Following the clues

Shortly before GeneticAffairs was asked to stop offering the AutoCluster analyses that employed Ancestry data, I ran Greg’s AncestryDNA matches through their autoclustering tool. AncestryDNA allows you to gather the same information, but I and many other users found the organisation and visual presentation offered by GeneticAffairs very useful.

I was looking at one of the smaller clusters – cluster 21 on the chart – and the associated notes, when I noticed that there was a small family tree of 22 people attached to one of the matches. Looking at the tree I noticed the Bell surname, which matched what I knew of the rest of the cluster. There was also a match with the Darby surname. Although I did not recognise Henrietta, the Darby surname did seem to fit the tree of the other shared matches where I did know how we are related, namely the trees of my Sullivan cousins.

small tree from Greg’s DNA match with a clue linking the match to the Darby family

This was exciting. Perhaps I had found a link to the elusive John Narroway Darby who I wrote about earlier this year.

I contacted Greg’s second cousin LB on Facebook to share the discovery, saying, “I have had a look at the tree [of SK]. She has a Bell marrying a Darby. Her tree has no details but I ran Vic BDM and found two births and the marriage.”

I dithered a little but decided to order the marriage certificate. The image of a Victorian historical certificate costs $20, not cheap, but there’s only so much you can do with just indexes.

1868 marriage James Bell and Henrietta Darby

It was indeed our family. At Creswick on 4 October 1868 Creswick James Bell, a miner, aged 22, married Henrietta Bell, no occupation, aged 24. Both were living at Creswick. They were married by a Wesleyan minister. The witnesses were Alexander and Agnes Pavina [I am not completely confident I am reading this correctly]. Henrietta said she was born in County Down, Ireland and her parents were John N Darby Compositor and Matilda Mograge.

I didn’t have Henrietta on our tree. If she was 24 in 1868 then she was born in about 1844.

I believe she is the child born in New Zealand, one of the two children of John Darby and his wife recorded on the shipping list of the Sir John Franklin, which left Auckland on 12 April 1845 and reached Hobart after what was described as ‘a tedious voyage of 25 days’. The other child was Matilda, who was baptised in Hobart in November 1845. She was born on 14 March 1845, less than a month before they set sail.

shipping list Sir John Franklin 12 April 1845

I had previously found no other record for the other child of John and Matilda Darby and had assumed it had died young.

I do not know why Henrieta said she was born in Ireland. Her parents were from Exeter, England and I am reasonably confident (if she recorded her age correctly) that she was born in New Zealand. Otherwise she was born in Australia. I ordered her death certificate which said she was born in Geelong and had lived all her life in Victoria. In 1896 her age was given as 47, which means she was born about 1849.

1896 death certificate Henrietta Bell

When John Darby married Catherine Murphy in Portland in 1855 he stated that his wife was dead and that he was the father of two children, one of whom had died. In fact, his wife Matilda was still alive and his second marriage was bigamous. I had assumed the living child was his daughter Matilda and that the unnamed child on the voyage had died. I now think that when John and Matilda Darby separated they kept a child each. Matilda junior stayed with her mother and Henrietta remained with her father, hence her knowledge of his name and occupation when she married. Her sister Matilda did not know her father’s name when she married William Sullivan in 1862.

Name John Darby Spouse Name Catherine Murphy Registration Place Victoria Registration Year 1855 Registration Number 2765

Henrietta and James Bell had five children before James’s untimely death
in 1884:

• Annie Jane Bell 1872–1918
• Agnes Estella Bell 1875–1961
• Catherine Elizabeth Bell 1878–1929
• James Henry William Bell 1879–1928
• Francis Sinclair Bell 1881–1935

Greg and his cousins share DNA with descendants of Annie and James Henry.

There were several Bell families in Creswick. The family trees I have looked at have different parents and a different death date for James Henry Bell, whose birth was registered as James William Bell. To confirm my suspicion that he was indeed related to Henrietta Darby I ordered his death certificate, and yes, James Henry Bell who in 1904 married Edith Jane Hocking (1884 – 1963) was indeed the son of James Bell and Henrietta nee Darby. I was thus able to resolve several more DNA matches that had puzzled me for some years. James Henry and Edith had seven children. He served in World War I, was wounded and was a prisoner of war.

1928 death certificate James Henry Bell

Yesterday we visited Creswick Cemetery and Long Point. Henrietta and James Bell’s grave is unmarked. Long Point, where they lived, is a pretty area of bushland next to a small settlement just outside Creswick.

Creswick Cemetery Methodist section row 13

Long Point bushland reserve near Creswick

There are still unanswered questions about what became of John Narroway Darby and what Henrietta did before her marriage and how she came to be in Creswick.

I am pleased to have learned a little more about the family though. It’s fun to follow through the clues.

Related posts

• Poor little chap
• Triangulating Matilda’s DNA
• John Narroway Darby
• DNA: experimenting with reports from GeneticAffairs.com

Tree progress March 2020

In May 2018 I calculated a simple index of my family tree’s so-called ‘completedness’: how many of my forebears could I name?

I was especially interested in the number of forebears I could name in the previous ten generations, that is, up to and including seventh great grandparents. The possible maximum, if you include yourself, is 1,023 individuals. [Cousins sometimes marry, so there might be duplicates, which in practice could reduce the actual number considerably.]

Looking at our tree from our children’s perspective the figure was then 31%, 319 of the possible 1,023 forebears.

In July 2019 Dnapainter.com introduced a tree function to generate trees and calculate tree completedness. This tree function can also be be used to mark ancestors shared with genetic cousins.

As of 31 March 2020 my tree shows 344 of the possible 1023 forebears, 25 more. This just is 33.6%, slow progress of 2% over nearly two years.

Direct ancestors whose names I know are coloured; blanks represent those whose names are unknown to me.

These numbers of course don’t show all we’ve learned about our forebears and their relatives. I have done a great amount of research about the lives of people in our tree. Moreover, our family tree including indirect relatives has grown by almost half again, from around 6,000 people to 10,481 people.

