Comparing estimates

 

FTDNA. myOrigins (v3) for BAJ. 

While awaiting the results on my Big Y700 test through FTDNA, I've also loaded my parents' autosomal DNA raw data from Ancestry on to FTDNA's platform. Primarily this is to seek more matches on either side, but an added benefit is seeing how their estimated ancestral origins compare with those on Ancestry and MyHeritage. We're still waiting on the promised update from MyHeritage, mentioned back in July but still not released. 

In the meantime, the map above shows the percentages from my Mom's results.

• Central Europe 35%
• Scandinavia 17%
• England, Wales, Scotland 13%
• Iberian Peninsula 16%
• Italian Peninsula 11%
• Americas (AmerIndian - Central & Southern Mexico) 7%
• Americas (AmerIndian - Northern Mexico) <1%
• East Slavic <1%
• Western Siberia <1%

Comparing the above with the latest from Ancestry, if we combine England, Wales & Scotland with Central Europe (48%), this aligns with AncestryDNA's latest update for my Mom with England & Northwestern Europe, combined with Scotland and Ireland (48%). If the Iberian and Italian are combined (27%), that's not too far off the latest result for Spain (33%) on Ancestry. The 7-8% Americas is somewhat close to the latest result from Ancestry for Indigenous Americas - Mexico (12%). MyHeritage has her Italian + Iberian (5.2 and 1.7%), much smaller than Mesoamerican + Andean (19.1%).  

My Dad's results show up as 100% England, Wales, Scotland, with <1% Druze. I wonder if the Druze result is an artifact from a more ancient line of the family, maybe a Crusader-era remnant. It's interesting to compare this with MyHeritage (below) and with the latest from Ancestry (Oct 2024). MyHeritage gives my Dad a .9% trace from Central Asia and oddly 6.9% Iberian. 

FTDNA. myOrigins (v3) for KDJ.

MyHeritage. Estimates for KDJ (pre-update v2).

Happy Friday

 

Winslow Homer. Fresh Eggs. 1874.

It's Friday after Thanksgiving and the house is slowly waking up. Turkey broth is cooking from yesterday's feast and the dog is hovering around the kitchen for samples. Today we're picking up the Christmas tree and watching more college basketball, hoping for better results than the past couple of days.

With the calendar flip to December coming up on Sunday, we're entering the closeout of 2024. I'll have year-end recap post toward the end of the month. I am hoping to make more family history progress leading up to the holiday break. I have plans for work and personal travel through the first half of 2025 including a trip to Rootstech in early March.

Casting a wide net

 

Winslow Homer. Hauling in the nets. 1887.

As I've transferred autosomal DNA results to MyHeritage to look for matches, I've also uploaded test results to FamilyTreeDNA. I've already found some matches who tested there and were not visible on Ancestry or MyHeritage. The hope is that by casting a wide net for DNA matches, I'll locate the right set of matches who will help resolve the mystery on identifying the parents of my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget, or figuring out the connection with the Pennsylvania O'Briens.

More work to do here as I sift through the finds that have already started to appear.  

Start of a Y journey

 

Source: FamilyTreeDNA. Migration map for R-U152.

As noted in my last post, my 2018 Geno 2.0 Y DNA result showed a paternal haplogroup of R-U152. Using FamilyTreeDNA's migration map, this haplogroup traces back to an area north of Florence in Tuscany, about 2600 BCE. I'm curious to see what the new test will show more recently than this ancient branch from 4600 years ago.

Going Big(Y)

FamilyTreeDNA currently has a Black Friday/Thanksgiving sale on their products, including the Big Y-700 DNA test. After looking at this for a few years, I've decided to take the plunge on yet another DNA test.

I've tried a number of DNA tests since 2008, originally taking the Ancestry Y DNA and mtDNA tests, then later the Ancestry autosomal DNA test, and National Geographic's short-lived Geno 2.0 test. My 2008 Ancestry Y test gave me a haplogroup R1b, and mtDNA haplogroup A. The 2018 Geno 2.0 test had more refined haplogroups for both, returning a result for R-U152 on the Y DNA, and A2d on the mtDNA side. I'm interested to see how these change when my big Y and mtDNA results arrive sometime in 2025.

