One New Date - 3 New Generations of Ancestors

Some time ago I had hit a brickwall with researching Marlene's maternal Great Great Grandmother, Julie LeBlanc, and despite collaborating with other LeBlanc descendants, I could not confirm her parentage, mainly because I did not have a birth date for her.

 

As I identified in a previous post, the Alberta Archives has recently put historical death indexes online, and the death index entry for Julie LeBlanc identified that she was born in Quebec on 13 March 1857.

 

This one date was all that I needed to find her baptism entry (14 March 1857) in the Drouin Collection on Ancestry.com, and to very quickly take her family back an additional 3 generations, all verified through baptism and marriage records - the French Canadians kept excellent records. 

 

Ancestry of Julie Bergeron

 

One of Julie's descendants, Bonnie Konkal, had told me that Julie was adopted by an aunt and uncle, and I was able to identify the likely family that adopted her - Julie was living with Egesippe Bergeron and his wife Ludmille Croteau in the 1871 census, and I determined that Egesippe Bergeron, was Julie's father's brother.

 

An added bonus was finding that Julie had a sister, Alphonsine Bergeron, who married in Massachusetts and had several children.

 

All of this from just one birth date!

AncestryDNA's DNA Communities

AncestryDNA provides you with a breakdown of your ethnicity, based on your DNA.  They identify that I am 80% Irish, 13% Great Britain, 2% Iberian Peninsular, with smaller amounts of Italy / Greece and Europe West, but these are very broad categories.

 

Recently, Ancestry added another layer of depth to the ethnicity calculation, by identifying specific genetic communities that you likely belong to.  For me, they only identified one genetic community, which not surprisingly, is Munster Irish.  This was an easy call by Ancestry, as both of my maternal grandparents were born in Tipperary, and their families lived there for generations before. 

 

The feature also allows you to see which of your DNA matches are also in these communities, but just because you both appear in the same genetic community does mean that your common ancestor is from that genetic community.  Out of my 8,750 DNA matches on Ancestry, only 48 are identified as being members of the Munster Irish, so Ancestry is certainly erring on the side of caution. 

 

I was disappointed that they did not identify me as being part of Ulster Irish or Scottish genetic communities, which would help to identify whether my Cosgrave ancestors were long-time Irish or Scottish plantation settlers.  Hopefully over time, as Ancestry refines this new Genetic Communities feature, I will be identified as being part of some other communities.

Jim's Genetic Communities

 

Marlene was a little bit luckier, in that she is identified as being part of three genetic communities, but despite being 52% Irish, she was not identified as being part of any of the Irish genetic communities.  I was not surprised that she was part of the three identified communities, and of her 11,350  DNA matches on Ancestry, 114 are in the French Settlers in Quebec community, 39 are in the Southern English community, and 20 in the Scots in Northeast and Central Scotland community.

 

Marlene's Genetic Communities

 

I was most interested in Marlene's Southern English community, as this is the area where I have had the least success in confirming ancestral matches through DNA.  I was happy to see that Geraldine Hayes was at the top of the list of Marlene's matches in this community, and she was suggested to be a 4th cousin, which is in line with the paper match that Geraldine and I had identified some time back.

 

So I will not be rushing to promote this new feature on AncestryDNA as being a "must have", but it is interesting and may become more useful as a larger proportion of our DNA matches are identified as being part of specific ancestral communities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alberta Historic BMD Indexes Online

Marlene's Great Great Grandmother, on her maternal line, Julie Bergeron, has been a brick wall for a year or more.  Her 1881 marriage certificate identifies that the 24 year old Julie was born in Quebec, and married Louis Philippe LeBlanc in Douglas, Massachusetts, but her parents names are not recorded.  Julie and Philippe LeBlanc appear in the Canadian census records through to 1921 (last available census), and her year (1857/1858) and place of birth (Quebec) are consistent throughout the census records.  But I could not positively identify her in any records prior to her marriage, as I did not know her parents' names nor her date of birth.

 

Various researchers have provided conflicting information, but no evidence, including suggestions that she died in Legal, Alberta in 1945, and that she was raised by an Aunt and Uncle. 

 

This week I learned from the Global Genealogy newsletter that the Provincial Archives of Alberta has recently published historical birth, marriage and death indexes online, so off I went in search of Julie's death entry in the indexes. 

 

The Provincial Archives website does not provide a search box where you can enter a surname and given names and be presented with all matches.  The indexes are in a series of pdf files for a range of years / portions of the alphabet, based on surnames.

