DNA WORKSHOP
Welcome to the DNA Workshop! In every issue DNA adviser Karen Evans will be unpacking a reader case study, and giving step-by-step tips for you to use in your DNA research at home. It’s time to unlock the story of your genes…
Will DNA be able to solve a longstanding mystery? DNA Advisor Karen Evans steps up to help
CAN DNA RESEARCH HELP ME SOLVE A LONG-STANDING MYSTERY?
MICHELLE: I read your pages every month and I try hard to concentrate, I really do, but I struggle! Science is not my thing, unfortunately.
I have been researching mine and my husband's (John Paterson) family trees for over ten years and have been stumped at times. His dad's family are such a mystery! Anyway we did DNA tests a few years ago and it was amazing. I found a lovely man who told us all about John's grandad. Family legend told us he was born in Aberdeen. He wasn’t! He was born in Herefordshire. So we have all the information about my husband’s grandad's maternal side. It’s the other side and his grandad and grandmother I struggle the most with. No birth certificate for grandmother and no marriage certificate.
Anyway, the biggest and best breakthrough came when I uploaded our raw DNA onto Myheritage. This man, David, was given a DNA kit for Christmas by his daughter last year and uploaded the results in January where I saw it and couldn’t believe it! Such a massive match! I just don’t know where from. We have looked at names, etc, but the big thing is David's dad doesn’t know who his father was. I am in contact with David.
KAREN:
How could I resist!? According to his birth certificate John’s father was born in Liverpool to Douglas Paterson (born 1899, Ross) and his wife Doris, née Mooney (born 1900, supposedly Liverpool). Michelle has found the couple in the 1939 Register and been able to trace the Paterson line back to Scotland via a mixture of traditional and DNA match research. Doris is a mystery. There is no sign of a marriage between Douglas and Doris and, despite a date of birth, there is no Doris Mooney in the 1901 or 1911 census that fits the bill. Would John’s DNA give us some clues? As a further twist, David’s father was born in Liverpool.
CLUSTERING THE MATCHES
I started looking at Ancestry, clustering John’s matches into groups and assigning each group with a coloured dot. There were six main groups and it was then a matter of working out how each group related to John’s tree. Three of the groups were clearly from John’s mother’s maternal and paternal lines but what about the other three?
John had attached his known tree
Reader Michelle got in touch with DNA adviser Karen Evans to ask her advice
on the high side for second cousins once removed. However, James Lewis and Annie Hulme were first cousins (their mothers were sisters), which meant their children would share slightly more DNA because they are siblings AND 2nd cousins.
Michelle and John were able to use traditional research methods that confirmed John and Pam were indeed related by their most recent common ancestors (MRCA) James and Annie Lewis. I looked at John and Pam’s shared matches, several had trees which confirmed their link via the Lewis/hulme line either by common ancestor hints or researching the trees out further. We were now confident this group belonged to one of John’s paternal lines. This group (which I’d given a light blue spot) could now be named.
A CURVE-BALL…
We were bubbling along nicely – then the wheels came off! It just shows that DNA can sometimes be so clear and helpful; at other times it feels it muddies the water even more. John’s highest ‘unknown’ match was Vera who shares 332cms with him and has a small tree. John and Vera had a large shared match group which I’d clustered together and assigned a yellow coloured dot. Michelle contacted Vera who was happy to correspond and soon gave us extremely helpful information: her maternal great-grandmother was a Mary Mooney, born 1868, in Great Crosby, Lancashire. Surely it was too much of a coincidence that Vera had a Mooney in her tree and we were on the hunt for Doris Mooney’s family? Added to that was the fact that both Mooney women certainly lived in the same area (though we were unsure whether Doris was born there)
We quickly grew a Mooney tree around Mary using traditional search methods including censuses and BMD indexes. Mary was one of four children born to Terence Mooney (born c.1829 in Ireland) and his wife Mary Meadows. Could we find any more Mooney/meadows family within the cluster? Yes! There was a 36cm match to John who was descended from Mary’s brother Peter and a lower match who seemed to descend from Mary Meadows’ uncle.
AN EXCITING DEVELOPMENT
Ancestry provides a tool which allows us to group our matches on one screen so we can examine them in more detail. I clicked on the ‘group’ tab which gave me a drop-down menu. Here I clicked on my yellow ‘group A’ and this allowed me to see all the matches I’d found which linked to Vera or someone in that group. While looking at the other matches in this group I’d begun to notice several had trees which included a Swift ancestor who hailed from the Crosby/ince
Bludell/formby area of Lancashire. I have been able to tie some of these matches to a MRCA John Swift (born c. 1805, Crosby) and I became very excited to notice that Mary Mooney married a Thomas Swift from Great Crosby.
