Jones & Williams DNA cluster--PGF

A cluster of autosomal DNA matches shared with descendants of Wm C Cook & Elizabeth Putman is all descendants of John William Jones & his wife Lydia Williams.  As shown in the above image the DNA matches are from 4 children of this Jones & Williams couple.  The connection is at least a generation before John W or Lydia given their ages and from what I know with my research in the ancestry of my paternal great-grandfather, Wm Green Cook, where it most likely connects.  There are also descendants of Jabel Putman & wife Nancy in that cluster who have connections.  Putman and Tylers were from SC which is also the place of birth given for John W Jones in the 1850 Census  I've yet to figure out the connection between the two groups but do have a WATO tree ready at DNAPainter when I get the opportunity to explore things further.  In addition to writing notes on this cluster within the match list group, I have also charted some shared amounts between cluster members in my Google Sheets account. Ancestry recently added the ability to see shared matches of matches and their shared amounts as part of their ProTools Addon subscription.  This feature helped verify that my placement of those matches was correct within the Jones and William tree.

The amount of shared centiMorgans that my 2 siblings and I share with 20 of the Jones & Willems descendants ranges from 0-52 cMs.  A Cook/Putman cousin who is one generation further back shares in the range of 21-77 with the same 20 Jones and William descendants.

See the chart below made by inputting the range at DNA Painter.  It shows the relationship possibilities.

The 20 Jones and William descendants are through 4 children of John William Jones and Lydia Williams.  Oliver John Jones and his sister Leone Jones married Gafford siblings which would make their descendants double cousins to each other but shouldn't inflate the amount for the Cook & Putman connections. 

I would love to hear from any of the descendants of John & Lydia.

Worked on My Daughter's Paternal Ancestry--The German and English Immigrants

AncestryDNA has updated communities so I checked for my daughter Brittany's test results but was disappointed that they still do not show any communities for her Germans which settled in Franklin County Indiana abt 1839.  I do understand that there are not many German testers, but this was an area with a high amount of German settlers--among them Beckman, Braun, Weidekuehn, Gessell, Bossert, Ritter, Wirth,  Those lines are represented in Thrulines so I don't feel like it is a lack of testers.

I checked her matches at MyHeritage from her DNA upload and found a Gessell descendant among her DNA matches. Not one from Phillip Leonard Gessell the immigrant, but a generation further back with descendants still living in Germany who have tested.  This totally made our day.  Worked on adding more information to that portion of the tree and added the segment to DNA Painter for my daughter's chromosome painting.  The Gessell line is back thru the ancestry of Brittany's paternal grandfather.   I have attached a screenshot below showing how it appears in her chromosome painting at DNAPainter.  She is fortunate that 3 of her 4 grandparents have DNA tested and I am able to use that to do a visual phasing of her chromosomes to determine each of those grandparents contribution to her DNA.

Found some additional info for the Gessell line and then started working on her English lines at FamilySearch.  Her Folley line was the most recent of any of her ancestors to immigrate to the US. I like to work on that line at FamilySearch since I cannot justify getting a World Explorer subscription for just that one portion of my research, especially when I can find records for that area elsewhere for free.  

Worked on getting her ancestors linked in the FamilySearch tree so that her fan chart would fully display.  She was impressed and it really didn't take much work once I had the more recent generation linked.

More Pieces of the Puzzle: Cook and Harrison

While continuing to work on the paper trail to identify Elizabeth Harrison's Cook husband, I went ahead and connected her as Wm C. Cook's mother. I also attached the census data, the link to my blog post(s) with the reasoning, and a note in the Suffix field of her profile.  

I revisited the YDNA matches of my brother for the COOK(E) Project and went over my notes and corresponded with one of the project admins.  While we do match a group of Pattersons as close as we match Cooks, the Pattersons lived near the GA & NC Cooks that descend from the Shem Cooke and there seems to be a connection to his line.  If our connection is thru Wm Pope Cooke that married Betsy Harrison, then we would likely connect all the way back to Shem Cooke thru a line of men with the given name of William. Prior to the BigY testing the 37, 67, and 111 marker tests were all we had.  There is representation more so from Shem's son James thru his children  Roland(d. 1842 West TN) and Shem(d.1862 Carroll Co GA)  There is one tester who descends thru the elder Shem Cooke(d. 1796)'s son William but he only tested at 37 markers.  His result contains no differing mutations with my brother at that level so he is an exact match at 37 markers.  This is an older test so I'm unsure if an update is possible but I am trying to make contact with others from that line who might be interested to see if we can come up with a way to compare.  At the same time I'm working further on his paper trail to see if it crosses with ours.  When my brother's test came in, I worked the matches trees to figure out exactly how they all were the connected.  Many of them didn't have trees...so I had to do a lot of sleuthing to figure it out but for the most part I have a very good picture of how they connect.  

