A Tale of Four Irish McMaster Sisters (and More)

In my previous Blog I set out to try to show that Margaret Frazer, wife of William McMaster from County Sligo was the daughter of Michael Frazer. In the process, I came upon a lot of genealogy for the four daughters of William and Margaret. My idea was to put this information into a narrative to work out some of the bugs in my genealogical tree and in others’.

A Tale of Four McMaster Sisters

I have done some research and now have a better idea of what was going on with this family.

William McMaster probably from Kilmactranny Parish married Margaret Frazer probably from North County Roscommon in 1813. I have information on four of their daughters, though they may have had other children. Those daughters were Jane (born 1816), Mary Ann or Marrianne (born 1820), Catherine Frazer (born 1827) and my 3rd great-grandmother Fanny McMaster (born 1829). These four sisters were probably born in Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo. The older three sisters traveled to Canada and beyond and the youngest stayed in Kilmactranny.

Jane McMaster (1816 – 1893)

Jane’s younger sister Catherine gave testimony concerning a pension for Jane based on the death of Jane’s son George in the US Civil War:

That claimant and deponent are sisters and lived in County of Sligo, Ireland under the same roof, until the claimant above named was married. Deponent says though she was not present at claimants marriage with GEORGE MCMASTERS , yet they came back to my father’s house a day or two after as man and wife and that they lived in the neighborhood as man and wife until he died. That they were married by a minister named Scott. That the date of claimant’s marriage was August 25th, 1839. That deponent was present when George McMaster late of Co. B, 8th NY Heavy Artillery was born on the 22 day of May 1847 in York County, Province of Canada and parents were then both living and living together. The name of his mother was Jane McMaster and his father’s name George McMaster.

My records show that Jane had the following three first children in County Sligo:

They were said to be born in Dramore or Dramora, but I believe that Dromore may be the correct name:

Land records tie some of the McMasters to Dromore.

Kilmactranny Parish vital records are missing between about 1830 and 1840, but I have this one:

I don’t know where Burwich is or if it exists. I’m not sure where the reference comes from. Jane has two more children, Annie Wilmena and George Arthur, then her husband dies – presumably in Vaughan, Ontario.

Jane re-marries a carpenter who was also born in Ireland. Here is the 1851 Census which is a bit confusing:

These are Jane’s children from her first husband. Thomas and William are shown as 11 and 8 and born in Ireland. Thomas would be about the age that I have for James McMaster. William I mention above. Catherine and George are shown as 7 and 4 and born in Canada. Catherine is the age I would have for Annie Wilmena McMaster. William Thompson and Jane have a daughter Wilmena, so the Wilmena I have three images above may be wrong. George is the one that dies in the US Civil War. I have that Jane’s mother dies in 1853 though I don’t have that documented. [More about Jane’s mother Margaret later.]

The Trip from Ireland to Canada – 1844?

Assuming that the 1851 Census is correct and that these children belong to Jane, then we can place Jane’s move from Ireland to Canada quite precisely between the birth of William and Catherine. William was baptized 18 August 1843. That means the ocean voyage took place between then and when Catherine was born probably no later than 1845.

The Rest of the Story for Jane McMaster

It is unclear why George, a Canadian, fought and died in the US Civil War. Jane and family move to nearby Tecumseth. Here is the 1871 Census:

As William and Jane married in 1851, I assume that these were the four children of this couple.

This is Jane in 1881 in Tecumseth:

 

I can now read that Jane’s youngest son is Fraser A. Susan E Bates is listed as a servant. She looks suspiciously like Susan E Thompson from 1871.

In 1890, Jane was in Milwaukee applying for a Civil War pension with the help of her sister Catherine,

Here is Jane in a photo taken in Janesville, Wisconsin:

Janesville is about 60 miles WSW of Milwaukee. Jane is in the middle.

Here is the death record for Jane in the Costa County records. Under remarks, it says Antioch, so that may be where she died of pneumonia:

Jane is buried in Antioch, California with her sister Mary A. Shannon:

At the end of her life, Jane re-connected with her two American sisters, Catherine and Mary Ann. She likely visited her brother also who lived in Janesville, WI where her photo was taken.

Postscript on Jane

Much more could be said about Jane. However, I am checking the DNA also. I see my sister Heidi has an AncestryDNA ‘ThruLine’ with Jane here:

The match is with Joseph who is managed by KAH. I must say that KAH’s tree is in much better shape than mine. Joseph connects with my family through Mary Etta Jane “May” Thompson. The following is from KAH’s tree and profile on “May”:

We see that this family was in Janesville so perhaps May is one of the other two women in the photo of Jane. I used KAH’s Thompson children for Jane, now I have a better line-up of Jane’s nine children:

I see that Jane remembered her Frazer heritage through the name of her last child.

Maryann McMaster (1820-1893)

I have been following Maryann for a while. I have a good match with BV who descends from Maryann and wrote to Cheryl who manages a tree for BV and Maryann. Here is my DNA match with BV:

I have this record from the Kilmactranny Parish Church:

Marrianne daughter of William and Margeret McMaster

Born                                  Bapt. Jan 09, 1820

Cheryl has this great photo of Maryann:

I’m not seeing a huge resemblance between Maryann and Jane. Perhaps someone else will. However, these two died about two weeks apart and share a grave marker as seen above.

Unlike her older sister Jane, Maryann came to Canada as a single woman. I don’t know if these sisters came to Canada together, separately or in combinations. I assume that Maryann was in Kilmactranny Parish at the time of her sister Jane’s marriage and would have been about 19. If Maryann joined Jane in her trip to Canada that would have been about 1844 and Maryann would have been 24.

Maryann’s Years Between 1827 and 1864

Maryann was in Canada about 20 years or so. She married Thomas Shannon in the Wesleyan Church in 1849:

James McMaster and Maryann’s recent brother-in-law William Little were witnesses.

Here is Thomas Shannon, again, thanks to Cheryl:

Here is the family in 1852:

Thomas was 35, Mary Anne says she is 29 and John, an apparent relative of Mary Anne is 11. 25-year-old Isabella is also on the next page as well as some Shannon’s:

I don’t know who these extra McMaster’s were, but it was nice of Thomas and Mary Ann to have them.

Mary Ann was on Page 177 of the Census for Vaughan. Jane was on Page 183 of the same Census. Here is Vaughan – outside of Toronto.

 

Next, I have said that Mary Ann’s mother Margaret died. However, I don’t know the actual date. I don’t see her in the 1861 Census.

Some information is missing for this family at this time. It appears that this family had two children, William and Elizabeth, 14 or 15 years after they first married. Mary Ann would have been in her mid forties at this time.

Mary Ann from 1870 to 1893

The family made its way from Canada to Contra Costa County, California:

The family appears to go missing from the Census again in 1880. Thomas dies in 1880:

This looks like it could be the same marker that marks Mary Ann and her sister’s Jane’s daughters. Again, I don’t see a death record for Mary Ann. It seems ironic that I found one for her sister Jane who was apparently just visiting but not for Mary Ann.

Elizabeth Frances Shannon

As if to offset all the mystery in Mary Ann’s genealogy, I still have a large DNA match with BV. BV is the granddaughter of Elizabeth, so she got about 1/4 of her DNA from Elizabeth.

Cheryl shows that Elizabeth married while her mother was still alive:

The 1900 Census shows that Elizabeth entered the US in 1865. She would only have been one year old then.

Catherine Frazer McMaster (1827-1917)

Catherine was born 7 years after Mary Ann and lived the longest of the three sisters. I was spoiled by photographs of Jane and Mary Ann, but don’t see any readily available of Catherine.

1827 – 1852

Catherine’s early life was similar to Mary Ann’s. Catherine’s sister Jane married in 1839 when Catherine was 12. Catherine gives testimony to living under the same roof as her sister Jane and recollects the day that Jane married George McMaster as well as some other events in Jane’s life.

Note that Catherine arrived in Canada in 1844. This is from the 1900 Census and matches the date I had guessed that Jane came to Canada from Ireland. Jane’s date was based on the births of two of her children. That lends credence to the idea that the three sisters and perhaps at least the mother arrived in Canada at the same time.

An Extra Confusing Marriage for Catherine

The above timeline shows that Catherine married Henry DeWitt Clinton Bennet at the end of 28 December 1850. Then what about this record?

This shows Catherine marrying William Little in November 1848. Thomas Shannon who is to become Mary Ann’s husband in 1849 is a witness as well as James McMaster. Then, to complete the symmetry, William Little and James McMaster are witnesses for Mary Ann’s marriage four months later in March 1849:

Both of these weddings take place at the Wesleyan Church in the Home District. That would lead me to believe that these are the sisters: Catherine and Mary Ann. The main possibilities seem to be that 1. William died not long after the marriage or 2. This is the wrong Catherine (not as likely).

The Bennett Family

Whatever happened in 1848, there is a less documented marriage between Catherine and Henry Bennett in 1850. Here is some information for a Sons of the Revolution application from 1956:

This says that the couple wed in Hamilton.

Here is the young family in 1852 in Burford, Ontario:

Catherine’s husband Henry is listed as a miller. Here is some more information from the 1851 Census:

It looks like Catherine has extra McMaster’s, including probably her mother Margaret Frazer McMaster. I would assume that she arrived in Canada also in 1844. Catherine gets extra points for housing relatives.

Further down on the page:

Perhaps this is the witness at the two weddings above. He is a cooper from Ireland married to Elizabeth from Canada and living with two people from England.

This is probably James’ marriage in 1851:

This looks to be James in Janesville in 1870:

The plot thickens. With any luck, Margaret could be his mother, Margaret Frazer McMaster. Until recently, I never knew Margaret left Ireland. Now she seems to be popping up in Canada and Janesville, Wisconsin. I shouldn’t have written Margaret off so quickly.

Refresher: May Lowry, daughter of Jane McMaster lived in Janesville in the 1870’s. Here’s Janesville:

Quite a trip from Burford, Ontario.

A Side Trip with James A McMaster

I need a place to put all this information, so I can create a tree for James or assume that he is a long-lost brother. I’ll go with the long-lost brother and add him to my tree for now. I’ll say he was born in 1832 as that was during the time when entries were not made into the Kilmactranny Parish Register. Here it is, written in stone:

 

This is from the Find A Grave Index:

This puts James Archibald in the right Parish, but doesn’t prove his parents.

Next, I’m interested in seeing what the 1900 Census says about his immigration. It says that his year of immigration was 1845. That fits in with what I had for Jane and Catherine. Catherine had 1844, but these dates can be off by several years. That means that he could have come over with the three McMaster sisters and his proposed mother Margaret. Here is Wayne Township where James was in 1900:

The family moved West from Janesville.

Backing up in time a bit, here is James and family in 1860 in St. Claire, Michigan:

I wonder where the mother, Margaret McMaster was in 1860? James likely named his first two children for his parents: William McMaster and Margaret Frazer. The McMaster family were just over the border in the United States:

I’m jumping a bit, but here is the family business in Janesville in 1876:

A Survey of Ancestry Trees for James McMaster

Many trees had Margaret as a mother for James. No one had a guess for James’ father. Two trees had Margaret Frasier as James’ mother which I think is brilliant. There must be a clue somewhere unless this is from oral tradition in their family. One tree had this information:

Some McMasters were from Cuilnagleragh, but I don’t know how they could know that. All this tends to support my theory that James is a brother to the four McMaster sisters.  Assuming his 1822 birth is correct, he would help fill in a gap between McMaster births between 1820 and 1827.

I can come back to James later, but the evidence seems to support James being a son of William McMaster and Margaret McMaster.

More on Margaret McMaster Born About 1789

I did some searching and came up with this record:

I think the ‘has bio?’ refers to the one who took the photo. I feel like this must be Margaret:

If Margaret was 82 in March 1872, she could have been born in 1789. Here’s another listing giving the plot address:

It looks like a substantial marker; however, it has minimal genealogical information on it. The heading above says M McMaster – even though I can clearly see that is not right from the head stone. Perhaps there was additional information from the Cemetery records.

A Quick Re-Cap for Margaret Frazer McMaster (1789-1872)

Margaret was probably the daughter of Michael Frazer born about 1764 and Margaret Stuart. Margaret was born about 1789 – probably in North County Roscommon. In 1813, Margaret married William McMaster. Some trees have William as the son of Abraham McMaster. However, this may be due to a misreading of a land lease. Now that I see he had a son James, that could be the name of his father. In a story about Jane (see my previous Blog) it was mentioned that Jane came from a McMaster family in Scotland and married into an Irish McMaster family. Abraham could have been the Irish McMaster and James could have been from Scotland.

The Tithe Applotment for McMaster’s

I might assume that there could be reference to the William McMaster lands in the Tithe Applotment but not in Griffith’s valuation. I see records for the Tithe Applotment for McMaster’s dated 1825 and 1833:

Here is Kilkere above.

Here is the 1825 listing for Kilcare:

Here is the 1833 listing:

I don’t see any difference in the two lists. I assume that the widow McMaster cannot be Margaret as she had children up to 1829.

