Newfoundland – Page 4 – Hartley DNA & Genealogy

March 24, 2017April 12, 2017

A Dorset, Newfoundland and New Zealand Connection by DNA

Heather first contacted me through AncestryDNA. This was in December 2015. She lived in New Zealand and matched my wife’s great Aunt Esther. What I know about Esther was that all her ancestors came by way of Newfoundland and her line came from Harbour Buffet. I took a look at Heather’s Ancestry Tree and didn’t see any Newfoundland ancestors. I did see a Crann ancestor she had from Dorset, England. I had heard from someone who thought that Aunt Esther should have some Crann relatives (at least that was my memory – Hann is also a Harbour Buffet name). So I thought that this was interesting. Perhaps we could find an English connection for a Newfoundlander and a New Zealander.

Since that time, I recommended that Heather upload her results to Gedmatch and also join the Newfoundland Gedmatch Facebook group. She did that and I’d like to take a look at the DNA to see what may be found.

Genetic Relatives and Family Trees

First, here is the match between Heather and Esther:

The estimated number of generations to a common ancestor is 3.7. That could mean a few things. However, someone in the 3rd cousin range may be suggested. Here are Heather’s Crann ancestors:

Harold is Heather’s dad, so Samuel Crann would be out 4 generations from Heather.

Here are Esther’s ancestors:

Frederick and Margaret were Esther’s parents. Even at three generations back from Esther, there are a few gaps. Interestingly, looking up the Upshall name on the internet appears to link it to Dorset. The early records of Harbour Buffet mention a Peter and a Thomas Upshall. As a wild stab, I notice these two transcribed Upshall births from the Hazelbury Bryan Parish records in Dorset.

In the original records, Peter is referred to as ‘base-born’. Here is a map of Hazelbury Bryan showing proximity to nearby ports:

Below is Netherbury, where Heather’s ancestor Samuel Crann lived in the early 1800’s. He was a bit to the Southwest of my stab in the dark Upshalls.

Esther and My Mother in Law

My mother in law is Esther’s half niece. She is related through Esther’s paternal side only – barring intermarriage issues.

Here is how Heather matches my mother in law Joan:

This tells us that for these matches, Heather and Joan are matching more on the Upshall side rather than Esther’s Shave side. A slight point of confusion is that Esther has the Dicks family on her father’s and mother’s side.

A Triangulation Group?

It appears that Heather, Esther and Joan are in a Triangulation Group on Chromosome 1. That would mean that Heather, Esther and Joan should have a shared ancestor based on the DNA.

Heather to Esther:

Heather to Joan:

Esther to Joan to complete the triangle:

For some reason, there is a break in the Esther to Joan match. However, clearly there is a triangulation group (TG). That means that at least 2 out of 6 segment matches that Heather has with Esther and Joan are on the Upshall side.

AncestryDNA Shared Matches

So far, I have shown that at least part of the DNA match could be on the Upshall line. I have also shown that some Upshalls lived not too far from some of Heather’s ancestors in Dorset. The next step is to see if there are any Dicks family related to Heather. I have headed up quite a large Newfoundland Dicks family project. If Heather is related to Newfoundland Dicks, perhaps we would have already known that. One easy way to check is to check the Shared Matches at AncestryDNA.

This list shows two 3rd cousins and nine 4th cousins. Even though these are shared matches between Heather and Esther, the relationship shown here is to Esther. The first person on the list comes up as a probable 3rd cousin to Esther. His name is Terence. When I choose him and then choose his shared matches, I see Heather on Terence’s Shared Match list as a possible 4th cousin. The bad news about Terence’s Ancestry Tree is that there are 4 people on it. The good news is that one of those four, his mother, is listed as a Crann.

Now I feel like I am getting somewhere. I feel like I should be focusing on the Upshall side of Esther’s tree. This, of course, is the side least known:

Esther and heather’s 2nd Shared match

Esther and Heather’s second shared match at AncestryDNA is Elsie. She is a possible 3rd cousin to Esther. Like Terence, Elsie is a possible 4th cousin to Heather. Like Terence she has an Ancestry Tree of 4 people. Her names are Chafe and Hann. Hann is a name that was known to be in Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland where Esther’s parents came from. Elsie also notes some ancestry from Placentia, Newfoundland. Harbour Buffet is in Placentia Bay. The Chafe name sounds familiar to me also.

So far, I have two interesting connections with the first two Shared Matches between Heather and Esther. Too bad my mother in law, Joan, is not also on AncestryDNA. At this point, I could try to work Terence’s and Elsie’s genealogy back up the Crann Line. However, I’ll keep looking at more Shared Matches. Now I’m down to Esther’s 4th cousins.

Fourth Cousin shared matches between Heather and esther

Now we are getting a bit further out. Rather than detailing each Shared Match, I have summarized my findings in a table.

My conclusion from all this is that there is a Crann/Netherbury, Dorset connection between Heather and Esther.

Building a Crann Tree

From here, I could look at the matches of the matches. This could get further out results that I don’t want. So instead, I’ll look to build out Terence’s four person tree. First, I will start a tree with the one Crann that he has in the tree. I find the one Crann in the 1930 Census:

This is helpful as it shows Arline’s parents, their ages, where they were born (Newfoundland) and where their parents were born (also Newfoundland).

Connecting the dots

Hopefully, I’m connecting the right dots. Here is John Crann’s World War II Registration:

This was helpful as it gives his John’s date and place. Here is Trinny Cove about 7 miles across the Bay from Harbour Buffet:

Here is a 1921 Census of Trinny Cove from a Newfoundland Genealogy website:

It looks like there were three houses in Trinny Bay and two of those were Crann houses. The two eldest Cranns were born in Harbor Buffett. I now have two potential sets of parents for John Crann, with my first choice being Richard. I do note that John’s first son was named Richard, so that adds weight to my assumption. In addition, his first daughter was named Julia.

Here’s John and Anastacia’s marriage on 8 Oct 1911, thanks to FamilySearch:

Bell Island is on the NE side of Newfoundland. At about this time I got stuck finding out the parents of John from the bottom up.

Richard crann b. 1856 b. harbour buffet

I thought why not check to see if there is a tree for Richard Crann from the Trinny Cove Census of 1921? I went on to Ancestry and found a familiar sounding Crann. Here was a Samuel Crann. His grandfather was listed as being from Netherbury, Dorset.

The Henry who had all the children was shown as being born in Jean de Baie, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland and dieing at Flat Islands, Newfoundland. Now I have made at least one connection between one Crann who was from Netherbury and moved to Newfoundland.

A Google search helped me find a Crann Families of Newfoundland Web Page:

RICHARD² CRANN (CRANN¹) was born December 1856 in Harbour Buffett, NF, and died December 13, 1941 in Fair Haven, NF. He married JULIA REID She was born September 1858 in Little Harbour, NF, and died October 20, 1940 in Fair Haven, NF.

Children of RICHARD CRANN and JULIA REID are:

JOHN BENJAMEN³CRANN

ELIZA CRANN , b.December 1877, Harbour Buffett, NF

ELIZABETH CRANN , b. November 1898, Trinny Cove, NF; m. JOHN PEDDLE; b. Corner Brook NF

What I’ve done:

I’ve connected Terrence to Esther and Heather by DNA.
I have also connected Terrence’s mom to the Newfoundland Cranns and more specifically a Crann born in Harbour Buffet.
I have also found a Crann family showing ancestry to Netherbury, Dorset, England.

What I haven’t done:

Haven’t connected the Newfoundland Cranns to Heather’s Cranns in Netherbury
Haven’t connected Esther’s family to the Cranns other than by location
Haven’t connected Terrence’s ancestor Richard Crann to earlier Cranns

So I’m about halfway there. Let’s look to see if we can connect Heather’s Cranns to this John Crann from Netherbury, Dorset.

John Crann Born 1791

This appears to be the record of John’s baptism in Netherbury:

Here is Heather’s Tree:

Here is a more fleshed out tree I found at Ancestry:

This tree shows that the Newfoundlander John Crann and New Zealander Samuel Crann were brothers. Talk about going different ways! This seems to make Henry Crann b. 1757 the common ancestor of Esther and Heather.

Wild Guessing Time

That’s about it for the research. Now I get to wildly guess and make assumptions. Assumption one is that John Crann’s brothers did not also move to Newfoundland. I have the William above died in England, the first John died young and Samuel went to New Zealand. I’m not sure what happened to the other Robert.

Another Crann Tree

While poking around Ancestry, I found yet another Crann Tree called Henwood. This tree seems to fill in a few blanks:

There are a few things I like about this tree. One thing is that it gives the spread of John Crann’s children from 1817 to 1836. Secondly, it shows a likely tie-in with one of Esther’s matches. Way up above in my Blog I mentioned that Heather, Esther and Terrence had a match with someone named Matson. Part of Matson’s tree looks like this:

It ended with one of Matson’s great grandmothers who was Marina Irene Crann b. 1877. It showed her husband as having died in Harbour Buffet. If I stitch the two trees together at Marina, I get a tree for Matson. While I’m at it, I’ll add Heather in. She’s in green for New Zealand.