 

I scrolled down the list of files, to "L (1945-1949)", clicked on the file name, and within a few seconds the pdf file was open on my computer.  My heart sank when I found no entry in 1945, but I skipped down a few pages to get to 1946, and there was Julie's death entry, which identified that she died in St. Albert (district) on 17 May 1946, and that she was born in Quebec (province number 04) on 13 May 1857. 

 

Wow, I finally have a definite date of birth for Julie, so now I should be able to find her baptism record in the Drouin Collection on Ancestry, and identify the names of her parents.

LEBLANC, Julie - 1946 Death Entry

 I checked similarly for the death of Julie's husband, Philippe LeBlanc, and also found his death entry, which provided his date and place of death - St. Albert (district) on 28 February 1944, and confirmed his known date of birth.

LEBLANC, Philippe - 1944 Death Entry

It seems realistic that Philippe and Julie LeBlanc did both die in Legal, Alberta, as Legal is only 40 Km North of St. Albert, so is likely within the St. Albert registration district.  I sense a road trip coming up!

 

A big thank you to the Alberta Provincial Archives for making these indexes available online, and to Global Genealogy for sharing the knowledge. 

A Surprise Cousin in Tasmania

While on vacation, I received an email from a FamilyTreeDNA contact, Tammy, identifying a DNA match between her husband, Tom, and my wife, Marlene.  As we were travelling with my sisters and on a tight schedule, I wrote back and told Tammy that I was in Tasmania, and that it may be a while before I could look at the match in detail.

Tammy replied that she lives in Tasmania, and asked if we would like to get together.  How could a genealogist refuse an opportunity to meet with an unexpected cousin?  We agreed to meet in Launceston the following week, leaving a little time to try and figure out the connection.

Tom's surname is Polley, which is the only ancestral surname that he shares with Marlene - Ann Polley is Marlene's 5th Great Grandmother (Spriggs - Preston - Warne - Polley). So they have a common ancestral surname but not an identified common ancestor.

By the time we met, Tammy had used the triangulation tool on GEDmatch.com to find other people who matched both Tom and Marlene, and had identified a kit named "DJB" as a shared connection. DJB does not have an associated GEDCOM file on GEDmatch, so we could not see surnames that may be shared with either Tom or Marlene.

Tammy contacted the administrator of DJB's kit, who provided a list of DJB's ancestral surnames, but indicated that he was pressed for time at the moment.  One of the ancestral surnames is Preston, so it seems that we are on the right track.   Now we must patiently wait, until this new contact has the time to get back to us, something that us genealogists find difficult.

This situation provides several learnings -

1. Reply to all genealogical correspondence promptly, even if you are on vacation, as otherwise you might miss an opportunity to meet with new cousins
2. Do upload your DNA sample to GEDmatch, to improve the chances of finding relatives
3. Do include a GEDCOM file (containing at least your direct ancestors) with your GEDmatch upload, to quickly identify shared ancestral surnames

Hopefully, we will soon have more information on the connection between Tom, Marlene and DJB.

Which Autosomal DNA Test Should I Take?

My first autosomal DNA Test was with 23andMe in 2015.  Since then I have taken advantage of the free import of 23andMe raw DNA data to MyHeritage, have done a test with AncestryDNA, and most recently have used the FamilyHistoryDNA autosomal transfer program.  So which test would I recommend?  Below are my personal opinions of each testing company, and my recommended testing sequence.

Ancestry DNA

+  The largest autosomal DNA database

+  Identification of others who match you and someone else

-  Does not identify which segments are shared with others, and there are no DNA tools to work with

-  If you do not have a paid subscription to Ancestry, then DNA matching functionality is somewhat limited

23andMe

+  The second largest autosomal DNA database

+  Identification of Y and Mt-DNA haplogroup (at a broad level)

+  Shows the percentage of DNA shared with others, which segments are shared with others, and has basic tools to work with, including a chromosome viewer (up to 5 people at once)

+  If a parent has also tested, matches can be split between paternal and maternal lines

+  You can update the predicted relationship to the actual known relationship, without a family tree

FamilyTreeDNA

+  Predicted relationships can be confirmed by linking matching individuals to your family tree

+  Once a few matches from both sides are confirmed, the system predicts paternal and maternal line matches, without having a parent tested (gets better as you confirm more matches)

+  Shows the amount of shared DNA, and allows viewing of the matching segments of up to 5 people

+  Good filtering and sorting of matches

+ A FamilyTreeDNA test sample can also be used for Y and Mt-DNA testing

+  Low cost (US $19.00) transfer of raw autosomal DNA data from Ancestry and 23andMe (cannot be used for subsequent Y or Mt-DNA tests)

-  Third largest autosomal DNA database 

My Heritage DNA

+  Free transfer of raw DNA data (limited time offer) from other testing companies

