Category: Newfoundland

So far, we have 10 people that have genealogies descending from Christopher Dicks b. 1784. They all triangulate in one way or another which is a good indication that their genealogies are correct and that their common ancestors are Christopher Dicks and his wife Margaret. That has gone so well, why not get a little wild and try something more difficult?

Henry or Harold Dicks born around 1774

As I was traipsing around the internet, I came upon another Dicks who was born around the time of Christopher Dicks. His name was entered in genealogies as a Henry and/or Harold Dicks b. around 1774. I took some of these genealogies of people that had tested their DNA and mushed them together and got the 4 lines on the left below:

In my chart, I assumed that Henry was Christopher’s older brother and that they both had a father named Christopher. The names in pink I thought might be worth looking into as they looked so similar. There are 4 lines of people that have tested their DNA descending from this Henry Dicks line. One of them appears to be on Gedmatch, though I have not had further contact with this person. Her name is Crystal and she descends from the 2nd Crewe Line above.

Further, I have been in touch with Eric who believes that he descends from this line, but is not sure how. His ancestors were from Lamaline.

Eric said that Henry Dicks moved his family to Burgeo in 1820. I noticed a lot of the Henry Dicks descendants mentioned Burgeo in their ancestry.

Dicks DNA Goals for This Blog

In this blog I’ll try to answer the following questions:

• Does Eric’s DNA show that he descends from the Dicks family?
• Does DNA show that Harold and Christopher Dicks were brothers?

eric and crystal

First, I’ll compare Crystal to Eric at Gedmath. Crystal is the one who I think also has a tree on Ancestry showing descent from Henry Dicks. Eric thinks he likely descends from the same person. Here is how Crystal and Eric’s DNA compare:

They have a small match out at almost 8 generations which is a long way out.

Crystal and the Christopher Dicks descendants

Next, I’ll compare Crystal to all the people that descend from Christopher Dicks at Gedmatch. These are the people that I have already compared in the Dicks DNA Project. Here is where Crystal matches those people:

She has single matches with Molly, Wallace and Kenneth. Perhaps more importantly, she matches both Esther and Joan, forming a Triangulation Group. Here is a diagram of her matches.

The single matches are shown as circles without lines. Marilyn had 2 chances of matches as she descends from 2 Dicks Lines. I have her 2 possible matches to Crystal in light purple. The Triangulation Group on Chromosome 5 indicates a common ancestor which appears to be the father of Henry and Christopher Dicks. Out of the 10 Christopher Dicks descendants with DNA results, Crystal matches half. The relationships are pretty far out. They range from 4th cousin, 3 times removed to 6th cousin, once removed.

More on Crystal’s tg

Even though Crystal does not descend from Christopher Dicks, her TG seems to tell us something about 2 Christopher Dicks descendants: Molly and Kenneth.

Notice that Molly and Kenneth match each other in the area of Crystal’s TG 5 [at position 76 to 122]. But they aren’t part of TG 5 which indicates a Dicks ancestor. That means that the DNA Molly and Kenneth share is likely from their  common ancestor James Joyce and not his wife Rachel Dicks b. 1817. Conversely, if Molly and Kenneth were in TG 5 that would mean that the DNA that they shared would be Dicks DNA through Rachel Dicks.

eric and the Christopher Dicks descendants

Now to get to Eric’s question. Let’s see how he compares to known Dicks descendants and Crystal. I’ll compare everyone to everyone else that I’ve compared so far. This is analogous to ordering an everything pizza.

Again, there are singleton matches with Molly and Esther on Chromosomes 1, 4 and 18. In addition, there are multiple matches at Chromosomes 1 and 4 which could indicate Triangulation Groups. Those are the pots of gold that we are looking for.

eric’s TG 1with joan and esther

Here the part in gold is the TG. The other matches of Sandra, Nelson, Wallace, Judy and Molly likely represent non-Dicks Line ancestors.

Is there a tg 4?

It would seem like a TG at Chromosome 4 would tie everything together between Eric and Crystal.

Unfortunately, to have a TG here, Crystal and Sandra would have to match each other and they don’t. However,  this looks close to a TG.