I have access to AncestryDNA match lists of several descendants of the Shem Cooke(Carroll Co GA) and I have been looking at their closer matches to see if I could find an intersection with our clusters of unknowns which are likely Cook/Harrison related.   I did find one where I started noticing surnames that were familiar among those matches and have now identified more Harrison matches.

After having Elizabeth Harrison Cook connected for 2 days I am now seeing matches that descend from her siblings.  The great thing is that those matches are not all thru Rebecca Harrison who would match with the Cook Putmans because of their connection to Hiram Putman(Elizabeth Putman Cook's brother).  There are descendants of Nancy Harrison Hight, Gideon V Harrison, Edward Cannon Harrison and Martha Harrison Smith.  I think too somewhere back in there is another HIGHT connection or a connection to the Nichols(wife of a Hight).  The relationships of those matches are mostly 5C & 5C1R and are all well in range for those relationships.  Checking the shared matches is helpful as well to make sure none of them matched her(they didn't.)  

It should be noted that Thrulines® is a Tool that works using our DNA match list along with the trees on Ancestry.  It's still up to us to document and prove our conclusions so that our research is solid.  

Comparison of 4C Descendants of Jabel Putman

 

Last month I posted a chart which compared the amount of shared DNA between 3 of my siblings and myself to a set of 4 siblings which are 4th cousins to us.  They were all descendants of William Putman, son of Jabel Putman. My siblings and I descend thru Jabel's daughter Elizabeth Putman Cook.  I thought it might also be interesting to see a chart of the other 4th cousins who also descend thru Jabel Putman compared to my siblings and myself.  I didn't include one of my brothers in this comparison because he isn't tested at all the sites which I used to collect the matches. There is representation from all but 2 of Jabel's children who had children.  I wasn't able to include descendants of their branches because I couldn't find tested descendants thru them who were 4th Cousins to us.  It seems we have an abundance of 4C1R from Jabel.  As I did in my previous chart I also included a 3C1R's amount(shown in green) so there would be a point of reference for a generation closer to the Most Recent Common Ancestor(MRCA).

Nothing really conclusive to tell if Wm Putman's descendants are Double 4C with us.  It's believed that Wm Putman's wife was the sister of Elizabeth Putman Cook's husband, Wm C Cook but we have no definite proof as we have not located Wm & Anna's marriage nor do we have definite proof of the parents of Wm C Cook.  

MyHeritage offers Free Access to DNA tools with DNA Upload Feb 21-28

I received this message from Daniel Horowitz of MyHeritage yesterday and wanted to pass it on to anyone who has taken an autosomal DNA test at AncestryDNA, 23&me or FTDNA.

His message reads....

"For a limited time only, between February 21–28, 2021, we are waiving the unlock fee.You can now upload your DNA data to MyHeritage and get access to your Ethnicity Estimate, Genetic Groups, and other advanced DNA tools such as the Chromosome Browser, AutoClusters, and Theory of Family Relativity™ — absolutely free! These features will remain free forever for the DNA kits you upload to MyHeritage during this week."

Check out MyHeritage's Blog for more info on this.

RootsTech 2020--Day 4-- Sat. Feb 29th

Day 4 of RootsTech 2020. Here is my take on Saturday's happenings from the viewpoint of someone who is #NotAtRootsTech

Saturday's Live Streams

Ancestry On the Go: Ancestry App Suite

Ancestry App:  Allows you to review hints on the go and / or just in your spare time.  You can add pictures to the gallery of your tree and also tag people in your tree.

AncestryDNA App:  Gives you a deeper look at your DNA results and is the fastest way to activate a DNA kit by scanning the code on the test rather than having to type it in.  You can view the map and the Genetic Communities on the App.  Also allows for easy sharing of ethnicity results. You can see DNA comparison and there is messaging within the app.

Peter Drinkwater talked about FindAGrave and the FindAGrave App.  It's hard to believe that the site has been around for 25 years.  You can browse the cemeteries, add photos and GPS coordinates.

FamilySearch App for Intermediate/Advanced Users—Todd Powell
Several great features on the app

• Relatives Around Me
• Map My Ancestors
• My Contributions
• Find My Ancestor(New User)

Using multiple screens, descendency research, and Source linker are easy to do on the go using the FamilySearch App.

General Session featuring Emmitt Smith
Emmitt Smith told the story of finding his ancestors who came from West Africa to Mecklenhurg VA on to Cleveland Alabama and on to Pensacola Florida where Emmitt's story began.  Be prepared to change and broaden your perspective. 