The large increase is mainly due to my adding genetic cousins to the tree, among these many descendants of my forebears. I try to verify all connections. Our tree on ancestry.com now includes 16,099 records, 2,109 images, and 289 stories.

Not all of the forebears in our tree have associated genetic cousins. Some cousins have not tested their DNA. Some have tested but I have been unable to verify the connection.

Even for the cousins where I have found a connection, the shared DNA is not necessarily attributable to a particular ancestor. [There are ways of developing confidence about these attributions, some of which I described in my account of the triangulation technique I used to verify that Matilda Sullivan formerly Hughes née Darby was the mother of Henry Sullivan.

I have made the least progress on my German forebears. My mother very kindly submitted her DNA for analysis, but dissappointly, I have made no connections through her DNA. She has very few cousins and they are not close: her father was an only child, and her mother’s siblings had no children. DNA testing is not popular in Germany. On the AncestryDNA site my mother has only 27 4th cousins or closer and 12,882 matches in total; her closest match shares only 50 centimorgans. By contrast my father has 358 matches of 4th cousin or closer, his closest match shares 570 centimorgans, and he has a total of 43,912 matches on the AncestryDNA website. My suave and handsome husband Greg (editor of this online research journal) has 320 matches that are 4th cousin or closer, his closest match shares 1003 centimorgans, and he has a total of 31,875 matches on the AncestryDNA website.

On the MyHeritage website my mother has 2,035 DNA matches and her closest match shares 39 centimorgans. My father has 10,244 matches and shares 777 centimorgans with his closest match. Greg has 5,976 matches and his closest match shares 1,035 centimorgans of DNA.

On Greg’s side of the family – the left hand side of the fan – I have still to make progress on his Young, Cross, Sullivan and Morley forebears.

There is still lots of work to be done in identifying the relationships with genetic cousins, building the tree, and filling in the family history.

Related posts

• Progress on my tree
• creating trees in DNA Painter
• Triangulating Matilda’s DNA
• ‘ethnicity’ DNA: beware of inheritance from daughter to mother

 

Cornish Emigrants GEDMatch Project revisited

A Facebook group for researching shared Cornish ancestry

Three months ago, on 16 August, I wrote a short blog post about a new Facebook group called ‘Cornish Emigrants – GEDmatch Ancestor Project’. Since then the group has grown rapidly, to 599 kits on GEDMatch and 292 members on Facebook.

The aim of the group is to help people research their Cornish family history. To get the most from it, you should already have some well-based knowledge about your Cornish ancestors. If you join only because your DNA tests report likely Cornish ancestry you will probably find that it won’t help you much. You need to have done some research about your Cornish connection.

You can join through Facebook or directly from GEDMatch. On Facebook you give your GEDMatch number and information about your Cornish roots.

The group spreadsheet lists the kits of those who have joined, in kit number order, with details – where these are known – of Facebook name, Ancestry.com username, and Cornish surnames associated with the kit.

The first step is to log on to GEDMatch and go to the Ancestor Projects page. Run the report with your kit number. I usually do this with matches > 10 centimorgans (cM). The default setting is > 7 cM, but this can produce matches where the relationship is too distant to trace or where the shared DNA is not genealogically significant.

The GEDMatch home page showing the reports I most frequently run: orange arrow is Ancestor Projects; blue arrow is One-to-One Autosomal DNA Comparison; green arrow is People who match both, or 1 of 2 kits

 

 

 

You then take a screenshot of the report and post it to the Facebook group. If you find correspondences between people in your tree and in the trees of other people in the group, you tag your matches in the post. This you do by typing the @ symbol in the post and then start typing the name. You then choose from the people who pop up in the list. You add the screenshot to your post by selecting the green picture icon shown at the bottom of the screen.

Not all matches from the Cornish Emigrants Ancestor GEDMatch group are on Facebook, for some people join from GEDMatch directly. You will have to email these matches yourself.

To get the most out of trying to connect with others, it is a good idea to upload your tree to GEDMatch. If you find correspondences it will be worth looking at the trees of the people where your matches occur. The tree icon on the GEDMatch report shows if your match has uploaded a tree to GEDMatch.

If the match is a Cornish Emigrants match, I look at any Cornish ancestry in both trees. The connection, of course, might be from some other part of our familys’ ancestries, not necessarily Cornish and/or not displayed on these trees.

I also look at DNA Painter to see if the shared segment is one I have already painted and for whom I have identified an ancestor. This might give me a clue as to where our connection occurs.

Example of the detail from DNAPainter looking at segments already identified associated with particular ancestors

 

I run the GEDMatch report of people who match both kits, and look to identify shared matches where I know the connection. (See screenshot above of GEDMatch home page and report identified with green arrow.)

GEDMatch of report of both kits. If I can identify a shared match then I start to have an idea about where on my family tree I should be looking for common ancestors with the other kit.

 

If my match and I both tested through AncestryDNA then I use the tools on that site to explore the connection, if there is one, between our family trees and to review our shared matches. I also do this with FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage. The different sites have different tools, but all of them allow you to review shared matches and family trees
that have been uploaded.

Recommending DNA tests

Last week I met one of my cousins, N., for the first time. He is interested in family history and, among other things, we talked about autosomal DNA testing.

A genealogical DNA test examines the nucleotides – the building blocks of DNA and RNA – at specific locations on a person’s DNA.

An autosomal DNA test looks at the 22 pairs of chromosomes that are not sex chromosomes (the X chromosome and the Y chromosome are sex chromosomes). These 22 chromosomes are known as autosomes. Autosomal DNA tests can be used to find cousins, and this often helps geneological research.

N.’s brother has already taken a test with AncestryDNA. We talked about whether it would it be better to take a test with another company and how much DNA might he and his brother share.

My recommendation is to test at AncestryDNA. N. and his brother will share close cousin matches but will also share different matches with more distant cousins.

AncestryDNA has by far the largest number of users. In May 2019 it had 15 million kits in its database.