Griffith’s Valuation

Here is the listing for McMasters in Sligo:

I assume that the William above is different than the one in the Tithe Applotment. This William is in Cloghmine:

This was printed in 1858 after Margaret McMaster was in Canada. In 1858. There is one house in Kilkere:

Archibald could be a son or relative of my ancestor William McMaster.

William and Margaret McMaster had four daughters – the subject of this Blog – and now we see one son. These children appear to have been born between about 1816 and 1829 in Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo. It is unclear why Margaret, Jane, Mary Ann, James and Catherine moved to Ontario. It is also unclear what happens to Margaret’s husband William. One Ancestry tree has a different William McMaster who died in Aylmer, Ontario in 1835. There is no reference for this death. I don’t know if William traveled to Ontario or died in County Sligo. I assume that he was dead by 1852 when Margaret is shown living with her daughter Catherine McMaster Bennett in Burford, Ontario. At that time she was living doors away from her son James Archibald McMaster and about 100 km away from her daughters Jane and Mary Ann who were living in Vaughan, Ontario:

Margaret in the 1860’s?

We lose track of Margaret in the 1860’s. Here is a summary of the McMaster family as now known:

Based on what I don’t know Margaret could have been with Mary Ann or another unknown child or relative in 1860.

Margaret in the 1870’s

Margaret goes from Catherine Bennett’s house in Burford in 1852 to James McMaster’s house 18 years later in Janesville, Wisconsin.

Margaret would have been in a busy house in Janesville with 10 people in it:

You can trace James’ travels just based on the places of births: Ireland to Canada to Michigan to Wisconsin. James would have moved to Wisconsin between 1866 and 1869.

Here is Central Ave. The McMaster Cooper family business was somewhere along this avenue. Margaret was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in 1872:

Back to Catherine McMaster (the Miller’s Wilfe) the Years After 1852

1852 is important due to the Canadian Census. The 1851 Census didn’t start in Ontario until 1852.

It looks like Henry and probably the rest of the family moved to Wisconsin in 1855 – soon after the birth of Sylvia:

William was the couple’s fourth child [Note: actually the third. See below] and the first born in the US . He was perhaps named for Catherine’s father.

Catherine had her last child, Harry, when she was 40.

This shows that Catherine’s husband Henry was a grist miller. Son Charles also worked in the grist mill.

This brings us up to the year 1900:

I had trouble finding the family in the 1880 Census. Here are a few directory listings for Henry to fill in the gaps:

1877, Milwaukee:

I added in Wauwatosa for reference.

1879, Milwaukee:

1885 Milwaukee:

This family moved around a bit within Milwaukee:

1899 and 1896 Milwaukee:

Some of these Street names may no longer exist. I couldn’t find Grove on Google Maps:

In 1900, the family is still at Grove Street:

Out of Catherine’s 7 children 4 were still living in 1900

This brings us to the end of Catherine’s life. In 1910, the couple had moved back to the suburbs of Wauwatosa. Harry is still with them and now their widowed daughter Lannie is also living there at 352 Second Street:

Here is the Wauwatosa Cemetery location where Catherine is buried:

It seems like this family lived a settled life. They stayed in the Milwaukee area most of their lives where Henry was a miller. I don’t know much about Catherine’s personal life other than a little from the testimony concerning her sister Jane and family. In 1852 she and her husband were listed as Presbyterian. Her mother Margaret was listed as Wesleyan Methodist along with two other unknown McMaster’s. James McMaster a little further down the page, Catherine’s brother, was listed as Episcopal.

Fanny McMaster (1829-1875)

Fanny McMaster is my 3rd great grandmother. She was the baby of the family:

Fanny’s mother and four siblings left her for Canada. They appear to have left Fanny behind or Fanny decided not to go. The other question is: did Fanny get married young because she was left behind or was she left behind because she married? I think that the McMasters left for Canada in 1844 or 1845. I don’t think that Fanny would have married before 1845 as she would have been 16 in 1845. I don’t know if Fanny’s mother and fours siblings were around when she married or not. My guess is that the five McMasters made up their mind to go to Canada and asked Fanny to go. Fanny likely intended to marry James, so decided not to go. When my second great-grandmother Margaret was born, Fanny was only 17. I don’t have a marriage record for Fanny and James McMasrter. It seems I just missed having my ancestor leaving for Canada. Then perhaps she wouldn’t have been my ancestor if she did that!

At any rate, Fanny did marry James McMaster Sr. He was born about 1806 or 1807, so he was about 22 years older than Fanny.

Fanny and the Potato Famine (1845-1852)

It is unclear to me whether Margaret McMaster and her four children left Ireland as a result of the Potato Famine or not. The Potato famine started in the 1845, so if they left in 1844, it would have been before the famine. If they left in 1845 it would have been right at the start of the famine. Whatever happened, it appeared that Margaret and her four children missed the Potato Famine and that Margaret’s youngest went through it. In fact, Fanny married James in 1845 at the beginning of the potato famine. Margaret would have been born in the second year of the potato famine.

Fanny After the Potato Famine

Again, we see the names of William and Margaret named for Fanny’s parents. William was born the year the Potato Famine ended. Margaret had children between the ages of 17 and 30. Fanny likely lived in Cuilnagleragh. Fanny’s daughter Margaret, my 2nd great-grandmother married in 1866:

Mar 15, 1866 George Frazer of Ballindoon son of James Frazer

                      Margaret McMaster of Cuilnagleragh, Kilmactranny daughter of James McMaster

If Margaret was from Cuilnagleragh, it stands to reason, that was where her parents James and Fanny lived.

And if Fanny lived in Kilkere as I guessed, then she would not have moved far from where she grew up.

Bad things happened in three’s for the McMaster family in the 1870’s. Fanny’s youngest son James was buried in Kilmactranny in 1873:

Mar 20, 1873     James McMaster   Age 13

Fanny’s husband James was buried in the same Parish in 1874:

June 15, 1874  James McMaster  Age 68

About a half year later, Fanny was buried at the age of 45:

Jan 16, 1875    Frances McMaster  Age 45.

I wonder if Fanny had moved to Canada with her family, would she have lived a longer life? Mary Ann, her sister, died at the age of 73. Her sister Catherine died at the age of 90 – twice the age of Fanny when she died.

Loose Ends: Margaret and Anna McMaster

I’m curious as to who Margaret and Anna McMaster are in the 1851 Census in Burford, Ontario:

It may be important to figure out who these two girls were. It turned out James was another sibling I didn’t know about. And finding James lead to other connections. He is also listed lower on this same page of the 1851 Census.

One interesting thing is that these two McMaster Girls were born in Canada. A search for Anna brings up nothing. Perhaps she was not interpreted as being a McMaster. I did find Margaret. Here she is in 1861 in Vaughan, Ontario:

Margaret is living in the household of Christopher Scanlon. Now Margaret is shows that she was born in Ireland.

Margaret in 1862

This looks to be the answer:

Remember Tecumseth? This shows that Margaret is the daughter of George and Jane. Mystery solved. That brings me back to this family tradition  about Jane McMaster that I quoted in my previous Blog. It is perhaps half-true. I have bolded some names for easy reference:

The following information written about my 2nd great grandmother, JANE MCMASTER, comes from a family history titled ‘The Wheeler and McMaster Family History as told by May McMaster Timmel, 1960’. It was sent to me by Geraldine Fickel of Glenwood, Iowa before her death in the 1990’s. William McMaster, Jane’s first child was born in Edinborough, Scotland although his home was Dramora, County Sligo, Ireland. A child of wealthy parents, he was never taught to work. Jane, his mother belonged to the Stuart line and was a lady in-waiting to one of the Queens. Her name was McMaster before her marriage to a McMaster. She was Scotch and he was Irish. Her husband (George) died when William was about 6 yrs. old and a few months before his sister Anna was born. Not wishing inter-marriage in her family as was the custom in Scotland, William’s mother Jane started to America with her family leaving six year old William with her brother in Edinborough. Anna was born at sea. The other children were Sue and James. She with her young family stopped in Canada for a short time and then came to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where her sister Margaret lived. After a few years she married again, a man by the name of Thompson. He died some years later and she continued to live in Wisconsin. She was very dainty and aristocratic and we all waited on her for she knew nothing of work. Sister Carrie looked very much like her and was our father’s favorite. ‘Grandmother’ Jane went back to Milwaukee with her sister Margaret who came for her and was much like her. Later she went to Oakland, California to live with her husband’s half brother E.A. Thompson and passed away there. She was extremely religious and often took the place of the circuit rider in (Wisconsin) in the winter when the snow was deep and the circuit rider could not make his rounds. She also lived with her son ‘Mac‘ and daughter-in-law Laura in their hotel in Western, Nebraska for about a year. Jane and ‘Grandmother’ Wheeler were exact opposites. They were given rooms as far as possible away from each other. Grandmother Wheeler firmly believed every one should work and wasn’t slow in speaking her mind. Written by Laura May McMaster Timmel Written 1957, Assembled 1960. 

In the above story, Margaret is listed as a sister to Jane. Perhaps the one they refer to as a sister was actually her daughter. As I pointed out above, Catherine lived in Milwaukee, but Catherine doesn’t sound like Margaret. Another interesting thing is that is if Anna was actually born at sea, that would put Jane’s trip to Canada in 1846. Anna is 6 in the 1851 Census. However, that Census in Ontario didn’t take place until January 1852. To be more confusing, the Census asked for the age at the next birthday.

The 1852 Census now tells a story. Here is Jane in 1852 in Vaughan, Ontario:

Jane’s husband George McMaster had died and she remarried William Thompson in 1851. Perhaps that was too many children to handle so out of Jane’s six children, two end up with grandma Margaret and sister Catherine in Burford. Note in the family tale above, William stays in Edinburgh and Anna travels to America. In my version, William lives with Jane and Anna lives with Catherine and Margaret – at least in 1852.

I will have trouble squeezing in these two new children in addition to the nine children I already had for Jane:

If I have it right, Mary Frances Thompson on the right was from a previous marriage that William Thompson had. Here are the children on the George McMaster side:

Margaret and Anna are the ones living with their grandmother Margaret Frazer McMaster in 1852. I wonder if Anna really was born at sea. That would have been a wild situation.  Now I have Margaret married off. Here is one tree for Margaret:

I don’t see Margaret going to Milwaukee in this tree. The closest she gets is Sand Beach Michigan in 1870:

This Margaret later moves to Southern California where she is buried in 1925.

Mac and Laura from the Family Story

As I was bopping around Ancestry Family Trees, I came upon this one which included a photo of William McMaster [who I assume was ‘Mac’ in the McMaster family story from above] and his wife Laura:

Here again is the tale of being born at sea, but this time the tale goes to William as a possibility. Laura is Laura Rickey Wheeler, so grandma Wheeler in the family story above. She must be the one who thought that Jane should do her share of work.

She also lived with her son ‘Mac‘ and daughter-in-law Laura in their hotel in Western, Nebraska for about a year. Jane and ‘Grandmother’ Wheeler were exact opposites. They were given rooms as far as possible away from each other. Grandmother Wheeler firmly believed every one should work and wasn’t slow in speaking her mind.

Based on Kilmactranny Baptismal records, I would say that William was not born at sea or in Scotland:

William son of George and Jane McMaster

Born                                      Bapt. Aug 18, 1843

At this point, I need to apologize for the length of the Blog. I could have easily done a Blog just on Jane McMaster.

Back to Anna McMaster Born 1846

A tree search for Anna brings up this top tree:

Above in the Blog, I had disregarded this Annie Wilmena because Jane McMaster and William Thompson had a daughter named Wilhemine Thompson. Also I could not find any Burwich in Canada. Time to take a second look. This same Tree had a marriage in Wauwatosa, WI:

Anna’s Aunt Catherine was in Wauwatosa at this time. Here is the family in 1860:

Here I missed something. Anna was living with the Bennett family as Anne Bennett. There are a few hints. First, is the six years between Anne and Charles. The second is that Anne is born about 1846 according to the Census and Henry and Catherine married in December 1850. Details. That means that Catherine gets more bonus points for taking care of Anna in 1852 and apparently bringing her to Wauwatosa with the family in the 1860’s. I imagine that Anna helped out in the Bennett house.

Anna Evans in 1870 in Mineral Point, Wisconsin:

So now I have Margaret and Anna safely married off. I also found Anna living with her Aunt Catherine in 1860. I also found a photo of their brother William and his wife Laura. These loose ends are tied.

Loose Ends #2: John and Isabells McMaster

In 1852, Mary Ann or Marrianne McMaster was living in Vaughan, York County, Ontario. She was married to Thomas Shannon, a Farmer. Also in the household were John McMaster aged 11 and Isabella McMaster aged 25. It would be nice to figure out who these two are. My assumption is that they are related to Mary Ann McMaster Shannon.