Healing and Family History-The Emotional Side of DNA—Robin Wirthlin
Families that have been separated for various reasons can heal as DNA can reunite the descendants.
Unexpected results cam cause many emotions.  It's not always a happy time.  Time can heal many wounds. 


Introduction to What Are the Odds? (WATO)—Leah Larkin

WATO is a sketch and share program that uses probabilities with DNA data to compare likely hypothesis for ways a targeted person is likely to connect to the Most Recent Common Ancestor that the DNA matches all have in common.   I use this tool when I'm helping other DNA testers with their unknown lineage/relationshps. 

Saturday's Hottest News
RootsTech 2021 will be Feb 3rd-6th with registration beginning in September of 2020.

A big THANK YOU to all who helped make RootsTech and #NotAtRootsTech possible. Be sure and check out the recorded sessions posted at RootsTech.org

Surnames of Jacob Sutton's Descendants.

 Today I worked with my Thruline™ of Jacob Sutton.  I looked at the DNA matches and noted the names of the ones which had known Sutton cousins as Shared matches.  The purpose of the exercise was to become familiar with the surnames carried by Jacob's descendants.  Sometimes we get so wrapped up in finding the common ancestor surnames that we forget that our DNA cousins surnames change when daughters marry etc. and these are names we might not recognize unless we study the entire family.  I've been acquainted with researchers who only study their direct ancestor.  That's something I've never understood because it really limits your research and causes you to miss out on so many opportunities for discovering other records. 

I could have collected the info and arranged it any number of ways:  a spreadsheet, notebook, index cards etc.  I chose to save it as an image file.  I used Awesome Screenshot extension in my Chrome browser to capture the list view and add surnames. 

Shared Segment Analysis: When a Match is both Paternal & Maternal

I'm working in matches at FamilyTreeDNA this morning and was looking at my brother, Michael's autosomal matches. Each of us have about 5 or so matches that show as matching our paternal & our maternal side.  My Mom, my paternal aunt,  3 of my siblings, and myself have our tests at FTDNA. So I gathered the segment data for one of Michael's matches that I'll call P. Smith just to get an idea of what was happening.  I then checked the match lists of my Mom, my paternal aunt, my siblings, my own match list,  and also my daughter's match list.  I was interested in seeing the size of the segments, how many of us had both or none and which segments each of us had.   I also wanted to know if my Aunt also had the segment that my brother had received from Dad.  Because of visual phasing and overlapping/shared/ICW matches I have a pretty good idea of the family groups that these segments were from but to simplify things I've only identified which of my grandparents passed on these segments.  

My brother was the only one of us tested that got both segments.  My sister got the segment from dad that was passed to him by his mother.  My other brother, and I got the segment from Mom that was passed to her by her dad.   My paternal Aunt did in fact have the same segment that Brother 1 received.  I have passed the segment of my MGF on to my daughter as well.  

From looking at the matches tree and also at share/ICW matches it appears that the PGM segment goes back along the lines of my Morrow/Sutton on back to the Knox Craig lines.  Not 100% certain but that is currently my hypothesis.  That would mean this segment is back around the 5th Great Grandparent level for me.  (screen snip from my working tree shown below)

The segment which my Mom passed to us(from our MGF) appears to be from my Mom's PGM's lines and from a person/couple who was born in the mid 1700s.

As a big fan of DNAPainter for analysis of dna matches, my next step is adding the matching segments to the profiles for each of the tests.  This is a simple process for the tests that just have one segment but has a few extra steps when there are multiple lines involved.  What I could do would be to add both segments under one group and then move the other segment to the appropriate group but I prefer to do it a different way.  I add just the one segment and then click on the option to add additional segments.  For me it works better that way.

It's important to note when we share more than one segment with a match, we cannot assume that both segments are thru the same lines without further evidence.  This drives home the importance of testing as many siblings and aunt/uncles/grandparents as possible.  Also I'm very thankful that this match was on a site that has a chromosome browser and that I had a good mix of tests with which to compare.

FamilyTreeDNA Summer Sale thru August 31st

FamilyTreeDNA is having their summer sale from now thru August 31st.  There are some great deals.  Also look for sale prices on upgrades by viewing the shopping cart for any test you have there.

DNA Segment Sources

Something to think about when you are trying to identify the source of matching DNA segments.

The connection shown in the tree above is that of the DNA match and how he is related to me.  His connection from his tree would show that it is thru his Paternal Grandmother's lines.  There is still a good chance that back beyond his 2nd Greats on his Paternal Grandfather's lines there might also be shared ancestry as well as in the other side of his PGM's family. His Mom is 2st generation American which makes a connection thru her unlikely but not impossible.  It's really necessary to evaluate each of the segments on their own.