What Did I Just Do? Did I Prove What I Set Out To?

• Does Eric’s DNA show that he descends from the Dicks family? PROBABLY
• Does DNA show that Henry and Christopher Dicks were brothers? MORE PROBABLY

Let’s look at Eric. From what I understand, he believes that he may descend from Henry Dicks, due to Henry’s living in Lamaline prior to 1820. This is tied to the fact that Eric’s family was also from Lamaline at the same period. Eric is in a TG with my mother in law Joan and her 1/2 Aunt Esther. Eric also matches others from the Dicks DNA project. In addition, he matches Crystal who has posted that she descends from Henry Dicks. Perhaps I should have rated this “MORE PROBABLY”. The other option is that all the matches are from other unknown relatives, or a mixture of unknown relatives.

I feel like Henry and Christopher Dicks were brothers. We have triangulation with Crystal who descends from Henry Dicks. Again, there is a possibility that the triangulation is with an unknown ancestor. However, I would like to think that the triangulation is with the known Dicks family. I would like to see others that have tested their DNA with paper trails leading to Henry Dicks upload to Gedmatch. That would give me more confidence in proving the connection with the 2 brothers.

 

 

 

 

 

Dicks DNA Project Background

The purpose of the Dicks DNA Project, so far, has been to find descendants of the Dicks Family of Newfoundland that have tested for DNA and uploaded their results to Gedmatch. These results have been compared to confirm the genealogical research that has been done by the different Dicks families. So far those in the Study Group are:

• Esther – my wife’s great Aunt from the Christopher Dicks Line b. 1812. She also descends from another Dicks Line but the lineage isn’t known for that line.
• Joan – my mother in law – same line. [I didn’t include my wife as she got all of her Dicks DNA from her mom.
• Sandra – from the Elizabeth Dicks/Adams Line. Elizabeth was b. 1809
• Nelson – Sandra’s Uncle
• Judy – from the Rachel Dicks/Joyce Line. Rachel was b. 1817
• Wallace – Judy’s Uncle
• Kenneth – Wallace’s 2nd cousin also from the Dicks/Joyce Line
• Marilyn – She descends from the Dicks/Joyce Line and the Robert Dicks/Cran Line. Robert was b. 1824.
• Forrest – She also descends from the Robert Dicks/Cran Line

All these lines mentioned above are children of Christopher Dicks who married Margaret and was b. about 1784.

The Dicks/Burton Line

To add to the above 9 Dicks descendants that come from  these 4 Lines, we have another descendant named Denise whose ancestor is Frances Dicks b. 1811. Frances married Charles Burton. To complicate things, my wife’s great Aunt Esther descends from a Burton and my mother in law does not. But I may be able to sort all that out. I can almost squeeze everyone in below. I left out the Robert Dicks/Cran Line on the right of the chart.

Denise is a bit lower on the totem pole, so her DNA matches with the others may be a bit weaker. However, note that she has an extra Dicks named David that married into the Burton line. I’m not sure what Dicks family David descended from. Kirsten who is also on the Dicks/Burton Line is not yet in the project.

Let’s Compare Everyone’s DNA

Next I take everyone’s DNA and compare it with each other. The goal is to find Triangulation Groups (TGs). These are where 3 people match each other on the same part of the same Chromosome. A TG indicates a common ancestor. Usually, in this case, the common ancestor should be Christopher Dicks b. 1784 and his wife Margaret.

chromosome 2 triangulation group (TG)

Denise fits into an existing TG with Sandra, Joan and Nelson here:

For whatever reason, a lot of the Dicks DNA came down on Chromosome 2. Denise and Sandra share much more DNA than average considering they are 4th cousins twice removed. Here is what Denise’s TG looks like on the left hand side of the Dicks family Chart:

This is a great TG as it includes 3 different Dicks Lines: Elizabeth, Frances, and Christopher Dicks Lines.

a new brain teaser from an older tg

In a previous Blog, I had mentioned that there were 2 TGs in this area. The first had Joan, Sandra and Nelson. The second had Molly, Sandra and Nelson.