I am also curious to see how this test and the information received afterward compares with other test results I administer for myself and others in the family. I'm interested in the possibility of gifting a test to another on my Dad's side of the tree. 

Stepping back a generation

 

George Fuller. Harvest Time. 1880.

Last week I shared a long post describing the breakthrough on my Mom's side of the tree, discovering the identity of the father of Mary Alice Cain Read, my 3rd-great-grandfather, Robert Gran Taylor Gibson. I'm now going back another generation, to Robert's parents, James Robert Gibson and Lucy Street. James was born between 1807 and 1809 in Adair County, Kentucky, and his parents were Job Gibson and Lydia Young. ThruLines shows we have 138 DNA matches to both. Lucy's parents were Anthony Street and Mary Polly Janes, and ThruLines shows 128 DNA matches to both of them.

James and Lucy were married in Adair County on 22 September 1831.

Ancestry. KY Marriage Records.

James and Lucy had at least the following children:

• Louvisa Gibson
• Mary Jane Gibson
• Julius Gibson
• William Gibson
• Lucy Gibson
• James Riley Gibson
• John Gibson
• Robert Gran Taylor Gibson
• Lucinda Gibson

In the 1850 US Census, the family appears in District 1, Adair County, Kentucky.

Ancestry. 1850 US Census. Adair County, KY.

By the 1860 Census, James and Lucy's household included five children in school, and son Julius with his new bride Maurenina Singleton Gibson.

Ancestry. 1860 US Census. Adair County, KY.

In the 1870 US Census, James and Lucy were in the Leatherwood District of Adair County. All of their children had moved out of the household.

Welcome to Portland

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. PDX, 22 Nov 2024.

We're back from a very quick trip to Portland and a Thursday visit to the lovely Willamette Valley. We now have the mad dash to Thanksgiving and the beginning of the December holiday season.

I'm catching up on some things I missed over the past two weeks of travel, and have some new stories to bring to the blog soon.

Vintage TWA California Poster

 

Poster at the TWA Hotel. 2 Nov 2024.

The poster above is on display at the TWA Hotel at JFK airport. Snapshot from my stopover earlier in the month on the way to Istanbul.

An absence of matches

On my maternal side of the tree, I was able to use the Leeds Method to break through the long standing brick wall and identify a missing branch of the family. When trying that same method on my Dad's side of the tree, I'm running into an absence of matches. His results only show 13 matches between the range of 400-90 centimorgans on Ancestry, and one other match when I include the matches from MyHeritage.

If I go by the dot method, there is only 456 matches in the O'Brien/Lamon group. When I narrow that group to O'Brien/Bridget matches, I am left with 76, and most of those are connected to the Pittsburgh O'Brien group. I need to try some other approaches if I'm going to identify matches who might point me in the direction of the family of my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget.

The matches

As I continue the proof of the case for Robert Gibson as the father of Mary Alice Cain, I am taking some time to highlight the matches that helped break open this mystery. This would not have been possible if those individuals had not taken a DNA test and made parts of their trees available so these connections could be surfaced. My Mom's DNA results currently have about 60,000 matches. One aunt has 55,000, while the other has about 43,000. How do you even filter this many matches down to the right ones to point the path to a common ancestor?

Just like I had done on my Dad's side of the tree, I used the dot method to create groups of people who had connections with each other and my Mom's results. I started this in June, before the launch of Ancestry's Pro Tools. I created a group of Read/Cain matches, but this left me with 2886 in that group, which is still really large. I also created a group for Flatt/Gaw matches, and tried to isolate those who were descended from Nancy Jane's side of three. This group had 1530, again, still pretty large. I also tried to create a Cain Targets group. While some of the Gibson and related matches appeared there, more of them I had overlooked as they were in both the Read/Cain and Flatt/Gaw groups.

Using the Leeds Method was the real gamechanger. Searching within the highest matches on the paternal side for my Mom and her sisters between the range of 400-90 centimorgans, revealed the group of people who had the key to the Gibson side of the tree.

