Using DNA to fill gaps in family histories

3:15 p.m. Saturday 10 March 2018

Dublin City Library & Archive, 138/144 Pearse street, Dublin 2

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TBA

Introduction

Family history flows down through the generations via three channels:

Most genealogists start by writing down the oral traditions passed down through the generations to older family members.
Archival sources are then traditionally used by genealogists to fill some of the gaps in the oral family history.
DNA evidence now fills many of the remaining gaps left by the traditional sources.

Talk to your known relatives and correspond with your closest DNA matches. Sometimes the gaps left by one individual's sources can be filled by those of a known or unknown relative.

The boundaries between oral and archival can be blurred:

Is the description of the deceased on a death certificate oral or archival? (Estimated age at death, parents' names, mother's maiden surname, etc.)
Are family letters and diaries oral or archival?
Are published or unpublished family histories oral or archival?

All three types of sources must be consulted. None can be ignored.

Does each source verify the others?
Better still, does a new source fill gaps in the others?
Or are there conflicts of evidence?

The genealogist has to be judge and jury.

An example:

the Killeen family in 1911
Patrick's greatgrandson and his brother Christopher's granddaughter share 102.3 centiMorgans (GEDmatch) or 124 centiMorgans (FamilyTreeDNA) of autosomal DNA
this is consistent with the distribution of shared centiMorgans for second cousins once removed
Christopher's first marriage in 1934
Christopher's second marriage in 1941
not the parent expected (NPE)
what birth or baptism record did Christopher produce before his marriage?
the Kellien family in 1901
who was the one-month-old "nephew"?
still a mystery
"nephew" is the English translation of the Irish "garmhac" - see Clare Past Forum discussion
garmhac is the Irish word for a younger male relative who is expected to share a quarter of one's autosomal DNA - see DNA Detectives Autosomal Statistics Chart

NPEs can be revealed by oral, archival or genetic sources, most often by the latter.

This talk will outline the steps necessary to combine your DNA and your known ancestry to help your long-lost cousins to find you and to find your and their long-forgotten ancestors.

What is DNA?

short for deoxyribonucleic acid
made up of chromosomes and mitochondria, each consisting of molecules of four nucleotides named adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T)
represented by strings of the letters A, C, G and T

Where does our DNA come from?

When a sperm fertilises an egg, each brings DNA, which is replicated in every cell of the resulting person.

	male offspring	female offspring
sperm	Y chromosome	X chromosome
	22 paternal autosomes
egg	X chromosome
	22 maternal autosomes
	mitochondria

autosome is short for autosomal chromosome.

Inheritance paths

Y chromosome: Only males have a Y chromosome.
The Y chromosome comes down the patrilineal line - from father, father's father, father's father's father, etc.
This is the same inheritance path as followed by surnames, grants of arms, peerages, etc.
X chromosome: Males have one X chromosome, females have two.
X DNA may come through any ancestral line that does not contain two consecutive males.
Blaine Bettinger's nice colour-coded blank fan-style pedigree charts show the ancestors from whom men and women can potentially inherit X-DNA.
Autosomes: Exactly 50% of autosomal DNA comes from the father and exactly 50% comes from the mother.
Due to recombination, on average 25% comes from each grandparent, on average 12.5% comes from each greatgrandparent, and so on.
Siblings each inherit 50% of their parents' autosomal DNA, but not the same 50% (except for identical twins).
Mitochondria: Everyone has mitochondrial DNA.; Mitochondrial DNA comes down the matrilineal line - from mother, mother's mother, mother's mother's mother, etc.
The surname typically changes with every generation in this line.

This talk will concentrate on autosomal DNA.
Y DNA is also widely used for one name studies or surname projects.
Targeted mitochondrial DNA comparisons can be used to address more specialised problems - e.g. did two women have the same mother? or just come from the same female line?
Targeted X DNA comparisons can also be used to solve more specialised problems - e.g. did two men have the same mother?

