Viewing a Family Tree at My Heritage

My Heritage now offers pedigree views of family trees. This was a desperately needed modification.

In this view, you can see the ancestors of a person.

My Heritage originally offered only a "family view." If you clicked on a person, you saw one line of ancestors and could not click back to the original person. This made navigating a tree frustrating.

I discussed this issue three years ago.

My Heritage became an important factor in genealogy research when the DNA testing site 23andMe enabled customers to link to My Heritage to display family trees.

My Heritage is free to sign up, but a subscription charge must be paid to add larger trees and access records.

My Heritage offers its own autosomal DNA testing services. The price for a kit is in line with the other testing companies. DNA tested at My Heritage is compatible to upload to GedMatch.

If you tested your DNA elsewhere, you can upload the file for free to My Heritage for an ethnicity estimate and family matches. No subscription is required to access this information.

I have found many more matches from United Kingdom at My Heritage as compared to the other testing companies.

In the examples below, the tester's parents were from Ireland. At other testing sites, he has many distant matches. At My Heritage, he has several close matches.

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.

Genetic Communities by AncestryDNA

Genetic Communities is Ancestry.com's newest feature for DNA testers.

This is not the same as an ethnicity estimate.  Please see The DNA Geek's more elaborate explanation and discussion of Genetic Communities.

Ancestry.com's DNA test estimates my ethnicity as 56% Irish with no further breakdown.  [Living DNA provided a regional breakdown within England, but not Ireland.]

The Genetic Communities tool detects a heavy link among my DNA matches to people with roots in northern Ireland, or Ulster Irish.  The Irish is from my mother's side.  I have not determined a place of origin for most of her ancestors, but her great grandfather, Patrick Francis ODonnell (1856-1931) was from County Donegal, which is part of the region encompassed by Ulster on Ancestry's map.

The other Genetic Community was a pleasant surprise because we are out of Europe and exactly where most of my father's ancestors were in the 1700s:  New York and New Jersey.  Early Settlers of New York tended to hail from certain areas of Europe, which is reflected in my father's ethnicity estimates.  Until the Genetic Community tool, there was no DNA-based connection to New York.

When trying to find the most recent common ancestor of a DNA match, you need a geographic connection.  In the match's family tree, the focus falls on branches who lived in the the New York area.  This New York Genetic Community provides support for this approach.

Chasing Irish Hometowns

Spoiler alert:  Irish hometowns not discovered (yet).

I am trying to discover where in Ireland Patrick Joyce (1830-1905) and Margaret Campbell (1835-1870) were from.  They were my maternal grandmother's great grandparents.  Their first appearance in the United States was in the 1860 Federal Census in Patterson, Putnam County, New York.

Ancestry.com Family Tree of Jody's mother.
I recently figured out how to change the background color to purple.

We start with Patrick and Margaret themselves.  I do not know if they married in New York or Ireland.  I have found no church records for the Patterson, Putnam County area circa 1860 and no mention in a newspaper, which is not unusual.  Patrick's death certificate from 1905 in Pawling, Dutchess County, lists his birthplace as "Ireland" and names one parent, his father, Richard, of Ireland.  Margaret's death in 1870 was recorded on the federal census mortality schedule and in newspapers without mention of her town of origin or her parents.  Deaths were infrequently reported to the state at this time.

So next we turn to the records of their children.  My direct line is through Patrick and Margaret's daughter, Delia Joyce (1862-1929), who married Patrick ODonnell (1856-1931) in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey in 1887.  I cannot find a record of this marriage filed with the states of New Jersey or New York.  Saint Mary's Church in Bayonne, New Jersey has a record of this marriage.  Delia's parents are listed without a place of birth.

Even if a marriage record surfaces for this couple in the New Jersey State Archives from 1887, the certificates in this time period asked for the country of birth of the parent, so the answer could be merely "Ireland."

You can view this digitized microfilm at a Family History Library.
John Joyce was a brother of Delia Joyce.
Rose Kenny was a sister of Patrick ODonnell.  She married James Kenny in 1883 in Bayonne.