The two children living with Mary Ann’s sister Catherine, Margaret, 12 and Anna, 6 turned out to be Jane McMaster’s children. However, Isabella at age 25, would be too old to be a daughter of Jane.

Here is Thomas, Mary Ann and John in 1852 in Vaughan, Ontario:

There religion looks to be New Comer Methodist. Here is Isabella on the next page:

1861

10 years later, this appears to be John:

The Census is a little difficult to interpret, but I think that it shows that John and James above were labourers on the James Hardie farm. In the household above the Hardie farm, I see an Isabella:

Isabella is about the right age to be Isabella McMaster. Did she marry the surgeon John De Evelyn? I found this grave marker:

It looks like this Isabella died that same year. However, Isabella appears to be 25 years old. At this point I am stuck with Isabella and John McMaster. However, I have them here as a place-holder.

Summary and Conclusions

  • When I went off to write about four sisters, I didn’t know that the story would be so long and intertwined.
  • The intertwining was helpful in finding a brother to the four sisters: James Archibald McMaster.
  • I was happy to find my fourth great-grandmother Margaret Frazer McMaster living with her son James Archibald at the end of her life in Janesville, Wisconsin.
  • I found out who Margaret and Anna McMaster were and how they tied in to the McMaster family. They were daughters of Jane McMaster.
  • I took another look at the family legend that I have had for a while. There was a lot of interesting and helpful information in it – along with some things that still don’t seem to be right.
  • When researching ancestors, I would recommend researching their siblings also.
  • Telling a story of your ancestors and siblings helps to tie the facts together and points out records or information that may be missing.

Blog 350: Ancestry ThruLines – Was Margaret Frazer the Daughter of Michael Frazer Born About 1764?

I started a lot of the pre-work for this Blog in my previous Blog on Beverly’s ThruLines. Here is where I left off:

I had not been sure where to put Margaret born about 1794. Should she be under Archibald or Michael? From matches, it seem certain that she is under the main Line of James Frazer who was born around the 1720’s. ThruLines suggests that Margaret should be under Michael. However, I can’t tell if it is the genealogical part or DNA part of ThruLines making that suggestion – or some combination of the two.

Margaret Frazer Genealogy

I had started with Keith and his genealogy. He and Paul and my family descend from a double family of McMasters. Fanny McMaster is the daughter of William McMaster and Margaret Frazer. Fanny married James McMaster.

Next is Chuck. He is already on my chart above. People have been complaining that ThruLines has been changing. Right now the common ancestor of Michael Frazer has disappeared from Beverly’s list. However, his wife Margaret Stewart is still on Beverly’s ancestry list.

It will be difficult to verify Chuck’s tree as it is private. Ancestry apparently can see his grandfather Lee and makes the connection up to Margaret using five other trees.

Jane McMaster Born About 1820

Here are the McMaster children I have for Margaret Frazer from my McMaster Web Page:

This shows that the couple were married in 1813. I show four daughters with the first being born around 1820. That leaves room for other children. I would like to prove that Margaret Frazer was the daughter of Margaret Stuart. That means that Margaret should have named a daughter for her mother who was also Margaret. I don’t show any on my list of four daughters above. However, I have this family lore from a Jane McMaster descendant. I read this again and was struck by a reference to a Margaret which I will highlight:

The following information written about my 2nd great grandmother, JANE MCMASTER, comes from a family history titled ‘The Wheeler and McMaster Family History as told by May McMaster Timmel, 1960’. It was sent to me by Geraldine Fickel of Glenwood, Iowa before her death in the 1990’s. William McMaster, Jane’s first child was born in Edinborough, Scotland although his home was Dramora, County Sligo, Ireland. A child of wealthy parents, he was never taught to work. Jane, his mother belonged to the Stuart line and was a lady in-waiting to one of the Queens. Her name was McMaster before her marriage to a McMaster. She was Scotch and he was Irish. Her husband (George) died when William was about 6 yrs. old and a few months before his sister Anna was born. Not wishing inter-marriage in her family as was the custom in Scotland, William’s mother Jane started to America with her family leaving six year old William with her brother in Edinborough. Anna was born at sea. The other children were Sue and James. She with her young family stopped in Canada for a short time and then came to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where her sister Margaret lived. After a few years she married again, a man by the name of Thompson. He died some years later and she continued to live in Wisconsin. She was very dainty and aristocratic and we all waited on her for she knew nothing of work. Sister Carrie looked very much like her and was our father’s favorite. ‘Grandmother’ Jane went back to Milwaukee with her sister Margaret who came for her and was much like her. Later she went to Oakland, California to live with her husband’s half brother E.A. Thompson and passed away there. She was extremely religious and often took the place of the circuit rider in (Wisconsin) in the winter when the snow was deep and the circuit rider could not make his rounds. She also lived with her son ‘Mac’ and daughter-in-law Laura in their hotel in Western, Nebraska for about a year. Jane and ‘Grandmother’ Wheeler were exact opposites. They were given rooms as far as possible away from each other. Grandmother Wheeler firmly believed every one should work and wasn’t slow in speaking her mind. Written by Laura May McMaster Timmel Written 1957,Assembled 1960. 

Now I am interested in this Jane and seeing if I can find anything on her sister Margaret. Here was some additional information I had on my web site:

Whether the above account of Jane McMaster and family is fact leaves room for doubt. The following account is from the Civil War files of Jane’s youngest son, George A. McMaster, obtained from the National Archives, October 2000: Jane McMaster Thompson filed for a ‘Dependent Mother’s Pension’ on or about 15 December 1890 for a pension of $12.00 per month from theMilwaukee Agency (certificate #308018) based on the death of her son George. She stated at that time that she had no means of support and recorded below is the affidavit from her sister Catherine Frazier McMaster Bennett: GENERAL AFFIDAVIT State of Wisconsin County of Milwaukee In the matter of the claim for pension of JANE THOMPSON, mother ofGEORGE MCMASTERS late a Private, Co. ‘B’, 8th NY Heavy Artillery personally came before me a Notary Public in and for the County and State aforesaid, CATHARINE BENNETT residing at 250 First Avenue, Milwaukee, his cousin, person of lawful age, who being duly sworn, declares in relation to the aforesaid claim as follows: That claimant and deponent are sisters and lived in County of Sligo, Ireland under the same roof, until the claimant above named was married. Deponent says though she was not present at claimants marriage with GEORGE MCMASTERS , yet they came back to my father’s house a day or two after as man and wife and that they lived in the neighborhood as man and wife until he died. That they were married by a minister named Scott. That the date of claimant’s marriage was August 25th, 1839. That deponent was present when George McMaster late of Co. B, 8th NY Heavy Artillery was born on the 22 day of May 1847 in York County, Province of Canada and parents were then both living and living together. The name of his mother was Jane McMaster and his father’s name George McMaster. That the soldier George McMaster was never married. That deponent knew him well all the years of his life until he went to the war. That George McMasters, father of soldier, died September 22, 1847 in Canada. Deponent was present at his death bed. That deponent was not present at marriage of claimant with Thompson but knows by hearsay and knew that they lived as husband and wife. That her marriage with WILLIAM THOMPSON was May 11th, 1851 in Canada as she is informed and believes. Deponent knows that claimant has no means of support, and no one person legally liable to support her and has no property. I further declare that I have no interest in said claim and am not concerned in its prosecution. Signed: CATHERINE BENNETT

The big difference I see between the 1960 version and my version is that Margaret seems to be replaced by Catherine. It seems possible that Catherine could have gone by Margaret? Either that or there were two different sisters. Here is an interesting record for Jane Thompson:

Here is Antioch in proximity to Oakland, CA:

I’m starting with the end of Jane’s life, but it was based on a hot tip from my web page. I now have Jane’s birth date.

Here is the Thompson family in 1851 in Vaughan:

10 years later in 1861 they were still in Vaughan:

William was a carpenter.

Here is the family in 1871 in Tecumseth, Ontario – not far from Vaughan:

 

Wikipedia has this to say about New Tecumseth:

The municipality was created through the amalgamation of the municipal governments of several communities with the Township of Tecumseth. The name ‘New Tecumseth’ was chosen because a Town of Tecumseh already exists in Essex County. The borders of the old township, with some adjustments along the eastern edge, and with the addition of all of Alliston, are the borders of the new town.

Jane’s Sister: Catherine Frazer McMaster Bennett

Here is Catherine with her husband and son in Milwaukee in 1905:

Here is the family in 1870 in Wauwatosa:

In 1870 there was a Fanny in the family. She was probably named for my ancestor Fanny McMaster, sister of Catherine Bennett.

Chuck’s Lineage

After all that, I don’t see the connection between Chuck and Jane McMaster as per ThruLines:

From what I can tell, based on Al’s Tree, the Mary Jane Thompson above is wrongly shown as the daughter of a James and Jane Thompson. That means that now I need a tree starting with Chuck and going up to get the correct connections.

This could be the disconnect as seen in the 1880 Census for Janesville, Wisconsin:

This shows Robert H Lorwry’s mother as May, born about 1854 in Ontario. The 1861 Census for Vaughan, Ontario gets us back on track:

Here is the wrong ThruLines [based on Al’s Tree] Mary Jane at the bottom of the 1861 Census in Etobicoke:

The above Census gave the wrong father and mother James and Mary. That ‘s pretty good that ThruLines got the right results using the wrong tree.

Mollie’s Tree

This tree has too many unknowns to evaluate:

Note that ThruLines now has ‘Private’ as Beverly’s ancestor instead of Michael Frazer.

Robert McMaster is from Joanna’s tree.

Joanna has Margaret dieing in Massachusetts:

I’m not finding these records easily, so I’ll pull the plug on this line. I may hear more from Joanna later. That leaves me with two good trees and one that doesn’t look right to me but that I can’t prove or disprove.

The Margaret Frazer Branch DNA

Fortunately Keith is in this Branch. He recently put his DNA back up on Gedmatch Genesis after I wrote to him. His AncestryDNA match with Beverly is small as he has a 14 cM but it is over two segments. Here are the results as seen at Genesis:

My assumption is that the above DNA represents Frazer DNA.

Here is a match that Keith has with Emily:

Keith and Paul match here:

Here is Keith’s match with my brother Jim:

 

Keith’s matches with Emily, Paul, and Jim probably represent McMaster DNA as they are the closer common ancestors.

Recombinant DNA

Keith matches Emily and Paul up to position 20M on Chromosome 7. After that point, he starts matching Beverly. This could represent Keith’s crossover from McMaster to Frazer. We all carry recombination points in our DNA where DNA from different sides of our ancestors have recombined. When we were conceived, DNA from our four grandparents passed down by our parents split apart and recombined to make us. However, that DNA which we received had already been recombined from recombinations in previous generations:

So in the above diagram, Keith’s DNA consists of the recombination of his four grandparents’ DNA. In Keith’s great-grandfather Hubert, the same thing happened. His four grandparents’ DNA (including William McMaster and Margaret Frazer) recombined to make up Hubert. This DNA along with its recombinations was sent down to Keith.

Keith matches Jamie on the Archibald /Stinson Line here:

Keith matches John on the same line:

Here is Keith’s match with Karen from the McPartland Line:

Here is a match with Bob from the McPartland group:

Keith matches Charlene from the McPartlands:

As the above all have Frazer’s in their ancestry, my assumption is that the above matches could represent Frazer DNA also. It is difficult to know for sure without knowing all the ancestors of all the matches.

Another Frazer Match Diagram

This diagram is based on matches to Beverly:

 

I didn’t include the Robert McMaster Branch as I have not verified that Branch. The lines represent the DNA matches that Beverly has with the circled people. I don’t have access to results other than Beverly’s so I don’t know if these people match each other.

So Is Margaret Frazer the Daughter of Michael Frazer?

That is the question. I’ll bring back my chart:

Here I want to compare WE and Richard at 21% and 20% to Chuck and Keith at 33% and 27%. One argument could be that if Beverly matches descendants of the genealogically proven Henry Patrick Branch with a 20% genetic likelihood, then it is even more likely that in the current configuration, the Margaret Frazer Branch is even more genetically likely at 30%.

This is new territory, so I will want to hold off on any conclusions. However, my argument seems pretty convincing. I still want to compare these results to others on the James Line.

Comparing the Margaret Frazer Branch with Joanna

Joanna shows herself on the Archibald Frazer born 1751 Branch. Here is how she matches the Margaret Frazer Branch as seen on ThruLines:

Joanna shows an unusually high match to Mollie. However, Mollie is from the Robert McMaster Branch. This is a branch that I have not verified. Joanna does not show a match to Chuck or Keith. This appears to be further evidence that Margaret Frazer should descend from Michael Frazer and not his brother Archibald. Michael and Archibald are the two candidates for fathers for Margaret that I have looked at.

Patrick Frazer

There was another brother to Archibald and Michael named Patrick, but not much is known about him. This mid-20th century genealogy shows he had two daughters, Mary and Jane:

These may be children of the above Patrick that he had later in life:

It would seem that Patrick would not be a very likely candidate for the father of Margaret Frazer.