The Autosomal DNA and Genetic Genealogy Websites

You must link your DNA match list and your pedigree chart and share them on the major autosomal DNA comparison websites:

MyHeritage.com only got its matching algorithm working properly in late 2017, so that Jim Palmer was not sure whether the match which helped to identify his birth mother was genuine.

23andMe.com can not currently be recommended for genealogy for several reasons:

it essentially withdrew from the market by showing many, if not all, of its customers the message "We are continuing to modify some aspects of DNA Relatives in preparation for the transition to the new 23andMe experience" from October 2015 until at least May 2017;
it withdrew further from the established market in August 2017 by becoming the first of the large companies to switch to a GSA chip which is not compatible with the current regular GEDmatch upload; and
it appears to have stopped hosting any type of family trees for its DNA customers.

Commercial and Marketing Priorities

The DNA company to which you pay your money and send your sample has a number of priorities, in this order:

separating you from your money;
assigning ethnicity labels to percentages of your DNA (percentages based on centiMorgans, SNPs, base pairs or what?); and
sending you elsewhere for help in finding cousins and ancestors.

Before you get your DNA results ...

As soon as you have sent off your DNA sample, prepare to combine your pedigree chart with your DNA results.
Beginners may not be familiar with the term pedigree chart, let alone GEDCOM file.
Examples of pedigree charts: from TNG, Ancestral Quest, AncestryDNA, ancestry.com, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch.
You must use your favourite genealogy software (e.g. Ancestral Quest) to record your ancestors and cousins and prepare your pedigree chart.
Register at GEDmatch.com.
Export a GEDCOM file containing at least the ancestors of each DNA subject for upload to the relevant DNA websites (AncestryDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, GEDmatch, MyHeritage).
For FamilyTreeDNA.com, include in the GEDCOM file any third cousins or closer already at FTDNA and the shared ancestors; FTDNA will use this information to assign other matches to the DNA subject's paternal and maternal sides (example).

Identity v. Anonymity

There is a trade-off between:

increasing your chances of finding long-lost cousins and ancestors (and being found by long-lost cousins); and
maintaining the privacy of your family history research and DNA results.

If you keep your DNA results or known family tree private, then nobody will be able to find you and you will not be able to find any DNA matches.
If you want to be found, then you must let your potential cousins see your DNA results and your known family tree.

Some customers of the DNA companies appear to wish to maintain a certain degree of privacy and anonymity
Others find it paradoxical that those trying to identify their anonymous ancestors can be so concerned about anonymising their own identity.

The Basic Rules

Reveal your birth surname:

Most people inherit DNA with their birth surname, so identify yourself as a minimum by your birth surname with an initial or a title, e.g., P Waldron or Mr Waldron or Miss Durkan.

Reveal the gender of the person who provided the DNA sample:

Valuable additional inferences can potentially be drawn once it is known whether two X chromosomes (female) or one X chromosome and one Y chromosome (male) are potentially available for comparison.
Women do not have Y-DNA and are encouraged to recruit their male relatives to provide Y-DNA, but they must NOT attach a female name to a male DNA sample, as this causes untold confusion.
Be especially careful not to inadvertently link a male's Y-DNA results with a female's autosomal DNA results at FamilyTreeDNA.com where error-checking does not look for this.

Avoid providing irrelevant information:

Your first name, married surname, adopted surname or marital status reveal nothing about your DNA, so you may keep these private if you wish.

Avoid pseudonyms:

They reduce the chances that your matches will find you or bother to look at your family tree, contact you or share the information about your ancestry that they have and that you do not have.

Be consistent and avoid unnecessary confusion:

A real example (further anonymised):

Ancestry username: tara1234
AncestryDNA samples from mother and daughter (per e-mail exchange)
linked to pedigree charts of an aunt and niece
appear to matches as M.R. (managed by tara1234) and D.C. (managed by tara1234)
neither of these are the real initials
mother's GEDmatch alias and e-mail address both begin with Molly
Molly is the dog's name
it took me

300 days after the mother's GEDmatch upload to associate her AncestryDNA and GEDmatch identities
2 days to get her to upload her daughter's data

Keep all your DNA-related correspondence in a single searchable e-mail archive

Use AncestryDNA or Facebook messages only to exchange e-mail addresses.