But in the TG with Denise above, her match with Nelson and Sandra are in the area where she should be matching with Molly (173-218). So why doesn’t she match with Molly here at 201-209?

The answer found in changing the gedmatch defaults

Usually it is not a good idea to change the defaults at Gedmatch. There are some situations where it is necessary. This is one of those situations. I lowered the thresholds at Gematch, because it didn’t make sense that Molly and Denise were not matching in this specific area of Chromosome 2. I lowered the cMs from 7 to 5 and the SNPs from 700 to 500 and here is what I found – they did match from 201 to 208:

This means that we can look at this as either one TG or two. I’ll look at it as one as that makes more sense to me right now. Joan and Molly didn’t inherit enough Dicks DNA to match each other. Joan matched at the beginning of the TG and Molly matched at the higher locations on Chromosome 2 TG. Now to draw this out:

Here I gave Joan and Marilyn lighter shades as they are on opposite ends of this larger TG. Sandra, Nelson and Denise have darker orange showing they are in the whole TG. I also have question marks on Marilyn’s lines as she is descended from 2 Dicks lines and we know that she got her Dicks DNA from one of the lines, but we don’t know which. There is an equal chance of her DNA being inherited from the Rachel or Robert Line.

Possible Burton Match

I had mentioned that Esther and Denise share Burton ancestors. I notice also that Esther and Denise have a match on Chromosome 5:

This is likely to be from the Burton family – or at least not the Dicks family – as I don’t see any of the other Dicks descendants matching in this area of Chromosome 5. In addition, even though Joan is a niece of Esther, she is a half niece and not descended from the Burton Family. I note that she also does not match Denise on Chromosome 5.

The X Factor: Dicks or Burton?

Here is a shot of Esther’s DNA match spreadsheet:

It shows that Esther has a good match with Denise on the X Chromosome. On Denise’s side this could be from the Dicks Line. The X Chromosome does not travel from father to son. Denise is descended from Christopher Dicks and in that descent, the lineage alternates between male and female. However, Esther, descends from two Christopher Dicks. This means that the X chromosome that they share could not be shared with Christopher Dicks as no X Chromosome was transferred from father to son. This leaves a good chance that the X Chromosome match could also represent the Burton line. Esther’s mother’s father’s mother was a Burton. This is the likely way that Esther got the X Chromosome that matches with Denise.

Summary and Conclusions

• Denise is a great addition to the Dicks DNA Study Group and has fit into a TG like all the others in the Project even though she is further down on the Dicks Family Tree
• Denise’s Chromosome 2 TG results added some confusion until I lowered the Gedmatch thresholds. Then it was clear that Denise matched Molly as she should have.
• There are two areas that could have caused problems: 1) two Dicks Lines for Marilyn and; 2) Denise and Esther likely having ancestry in the Dicks and Burton Lines. However, these issues did not cause a problem here.
• It is likely that the single match on Chromosome 5 that Denise and Esther share apart from the other Dicks descendants is likely from the Burton family.
• X Chromosome matches give good clues to family inter-contentedness as they are only inherited in specific ways.

 

Recently Marilyn from the Dicks DNA Group mentioned a new person from the Dicks Line. It took me a little while to realize that this person was already on Gedmatch.com. Based on her gedmatch name, I will call her Forrest. She descends from the Robert Dicks Line. Robert Dicks was born in 1824 and married Jane Cran.

Here is a chart with Forrest on the bottom right.

The above chart shows only 2 of the children of Christopher Dicks b. 1784. There are 3 other lines represented by this DNA project.

The New TG at Chromosome 2

Chromosome 2 seems to be a Dicks DNA hot spot. In my previous Blog, I had noted 3 TGs on that Chromosome. It looks like this TG makes 4:

This TG, shown in gold, is spread out. It consists of Esther, Joan and Forrest. In between is one of the other TGs with Esther, Joan, Nelson and Sandy. Judy and Wallace are in there also, but not as a part of the TGs. As they are not matching in the TG, the DNA that they share should be from their [non-Dicks] Smith Line.