The breakdown of what my Paternal Aunt, myself, and my siblings(full) share in common with the DNA match referenced in the above chart. 

mtDNA results of my Paternal Aunt

I woke up to find that my Paternal Aunt's mtDNAFull test results were finished processing.  What a great way to begin 2019.  After reading over her results and her match list I did what I have done any other time that I get new DNA test results.  I work the closer matches.  Regardless of whether it's atDNA, mtDNA, or YDNA I build floating trees which contain the matches ancestors. YDNA and mtDNA matches may not connect with your line til back about 500 or even a thousand years but having the trees(Or the direct Father or Mother line for YDNA or mtDNA) of the matches will help you see how they connect with each other and sort new matches.  With mtDNAFULL,  I would only work with the genetic distance of 0-1.  In YDNA I use genetic distance 2 or less at the 37 & 67 marker and 0-1 at 111 markers.

My daughter had tested a while back so I had the mtDNA for her, myself and my Mom.  She had a backwards mutation which was present in the descendants of my 4th Great Grandmother's sister so I haven't felt compelled to test myself or Mom.

Dad's YDNA   R-M269 tested Y111 markers
Dad's  mtDNA   Haplogroup:  U3a1c
Mom's mtDNA Haplogroup:   H3-T152C!


The Y and mtDNA tests are at FTDNA and I purchased the autosomal tests there also for the ones who did the other testing with the exception of my daughter.  In her case, transferred her autosomal from AncestryDNA into the account at FTDNA in which she did the mtDNAFull test.

The research trees that I work with are all at Ancestry.  I have them set as private trees and selected the option that keeps them from showing up in searches.  I do have trees on FTDNA so that my matches can see my pedigree chart but I don't really add to them much other than linking matches so that they will sort out Paternal and Maternal.

I have trees named:

• Y-DNA Cook(e)--This tree contains each of the closer matches for my brothers YDNA test at  37, 67 and 111 maker levels   For our family this is a group of Cook(e) men who are from the Shem Cook(e) and Amelia Co Virginia Cook(e)s the exception being a group of Patterson men who also match us closely even at 111 markers who likely descend from a Cook who was raised as a Patterson.  I note the  highest level of testing in the Suffix field and the Genetic Distance(ex.  First & Middle Name:  John F  Last Name:  Cook   Suffix:  Y67 GD=1)  While I do keep a spreadsheet with the closest ones I include as many as possible of those who have trees and check the hints to see if I can find additional information as we are still looking for the connecting generations despite knowing which group we most closely match.  
• Dad's mtDNA Tree- this is the one I started on today including the matches of my Paternal Aunt's mtDNA who had trees available.  Of the 12 GD=1 matches about 7 of them did have a pretty good tree.  mtDNA surnames generally change every generation but I am finding names which I'm familiar with in the matrilineal lines of these matches(Deason, Sheppard, Rushing)  These are families that all travel together from Maryland on down thru the Carolinas with some coming thru Georgia and settling in Bedford Co TN and Lower Middle KY before moving on to other parts of the SE USA.  The matrilineal line for Dad and his sister was also a line that appears twice in their ancestors as they have pedigree collapse back at the 2nd Great Grandparent level.
• Mom's mtDNA Tree--This tree consist of the GD=0 matches of my daughter. There is an unusually high occurrence of the Combs family in this tree.  My mtDNA goes from my maternal Grandmother's Hale line, on back thru Hitchcock, Fleming, and Combs.  My research on Nancy Combs Fleming has pretty much been at a standstill for a good while as I've not been able to find many sources though I do find lots of claims in online trees.  Like the names in my Dad's mtDNA tree, they seem to be repeating and could be people that the Combs and Hitchcocks traveled with coming South and West when the lands opened up.  
• Paternal Line DNA Puzzles  --This tree contains the trees of matches that I have built out when I was studying a triangulation group at other sites or shared matches at Ancestry.  I can generally tell if a match is Paternal in that they won't match with my Mom's results.  She Tested at Ancestry but we have her file at MyHeritage, FTDNA and GEDmatch.
• Maternal Line DNA Puzzles--I use the same technique described in the one above adding matches that are maternal for me and or my siblings.  Sometimes I will put the shared cM amount in the suffix field of the Puzzle trees.

This process works for me.  It might not work for everyone especially if you don't have many matches  but it does seem to keep me on track.  I hope you find this useful and I'd like to hear if you try it or if you have a process that helps to keep track of your matches and their connections.