The second largest database is 23andMe, with more than 10 million people in April 2019. It is an expensive test for Australians, however, as shipping costs are $40 US per kit. As a result there are fewer Australian participants. I have not tested with 23andMe.

FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA) is one of the smaller databases. It is estimated to have about 1 million kits in its database. It is not marketed as aggressively as the other companies. However, with FTDNA, you can test not only autosomal DNA but also Y-DNA and maternal DNA, and so you are able to trace your direct paternal line and your direct maternal line further generations back. You can also transfer your DNA data from other
testing companies to join the database.

MyHeritage is a newer testing service. It allows people to transfer their DNA data into the MyHeritage database. In May 2019 it had about 3 million kits in May 2019.

Another service is GEDMatch. It is not a testing site but you can transfer your DNA data there and compare data and find matches with people who have tested at other companies. In May 2019 GEDMatch had about 1.2 million participants.

AncestryDNA does not allow users to transfer data into its database. To participate you have to test at its site.

Given this variety of testing and analysis services, I recommend testing at AncestryDNA and uploading your DNA data to FTDNA, MyHeritage and GEDMatch. A small fee at each of these separate sites can unlock some more advanced analysis tools.

If N. is interested in pursuing his paternal and maternal genealogy he would probably also be interested in testing at FamilyTreeDNA and taking their two additional tests for Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA.

Your siblings have inherited part of your parents’ DNA that you don’t carry. There is some overlap with your DNA. You would expect siblings to share about 50% of their DNA. In fact there is some variation. Siblings have been found to share 2209 to 3384 centimorgans of 6800 possible centimorgans, from 33% to just under 50%.

Schematic representation of the transmission of the autosomes of the grandparents to three siblings. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons, diagram created by Jordi picart – Own work, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

It has been estimated that up to 10% of third cousins and up to 50% of 4th cousins will not share enough DNA to show up as match. (Third cousins share great great grandparents and 4th cousins share 3rd great grandparents.)

Having your siblings’ DNA analysed will increase your chances of finding cousin matches. This will probably help you to make progress with your family history.

Sources

• International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki
  • Genealogical DNA test
  • Autosomal DNA statistics
  • Cousin statistics
• Larkin, Leah. “Genealogical Database Growth Slows.” The DNA Geek, Leah Larkin, 22 June 2019, thednageek.com/genealogical-database-growth-slows/.
• Bettinger, Blaine. “August 2017 Update to the Shared CM Project.” The Genetic Genealogist, Blaine Bettinger, 26 Aug. 2017, thegeneticgenealogist.com/2017/08/26/august-2017-update-to-the-shared-cm-project/.
• DNA Painter: The Shared cM Project 3.0 tool v4

‘ethnicity’ DNA: beware of inheritance from daughter to mother

In 2016 I had my DNA analysed by AncestryDNA. In the three years since, all the genetic matches I have been able associate with known people are on my father’s side.

Recently I persuaded my mother to have her DNA analysed in the hope of learning more about my German forebears and to help connect with the relatives who sent my great grand parents the CARE package my mother remembers. (See Sweetened condensed care.)

My mother has few cousins and, it seems, German people in general are reluctant to offer up their DNA for testing. Apart from me, my mother has only 25 cousins who are estimated to be 4th to 6th cousin or closer, and her closest match on AncestryDNA shares 50 centimorgans of DNA (quite possibly a 6th cousin sharing 5th great grandparents). Her closest match on MyHeritage shares only 38 centimorgans. I have contacted several of these genetic cousins but I have not been able to establish our most common recent ancestor for any of them.

For the moment the only DNA match of my mother’s that I can associate with a known person is me.

AncestryDNA cannot recognise from the amount of DNA we share which of us is mother and which is daughter. It shows we share 3,405 centimorgans and that it is 100% confident that the relationship is that of parent and child.

Apart from telling you that you share DNA with cousins, AncestryDNA provides ethnicity estimates. I have always taken these with a grain of salt. They’re not meaningful. I last wrote about this in 2017 (Looking at my ethnicity as determined by DNA testing) where I noted an apparent underestimate of my German ethnicity. Then I had 100% European:

• 59% from Great Britain, which includes England, Scotland, Wales and
  the Isle of Man
• 20% Europe East
• 12% from Ireland
• 4% from Finland / North-west Russia
• 2% from Europe-West
• 2% from Italy/Greece
• <1% from the Iberian peninsula

Ancestry’s more recent estimate is this:

• England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 65%
• Germanic Europe 25%
• Ireland & Scotland 10%
• Additional Communities: Southern Australia British Settlers – From your regions: England, Wales & Northwestern Europe; Ireland & Scotland -> Adelaide, South Australia British Settlers

So I have dropped Italy and Spain, and I have a new grouping linking me to my Australian forebears.

On my father’s side, five of my great great grandparents were born in Australia. I have connected with cousins who are also descended from these great great grandparents. The grouping makes sense.

On my mother’s side of the family all eight of my great great grandparents were born in what is now Germany, five in Brandenburg, two in Baden-Württemberg and one in Schleswig-Holstein. Based on their occupations, surnames, and religion, I have no reason to believe their immediate ancestors were from other parts of Europe.

My mother’s ethnicity reported by AncestryDNA is

• Germanic Europe 69%
• England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 17%
• Sweden 6%
• Ireland & Scotland 2%
• Norway 2%
• France 2%
• Eastern Europe & Russia 2%

The estimates looks credible as they are all European. However, AncestryDNA reports that my mother has “Additional Communities: Southern Australia British Settlers”!

My mother’s DNA results summary report from AncestryDNA in October 2019

 

AncestryDNA states about this community:

You, and all the members of this community, are linked through shared ancestors. You probably have family who lived in this area for years—and maybe still do.
…
The more specific places within this region where your family was likely from: Adelaide, South Australia British Settlers

It would seem that the Additional Communities derive from my DNA relationship with my mother. Since I belong to these communities from my father’s forebears, it appears that the DNA ethnicity estimates have been transferred by marriage!

