DNA and The Butterfly Effect

Would law enforcement be able to use genetic databases like GedMatch to solve crimes if Ancestry had provided a chromosome browser to their customers?

The CEO of Ancestry this week cautioned that consumers need to be careful about the companies with whom we share our DNA. She pointed out that Ancestry has the highest standards around privacy and does not cooperate with law enforcement.

I almost fell off my chair laughing. In another post I'll explain how Ancestry reduced privacy options recently in a way that has me highly concerned and caused me to unlink several DNA tests from my tree.

The CEO's statement made me think also about cause and effect.

If Ancestry had provided a chromosome browser, they would have been able to serve their customers who want hard science in addition to warm fuzzy feelings. We would not have needed to turn to GedMatch and other companies for this service.

Additionally, if Ancestry had accepted DNA uploads from other companies, they could have provided cross-company matching and captured a larger share of the market. Instead they ceded this market to GedMatch and now to other companies.

I did a (non-scientific) check of my top 3000 matches on GedMatch. A full 50 percent of my matches were from Ancestry. And my family and I have better privacy on GedMatch than on Ancestry, which is a story for another day.

My opinion is that Ancestry's choices have been an important cause of the growth of GedMatch. I'm personally on the fence about law enforcement using genetic databases. However, I also think Ancestry needs to own its part in the situation, rather than denigrate companies that fill gaps in Ancestry's DNA offering.

So I ponder if the Golden State Killer was caught thanks to a long-ago decision made by Ancestry. Was it cause and effect?

The Case of the Missing DNA

A recent inquiry from a DNA match sent me into the mysteries of AncestryDNA matching. I was appalled at what I learned.

In the field of data science, we use the term "single source of truth." You would expect that DNA matching would be consistent across all the different testing companies, so any and all of them would be a valid source of truth. Not so. If you skip the story, please take a moment to look below at the explanatory graphic.

It started with a routine email from a gentleman I'll call Lou. He found our match on Family Tree DNA and asked if it was possible we were related through a particular surname. He closed by telling me he was of African-American descent.

Knowing the challenges faced by African-Americans who are researching their roots, I gave the email far more attention than I would have if it had been from a Caucasian match.

Lou and I had no shared matches on FTDNA, so  I turned to Ancestry, where I have identified many cousins from that branch of my family. But there was a problem. Our match on Ancestry was only 8 cM (1 segment), where on FTDNA it was 27 cM (3 segments). How is that even possible?

Our FTDNA match includes a couple of short segments. Eliminating them leaves our FTDNA match at 19.9 cM (1 segment), still more than double what AncestryDNA showed. We exchanged some emails to discuss the source of the data.

• Lou had uploaded his AncestryDNA results to FTDNA, MyHeritage and GedMatch. 
• Lou had tested with 23AndMe and uploaded that result to GedMatch.
• I had directly tested with FTDNA and MyHeritage, in addition to AncestryDNA. 
• I had uploaded my AncestryDNA result to GedMatch. 

All match combinations except AncestryDNA are in the range 17.8-19.9 cM, with one segment in the same approximate range in chromosome 12. Of course we can't see what AncestryDNA is suggesting.

Choose Your Source of Truth

My brother's match to Lou is also in a similar range to these numbers. At Ancestry DNA, Lou's brothers and daughter have a stronger match to me than Lou does. However, none of them have uploaded to GedMatch, so we can't see the science behind the numbers. This particular chromosome range does appear to fall in or near an ISOGG-documented slight pile-up area.

So this leaves the possibility that AncestryDNA has chosen to ignore some of the match due to pile-up. Wouldn't it be nice to be told that?

Does Ancestry have a computational error on my match with Lou, since Lou's daughter matches me more strongly than Lou matches me? Or does she match me in an entirely different way via her mother's lines?

What is the best source of truth? If you are using only AncestryDNA for your DNA matching, you are not seeing the whole truth. GedMatch is free. FTDNA is inexpensive. MyHeritage has some great tools. You can choose your source of truth.

Remembrance

To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
-- Thomas Campbell

Thank you to those of you who shared ideas for actions I can take at the time of entering a death into my family tree. Today I'm sharing those ideas, as well as the ideas they inspired.