One More Tree: Marianne McMaster

This person does not appear on ThruLines, but perhaps will in the future. From my Web Page:

I believe that this Marrianne is the same as this person:

I have trouble finding this Maryann due to the space between Mc and Master in the tree. Interesting that Maryann died in Antioch, CA. Remember Jane McMaster above? She died in the same place and around the same time. The above photo is from a tree for BV and also shows this spouse and children for Maryann:

William above could have been named for Maryann’s father William McMaster and the Frances could be for Maryann’s sister (my ancestor Fanny McMaster).

More Connections in Vaughan, Ontario

When I look at Maryann in the tree that Cheryl made for her, I find a reference to Vaughan, Ontario in 1851. Here she is – right next to another Thompson:

This was Thomas Thompson, a lumber merchant – probably a relative of Jane’s husband William Thompson. On the next page of the Census is another McMaster living in the same Shannon house:

Cheryl has also found the marriage record:

This introduces the name of James McMaster as one of the witnesses.

Further up on the page, I see this couple:

This tells me that the three McMaster sisters, Jane, Mary Ann and Catherine were all living in Vaughan, Ontario at this time.

McMaster’s Everywhere

This set me off looking for William Little and Catharine McMaster in the 1851 Census.:

This is a jackpot of sorts. Here at the bottom of the list is Margaret McMaster who I assume is Catharine’s mother Margaret Frazer and the subject of this Blog. Let’s get Margaret’s birth date. Interestingly, the 1851 Census for Ontario started in January 1852, so I’ll assume Margaret turned 63 in 1852. That would put her birth at 1789. I had guessed that Margaret was born in 1792 and then had pushed it up to 1794. Her daughter Fanny was born in 1829, so she would have been 40 when Fanny was born if Margaret was born in 1789. Charles appears to be the son of Henry and Catherine. Again, we have a few spare McMasters: Margaret and Anna. They appear to have been born in Canada as early as 1840.

Here is Burford where the above McMasters were listed in 1851:

The Bennett family appears to have moved to Milwaukee in 1855:

I am not sure what happened to Margaret McMaster.

Summary and Conclusions

  • In this, my 350th Blog on DNA and genealogy, I set out to show by DNA and genealogical evidence that Margaret Frazer, who I now believe to be born about 1789, was the daughter of Michael Frazer born about 1764 and his wife Margaret Stewart.
  • My conclusion based on genealogical and DNA inference is that my assumptions were correct.
  • However, due to the fact that these were based on inferences, I am still collecting information from Ancestry ThruLines, other DNA evidence and genealogical evidence.
  • In order to verify AncestryDNA’s ThruLines, I needed to check the trees of the DNA matches. This included checking the trees of four of the daughters of William McMaster and Margaret Frazer. This information gave me enough fodder to create a new Blog on the four McMaster sisters.
  • One of the ThruLines patched a tree from a son of William and Margaret McMaster named Robert. I am skeptical of this son as he only appears in one tree and that tree had few references. I have a list of McMaster’s baptized in Kilmactranny at that time and see no Robert. Kilmactranny is where Robert should have been baptized if he was born in Dromore. However, it may be worth checking more on Robert McMaster said to be born in Dromore Sligo in 1823.

 

 

Frazer ThruLines Part 2: Beverly

In my last Blog, I looked at ThruLines as they related to Frazer descendants and I Frazer DNA Project I have been working on. I looked specifically at Joanna’s ThruLines. I am so fortunate that she caught an error in one of her ThruLines (and subsequently passed on when I wrote my last Blog).

Fixing Joanna’s Thruline Error From My Last Blog

Here is the error:

 

Joanna points out that she cannot match these descendants of Edward Frazer. That is because the Edward Wynn Frazer born 1842 shown above died as a bachelor:

Here is the correct Edward Wynn Frazer – also shown as one of Joanna’s ThruLines, but a generation later:

That means that Joanna’s 2nd great-grandfather and her great-grandfather both had brothers named Edward Wynn Frazer. I had this right in my Frazer Chart (the part I cut off in my previous Blog).

I’ll add in WG to my chart to make it clear:

I have WG in blue as I don’t believe this person has uploaded to Gedmatch. That also changes these numbers:

I had to change everything but the match initials:

This brings CK and DK into line with WG’s results. Now what is confusing is why WG at 18 cM and DK at 7 cM both had a 12% chance of being a 3C, 1R. Perhaps it is based on a curve that goes down and then up again (or the other way around).

Back to Beverly and Frazer ThruLines

Beverly shows up in the Michael Branch of the James Main Line of Frazer’s:

Beverly’s ThruLines shows a lot of potential ancestors. That is because Beverly’s tree is missing ancestors at her grandparent level. Beverly has her paternal grandmother as a Fraser:

However, the line I am following is Beverly’s maternal grandfather (Shown at ThruLines as a Potential Ancestor):

As a potential ancestor, Beverly’s grandfather Fitzgerald is outlined in dotted lines.

Fortunately Beverly’s grandfather is from Kathy’s tree:

Kathy is someone I recognize from the Frazer DNA Project. That gives me confidence in her tree. I don’t see any DNA matches at this level, so I’ll go up a level.

Still, no DNA matches are kicking in. Another tree has joined the group. However, the Fitzgerald in the ThruLines Tree seems to be the same Fitzgerald that I have on my DNA chart.

Beverly’s 2nd Great-Grandfather Archibald Born 1801

Here is the next level up:

Now we see Ancestry’s computers are working hard. They have three trees and two DNA matches to add proof that Archibald is Beverly’s 2nd great-grandfather. I pull down the arrow on the right next to Beverly’s ‘2 DNA Matches’ to get this:

Now I want to see if Ancestry likes the match numbers Beverly has with Bonnie and Judith:

 

So far, like Joanna, Beverly’s percentages are on the low side. In addition, I know that Gary should be on this Branch also and doesn’t show as a match to Beverly.

This Archibald married Catherine Knott who also shows as Beverly’s 2nd great-grandparent in Thrulines. I checked and Beverly has the same DNA matches at the same levels using the Catherine Knott connection.

Next Up: Beverly’s 3rd Great-Grandfather Michael Frazer

ThruLines show that Archibald had two siblings: Henry P and Margaret Frazer. This siblings had descedants with DNA matches to Beverly. Ancestry is still working hard on this one. I count seven different Ancestry Trees in this visual above. The tree at the top is from Frank. I have Blogged about him previously. However, I don’t have the Henry P Frazer Line on my DNA list. I have been tracking Margaret Frazer as one of my own ancestors, but I haven’t been able to place with certainty where she belongs yet. Ancestry seems to want to put her under Michael Frazer. Another interesting thing is that I have Frank’s line under Michael, but Ancestry doesn’t show that – perhaps because Beverly does not match Frank by DNA. Frank’s tree has him descending from a son of Michael named Fitzgerald Frazer. As an aside, Frank has a DNA match with Joanna who was the topic of my previous Blog. As another aside, Joanna had Margaret Frazer as possibly being a daughter of Michael Frazer in her tree. I asked her to change that to her Archibald Line to see how that effected ThruLines. Her change didn’t make any difference in this ThruLine – at least not yet.

Henry P Frazer

Under the Henry P Frazer Line there are four DNA matches:

These four all have fairly good matches to Beverly. Ancestry uses at 20 cM cutoff for fourth cousin.

Margaret Frazer Born 1794

I notice that this Margaret Branch is listed at the half 4th cousin range. The explanation that comes to mind is that Ancestry thinks that Michael had more than one wife. In the image above, there are three trees represented. Those trees are from Al, Joanna and Keith. Al shows Margaret as the daughter of Michael Frazer and Margaret Stewart:

This could explain the half relationship issue. I thought that I saw a tree that had Michael married to a Mary Stewart. Now I can’t find that. I’ll leave it up to the James Line experts to figure this out. The bottom line is that I think that the half relationships shown for the matches in the Margaret Frazer Branch are wrong. I’ll look at this more in a subsequent Blog.

Here are Beverly’s matches with those descending from the Henry and Margaret Branches:

After the slow start with Bonnie and Judith, these percentages are actually quite high. For example, Mollie’s small 6 cM match is one that would be expected 27% of the time. This particular 6 cM scale tops out at 33%:

I am finding the percentage tables to be very helpful. In the above example, it may not have seemed that 6cM was a good match, but according to Ancestry, it is in this case.

That is of great interest to me as I descend from Margaret also. So, to the extent that we have confidence in Beverly descending from Michael, it would seem that Margaret and her descendants also descend from Michael. That is, assuming also that there are no other connections that we missed. One of the main connections could be through McMaster. However, if Beverly has no McMaster connections, then it would seem more likely that Margaret descends from Michael Frazer.

I’m sure I’ll be returning to the Margaret Frazer topic. Members of my family match Beverly’s match Keith and I wrote a Blog about that here. However, our families’ primary match with Keith appears to be through a closer McMaster Line.

Up To James Frazer of Clerragh

Ah yes, good old Clerragh. Here is Cleragh:

My Frazer’s from the Archibald Line lived in Derrycashel. The next Townland to the North.

Beverly has four DNA matches with descendants believed to be from the Archibald Frazer Branch:

This connection goes quite far out:

Beverly’s 5th cousin once removed connection with Brittney goes beyond Ancestry’s probability chart.

Beverly’s Match Probability Chart

The numbers I am most interested in are the percentages. Beverly started out with low percentages with her third cousins Bonnie and Judith. Those percentages went up going one generation back to descendants of Henry P and Margaret who are believed to be children of Michael. Beverly then gets top scores with other matching at James Frazer born about 1720. This is a sort of inverse relationship. One would think that the closer relatives would be more certain, but this seems to show the further away the relationships go with Beverly, the more certain they are.

Of course, this is all based on the genealogy. If we had decided that Henry P and Margaret had a different father, say Archibald born 1751, then this chart would support that conclusion also.

Michael Line Genealogy

It appears that if I can show a genealogical connection to Michael for Henry Patrick’s descendants or between Michael and Beverly through Archibald born 1801, then that should give a lot of weight for Margaret Frazer being in the Michael Branch.

Is Henry P Frazer the Same as Patrick Frazer?

WE shows he descends from Henry P Frazer. Other trees show a Patrick Frazer. Are these two the same? ThruLines makes the connection.

Here is the tree for WE and RB:

Wejum’s tree stops at Henry P:

Perhaps there is some circumstantial evidence in Henry P’s daughter Margaret Stewart Frazer. Michael’s wife was Margaret Stewart.

Judith’s tree picks up where Wejum’s left off:

It looks like Judith made the connection. Judith probably is using this record:

Michael from our Frazer DNA group (Archibald Line) provided a Parish Register Record from Eastersnow which showed a Michael and Margaret Frazer giving birth to a Patrick late in 1803. There are some more records for Patrick:

If this was the same Patrick, then he would have been a young father of 17. Boyle is about 3-1/2 miles from Eastersnow.

Again, if this is the same Patrick, he would now be 19.

Now the question is whether Jane Lacy and Jane Leary are the same person, or are these two separate couples? Did Jane Leary die and Patrick married Jane Lacy? These births are all in the same Parish.

This Pat and Jane are now in Aghrafinigan if my records are lined up correctly – in the Parish of Ardcarne. Compare this with Joanna’s Tree:

Joanna’s tree references Find a Grave:

In addition, Joanna has this Patrick:

Joanna’s older Patrick probably accounts for the first three births above as an older dad.

Back to Margaret. My point is that the Margaret Stuart born in 1834 in Aghrafinigan and baptized in Ardcarn Parish may be the same person in Wejum’s tree.

Another interesting point is that Wejum has Margaret’s mother as Jane M Frazer. Joanna has Henry Patrick’s wife as Jane Mostyn:

The date looks good. I’m not sure if the location is perfect. More about that later in the Blog.

More on Patrick and Jane Frazer

Here is the family in 1850 in Martinsburg, New York:

All children show as born in New York. I am questioning that is not correct. Later in the Blog I prefer the 1855 Census which shows Margaret born in Ireland.

While I’m In Martinsburg

There were other Irish Frazer’s in Martinsburg. I wrote a Blog mentioning Martinsburg in 2015. Also living in Martinsburg according to the 1855 Census were:

  • Mary Frazer daughter of Archibald Frazer and Ann Stinson – married to William Johnston
  • Ann Frazer, younger daughter of Mary above married John Hazard 1824 Ardcarn
  • Richard Frazer married to Ellen Hassard or Hazard. Richard was baptized at Ardcarn in 1830 and was the brother of my 2nd great-grandfather George Frazer

As Patrick appears to be the first Frazer in Martinsburg, he perhaps lead the way for the other Ardcarn Parish Frazers.

