Always click thru to the Image of the Record

When you are adding records to your tree at Ancestry or any other site, ALWAYS click thru to view the actual image.  It may not be the person you think it is, OR the name may not be correctly indexed. If you had looked at the image(both shown below for comparison)  you can see that it says Drucilla.  There may be additional information on the document that wasn't noted by the indexer as well as other errors in the indexing. It really is worth your time to do this.  This particular record doesn't add the nearest relative or a relationship but there are some which do.  This could waste your time chasing someone who doesn't exist.  If you can add a correction when you notice these, please do so.  If it doesn't allow for a correction to the indexed item I usually leave a comment with the correction so that anyone else viewing the index will be aware.

Rutherford Co. TN Real Estate Transfers--W.G. Cook

From REAL ESTATE TRANSFER section of
News Banner (Murfreesboro, Tennessee) 05 Nov 1930, Wed Page 6
(Now part of  Daily News-Journal)
T.M. Carlton and wife to W.G. Cook 10th Dist $125
Sam Haynes and wife to W.G. Cook 10th Dist $210

The purchases are likely where he is living in the 1940 census.
While his neighbor in the census is not SAM Haynes it is a Haynes family.

1940 Census Rutherford Co. TN Dist 10 ED 75-11 sheet 5b

From Ancestry's 1940 US Federal Census database located at  

https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=2442

search terms William Cook Rutherford County Tennessee, USA

Comparing Shared DNA from paternal 2C1Rs

In one of my earlier blog post, I'd promised to do a comparison of paternal 2C1R(2nd Cousins once removed).    Below I am comparing segments that I and my siblings share with a paternal 2C1R.  This cousin is the 2nd Cousin of my Dad and our Most Recent Common Ancestor Couple is my Cook/Putman 2nd Great Grandparents.  The Cook/Putman couple are his Great Grandparents

Look at the difference in total that my sister and I share with our 2C1R as compared to what our brother shares.  If my brother had been the only one who tested we would have missed out on identifying over half of the DNA which was received via the Cook/Putman connection.  I should mention that this paternal 2C1R(who is kin to us thru his paternal lines) is also a maternal 4C1R(thru his Mom's McElroy/Shropshire lines )  He shares no matching DNA with my mother at the 5cMs/500SNPs threshold. 

Since our Dad passed on before we began testing we can't know what he would have had in common with this cousin other than looking at what all of his children have in common with this match.  Still, there may have been segments that my Dad did not pass on to any of us.  The next best thing we can do is test his sister and see what segments she shares.

By testing our Paternal Aunt who is a 2nd Cousin to this match we are able to identify 7 additional segments with this Cook/Putman cousin.  These are segments which neither I or my siblings received and are noted by the blue arrows in the above image.


This next set of 2C1R are children of a paternal 2nd Cousin.  They are half siblings to each other.  Our Most Recent Common Ancestor Couple is my Cook/King Great Grandparents.  The Cook/King couple is their 2nd Great Grandparents

There seems to be pretty good variation in the Chromosomes which I share and those which my two siblings share with each of these 2C1R  Thankfully I didn't stop at just testing myself as I seem to have less shared segments. Let's see how my Aunt compares.  She is their 1C2R.

It looks like our Aunt has most of the same segments in common with these two who are her 1C2R.  We were still able to identify a chromosome segment that my siblings nor myself had gotten which came from the Cook/King couple(noted by the dark blue arrow)  Also we were able to pick up more cMs on about 5 other segments which are marked with the lighter blue arrow.


There is a good deal of randomness in the heritance of DNA once you are back past your parents.  Test 2nd Cousins, Aunts/Uncles, and siblings. 2nd Cousins are gold mines.  They will really help you sort out the information you need in order to identify your matches.  Too, if you expect to be able to identify 3rd and 4th cousins you need to have a well-researched tree and know the descendants of your 2nd and 3rd Great Grandparents. 

AncestryDNA Matches Inventory--2nd & 3rd Cousin levels

I did an inventory of my top matches at AncestryDNA just to see how many of my matches who are listed in the groupings as 2nd cousins or 3rd cousins had uploaded to GEDmatch.  I also wanted to get an idea of which group was testing more and an idea of where there are some opportunities.  Ancestry doesn't have a chromosome browser and likely never will, so if I'm wanting to identify any segments matches with those who match me there I must ask if they will consider uploading to another site which accepts transfers or to GEDmatch.  MyHeritage just recently released some new tools which include a chromosome browser so that is now a new option when looking at segment matches. 