THE BIGGEST HURDLE
Was Doris the daughter of Thomas and Mary? Now, you have probably noticed the biggest hurdle here is that fact that Doris’ surname was Mooney and she surely would have been a Swift. She was born several years after the couple married so couldn’t be their illegitimate daughter but none of Mary and Thomas’s children were old enough to be Doris’ parent.
There was another problem. I couldn’t link Thomas Swift to any of the Swift lines I’d found. Thomas Swift’s father William Swift (born c.1841, Ince Blundell) could be illegitimate. Although William had a father on his marriage certificate I’ve not been able to find them on the census. So, Vera has a family name we can’t find a link to and a Swift ancestor that doesn’t ‘seem’ to fit with the other Swifts in the group!
ONE INTRIGUING FACTOR
There is one intriguing factor which may have a bearing on this strange match mix up. Thomas and Mary did have a daughter, Doris, born 1898 who married a Thomas Mcquck and had two daughters in 1921 and 1923. Thomas Mcquck goes to the US in 1923 and documents mention his marriage to Doris and moving to his brother-in-law’s residence. In the 1930 Census Thomas is living with his sister and brother-in-law but is marked as single. In 1941 Thomas marries and his two daughters join him in the US in 1950. I can’t find either in the 1939 Register so presume they are still redacted. We have been unable to find Doris Mcquck, née Swift, after 1923; she doesn’t remarry or die under that name and there is no record of her ever going to the US to join her husband. Could Doris Swift, née Mcquck and Doris Paterson, née Mooney be the same person?
In the 1939 Register Doris Paterson gave her birthday as 17 December 1900. I had a chat with Michelle and she decided to buy Doris Swift’s birth certificate. You guessed it, although the year was different both Doris’s share the same birthday! Coincidence?
A COMPLETE BRICK WALL
I’ve come up against a complete brick wall with the second unknown group. There are five matches over 40cms and most of these have an attached tree but I have been unable to find any common ancestors among these matches. What is clear is that most of the trees show a strong link to
Scotland and particularly around the Aberdeen area. It should also be noted that, while I have been abie to find DNA links to John’s greatgrandmother Elizabeth Lewis who married William Paterson, I have been unable to find any matches to the Paterson line. William Paterson was not born in Scotland but his parents were. Is John’s direct paternal line lying hidden within this group? There are nearly 20 matches in this group but most are under 25cms which could indicate relationships too far distant to find.
And what of David? David’s father, Bert was supposedly born in Liverpool in 1920 and was cared for by two different families which have no known relationship to Bert’s mother. His birth registration can’t be found under any of the possible names and he does not appear in the 1939 Register, although his mother does.
ESTABLISHING WHERE THEY MAY LINK
We needed to see which matches on Myheritage could be linked to John and David’s known trees and then establish where they may link. The two men share a massive 523cms with each other which shows a fairly close shared ancestor.
We have been able to find matches to John’s maternal line but John and David share none of these matches
so it makes sense that they are linked via John's paternal line. David highest match is from a cousin on his maternal side who John doesn’t link to, so was their link through David’s paternal line also? The fact that both John and David paternal lines are linked geographically around the Liverpool area also seems to tie in.
John has a high match of 99cms with Nigel who is from John’s paternal side, along a maternal branch but David and John do not have Nigel in their shared match list. I would have expected John and David to share
Nigel if they are both descendants of the Paterson line. There is a chance that beyond 2nd cousins there will be no shared DNA, so, if David was a 2nd cousin once removed or third cousin with Nigel they might not match. I looked to see if any matches of Nigel and John’s are found in David's match list but there were none of high enough DNA to make them relevant.
I’ve been able to find a match with John on Myheritage which is also on Ancestry and who ties into the Swift group. David does not share this match or any of the shared matches with this person. Again, there are too few matches to make any assumptions about this link.
David and John’s highest shared match is Don who shares 76cms and 63cms respectively with each man. I've created a quick and dirty tree for Don but his tree shows no links to any known part of either tree or corresponds with any geographical areas for either David or John!
At the moment that is as far as we can go – with even more questions for the two families to solve?