Biography of George H Frazer

There is an 1895 biography of George H Frazer in a publication called Commemorative biographical record of the upper Wisconsin counties of Waupaca, Portage, Wood, Marathon, Lincoln, Oneida, Vilas, Langlade and Shawano. Here is part of that biography:

 

This Biography gives a lot of detailed information about the Henry P Frazer family and confirms that Jane was indeed Jane Mostyn (Moyston in this biography). This also places the Frazer family in New York City in 1844. That means that this may be the same Frazer family in Ward 15 of New York City in 1840:

A Proposed Patrick Frazer Family History

My presumption is that the Patrick Frazer of 1850 Martinsburg, NY was born in 1803 in Eastersnow Parish to Michael Frazer and Margaret Stewart. He married a Jane probably Mostyn probably in 1829 when he was about 25. This is from a marriage licence index from Killala and Achonry which survived the destruction of Irish records:

:

This couple had children. One that was documented was Margaret Stuart Frazer. Margaret was presumably named after her mother Margaret Stuart. Margaret’s gravestone has a birthdate of:

Seven days after Margaret’s birth, she was baptized at the Ardcarn Church in County Roscommon, Ireland. Sometime between 1834 and probably 1840, the Patrick Frazer family moved to New York City.  In 1846, the Frazer family moved to Martinsburg, New York. In 1855 or soon after, Patrick moved to Saginaw, Michigan where he went by Henry:

Henry was listed as ‘At Home’ in the 1870 Census which meant that he wasn’t working. By this time, their daughter Isabella was still living with them. Now even the parents say they were born in New York.

Patrick (or Henry P on his grave stone) died in Saginaw in 1872:

 

I had this mostly figured out in 2015, but I hadn’t fleshed out many of the details. For example, I had mentioned the possibility of two Patricks in 2015. Now, it would seem that this would have to have been the case as Patrick apparently first married in 1829.

Three Generations of Frazers in Martinsburg

Here are three generations of Frazers in Martinsburg, New York:

 

However, note that Mary, Ann and Patrick were about the same age.

Here is Martinsburg:

Martinsburg is fairly remote, so I don’t think it was just coincidence that all these Frazers lived there at one time.

Pro’s and Con’s of Henry P Frazer Being Patrick Frazer of Ardcarn Parish, Roscommon

Pro’s:

  • The dates line up
  • Margaret Stewart Frazer, daughter of Patrick and Jane appears to be named for Patrick’s mother Margaret Stewart.
  • This Margaret seems to be well-documented in the Ardcarn Parish records and in the US.
  • The birth date on Margaret’s cemetery stone is very close to the Ardcarn baptism date.
  • Henry P. went by Patrick in his early US Census records.
  • The Patrick Frazer family appears in Martinsburg with other Frazer families and related Frazer families who originated from Ardcarn Parish, Roscommon.

Con’s:

  • I have not seen US records for Henry Patrick Frazer which places him in a specific place in Ireland.
  • The marriage of Patrick Frazer to Jane Mostyn was in the Diocese of Killala and Achonry which would be to the Northwest of where many of the Frazer’s lived at the time. Most of the Frazer marriages took place in the Dioces of Elphin. However, this may have refected where Jane Mostyn lived.

Step 2: Beverly’s Genealogy

I feel that I have created a good argument for the Patrick Frazer Branch above. It doesn’t answer all the question, but the story holds together. Next, let’s see if the good DNA matches between Beverly and the Patrick Frazer Branch are supported by Beverly’s link to Michael Frazer. The presumption has been that Beverly does descend from Michael Frazer and Margaret Stewart.

Building a Tree for Beverly

Above, Beverly’s tree has been pieced together, so I’ll create a private one to see if I come up with the same results that Ancestry came up with. The goal is to either connect Beverly to Michael Frazer or to find some evidence that shows that she should not connect with him.  It looks like I had already started a tree a few years ago. I just added a bit now:

One important document is Fitzgerald’s wedding record from 1874:

This give’s Fitzgerald’s age as 30 and his parents as Archibald and Catherine. So far, this is vague evidence. Connaught is quite large and Archibald and Catherine are fairly common names. At this point, I am borrowing on other’s research. Here is the 1851 Census from Ontario:

This appears to show Fitzgerald along with his parents and siblings when he was 10. These names give a lot of circumstantial evidence:

We have a lot of clues here. We have seen what appears to be the Wynne name before. William Wynne may have been named for Archibald’s doctor cousin Wynne who died in Jamaica at a young age. I have already discussed Margaret Stewart as the wife of Michael Frazer. Then there is a Michael Frazer who could have been named for Archibald’s father.

In 1851, this family was in this area of Ontario:

I have also circled Buffalo for my own reference. The youngest, Jane, was 6 and born in Ireland if the 1851 Census is right. That would mean that the family left Ireland between 1845 and 1851.

The Archibald Frazer Family in Arthur, Ontario, 1861

The census shows that between 1851 and 1861, the Frazer families were living in log houses. The 1861 Census is a bit difficult to interpret and read:

In 10 years, the family has grown from 8 to 11. Two Fraser children were born in Canada and there is a person with the last name Reid. This child could have been a daughter (or sister) of William’s wife Rachel. Catherine is now 10 years younger, or Archibald remarried. Here is a larger view of the names:

Archibald and Catherine Back In County Roscommon

This would be the marriage record for Archibald and Catherine Knott:

Catherine was from Kilmactranny in County Sligo and Ardcarn is the Parish to the South but in County Roscommon. Just to confuse things, there was another Archibald Frazer who married a Catherine Parker around this place and time.

Here are records for children of Archibald and Catherine.

This  birth is apparently to Catherine Parker:

This happens in Kilmactranny Parish before the marriage of Catherine Knott.

Here is a similar record:

Next is Catherine:

The question here is which Catherine is which. Is the mother Catherine Parker or Knott? Also does this represent two children named Catherine or the same one?

Here is William:

Just to keep things confusing:

If I ignore William, I do see that there is now James – probably born late in 1836.

My understanding is that these last two were born to sons of Catherine Parker. That means that the James born in 1836 could have been the son of Catherine Knott. That seems to be the last record I have of Catherine Knott in the Ardcarn Parish area. After that, the records refer to Catherine Parker’s family.

The Irish records I have for Archibald Frazer and Catherine Knott are scanty and few. But they don’t contradict the records of the Archibald and Catherine family from Wellington County, Ontario.

Back to the Ontario Archibald and Catherine Frazer Family

Here is Michael in 1871 living in Peel:

I like how the Census clarifies that it is only for the living. Michael is a fairly unique Frazer name in Ontario at the time, so is easier than some to track. Michael is also interesting as a major branch of DNA-tested Frazers:

Some Evidence from Jane Frazer

Here is the connection back to Catherine ‘Nott’:

For me, this record seals the deal. I now have confidence that the Archibald Frazer and Catherine Knott of Ardcarn and Kilmactranny Parishes are the same as the Archibald and Catherine of Wellington County, Ontario. If I can’t find the original records at Ancestry, sometimes I try FamilySearch:

This shows that Jane ‘Fraser’ was born in Ireland and that her mother was Catherine Nott. I was confused by Jane’s father until I looked down to the line below where he looks to be Arch. Frazer. Here is how FamilySearch has the transcription:

It looks like Ancestry had a different record or interpreted this one correctly somehow.

Where Are We? Sum It Up

  1. I corrected my last Blog where one of the ThruLines was inaccurate for Joanna. Joanna is on a parallel Line to Beverly
  2. Next, I looked at Beverly’s ThruLines. They can be best summed up in this Chart: 
  3. I noted that the percentages for both the Henry Patrick and Margaret Branches were good. I reasoned that if I could show by genealogy that the Henry Patrick Line and Beverly’s Line descended from Michael Frazer born 1764, then Margaret should also descend from Michael. This is using a sort of double triangulation based on both DNA and genealogy.
  4. I proved to my satisfaction that the Henry Patrick of Martinsburg, NY and Saginaw, Michigan was the same as the Patrick born to Michael Frazer born 1764. I then proved to myself that Beverly’s Ontario Line descended from Archibald born about 1801, also the son of Michael Frazer.

That means that I have established DNA connections as follows:

I left out some of the connections, but this is the main idea. The Margaret Branch is in gray or green. RW is from the Henry Patrick Branch. There were two other matches there but it was easiest to show RW’s descent from Patrick.

More Genealogy – Patrick Henry Line

The Patrick Henry Line is on the right in the chart above. Here is a portion of Beverly’s ThruLines:

 

I have established at least that George Henry Frazer descends from Michael Frazer. What about Mary Gordinier? I don’t recall seeing her name in the 1895 Biography for George H Frazer. I could start from Wejum and work my way up, or start with Mary. I looked again at the 1895 Biography and found Mary at the column split:

Here is Mary in 1855:

She appears to have been born in ‘Green’. There is a Greene, NY, but I don’t know if this is the same place. The 1855 Census shows that Margaret [Stewart] Frazer was born in Ireland. This Census also shows that the family left Ireland on the early side – between 1835 and 1837. This seems to be enough proof to connect Mary on the top side of Wejum’s Tree. Here is a photo  of Mary that someone saved to their tree:

Technically, the ThruLines should show her as Mary Frazer, not Mary Gordinier. Gordinier was actually the name of Mary’s second husband. Wejum descends from Jane Isabella Mushgrove Johnson who was a daughter of Mary and her first husband John Mushgrove. That Jane would be the Jennie in the 1895 Biography.

More Genealogy – Margaret Frazer Line

I don’t believe that it is possible to show through genealogy alone that Margaret Frazer was the daughter of Michael Frazer. That is what I’m trying to show by the DNA and the genealogy for the other Michael branches. However, I’ll strart looking at the lines below Margaret.

Keith and Fanny McMaster

I am a match with Keith – presumably on his McMaster side. I have Keith’s genealogy already on my McMaster web pages:

This shows Keith’s line of descent from James McMaster, but James married Fanny McMaster the daughter of Margaret Frazer.

At this point, I’d like to shut down this Blog and continue later on the Margaret Line as that is a separate issue from Beverly’s ThruLines. I don’t want to take away from the interesting conclusions for Beverly’s genealogy and the genealogy of her other Michael Branch descendants.

Summary and Conclusions

  • ThruLines is a great combination of genealogy and DNA
  • Ancestry may stitch together trees for the genealogy part. These trees need to be checked for accuracy.
  • ThruLines showed that Beverly descends from Archibald Frazer and Catherine Knott. ThruLines show that Archibald had a younger brother Henry Patrick whose descendants match Beverly by DNA.
  • I was able to convincingly show through genealogy that the Archibald and Patrick Frazer Lines were accurate as shown in ThruLines.
  • A key person in Beverly’s Irish-Canadian genealogy was her 2nd great-Aunt, Jane Frazer. Jane’s Ontario marriage record shows her mother as Catherine ‘Nott’. That links Jane’s parents to the Ardcarn and Kilmactranny Parishes on the border of Counties Roscommon and Sligo in Ireland.
  •  A key person in the Patrick Frazer Line was his daughter Margaret Stuart Frazer. She had the name of her paternal grandmother Margaret Stuart. I have an Irish baptismal record for her as well as for her father.
  • Beverly also matches the DNA of descendants of a Margaret Frazer Line. Margaret was born in the late 1700’s so the birth records do not appear to exist for her. I descend from this line as well as others and would like to continue to look at this line in a subsequent Blog. The goal is to try to show that Margaret also is the daughter of Michael Frazer born about 1764.

 

 

Some Frazer ThruLines and Joanna

AncestryDNA has a new utility called ThruLines. The general idea is that they look at DNA matches and patch together trees on those DNA matches to the people who match. Sounds like a good idea, even though things could go wrong. The things that could go wrong are shaky trees and/or shaky DNA matches. However, let’s take a look.

Frazer ThruLines – An Overview

I have done a lot of work with Frazer relatives using Gedmatch. However, this new tool is quite interesting. When Ancestry comes up with a new tool, people take notice due to the millions of people who have tested their DNA there. I have access to ThruLines for some people in the Frazer DNA Project. Those people are:

  • Myself and four of my siblings – I am on at least the Philip and Richard Frazer Lines – both from the main Archibald Frazer. Then I most likely descend from the other main James Line through Margaret Frazer and William McMaster.
  • Gladys – She is on the Archibald Main Line also. She descends from the Philip, Richard and Archibald/Stinson branches of that Line.
  • Jane – She is also on the Richard and Archibald/Stinson Line. Jane’s Archibald/Stinson Line seems to be better verified by genealogy.
  • Michael – He descends from the same lines that Jane does.
  • Richard – I believe that Richard is from the Philip Line. However, there are different degrees of uncertainty on many of these lines due to how far the matches go back and lack of paper trails.
  • Joanna – She is on the James Main Line and comes down through James son Archibald born 1751
  • Beverly – Beverly is on the same Main James Line but descends from James’ son Michael born 1764.

The DNA Family Trees

I have  built some trees of Frazer descendants who have had their DNA tested. These trees have generally included those who have uploaded their DNA to Gedmatch. Gedmatch has made it easier to analyze the detailed DNA as AncestryDNA does not supply that detailed chromosome information.