Heather and Matson show up at AncestryDNA as 4th cousins with a possible range between 4th and 6th cousins. This tree shows them as 4th cousins, once removed. I’ll now add Terence’s Line and Esther’s Line.

A Proposed Crann Tree

At first, I had Esther’s tree up a generation, but that didn’t give any room for John Crann to have a daughter that could fit into Esther’s tree. Esther has two places where a Crann daughter could fit. One is the wife of an Upshall. The other is Elizabeth, wife of Christopher Dicks. From my diagram above, it looks like Terrence’s missing ancestor would have to be a son of John Crann. Under the above scenario, Esther would be a 4th cousin to Heather and a third cousin once removed to Terrence and Matson.

For a few reasons, I’m favoring the theory that a Crann married an Upshall. I suppose that Catherine Crann who I have in one tree as being born 1821, could have married Upshall in 1840 and had Henry Upshall in 1841.

Summary and Conclusions

Comparison of Crann Trees and Crann DNA matches lead to a suggested new Crann Tree
By carefully placing the separate trees together, it indicates where the missing Crann in the tree would likely go.
If more Crann descendants upload their DNA to Gedmatch, it could help verify these lines through triangulation.
It appears that there is more room for analysis. In my Excel spreadsheet of compared matches, there were multiple matches between Ninky, Elsie, Heather and Esther. However, that would make the blog too long.

December 6, 2016April 13, 2017

More Dicks (and Joyce) DNA from Newfoundland

Thanks to the Newfoundland Gedmatch Facebook Group I recently ‘met’ a new Dicks descendant who had DNA tested. Trudy is from the Joyce Line of Dicks like many other in the Dicks DNA Project.

Trudy is in the bottom row of green DNA tested Dicks descendants. She is 7 generations away from Christopher Dicks b. about 1784. This is the main Dicks Line that I have been looking at. However Christopher had a brother of interest also named Henry.

Seven generations is a long way away for autosomal DNA, but we will see what Trudy’s DNA shows us. As alluded to in the Blog Title, Trudy also has Joyce ancestry.

On a certain day in the early 1800’s Rachel Dicks married James Joyce. They had at least seven descendants that had their DNA tested. And of course they had many descendants that didn’t have their DNA tested. Trudy’s closest relative in the chart above is Pauline. They are 1st cousins once removed.

Here is how Trudy matches the other Dicks descendants with tested DNA:

That is a bit small, isn’t it? This shows no matches to the Henry Dicks Line, so we won’t need to look at them in this Blog. We can stick to the descendants of Christopher Dicks b. 1784.

Triangulation Groups

I tend to focus on Triangulation Groups (TGs). These are groups of people that match each other on the same segment. When this happens, it is a sure bet that the people in the TG have a common ancestor. There should be potentially two types of TGs that Trudy would be in: new ones and existing ones. The existing ones may tell us something, but the new ones should be more interesting. In addition, there is the possibility that Trudy could be in a Joyce TG, a Dicks TG, or even one from a different surname.

Downloaded segments

First, I download the matches of all the Christopher Dicks descendants and compare them. So I’m not re-creating the wheel, I’ll reproduce my TG Summary from a past Blog:

The first interesting thing I see in my downloaded segments is here at the end of Chromosome 1:

Trudy is in a TG with Esther and Forrest. Esther is my wife’s 1/2 great Aunt. Note that Judy and Wallace are not in this TG. They have plenty of other places to have their DNA match as they are niece and uncle.

As far as I know, Esther, Trudy and Forrest all share the DNA from Christopher Dicks and his wife Margaret, so that is what it looks like this shared segment is (unless anyone else knows of a different shared ancestor in each of their ancestry).

The next interesting TG in chromosome 4

Here I see Nelson, Molly and Trudy in a TG. This TG will be a little more challenging. Howie would also likely be in the TG if we were to lower the limits. One of the challenging things about this TG is that Molly descends from two Dicks Lines:

Nelson is from the Adams Line. Trudy is from the Joyce Line. Molly is from the Joyce and Cran Line. Nelson is Trudy’s 3rd cousin, three times removed. Nelson is Molly’s 3rd cousin, twice removed. Molly is Trudy’s 4th cousin once removed and 5th cousin, once removed. My guess is that Molly is related on the Joyce line as that would be closer to Trudy, but there is no way to know with certainty.

Moving right along.

Chromosome 5 TG – The Joyce family

Here I believe I see a Joyce TG:

Pauline, Molly and Trudy all descend from the Joyce Line. Within that TG is another TG with Wallace, Joan and Esther. I had to take the match between Wallace and Esther down to find it, but it was there. Then again, we see the close Judy/Wallace relationship. They could match with Lewis DNA, for example.

Untangling Chromosome 15

Here is a TG with Trudy, Esther and Howie (Molly). Think of Howie and Molly as a tag team. As siblings, their DNA can be interchanged in many situations. Here we are missing a match between Esther and Molly. However, it would have to be there at a lower threshold.

There is a lot of mystery in this TG. I assume that the TG is Dicks. However, Molly and Howie are from 2 Dicks Lines and Esther has Dicks on her father and mother’s sides. On Esther’s mother’s side, I don’t know where her Dicks ancestors come from.

Here, the only unambiguous line (as far as I know) is between Trudy and Christopher Dicks by way of the Joyce Line. For Esther, Marilyn and Howie I am not as sure. Sandra and Cheryl listed above are both from the Adams Line of Dicks, so that is a likely source of shared DNA for those two.

TG Summary

This chart is getting large:

Trudy is in 5 TGs. I think that 4 of them are new. Two of them appear to be Joyce TGs and three Dicks TGs.

November 21, 2016April 13, 2017

Cathy’s DNA From the Newfoundland Dicks Family

The DNA results for Cathy just came in. She fits in on the Dicks/Burton Line here:

Cathy’s closest relative in the Dicks DNA Project is Denise (2nd cousin once removed). Here is how she matches everyone in the Project:

The first thing I noticed is that Cathy doesn’t match anyone in the Henry Dicks Line. They are in the rectangle to the lower right of the comparison. The Henry Dicks is believed to be a brother to Christopher Dicks b. 1784. As expected, Cathy’s largest match is with Denise.

Cathy and Esther at AncestryDNA

Cathy got my attention as she is mentioned in 2 New Ancestor Discoveries (NADs) at AncestryDNA. Esther is my wife’s 1/2 great Aunt. Esther and Cathy share many surnames including Dicks, Burton, Kirby and possibly Butler. When Ancestry sees that many people match by DNA and match by genealogy they give what is called a NAD. Actually, the others match each other by DNA, but they are not in Esther’s genealogy. That is why the note for Esther’s NADs says these are potential ancestors or relatives not already in Esther’s family tree:

Here are the areas where Cathy and Esther match:

The names above would be on Esther’s maternal side where she doesn’t match Joan. I checked gedmatch and Esther does not match Cathy and Joan in these three above segments. That means that it possible that these segments could represent the Kirby or Butler names as suggested by AncestryDNA.

Cathy and Triangulation

Now I will see who Cathy triangulated with in the Dicks Project. Triangulation is a more rigorous method than AncestryDNA uses. Triangulation means that 3 people match each other on the same Chromosome and the same segment of that chromosome. When this happens, those three (or more) have a common ancestor. This is helpful in verifying genealogy and finding new ancestors.

Cathy’s Triangulation Group (TG) at chromosome 2

There is already a Dicks TG at Chromosome 2 with Denise, Sandra, Joan and Nelson. Now Cathy has joined it.

All the people in the column to the right above should be in this TG.

I mention Molly and Kirsten as it is interesting that they are not in the TG. They are shown in purple circles. It looks like they could have at least matched Cathy and Denise but did not. That means that they their match at this spot represents a different common ancestor than the others in the TG. One possibility is that The TG represents Christopher Dicks in the top circle and the match Molly and Kirsten have represents the wife (or it could be the other way around). Another possibility is that Molly and Kirsten have a separate common ancestor from the Dicks.

Cathy in a new TG (chromosome 5)

Sort of. This should have been a TG before.

Here we have a TG with Cathy, Nelson, Judy, and Wallace. The reason I didn’t have this TG before is because I found no match between Judy and Nelson. Now with Cathy in the mix, I see that Judy and Nelson should be in the TG. So I looked for a smaller match (between 5 and 7 cM) between Judy and Nelson and see that there was one right where we needed it for the TG.

It seems we know quite a bit about the DNA of Christopher Dicks and his wife Margaret. Here is the updated Dicks TG Matrix. This represents 20 DNA tested Dicks descendants and 33 TGs.

November 15, 2016April 13, 2017

Two New Christopher Dicks Descendants DNA Results

I recently came across two new Dicks descendants’ DNA results. One is for Cheryl and the other is Charles. They are both from the Christopher Dicks Line of Newfoundland, born 1784. The group is getting big, so here is part of the Christopher Line:

Cheryl is important for the Adams line as now there are three there. Charles is important for the Burton Line as he also makes the third in that line. Plus he is the closest to the common ancestors of the line of Frances Dicks and Charles Burton.