Tinkering with the latest genetic networks tool from Genetic Affairs

An amazing new Auto-Clustering tool from Genetic Affairs is the latest tool available to aid genetic genealogist in building genetic networks.  The leaders in Genetic Genealogy have all been blogging about it.  If you're interested in learning more about it, check out the links included at the end of this post.

This tool allows me to "drill down" in my matches at Ancestry where I have over 2500 4th  cousins or closer.  I've run several reports using varied settings.  The example shown below was done with the settings at option A and amounts 40cM-15cM.  It's having timing out issues right now due to size and my double colonial ancestry but this is really great output despite that.  Below is an annotated screenshot of the output.  I've not included the DNA Matches names which run across the top and down the left margin of the report.  This is just the top portion of this particular report.  There are a total of 68 clusters in this report.

The report also includes a match data table that is very helpful.  If you keep good notes you will have a much easier time figuring out what groups each cluster represents.  For the last few years, I have been sorting my AncestryDNA matches and attributing them to one of my 4 grandparents(noting PGF, PGM, MGF, or MGM in the Notes).  This has helped me tremendously.  Below is an example of the table data for my Cluster 14(not shown in the chart above)

I believe that each person's results will vary depending not only on their settings but also on their family dynamics and the number of family members(both close & distant) who have tested. 

Relevant Links:

• Genetic Affairs --Users manual linked under FAQ from their menu
• Automatic Clustering from Genetic Affairs--Kitty Cooper's Blog
• Forming and Using Genetic Networks with Genetic Affairs--Blaine Bettinger's YouTube
• Autoclustering by Genetic Affairs--DNAeXplained Roberta Estes' Blog

Visualizing DNA tested Descendants of an Ancestor Couple

If you are actively working to identify what relationship you share with your DNA matches, you have likely heard of the What Are The Odds tool, commonly referred to as WATO.   It is part of DNAPainter.com and you can learn more about all of the tools by visiting the website. While I use the tool mainly when I'm helping adoptees, lately I've been using it to get a visual of the assessment of people who have tested from specific ancestor couples.

One of my larger AncestryDNA Circles is that of Jabel Putman my 3rd Great Grandfather.  There are 106 members but I want to know if these testers represent someone from all of his children or just ones thru several branches. He is believed to have had 12 children.  Using the WATO tool I chart each line from Jabel to the tester.  I also look at the shared matches within the circle members to see if I can identify others who are descendants of Jabel who weren't included due to not having him in their tree.  I have added some that I've found at other sites as well.  Below is a closer look at two of the children of Jabel.  I didn't show the right side of the chart as it contains the names of living and testers but it gives you some idea of how it looks.

The chart is a work in progress.  I will be adding more testers as I identify them.
Of Jabel's 12 known children, it looks like all but 2 have descendants that have tested. There is a representation of the following among the Jabel Putman descendants:

2 of William's children
4 of Lavina's children
2 of Parry's children
3 of Hiram's children
4 of Noah's children
5 of Sarah/Sally's children
4 of Elizabeth's children
3 of Susan's children
3 of Janette's children
2 of Simpson's children

Please note that there are varying amounts of testers from each of those children's children who have tested.  Below is a zoomed out shot of the chart(just a small portion of it) which continues out to the testers on the right for each line.  This can be used to see the coverage or to identify testing opportunities.

A match with Shared Matches from both sides of my family.

When sorting thru DNA matches at AncestryDNA, I like to note the connection for each of my matches as being thru the ancestors of one of my four Grandparents.  Both my parents have ancestors who were in Tennessee in the early 1800s. Most of the time I will only be connected to the match on one side.  There a few times when I will have multiple connections.  See the example below with Bill who shares matches with me who are from my PGF's Mom(King/Manire) and my MGF's Mom(Pittman/Adcock)  He has no tree and trying to figure this one out will take seeing the segments in a chromosome browser. 

Thru my admin and shared links, I can tell how much DNA Bill shares with Me, my sister, and my mother.  Unfortunately, we did not begin DNA testing until after my Dad had passed so he was never tested.

Bill's match with Me

Shared matches only show those in common who share at a 4th cousin level(Ancestry's minimum for 4th cousins is 20 cMs)  I noticed that my Mom isn't listed as a shared match.

Bill's match with my Mom

After looking at Mom's amount of shared DNA with Bill, I'm really hoping I will be able to check this match in a chromosome browser so I can identify the grandparent(s) who passed on the 2 segments I received.  On checking Bill's match with my sister's test it appears they do not share any DNA within the range that Ancestry would report.  This is a good example of randomness of DNA inheritance.   I've written to Bill and asked if he was planning on uploading to GEDmatch, MyHeritage or FTDNA.  Hopefully, I will get the opportunity to view the segments in a chromosome browser and see what occurred.  