The Archibald Main Line

Here is an overview of the Archibald Main Line:

The three brothers near the top are Philip, Richard and Archibald. Cousin Richard is in the green branch on the left. My siblings and I are in the blue branch under Philip, but also belong under the Richard Line due to a cousin marriage. Jane in the Army green line was added to the Richard Line due to all her matches there and seems to fit in. Gladys is actually the sister of the person circled and is in all three brother Branches. Michael is in the Richard Line and an abbreviated rendition of Michael is shown in the Archibald/Stinson line on the right above. David is included in purple due to a Frazer in his ancestry and DNA matches. He would be one of those branches with higher uncertainty.

The ones that I have circled are just the ones who I have access to their ThruLines. Many more Frazer’s have tested at AncestryDNA.

 The James Main Line

I have access to only Joanna and Beverly on this Line, though many others have tested at AncestryDNA.

Below I cut off the left-hand side of the James Branch to save room:

I have also put my family in green where they may match up with the James Main Line. It is possible that the green branch should be under the Michael Branch.

James Line ThruLines

I’ll start with the James Line Branch as I have access to only two people in that Line. Joanna has already started doing her own ThruLine analysis on the James Line.

Joanna’s ThruLines

Starting slowly, we see Joanna’s connection with her dad:

This is the obvious stuff, but good research starts in the known present and works back to the unknown past. Going up a generation to Joanna’s grandfather doesn’t add any more matches. However, at Joanna’s great-grandfather level, there are some new matches:

Joanna’s grandfather has a brother William Fitzgerald Frazer who has 7 descendants who match Joanna by DNA.

Joanna matches four descendants of Minnie and three of Walter.

Let’s look at Joanna’s matches to Minnie’s descendants:

One thing I notice that is odd is that Joanna matches Steve by one more DNA segment than Kay. I wonder why?

What Are the Odds?

Next, all the match levels have probabilities associated with them when I click on them. Let’s start with the two second cousins, once removed. They are Chris and Kay.

Chris matches Joanna by 18 cM. Ancestry thinks that has a low probability of being right:

Rather than show each chart, I’ve summarized Joanna’s four matches on the Minnie Branch:

Steve’s likelihood of being a good match is much better than his mom Kay’s. 22% seems low, but it was the second highest category with 25% being the highest in this situation.

Joanna and Walter James Frazer

Here the relationships are a little closer but the DNA matches are much, much higher.

I’m not sure what to make of this. This seems to say that Joanna’s match with the Minnie line is more unlikely and that her matches with the Walter James Line are more likely.

Joanna’s Next Ancestor: Archibald Frazer born 1792

Here Joanna has only one match to give evidence to their common ancestor:

 

Remember above that Chris had a match of 18 cM but he was supposed to be a second cousin, once removed. WG is a 3rd cousin once removed. Chris had a bad likelihood score of <1%. Let’s see what WG gets:

Next Up: Archibald Frazer Born 1751

[Note: The genealogy in this Thruline is not correct. See my correction in my next Blog:]

Joanna’s in luck as Archibald 1792 had a brother:

That brother was some sort of hot-shot based on the size of his tomb stone. By the way, the 11 DNA matches shown above Joanna are the ones we already looked at.

CK and DK have low level matches with Joanna. We’ll put them into my spreadsheet:

When Joanna went back a generation, her percentages went up.

It’s Too Late To Turn Back: James Frazer Born 1720

Joanna has this James as James Frazer of Clerragh:

We are fortunate that Archibald born 1751 had a brother Michael:

Joanna is getting more DNA action on the Michael Line. Here there are five matches. There are two I haven’t opened up yet under Patrick Henry Frazer.

Joanna and Mollie

First off, Mollie and I share the same ancestors of Margaret Frazer and William McMaster, so I find that interesting. The other interesting thing is that Mollie and Joanna are shown as fifth cousins, once removed. That goes off the charts:

Ancestry is giving percentages for up to 5th cousin, but after that, they don’t even want to make a guess.

Joanna and the Michael Line

Here are the numbers for all of Joanna’s ThruLines:

I added in a column for cM. This to point out that Joanna’s matches on the James Frazer line were as high or higher as that with the Archibald Frazer line which is a generation closer. The DNA would suggest, apart from the genealogy, that Joanna could as easily or more easily descend from the Michael Frazer Branch than the Archibald 1751 Branch. Of course, other factors may come into play such as the randomness of DNA inheritance and matching on collateral lines.

Another interesting thing is Mollie’s ancestry. She is said to descend from Margaret Frazer which I do also. I had thought that Margaret descended from the Michael Line, but the more I look at the DNA, it makes me think that Margaret might descend from the Archibald 1751 Branch where Joanna has herself. If Mollie and Joanna both descend from the Archibald 1751 Branch, then that could explain the large match that Joanna and Mollie have.

Joanna has no additional matches up to the next generation to Archibald born about 1690. He was the father of Archibald and James Frazer – the two Main Lines.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I had meant to go through all the Frazer descedants who I had access to at AncestryDNA and look at their ThruLines. That would take too long, so I’ll go through them at a slower pace.
  • I started looking at Joanna’s ThruLines. Joanna’s matches showed some irregularities, but I would like to look at other Frazer descendant matches to see how they compare.
  • Joanna had matches at the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th cousin levels leading up to James Frazer of Clerragh. [Note: the 4th cousin match was not correct. See my correction in the following Blog.]
  • Joanna had a larger than expected match to Mollie who shows the same mysterious Margaret Frazer ancestor that I have.
  • I am only looking at the DNA here. The genealogy has to be taken into consideration.
  • I am thinking that in the Archibald Branch with all the Frazer cousin matches, that ThruLine analysis could be complicated.
  • I would like to look at Beverly from the James Line next.

 

More Sibling Clusters at MyHeritage

So far, I have looked at AutoClusters at MyHeritage (MH) for myself, my mom and two siblings. I have been a bit surprised in how different the clusters look. In addition, Genetic Affairs (GA) has used different parameters and gotten different results. At the end of this Blog, I will have looked at my mother’s results and her six children’s clusters.

My Brother Jon’s Clusters

Jon has 7 clusters. They look a lot like my sister Heidi’s 7 clusters:

Emily In Jon and Heidi’s Clusters

Emily appears in Jon’s Theory of Family Relativity like this:

Here is Emily in Jon’s red Cluster 1:

Note that she also matches Clusters 3 and 7. In fact, Emily matches every person in Cluster 7, including another 2nd cousin once removed who descends from the same common ancestors as shown above (Frazer and McMaster). That raises the question as to why was Emily not in Cluster 7?

Here is Emily in Heidi’s clusters:

Here Emily is on the last row in Cluster 7. She matches many people in what seems to be a red over-match Cluster 1. Emily Matches orange Cluster 21 with people that have McMaster ancestors. Emily also matches Paul who is in yellow Cluster 3. I note the following:

  • Emily matches Heidi by Frazer and McMaster
  • Cluster 2 has people in it that match on the McMaster line but not the Frazer Line.
  • Cluster 3 has Paul, but as he is not in the orange McMaster Cluster 2, that the yellow Cluster 3 may be a Frazer Cluster.

Jon’s Cluster Inputs and Outputs Compared

I gave Heidi and Jon the same highlight color as their results were so similar.

Let’s ID Jon’s Clusters

I have already started to do this thanks to Emily and others. After doing a few of these, I can pretty much look at the people in the clusters and ID them:

For some reason, Jon had a better mix than Heidi. Jon has all four of his grandparents represented, where Heidi only had two grandparents’ DNA represented.

 

I’m not so concerned about Cluster 1. Although it is large in size, in a way it is not as important due to the over-matching. In fact, some of my most important matches are not in clusters at all.

Moving On to My Sister Lori’s Clusters

Lori has a good number of Clusters:

She has what appears to be a Chromosome 20 super-over-match Cluster 1.

Here are some of the AutoCluster input/output numbers for Lori:

Lori’s MH Clusters are similar to Heid’s and Jon’s.

Lori’s Chromosome 20 Super-Cluster

Here is the Chromosome mapping for my family on Chromosome 20:

This shows that Jim and Sharon (who I haven’t looked at yet) don’t have Frazer DNA in the area of the over-matching. Jim doesn’t have a super-cluster and I expect Sharon will not either. However, I also didn’t have an super-cluster. I did have a large Chromosome 20 cluster shown below that seems to be split in two:

Perhaps looking at the different sides of this ‘super-cluster’ will help explain what it is all about. That will be a future project.

Lori’s 11 Clusters Revealed

By looking at Lori’s matches’ names, I can get this far:

After that, I will have to look at cluster matches to see if they match my mother or not. Then I can check Lori’s chromosome mapping to get the right grandparent.

Lori’s Cluster 3 Example

Lori’s Cluster 3 matches have very German-sounding names. That makes me suspicious as I have no German on my paternal side – only on my maternal side. I pick a match with a good-sized largest match of 48.3 cM:

My guess is Rathfelder as that side is all German – though they lived in Latvia.

I was right:

Lori is the most likely of the six siblings to have a good Rathfelder side match in this location of Chromosome 3. Actually, I should have the same match as Lori. So she is most likely after me.

And the Answer Is…

Here is another bit of surprise in that Lori has no clusters with Lentz grandmother DNA. Lori also has more Rathfelder than Frazer clusters which  is unusual.

The Last Sibling, Sharon’s Clusters

First, I’ll look at the input/output for Sharon’s Clusters:

I had mentioned previously the effect that Chromosome 20 had on these matches as that was where the super-clusters were for all but Jim and Sharon. Here, we see that Jim and Sharon should have similar results as predicted above.

ID’s for Sharon’s 22 Clusters

Out of Sharon’s 22 clusters, these are the ones that had match names that I recognized:

Parental Phasing and Chromosome Mapping

For the rest of Sharon’s clusters, I’ll see if the matches are on my mother’s side or not and where the matches show on Sharon’s Chromosome map. I’ll start with Bobbijo who matches Sharon from Cluster 1:

Here is Sharon’s Chromosome 10 Map:

This doesn’t line up perfectly, but it is mostly over Sharon’s Hartley DNA. The match is from position 32 to 61M on Chromosome 10. There are a lot of crossovers in the area between 57 and 61M on Sharon’s Chromosome Map. Bottom line is that Cluster 1 is Hartley.

Sharon’s Cluster 2

Here is a match Sharon has with Anya at Cluster 2 on Chromosome 15:

This appears to be right before a pileup area:

I don’t know if that is significant. That is probably why the area before the match has the hatch marks. Cluster 2 matchAnya is on Sharon’s Frazer side:

Cluster 3

Sharon’s Cluster 3 has matches on different chromosomes. I recognize Patrick as a German cousin. I match Patrick on Chromosomes 6, 12, and 13. Here is Cluster 3:

Sharon’s first match is Ursula. Note that she matches everyone in the Cluster. The other people with yellow squares going right across the Cluster are Silvia and the last match – Patrick. Ursula matches me on Chromosomes 1, 12, and 22. My assumption is that the common matches are on Chromosome 12.

Cluster 7 and Cluster 2 Revisited

Note that Clusters 2 and 7 both match at the beginning of Chromosome 15:

Here is Cluster 7:

Valerie, Sharon’s second match matches everyone else in the Cluster:

  • Sharon matches Valerie on Chromosomes 10 and 15
  • Sharon matches the first person in the Cluster on Chromosomes 10 and 15
  • Sharon’s third match has the same last name as Sharon’s first match – they both match on Chromosomes 10 and 15
  • Sharon’s last match is on Chromosomes 1, 15 and 22

That means the common match must be on Chromosome 15

From what I can tell, Cluster 2 also matches on Chromosome 15. This begs the question as to why they are not all in one group. Is this due to intermarriage? Or is this due to over-matching aka pile-ups?

Sharon’s Cluster 9

Sharon matches Lisa from Cluster 9 mostly on Chromosome 7. That matches up with Sharon’s maternal Lentz side. I haven’t gotten many Lentz matches, so I built out Lisa’s tree. Turns out Lisa has a Lentz ancestor.

However, Conrad is Lisa’s 8th great-grandfather. That is going back far in time. Lisa’s ancestors go from a Linz to a Lintz to a Lentz. Whether this is coincidence or not, I cannot tell. Even Conrad does not link up with my ancestors. You can’t say I didn’t try.

Confusing Clusters 17 and 18

Sharon has two Donna’s and a Justin in Cluster 17. One Donna matches my mom, so would be on the Rathfelder side. The other Donna and Justin don’t match my mother and appear to be on the paternal Hartley side. I have a similar split on Cluster 18.

Sharon’s Cluster 22 and a Lancashire Tree

Cluster 22 had a match from England with no tree and a match from the US with an ancestor from England. As I am interested in my Hartley English roots, I thought I would look at Jill’s Hoyle tree and  build it out a bit.

Jill’s grandfather was John Richard Hoyle. He married Isabella Hargreaves in Accrington:

This shows that Isabella was living in Derby at the time they married.

