Mystery DNA Cousin Demystified

A few years ago at 23andMe a close match appeared for my father, his siblings, and their third cousin, Bob, on their shared Cook/Neil line of Morris County, New Jersey.  Common ancestors are Calvin Cook (1826-1889) and Mary Neil (1830-1898).

The amount of shared DNA ranged from 1.66% with my uncle to 3.82% with cousin Bob.

The probable relation would be second to third cousin.  The variance in amount of shared DNA is within normal.  Or the higher amount could indicate that this mystery cousin is closer to Bob.

Either way, the person ignored my requests to connect through the 23andMe website.

Recently, 23andMe required users to not be anonymous.  This person bypassed this non-anonymous requirement and instead blocked sharing requests.

This person won't make or break my family tree, so I moved on.

Then Cousin Bob's cousin contacted me.  They share ancestors Patrick Bernard Brady (1830-18xx) and Elizabeth Duffy (1837-1918) of County Meath, Ireland.  They were the parents of Mary Brady (1870-1942), wife of Francis Asbury Cook (1851-1919).

She wondered how Bob was so closely related to her highest DNA match.  This Mystery DNA Cousin had limited contact with Bob's cousin and revealed Brady ancestors on two separate ancestral lines from two counties in Ireland, Cavan and Donegal.

In this situation, we are not using haplogroups to assign relationships or ancestral lines.
We are using them to confirm that we are dealing with the same elusive DNA tester.

The shared percentage with Bob, as well as the haplogroups, were the same for the Mystery Brady Cousin as for the Mystery Cook/Neil Cousin.

So if the Mystery Cousin is the same for both situations, this explains why Cousin Bob shares more DNA with the Mystery Cousin.  They are related through Cook/Neil ancestors as well as the separate Brady line.  For Bob, these lines merged in his great grandparents, Francis Cook and Mary Brady.

The above diagram is my theory on how the Mystery Cook/Neil Cousin (Mystery Brady Cousin) is related to my branch.  If this person comes forward, we can revise the this diagram if needed.

Welcoming Irish Relatives

A Brady cousin has been found!  She came forward after discovering the match through DNA and then checking family trees.  H.M. and R.S. are third cousins.  The common ancestors are their second great grandparents, Patrick Brady and Eliza Duffy (1837-1918).

[R.S. is my father's third cousin, but through different ancestors, Calvin Cook (1826-1889) and Mary Neil (1830-1898).  R.S. is also my mother's cousin.  We do not know which ancestors they have in common.  Testing my mother's close cousins narrowed down the possibilities to the O'Donnell/Joyce branch in my mother's tree.  R.S.'s match with my mother will be in one of his Irish branches.  I was concentrating on Brady/Duffy.  We'll look at those DNA comparisons in future posts.]

Part One:  DNA
Although the DNA tests were done at different companies (23andMe and AncestryDNA), both were uploaded (for free) to GedMatch.com, which is where the connection was discovered.  (You can do this too!)

These third cousins share two segments of DNA.  They share less DNA than R.S. shares with my father and his siblings, even though they all have the same degree of relation.  This is because the amount of DNA shared among close relatives skews beyond the initial parent-child relationship.  At the third cousin level, you begin to see no shared DNA.


Part Two:  Research
The common ancestors of R.S. and H.M. are their second great grandparents, Patrick Brady and Eliza Duffy (1837 Ireland -1918 Jersey City, New Jersey USA).  R.S. descends from their daughter, Mary.  H.M. descends from their son, Bernard.

I have no dates for Patrick Brady because I have no records for him.  Brady and Duffy are common Irish surnames and there is no shortage of people with these names in New York City and Jersey City, the target areas of my search.

Eliza used "Eliza" and "Elizabeth," but Eliza is more uncommon and therefore easier to work with.  I was able to locate her obituary from 1918 in the Jersey Journal, which lead me to her death certificate and burial (Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City).  Eliza's death certificate provided the names of her parents as Peter Duffy and Elizabeth Connors of "Ireland."  (Later in 1942, daughter Mary's death certificate provided the name of the county in Ireland- Meath.  Further research will find more precise locations.)

Jersey Journal
online at GenealogyBank.com

Death Certificate for Eliza Duffy, wife of Patrick Brady, died in Jersey City in 1918.
Available on microfilm in Trenton, New Jersey

Online burial index for Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City, New Jersey
rcancem.org (free genealogy search)
Good luck finding a grave

Burial site of Eliza Duffy, 1918
No stone.  In between Cherry and Pucciarelli.
F - K - 108.

Because this cemetery is so confusing, I also checked out K - F - 108.  Constantinople.
The grass was greener on this side, but I don't think this is where Duffy or Brady is buried.

