranns and made things simpler. In the chart above, a lot of these people are related to each other in multiple ways due to living in isolated areas. Also Joan, Marilyn, Howie and Forrest did not test at AncestryDNA. Fortunately, they are all at Gedmatch.

Here was the match list at AncestryDNA:

These were presumed to have Crann ancestors. I know that Esther, Heather and Ninky are listed at Gedmatch. There are also others.

People Who Match One or Both of Two Kits

Getmatch has a utility where you put in two matching people and others show up that match both those people. This is sort of what AncestryDNA does with their matching feature. I did that for Esther and Heather. From that list, I found some people that match Heather and also match Esther.

Wayne and Marjorie

Wayne and Marjorie show up first on this list. Marjorie is probably the M.R. listed at AncestryDNA with the large tree. Wayne and Marjorie are siblings. If I’m interpreting Marjorie’s tree correctly, I get this:

This adds another New Zealand line in green to compare with the Newfoundlers. Also on that list of common matches are my mother in law, Joan and Molly who asked about her Crann connections. Forrest, who was listed as a Crann/Dicks descendant was not an obvious match to the New Zealand DNA testers. However, she did show a tree match to John Crann. Based on that, I’ll add Forrest, Molly and Howie:

Forrest also had that John Crann’s wife was Elizabeth, so I added that in. Under this tree, it would not be surprising for Forrest to not have a DNA match as Forrest and Heather would be 4th cousins twice removed. Next, I’ll add my mother in law and her half Aunt Esther:

Note that I just corrected Wayne and Marjorie and moved them up one step after getting in touch with Marjorie’s daughter Donna. In all subsequent diagrams, they should be shown as here.

My next step is to take all the tested people in the Tree above and compare their DNA in a spreadsheet, to look for Triangulation Groups (TGs).

Chromosome 10 TG

Here Heather, Wayne, Marjorie, Molly and Howie match each other. Joan and Esther match each other but not the rest of the group, so they are not in the same TG.

Based on the above, this appears to show a common ancestor of Crann for Marilyn. It’s a little surprising as Marilyn and Howie are 6th cousins to Wayne and Marjorie.

TG11: Heather, Esther, and Joan

I suppose Esther and Joan do not want to miss out on this TG which seems to point to Crann in Netherbury, Dorset, England:

This shows that the DNA that Joan and Esther match with Heather got to them somehow. That path had to be through the Upshall or Dicks wife (or both).

TG22: Esther, Heather, Wayne and Marjorie

Here, the match between Marjorie and Wayne are not highlighted as siblings are usually counted as one person in a TG.

It is interesting that after 250 years, the DNA still points to the Dorset, England home of the Cranns via Newfoundland and New Zealand.

These were only a few TGs. I only picked the DNA matches where there were pretty good New Zealand trees. There are probably other New Zealand DNA tested people that triangulate with Newfoundlanders who descend from the Crann family of Dorset.

If Heather wanted to map her Crann DNA based on these four testers, it would look like this:

 

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A Dorset, Newfoundland and New Zealand Connection by DNA: Part 2

In my previous Blog I created a proposed tree based on AncestryDNA matches, Gedmatch matches and family trees. First, I created a more solid Crann tree by patching together existing trees. This would be the backbone of the study as there were pretty clear relationships. It looked like this:

One family had Newfoundland roots (Matson). Heather had New Zealand roots. They both matched by DNA and both had an ancestor in Netherbury, Dorset, England. Based on that tree, I added two other trees based on matching DNA:

One was another Crann tree. The other had no know Crann ancestors but a likely Crann DNA match. I felt comfortable doing that for a few reasons. The first reason was the AncestryDNA matches of the people in the proposed tree:

The 2nd and 3rd columns above showed how each person matched my wife’s great Aunt Esther and Heather. Further, Matson was related to Terence. This created a sort of circle. This is my interpretation of how Ancestry does their circles. The fact that there was this circular matching is in my opinion like what many do with Triangulation of DNA matches. This tends to insure that there is a common ancestor. This could also insure that the match of a match is not going far afield.