Bill's match(or lack of) with my Sister

DNA Circle Members but no shared DNA with each other? No Worries.

DNA circles are made up of people who share DNA and who share a common ancestor(who is the focus of that circle) in their tree.  They may not all match each other. There are more specifics and if you want to learn more about the science behind the creation of the circles you can click on "Learn more about DNA Circles" link from one of your DNA circles.  The focus of this blog post is ways to gather more information useful in identifying matches and furthering our research.

I'm using one of my smaller AncestryDNA circles in the example.  Why not?😊  The smaller ones are the hardest to keep as people often set their tree to private and that can make it fall below the minimum requirement for DNA circle formation.  Poof...the circle is gone until that person either makes their tree public again or another member is found bringing the circle up to the minimum qualifications for formation.  The AncestryDNA circle for W.C. Cook has 11 members, 7 which share DNA with me and 3 which are descendants of W. C. Cook(my 2nd Great Grandfather) but do not have any DNA segments in common with me.

The first thing I like to do is to look at the circle members who do not match me.  Click on the Shared Match tab and see if you can find shared matches who should also be a member but do not have their tree built out far enough to be included. I click on their name--in this case P.T., and select the Shared Matches tab.   We have 45 matches that we share DNA with despite not sharing any DNA in common with each other.  You will also find those shared members who are sharing DNA thru the spouse of the ancestor who is the focus of the circle.  That holds true for the Cirlce I'm using in this example as I have Cook/Putman shared matches as well as Putman/Tyler and Putman/Joice matches.


I use this opportunity to write in the notes section about the match so that I can identify the connection at a glance.  This helps me out when I visit this circle members shared tab again as I do this every so often. When I find a matches connection and it appears they are not aware of the connection I do try and send them a message to let them know our connection. This helps to build and hopefully maintain the circles as well as a dialog. The note function is not available for members of the circle that you do not share DNA with but you will be able to write notes for those you have in common.  Below is an example of some of  my notes from this circle with the usernames edited for privacy

As I was making screenshots for this post I sent out a quick message to 3 new matches whose connections I discovered!  Remember there is no right, or wrong way for your notes section.  It doesn't have to look like other's note section, it just needs to work for you.  You can also do something similiar using the Shared Ancestor Hints and Shared Match Tabs to help sort matches.

If you have share links to any of the members' DNA results.  Repeat this process from their point of view.  My sister has also tested at AncestryDNA and is in the circle.  She matches 9 members. There is one circle member that neither of us match, however, that person's mother is a member of the circle and we both match her.  DNA randomness.This is just at the 2nd Great Grandparent level.  Imagine the randomness as you are back at the 3rd and 4th Great Grandparent level.   Sometimes I also find there is a great variation in the amount of DNA that I share with a match compared to how much my sister shares with them.  I also have a DNA share link for my 2nd Cousin once removed and he matches everyone in the circle.  He and my father are 2nd Cousins.  W. C. Cook, the focal point of this DNA circle, was their Great Grandfather.

You'll find that if you use the note section to identify and sort your matches, it will become easier to sort thru new matches and to see connections.   I hope this post has given you some ideas of how to work with and sort thru your matches.

Segment Analysis: Unknowns

I've been trying to come up with a way to use the information about the matches that I have at MyHeritage to further my research. I have two siblings, my Mom, and my paternal Aunt's tests uploaded there and have been doing comparisons. I had noticed a good bit of matches from Finland prior to MyHeritage updating their match algorithm but now we have 79-109 matches from Finland. I thought it might be a good idea to look at those matches for each of us and see where they matched. I looked at the ones which were medium confidence(which was pretty much just the first page...the others were low confidence matches) The matches that we both have, match us exactly the same--no variation in cMs. They also match our Paternal Aunt. All match on Chr 2. This is a segment that I have identified as having been passed down from my Paternal Grandfather. There are also matches from Sweden and Norway overlapping. I painted those in Jonny Perl's DNApainter shown below. The matches I painted were the largest from each of the three areas that overlapped near the end of Chromosome 2 a bit beyond what is considered a pile-up area.

In addition to sharing these matches with my paternal aunt, these matches are in the segment that has been visually phased as coming from my Paternal Grandfather, Tom Cooke. See the image below showing the phasing completed by using Steven Fox's Visual Phasing spreadsheet(available in the files section of the Facebook Group The Visual Phasing Working Group) The Visual Phasing chromosome ribbons are:(Top to Bottom) Me, my Sister, and my Brother.  Click on the image to enlarge.