It's all about remembrance of the family member who has passed. Take a few minutes to think and remember. What would future generations like to know about this person? What do I feel about the loss of this person? What are the actions that are appropriate?

• Write a paragraph or a list of attributes about the person. Fully identify the person, the date of the writing and the author. Place it in my files, not online.
• If memories are painful, consider writing them and then destroying them, perhaps through fire.
• If there is a possibility to speak at the funeral or memorial service, make notes about what I want to share. I've been unprepared to share at a couple of services -- I can do better.
• Update FindAGrave and/or BillionGraves. Create the memorial page. If the page exists, leave a message or add a photo.
• Find the online obituary and capture it for my files. Leave a condolence message.
• Do I need to send a card? Craft it (or buy it) and send it.
• Create a scrapbook page to memorialize the person.
• Create a memory book or shadow box. Consider gifting it to the family.

I hope these ideas will be useful to you, as they have been to me.

In closing, here is some scrapbooking inspiration in the form of a double-page paper layout. I created this several years ago in memory of my feisty maternal grandmother who I miss every day.

Needed: A Data Entry Ritual

Do you have a ritual that you use when you put sad entries into your family tree? I don't have one and I need one, so I hope you will share if you have a ritual

I'm talking about deaths entered in near real-time. You receive a phone call, a text, an email or a message or post on social media. Someone in your family -- in your tree -- has died. It's a sad moment when I put that death into my family tree database. I'm not able to be detached and working in a research mode at that point.

It feels like I need more ceremony. A brief prayer doesn't feel like enough. If I were a Catholic, I might turn to my rosary.

In the past few months I've added a spouse for a granddaughter and a new baby. Those are new chapters and they bring joy. No problem. Entering older deaths also doesn't bother me. I can be detached when newly identifying someone who died 5 years ago or 200 years ago.

In the past year I've had to enter death details not only for my father, but also for two other members of the Greatest Generation. One was my Mom's second cousin, who was a genealogy mentor. The other was a distant cousin on my Dad's side who was a WWII veteran.

I know there will be far more deaths than births throughout the remaining years of my life. How do I honor those deaths? Do you have ideas?

Your Grandpa's FAN Club

Did you know that each of your ancestors had a FAN club? No, they weren't rock stars. FAN is an acronym created by Elizabeth Shown Mills to remind us to research beyond the direct ancestor. If you're new to research, this many be a new concept for you. 

Recently I was reminded that not everyone has heard of the FAN club. So here's a brief overview of a recent research project that needed the FAN club approach.

FAN stands for:

• Friends or Family
• Acquaintances
• Neighbors

It's always good to expand your research to family members, but getting past a brick wall may mean expanding even further, including researching surnames and communities.

My sister-in-law, Mary, and I worked on her family history research a couple of years ago in preparation for her family reunion. We quickly ran into a difficult ancestor. His WWI draft card told us that he was from a village in Sonora, Mexico, having been born in late 1877. Since he was from a Catholic family, we were sure we would find a baptismal record naming his parents and that we would be able to trace several generations in the church records. 

It was not that easy. There was a gap in the baptismal records right where we expected to find his baptism. His Arizona civil marriage record didn't help, nor did his death certificate. The Catholic church where he was married had closed. There was no time to pursue the church records before the reunion.

Fast forward to 2019. At her family reunion, Mary had acquired a couple of helpful items. She now had a photo of her ancestor with his brothers and had the names of those brothers. She also had a copy of a 1932 letter from a brother to her ancestor. That letter included the names of the brother's wife and daughter and information about the death of an uncle of the same surname. It also had the village name where the brother was living.

With that information, we were able to locate the brother in the 1930 Mexico census. We found the brother's civil marriage record, which named his deceased parents. His 1874 baptismal record also was easy to find, but had a slightly different mother's name. The record showed he was the first child of the marriage.

For the uncle, we found a civil marriage record naming his deceased father and his living mother, with her age. 

Mary's ancestor and his two brothers

From quickly finding just those few records, we identified two new generations of male ancestors. The families will require further research, as it is certainly possible for brothers to have different mothers. DNA matching may also assist Mary to validate the mothers, though that will not be simple in this endogamous community.