Inventory & Analysis of 2nd & 3rd Cousin Group Ancestry DNA matches

Total of 25 matches(excluding immediate family)

PGF- Paternal Grandfather
PGM- Paternal Grandmother
MGF- Maternal Grandfather
MGM- Maternal Grandmother

2nd Cousins(Total: 4)
3--MGF
1--MGM
None at GEDmatch

3rd Cousins(Total: 21)
7--PGF
2--PGM
11-MGF
0--MGM
1--Both MGF & MGM
8 are at GEDmatch

Even though there are several I cannot positively identify I am able to tell which Grandparent connects our families.  eventually, maybe the 4 closer cousins will upload.  I've contacted each of them.  Just a waiting game I suppose. 

Observations
Over half of those who have uploaded to GEDmatch are from my PGF's line.  I wish I had more from my MGM's line who have tested. There are some further out in the 4th Cousin Grouping and I'm thankful for that.  I have the most work to do on her lines, especially her Hale line.  The Pittmans of my MGF's line LOVE to test at Ancestry(I'm guessing for ethnicity as that line has Native American) but they do not love to upload to GEDmatch.  There are close to 20 kits(some in 3rd and more in 4th cousin group) from the Pittman/Adcock and Pittman/Hatfield lines which would be a great study in a chromosome browser.  I am lucky to have so many of my 3rd or closer cousins testing. Colonial Ancestry on both sides with virtually no ancestors immigrating after 1800 likely has a lot to do with that.

If you have tested with AncestryDNA, can you group your Top 25 AncestryDNA matches into 4 groups?  Even if you have unknowns this is doable.  It's the approach I use when helping adoptees who don't know ANY of their grandparents.  Use the Shared Matches tab to help do this.  The DNAgedcom client will also help if you have access to it.  You would need to download your ICW spreadsheet and look for each of those top 25 matches.

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.

A DNA match who shares 3 different kinship paths

Comparing Grandparent--Mom--Child
I have a new match from Ancestry who has uploaded to GEDmatch.  She has been on my Ancestry match list for a while.  She is kin on my Mom's side thru 3 different lines.
The closest is thru my Maternal Grandfather's Luna & Pittman line.
The other 2 lines are my Maternal Grandmother's Hale/Elzie & Hitchcock/Fleming lines.
While we have the Hale Hitchcock connection in one union the match has separate lines that go back to our common ancestors.  This means we have the potential for sharing segments from both my MGF and my MGM.  Fortunately, I have a sister and a brother who have both taken autosomal tests and I hope visual phasing will help to identify the ancestors responsible for these segments.

Let's look at how they were passed down from my Mom to me and from me to my daughter.

[image edited ch 13 info was inadvertenly placed in the ch 18 row in the Daughter table in my initial post and I've corrected the image so that it is now showing in the correct row.]

Comparing Matching segments passed to 3 children
We can also add my siblings to the mix and observe how Mom passed the segments to
3 of her children.  I have 2 brothers who haven't tested and neither of them has children so whatever they have inherited will not be passed.

Looking at the Amount of shared DNA for each of the 3 siblings and the match
Looking at amounts she is my 2C1R, 4C & 4C1R.
It's not as easy as adding up the avg amounts for all of those relationships and getting a guesstimate on what she should share because 10% of cousins do not match once you get to the 3rd Cousin range.  When you get to 4th cousin level it is about 50%.  Let's see how they compare 2C1R, 4C & 4C1R average amounts added together are 123+35+28 = 186 cMs.  With me and my siblings, she matches highest with my brother at 161.5 cMs...with me at 150.1 cMs and my sister at 91.7 cMs.  There probably won't be many if any Hitchcock/Fleming segments and only a little more likely are the Hale/Elzie segments.  The majority of the segments are likely Luna/Pittman segments.  I feel that since 2 of the relationships were a 4th cousin and beyond, that the multiple relationships really didn't play that big of a part in inflating the amount of shared DNA.

Looking at these comparisons it's easy to see how over a few generations the segments from those ancestors can dwindle away.   I see something odd on Chromosome 18 where my brother's segment is 36.8 cMs which is considerably more than my Mom's 21.8 cMs.  Maybe an identical by chance portion.

Ancestry doesn't include the X in any of its results.  You can, however, download your raw data and upload to GEDmatch.  Let's take a look at how my Mom, siblings, daughter and myself compare to this match on the X chromosome.  Remember the inheritance pattern of the X Chromosome.(<---see additional="" at="" bettinger="" blaine="" blog="" info="" p="" s="">This inheritance pattern only applies to segment matches on the X and not on the other 22 chromosomes which can come from ANY of the ancestors who you have in common.

Notice the 3.07 cM segment that my sister shares on the X that Mom doesn't share with this match.   Also, there is a 5.57 cM segment that my sister and I both share.which isn't shared with Mom.  Likely false positive segments.

Eventually, maybe I will be able to "assign" the segments to specific ancestors or ancestor couples at least.  I have a feeling this is going to take a good while.

If you are looking for tools to use for DNA analysis, I have a listing of my favorite tools, blogs and educational sites on my DNA Tools and Reference page.