Here is John Richard Hoyle Sr. in the 1861 Census. He was elderly at the time, but with a young son – also John Hoyle.

Of interest to me is that this family lived at Higher Booths, Goodshaw, Lancashire. I have traced one of my Emmet ancestors to Goodshaw.

Here is Goodshaw in relation to Bacup where many of my Hartley ancestors ended up:

Coincidence? I’ll continue on with the Hoyle tree. Here is the marriage of John Hoyle to Mary Lord:

John Hoyle is a widower. That means he was married before:

I assume that this is the same John Tailor, son of a John Tailor. Now I need to find another marriage for John. Here is another:

However, this marriage is in Bury. Here is another Bury marriage to a John the Tailor:

However, note that this John is son of James, so I will propose a guess that he was the father of the other John the tailor.

Here is Edenfield – not far from Goodshaw:

Shuttleworth is just to the South of Edenfield.

Tracing the Hargreaves Family

We saw above that Isabella Hargreaves’ father John was a tailor. This is likely John Hargreaves in 1851, before Isabella was born:

John and his wife were said to be born in Ropendale – maybe Rossendale makes more sense. The children who are just initials were born in Rochdale.

The family was living on Oldham Road in Castleton. Castleton is to the SW of Rochdale. My guess is that John Hargreaves and Elizabeth married about 1841 based on the age of the eldest daughter of 9.

This is the suggested wife of John Hargreaves from Ancestry:

This John was a sexton who is someone who takes care of a Church. If this is the right person, it means that he must have changed his occupation. This appears to be Isabella’s death certificate giving her parents’ names.

Fortunately, I was able to find John Hargreaves in the 1841 Census. This shows that he was married to an Elizabeth at that time. They were living at the same place they were living in 1851 – Oldham Road, Castleton:

The census was taken on June 6, 1841, so that narrows the birth of Mary.

This tells me that Mary Ellen was about 4 months old when she was baptized. When I put these records together, it appears that John Hargreaves was married to an Elizabeth. The lived at Castleton and had a daughter Mary Ellen there. Elizabeth died and John became a sexton in Burnley where he married Elizabeth Dobson. The family moved back to Castleton and John regained his Tailor business. He had at least three more children there with Elizabeth Dobson.

I may go back to this tree later.

Sharon’s Summary

  • I had problems in Clusters 17 and 18 due to matches on maternal and paternal sides.
  • I didn’t bother with Cluster 21 as the matches were small.
  • I built out a Lentz Cluster match’s tree and found a Lentz but the first name and places didn’t match up.
  • I built out a Cluster 22 match’s tree from England, and found some places where those ancestors lived that were similar to my ancestors, but didn’t match on the names. I got bogged down with the genealogy and may revisit the tree at some poin.

Summary and Conclusions

I have now looked at all of my siblings’ and my own MH AutoClusters. I have also looked at my mother’s results.

  • I was surprised to find that one of my sister’s autoclusters only cover two of her grandparents’ side DNA
  • I should be able to look at the results for my siblings and update the results for my mother and myself
  • In the past, with AutoClusters from other companies’ DNA results, I have used MS Access to compare the results. I did not do that analysis with the MH Cluster results. That would be a good cross-check.
  • These AutoClusters have given me places to look for common ancestors and birth areas, but so far, I have not found any new discoveries.
  • It was interesting to see the clustering effects of Genetic Affairs using different input parameters on my families’ DNA results.

 

 

 

 

My Heritage AutoCluster for My Sister Heidi and Brother Jim

So far, I have run and autocluster for myself and my mother at MyHeritage. Here are some initial comparisons:

After going from my 17 clusters to my mother’s 26, I was surprised to go back to 7 clusters with my sister Heidi:

Maternal/Paternal Phasing

As my mother is at MyHeritage, it should be easy to tell which of Heidi’s clusters are maternal. The ones that are not maternal are likely paternal. For example, the first match in Cluster 1 has no shared matches with my mother and has a shared match with someone on my Irish side. A closer look shows that this may be an over-matched area. I don’t know if these matches are valid as there are so many of them. Most or all of these people match on Chromosome 20.

I went down Heidi’s list of clusters and came up with this:

Heidi only had one maternal cluster and none on the maternal grandmother side. I was unsure about Cluster 4.

Checking Heidi’s Cluster 4

Heidi’s largest match on Cluster 4 was with Sandra:

I associate Chromosome 10 with Hartley-side Massachusetts Colonial DNA matches, but let’s check Heidi’s Chromosome map:

Looks like Heidi has Frazer in that part of her Chromosome 10.

Here is a corrected list:

These Clusters are identified down to the grandparent level. Unfortunately, there are six paternal clusters and one maternal. And only two grandparents are represented.

Brother Jim’s Clusters

I’m having trouble being I’m sure on Heidi’s clusters, so perhaps a look at my brother Jim’s clusters will help.

Jim had one more cluster than my mother. Jim had a whopping 349 clusters that were rejected as there were only two in the cluster. AutoCluster calls these Single Matches.

I was doing alright identifying JIm’s clusters until I got to Cluster 9:

 

I thought that I would use Jim’s Chromosome 15 mapping where he matches Jami from Cluster 9. However, my map for Jim’s Chromosome 15 was erased. I need to create it again. Or I can look at the Blog I wrote on Chromosome 15:

This confirms that Jim has Frazer DNA on his paternal side on all of Chromosome 15.

Now I am half way through:

My method is getting the right grandparent for the DNA group, but not usually finding a common ancestor – especially in the higher numbered clusters.

Here is the full list of clusters identified by grandparent side:

Summary and Conclusions

  • I noted a big difference in the clusters of my sister Heidi compared to my brother Jim.
  • Heidi had a large Cluster 1 which could be considered an over-matching area or an area that is too ‘matchy’.
  • Heidi’s clusters were disappointing with only 2 grandparents represented.
  • I identified Jim’s 27 clusters with the help of my mother’s results. This phased the results by maternal or paternal. This would also work for me at FTDNA, but not at 23andMe as my mother did not test there.
  • I was then able to check Jim’s Chromosome mapping to identify on which grandparent side the matches were on. This map was created with the help of the Fox Visual Phasing Spreadsheet.
  • Identifying beyond the grandparent level was more difficult unless I was familiar with a specific match or mathces within a cluster.
  • The clusters for Jim represent matches on many of his chromosomes

My First MyHeritage AutoCluster Analysis

This is a busy time for genetic genealogists. Companies seem to be competing with each other to get out new products. Genetic Affairs has been a leader in clustering analysis. They perform detailed clusterings for AncestryDNA, FTDNA and 23andMe. Their MyHeritage (MH) cluster analysis is a little different as it is done within MH. One set report is created and the detailed file of the segment information is not sent.

I got 100 people in the clusters. The thresholds were between 30 and 350 cM. The matching threshold for my matches matching each other was set at 20 cM.  These clusters were done in the old way in that the largest clusters were firs and the smallest last. There is no clustering of clusters. A first look at the AutoClustering shows that Clusters 2 and 3 match each other. There is also some affinity between Clusters 2 and 3 and Clusters 7, 9, 11 and 12. Colors now repeat every 12 clusters as opposed to the previous 10.

Identifying MY Clusters

I am familiar with many of the names already and have written Blogs about them. I’m going to first look at the low-hanging fruit and put them into a spreadsheet:

I only found two grandparent (GP) lines. I notice German and Russian names in Cluster 4 which is probably Rathfelder GP.

Splitting Apart Clusters 7 and 17

I have been working on Frazer DNA for a long time. As a result, I may be able to split Clusters 7 and 17, Note that I have the same common ancestor in Clusters 7 and 17. However, that is for Emily and Paul. Gladys has a different common ancestor.

 

This shows that Gladys has no known McMaster ancestor. This means that Cluster 17 should not include McMaster. I don’t think that I know that Cluster 7 is McMaster for sure, but it is more likely McMaster.

Clusters 6 and 16

Clusters 6 and 16 don’t separate as easily:

Ron, Stephen and my family share Clarke and Spratt ancestry. However, at a generation or so further back, we all share McMaster ancestry. It would take finding another common ancestor from someone in one of the clusters to further separate these out. Cluster 16 is interesting because the two other people who match Stephen have their ancestry in England. It is likely that Clarke and/or Spratt had English roots. McMaster was in Ireland for quite a time, so Cluster 16 is not likely a McMaster Cluster.

Red Cluster 1

I can identify Cluster 1 – at least at my GP level. One of the matches is JL. JL shows up when I do a ‘One to Many’ query on my paternally phased kit at Gedmatch:

This corresponds with my Hartley GP Line:

In the past, I have associated this match with my Massachusetts Colonial Heritage. This heritage is through my Snell side:

Here I added England in the notes for Cluster 16 from my previous section. I added Hartley in blue with information back to my Snell and Bradford 2nd great grandparents. Both these 2nd great-grandparents have Massachusetts Colonial ancestors.

I Need a Fourth Grandparent – Maternal Grandmother

Beth is the one I call my anchor DNA match. I have blogged about Beth here.

The other two matches in Cluster 15 have ancestors from England. It would take a bit of sleuthing and research to find the connections.

I now show all four grandparent clusters.

All I have to do is figure out the other clusters.

My Mom’s MyHeritage Theories of Family Relativity

My mom has two Theories of Family Relativity (ToFRs) at MyHeritage (MH). One is on her father’s German/Latvian side and one is on her mother’s Philadelphia side. Let’s take a look.

Mom and Wolf: A German/Latvian Match

My mom’s dad was not Latvian, but was a German who lived in Latvia. I had written a Blog on Wolf here. In that Blog, I had noted many German-Latvian connections, so I was interested to see what MH’s ToFR would show.

For some reason, in my Blog, I had a heading for Biedermann, but under it, I show a connection to Biedenbinder. It looks like I mixed up my Biedermann and Biedenbinder. I did mention problems in the Biedermann line later in my Blog. However, Wolf has two Biedermann Lines and the one above is not the one I mention in my Blog.

Wolf has an impressive tree. The four in the first row are Wolf’s maternal great-grandparents. Anna Biedermann is shown above in the ToFR. The problem with Elisabeth is that she would have been 15 when her son was born. However, I found a possible birth record for Elisabeth that showed she could have been born in 1854.

Do My Records Match with MH Records on Biedermann?

First, it appears that MH agrees with Wolf’s tree – or more likely accepted his tree.

Here is my mother’s tree at MH:

 

In the ToFR, Jacobine Lutke is shown as private for some reason. Then ToFR shows Anna E.J. Biedermann as the mother of Jacobine. I have her as the mother-in-law of Jacobine! Now I don’t feel so bad about mixing up Biedermann and Biedenbinder in my previous Blog.

A Possible Fix for MH

If I see it right, if I replace Jacobine with her husband Philipp Gangnus on my mother’s side of the tree, this should work out.

I have the two common ancestors in my Ancestry Tree, but not in my MH tree, so I will say that I agree with this tree.

A Gladys – Wolf Common Ancestor Summary

I found three common ancestors in my previous Blog and MH found another one (Biedermann):

You have a lot of common ancestors with someone when you need a spreadsheet to keep track of them all. I should note that it is possible that Biedermann is in there twice due to Wolf having two Biedermann Lines. Coincidentally (or not) Wolf matches my Mom at 5 segments at MH:

Three of the five segments are in the 6 cM range.

MH Redeems Itself for My German Latvian Biedermann Ancestor

I had not previously noticed the highlighted hyperlink shown below:

This purple hyperlink leads to Theory 2 which agrees with my orange rendering above. Theory 2 was based on 5 Paths. That just means that 5 trees agreed with Theory 2. There was only 1 Path (or Tree) for Theory 1. I’m not sure why MH didn’t put the 5 Path Theory as Theory 1.  Note to self: Pay attention to purple hyperlinks at MH in the future.

Mom and Annette: The Philadelphia Connection

Let’s hope there are no bumps in the road for this ToFR.

One cool thing I notice is that Gladys and Annette’s mothers were both born in 1900. Another interesting thing is htat Annette’s grandfather is George Washington Slater. On Gladys’ side, Mary Baker was married to George Washington Lentz. It took me a long time and a lot of work to get a last name for my mom’s Mary. I just checked Ancestry and noticed this record that someone posted:

This record gives the name of both of Mary Baker’s parents. I may have already had this record. I have mentioned Annette previously in this Blog.

Summary and Conclusions

  • My mother has two ToFRs. They both proved to be valid.
  • My mother’s German Latvian ToFR appeared to be a problem. That was until I found a hyperlink that showed a more reasonable version of herToFR.
  • The ToFR was helpful as I had missed the Biedermann common ancestors with Wolf the first time I looked at the connection. I was focusing on only one of two of Wolf’s Biedermann Lines.