There is obviously more research to be done by Mary and her family now that they have names and dates to start from. The surname being common in the village, they may even want to do a surname study to better understand all the relationships.

Remember the FAN club when you have a challenge. There are many web sites and blogs that elaborate on the strategy of using your ancestor's FAN club to break down brick walls.

Genealogical Goals for 2019

Goals. Resolutions. They are sort of the same thing.

If I don't share goals, than I'm not accountable, right? So I'm sharing my genealogical goals for the next year. At the end of 2019, I'll see how I did.

In no particular order:

1. Attend one genealogy conference.
2. Take one genealogy field trip.
3. Visit NARA in DC. Review at least three Civil War military files.
4. Update elroots.com and document the steps so I can do it more easily the next time. I owe corrections and additions to several cousins.
5. Correct the spelling of every Swedish source and parish in my database. Tedious, but necessary.
6. Remove distant Pelton branches from my database. They are not useful and the source book has been acknowledged by the author to be deficient.
7. Use MyHeritage more. Deal with Smart Matches and DNA at least monthly. Add ancestors to fully support the 6 DNA tests that I have on that site.
8. Visit FTDNA monthly to review new DNA matches for 4 tests. Add ancestors and trees to support the tests that are currently not properly supported. Revisit the Maddox project and my cousin's Y-DNA test.
9. Find the birth record for cousin R's elusive Swedish ancestress. This is a challenge, but I'm determined. It will require DNA sleuthing.
10. Complete the last two posts for the blog They Remember Arizona. This  little series just needs to be wrapped up. Also check all links within the series.
11. Post once a month to the blog Murder at Mauvaisterre Creek. Set aside the extra research and tell the story.
12. Fully migrate from the old Family Tree Maker 11 to Roots Magic. This will be the hardest goal to achieve, as I like how fast I can do data input in my old friend, FTM. It's very dated, though, and has some issues.

That should keep me plenty busy.

Happy Dance, Swedish Style: 52 Ancestors

Revised June 2023

The Swedish church records are a wonderful resource. They are far more comprehensive than American records and are far more accurate -- usually, but not always. The past few years have seen a huge growth in the number of indexed records and also in records available online. While this search was challenging in prior years, it would be far simpler in 2023. Records that have been photographed in color are much easier to read than the old black and white microfilm images.

The story begins with two sisters who married two men in the parish of Björsäter, Östergötland. In 1798, Maja Lena Nilsdotter married my ancestor, Peter (Per) Persson. Two years later, in 1800, Catharina Nilsdotter married Nils Persson. Both men had been born in Hannäs parish, which was in Kalmar County until 1971, when it became part of Östergötland County.

The couples moved on to other nearby parishes, never living more than 30 miles away from each other, but also making it harder to keep track of them. I did not know that the men were brothers and could not find birth records for either Peter or Nils in the Hannäs parish records. I followed Peter throughout his life, but lost track of Catherina and Nils, who spent several years in Värna.

Peter returned to Björsäter parish in 1814 and took the surname Fröling between 1819 and 1822. He had very bad luck with wives and children, burying three wives and eight of his fourteen children, one of whom was stillborn. Peter Persson Fröling died on August 12, 1842, leaving a widow and six children. His estate inventory (bouppteckning, Bankekinds Häradsrätt FII:32 page 741) referred to Nils Persson, who was then living in Svinstad parish.

Having located Nils, I followed him forward until his death on March 8, 1858. There was a wonderful surprise. Many death records are only a line or two long, but the record keepers in Svinstad wrote an entire paragraph when a parishioner died.

The Svinstad death record led to the Hannäs birth record, but there is a date discrepancy, which is why I could never locate the right record. Here are the two records.

Birth Record, Hannäs CI:2 Page 325

Death Record, Bankekind (Svinstad) BI:1 Page 445

In both records, Nils' parents are listed as Per/Peter Nilsson and wife Stina Östensdotter of Knappemåla. His birth record gives his date of birth as February 11, 1777, with his christening on the 16th. However, his death record gives his date of birth as March 5, 1777. The March date must have been written on a moving certificate at some point in his life. Interestingly, his original moving certificate must have had a birth year of 1768, but somehow it was apparently corrected about 1812, after which all the records said March 5, 1777.