[When I attempted to explain this to him, my husband joked that it used to be said that after a while your wife seems to turn into her mother. AncestryDNA, however, has found a way of reversing the process. By counting half her husband’s DNA as her own, AncestryDNA is able to turn a woman’s mother into her daughter. The unfortunate husband, however, now finds that he’s copped his daughter for a mother-in-law, an arrangement no improvement over the earlier one]

I’ve bought the lederhosen. What next? Connecting with genetic cousins through Facebook

So you spat in the bottle and sent it off to Ancestry.com. The results give some credibility your claim that you’re part German and you rush off to buy the lederhosen or the dirndl skirt.

What next?

Well, Facebook has groups of people interested in researching aspects of their family history using a DNA analysis tool called Matchbox. Matchbox makes it possible to contact other researchers interested in overlapping ancestral lines. Join the right group and you might be able to contact someone who shares DNA with you who is also trying to find out about your fifth great-grandfather, for example.

Using these groups you can focus your DNA research more carefully, because you can collaborate with cousins who believe they have links to a particular geographic area, surname or some other commonality.

I found fifteen such groups that I’m interested in.

Group and Number of members as at 27 September 2019

• Australia DNA Matching 427
• British Gedmatch DNA Group 3288
• Cornish Emigrants – GEDmatch Ancestor Project 235
• Devon Ancestry Gedmatch Project 178
• Devon and Cornwall DNA Genealogy 336
• Germany DNA Project (incl. all German language areas: Austria, Poland etc.) 1907
• Irish Australian DNA Matchfinder 199
• New England DNA /Gedmatch Project 271
• Scottish DNA – Our DNA and Genealogy 331
• Scottish DNA (Matchbox Tool) 3276
• Staffordshire Shropshire & Derbyshire Counties DNA Matchfinder 179
• Sullivan/O’Sullivan Dna & Genealogy 1631
• The Irish DNA Registry 8461
• THE SCOTTISH SURNAME REGISTRY Plus the New DNA Family Finder Database 6291
• Victorian Gold Rush – GEDmatch Ancestor Project 81

Some are big, with over 8000 members. Some are small, with less than 100. There were several Scottish groups and several Devon groups. However, group membership did not seem to overlap to any great extent. For example each of the Scottish groups produced different matches.

Running the matchbox tool is quite straightforward. You take your Ancestry DNA result (or result from another company) and upload it to GEDMatch. You receive a GEDMatch kit number. Then, when you ask to join the Facebook group, you give the kit number. It’s added to a database of members. The Matchbox tool looks at the database of members and GEDMatch and produces a report of those people in the group with whom you share DNA. (Different groups have slightly different reports.)

Each of the groups have instructions for how to add your GEDMatch number and how to link to the Matchbox tool. When you click on the link for the tool You will be invited to make a copy of the appropriate spreadsheet to run the tool.

The instructions for running the tool are on the first sheet of the spreadsheet. If you are not certain your GEDMatch kit is in the database you can click on the second tab at the bottom and check.

Next you need to log on to GEDMatch. On your home screen click on your kit number. A one-to-many results page will come up. (Note later we will come back to this Home page to run the report for “People who match both, or 1 of 2 kits” indicated by the green arrow on the lower right hand side of the screen.

The GEDMatch One to Many Report contains 3000 matches, one line per match. You need to click Ctrl A (Cmd A for a Mac), followed by Ctrl C to copy the whole GedMatch screen.You then go back to your copy of the Matchbox spreadsheet on the first sheet, do not click anywhere –  just paste by pressing Ctrl V (or Cmd V). The macros on the spreadsheet work away to combine details in the group database with your DNA matches identified in GEDMatch.

A new tab called Matches will open automatically. You will be able to see your matches in the group and using the Facebook name then tag your matches to start a conversation. Often you are encouraged to post a screenshot of your match results and tag your matches.

What do I do with my matches when I’ve found them?

To see how I connect with a match, I first find the match in the one-to-many list on GEDMatch, finding a kit number by using Ctrl + F.

If you click on the underlined A beside the kit number you’ll bring up the GEDMatch One-to-one Autosomal Comparison Entry Form. I usually view by position only.

I change the selection to “position only” to run this report but do not change the other default settings

I am interested in the chromosome that I share with the match and the position of the segment on that chromosome.

Then I check my chromosome map on DNAPainter to see if I have already mapped this area to an ancestor. In this case I have mapped both maternal and paternal segments, but only to the great-grandparent level using matches with my father’s paternal cousin and a maternal cousin one times removed, known as FS. My father’s paternal cousin is not on GedMatch but FS, the maternal cousin, is. If it is a maternal match I am hoping she will show up as a shared match when I run the GEDMatch tool called  people-who-match-both-kits, or-1-of-2-kits (see the link on the GEDMatch home page highlighted by the green arrow in the screenshot above).

Part of the DNA Painter profile showing the relevant chromosome

Again I don’t change the defaults when I run this report

Cousin FS did indeed show up among the 33 matches. 33 matches is a lot but still probably genealogically significant. I conclude that the match I identify as JW and found through the Scottish DNA (Matchbox Tool) matches my father’s mother’s ancestry.

Since discovering each other through the Matchbox tool JW and I have started to correspond and we have exchanged AncestryDNA ids. I found the match on the Ancestry.com DNA database. JW has an excellent tree and there are lots of surnames highlighted in green on her tree, showing surnames that we have in common.

As well as looking at the tree I am interested in looking at shared matches.

Scrolling down our DNA match page I can see that we share five surnames appearing in both our trees: Bain (7 people), Budge (8 people), Gunn (7 people), Miller (12 people), and Murray (5 people).

From place of birth information I can see that both trees have ancestors born in Caithness. Filtering by tree, JW’s tree is predominantly Scottish whereas my father’s tree is all over the UK and into France.