What’s going on at chromosome 2?

Here is a summary of all the Dicks TGs at Chromosome 2.

1. TG 2A – Esther, Joan, Nelson and Sandra
2. TG 2B – Esther, Joan, and Forrest
3. TG 2C – Joan, Sandra and Nelson
4. TG 2D – Nelson, Sandra and Molly (Note that Molly could be in one of two different Dicks Lines)

Chromosome 2 is quite a long one. Apparently there is room at this Chromosome for several TGs. Here are TG 2C and TG 2D from my previous Blog:

Now I will try to show the 4 TGs at Chromosome 2 with colored lines and circles:

I didn’t think that would be easy. The takeaway from this chart is:

• The 2 nieces (Sandra and Joan) share a lot of DNA with their Uncle and Aunt on the left side of the chart. Two of the TGs (TG 2A and 2C) are made up of these 4 people.
• For TG 2D, we can’t know for sure if this TG Marilyn that is in is from the Rachel Dicks/Joyce Line or the Robert Dicks/Cran Line. It would be one or the other, but not both.
• There is always a small chance that the TG 2B could be with a non-Dicks Line. This is because we don’t know the maiden name of Esther’s great grandmother. However, as we do know that Forrest, Esther and Joan all share the same Dicks ancestor, I tend to believe that Christopher Dicks b. 1784 is the common ancestor.

Relationships and Shared DNA

Based on each relationship in the chart, there is a certain amount of expected DNA that would be shared. As these relationships go further out, there is a chance that there will be no DNA shared between, say, 5th cousins. Another way to express your relationships is in the generations to your Most Recent Common Ancestors (MRCAs). For example 2nd cousins will share the same grandparents. Your grandparent is 2 generations away from you. For your aunt or uncle, they are one generation from the common ancestor and you are two generations away, so that averages out to 1.5 generations. Here is a chart from gedmatch that guesses how far away to a MRCA based on the amount of DNA shared between two people. After that number, I added the actual number of generations to the MRCA for people in the Dicks DNA Project.

I added some purple for Esther and Molly as they both have more than one known Dicks ancestor. For them, their generations to MRCA based on their gedmatch predicted DNA shared is always less than the actual relationship. One exception to this is between Esther and Joan. Esther is Joan’s half Aunt. That is where the analogy would break down as Joan would only share the DNA from Esther’s paternal side.

The darker salmon colored boxes are where there was no DNA shared at normal gedmatch defaults. This is expected at 5 generations to MRCA or more. In the chart below, a MRCA of 5 generations is equivalent to a 4th cousin.

What all this tells me is that the Dicks Ancestry Chart compared to the amount of DNA shared looks pretty good. Nothing looks out of line with what would be expected.

 

 

In my last Blog, Unraveling Some of the Dicks Family DNA from Newfoundland, I looked at several things:

• I found many descending from Christopher Dicks b. 1784 from Newfoundland
• These people had also tested their DNA
• 6 of these had also uploaded their results to gedmatch where I was able to analyze their DNA
• Out of these 6 all were found to be in Triangulation Groups (TGs)
• TGs are good things as they indicate a common ancestor
• As all these people descended from Christopher Dicks b. 1784, I took him to be that common ancestor that the triangulated DNA pointed to.

I was a bit surprised at how successful the exercise was. Christopher Dicks helped me out a bit by fathering so many children. This has resulted in the spread of his DNA through many descendants to triangulate with each other.

Two of my goals in the previous Blog, were:

1. to find other Dicks descendants who had uploaded their DNA to gedmatch that I may have missed, and;
2. to find other Dicks descendants who hadn’t uploaded their DNA to gedmatch, but would be interested in doing so.

Within one day of writing my blog, I have easily found one person in each category above.  The person in the first category is Judy. Another goal I had was to try to find more Dicks Family Genealogies for those that had uploaded to gedmatch. That happened also when I heard from Marilyn.

This study group works best for people in both these categories:

1. Those who have an ancestry going back to the early Newfoundland Dicks family
2. Those who have tested their DNA and have uploaded their results to gedmatch.com.