Matches to Robert G. T. Gibson:

- RG: 162, 180, 193 cM (grandson of Robert)

- PT: 110, 165, 130 cM

- RG Jr: 44, 130, 160 cM

- LG: 92, 23, 60 cM

- MB: 48 cM

- AC: 47, 14 cM

- LG: 39, 12, 20 cM

- JK: 30, 13 cM

- ML: 28, 14 cM

- LR: 21, 9, 11 cM

- AS: 23, 9, 20 cM

- AB: 19 cM

- IU: 18, 13 cM

- HO: 15, 15 cM

- RA: 15, 12, 16 cM

- RG: 13 cM

- GG: 13, 48 cM

- LG: 13 cM

- BB: 12, 12 cM

- JB: 12, 10 cM

- EC: 12 cM

- AT: 11, 10, 11 cM

- CC: 11, 9 cM

- TC: 10 cM

- SM: 10 cM

Two other high matches are doubly connected, through a son of Robert's brother Julius Gibson and daughter of Robert:

- RJ: 144, 119, 150

- MS: 153, 166, 159

One of my aunts had six other strong connections in common with descendants of Julius:

- SM: 90 cM

- SQ: 75 cM

- BB: 57 cM

- CE: 57 cM

- JO: 50 cM

- LW: 31 cM

My Mom has 111 matches descending from Robert's father, James Robert Gibson. 34 of those matches are connected to one of Robert's older sisters, and include two of the matches who are also connected to the Dowell-Hubbard group.

Proving a connection

 

George Fuller. Turkey pasture in Kentucky, 1878.

In the absence of a paper trail, proving a connection between Nancy Jane Flatt and the mysterious father of her daughter Mary Alice has been a tall challenge. Had it not been for DNA evidence and recent tools provided by Ancestry and MyHeritage, this information might have been lost to time. Thankfully we do have these tools, and the right combination of matches to make a case for the identity of this missing parent. While I've shared previous theories on this blog, I think now I can write with confidence that I've found the right person.

Without the stories or records to link Nancy Jane with this person in south central Kentucky in the late 1870s, I can only guess that Nancy Jane met this man in the Leatherwood District of Adair County, Kentucky while she was visiting her half-brother William B. Flatt. William, and his wife Margaret Coomer Flatt, were raising three young children, William, Mollie and infant Braxton in the 1880 US Census. This is the same district where the Gibson family were living in the 1880 Census. The Coomer family also has a link to the Gibsons.

Nancy Jane lost her father Pleasant Flatt in December 1873, who left his third wife Nancy Hubbard Flatt with debts, lawsuits and her own young children to raise. Nancy Jane and her sisters had to fend for themselves. The ones who survived married young. Martha Flatt married Benjamin Jeffries in neighboring Clay County, Tennessee in October 1876, at the age of 16. Cansada Flatt was working as a domestic servant in the 1880 US Census (age 16), then married Buford Tackett in Metcalfe County in 1888. Mary Flatt married at the age of 15 to Henry Tobe Piper in 1883. When Nancy Jane became pregnant with her daughter Mary Alice in 1877, she was approximately 21 or 22, poor and had few options.

There's no record of a marriage for Nancy Jane from 1876 until her marriage to Pleasant Morgan in Barren County in October 1884. We do not know if Mary Alice and her brother Harl had the same father. We know she gave them both the surname Cain and they were recognized by that name when they were growing up in Barren County.

The links to that name, however tenuous or created back then, faded over time. Perhaps the father did not know Nancy Jane was pregnant. Maybe she kept his identity hidden. These details are lost. Mary Alice might not have known the real identity of her father. The signatures of his DNA remains and has given us a path to restore this side of the tree.

Introducing Robert

Robert Gran Taylor Gibson was born in Adair County, Kentucky on 8 October 1847, the son of James Robert Gibson and Lucy Street. Whatever connection Robert and Nancy Jane may have had in early 1877 was short lived, as there's no record of a marriage. On 10 March 1880, Robert, then a 32 year old farmer, married 15 year old Dora Ann Dehart in Adair County, and on the bond he certified his marriage to Dora was his first. 