Cheryl and Charles’ Newfoundland DNA

When I compare Cheryl to Nelson at gedmatch, it says that their common ancestor is 3.5 generations away. That is exactly what we should expect for these two as they are 2nd cousins, once removed. Here are Cheryl and Charles compared to the other 19 Dicks descendants’ DNA:

I found it interesting that Cheryl and Esther were more closely related by DNA than Cheryl and Nelson. Remember Cheryl and Nelson were 2nd cousins once removed. However, Cheryl and Esther are 3rd cousins once removed. My guess is that Esther and Cheryl have some additional common ancestors.

The Dicks DNA Details: Triangulation Groups

Triangulation Groups (or TGs) are when 3 or more people have DNA that matches each other on the same chromosome and the same segment of that chromosome. When that happens, those 3 share a common ancestor. However, it may be difficult to determine who that common ancestor is. In a family project such as this, it is most likely that that common ancestor would be a Dicks ancestor or a spouse of a Dicks ancestor.

What I do is compare the detailed results of each of the 21 Dicks descendants in the project to look for TGs. Then it should be possible to draw some conclusions from those results.

Chromosome 1: One TG Or Two?

Here we have our 2 new Project people: Cheryl and Charles:

This is a new TG and it gets a little complicated right from the start. This is a four person TG, so there are different overlaps. If we look at this as 2 TGs, the first would go from 70M to 83M and the second TG would go from 83M to 106M. Here is how it looks from Cheryl’s point of view:

#1 is Cheryl’s match to Esther. #2 is Joan showing where she comes into the TG later (in green). #3 is Charles. #4 is Wallace, #5 is Claude and #8 is Nelson – all outside the TG(s). I am tempted to call this one TG. One reason is that Joan and Charles match from 70M to 84M, going a little over the first 83M boundary of the TG. Also the same people are in both sections. It may be that Cheryl just had a poor DNA read in the section between her green and yellow sections of her matches.

Another possibility could be that this could represent 2 Dicks Lines. Recall we have a Henry Dicks Line and a Christopher Dicks line.

Here is what the new TG1 looks like on the Dicks Genealogy Chart:

Observe:

Sandra and Nelson match in this area, so their match is likely on the Mercer or Adams Line.
This is a non-Molly TG. She is in two other Dicks Lines. She matches Wallace in the area of this TG, so perhaps that match is on the Joyce Line.
Claude is thought to be in the Henry Dicks Line, but we are not sure.

TG9A Revised

I had already found a TG at Chromosome 9. Now Cheryl is added to that.

This will look a lot like TG1 except that Kirsten is replacing Charles:

TG10 – Adams Or Dicks DNA?

Here is my guess for TG10, although technically, this TG could be pointing to either Elizabeth Dicks or Thomas Adams DNA:

TG13 – A Two Way Split

I split this existing TG13 into TG13A with Cheryl and TG13B with Judy. Kenneth and Gordon from the Henry Line are in both TGs.

Here I have Gordon and Kenneth in red. Cheryl is in TG13A and Judy in yellow (TG13B). Again, this chart is focused on the Dicks family. There is a possibility that there could be another family in common between these lines that I don’t know about.

Chromosome 15 – A Lot Going On

Here I see 2 TGs and some people that are not in the 2 TGs. First is Charles, Joan and Esther in gold. Then there is Nelson, Gordon, Charles, Kenneth and Judy in the pink TG. Howie, Molly and Pauline would be in a TG, but siblings are generally not considered as part of a TG trio. That is because they had to get all of their DNA from their parents, so it would be like 2 people if you consider Molly and Howie as their parent and Pauline as the other person.

Here are a few comments:

Pauline, Molly and Howie are likely matching DNA on their Joyce side
If the match with Gordon and Kenneth is a Dicks match, why don’t Charles, Esther and Joan also match them? Does that mean that the Charles, Esther, Joan TG is a non-Dicks TG?
I previously had TG15 split in two. It appears I can get it down to one TG with a common location between 51 and 62M on the Chromosome.
I had noted before that Gordon seems more closely related to the Christopher Dicks line than the Henry Dicks Line. He is also in TGs with the Christopher Dicks Line. Both his line and Esther and Joan’s line have a Christopher b. 1812 or 1813. Both Christopher ancestors are married to an Elizabeth. Gordon’s line identifies her as a Collier. Could it be that the lines are the same? Something to think about.

Note that Charles is in two different TGs. The blue circles represent the non-TG with Molly, Howie and Pauline who have a Joyce ancestor.

New TG17

The common area in this TG is between 30M and 37M. As this is likely a Dicks TG. Esther and Joan’s match likely represent the non-Dicks Upshall ancestry. This is important to know when checking matches in this area of the Chromosome.

Chromosome 18 – Two New Cheryl TGs

Here is what Cheryl’s browser looks like:

#1 Molly
#2 and #3: Sandra and Nelson (probably an Adams TG)
#5 and #6: Judy and Wallace

New Chromosome 20 TG

Again, I am thinking that Charles may be related on the Upshall Line of Esther. Another possibility is the Burton line. Esther and Charles both have Burtons in their ancestry.

Updated Dicks Triangulation Matrix

I have made quite a few changes to the Dicks Triangulation Matrix:

Gordon is in 5 TGs with the Christopher Dicks Line and in none with the Henry Dicks Line
Cheryl is in 7 TGs including 2 that appear to be non-Dicks TGs
Project members are in an average of 6 TGs each

Summary and Conclusions

Cheryl and Charles have added important DNA results to the Dicks family puzzle.
It looks from the DNA, common ancestral names and birth dates that Gordon could be more likely in the Christopher Line rather than the Henry Dicks Line. Someone who knows the genealogy better may be able to confirm this theory or refute it.
On the other hand, Charles is in TGs 4 out of 5 times with Kenneth. Is that significant?
It appears that Charles could have more of a connection to Esther and Joan than just the Dicks family. Both Esther and Charles have Burton ancestors. A connection with Esther and Joan’s Upshall line is an additional possibility.
It is possible to draw conclusions for matches that are in areas of a TG but are not in the TG. That means that those matches outside the TGs do not have the same common ancestors as those within the TG.

November 9, 2016April 13, 2017

More Dicks DNA – Marilyn’s Brother

I just finished 2 Blogs on the Henry Dicks Line which is a parallel line to my wife’s Christopher Dicks Line. Then I heard that Marilyn had her brother tested. Marilyn is on 2 different Christopher Dicks Lines.

Henry Dicks Line Updates

In other news, I found out that Eric’s dad, Claude, has been tested for DNA. What is more it is Claude that Eric believes to be likely related on the Henry Dicks Line. The confusing part was that Eric was in a Triangulation Group with my mother in law Joan and Joan’s half Aunt Eshter. So isn’t that confusing. That means that for now (as I understand it) Eric’s TG with my wife’s side of the family may not refer back to a Dicks ancestor. I’ll take Eric off the TG Matrix for now and put his father into the Dicks family comparisons. The good news is that there are a lot of Dicks descendants around. The bad news is that is is difficult to keep track of all of them.

I also got this note recently from Crystal from the Henry Dicks Line:

In looking at Ivy’s ancestors, We also share another ancestor. We are both related to The Vatchers as well as the Matthews and the Dicks. Burgeo is so small that you bound to be related in 2 or 3 different ways going way back!

In addition, Crystal tells me she has extra Dicks DNA on her dad’s side as shown here on this Henry Dicks Chart. Her mom’s side of the Dicks line leads up to the first pink rectangle. I have Crystal in a slightly different green to make sure I don’t forget she is in two Dicks Lines.

Back to the Christopher Dicks Line and Marilyn’s Brother

Here is an updated Christopher Line Chart. All I did was add Marilyn’s brother Howie to an old chart I had:

The chart is getting tiny. So I will point out that Marilyn and her brother are on the Joyce and Cran Lines. The Joyce Line is the large Line to the right of center and the Cran Line is on the right. That reminds me of something I brought up in an email. My wife’s 1/2 great Aunt Esther has 2 Dicks Lines also. One is through Christopher. The other one she doesn’t share with Joan due to the 1/2 part. However, I noted that Esther is in 3 TGs that she does not share with Joan. In those 3, she shares all 3 of them with people from the Adams Line. The Adams line is the one on the left.

These are the non-Joan, Esther TGs. They all have Nelson in them and two of them have Sandra. I just need to check to see if Esther’s other Dicks ancestor might fit in. “Hi Sandra, any room for Esther’s ancestor?”

However, when I look at Esther’s tree, this is what I see:

Assuming that this tree is right, there is no room for Jane Ann Dicks in Sandra’s tree. That is because Jane Ann was b. 1841 and Sandra descends from Elizabeth Dicks b. 1809 who married Thomas Adams. Sandra would have descended from a male Dicks. I will leave this as a mystery for now. Perhaps the 3 TGs above between Esther and Nelson are non-Dicks TGs.