Judy and Marilyn’s Dicks Genealogies

Judy is someone I missed in the last Blog. She is a little further down on the Dicks Relationship Chart and further down on my Aunt Esther’s DNA match list at gedmatch.com. However, her results are important nonetheless. I was surprised that the 6 Dicks descendants from the last blog all triangulated. I was equally surprised that I found Judy to be in 4 triangulation groups. In the previous blog, I only found 5 triangulation groups with the 6 people I looked at.  This speaks to the importance of having many in a DNA study group.

First, here is one of my favorite photos of Harbour Buffet, Newfoundland where some of my wife’s ancestors came from and where many in the Dicks family lived. It looks quite peaceful, but I know that many hearty souls lived there and many drowned at sea.

Here is the tree for Judy and Marilyn. The tree is starting to get bigger, so I only have the Rachel Dicks and Robert Dicks Lines. Note that Marilyn is in twice. This is because she had Dicks relatives that married. This is not that unusual. For my Frazer family in Ireland, there were many in this situation. Marilyn and I wondered why the match between her and my wife’s Aunt Esther was so high. This is because Marilyn and Esther both have Dicks in their ancestry more than once. I wrote a blog on this subject for my own Frazer family here.

Judy and Marilyn are 4th cousins, once removed to my mother in law Joan and 3rd cousins twice removed to my wife’s Aunt Esther. That means that through their common ancestor of Christopher Dicks, Judy and Marilyn have a better than 30% chance of matching with the people on Joan’s row and a 50% chance or better of matching those on Esther’s row. They are 5th cousins to each other. This usually indicates about a 10% chance of matching each other. Here are the match probabilities as posted by FTDNA:

Here is the whole chart with Marilyn added:

Let’s Re-Triangulate – Chromosome 2 TG

This one is a bit tricky. It looks like 2 TGs.

Sandra and Nelson are in both TGs. Joan is in TG 2A and Molly is in TG 2B. Kenneth and Judy didn’t make the cut. They likely match on a non-Dicks Line – probably the Miller line.

I hope that the chart above looks sufficiently confusing! Judy and Kenneth don’t triangulate but both descend from George Miller in blue above.

tg – chromosome 4

2 TG’s – chromosome 12 – Hold on to your seats

Here at Chromosome 12, a few interesting things are going on.

• First, there are 2 TGs: TG 12A and 12B. Sandra and Nelson don’t match the 1st TG. That means that they must have gotten that segment of their DNA from their non-Dicks side.
• Secondly, note that these 2 TGs overlap each other from about position 107 to 120.
• Even though these 2 TGs, overlap, they have different people in each. That means that they must both have separate common ancestors.
• Wallace, Judy and Kenneth are in a TG, but the common ancestor would be George Miller. The reason I say this is that as mentioned above, the 2 TGs overlap. In the Miller Line TG 12A, there is no match with Esther, Joan and Molly in TG 12B. If there was a match, then TG 12A would have Rebecca Joyce as a common ancestor.
• Esther, Joan and Molly are in TG 12B. But does this TG go through Molly’s Dicks/Joyce Line or Dicks/Cran Line? This is assumed to be a Dicks TG.

I was actually looking for a TG between Judy, Wallace, and Kenneth and here is where it showed itself.

TG 14

This TG had Marilyn, Joan and Esther again. This would be expected due to the double Dicks ancestry that Marilyn and Esther both have. See the above diagram with the pink lines.

2 TG’s – Chromosome 15

Here again, there are 2 TGs. However, they are not overlapping TGs like the ones at Chromosome 12. The first one, TG 15A has Nelson, Kenneth and Judy. TG 15B Has Judy, Wallace and Joan.  Esther is not in either TG. Where she matches with Joan likely represents Upshall DNA.

TG 16

Here is a 4 person TG.

Some of the ambiguity of Marilyn’s TGs may be resolved by finding other Dicks descendants that have tested for DNA and comparing their results to these TGs.

Finally TG 19

This TG was mentioned in the previous blog. Now it is bigger with 4 people – including Wallace’s niece Judy.