Robert and Dora had at least eleven children between 1883 and 1908. From these children, my Mom and her sisters have over 30 DNA matches (and growing). My Mom's results show 111 matches to James Robert Gibson, and 104 matches to Lucy Street.

A grandson of Robert took a DNA test before his death in 2022. He's a DNA match with 162 cM in common with my Mom, 180 cM in common with my Aunt Linda and 193 cM in common with my Aunt Patty. Two of his children tested, and were also high matches (110, 165, 130 cM; 44, 130, 160 cM).

The matches who appeared in the connections for the Hubbard and Dowell families also show up in the Gibson results indicating the multiple family relations in this part of Kentucky and tracing back to Virginia. The Gibson matches all have higher cM counts.

Robert and Dora appear in the 1880 US Census in Leatherwood, Adair County, living next door to Robert's older brother Julius and family.

By 1900, the family had grown, with 7 children still in the household.

1900 US Census. Adair County, Kentucky.

In the 1910 US Census, the family was living in Elroy, Adair County.

1910 US Census. Adair County, Kentucky.

Robert died on 9 June 1914, a victim of heat exhaustion after working in the corn field on a 96 degree day.

Paducah Sun. 12 June 1914.

Dora remarried on 12 March 1928 to local minister Mitchell Albertson, and passed away on 17 June 1928 in Adair County.

I will have more on the DNA connections to Robert and the Gibson family in the next post.

Reflections

Mary Alice Cain Read had a large family of ten children with husband Charlie Read. There are a huge amount of Read-Cain cousins out there, and I am hoping some of them stumble onto the blog.

A lot of things had to fall into place just right to find the information I've been able to locate on this missing side of the tree. It wasn't enough that I had taken an autosomal DNA test in 2012, I needed my Mom's and aunts' results, then I needed the right combination of distant cousins who had tested, and shared enough information in their trees in order to make sufficient connections. I also needed to learn new tools and methods, and apply those through trial and error to sift through the thousands of matches to point to this cluster of family.

I know it also works the other way, that there's a huge set of Gibson cousins who have no idea Robert had another child out there before building his family in 1880, who created this whole other branch of family. Maybe some of them will find this information too.

Applying the Leeds Method

 

Extract from Leeds chart. Nov 2024.

Above is a snapshot from part of the Leeds Method chart I created using the DNA matches in the range of 400-90 cM for my Mom and her two sisters. There's more information on the left side of the chart, with the location of the testing company in column A (Ancestry), the category of match in column B, username (or known name) for the match in column C, cM shared with my Mom in column D, cM shared with my aunt Linda in column E, cM shared with my aunt Patty in column F, most recent common ancestor (if known) in column G, maternal or paternal in column I, and notes in column J.

I ended up with 93 matches. I compiled the cM for each match to my Mom, and repeated those steps with matches for my two aunts. Once I had the numbers, I started with the highest match not in the first cousin category and made that person the group leader for Group 1 and gave that person an X. Then I looked at the shared matches for the group leader, and assigned them a yellow color. I repeated those steps for the next match that did not have a color, and so on.

This created 12 groups, but these neatly made four main groups for each of my Mom's grandparent groups. Looking further into the clusters on my Mom's Read-Cain side of the tree, I kept seeing matches with the surname Gibson. These matches traced back to the same Gibson cluster in Adair County, Kentucky.

I can also use the Leeds chart to look closer at the clusters for my Mom's Campuzano-Vasquez and Diaz-Portillo groups, and will be doing that in the near future. I am hoping this chart will also help explore research questions 5 & 6 for my Mom's side of the tree.

The Search

It's important to look back and appreciate the huge amount of effort it has taken to date trying to resolve family history gaps. From the very first year of this blog in 2012, and for about as long as I've been doing family history research, a mystery on my Mom's side of the family has been the parents of her great-grandmother, Mary Alice Cain. I have spent countless hours pouring over census records, checking and rechecking marriage records, scanning for news articles and other clues to her family. The first lead came in 2014, when a Read cousin reached out to me with information identifying a brother of Mary Alice, Harl Cain. 