Marilyn’s Brother and Claude

Now I will compare all those who have Dicks ancestors. I will look especially at Marilyn’s brother and Claude (Eric’s) dad who may have Dicks ancestors. This resulted in 754 lines of matches. However, each match is listed twice, so there are only 377 matches. A lot of these matches are between close relatives. There would be a lot more matches if I had included Eric and Larry in the mix.

Chromosome 2

Here we have a complicated stretch of DNA:

This may take a bit of explaining. Previously, I had this as two TGs:

TG2D (180-192) with Sandra, Nelson, Denise and Joan
TG2E (201-209) with Sandra, Nelson and Marilyn

I see now that Denise should have been in the TG2E. Now we can add Howie to TG2E also. There is another way to look at this TG. That would be that it is a larger TG and that Joan’s DNA didn’t extend to the higher end of it and Marilyn and Howie’s DNA didn’t extend to the first part of it. A few other things:

Kenneth and Judy are not in this TG. As they both descend from a Miller line, that would be a likely source of their DNA match.
Kirsten also does not appear to be in the TG. I’m not sure how to explain the matches between Kirsten and Marilyn and Kirsten and Howie. The simplest explanation would be that Marilyn and Howie are in the TG through their father’s side and match Kirsten on their mother’s side. However, I don’t know enough about everyone’s genealogy to know if that is feasible.

Here is the larger TG drawn out:

This was a little tricky to draw. What this is supposed to represent is that Sandra, Nelson and Denise are in the larger TG. Joan (in yellow) is in the first part of it and Marilyn and Howie are in the second part or it. I guessed that Marilyn and Howie might be in the box on the right as none of the other four Joyce line descendants are in this TG.

crossovers

I can give a likely reason Joan dropped out of this TG and Marilyn and Howie dropped in. It has to do with crossovers. Let’s look at Joan first. Joan has 2 copies of her Chromosome 2 as we all do. One is maternal and one is paternal. Joan’s Dicks DNA comes from her maternal side. Joan’s maternal DNA is made up of her mother’s two parents DNA joined together (recombined). Those 2 parents were Joan’s grandfather Frederick Upshall and grandmother Daly. Joan’s maternal Chromosome 2 is alternating between Upshall (whose mother was a Dicks) and Daly.

Here is a map of my actual Chromosome 2 showing the alternating pattern:

This chart was created by M MacNeill [prairielad_genealogy@hotmail.com]. It is possible to map this out if you have 2 parents tested, or if you have one tested and 2 or 3 siblings tested. There is even a way to map your grandparents with siblings and no parent tested. In the case above. Light blue represents my maternal grandmother and dark blue is my maternal grandfather. The light red is my paternal grandmother and the dark red is my paternal grandfather. Everyone’s DNA follows the same type of pattern. The actual configurations where the changes are will be different. The place where a color goes from one to another is called a crossover. Sometimes there is no crossover or recombination and you will have all your DNA on a particular copy (maternal or paternal) of a chromosome from one grandparent instead of two.

Back to the TG at Chromosome 2:

Notice what Joan’s matches with Sandra, Denise and Nelson have in common: they all end around 192M. That should be the place where Joan’s DNA switches from her grandpa Upshall to grandma Daly.

Here is Joan’s Chromosome 2:

This shows her matches with:

Esther
Nelson
Sandra
Denise

To the right of the one blue bar on top of the 2 green bars is where Joan drops out of this Dicks TG. I can almost map Joan’s Maternal grandparents from this gedmatch chromosome broswer. Here is my guess:

A few notes:

Joan’s Daly grandmother is not from Newfoundland
Another possibility could be that the Upshall segment could extend to Joan’s matches with #2, 3, and 4, eliminating the first Daly segment I have.

Another interesting question is: Why doesn’t Esther match Joan where Joan matches Nelson, Sandra, and Denise? The answer would be that Esther has Upshall DNA in this area rather than Dicks and Joan got Dicks DNA in this area. It’s a bit confusing as you have to picture what is happening on each side of the match between Esther and Joan.

Marilyn and Howie’s appearance in TG2

I’d like to bring up an interesting point about siblings. Siblings represent the only relationship where you will find appreciable FIRs. FIRs are Fully Identical regions. Here is Marilyn’s match with her brother Howie on Chromosome 2:

This shows that Marilyn and Howie match each other along the blue line. That is from 0 to 147M. Then they don’t match from 147M to 182M. Then they match again to the end of the Chromosome 2. Above the blue bar are green and yellow areas. The yellow is how we match everyone other than siblings. The green is the FIR. That means a double match. As siblings, Marilyn and Howie share all their 4 grandparents: 2 Paternal and 2 Maternal grandparents. Looking at Marilyn and Howie’s Chromosome 2, I can know what the green, yellow and red regions mean:

Green – Marilyn and Howie both share a maternal grandparent and a paternal one. We just can’t tell which one right now.
Yellow – Marilyn and Howie both share a maternal grandparent or a paternal grandparent. Again we can’t tell which one right now.
Red – Marilyn and Howie share the DNA of neither their maternal nor paternal grandparent.

Here is the 2nd part of the TG at Chromosome 2:

The appearance of Marilyn and Howie in this TG is clear: 201M. I just found out recently that there is a way to expand matches to great detail as shown in the Gedmatch Chromosome Broswer. Here is Marilyn and Howie expanded at around 201M:

This is difficult to see. The number in the middle is 200M. That is one tick mark away from 201 where Marilyn and Howie enter the TG. Another interesting thing is that Marilyn (Molly) above gets out of the TG at 208 and Howie gets out between 212 and 218. What does all this mean?

Based on the expanded view, Marilyn and Howie are FIR from a little after 195M. They jump into the TG at 201. FIR means that Marilyn and Howie share the same 2 grandparents – one maternal and one paternal. However, without the comparison of another sibling, this is difficult to see. I am assuming that from 195 to 201M, Marilyn and Howie share the same 2 grandparents, but not necessarily the same two as after 201M. At 201M, Marilyn and Howie both get their DNA from their paternal grandmother Sarah Priscilla. Sarah is the one with Dicks DNA.
At 208M, Marilyn drops out of the TG before Howie.

Here is an expanded view of an already expanded view of Marilyn and Howie at 208M:

Every little tick mark [^] is 1M. So 2 ^’s before 210M is 208M. That is where Marilyn and Howie go from FIR to HIR. An HIR is a Half Identical Region. That means that Marilyn and Howie match one grandparent (on the maternal or paternal side) and they don’t match the other grandparent (on the opposite of the maternal or paternal side where they do match). This is easier to show by mapping it out:

It is clear that from 201 to 208, that Marilyn and Howie are in a TG. They are also FIR. That means that they have 2 grandparents the same (one paternal and one maternal, here represented by blue and yellow). The TG identifies the paternal grandparent as Sarah. She is the one that descends from the Dicks family. We don’t know which Maternal grandparent that Marilyn and Howie got their DNA from. We just know that it is the same grandparent.

At 208M, two things happen. Marilyn exits the TG and is now in an HIR with her brother Howie. HIR means that Marilyn gets her DNA from one grandparent (on the maternal or paternal side). On the other side from where she gets her DNA, she doesn’t get her DNA from the other. In this case, that means that she continues to match the same maternal grandparent and switches the paternal grandparent that she gets her DNA from from Sarah to Jesse.

All this is to say that it is helpful to have a sibling or more tested.

Chromosome 12

Like the TG at Chromosome 2, the TG that Howie is in at Chromosome 12 is not new. It has been described previously. Here is what it looks like in a spreadsheet:

The difference is that there is a Joyce Line TG within an apparent Dicks TG (in gold). Also within the gold TG there are single matches of people from the Henry Dicks Line. That could mean a few things:

The green matches are in non-Dicks lines
The green matches are with Dicks lines. If that is true, that would mean that the gold TG must point back to the wife of Christopher Dicks who I have as Margaret b. 1789.

In TG2, I had missed Denise in part of the TG. Previously I had missed Pauline in this one. Part of the reason I may have missed Denise in TG2 is that her match with Marilyn was less than 7 cM so didn’t show up at Gedmatch at threshold levels. In this case Marilyn doesn’t match Pauline, because she drops out of the TG right around the spot where Pauline joins in the TG (127M).

Here is Joan compared with Esther, Howie, Marilyn and Pauline:

In the above browser image, Joan’s maternal grandparent mapping would likely go Upshall, Daly, Upshall. One can see where Howie and Marilyn jump into the TG in the 2 yellow bars. You can also see how Marilyn (#3) jumps out of the TG on the right and Pauline (#4) jumps in (green bar).

For comparison, I will show the same matches from Esther’s point of view:

Esther’s view has to be exactly the same for #1 as they are comparing the same 2 people (Joan and Esther). Esther’s view gives a crisper indication of Marilyn’s crossover.

Chromosome 12 is shorter than Chromosome 2, so it should be simpler. Here are Marilyn and Howie compared at Chromosome 12:

Marilyn and Howie have 3 HIR’s, one FIR and one area where they don’t match either of their grandparents. In that area where they don’t match, if Marilyn got her DNA from her her maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather, for example, it would mean that Howie would have to get his DNA from his maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother.