 

 

My Brother’s MyHeritage Theory of Family Relativity Leads to Lancashire

I am finding MyHeritage’s Theory of Family Relativity interesting. I looked at a few of “Theories” in a previous Blog, and will now look at my brother Jim’s. My brother JIm has six matches under MyHeritage’s (MH’s) Theory program. Three are ones that I have. Of those three two are mother and daughter. The three matches that Jim has that I don’t have all appear to be related to each other also.

Jim and Marcus at MH

Here is how MH shows Jim and Marcus’ merged trees:

Unfortunately, these two trees don’t seem to match well. How could Mary Pilling and Betty Wilkinson be sisters? When I look at MH’s full Theory, I see this:

Marcus shows Mary Pilling in his tree, but I don’t know how she is connected and I see no parents listed for Mary in Marcus’ tree.

Jim and Marcus: the DNA

I’ll look at Jim and Marcus’ DNA and then get back to the genealogy. Jim’s best match with Marcus is on Chromosome 1 shown in yellow below and circled:

Jim and Marcus also triangulate with Stanley who is from Great Britain and shows as the red match. Marcus is from Australia.

This Chromosome map below shows that Jim has Hartley DNA in the part of Chromosome 1 where he matches Marcus:

When I look at Jim’s match spreadsheet, I find that Marcus also appears at Ancestry, FTDNA and Gedmatch. I have been in touch with Marcus at Ancestry, though it is difficult to retrieve old messages there. Marcus wrote me in 2017:

I have a James Moorhouse born Bacup c1830, son of John Moorehouse and Betty Wilkinson. While the names are shared, I can’t make the connection fit correctly. I would love to identify this MRCA. cheers Marcus

Building a Tree for Stanley

Stanley, Marcus and Jim triangulate meaning that those three should have a common ancestor somewhere. So I’ll try building out Stanley’s tree to see if there is a connection. Here is Stanley’s tree:

Here is my version:

Ancestry has a lot of hints, but I am wary of Ancestry’s hints. Here is the family in 1939:

The family was living with a daughter, but I didn’t include her for possible privacy reasons. The family was in Stainforth. That leads me to the 1901 Census:

Here is Thomas as part of a large family in Stainforth, living on a farm. Here is Stainforth:

I am trying to make a connection to my Lancashire ancestors from Colne or Bacup. Muriel was born further North in Westmoreland, so I’ll stick to the Towler side for now. As I build out Stanley’s paternal side, I get this:

Somehow Nancy Berry pops up from all the Yorkshire ancestors as being from Colne. I also see a Wilkonson, but she is living in Yorkshire. I’m not too excited about the Wilkinson name as I don’t descend from the Wilkinson family. My Pilling ancestor married a Hartley, then a Wilkinson, so Wilkinsons were half siblings to my Hartley ancestors.

I don’t think Nancy died in 1825, because I see this entry in Giggleswick, Yorkshire:

Let’s not bury her yet.

Here is Nancy in 1841 when her husband was still alive:

The 1841 Census taker has Nancy born in Yorkshire which is apparently wrong.

Two Nancy Berry’s at Colne Parish

Noyna End is to the East of Foulridge. Great Marsden is to the West of Trawden.

Now that I’ve shown that Stanley’s tree goes back to Colne, can I show the same for Marcus’ tree?

Looking at Marcus’ Tree

I followed Marcus’ tree out to where it appeared the match with my family should be. There was a sticky point at Walter Humphreys. Ancestry wanted me to add a different father named Snook. However, I went with Marcus’ tree:

Here is information from one of the Ancestry Snook trees:

There must be some sort of Snook/Moorehouse debate going on somewhere.

James Moorehouse (1830-1886)

I’m still getting Snook suggestions for the parents of James Moorehouse, so I’ll take a look at James on my own.  Marcus has him born in Bacap, which I believe should be Bacup as that is where some of my ancestors came from.  Using the Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerks, I find this:

The only difference is in the Moorehouse/Moorhouse spelling. This appears to be James’ parents’ marriage record:

Here is the family in 1841 living at ‘Lower Crossrow’:

Lower Crossrow appears to be a location in Bacup.

Betty Wilkinson

I have Ancestry hints for the parents of Marcus’ Betty Wilson:

and:

I’m not sure about the Moses Wilkinson from Tynemouth. This would be quite far from Trawden.

Here is what I have at my Willkinson web page:

The biggest problem with merging these two trees is that I show Betty marrying Robert Stansfield. Here is the marriage of Betty Wilkinson and Robert:

Here is a marriage for Moses Wilkinson and Jane Shaw:

This could be Jane’s baptism:

If this is the right person, she would have been baptized at a rather obscure Inghamite Church in Winewall which was part of Trawden. This is where my Hartley ancestors were from. So, nobody sneeze as this is quite the house of cards!

This is probably John and Jane:

More on Marcus’ Betty Wilkinson

There is one record that would indicate that Marcus’ Betty was from Bacup and not Trawden. The marriage record from St. Nicholas, Newchurch in Rossendale states that both bride and groom were “…in this Chapelry”.

The 1851 Census would have been helpful, but it appears that Betty had died by this time. John Moorhouse, said to be born in Burnley is a widow at this time. Although there is a connection between Trawden and Bacup for my Hartley ancestors and their half sibling Wilkinson not too long before the 1851 Census, there is no reason to believe that Betty Wilkinson would have moved from Trawden to Bacup before her supposed marriage to Moorehouse in 1820.

Assuming that Betty was from the Newchurch Chapelry, this could be her birth record:

It would have been customary for Betty to name her second son after her father. That could have been the case with her second son George:

According to Google Maps, here is Heap Clough to the West of Bacup and Haslingden:

Here is an older map:

I have also circled Goodshaw where another of my ancestors (Emmet) was born:

I note that my ancestors Edmund/Emmot and Mary Omerod married at St. James. This is the same place as I have the probable baptism of Betty Wilkinson about 45 years later.

Following Up On Betty Wilkinson of Haslingden

Here is a candidate for Marcus’ potential ancestors:

This could be the same George:

That would put George at just under 20 at the time he married. I think that Grain is Haslingden Grane. Grane looks to be across the street from Heap Clough:

Here is my guess for Mary Duckworth:

However, there was another Mary Duckworth born less than a year before this in the same Church. I’m guessing Heap Clough is right. Here are the likely parents:

I’m starting to get a tree for Betty Wilkinson:

I have two choices for Jonathan Duckworth:

Grane sounds familiar.

Here is the marriage for George and Betty Haworth:

A Haworth/Howorth Connection?

I have Howorth ancestors from the Bacup area.

I’ve already mentioned Edmund Emmet. James Howorth is shown above also. Another interesting thing is that Ancestry is suggesting this mother for George Wilkinson:

This is just about outside the reach of DNA matches. The Ancestry hint could correspond with this birth:

And this marriage:

 

So Where Am I?

  1. My brother Jim, Marcus and Stanley triangulate with their DNA matches. That means that they likely have a common ancestor. However, it may go back quite a way.
  2. I took Stanley’s tree back to a Nancy Berry. There were two Nancy Berry’s baptized in the Colne Parish Church around the time of Stanley’s Nancy in the 1770’s.
  3. I looked at Marcus’ genealogy tree and see that he had a Betty Wilkinson who could be the Betty Wilkinson I have at my Wilkinson website. However, this Betty would not be my direct descendant. My direct descendant married Betty’s brother Robert after my male direct descendant died.
  4. I decided that Marcus’ Betty Wilkinson was more likely a native of the Bacup area. I found a Betty Wilkinson from Heap Clough to the West of Haslingden.
  5. I traced Betty’s lineage back as well as I could. Heap Clough is not too far where some of my Emmet ancestors were from. I also found a Haworth and Howorth. I descend from Howorth in Bacup. I have not found where they lived before Bacup.
  6. So while I favor a Bacup area connection between Marcus’s family and mine, that doesn’t account for how Stanley ties in. As I guessed, it is likely far back – as in the late 1600’s or early 1700’s.

Summary and Conclusions

  • MH’s new Theory of Family Relativity resulted in my taking a fresh look at a DNA match who had a good tree.
  • It is still a bit unclear to me how MH’s Theory made Mary Pilling and Betty Wilkinson look like sisters given the trees I have seen.
  • As with many other genetic genealogy problems, I feel I am getting closer to a breakthrough, but I don’t quite get there.
  • I would say that the new information is that I have brought in a third person whose DNA triangulates with mine and Marcus’. His name is Stanley. Our three genealogical lines appeared to converge on Colne Parish in the mid- 1700’s, but as always, there are uncertainties.
  • A more likely candidate for Marcus’ Betty is Betty Wilkinson of Heap Clough, Haslingden of the St. James Parish. If I brought her ancestry back correctly, she has Haworth and Howorth ancestry. It is possible that one or both of these families are related to my Howorth ancestors.

 

 

 

Checking Out a New Frazer ThruLine Match at AncestryDNA

Since the new ThruLine program came out, I have taken a look at some of the hints there.

Hey, look. There is my head with ancestor lines going through it.

My Ancestor, Michael Frazer?

I have been working on a Frazer DNA project for about 4 years now and have not created a connection with Michael Frazer that I can vefify. I am related to many Frazers on two different lines starting in the early 1700’s. Those two main lines are Archibald Frazer and James Frazer. I am related to many on the Archibald Line. I am also related by DNA more distantly to the James Line, but I have been unable to figure out the exact connection. I can get about this far:

This line goes through my Frazer side to my McMaster side and then back to Margaret Frazer at the top. My notes have William McMaster and Margaret Frazer marrying in 1813, so I’ll say she was born around 1792.

 The ThruLine Connection Was

My original connection looked like this:

This showed me matching through Susan up to Michael Frazer. Now I can’t find Susan as she has disappeared as my ThruLines connection to Michael Frazer. I wonder if she will re-appear. Perhaps ThruLines is still in flux or Susan changed her tree. The interesting thing about the connection was that Susan’s tree stopped at James Hazard and mine stopped at Margaret Frazer, but somehow Ancestry made the connection to Michael Frazer at the top.

Now my connection to Michael Frazer looks like this:

 

Now I’m connected through Keith and at one level lower in our connected family tree. Keith also lacks Michael Frazer in his tree, so how was the connection made?

More On Michael Frazer Trees

When I go to Michael Frazer on my tree, I see some hints. One of those hints leads to Joanna’s tree – among many other trees. Joanna has this:

Joanna shows Margaret Frazer as daughter of Michael Frazer and Margaret Stewart and married to William McMaster. Joanna also mentions a Marriage in 1813. However, how the connection was made between Margaret Frazer and Michael Frazer is unclear. My guess is that Ancestry grabbed Joanna’s tree and applied it to me. I asked Joanna if this was an educated guess on her part and that seems to be the case.

Looking for Susan

I was able to find Susan by searching by her last name. Here is the tree that Susan has:

The names of Johnston and Hazzard sound familiar in Frazer genealogy. However, I am having some problems getting past James Hazard or Hazzard or Hassard before 1877.

My Sister’s Connection to Michael Frazer

I note that my sister Heidi also has a connection to Michael Frazer:

Here Richard is showing as descending from Patrick – a different son of Michael. Here is Richard’s tree:

Richard’s tree stops with his paternal great-grandmother Daisy Belle Frazer. However the connection above shows more:

The note under George H Frazer says that he is from lulu’s tree. That means that ThruLines takes the DNA match between Heidi and Richard and applies lulu’s tree to Richard to make the connection.

Summary of Michael Frazer and ThruLines

  • I found an interesting connection between Susan and myself that lead up to Michael Frazer.
  • This initial ThruLine connection disappeared
  • I was unable to easily recreate the connection that Susan had to Michael Frazer
  • It looks like Ancestry pulled my connection to Michael Frazer from a tree by Joanna. She made an educated guess that Margaret Frazer was the daughter of Michael Frazer in hopes that she would find connections to other trees.
  • I checked my sister Heidi and she had a connection to Michael Frazer through Michael’s child Patrick down to Richard. It was easier to see how Richard was connected to Michael Frazer via a tree from lulu.

It would seem that ThruLines has given more support to Joanna’s educated guess that my ancestor Margaret Frazer’s father was Michael Frazer. However, my match with Susan showed that she had a genealogical connection to Michael as originally shown by Thrulines. If this original connection between Susan and Michael Frazer could have been shown to be true, then this would have created a sort of triangulation between myself, Susan and Richard and provided more evidence that Margaret was the daughter of Michael Frazer. In order to give even more proof, I would then need to show that I did not have DNA connections to descendants of Archibald Frazer and Catherine Peyton:

I think that this may be difficult to show.

The other question is: what if Joanna had attached Margaret Frazer to Archibald Frazer above? Would that then show that I am related to people who descend from Archibald Frazer and Catherine Peyton? In fact, that has been my most previous thinking as I have myself that way in proposed tree:

Part of the reasoning the the tree above is that I have matches to the other green McPartland group. However, what if the McPartland group belongs under the Michael Line? At some time, I should learn how to used the DNA method called What Are the Odds? (WATO) and see if that sheds any light on the subject.