With that information, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Veterans Administration for a copy of Harl's service record in the Spanish-American War. I then found an obituary for Harl in May 2014.

In August 2014, a Read cousin posted a photo of Mary Alice with her brother Harl on Ancestry. This was an amazing find, making these people more real in the search for their parents. A year later, in July 2014, Ancestry published the US Social Security Applications and Claim Index. That index revealed the name of Harl's mother, Jane Flatt (later proven to be Nancy Jane Flatt). Further digging identified the Flatt family in Metcalfe County, Kentucky and their previous home in Overton County, Tennessee. I next ordered a copy of the Civil War pension file for Pleasant Morgan, Nancy Jane's later husband, and signatory to the marriage bond for Mary Alice Cain and Charlie Read.

Pleasant Morgan's pension file arrived in August 2015. That huge file included a name for Nancy Jane's first husband, Robert Kain. It took me almost 10 years later to go through that file again and question some of the information provided by Pleasant in his request for a pension. This second look uncovered the loop in the tree and identified Pleasant as Nancy Jane's first cousin.

October 2015 surfaced the story of Nancy Jane's father, Pleasant Flatt, and a painful earlier story on the family's beginnings in Jackson County, Tennessee. I followed Nancy Jane's half-brothers, William B. Flatt and Reamus Robert Foster Flatt, and then documented Pleasant's next family and the sisters of Nancy Jane in Metcalfe County, Kentucky.

In November 2015, I had several posts on the Flatt family, Pleasant's court cases, and ultimate death as a pauper in the Metcalfe County Poor House in 1873. This also revealed Nancy Jane's time in the poor house and her delivery of Mary Alice in February 1878.

Fast-forward to 2024. Inspired by virtual DNA Day sessions from Rootstech, I dove back into the research on the Flatt family in April of this year. I speculated about possible connections to a Robert Cain who lived in Louisville and provided bar and catering services for the first running of the Kentucky Derby. Ultimately there wasn't enough of a link to this Robert, even though there were some trace amounts matching to my Mom.

In May, after watching a number of free videos from Rootstech by Diahan Southard of YourDNAGuide, I started working with the dot method on my Mom's shared matches, beginning to develop clusters of people descending from various lines. At the end of June, Ancestry launched its Pro Tools, with Enhanced Shared Matches. This was a gamechanger on my research.

By August, I developed two research questions to help target my approach to using the new Pro Tools. I also uploaded my Mom's raw AncestryDNA data to MyHeritage to expand the pool of potential DNA matches. When the calendar flipped to September, it became time to seek some expert coaching to help overcome these challenging brick wall research questions. I signed up for a Zoom session with a DNA expert, who gave some great suggestions for trying to target my approach, creating groups using the dot method. I also signed up for their DNA Study Group, going all in on trying to use the data of our shared matches of matches.

I explored the possibility that John Hubbard, son of Pleasant Flatt's third wife Nancy D. Hubbard, was the father of Mary Alice. While there's definitely some DNA in common with the Dowell and Hubbard families, it looks like we're connected to them in another way, further back along the tree or from a common community. Although it is possible Nancy Jane had a relationship with John Hubbard while the two were in the household of the Rose family in the 1870 Census, it doesn't seem that he was the father of Mary Alice. After another session with the DNA expert, she gave me some suggestions to try again while looking at the Cain Targets and Read-Cain matches to see if there might be another group of matches that may have a stronger connection.

Since then I've been pouring over the matches of matches, while also balancing primary obligations with home and work. As noted in my last post, patterns have emerged, centered in a group of families from neighboring Adair County, Kentucky.

All of the above, the 12+ years of on-again, off-again digging and searching, has arrived at a breakthrough. This would not have been possible without DNA, and without the additional time to learn how to analyze the DNA matches using the approaches in the DNA Study Group. I'm still verifying some of my findings, but am excited to write about this in an upcoming post.