My strategy for reconstructing this family was to gather all of the children and follow them.  This is not easy in Irish families because they gravitated towards the same Irish names.  I came up with seven children for Patrick Brady and Eliza Duffy, all born in Ireland approximately between 1850 and 1871:

--- Bernard (great grandfather of H.M.),
--- Catherine,
--- Peter,
--- Ann,
--- Mary (great grandmother of R.S.),
--- Patrick,
--- Joseph.

Figuring out the oldest child and youngest child is important for creating a timeline: when the couple married, when the father died, when the family immigrated to the United States.

Bernard appears to have been the oldest sibling.  His descendants provided details of his life.  Bernard married Mary Dineen.  In 1885, their first child, Lizzie, was born in New York City at 746 Greenwich Street.  Bernard later appears in the New York City directories at this address.  A marriage record for Bernard Brady and Mary Dineen has not yet been located.

Without an address, the correct Bernard Brady is indistinguishable from the other 21 men named Bernard Brady.

Searching for Bernard's father, Patrick Brady, in New York City is no easy task.  Look at how many men are named Patrick Brady.

At some point in the 1880s, the family lived in Jersey City.  Catherine Brady married David Francis Cleary in Jersey City in 1888.  Ann Brady married Samuel Lynn in Jersey City in 1890.  These marriage records are clearly the correct Brady family.  Where were they before 1888?

The 1885 New Jersey State census is indexed at FamilySearch.  I located a possible entry for this Brady family in Jersey City.

This entry is for Eliza and her seven children.  Barney, or Bernard, is out of birth order.

Never one to rely on an index, I found the microfilm at the Jersey City Public Library.

1885 New Jersey State Census
Jersey City, Hudson County.  District 4.  Precinct 6.  Page 207.

The numbers to locate this entry were accurate; this is page 207, family 1219, in District 4.  The only issue was that there are several precincts in the district.  This is Precinct 6.  Street addresses are not given.

Once I had the family in Jersey City in 1885, I turned to the city directories for earlier years.  (The New Jersey Room of the main branch of the Jersey City Public Library has a fairly complete set.  The Newark Public Library also has several years.)  The earliest that I can definitely identify this family in Jersey City is in the 1883-1884 directory.  Eliza is listed as Patrick's widow at 111 Cottage.

At this point, we can say that the family came to the United States sometime after the birth of the last child in Ireland, around 1871, and before 1883, when Eliza is listed as Patrick's widow in the city directory.

For further research:
--- Did Patrick Brady come to the United States with his wife and children, or did he die in Ireland?
--- Did the family live in New York City before settling in Jersey City in the early 1880s?  Were they in the United States for the 1880 federal census?  (I have not found a good match for them in 1880.)
--- Where was Bernard Brady's wife, Mary Dineen, living before the marriage?  Where is the marriage record?

Fast-forwarding to the 1895 New Jersey State Census, Eliza is living with only one child, Joseph Brady (died 1911).  Also living with them are two women with the surname Duffy:  Annie and Mamie.  These are potential relatives of Eliza who also need to be tracked down.

Where in Ireland?

Speaking of Brady from yesterday, Mary Brady Cook's death certificate from 1942 is unique among my findings.  She died in Jersey City, New Jersey.  The informant lists the full names of both parents and the county in Ireland where they were born.

Most of my records for Irish immigrants merely list "Ireland" as the country of origin.  This is not helpful when attempting to locate records in Ireland.  Bernard [also called Patrick in some records] Brady and Elizabeth Duffy were from County Meath in Ireland.  I am not sure how accurate this is, but this is a first for me, being offered a possible County.

The Brady/Duffy line is important because it could be the link between my mother and my father's third cousin.

Wife Resurfaces

Always visit the cemetery and get a plot listing!  It's a fast way of obtaining a list of family members, spouses, and dates of birth and death.

Yesterday I wrote of locating the grave of Calvin Cook and Mary Neil by locating the grave of one of their children, William, born 1849, at Locust Hill Cemetery in Dover, New Jersey.  Another child of this couple, Catherine, born 1854, wife of Calvin Peck, is also buried in this plot.  We also have Emma L Cook, born 1853, died 1891.

Locust Hill Cemetery
Dover, Morris County, New Jersey

You may be tempted to include her as a child of this couple.  Not so fast.  I have been looking for Emma for a while.  She is actually a wife of one of the sons not buried here.

1873 Marriage of Francis Cook to Emma Tuttle
Rockaway, Morris County, New Jersey
 

I happened up this marriage by chance, and it was a good thing I did.  Francis remarried after Emma's death to Mary Brady in 1897.  On the marriage return, this second marriage is listed as his first.