We have more detail on the positions from the TG:

Howie and Molly jump into the TG at 114M. Molly jumps out at 126M and Howie jumps out at 132M. Actually, he had to as that is the end of the Chromosome!

Looking at Marilyn and Howie’s expanded view of Chromosome 12, their FIR starts at 101M. That switches to an HIR at about 126.5M. That corresponds where Marilyn gets out of the TG. It also corresponds where the green goes to yellow in the Gedmatch Chromosome browser in the image above.

This looks similar to the Chromosome 2 map of Marilyn and Howie. This time I was a bit more brave due to my experience with Chromosome 2 and mapped their DNA to the beginning of their HIR rather than just to the beginning of where they jumped into the TG (113M). The reason for this is for there to be a change at 113M would require a double crossover for these two which is unlikely. Another note is that the yellow grandparent in this example may not be the same as the yellow one in Chromosome 2. It is just meant to represent one of the maternal grandparents in each case.

One More Question On Crossovers

I’m learning this as I go along. I had determined a crossover above at 126.5M above where one sibling left the TG and the other stayed in. However, I did not have a crossover at 114M where both siblings entered the TG. Why is that? I had a crossover at 126.5 because the chromosome browser verified that the siblings were switching from a FIR to an HIR at 126.5. To me, this verified the crossover in conjunction with the change in TG at the same location. At 114M, there was no change:

Above is the close-up view of Marilyn’s match to Howie on Chromosome 12 between positions 110 and 120M. The whole area on either side of 114M is FIR. That likely indicates no crossover at Marilyn’s and Howie’s grandparent level. However, it was Marilyn’s great grandmother Bertha Joyce that had her grandparents’ Dicks and Joyce DNA recombining into a crossover. It is likely that this TG represents the DNA that Bertha Joyce received from her grandparents probably sometime around the American Civil War. I note that the TG that I looked at above at Chromosome 2 followed the same pattern. The crossover was where one sibling left the TG and the other remained. Where the two siblings started in the TG, there was no change in the FIR region to an HIR.

So the answer is that there was a crossover at some point at position 114M, but quite a while before the time period that we are looking at here. So it is hidden in my map above.

Dicks TG Matrix Update

Here I took out Eric as his father Claude (who is believed to be the one descended from the Dicks family) was not found to be in a TG. Eric was in a TG with Joan and Esther, but that must have been on his maternal (non-Dicks) side.
I didn’t add 2 extra columns for Howie, but put him in the appropriate boxes where the existing TGs for his sister Marilyn were.
I added Denise to TG2E and Pauline to TG12B. That was an important addition for Marilyn and Howie as it seem to indicate that their Dicks DNA comes from the Joyce rather than the Cran Line in this case. Recall that in TG2E, I was suggesting that this might represent the Cran line for Marilyn and Howie.

The All-Dicks Comparison

The top left box are the Christopher Line descendants. The bottom right box is the Henry Dicks Line descendants. This now includes Claude and Howie. For an interesting comparison, run down the two columns of Molly and Howie and see how the total cMs of their matches differ.

Summary and Conclusions

I didn’t add any new TGs by the addition of Marilyn’s brother Howie and Eric’s father Claude.
Marilyn and Howie are the first known Dicks descendant siblings to have their DNA tested. So I took advantage of that to explain how crossovers work and how they are important in mapping DNA.
The combination of the sibling comparisons and TGs made it possible to partially map two of Marilyn’s and Howie’s paternal grandparents on portions of Chromosomes 2 and 12.
I also showed a likely scenario for Joan’s crossover point within a TG which would lead to mapping segments that she received from her maternal grandparents
I clarified a few issues and refined the Dicks Triangulation Group Matrix

November 5, 2016April 13, 2017

The DNA of Henry Dicks of Newfoundland b. 1774: Part 2

In my last blog, I gave some updated information on the DNA matches of descendants of Henry Dicks of Newfoundland. As I was writing the blog, new DNA was being uploaded to gedmatch.com. Perhaps the most important results for the Henry Dicks group were tokenized between the last Blog and this one. Those were the DNA results of Gordon. Here is why his results are so important:

You might say that Gordon is higher up on the ladder than the other Henry Dicks descendant DNA testers. That makes all his relationships to other Dicks ancestors closer by a generation or more.

Step 1: All Gordon’s Matches

The first thing I do when I look at new results is run a ‘one to many’ at Gedmatch. That shows all the matches Gordon has.

Out of Gordon’s top 13 matches, 6 are already in our group. Larry is his son. Kenneth, Nelson, and Judy were mentioned in the previous blog. Esther is my wife’s great aunt. Esther and Nelson are one rung up the ladder from Gordon – closer to a common ancestors.

Step 2: All Gordon’s Dicks Descendant Matches

The next utility I use at Gedmatch is called the Multiple Kit Analysis. Here I’ll look at 18 Dicks descendants at once and compare them to each other:

The first 6 testers are from the Henry Dicks Line. The 2nd 12 are from the Christopher Dicks Line. The numbers are in cM and represent the closeness of their DNA matches. I don’t have the names going across the top, but the order is the same as going down. The first grey box in the top right is grey because it represents Gordon’s match with himself. The next box shows that Gordon and Ivy match each other at a level of 14.2 cM.

Now, how to interpret this?

Shannon has poor matches overall, so we will look at her Uncle Dennis’ results instead
Gordon and Eric seem to have larger matches with the Christopher Dicks Line as compared to the Henry Dicks line. There may be more than one explanation for this.
Ivy, Dennis and Crystal have higher matches with Henry Dicks descendants than they do with Christopher Dicks descendants.
Dennis and Crystal share a common ancestor of Henry Harold Dicks b. 1811. That explains their larger match.
Crystal and Ivy share Dicks and Matthews ancestors. That would explain their larger match.

Step 3: Dicks Triangulation

Triangulation Groups or TGs have been called the gold standard of genetic genealogy. In this step I download all the specific matches from the last chart. The specifics are what Chromosome the matches are on and what location on the chromosome that the matches are on. These go into a spreadsheet of 608 lines. This represents 304 shared Dicks descendants’ DNA. Not all the DNA is from Dicks. The closer the relationship that is looked at between the 2 people, the more likely the match is not representing Dicks DNA.

Chromosome 6 TG

The first TG that Gordon is in is fairly straightforward.

The gold area is the area of the TG. There are 3 other matches that could be in the TG but aren’t. They don’t even match with people within the TG. For that reason, my assumption is that they match on the non-Dicks side of the realtionship. For Wallace and Judy that would be their Lewis ancestors. Likewise the Mercer ancestors are likely represent on Chromsome 6 for Nelson and Sandra. For Joan and Esther, the large segment they share is likely Upshall DNA. So the TG helps not only those that are in the TG, but those that could be but aren’t.

Here is the Dicks TG on Chromosome 6 displayed on the genealogy chart:

So the fact that Gordon is in TGs with those in another line of the Dicks family doesn’t mean that Gordon is not in the Henry Dicks Line. It just means that there are more outside his line to match and the relationships outside the Henry line are as close as those within. For example, the relationships here are 5th cousins. The relationship Gordon has with the person to his lower right in the Henry line is 4th cousin twice removed. That is equivalent to a 5th cousin.

Chromosome 15 TG

This is the one I mentioned I would address later in my previous Blog. Now is later. This one is a little more complicated, so I took out the double match entries to simplify it:

This is a 4 person TG, so there are more matches. However, within the TG are 2 non-TG matches. These are likely for the Upshall and Joyce Lines. I wasn’t going to draw out the genealogy chart TGs, but doing so illustrates a few points:

Here the patriarch, assumed to be Christopher Dicks, is at the top of the orange TG. The first point I wanted to make is that Gordon is a 4th cousin once removed to Nelson. That is a closer relationship than he has with those currently in his own Henry Dicks Line. The second point I tried to make showing the blue TG. The blue TG is the existing TG which consists of those within the Christopher b. 1789 (son of Christopher) TG. There is even a 3rd point. Assume that Gordon does not descend from Christopher b. 1789 (and I have no evidence that he does). This diagram shows a pretty rock solid intertwined pair of TGs. The first TG identified Christopher b. 1789 and the second one identified that there is also a TG leading up to the patriarch Christopher. In other words, this is proof to me that Henry and Christopher Dicks are brothers. Finally, the above can be seen as one or two TGs. I would prefer to keep them separate as one identifies one ancestor and the other identifies older Christopher ancestor.

Chromosome 17 TG – Hold on to your seats

The ride may get a bit bumpy on this next TG. Here is Chromosome 17 from about 52M-78M:

Here, we have the TG found in the previous Blog with Dennis, Crystal and Wallace from about 52M-64M. Then after that is a new TG with Gordon, Nelson, and Esther from about 58M-72M. So that shows 2 TGs with different people in them, but the TGs overlap a bit. Then after that are two matches. One is between Forrest and Esther that would have to be outside the TG. The other is between Nelson and Sandra that would also be outside the TG.