Recurring Names and Locations

After running a Leeds Method chart using the DNA matches connected to my Mom and her sisters, I think a new hypothesis is emerging on my Mary Alice Cain research question. I have been noticing a recurring set of matches with the surnames Gibson, Street, Coomer, Jesse, and England, all concentrated in Adair County, Kentucky. This is the neighboring county to Metcalfe.

In the 1880 US Census, Nancy Jane Flatt's half-brother William Burr Flatt was living in Adair County. He married Margaret Coomer in 1872. I am still not able to see Nancy Jane and children in the 1880 Census, and it does seem they were not enumerated in the records that year. The Leatherwood District where William and Margaret were living, is only a few miles away from Edmonton in Metcalfe County where Nancy Jane was a pauper in 1878.

On the MyHeritage matches, one strong match with 106 cM is a direct descendant of this same group of Gibson and Coomer people located in Adair County. The Leeds chart revealed a group of matches, first a Gibson father matching my Mom with 162 cM, my aunt Linda with 180 and my aunt Patty with 193. This father had a son and daughter who also show up as strong matches (110, 165, 130 for one; 44, 130, 160 for the other). Two other related high matches in this group have 153 and 144 cM in common with my Mom.

When I refreshed the relationships for Nancy Jane to see what ThruLines might show based on this DNA hypothesis, I now see 89 potential matches to the mother of the strongest candidate match. I'll take a closer look at this family in the next post.

Istanbul Sunset

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Istanbul, 7 Nov 2024.

I arrived back yesterday evening and am catching up today on a variety of things. Earlier in the week I followed a DNA study group session on the Leeds Method and autoclusters, and now that I've returned home, I've had a chance to start working on the shared matches of my Mom and her two sisters. There's some very interesting patterns, and it is giving me ideas to consider on an alternative for the father of Mary Alice Cain. More details soon.

Reminders of an earlier visit

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Istanbul. 16 May 2015.

I'm currently in Istanbul for meetings, and some posts have been pre-loaded while I'm traveling. Above is a shot taken from the Galata Bridge in Istanbul from a prior trip. I've probably shared this photo before, but that's ok. Family history posts will return later in the month.

1879 land indenture

 

FamilySearch. Metcalfe, KY. 7 Oct 1879.

The record above shows John A. Hubbard and his wife Maggie entered into a land indenture with Alex Bond for $64.50 on shares in the land owned by John's mother Nancy Dowell Hubbard in October 1879. She was living on the land at the time. It looks like this was part of another transaction, where John had bought out the other shareholders in the land.

After completing the sale, John and Maggie moved from Kentucky to Saint Joseph, Buchanan County, Missouri, where they appear in the 1880 US Census.

1880 US Census. Saint Joseph, MO.

Google Maps. Edmonton, KY to Saint Joseph, MO.

It seems a little odd that John would move the family to the Missouri-Kansas border in 1879, but looking at the census, John's father James W. Hubbard had relocated to Saint Joseph prior to 1870, where he had started a new family (more on that later).

I'll have more on the Hubbards and their move to Missouri, while I also continue to test the DNA theory that John A. Hubbard was the father of Mary Alice Cain.

A marriage record

 

FamilySearch. Metcalfe, KY. 1 Feb 1870.

Thanks to FamilySearch Labs text search, above is a screenshot of the marriage bond for Pleasant Flatt and William Hubbard as surety for $100, dated 1 February 1870. William was the brother of Nancy Dowell Hubbard's first husband, James W. Hubbard.

Istanbul View

Photo by Patrick Jones. Istanbul. 16 May 2015.

 

Research questions one month later

A month ago I posted the research questions I was using to drive my participation in the DNS study group. I thought it would be good to revisit my progress against those questions after the first month of the course.

For the first question, identifying the parents of Bridget, my 3rd-great-grandmother, using my Dad's DNA matches on the O'Brien line, I've isolated a group of 76 matches. At least 43 of these people actually match to the James O'Brien group of Pennsylvania O'Briens that I've been looking into. This is a small group. I suspect there may be a few more Bridget matches in the 456 matches that are part of the O'Brien/Lamon group. At the moment I'm parking this one as I've been making more progress on a few of my other research questions. I'm hopeful as we learn new skills in the study group there will be some helpful concepts that will be useful here. I also think my approach of using both MyHeritage and Ancestry matches and the autoclustering concepts will pay off as I try on the Bridget line with MyHeritage matches.