Summary of the New and Augmented TGs

It turned out that this update was longer than the original Blog – at least for the triangulating part. In the previous blog, there were 5 TGs indicating Christopher Dicks b. 1784 and his wife Margaret. Now there are 13 TGs. This gets to the triangulation explosion that I mentioned in the title.

• TG12A likely represents a non-Dicks ancestor on the Joyce Line: George Miller. This is represented in a different color. However, this is good to know for those in this TG as matches in this area of Chromosome 12 will be along Miller ancestry and not Dicks ancestry.
• Marilyn is represented in a different shade of green as we don’t know which line her TG’s are from. All the TGs that Marilyn are in appear to indicate her common ancestor of Christopher Dicks. We just aren’t sure which path the DNA took at this time.
• This is also an issue for Esther where she is in a TG that her 1/2 niece Joan is not in. For the 2 TGs that Esther is in and Joan is not, the TG is with descendants of Elizabeth b. 1809, so that would be a possibility for the line of the Dicks ancestor with the unknown parents on Esther’s maternal side. As Esther’s maternal Dicks ancestor’s ancestry is not known, that line is not represented on the Dicks family tree chart.
• Joan is in the most TGs which is a bit surprising as she is a 1/2 niece of Esther. based on this I would think she would have 1/2 or less of the matches of Esther as Esther has 2 known Dicks ancestors and Joan has one.

So far, triangulating the Dicks descendants DNA has been hugely successful. With the results of only 8 descendants, we have 13 TGs. All but one of these TGs point back to Christopher Dicks b. 1784 or his wife Margaret.

For comparison, I head up another DNA project with 27 that have tested their DNA. 9 of them have multiple Frazer ancestors and there are fewer TGs in that project than in this one. Part of the reason for that is that many of the Frazer relationships are more distant than what we have with the Dicks family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my first Blog on Upshall DNA, I gave some background and made some guesses on where the related ancestors were in my wife’s Upshall Newfoundland ancestors. At that time, I came up with a family diagram that looked like this:

My wife’s grandmother Florence is represented by the lower left circle, her great Aunt Esther is the circle to the right of Florence. Florence and Esther have the same father, but different mothers. This turns  out to be useful knowledge to have. That means that my mother in law, who is the daughter of Florence, will be related to Esther on the Upshall/Dicks lines but not on the Shave/Kirby lines. This is a bit complicated due to the fact, that Esther’s parents were related to each other. Gedmatch estimates that Esther had a common ancestor 4.0 generations before her. Note that, assuming my drawing above is correct, she could have a Dicks ancestor 4 generations before her. I added the question marks above as I am not positive of the relationships.

After visiting my wife’s Aunt Esther recently, I came upon an ancestry chart that she wrote up in the 1990’s.

I asked her about the father of Catherine Dicks who Esther had as Christopher Dicks, b. 1781 as that seemed old for that generation. That would put the average generations between Christopher Dicks and Esther at 49 years. She mentioned that it was possible as she knew of a man in his 60’s in Newfoundland marrying an 18 year old. Esther’s father was 49 when he had her. I also believe that this Christopher Dicks had a son Christopher, so there are other possibilities. I was ready to go with Aunt Esther’s results until I found a blog I had saved from Heather Lynn that she wrote in 2011:

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Puzzle of the Day: Christopher DICKS of Newfoundland

Christopher DICKS was born (likely in February, 1784) somewhere in England. There are competing theories concerning his origins.
He and his wife Margaret (born 1789) had at least 11 children over the course of 24 years between 1808 and 1832, born in various places around Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, including Trinny Cove, Jean de Baie, & Hay Cove.