Looking at shared matches, JW does not show up as a shared match of my cousin FS, but does show up as a shared match of CW, a 2nd cousin of my father, who descends from James Francis Cudmore (1837 – 1912) and Margaret Cudmore nee Budge (1845 – 1912). Margaret was born in Wick, Caithness, and her forebears include Budge, Gunn, Bain.

There are 2 other shared matches with JW on Ancestry. MEB shares 26 cM, has an unlinked tree and I had already noted “Cudmore Gunn Budge connection based on shared matches”. OM shares 21 cM and has no tree.

MEB’s trees are too small for me to make any links. Looking at her shared matches, she shares DNA with EB, a second cousin once removed who is also descended from JF Cudmore and Margaret Cudmore nee Budge.

OM shares DNA with my father and SB who have a ThruLine connection *LINK* showing 4th cousinship and common ancestry through Donald Gunn and Alexandrina Manson. OM also shares DNA with another match, GS. GS has no tree but shares DNA with my father and EB and also with SB.

A possible link that JW pointed out is her “4th grt grandparents, William Budge b.~1731, Wick married Charlotte Bain b. 7/11/1736, Keiss. Their son, William Budge b.~1772, Keiss married Isabella Manson b. 20/7/1775, Freswick, Canisbay, daughter of John Manson b.10/11/1750, Canisbay and Jean Bain b~1750. “

I noticed JW’s tree includes a Donald Budge born 1765 son of William Budge and Charlotte Bain, JW’s 4th great grandparents. This could quite possibly be the Donald Budge mentioned as the father of Kenneth Budge, my father’s great great grandfather, who died at sea in August 1852 and was reported to be the  “son of the late Mr Donald Budge, shipmaster, Wick.”

from JW’s tree – perhaps Donald Budge born 1765 is the forebear I am looking for

There is more research to do before we decide that this is indeed the DNA connection. JW shares many surnames in common and we need some documentary evidence to link Donald Budge in JW’s tree to Donald Budge, father of Kenneth in my tree.

If JW and my father share 4th great grandparents this means they would be 5th cousins. JW and my father share 26.9 centimorgans according to GEDMatch and 13 centimorgans according to Ancestry; both amounts fit well within the expected range for 5th cousins.

The Shared cM Project tool accessed through DNAPainter.com

Finding genetic cousins through Facebook groups gives one a chance to connect with cousins who not only share DNA but also share your enthusiasm for tracking down how you are related. It gives one a chance to extend the tree and learn something about more distant forebears.

Me in a dirndl a few decades ago before I discovered genetic genealogy

Cornish emigrant connections

Companies that offer genealogical DNA analysis usually provide tools to interpret the data, and you can use these tools to explore matches between you and people you share DNA with. If they appear on a public family tree you can try to connect to it from your own. If the tree is complete you will probably be able to find your most recent common ancestors.

You may also be able to find your more distant cousins by joining a project, a group of people working together to explore their common ancestry.

A Facebook group for researching shared Cornish ancestry

GEDMatch.com processes autosomal DNA data files from different testing companies to compare data derived from their DNA kits (‘autosomal’ means ‘concerning chromosomes that are not sex chromosomes’).

GEDMatch provides DNA analysis tools for genealogists, including tools for comparing your DNA test results with those of other people in the GEDMatch public database.

To use these tools you must first upload your DNA test results to GEDMatch. GEDMatch accepts results from the main testing databases at Ancestry.com, Family Tree DNA, MyHeritage, and 23 and Me.

A recent tool is Ancestor Projects. There are 38 projects presently registered WITH GEDMatch. Project members have DNA characteristics with whatever common trait or ancestry the project intends to explore. There are projects for royal pedigrees, deaf people, and connections from certain counties in Ireland.

GEDMatch home screen showing link to Ancestor Projects and also where to upload your family tree

I have joined the project for Cornish emigrants, which aims to identify DNA of emigrants from Cornwall. Greg has Cornish forebears. Members include people with GEDMatch kits who are descended from Cornish people who emigrated or from Cornish people who currently live in Cornwall. The new GEDMatch project tool allows the identification of matches and analysis of shared segments of DNA, with results limited to members within the group. The group shares information and communicates within a closed Facebook group.

So having joined the project what next?

If you are going to join a group I think it is a good idea to attach your family tree to your GEDMatch kit. You can upload your family tree to GEDMatch in the format of a GEDCom file which is a standard file type and which you can export from whichever program you currently keep your family tree in. You can create a link between a DNA kit and a person in your GEDcom. If you manage several DNA kits and they all relate to one family tree you can link the different kits to the right people on the family tree. The names and dates of living people are not shown when the tree is displayed in GEDMatch.

In the ‘Cornish Emigrants’ Facebook group we have a spreadsheet for sharing details. This shows who in the group is associated with which kit. It also lists the Cornish surnames in our family tree and details of our forebears who emigrated from Cornwall.

Surnames worksheet on Cornish Emigrants spreadsheet

One of the sheets from the Cornish Emigrants project shared spreadsheet

People in the group can run a report in GEDMatch to see which kits match their own and then begin a conversation to find connections.

An example of a report from the Cornish GEDMatch Ancestor Project

The group started at the beginning of August. It has already gained 119 users and 182 kits.

Not everybody in the GEDMatch group is connected to Facebook and the discussion there but most members are.

I hope that by connecting with this project’s group members I will be able to extend our family tree and learn more about our family history.

AncestryDNA has identified that Greg has Cornish DNA. Working on a GEDMatch project helps to find people with Cornish DNA and also an interest in following up on their family history from Cornwall.

Related Posts

• Discovering a DNA cousin through Wikitree and confirming with GedMatch (a cousin with shared Cornish ancestry)
• Visiting St Erth, Lands End and the Lizard
• Edwards family immigration on the Lysander arriving in the Port Phillip District in 1849
• B is for the barque Bloomer arrived 1854

Looking for George

My husband Greg’s great-great grandfather George Young (1826 – 1890) was from Liverpool. George probably arrived in Australia at the time of the gold discoveries in Victoria, perhaps lured by the chance of striking it rich, though it’s hard to be sure, for as yet I don’t know exactly when or why he emigrated, and I know nothing about his parents or his family.