After you get your DNA results ...

Download your raw data from FTDNA or AncestryDNA and upload to GEDmatch.
If you used the AncestryDNA lab, use the free autosomal transfer to upload the raw data to FTDNA.
Create and upload an updated GEDCOM file with any new close cousins or ancestors that come to light.
Add DNA information to your genealogy database: use an event field or note tag in your database to track people who are in both your database and the DNA databases.

How can we use DNA in genealogy?

Autosomal DNA can distinguish between identical twins and fraternal twins.
Sometimes autosomal DNA comparison can tell us that two individuals are almost certainly full siblings (Group A on the DNA Detectives Autosomal Statistics Chart).
In other cases it may not be clear whether we are looking at full siblings with below-average shared DNA or half-siblings with above average shared DNA.
Sometimes autosomal DNA can tell us that two individuals almost certainly have one of the relationships in Group B (half-siblings, aunt-or-uncle/niece-or-nephew, double first cousin, grandparent/grandchild).
Evidence of age and evidence from the other parts of the DNA (X, Y, mt) can be combined with the autosomal DNA evidence to narrow down the possible relationships.
Occasionally autosomal DNA comparison can tell us that two individuals almost certainly have a Group C relationship (first cousin, etc.).
But generally autosomal DNA comparison can only give us an estimated probability distribution of the possible relationship groups.
Less reputable DNA companies divide match lists into groups with misleadingly precise headings like "3RD COUSIN" and "4TH COUSIN".
Less informed customers may not understand that these headings are not the exact relationship.
The observed range of shared cM for various relationships can also be seen in Blaine Bettinger's Shared cM project and at dnapainter.com.
DNA PAINTER also allows one to keep track of which DNA segments have been traced to which ancestor.

Example I: How I found my O'Dea GGGGGgrandmother

My Family Finder results are dated 15 Nov 2013.
My paternal and maternal first cousin's results are dated Apr 2014.
Paternal first cousin's closest match had an e-mail in a Texas law firm.
I mentioned this to his namesake, a local historian in Limerick, on 2 Sep 2014 and discovered that they were the same person!
We compared what we knew and found that we both had ancestors in Ballybrown and were both somehow related to John Smith (1849-1909) of Adare.
My GGGGgrandfather John Keas (c1777-1845) farmed first in Conigar (now part of the Irish Cement site) and then in Ballyveloge, where he first leased a 145-acre farm in 1819 (Registry of Deeds, book 840 page 259 deed 563759).
John Keas was grandfather of John Smith.
The match's GGgrandparents John Ryan and Bridget O'Dea married in Ballybrown, Lurriga & Patrickswell Catholic parish on 21 Feb 1821 (no. 469).
Their marriage dispensation is like a DNA report - it tells us that they were second cousins but doesn't identify their shared greatgrandparents.
John Smith (who married into the business in 1877) employed the young Denis Ryan (1858-1928), grandson of John Ryan and Bridget O'Dea, and is reported to have later said to Denis Ryan: "Why didn't you tell me you were related to me?"
Lease of Ballyveloge "for and during and untill the full end and term of the natural life and lives of Edward Keas, 2nd son, of the said lessee and John Keas, 3rd son of said lessee and William Keas, 6th son of the said lessee" (Registry of Deeds, Book 858 page 327 deed 572827)
Edward Keas remained in Conigar when the rest of the Keas family moved, in about 1819, from a parish with no surviving baptismal records today (Mungret) to an adjoining parish with surviving baptismal records (Ballybrown, Lurriga & Patrickswell).
John Keas and John Keas Jnr., although apparently Catholic, signed the minutes of a Vestry of the Established Church legally called and held at Kilkeedy Church (now in ruins) on 17 Dec 1832.
William Keas was baptised in Ballybrown, Lurriga & Patrickswell on 31 Oct 1821 "ex Joanne Keas et Maria O'Dea" (no. 1798).
So John Smith and Denis Ryan each had an O'Dea grandmother!
Were they sisters? Or is the age difference too large? Maria's last child was born the year that Bridget married.
Almost certainly both were daughters of Edward O'Dea, after whom they named sons.
Other probable and possible siblings include Anna O'Dea, possibly William Keas's godmother of that name, who married James Frost in Patrickswell parish on 7 Jun 1825 and had children baptised in Sixmilebridge parish between 1832 and 1844.
But which of the many James Frosts in that parish was Anna's husband?
Relationship diagram
My O'Dea GGGGGgrandparents' grave
Autosomal matrix
But whatever became of William Keas?