These two TGs have has me a bit stumped. I have a few theories:

This could be due to endogamy. Esther has Dicks on her father’s and mother’s side
Could it be that one TG represents the patriarch Christopher’s DNA and the other represents his wife’s DNA? In that case we would be seeing a sort of mid 1700’s phasing?
Another option is that these 2 TGs represent common ancestors from different lines.

I suppose it won’t hurt to draw these 2 out.

Given that the chart is geared toward the Dicks Line in general, it would tend to favor Theory #2. Does anyone else have any ideas?

A Note on Ivy and crystal

In a previous Blog on the Henry Line, I had identified a TG with Esther, Joan, and Crystal. Here is what it looks like in gold on the current spreadsheet:

Note that Crystal is conspicuously missing from this TG. Well, not that conspicuous as I didn’t notice at first. I was looking at Ivy/Crystal DNA matches, because at the top of the blog, I had noted they matched each other more than usual because they both shared not only the ancestor of Henry Dicks but also shared a common Matthews ancestor. Now we have a TG on Chromosome 5 between Esther, Joan and Crytal. We assume that TG represents Dicks DNA and a common ancestor of the patriarch Christopher Dicks. That means that between 73M and 111M Esther and Joan share Dicks DNA. Then why do Crystal and Ivy match each other and not match Esther and Joan from 77M to 85M? A likely explanation is that location is where they share Matthews DNA. This also means that at some point between 85M and 90M, Crystal has a crossover. This particular crossover is where the DNA she received crossed over from Matthews to Dicks or more specifically from John Matthews to Fanny Dicks.

So we can identify very specifically from this TG, the exact ancestor that Crystal got her DNA from in these two segments of Chromosome 5. Usually we can just know it is one or the other ancestor. We have essentially phased Crystal’s 2nd great grandfather William Matthew’s DNA into a paternal and maternal side.

There are other likely implications from this TG

Wallace and Judy probably share Miller DNA in their Chromosome 5 segment above
Pauline and Kenneth likely share Joyce DNA in this area of Chromosome 5
Molly and Kenneth likely share Joyce DNA in this area of Chromosome 5

Now look at the last two bullets. If Kenneth shares Joyce DNA with Pauline and Molly, why do Pauline and Molly not share Joyce DNA with each other? The answer is that they do:

So while finding a non-Dicks match within a Dicks TG, I found a separate non-Dicks TG. These 2 TGs, like the Chromosome 17 TGs are overlapping TGs to some extent. However, unlike the Chromosome 17 TGs, I was able to explain these 2 overlapping TGs at Chromosome 5. Perhaps what I have learned at Chromosome 5, I will be able to apply to Chromosome 17. But not now.

My Dicks Family TG Summary Table

This is a sort of a fingerprint of the Dicks TGs to date.

A few notes:

I have the new (non-Dicks) Joyce TG I mentioned above as TG5A in a raspberry color
Here I split out TG 15A and 15B. 15A goes with Christopher Dicks b. 1789 and 15B goes with his father Christopher.
TG17A & B are the problem ones!
Gordon is in the most Henry Line TGs
The dark green TGs represent the common ancestor of the patriarch Christopher Dicks and his wife. The light green represent Christopher Dicks b. 1789, the son of the patriarch.
There is still no TG just within the Henry Dicks Line. A lot of that is due to there being no critical mass there yet. There needs to be a few more Henry Line testers for that to happen.

Summary and Conclusions

The addition of Gordon’s results have resulted in some more Dicks TGs
G17A and 17B were a problem as these were 2 overlapping TG – making it difficult to interpret the results
TG16A & B were interesting as they appear to show a definite link between the Henry and Christopher Lines and a link between the father Christopher and his two sons.
There appears to be no reason to question the genealogy chart as posted
I was able to find some non-Dicks DNA while looking at TGs. What other secrets are lurking out there deep within our DNA?
It has been interesting watching the Dicks DNA project expand.

November 3, 2016April 13, 2017

The DNA of Henry Dicks of Newfoundland b. 1774

My past Blogs on the Dicks family of Newfoundland with one exception have focused on the Christopher Dicks descendants. I’ve written about the Christopher Dicks descendants because my wife is from that line. Here is a Henry Dicks Line working tree:

I haven’t put much thought into the tree. I just mushed together trees I found. Eric is unsure of how he is connected to this line, so he is off to the side until we find out more. I believe that P.M. is on Ancestry but not Gedmatch.com so will not be analyzed. The others in green with first names are on Gedmatch. I use Gedmatch.com to analyze the DNA.

One important thing to note is that this chart shows that Shannon, Crystal and Ivy are all 6th cousins to each other. As such, their chances for sharing much of the Henry Dicks (b. 1774) DNA is quite small.
G.D. aka Gordon has the best chances to match others. He is a 4th cousin once or twice removed to the other Henry Dicks Line testers.
Also note the ancestors in pink. There are 2 Frances Dicks. They both married a Matthews. This is possible, but also looks suspicious.

This chart is from FTDNA which indicates less than 2% chance of matching for 6th cousins:

The chances of a 4th cousin, once removed matching should be halfway between the > 10% and > 50% (>30%?).

Now All the Dicks DNA

Above I have the everyone comparison. Actually not everyone as I don’t have Shannon’s Uncle Dennis and Larry’s father Gordon yet.

Here’s what I see:

Ivy, Larry, Shannon, Crystal, and Eric in the purple rectangle are believed to be from the Henry Line from their research.
Everyone else is from the Christopher Dicks line.
My wife’s mom is Joan and her 1/2 great Aunt is Esther.
Christopher and Henry are believed to be brothers.
The DNA tested people within the Henry Line group don’t appear to match each other at significantly higher levels than those within the Christopher Dicks group. One exception to that rule appears to be Ivy and Crystal.
The DNA above seems to suggest that Ivy, Crystal and Eric are from the same line. On my earlier genealogy chart, Ivy and Crystal both show descent from Frances Dicks who married a Matthews. Perhaps this is one line instead of two. Perhaps Eric is also in that line.
To the right of the purple box shows where the Henry Line Dicks descendants match with Christopher Line Dicks descendants. This could mean that the groups match at the parents of Henry and Christopher. Alternatively, it could mean that 1) The two groups match because they descend from both lines or 2) The two groups could match on another non-Dicks line. Confusing, isn’t it?

To get to an answer to the questions in the last bullet requires a closer look at the Dicks DNA.

Dicks DNA and Triangulation

Triangulation is the case where at least three people have matching DNA. The DNA must be in the same area of the same Chromosome. Also Person 1 must match person 2, person 2 must match person 3 and person 1 must match person 3 in the same area. When that happens, we say that triangulated matching DNA segment represents a common ancestor or ancestral couple. This is helpful in sorting out which Dicks descendant goes in which Dicks Line. In a place like Newfoundland where intermarriage was not unusual, triangulation can be both helpful and/or confusing!

To triangulate, I downloaded everyone’s match to everyone else (with the exception of Larry and Gordon for now). Those DNA matches are put in a spreadsheet.

Here I have highlighted the Henry Dicks Line testers in green. The way this downloads from Gedmatch, every match shows up twice: once in the name1 column and once in the name2 column.

A Deeper Look Into Chromosome 13

I picked Chromosome 13, because it appears that a lot is going on here.

Here I have sorted by Chromosome and Start Position. Right now, let’s just look at Larry, Kenneth, and Judy. It appears that there is a Triangulation Group (TG) between these 3 people. Larry matches Kenneth and Judy and Judy matches Kenneth. That is all we need and it is all at location 107M or before on Chromosome 13. That means that Larry, Judy, and Kenneth must have a common set of ancestors. But who are they? A good candidate would be Christopher Dicks. This is the Christopher who is believed to be the father of Henry. This will be difficult to show as I need to go to the bigger Dicks Chart:

On the left, I circled Larry and his dad. On the right is Judy and her 2nd cousin once removed Kenneth. That means that Larry is a 6th cousin with Judy and a mere 5th cousin, once removed to Kenneth. Just to be sure, I’ll check Larry’s dad, Gordon, to see how he matches with Kenneth.

That is a good match. Gedmatch thinks that these 2 have a common ancestor close to 4 generations away. Their actual Dicks ancestor according to the Dicks genealogy chart is actually 6 generations away from each of them. Other explanations:

These 2 may have more than one set of common ancestors. That isn’t obvious from my chart, but my chart doesn’t show everything. It just focuses on the Dicks lines.
These 2 could have a set of common ancestors that is closer to 4 generations away that isn’t obvious right now.
These 2 may just share a lot of DNA down from the mid 1700′ from Christopher Dicks and his wife.

Speaking of Larry’s father Gordon, I wrote to Larry and told him that his DNA results – at least for this Blog – would become obsolete once his father’s results were in. The reason for this is that Larry got all his DNA from his Dad and his dad would have on average twice as much Dicks DNA as Larry. Larry was fine with that.