This photo of George Young was passed to us by Noel Tunks of Maryborough

In any case, by 1853 George, following the rushes, was trying his luck on the  goldfields. He met his wife-to-be Caroline Clarke on the Ovens diggings, near the border with New South Wales. Their first child was a boy, George, who was born and died as an infant at Beechworth in 1854. George and Caroline had twelve more children. Greg is descended from their oldest surviving child John Young (1856 – 1928).

Greg has had his DNA analysed by Ancestry.com. I have uploaded the results to Family Tree DNA, My Heritage, and GedMatch. His aunt B S has also tested her DNA. Through the DNA results we have connected with cousins descended from George Young and Caroline Clarke. This confirms the documentary evidence for the Young family in Australia, such as it is. 

spreadsheet of DNA cousins who are descendants of George Young and Caroline Clarke and have tested at either AncestryDNA or MyHeritage

Greg and the cousins descended from George Young also share DNA with descendants of two men, James Young, born about 1838 in Liverpool, and Philip Young born about 1837 or a few years later in Liverpool. 

We don’t yet know how George, James, and Philip are related.

From the amount of the DNA they share we know that B S and her second cousin P L (both great granddaughters of George Young) can be estimated to be about fourth cousins of A A, who is descended from James, and of H S F, who is descended from Philip. H S F and A A can be estimated from the DNA evidence to be about second cousins. Fourth cousins share third great grandparents and second cousins share great grandparents.

spreadsheet showing DNA matches with great grand daughters of George Young and descendants of John Young from Liverpool, plus some other matches that are related but we don’t yet know how.

H S F and A A are likely to share great grandparents, so it is possible that James Young born about 1838 and Philip Young born about 1840 were brothers.

If B S and P L are 4th cousins of H S F and A A, then it seems possible that George Young’s grandfather was also the grandfather of James and Philip Young. That is George was a first cousin of James and Philip.

I have traced the forebears of A A and I P. They are both grand daughters of Christopher Young (1875 – 1927),  the son of Philip Young (born about 1837-1840, died 1910). 

In 1862, when Philip Young married Mary Code (also spelt Coad)  he gave his father’s name as John Young. [Liverpool Record Office; Liverpool, England; Liverpool Catholic Parish Registers; Reference Number: 282 NIC/2/2 retrieved through Ancestry.com]

I have traced the forebears of H S F. She is the daughter of Gerald Salter (1903 – 1986). Gerald was the son of Ellen Alice Young (1871 – 1962). She was the daughter of James Young born 1839, a seaman rigger. When James married Mary Martin in 1864 he stated he was a mariner living at Cropper Street Liverpool and his father was John Young, an engineer. [ Liverpool, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932 Liverpool Record Office; Liverpool, England; Reference Number: 283-PET-3-67 retrieved through Ancestry.com]

Another researcher has suggested that James Young’s marriage record is in error and his father was in fact James Young, engineer/engine turner, who was born about 1810 in Dundee and died in 1859 (‘late of Monks Coppenhall in Cheshire’). James had a son named James who in 1859 was named as one of the executors in his estate. He was described in the will as an engine fitter of 46 Manchester Street Crewe in the Parish of Monks Coppenhall. [England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations) 1860 for James Young retrieved through Ancestry.com]

I have traced the family of James Young 1810 – 1859. In 1861 some of the children were living with their widowed mother, Mary Young nee Harrison, at Manchester Street, Crewe in the Parish of Monks Coppenhall. James, then twenty-three and unmarried was an engine fitter living with his mother. [1861 census viewed through ancestry.com Class: RG 9; Piece: 2616; Folio: 74; Page: 24; GSU roll: 543000]

I have not yet found the death of Mary Young nee Harrison. She does not seem to be on the 1871 census. A possible death is 
Name: Mary Young
Estimated birth year: abt 1813
Registration Year: 1869 Registration Quarter: Jan-Feb-Mar
Age at Death: 56
Registration district: Nantwich Inferred County: Cheshire
Volume: 8a Page: 224

It is possible that James Young, engine fitter, died before marrying and before the 1871 census.  I cannot find him on the 1871 census in Crewe, Cheshire. A possible death of James Young engine fitter is :
Name: James Young
Estimated birth year: abt 1838
Registration Year: 1868 Registration Quarter: Jul-Aug-Sep
Age at Death: 30
Registration district: Nantwich Inferred County: Cheshire
Volume: 8a Page: 236
It seems unlikely that James Young engine fitter moved away from Crewe Cheshire and changed occupation to mariner, and it is also unlikely that his father’s name was wrongly recorded on the marriage document.

The family of James Young engineer does not include a Philip Young. The DNA evidence and the evidence of one Canadian shipping record supports the conclusion that James and Philip Young were probably brothers.

The Canada, Seafarers of the Atlantic Provinces, 1789-1935 records retrieved from ancestry.com have a James Young age 43 (born about 1845) on board the barque “Olive Mount” which departed Liverpool 19 March 1888 (discharged with mutual consent).  He was discharged 12 March 1888 at Penarth Wales. He was not literate, he signed his name with an x. He was related to another crew member aboard. James was crew number 12 and his rank was able-bodied seaman. Also on board was Philip Young, crew number 11 – I believe this is James’s brother. Although the age is young, I suspect there was pressure for the men to understate their age so as to appear fit for the job.

It is my guess that James Young, forebear of H S F and also A O and  P N is the son of a John Young engineer, not James Young (c 1811 – 1859).

Hypothesis: John Young is George Young’s uncle; John Young is father to Philip and James and George Young is their cousin -> A A and H S F are 3rd cousins. B S and P L 4th cousins to A A and H S F. As far as I know A O and P N have not tested their DNA.

Update: A O and P N have tested their DNA with AncestryDNA but neither shares DNA with Greg or his aunt B S. A O and P N are 1st cousins and share 1.104 centimorgans. P N shares 42 cM DNA with I P thus they are estimated 4th cousins. M F C, another descendant of Philip Young, also shares DNA with P N; they share 66 cM – also estimated 4th cousins. M F C shares a small amount of DNA with Greg but does not share DNA with Greg’s aunt B S.