Now I am co-administrator of the O'Dea/O'Day/Dee (DNA) Project (Y-DNA) and we also have an O'Deas of Newtown project (autosomal DNA).

Example II: How I helped my 4th cousin to find multiple generations of Clancy ancestors

DNA has let the genie out of the bottle as regards secret adoptions and fosterings.
This is the story of how several Down(e)s descendants found each other.
10 June 2015: Downes descendant from New York approaches Clare Roots Society in advance of a 50th birthday first-ever visit to his ancestral homeland and wrote about his visit.
19 June 2015: Dana Downs shows up with by far my biggest half-identical region with a stranger thrown up in almost two years of genetic genealogy:
```
12 93,176,484 125,287,936 44.6 8319 Paddy/Dana
```
8 July 2015: William Brown e-mails me about a GEDmatch match to my maternal first cousin:
```
4 102,789,472 114,229,035 10.3 2079 Bill/Mary
```

But I noticed that he also matched Dana:

12 24,432,115 60,468,339 30.1 7961 Bill/Dana
15 22,377,651 30,755,131 19.3 1868 Bill/Dana

All three people descend from Downes emigrants who left from the same house in County Clare.
Two of the three emigrants had children born out of wedlock who were brick walls for their descendants, prompting them to submit DNA samples.
Bill and Dana are double third cousins once removed.
Dana is my fourth cousin with most recent common ancestral couple Hugh Clancy and Marcella Blackall.
My Clancy ancestors and the Downes ancestors were near neighbours in County Clare.
Three quarters of Dana's family tree was very complete, but her grandfather Raymond came to foster parents in Texas on an orphan train in 1904 or 1905.
Raymond's birth parents were known to be called Henry Clancy and Catherine Down(e)s and he used his mother's maiden surname.
Cath Downes sailed on the Teutonic from Queenstown on 21 September 1899 (line 22).
Hewry [sic in transcript] Clancy sailed on the Lucania from Queenstown on 31 December 1899 (also line 22).
Raymond was born in Manhattan on 24 January 1900.
In the census of June 1900:

Raymond Downs (white, male, b. Jan 1900) was an Inmate in the New York Foundling Asylum at 175 East 68 St. in New York (line 72).
Kate Downs (white, female, b. May 1880 in New York [sic] to New York [sic] born parents) was an Inmate and nurse also in the New York Foundling Asylum (line 91).
Harry Clancy (b. Apr 1874 in Ireland to Irish parents, single, migrated 1899, 6/12 year in United States, alien, Car blacksmith) was a boarder with the Haley family at 512 Spruce Street in the 9th Ward of Terre Haute City in Harrison Township in Indiana (line 68).

Henry Clancy travelled to New York especially to finally marry Catherine Downes on 2 October 1904.
Their daughter Margaret Clancy (18 July 1905-26 December 1994) never married.
Did she know that she had a full brother in Texas?

Now I am co-administrator of the Clancy Surname (DNA) Project.

Conclusion: Why you should submit your DNA

The value of DNA "testing" to genealogists increases dramatically with the number of people from the relevant geographical area and relevant extended family group already in the DNA databases used.
Submitting your DNA to a database has significant positive externalities for existing and future researchers.
We need to persuade more Irish people to submit DNA samples to the databases for purely genealogical purposes.
Your descendants will be eternally grateful to you for leaving them your DNA.