I've never put much into the ethnicity estimates but seeing the increase in matches in common and from a specific region, I'm wondering if this is a "footprint" of a distant ancestor from that region(s) or if it is from imputation. The few matches from this area that I'd seen prior to the results of my uploaded kit at MyHeritage were from those who had tested with FTDNA. The majority of testers at AncestryDNA are from the USA and UK.

Now that MyHeritage has a chromosome browser, I was able to compare the segments and see if they triangulated. They do triangulate for a segment of about 13.6 cMs. The figure below is from the comparison tools at MyHeritage and I've included a smaller additional match from Finland as well as the ones in the previous example. The comparison without the additional match from Finland yielded the same results of a 13.6 cM triangulated segment.

I've not yet identified my 3rd Great Grandparents for YDNA line. My brother has tested and we found the group of Cook(e)s to which we connect, however we lack about 3 generations to connect. Could this be from that line?  Certainly not anything close in as the connection is English.  It may be further on back in any one of my paternal grandfather's ancestors(shown in the screenshot of the fan chart below made using tools available at Rootsfinder.com). The ancestors in the blue area of the fan chart are those in my paternal Grandfather's line and are all in colonial America.   The majority of them, including the YDNA line, were in Granville County, North Carolina with earlier ties to Isle of Wight, Virginia.  I'm really not so sure that it is a valid segment and not one created by imputation.  Even if it is a valid triangulation the segment could be many generations back.  I will keep this in mind and if I find out anything further, I'll do an update with the additional information. 

How I Survived #NotAtRootsTech

My takeaway from RootsTech 2018:   An end of day review from a #NotAtRootsTech perspective.

Wednesday
Living DNA's Live Stream session was one of my favorite parts of Wednesday's RootTech.  I'm excited to see their One Family One World regional projects.  You can find a listing of them here, about halfway down the page.   The page also contains information about what those who upload tests receive as well as a link for those who wish to apply to be a part of the other regional projects.  I'm particularly excited about 4 of the regional projects--Ireland, Germany, Nordics & Baltics, and Scotland and plan on spending some time checking out the project maps.  They offered up a great sale for attendees and made the test available for $49.  Those of us #NotAtRootsTech were given the opportunity to purchase their test which is currently on sale for $99(+ delivery) and use a coupon code for an additional $10 off of the regular price of $159. 

My most favorite part of Wednesday was the Innovation Showcase where Jonny Perl won with DNA Painter.  This is a new easy-to-use chromosome painting tool which I find EXTREMELY valuable.  If you are into genetic genealogy and haven't tried it out, you should.  If you are on Facebook, you should also join his DNA Painter User group as well as Blaine Bettinger's Genetic Genealogy Tips & Techniques Group.

Thursday
Was a bit under the weather Thursday so my main goal for the day was to watch the General Session with Brandon Stanton.  Brandon's photography and storytelling blog, Humans of New York is awesome!  In other news,  the MyHeritage Chromosome Browser should be rolled out Friday!  Yippee!

Friday
Friday began with internet connectivity issues popping up that were just enough to keep me from being too productive.  Fridays are generally my grocery day too so I'm going to have to rewatch the Scott Hamilton session & Robert Kehrer's Finding Elusive Records at FamilySearch.  Had a chance to check out the MyHeritage Chromosome Browser and I went digging around in the matches from Finland, Norway, and Sweden that are matching several on my paternal side of Chromosome 2.  I need more hours in the day to dig thru this.  An alert from the RootsTech App about Heredis Software gave me another item to add to my To-Look-Into list.

Saturday
Started off Saturday with an appointment for Xfinity tech to check my net connectivity issues.  They are going to have to rewire so have that scheduled later this month. Not the best news but having it fixed will be as it is hard to be productive when you lose the internet about 4 times a day.  A Thank You note from a researcher I helped start out on the search for her Dad also helped make the day better.  She found him & 2 half siblings!!  Excited for her! 

Watched Anna Swayne's Advancing your Genealogy Research with DNA.  She always does a great job and gave away some AncestryDNA kits to attendees.  Curt Witcher's Pain in the Access:  More Web for Your Genealogy session might have been the last live stream session, but I hope that folks stuck around.  It was full of info about how to search libraries, state archives, historical & genealogical societies and much more.

If you missed the live stream sessions, check them out at the following link.
Videos from RootsTech 2018

In case you are wondering, RootsTech 2019 will run February 27th thru March 2nd. 