William (1808-1894) married Mary Ann Sheave
**Elizabeth (1809 – 1892) married Thomas ADAMS in Burin 1839 (my 3rd Great-Grandmother)
Joseph (1810-abt 1857) married Mary Griffith
Frances (1811 – ) married Charles Burton
Christopher (1812- ) married Elizabeth
Henry (1815- )
Rachel (1817-1893) married James Joyce
Robert (1824-1903) married Jane Crann
Susan (1827- )
James (1830- )
George (1832-1892)

Christopher DICKS died October 24, 1845 in Harbour Buffett, Newfoundland. His wife Margaret lived until February 1867. Here is an excerpt from his will:

Secondly,   All my money whether in cash or credits in Merchants Accounts as also such money as shall be and remain in the British Funds at the time of my decease, I hereby give and bequeath to my dear wife for her sole use and benefit and afterwards to be disposed of at her death as she may be inclined ~ Subject nevertheless to the following deductions, that she my said wife shall pay unto our sons James Dicks and George Dicks the sum of thirty pounds currency each at the time of my decease.
Thirdly,   My fishing room situate in Harbor Beaufet with all buildings and appurtenances there unto belonging together with all boats, skiffs, punts, seines nets and all kinds of fishing craft, I hereby give and bequeath unto my four sons Christopher Dicks Junior, William Dicks, Henry Dicks, and Robert Dicks to be equally divided share and share alike in value among them.

Let’s see how this information fits in with my chart above. Based on Esther’s and Heather Lynn’s research, I come up with this chart:

Based on the chart above, it appears that Jane Ann Dicks b. 1841 (top right) could likely be the grand daughter of Christopher Dicks b. 1784 (top left).

Here is Fred Upshall in 1920 wearing a straw hat:

Here is a map of Harbour Buffet and vicinity where my wife’s Newfie ancestors hailed from. Living there, it was important to have a boat or access to one. Many living in these parts of Placentia Bay were fishermen.

More Dicks DNA

Now that I know how Aunt Esther is descended from the Dicks family, I have tried to piece together a Dicks Chart based on the blog above and family trees I’ve found at Ancestry and FTDNA. I left out one line of the Dicks line for now to simplify things. That would be the Henry/Harold Dicks Line. I think the Henry/Harold is a parallel line to the Christopher Dicks Line (perhaps a brother).

The green boxes are those that have taken DNA tests. However, not everyone has uploaded their DNA to gedmatch.com which would make comparisons easy. There are 10 DNA testers in the green boxes, but I will be looking at the 6 that have uploaded their results to Gedmatch.com.These 6 are:

• Sandra
• Nelson
• Joan
• Esther
• Wallace
• Kenneth

My wife’s great Aunt Esther is on the row 4 generations down from Christopher Dicks, b. 1784. So is Nelson. We already know that those 2 have high matches of DNA between them. In fact, gedmatch.com estimates that Nelson and Esther should have a common ancestor back 3.2 generations instead of 4. This is likely due to the past intermarrying on Newfoundland, which increased the amount of DNA shared.

Triangulation of Dicks DNA

The goal is to find triangulation groups. If three people all match each other on the same segment of a chromosome, that is an indication that the 3 got that DNA from a common ancestor. Actually, the real goal is to confirm that the genealogy shown in the chart above is correct [using triangulation], and that these people do indeed descend from Christopher Dicks b. 1784.

Let’s Triangulate

First I entered the 6 of the 10 testers in green above and compared them in Gedmatch.com using a utility called Multiple Kit Analysis. Then I downloaded all those matching segments into a spreadsheet and sorted them. It wasn’t long before I found a triangulation group. The first one was at Chromosome 2.

In the table above, the 2 in the first column is the Chromosome number. The next column is the start of the match. Then the end of the match location and the cM value for the match. The above is actually a triangulation group of 3 people: Esther, Joan and Nelson. Sandra didn’t match with Joan or Esther. Note also that the gedmatch utility puts in every match twice. So the first match is Joan/Esther. The second match is Esther/Joan.

I almost missed this Triangulation Group (TG) because Esther and Joan had such a large match. Here is what Esther’s Chromosome Browser looks like at Chromosome 2:

The large red line is the match between Esther and Joan. This has to represent Esther’s father Fred Upshall who descended from the Dicks family. Fred is Esther and Joan’s common ancestor. Fred had 2 wives and Esther and Joan descend from different wives. The smaller green match is between Esther and Nelson. The pink match is between Esther and Sandra but is too tiny to consider. Plus, it is out of range of the DNA match that Esther has with Nelson.