It could be useful if A O and P N could upload their results to MyHeritage, or FTDNA or GedMatch so we could look at a chromosome browser and also see if they share DNA with other descendants of George Young, for example P L.

Triangulating Matilda’s DNA

Three years ago my husband Greg and I sent off our DNA for analysis. There were three family history puzzles I thought DNA techniques might solve. One concerned the parents of Greg’s great grandfather Henry Sullivan. Who were they? I didn’t know. I thought DNA data might help.

We knew Henry was brought up in an orphanage in Geelong, but its records told us only that he had been abandoned by his parents, nothing more. We could not find a likely birth certificate for him.

I revisited the problem, reviewing digitised newspapers at Trove and widening my date search slightly. I wrote up the results at `Poor little chap‘.

Henry was committed as a State Ward on 11 June 1866. He was said to be four years old. Both his parents were living but he had been deserted. Looking at the newspapers for the month before Henry was committed I found a report that mentioned a ‘‘little one’ who had been abandoned by a woman named Sullivan.’ The newspaper stated that ‘The decrepit and indiscreet creature walked off with the child clinging to her.’. Perhaps this child was our Henry.

Following through various newspaper reports I came to the view that this Henry was the child of William Sullivan (born 1839) and Matilda Frances Sullivan formerly Hughes (born 1845). Matilda Sullivan was the daughter of Matilda Priscilla Hughes nee Moggridge formerly Derby (1825 – 1868) and the step-daughter of David Hughes (1822 – 1895). Matilda Sullivan had another son, Eleazer Hughes (1861 – 1949). Eleazer Hughes had left descendants. I hoped that by matching Greg’s DNA with the descendants of Eleazer Hughes I might be able to confirm the hypothesis of Henry Sullivan’s parents.

Greg and his brother Dennis, his first cousins BS and MS, and his second cousin LB all share DNA with various descendants of Eleazer Hughes.

The challenge with DNA matching is to be confident about which of your forebears you have inherited the shared DNA from.

For close relations where you knew the test-takers beforehand and when the amount of shared DNA corresponds to the amount expected to be shared given the relationship, a shared DNA match is taken to be evidence of the relationship. If you have access to the shared chromosome details then you can attribute the shared ancestry to the shared DNA.

When the relationship is more distant you need to be confident that the DNA is shared from a particular ancestor and not from some other shared ancestor. That other ancestor may be on a part of the tree you or your match have not yet documented, that is, you do not know about your shared relationship. A measure of this is tree completeness -how many of your forebears have you documented for the necessary generations. If you are looking at an expected third cousin relationship then you expect to share great great grandparents. The question then becomes whether you and your match have both documented all sixteen of your great great grandparents. Only then can you be completely confident there is no another possible explanation of why you share DNA.

When it comes to fourth cousin relationships you are one more generation back. Both you and your match need to have documented thirty-two third great grandparents but also you need to take into consideration other possible relationships that might account for the amount of DNA that you share.

The distance between two gene loci on a chromosome is measured in centiMorgans (cM), defined as ‘the distance between chromosome positions for which the expected average number of intervening chromosomal crossovers in a single generation is 0.01’, that is, how likely the segment is to recombine as it passes from parent to child.

If two sets of DNA are compared, a higher number of shared centiMorgans means greater confidence in the match, that is, greater confidence that the match represents a closer relationship.

Any given number of centiMorgans though can represent a variety of relationships. The Shared cM Project is a collaborative data collection and analysis project created as part of research into the ranges of shared centiMorgans associated with various known relationships. A tool called the ‘Shared cM Project 3.0 tool’ v4 allows users to compare the amount of DNA shared with a match with the accumulated results of the data collection of more than 25,000 relationships and their shared DNA. Using the tool is an aid to understanding what relationships are most likely to be represented by the amount of shared DNA.

The more generations back  the higher the chance that no DNA is shared between descendants. It is possible for third cousins not to share DNA and the likelihood that fourth cousins share DNA is only in the order of 50%.

If three people share one segment of DNA and they know how they are related, then we have more confidence that the shared DNA comes from particular ancestors.

Greg and L B are second cousins. They have tested their DNA at AncestryDNA and uploaded to MyHeritage and GedMatch. At AncestryDNA they share 242 centiMorgans across 9 segments and at MyHeritage they share 254.6 centiMorgans across 9 segments. (I have previously discussed my experience of variations in DNA matches between
companies.)

Greg and L B are half third cousins to D J G. D J G’s great grandfather, Eleazer Hughes, was the half-brother of Greg and L B’s great grandfather Henry Sullivan. At MyHeritage Greg shares 89.2 centiMorgans across 4 segments with D J G. L B shares 64.1 centiMorgans with D J G. The amount of DNA shared between the cousins falls within the probabilities predicted using the shared cM tool.

Greg, L B and D J G share one triangulated segment on chromosome 10. The segment is 47.7 centiMorgans long.

I believe this DNA segment on chromosome 10 was inherited from Matilda by Greg, L B and D J G.

I checked that there was no other likely relationship to explain the DNA match by tracing the grandparents of DJG. Greg’s family tree and the tree of LB are both complete and documented up to their great great grandparents.

LB and Greg do have other matches with descendants of Eleazer Hughes but so far I have not been able to triangulate the DNA to a single segment. AncestryDNA, which has the most DNA matches, unfortunately lacks the tool, a chromosome browser, to demonstrate the triangulation.

 

Postscript: the poor little chap grew up, married and had a family. It seems he had a contended adult life. You can read about him at H is for Henry.

Florence Sullivan (nee Hickson), Elaine Sullivan, Anne Sullivan (nee Morley), and Henry Sullivan at “Navillus”, 7 Evelyn Street, East Bentleigh from the collection of a cousin and used with permission

 

 

DNA: finding new connections with the latest tools

AncestryDNA and MyHeritage have recently released new tools for showing how you might be related to your DNA cousins. Both companies look at your tree and the tree of your DNA cousin. If those trees do not connect, the company tentatively connects them using in addition other public trees in their databases.