Delia died in 1929 in Bayonne.  Her parents were listed as Patrick Joyce of Ireland and Cannot Learn of Ireland.  (Sixty years after Delia's mother's tragic death, her name had been forgotten.)

So next we turn to Delia's siblings, the other children of Patrick Joyce and Margaret Campbell.  There were three:
Mary, born about 1861, last seen in the 1870 census
John, born about 1867, married Mary Delaney
James, born about 1869, married Ellen [-]

After Margaret died in 1870, Patrick Joyce remarried to Bridget Cortney (1850-1910) and had several more children.

The problem with finding records for the siblings of Delia Joyce is that they are in New York.  For New Jersey records, I can go to the Archives in Trenton and retrieve the records myself and copy what I need.  For New York records, you need to place an order via postal mail and pay at least $22 (US Dollars) and then wait.

The more time that passed, the less likely Patrick Joyce's children and grandchildren would remember the ancestral Irish hometowns, if this information was even requested.

Obituaries for these siblings were not difficult to track down thanks to FultonHistory.com.  (This site is a free resource of digitized newspapers, mostly from New York.)  Still no Irish hometowns.

I ordered the marriage certificate for John Joyce (1867-1934) and Mary Delaney (1866-1941).  They were married in Pawling, Dutchess County, New York on October 28, 1888 by Reverend Daniel J McCormick of Saint John's Church.  Only the names of the parents were requested; not the birth place.

The bride's parents were Edward Delaney and Catherine McCue.

The witnesses were John Delaney and Mary Ann Walsh.  Delaney was likely for the bride.  I don't know who Mary Ann Walsh could be.  Maybe the lost older sister of John Joyce?  More research needed!  Always investigate the witnesses.


The records kept by Saint John's Church in Pawling may be a great help.  This family was also buried in the church cemetery.  If anyone has a way for me to look at these records, please reach out to me.  Thank you.

Matrilineal DNA, Destination Ireland

In December I tested my mitochondrial DNA ("mtDNA") with FamilyTreeDNA.  My first mtDNA test was over five years ago with Ancestry.com and is now essentially defunct.

My mtDNA haplogroup is H1au1b, which is not very common.

Well, I have four matches to work with.

This DNA test looks at a specific kind of DNA in the mitochondria of cells.  Unlike autosomal DNA in the nucleus of a cell, mitochondrial DNA does not change from generation to generation.  A person's mitochondrial DNA is an exact copy (minus some mutations) of that person's mother's mitochondrial DNA.  The mitochondria are nicknamed the "powerhouses" of cells.  Their DNA is portrayed as circular like bacterial DNA, not a double helix like nuclear autosomal DNA. 

My direct maternal line is not long on paper.  I can trace back to my great great grandmother, Bridget Sheehy.  She was born in Ireland about1857.  She married John Preston (1857-1928) around 1877 in Dutchess County, New York.  The mitochondria in my cells are identical to the mitochondria that powered Bridget's cells.



Bridget Sheehy (1857-1916), wife of John Preston
Courtesy of Irene Preston

Bridget died almost one hundred years ago on 5 April 1916 in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey and is buried at Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City.  Her death certificate listed the names of both of her parents, Edmond [or Edward?] Sheehy and Bridget Frawley.

There was a couple by this name living in Dutchess County, Edmond Sheehy (1825-1893) and Bridget Frawley (1826-1905).  Bridget's death certificate lists her parents as John Frawley and Mary Shea of Ireland.  I lucked out again.  The death certificate for every ancestor on my direct maternal line includes the full names of both parents up through this possible fourth great grandmother.

A wonderful clue was in a newspaper article from 1936 in The Harlem Valley Times from Amenia, Dutchess County.  [Free access through FultonHistory.com.]  The article detailed the 50th wedding anniversary of a couple, Thomas Culligan (1863-1937) and Ellen Sheehy (1866-1938).  Ellen's parents were "Edward" Sheehy and Bridget Frawley of Limerick, Ireland.

Was Ellen a sister of my Bridget?