Now that I have this new TG, I need a place to put it. Fortunately, I have a chart of the Dicks TGs that I have discovered:

I have the Henry Line TGs in darker green – or rather the TGs in which there were Henry Line descendants . The Christopher Dicks Line only TGs are in lighter green. Non-Dicks TGs are in pink. Marilyn is in 2 different Dicks lines, so she is in grey as it is difficult to tell which line she is in from the DNA. The TG numbers and positions are in the first 2 column. As I look at Gordon’s new TG with Judy and Kenneth, I see the only other TG that Judy and Kenneth share is with Nelson. That TG is on Chromosome 15 from 51-65M. Let’s see if Gordon matches Nelson.

They do match on Chromosome 15, right in the area of an existing presumed Dicks TG. But that will be the subject for a future Blog on the Henry Dicks line.

Back to Chromosome 13

What about the other matches on Chromosome 13?

First is Ivy and Esther. I’m not sure about this match. Esther is my wife’s 1/2 great Aunt. That means that Esther’s father was my mother in law’s grandfather, but Esther was from a second wife after the first died in the Flu Epidemic.Esther also has Dicks ancestors from both her parents. One Dicks line has not been figured out yet.

The next match is Joan and Esther. There is no overlap between this match and the previous. If there was, we may be able to show that the matches were for 2 different lines. This could be an Upshall match.

Nelson and Sandra – these 2 are uncle and niece, so they will share a lot of non-Dicks DNA.

More on Shannon’s Uncle Dennis

While I was out doing an errand I see that Dennis’ DNA at Gedmatch has been tokenized. I’m not sure if that is a real word, but it is a good thing. That means I can use all the features at Gedmatch now for him. Here is the revised all Dicks Matrix with Dennis at third down from the top of the list:

Now this is interesting. Where Shannon had no DNA matches with other Henry Dicks Line testers, her Uncle Dennis does. He matches with Crytal and Eric. The larger match between Dennis and Crystal appears to confirm a common ancestor with Henry Harold Dicks b. 1811:

If the chart is right, these 2 would be 4th cousins, once removed.

Dennis’ First TG – chromosome 17

Here Dennis matches Wallace and Crystal. Then Crystal and Wallace match each other: a classic 3 person TG.

This is a bit of a far-flung TG with Dennis and Crystal on the left representing the Henry Line and Wallace on the right. Assuming Christopher Dicks as the common ancestor, the chart represents 5th cousins, once and twice removed.

This is the first Dicks TG for Chromosome 17. Also the first TG for Dennis and the first Henry Line TG with 2 Henry Line descendants.

Summary and Conclusions

The addition to the Dicks DNA project of Ivy, Shannon, Dennis, Larry and Gordon is making a big impact.
Those in TGs will need to check their genealogies to see if there are other possible common ancestors. If not, we can assume that we were right in assigning common ancestors to the Dicks line.
Comparing the DNA in some ways is the easy part. Then there is the interpretation of the DNA matches.
Next, I will look at Gordon’s DNA and also see if there are other implications that can be made from the DNA matches.

September 21, 2016April 13, 2017

A Second Look at Pauline’s Newfoundland DNA

In my last post on Newfoundland DNA, I looked at Pauline and how she matched others in the Dicks DNA Project I have been working on. I found that she was in 3 Triangulation Groups (TGs), but I wasn’t totally convinced which family those TGs represented as there was some ambiguity whether they were Dicks TGs or Joyce TGs for two of the TGs. The other TG she was in was with my wife’s Upshall family which has Dicks ancestry also. However, due to questions in the Upshall ancestry I wasn’t totally sure those were Dicks TGs either. Pauline expressed a desire to find out more also, so I though I’d take a second look at Pauline’s DNA

People Who Match One or Both or Two Kits

This is a utility at Gedmatch that is helpful in DNA analysis. I’ll use this to find out more about Pauline. From my previous Blog, here are Pauline’s top matches with the Dicks DNA Project:

Her top 2 matches are with Molly and Kenneth of the Joyce Line. Coming in at #3 is Esther who is my wife’s great Aunt.

Pauline’s matches with molly

First I’ll run the Gedmatch Utility for People who Match Both Kits. Those kits being Pauline and Molly. I understand this utility as similar to the Ancestry Circles. Another term I have for it is ‘Where there’s smoke there’s fire”. In other words, these people match both Pauline and Molly, so maybe they have common ancestry. The difference is that Gedmatch can find the fire, so to speak. The fire is the TGs that show that there are common ancestors.

After finding all the people that match both Pauline and Molly, I look at those matches at gedmatch’s chromosome browser. Here is Pauline’s Chromsome 5 which I looked at in the last Blog, but now the net is spread a little wider. The matches are to Pauline.

Matches #1 and #2 were identified previously as being in a TG. They are Molly and Kenneth of the Joyce Line. #3 is also in the TG, or at least in one with Molly. This is someone called opcarrie at gedmatch who I don’t know. opcarrie is a lead which Pauline may contact to find common ancestry. Perhaps this person will be the tie breaker and indicate whether this DNA is from the Joyce Line or Dicks Line.

To the right of Chromosome 5 is another smaller likely TG. 3 of 4 of those matches have the name of Pike which may be recognizable. This TG is probably not a Dicks TG as it was not found in my previous look at Dicks descendants.

Common matches: Chromosome 15

Pauline has more interesting matches on Chromosome 15.

#1 is Molly again. #2 is Richard who I don’t know. I looked him up on Ancestry, so Pauline may find some common ancestry there. He also matches my wife’s Aunt Esther and they have a common ancestral surname of Kirby. This looks like a strong TG for Pauline also.

Pauline and Chromosome 21

I found this Chromosome interesting even though there was not an apparent TG.

Here Pauline has large matches with #1 Molly and #2 Kenneth. Both of these are on the Joyce Line. The reason I find this interesting is that it looks like there is a break right around the 23M mark. Assuming that these segments represent Rachel Dicks and her husband James Joyce, it could be that one segment is the James Joyce Segment and the other is the Rachel Dicks Segment.

People Who Match Both Pauline and Kenneth

Next I run the Gematch utility again for Pauline and Kenneth. This resulted in a smaller group of matches than Pauline had with Molly. I didn’t see anything much new here that was not already in the group of people that matched Pauline and Molly.

People Who Match Both Pauline and Esther

Here I would expect different results as Esther is not from the Joyce Line unlike Molly and Kenneth. Actually, when I look at the results, they look similar to the first 2 looks at results. There is one difference at Chromosome 15.

Now look at the Chromosome 15 matches Pauline had when looking at her Molly in common matches.

#1 above is Molly, #2 is the Richard who was not in the Dicks DNA Project. #5 is Jennifer. I’m also unfamiliar with her. This Jennifer also did not come up when I looked at the people who matched both Pauline and Kenneth.

Summary and Discussion

After taking a second look at Pauline’s DNA there is a little clearer picture of what is going on. I set the net a little wider. But with a wider net comes some more questions.

The new TG at Chromosome 16 appears to be a non-Dicks TG. However, Pauline may want to follow-up with some of the names there to make sure. One of the people in that TG shares a Kirby surname with my wife’s great Aunt. However, that may not be the surname of the shared ancestor with Pauline and Molly.
There is a new person to follow up with on Pauline’s TG on Chromosome 5
Pauline matches Molly and Kenneth on Chromosome 21. Assuming that these 2 matches represent Rachel Dicks and James Joyce, it would appear that the dividing line between these 2 matches represents the dividing line between the DNA that Pauline received from her 3rd great grandparents Rachel Dicks and James Joyce.

September 20, 2016April 13, 2017

Back to Newfoundland DNA: Dicks Family Joyce Line Update

It’s been since last Spring that I have written about Newfoundland DNA – specifically the Dicks Family of Newfoundland. Since that time two things have happened:

There is now a new Facebook Group called Newfoundland Gedmatch. The purpose is to find those with Newfoundland heritage who have tested their autosomal DNA and uploaded those results to Gedmatch. At that point people compare their DNA results and their genealogy.
I believe that as a result of 1 above, Pauline has joined Newfoundland Gedmatch and also this Dicks DNA Study Group.

Both of the above are great news. We now have 12 in the Dicks Study group that have tested their DNA. That is plenty of DNA for comparing results. The chart below makes it look like 13 people but Marilyn is in 2 lines. There are two other people that have tested from another Dicks Line. They probably descend from a brother of the Christopher Dicks in the second box from the top below. Due to the large size of the Dicks family, they provide a good study group.

Here is an overall view of Dicks descendants that have tested.

Those in green have tested their DNA. Pauline is descended from Rachel Dicks. I call her Line the Joyce Line because Rachel married James Joyce. The Joyce Line was already the largest Dicks Line – now it is bigger with 5 DNA tested members.

Here is a closer view of the Joyce Line:

Our new member, Pauline, is in the lower left.

Let’s Get Into the DNA

First I’ll do a comparison of everyone to everyone.