+  Shows the percentage of shared DNA and the number of shared segments

-  The smallest autosomal database, of the 4 major DNA testing companies (but should increase rapidly if people take advantage of the free transfer from other companies)

-  Does not show which segments are shared with other users

-  If you do not have a paid subscription to MyHeritage, then DNA matching functionality is somewhat limited

If I had the money, I would take every available test with every testing company, to maximise the chance of finding new DNA matches, which help to confirm the researched family tree.  But recognising that very few of us have unlimited funds, I would recommend the following sequence -

1. Test with either 23andMe or Ancestry (largest databases provide the most exposure)
2. Upload your raw DNA data to GEDmatch, to utilise their tools and to facilitate matching with users across different testing companies
3. Purchase the low-cost autosomal DNA transfer to FamilyTreeDNA
4. Create a family tree on FamilyTreeDNA, either by manual entry or by GEDCOM import from an existing family tree
5. Take advantage of any other free or low-cost DNA data transfers from other testing companies
6. Once you are totally hooked on genetic genealogy, take a Y-DNA (paternal line) and / or a Mt-DNA (maternal line) DNA test, to learn about these two lines in more detail

 The number of people taking autosomal DNA tests seems to be growing exponentially, so you can expect more and more DNA matches  as time goes on.

Good luck!

The British Newspaper Archive

This week I signed up to use the British Newspaper Archive, as it is available free at the local library in the city that I am visiting, and I found it to be amazingly useful.

 

The collection includes national and local newspapers from all over Britain and Ireland, over varying date ranges, and search results can be filtered by region, by date range and by newspaper, to prevent being overwhelmed by irrelevant results.

 

Even if you are using the database free at a library, you still need to set up an account, but this required minimal information (name and email address), and took only a few minutes.

 

I learned that my 3G Grandfather, Isaac Hemblin, suffered a broken leg, in an accident in November 1858, which required amputation of the leg.  This accident very likely led directly to his death, which occurred on 3 December 1858.

 

But the motherlode of information came from 5 separate articles in the Belfast newspapers, regarding an 1854 law suit launched by my 2G Grandfather, James Steele Cosgrave, against the executors of his grandfather's (James Steele) estate, and when he lost the case, his subsequent bankruptcy.  This answered many questions, but also identified a myriad of other family connections that were previously unknown.

 

I can recommend this valuable resource, based on first-hand knowledge, and I will certainly be doing additional searches, once I have finished processing all of the information obtained so far.

 

FamilyTreeDNA Autosomal Transfers

The most exciting item to hit my genealogical inbox this week, was the news that FamilyTreeDNA is now accepting the transfer of autosomal DNA tests into their Family Finder database, from Ancestry and 23andMe, for only US $19.00.

 

This was much more exciting than the news that my Ancestry DNA test results were in, which, although anxiously awaited, totally underwhelmed me.  I will write more on this subject later.

 

I had already tested with 23andMe and Ancestry, had uploaded my raw DNA to GEDmatch.com and taken advantage of the free transfer to MyHeritage, so I was not expecting FamilyTreeDNA to offer anything new, other than being another hook in the genealogical pool, which might snag some results in the future.

 

Within an hour of uploading the raw DNA file from 23andMe, my matches were displayed, all 290 of them.  I immediately found a 2nd cousin, a 2nd cousin once removed and a 3rd cousin, whom I had found on other DNA testing sites.  Plus, I found a known 2nd cousin and a 2nd cousin once removed, whom I recognised from my paper research.  Not a bad start.

 

The matches all showed up under the "All" category, with none under the "Paternal", "Maternal" or "Both" categories, which was understandable as neither of my parents DNA were in the database.

 

I uploaded a GEDCOM file of my ancestry, which only took a few minutes, despite being over 6000 people, and began to link my 5 known matches to my family tree.  The report screen now showed 22 of my matches as Paternal and 7 as Maternal.  As I identify my connection to other matches, this feature will become increasingly useful in predicting which side of the family other matches are on.

 

The relationship range of 2nd to 3rd cousin and 2nd to 4th cousin predicted for all 5 of my known matches was correct, so another plus.

 

The results report can be filtered in 12 different ways, including "In Common With" and "Not in Common With", which allows you to easily find other matches that may be on the same line, or suggest which lines they are less likely to be on.

 

I also like the Chromosome Browser, as you can view which segments match on up to 5 people, and you can download the matching segments, if like me, you maintain a spreadsheet of matches that have been obtained from a variety of sources.

 

If you have tested with either Ancestry or 23andMe, I suggest that you take advantage of the FamilyTreeDNA autosomal transfer, as it will be the best $19 that you have spent on genealogy in a while.