On research question two, determining the generation of connection with the Pennsylvania O'Briens, I'm re-doing the WATO tool after speaking with an Irish DNA expert through YourDNAGuide. It does look like either John O'Brien or a brother (or a mystery son by John born between 1807-1829) is the father of James O'Brien who serves as the head of the Pennsylvania branch of the tree.

For research question three, this is where I think I've made the most progress. By redirecting my search to John Hubbard, a son of the third wife of Pleasant Flatt, Nancy Dowell Hubbard, revealed a strong connection to families in Adair, Barren and Metcalfe Counties in Kentucky associated with the Hubbard, Dowell and related family lines. There's more work to do prove this definitively, but signs are much more likely there's a link here than for a Cain family link that just doesn't seem to exist in either the paper trail or via DNA.

On research question four, verifying the father of Cora Belle Medcalf on Allison's side of the tree, this one is waiting for Christmas break when I can look at her grandmother's DNA matches to the Brown line. As I'm waiting on that one, I've added a fifth research question to the list: looking at the Vasquez matches on my Mom's results and trying to identify other siblings of my 3rd-great-grandfather Gabriel Vasquez who might help us dig further into Chilean records. I feel like I'm making progress here, and there might be more to uncover as I continue grouping the Campuzano-Amado and Vasquez-Suastegui matches into different networks.

I might be able to later add a 6th research question looking into the Portillo-Bernal side of the tree, or if I try to isolate Amado matches in hopes of verifying elusive proof of the family's departure from Portugal or Spain as part of the Inquisition.

I think a separate effort all together is to try to experiment with the autoclustering of matches on MyHeritage and test AI to create Leeds Method charts that might assist with the research. That's going to need to wait until I return from travel later in November.

Orange and Yellow

 

MyHeritage clusters.

Building from Wednesday's look at the autocluster report on MyHeritage, the orange and yellow groups shown above should be considered together. Most of these people seem to be Whitley-Matthews matches, although there's a couple who overlap to the red-green cluster of Flatt and 3GGF matches I investigated earlier in the week. This isn't too surprising as all of these people connect back to the area of Barren and Metcalfe Counties in Kentucky.

Something else interesting is for most of these matches in the orange-yellow group, they only tested or uploaded their results to MyHeritage. There are a few exceptions who might have also tested at Ancestry, which allowed me to identify these people as clearly Whitley-Matthews matches. However, predominantly these matches are only on MyHeritage. This shows the value of using both platforms to identify clusters of matches.

Here's an example. One of the matches in the yellow cluster on MyHeritage is "LZ", who has 215.5 cMs in common with my Mom. That's a solid match. Putting that name into her matches on Ancestry, I see someone with the same name, but on Ancestry's results she has 246 cM in common. Ancestry shows we have a common ancestor at my great-grandparents Thomas Whitley and Elizabeth Hayden Matthews. It takes a little digging, but by looking at her tree, I can see she's a descendant of William C. Whitley, my Grandma Lois' brother.

MyHeritage has a shared DNA matches view, and if I scroll down on LZ's list, I see another Whitley match, also descending from William. He has 177 cM in common with my Mom, and thanks to his tree I can see easily where the connection is between our trees. He's not on Ancestry, so I'd only find this match by using MyHeritage's DNA tools.  

I'm continuing to see this as I look further into the light blue, dark blue and purple groups of matches in the report. Those groups appear to be on my Mom's maternal side (Campuzano, Vasquez, Amado and related matches) of Mexican ancestry. So far, a lot of these people also only seem to be on MyHeritage. There's a few that stand out who I've been able to connect to my tree as Vasquez or Campuzano descendants, so I know I'm on the right track.

It will also be interesting if this autoclustering technique results in four large Leeds Method groups, as that's a subject being covered in our DNA study group too.