It looks like Pauline hit the jackpot with Molly at almost 109 cM shared. Eric and Crystal were from the more remote Dicks Line and don’t show any shared DNA with Pauline. Esther is my wife’s great Aunt. Wallace and Kenneth are a generation closer to a common ancestor than Judy, so they have higher DNA shared amounts. This doesn’t mean that all the DNA shared above is Dicks DNA. However, as the Dicks are the common ancestors, it would explain a lot of the matches.

Triangulating with Pauline

I like to look for triangulation groups (TGs). That is when Person A has a match with B and C. Then Person B also has a match with C. Hopefully it will become clear. When this happens, it pretty much locks in the common ancestor. It’s not needed if we are sure about our genealogy, but if there is any doubt these TGs help clear up the doubt.

There are a couple of ways to look for TGs. One is by spreadsheet and the other is by chromosome browser. I’ll try the chromosome browser method. For example, here is Chromosome 5:

The bars represent DNA matches with Pauline. Molly is in yellow, Kenneth in green, Nelson is in blue and Eric from the faraway Dicks branch has a tiny pink match. I won’t bother looking at the small pink match. So it looks like Pauline, Molly and Kenneth are in a TG. All we need to know is if Molly and Kenneth match each other.

Yes, they do, from about position 76M to 122M. Here is what our first TG looks like:

However, there is only one problem with this TG. Well not a problem, but is it a Joyce TG or a Dicks TG? All these people descend from James Joyce as well as Rachel Dicks. I tend to lean toward the Joyce TG as there are other Dicks descendants that could have matched here but didn’t. Either those Dicks descendants didn’t match by chance or this is a Joyce TG. I suppose if Pauline, Marilyn or Kenneth match any of their Joyce relatives that aren’t related to the Dicks that would prove that this is a Joyce TG.

Another Joyce tg at Chromosome 7?

Here is the next potential TG at Chromosome 7

#1 is Kenneth, #2 is Wallace. #3 is a tiny match with Crystal on the faraway Dicks Line. Kenneth and Wallace are both Joyce descendants. But do they match each other’s DNA?

They need to match near the beginning of Chromosome 7 and they do from position 4M to 19M. I won’t do the circle and line thing as it is similar to the previous image. Kenneth and Wallace are 2nd cousins.

Chromosome 12 TG on the Upshall Line

On Chromosome 12 Pauline matches my wife’s family: her mom Joan and her great Aunt Esther.

#3 is a small match with Sandra. I would think that even though Esther is Joan’s 1/2 Aunt that they still should match here at the end of Chromosome 12:

They have too many matches to show them all, but Joan and Esther do match Pauline from 107M to 132M which matches with the Chromosome Browser. Here comes another triangulation image:

Except I have another potential problem. Pauline tells me that some of her ancestors were from Harbor Buffet. This could be a Dicks TG or some other TG. Perhaps there is a clue here to bolster some of the missing ancestors in my wife’s Newfoundland genealogy. In cases like this, I tend to assume the match is with the known ancestor rather than the unknown. However, it is good to keep an open mind.

Here are some of the missing ancestors on my wife’s Upshall Line:

Summary

Pauline has shown good matches to others in the Dicks DNA Project – especially to those in the Joyce Line which she is a part of.
Pauline is in 2 Triangulation Groups (TGs) with the Joyce Line. These TGs point to the James Joyce/Rachel Dicks couple. Further testing may show which specific person of the couple that the DNA comes from.
Pauline is in 1 TG with my wife’s mother and great Aunt. This TG likely represents DNA from Christopher Dicks b. 1784. As some of my wife’s Harbour Buffet ancestors are unknown, there is also a chance that this TG represents some of those unknown ancestors.

May 26, 2016April 13, 2017

More on the DNA of the Dicks/Burton Line of Newfoundland

The Dicks Family DNA Project has a new person who has uploaded her DNA results to gedmatch. Her name is Kirsten. Kirsten is part of the Dicks/Burton Line. In this Blog, I would like to look at how her DNA compares to the other Dicks descendants that have tested their DNA. I am also interested in her Burton Line as my wife’s great Aunt Esther had a great grandmother named Margaret Burton. Then I would like to sum up the Triangulation Groups (TGs) found so far. These TGs are important as they indicate common ancestors.

Kirsten and Denise

I looked at Denise’s DNA in a previous Blog: DNA from the Dicks/Burton Line of Newfoundland

The above chart shows that Denise and Kirsten are 4th cousins once removed on the Burton Line. Here is a brother of one of Kirsten’s ancestors. Meet Heber Burton, brother of Martha Burton who was born 1878.

I am grateful that Martha was willing to share this photo taken 90 years ago by her grandfather at Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland.

Here is what Family Tree DNA uses for the chances that Kirsten and Denise will match each other. It looks like their chances of matching are only a little better than 30% as a 4th cousin once removed would be halfway between 4th and 5th cousin.

When I compare Denise to Kirsten at Gedmatch at the default settings, I get no match. This is no cause to worry, as they have a two in three chance of not matching.

Comparing Kirsten to All the Descendants of Christopher Dicks b. 1784

Next, I will look at how Kirsten compares to the other 10 Christopher Dicks Descendants in this DNA Project. So far all the project members have been in at least one TG. Will Kirsten be any different?

When I put all the names in my favorite DNA utility, Gedmatch, these 11 people match each other 446 times. These are not all Dicks matches, but as we have pre-selected Dicks descendants, a majority of these matches should represent DNA passed down from Christopher Dicks and his wife Margaret to their many descendants.

Kirsten matches Christopher Dicks descendants 9 times. She matches:

Sandra on the Dicks/Thomas Line
Molly who is on both the Dicks/Joyce and Dicks/Cran Lines
Joan and Esther are on the Christopher Dicks b. 1812 Line
Judy and Wallace are on the Dicks/Joyce Line

So Kirsten matches on a good number of Dicks Lines.

Next I’ll look at each of the above Chromosomes individually.

Chromosome 2 – A new TG found

This is interesting. See that Kirsten matches Sandra and Molly. If Sandra and Molly matched each other, we would have a TG. I’ll check Gedmatch again using the one to one utility between Molly and Sandra.

In order to find the match between Molly and Sandra that I was looking for, I had to go way below Gedmatch thresholds – down to 3 cM and 300 SNPs. This is not always advised, but in this situation it worked out. It may be difficult to see in the previous chart, but Sandra and Molly only had a small opening where they could match between 145 and 151 and that is where they matched each other.

Notice above that Wallace and Kenneth are not in the TG. This means they match on a non-Dicks Line which is their George Miller ancestor. Here is a somewhat complicated view of the matches:

Here the TG is shown in circles and lines. Wallace and Kenneth are in the blue circles with their Miller common ancestor. Marilyn doesn’t match Wallace and Kenneth here, but she wouldn’t anyway as she does not descend from the Miller line. That means that her part of the TG could be from the pink line or the red line on the right. If Marilyn had matched Wallace and Kenneth, that would prove that she matched on the Dicks/Joyce Line. The fact that she doesn’t match means that she matches Sandra and Kirsten either on the Dicks/Joyce Line or the Dicks/Cran Line. It gets complicated, so that is why I chart these matches where I can see them.

Chromosome 9 – A new TG found

I’m ready for an easier Chromosome after the previous one.

Yes, it is simple. Here Kirsten is in a TG with my mother in law Joan and Joan’s 1/2 Aunt Esther. As Joan has no known descent from the Burton Line, this would be the Dicks DNA coming down from Christopher Dicks b. 1784 and his wife Margaret. I went below the TG to show that Joan also matches Kirsten at a higher position [124-133]. This is one of the many cases where Joan has inherited more of the known Dicks DNA than her Aunt has. At position 123 or 124 Esther switches off from matching Joan to matching Nelson. That match is likely on Esther’s maternal side where she doesn’t match Joan but has another Dicks ancestor.

There are 2 Chromosomes to go.

chromosome 15 – Another new tg

Here, Kirsten is in a TG with Wallace and Judy from position 69 to 88. Wallace and Judy are in another TG described in a previous Blog with Joan from 88 to 93. There were actually 2 other Chromosome 15 TGs mentioned in that Blog. Here is the third TG with Kirsten at Chromosome 15:

chromosome 21 – Using dicks NOn-TGs to find non-dicks matches

Here there are no TGs and probably no Dicks DNA. These are all the matches of people in the Dicks DNA Project at Chromosome 21.

I will give my guesses on these matches:

Sandra/Nelson – their Adams Line
Judy/Wallace – their Lewis Line
Kirsten/Esther – this would be Esther’s maternal line which has Dicks and Burton. Esther’s maternal great grandmothers are Margaret Burton and Jane Ann Dicks b. about 1841. As other Dicks descendants aren’t jumping in on this match, my first guess would be that this is a Burton match.
Esther/Joan – probably on the Upshall Line
Judy/Wallace – more of their Lewis Line

Summary of All the TGs Found So Far

I mentioned that I found 3 new TGs in this Blog alone. I would like to sum up all the TGs to date. The dark green are for Henry Dicks b. 1774. Raspberry is the non-Dicks TG.