Here are the 3 that triangulated on Chromosome 2 shown on the Dicks Chart:

Five Dicks Triangulation groups

All in all, I found five Dicks triangulation groups. The second TG was also in Chromosome 2:

Note that this TG is similar to the first one except that this time Sandra is in and Esther is out.

What happened to Esther? Esther got her DNA from her 4 grandparents. That fact that Joan matches two Dicks descendants and Esther doesn’t must mean that Esther must have  gotten her DNA in this part of her Chromosome 2 from her grandfather Henry Upshall and Joan got her DNA at that location from Catherine Dicks b. 1851. This is all good to know. So any paternal matches Esther has in this area of Chromosome 2 (location 171-192) where she is not matching Sandra, Nelson, and Joan would be a match along the Uphsall Line. I would like to add that Cheryl in the chart above is not counted as she tested at AncestryDNA and I don’t think that she has uploaded her results to Gedmatch.com. That means we don’t know if she triangulates with the others or not. The same is true for the person below Elizabeth that doesn’t show.

The third TG at chromosome 9

The TG at Chromosome 9 has a different apparent Dicks descendant: Kenneth.

Here I note:

• This TG is from 3 different children of Christopher Dicks: Elizabeth, Christopher and Rachel.
• Note that Joan is not in this TG. This could mean one of 2 things
  1. She just didn’t inherit that segment of DNA or;
  2. Esther’s part in the TG is through her mother’s side where she has another Dicks ancestor. I didn’t show that Dicks ancestor in the chart as I don’t know which Dicks that ancestor descended from.
• Sandra and Kenneth are 4th cousins by way of their common ancestor Christopher Dicks b. 1784. There is a little better than 50% chance that they would show as a DNA match. However, having Newfoundland ancestors means that they may match on more than one line.
• As Wallace is a known 2nd cousin to Kenneth, his descent from the same Dicks ancestor is inferred. Wallace just didn’t inherit the same segment of DNA that Kenneth did.

TG 11

This is just another permutation of the first TG. Note that Sandra inherited the Dicks DNA in Chromosome 11 while this same segment bypassed her uncle Nelson.

And finally, the TG at crhomosome 19

This final TG includes the last Dicks descendant who uploaded his results to Gedmatch.com: Wallace.

This group includes Christopher Dicks b. 1812 and Rachel Dicks b. 1817. Note that for any TG that Joan is in, Esther’s Dicks relationship is through her father and not her mother. This is because Joan is only a half niece to Esther on her paternal side.

Summary of TGs

Green in the box below a name means that the person is in the TG to the left:

Here is how they are related:

Disclaimer

There is always a small chance that the triangulation represents an unknown family. For example, the last name of Esther’s great grandmother Elizabeth is unknown. Also Elizabeth’s mother Margaret’s maiden name is unknown. It is possible that Wallace, for example, is actually triangulating with one of those families. However, as it is the Dicks that are in common in all these TGs, it is most likely that the Dicks are the common ancestors.

Summary, Comments and Conclusions

• I am very happy to see that all 6 of the Dicks descendants that uploaded their DNA results to Gedmatch triangulated with other Dicks descendants, zeroing in on Christopher Dicks b. 1784.
• Triangulation gives weight to genealogy showing common ancestors.
• It is likely that other Dicks descendants are already at Gedmatch or could upload their DNA results there.
• Having more Dicks descendants in the study group would improve the results and further solidify genealogies and lines of descent from common Dicks ancestors.
• It should be possible to use this same triangulation technique to unravel the ancestry of other Newfoundland families.
• The Dicks family was a good choice to look at as there are so many descendants from Newfoundland. Many descendants can make the genealogy confusing, but it is a plus in DNA analysis as they provide more potential to look at shared DNA and Triangulation Groups.
• TGs that both Joan and Esther are in show that the Dicks DNA that Esther inherited was from her paternal side – not her maternal side. This information may be helpful in further DNA analysis.
• Next step:
  1. Look for more descendants that are at gedmatch or who could upload their results there;
  2. Expand the triangulation to other Dicks Lines.