The other reason why Heather is an important match is that she is from New Zealand. I assume that her Crann ancestors went directly there. That means that I wouldn’t have to take into consideration Newfoundland intermarriages when considering DNA matches with Heather. In other words, I could assume that Heather was related on one line only. Or at least it would be more likely.

The  Elsie Connection

In the last Blog, I looked at the Terrence – Matson connection. They matched each other by DNA. They also matched Esther and Heather at AncestryDNA. In the same way, I would like to look at the Elsie connection. I mentioned in my last Blog that Elsie had 4 people in her tree. That was not totally right. She has 3 people and one is listed twice. I’ll ignore her grandmother as it is the same person she has down as her mother. Perhaps it was at that point that she gave up on her Ancestry Tree.

As before, I create a new tree for Elsie at Ancestry. I called it the Chafe/Hann Tree because at this time, we know of no Cranns in her ancestry. The problem with that is that we will need to build out both sides of Elsie’s ancestry. As I worked back her ancestry I looked at the Ancestry leaf hints. One hint surprised me as it was the first time I’d come across an Upshall in my genetic research. The fact that an Upshall popped up unannounced while I was chasing a probably Crann DNA lead seemed significant to me.

I already knew that there was at least one Hann family living in Harbour Buffet where some of my wife’s ancestor came from. From the Newfoundland’s Grand Banks web site, I find this family in the 1921 census for Little Harbour East:

This gives a month and year for each person’s birth and tells us where they were born. Little Harbour East is not far from Harbour Buffet. Actually, it is even closer than I had now that I have some good information from Devon Griffin:

Unlike the other wrong Little Harbour East I had, the right one is across the bay from Harbour Buffet. Here is the marriage record:

It looks like Jessie was quite young. I wonder who Malinda was. Esther’s middle name is Alinda. A little over a month after this, it looks like the two witnesses wed:

Now it looks like the groom for the previous wedding was a witness. Hmm…

George Upshall

From an Ancestry tree, I did get that Jesse (or Jessie) Upshall’s father was George Upshall. Of course, I don’t see that Ancestry Tree at the moment. I had trouble finding George at Ancestry also, but I appear to have found him at FamilySearch. There, he is shown as marrying in 1896. This only works if this was a second marriage as his proposed daughter Jessie was born about 1890.

This shows that the marriage took place in Little Harbour East and that George was a widower. Both the groom and bride were living in Little Harbour East at the time of the wedding.

Another tree gives George as the father of Melinda Upshall. That leaves me with this tree:

Based on this, I’d like to make a guess as to a new proposed Crann/Upshall Tree:

A New Guess for a Crann/Upshall Tree

This tree supposes that a daughter of John Crann b. 1791 married an Upshall. That Upshall then had at least two sons. One was Henry b. 1841 and one was George b. 1857 shown in purple above. Henry and George could have carried down that Crann DNA to Esther and Elsie. I took out the arrow going from John Crann b. 1791 to the Elizabeth that married Christopher Dicks in red above. However, it now occurs to me that it would be possible that that arrow could still be there as there could be a Crann daughter in both slots – on the Upshall and Dicks side.

Let’s look at my AncestryDNA relationship chart again:

Ancestry thinks by the DNA that Elsie and Esther should be 3rd cousins. My chart has them as 3rd cousins, once removed. Ancestry has Elsie and Heather as 4th cousins. I show them as 5th cousins by the chart. The problem with what I did was that I didn’t follow the Chafe and Hann lines up to eliminate other possible Crann connections. However, I think that my chart gives a plausible solution to the DNA matches. It is satisfying to be able to propose some possible relationships based on logical assumptions after so many years of dealing with genealogical records that just don’t seem to exist in many cases.

Summary and Conclusions

  • This method works well with larger DNA matches
  • I started with a large match where there appeared to be a known common ancestor.
  • Based on that match and known ancestor, I developed trees based on other common DNA matches and common ancestries.
  • This method was helped by a non-Newfoundland match. This resulted in narrowing down the search to one surname.
  • Problems could result if I didn’t get the right surname to begin with
  • Other problems could result by not eliminating other possible genealogical connections
  • I drew a proposed tree to make sure the proposed relationships make sense time-wise. The tree also makes sure the proposed genealogical relationships match the ones proposed by the DNA relationships