Cousinships found in tentatively-connectly trees of course need to be verified. However, although you may seem to descend in the way suggested by the tentatively-connectly trees it is possible that you could be also descended from other ancestors not presently shown on the family trees. Confidence that the DNA match is from a particular couple increases with tree completeness. This confidence increases for both you and your match if your are able to establish that there are likely no other shared ancestors. Increased confidence that you are indeed related to the suggested DNA cousins comes from sharing common ancestors and simultaneously sharing DNA other cousins who also descend from the same common ancestors

AncestryDNA’s new Thrulines tool has given me many more Common Ancestor Hints to look at. I decided to look at DNA cousins who are also descended from my fifth great grandparents Dominique Pierre La Mothe (1731 – 1807) and his wife Susannah La Mothe nee Corrin (1741 – 1803). ThruLines suggests that my father may be related to 8 DNA matches through Dominique Pierre Lamothe.

One of these matches is me; another match is one of my second cousins, my father’s first cousin once removed. These relationships are well documented. We have met my father’s third cousin, R, and I also have confidence in the documentation of that match. However, we have not met H, my father’s 3rd cousin once removed. The relationship corresponds with my family history researches, and the shared 21 centimorgans of DNA fits within the range of a 3rd cousin once removed relationship as predicted by the shared centimorgan tool at DNAPainter.com.

Four matches descend from other children of Dominique and Susannah La Mothe.

These matches were all new to me. I had not previously corresponded with these cousins, nor was I aware that our trees had common ancestors. The shared DNA is small, but is greater than the 7 centimorgan small-match-limit usually suggested for genealogical significance. The number of shared centimorgans corresponds with the hypothetical relationships.

I decided to review cousin C who is predicted to descend from Frederick John Dominique Lamothe (1805 – 1864). I had not previously documented his descendants. The family tree attached to C’s DNA has only 27 people: she lists paternal grandparents and her mother, who died in 2015; there are no maternal grandparents listed. Thrulines incorrectly shows C’s grandfather’s information as common from her tree, but that does not correspond with the only public member tree attached to her profile, so perhaps C has a private but searchable tree on Ancestry.com.

I traced 13 children of Frederick John Lamothe, of whom five were daughters. His youngest daughter Ann Jane Lamothe (1857 – 1929) married William Galloway (1854 – 1909) on 5 August 1879 at Lezayre, Isle of Man. They had ten children. The second oldest was William Edward Galloway (1884 – 1967). That he was the father of Jean (1927 – 2015) is documented on a 1951 US Border-crossing document from Canada to the US. Her husband is also named in the document, further confirming the family relationship to C. I am satisfied with the genealogical links between C and Dominique Pierre and Susannah Lamothe based on baptism, marriage, death, and census records as well as the border-crossing record.

My father has eight matches at MyHeritage where MyHeritage has build speculative trees that may explain how Richard Rafe Champion de Crespigny and some of his DNA Matches are related. Of these I had already determined the connection for six and been in contact with the six cousins. The other two matches are his cousins, brother JJ and sister MJ, whose DNA kits are administered by Jo M, the daughter of JJ. My father shares 31.3 centimorgans of DNA with MJ and 8.3 centimorgans with JJ. The shared DNA figures are within the range appropriate for 5th cousins.

My Heritage demonstrates how the two trees combine and gives a level of confidence about the match, in this case 82%. While I did not have these cousins on my tree previously I have now added these descendants to my tree on the basis of birth, death, marriage, and census records.

MyHeritage provides a chromosome browser and lists segment details. I have painted these matches on to my father’s DNAPainter profile. The overlaps of the segments all correspond with forebears who descend from Dominique Pierre Lamothe and Susannah Corrin. To date 25% of my father’s DNA has been attributed to named forebears.

In his talk Essential Considerations for DNA Evidence, presented at RootsTech 2019, Blaine Bettinger, an American genetic genealogist claimed that “Without a report of tree completedness, it is nearly impossible to evaluate the use of DNA in a genealogical conclusion, even if it is soundly supported by documentary evidence!”

I last looked at tree completeness in May 2018 when I could name 45 of the possible 64 5th great grandparents I had. I did not split my result between my father’s family history and my mother’s but when I reviewed the statistics, it appeared that 44 of my possible 5th great grandparents that I know of are on my father’s side. That is, I know the names of 68% of my father’s fourth great grandparents, the generation that includes Dominique and Susannah LaMothe. I have improved my knowledge slightly. I now know 70% of my father’s 3rd great grandparents and 42% of my father’s 4th great grandparents, i.e. those forebears he would share as most common recent ancestors with fifth cousins. The overall tree completeness score at the 5th cousin level for my father is that we know 106 of a potential 127 individuals or 83%: 17% of the tree is unknown.

Chart showing the fourth great grandparents of Rafe de Crespigny. (Generated using MacFamilyTree)

In the case of the Thrulines match with C, her tree has only 27 people and could not be regarded as complete.

In the case of the MyHeritage tree maintained by Jo M and associated with the matches of MJ and JJ, the tree has only 84 people and is also incomplete. Jo M has trees on Ancestry.com but they show that Jo M has shown only 41 of the people associated with the trees of JJ and MJ up to the 4th great grandparent level, or 32%; thus her tree could be said to be 68% incomplete.

AncestryDNA’s Thrulines tool and MyHeritage’s Theory of Family Relativity tool are similar. Both tools have come up with matches at the fifth cousin level that seem plausible. In verifying the lines of descent and contacting the matches, I have discovered a little more about the descendants of my forebears. One cousin, Jo M, has shared pictures she took of our forebears’ graves on the Isle of Man. She has also traced the La Mothe family line further back than I have.

Related posts

• S is for Suky
• Progress on my tree
• DNA Painter – a new tool