Having identified Nils' parents, Peter's birth record was now easy to find, based on the same parents. However, there is another date discrepancy.

Birth Record, Hannäs CI:2 Page 311

 

Clerical Survey, Björsäter AI:9 Page 278

His birth was originally recorded as September 13, 1768, with christening on the 18th. However, all other records, including his death record, show his date of birth as September 6, 1768. 

This ends the puzzling records description. Comments are welcome!

The remainder of this post is for the descendants of Peter Persson Fröling.

The Life of Peter Persson Fröling

Let's start with a map of the area and with Peter's parents -- the source of the happy dance. Click the icon at the top left of the map to see the legend.




Peter Persson was born to Per/Peter Nilsson and wife Stina Östensdotter of Knappemåla, Hannäs parish, Kalmar län. Stina's surname of Östensdotter is unique in my family records. The name Östen has several possible sources and meanings, once of which is Happy. And you know that finding this family after 14 years of searching made me very happy!

His parents married on December 26, 1765. Peter was the second of seven children of the marriage. His older brother died young, but he also had two older half-siblings from his mother's first marriage. The home at Knappemåla appears to have been where Stina lived during her first marriage to Pehr Johansson, in 1759.

The first known record of Peter Persson after his birth is in the Björsäter clerical survey of 1792-1795 (AI:1 page 243), where he was recorded as a laborer entering the parish in 1795, coming from Yxnerum parish. He was living in the household of his future wife and in-laws.

He married Maja Lena Nilsdotter on January 11, 1798, and they moved to Vist parish sometime that year (Vist AI:3 page 28). Daughter Stina was born on December 1, 1798. It appears that Peter took up farming during the three years they lived in Vist.

1801 finds the family moving to Svinstad (Bankekind) parish (BI:1 page 637), where daughter Casja Lena Persdotter was born on September 7, 1801. Baby Peter Persson followed, born on May 28, 1803, and dying a few months later, on January 25, 1804. Baby Anna Maria was born on July 24, 1806, apparently leaving her mother suffering from complications of childbirth. Maja Lena Nilsdotter died a few days later, on August 9, 1806, leaving Peter a widower with three little girls. Anna Maria died in October, at three months old.

Waiting less than a year, Peter married my ancestor, Inga Stina Svensdotter, on February 5, 1807, in the neighboring parish of Landeryd (C:3 page 281). Six children, including a set of twins, were born to Inga and Peter during the next seven years in Svinstad. Four of the six children died before their first birthday. My line is via their eldest son, Sven Peter Persson, born on February 22, 1808, in Svinstad. Their second child, Maria Persdotter Fröling, born on September 27, 1809, also survived to have children.

In 1814, Peter and Inga moved to Björsäter parish (AI:4 page 407), with his occupation recorded as a bricklayer (tegelslagare). His transition from farmer to bricklayer must have occurred while in Svinstad, though not recorded in that parish. Two more daughters, Ulrica and Inga Lisa, were born to the couple before Inga's death on February 2, 1822. Sometime between baby Inga Lisa's 1819 birth and Inga Stina's death, Peter took the surname Fröling.

Peter, in 1822, was the father of two grown daughters, two young teens, and two children under age six. Nine months after Inga's death, he married wife number three, Brita Stina Andersdotter, on November 29, 1822. Brita died only four months later from infection on March 28, 1823. She had given birth to a stillborn infant three weeks prior.

Peter took a break from marriage, probably depending on the older children to care for the younger ones. On November 7, 1826, he married his fourth and last wife, Anna Maja Bergquist. They had one son, Johannes Gustaf Fröling, born on July 14, 1828.

Throughout the rest of his life, Peter's occupation was recorded as a bricklayer. There was no indication that he retired, although one clerical survey noted that he was elderly. He died on August 12, 1842, in Björsäter parish, with the cause recorded as old age. His second daughter had died in 1835, leaving four daughters, two sons and his widow.

I'm happy to have found Peter's family. He was an end-of-line ancestor for many years. The Hannäs records may reveal more generations, but there are no clerical surveys to help track the families. Nor are there any estate inventories for his parents. Even their death records are uncertain. So I rejoice at what's been found, knowing there may be little else to find in the old records of Hannäs.