Sorting and keeping track of DNA matches

 I use the MedBetterDNA browser extension(available for the Chrome Browser) so that the notes section is visible from the match list without clicking thru to the match page.  My genealogy goal for this weekend is to finish sorting thru the 2nd page of my DNA matches at AncestryDNA and identifying thru which of my grandparents we connected.  I'd already had some of them done as I like to make notes on new matches as they come in but had about 20 to finish.  I'd finished the first page of matches earlier in the week.  I do this by checking to see if they match my Mom's kit and looking at the shared matches.  I have DNA share links to view results for a few close cousins from each side and that helps when trying to find the connection.  You can click thru to View Match and click on that matches name to go to the profile where you can click on Select DNA Test and select any of the other tests which you have permissions to view to see if they match. Also clicking thru to the match page helps because sometimes they do have a tree but have not linked it to their DNA.  Use caution because sometimes there are many trees not attached and you may not be able to identify the tree containing the DNA match.  Also, remember that shared matches tab only shows those matches which you share at the 4th cousin level or closer.  Use the Select DNA Test from the profile page when you start getting down to the cut off amount for 4th cousins to check other profiles.


My first page of matches had a total of 50 matches.  Three of those were people who I tested so I didn't count them.  Two of my matches matched me thru 2 grandparents.  On page 2(which also contained 50) of my matches, I have one match which I have not yet been able to narrow down.  I can tell that she is a paternal match but don't know for sure which of my Dad's parents her line is thru.  I use hashtags to identify each of my 4 grandparents  #PGF #PGM #MGF #MGM

I also try and keep track of my top matches on all the testing sites where I have a copy of my DNA results.  I do include the 23&me ones which are uploaded to GEDmatch as I am not at 23&me.  I also use GEDmatch amounts if I have them and don't include anything less than 7 cMs.  This allows me to see how many of my matches have uploaded or tested at a site which has a way to get those amounts.  Also, it shows me how many segments I could likely identify if the Ancestry testers were to upload to one of the sites which have a chromosome browser(MyHeritage, GEDmatch or FTDNA).

I use Google Sheets to keep track of my top matches.  I've omitted the Gedmatch #'s and Username/Alias column in the view of my Top Matches Spreadsheet(seen below)



I normally only add matches which share 50 or more cMs with me.  I do make an exception for the unknowns 40 cMs and up. 

A closer look at shared segments

What's happening on Chr 18?

In my previous blog post, A DNA match who shares 3 different kinship paths, I had observed that while my Mom had two segments on Chr 18 my Brother appeared to have one long segment shared with the match. Looking at the Chromosome browser graphics(using the legend) you can see that there is a little "skip" in the segment.   A no call in my Mom's results, maybe?  

Which shared segments are shared by all 3 siblings?
I wanted to get a clearer picture of how the shared segments survived or didn't from one generation to the next.  I'm adjusting the segment number that my Mom shares with this match to 12 segments as the two Chr18 segments are really likely one long segment.  There are only 3 segments of the 12 that all three of her children also share. That's 25% of the shared segments that were passed to the next generation.  Or 75% which didn't get passed down--at least in this case.  Notice too that my brother only received a portion or the Chr 6 segment. So only 2 segments passed to all 3 of us in their entirety.  My two brothers who have not tested may have gotten different segments or they may have the same three that my brother, sister, and I share.  Neither of the brothers who haven't tested have any children.

 It would be interesting to see if these three segments made it thru to my nephew and nieces if they test.  My daughter didn't get any of the 3 segments which are shared by all 3 of us.  This is a great example of why you should test as many siblings as possible if you have only one parent available for testing. I really don't want to think about how many segments were "lost" from my paternal lines because my Dad never tested.  Thankfully his sister tested.   Sounds like an idea for a future blog post(s) as I have 2 sets of 2C1R to use for comparison with my aunt and my siblings on my paternal lines.

Comparing Paternal Aunt to her Nieces & Great Niece in Chromosome Browser

I think this is a good illustration of the randomness of DNA.   I'm comparing Me, my sister, and my daughter to my paternal aunt(my daughter's maternal great aunt.)  Click on the image to enlarge.

The above segment matches are of segments matches which are  5cM or highter  on the FTDNA chromosome browser.  I've uploaded to GEDmatch and can do One To One comparisons.  I'll be able to run a list of matches and other comparison reports once it batch processes.

At GEDmatch with a threshold of 7 cMs or greater:
I match my Aunt at 1610 cMs over 39 segments(largest segment of 102cMs)
Sis matches Aunt at 1548 cMs over 45 segments(largest segment of 158 cMs)
My daughter matches her Great Aunt at 785 cM over 25 segments the largest is 72 cMs

For more DNA tools and reference click on the link in the blog menu at the top of the page (DNA Tools & Reference Links)