I want to assign my Bridget Sheehy to this family from Amenia.  But there is no connection in any of the documents I found so far.  In the anniversary article above, no relatives named Preston or from Bayonne are mentioned.  The only child mentioned in the 1905 obituary of Bridget Frawley Sheehy, possible mother of my Bridget, is her daughter from the newspaper article, Ellen Sheehy Culligan.

My Bridget's first definite appearance is in the 1880 federal census in Stanford, Dutchess County, when she is already married to John D Preston and has children.  But in the 1875 New York state census is a Bridget Shehea, age 22, born in Ireland, a servant to the Bertine family in Amenia.  The next family is James Shea of Ireland, his wife, Catherine [Ahearn], and their children, Thomas, Nora, Catherine, and Margaret.

The seven year old Thomas Shea in the 1875 census is Thomas James Shehea (1867-1885) at FindAGrave and linked to parents James T Sheely (1828-1902) and Catherine Ahern (1838-1925).  This tells me that the surname underwent spelling modifications.  This family, as well as the Sheehy and Culligan families, are buried at Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Amenia, Dutchess County, New York.  Is my Bridget related to James Shehea/Sheely/Sheehy?

Consider the 1892 New York State Census.  "Edward" Sheehy and Bridget Sheehy are enumerated in Amenia.  The prior family is Mary Ahearn, age 40; she is a daughter of Edmond/Edward Sheehy and Bridget.  At the bottom of the page is a Sheehy family, unfortunately cut-off.  The male head of household is 64 years old, just one year shy of Edward Sheehy.  Could this be James Sheely/Sheehy and his wife, Catherine Ahearn?  The eleven year old child is also unviewable, but the next page has Nellie Sheehy, age 14.  Nellie was a daughter of James Sheehy and Catherine.

Were Edmond/Edward Sheehy and James Shehea/Sheely/Sheehy brothers?  Or is James a relative of Mary Shea, the possible maternal grandmother of Bridget?  Or were the names of Bridget's parents wrong on the death certificate?

To utilize my mtDNA test, if Ellen Sheehy, wife of Thomas Culligan, was a sister of my Bridget, and we could possibly find a living direct maternal line descendant of Ellen, that person's mtDNA would be identical to mine.  Ellen had one daughter, Florence (1898-1979), who had children with John McEnroe (1923-2005).  If any of those children are still alive, they could test; otherwise, the eligible candidates would be children of Florence's daughter, Eileen McEnroe (1932-2011), wife of Guenther Hans Strauss (1927-1999).

Irish Catholic Records: ODonnell and Gallagher in Donegal

If you have not heard, you can now access digital images of Catholic records on the website of the National Library of Ireland.

A lot of these images are not (currently) indexed.  Some parish pages have links to potential indexes.  You need to know where in Ireland you want to search.  The map is great.

For my maternal grandmother's Irish lines, I only know the origins of her paternal grandfather, Patrick Francis ODonnell:  County Donegal.

I clicked on Donegal and the parishes appeared.  I had to make a further selection.

I chose Ardara based on a poem written by a cousin.  In the poem, Father Charles Leo ODonnell (1884-1934) wrote that his father (Cornelius ODonnell, a brother of Patrick Francis) was from Ardara and his mother (Mary Gallagher) was from Killybegs.  I hoped that Margaret Gallagher, the mother of Cornelius and Patrick ODonnell, was from the same area.

Before you jump into a batch of records without an index, you should map out what it is you are looking for.

Over the years and through many research efforts, this is the little family cluster so far discovered.

Parents:  Peter ODonnell and Margaret Gallagher.  Born suppose about 1820.  (No direct records of them.)

Five Children born in Ireland from around 1840 through 1860:
*Cornelius "Neal" ODonnell, married Mary Gallagher; lived in Indiana.
*Kathryn ODonnell, married Charles Mason and Mr Kennedy; lived in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and California.
*Patrick Francis ODonnell, married Delia Joyce; lived in Bayonne, New Jersey.
*Rose ODonnell, married James Kenny; lived in Bayonne.
*Charles Mhici ODonnell; was living in Altnagapple, Ardara, County Donegal in 1923.

All of the children, except Charles, were probably in the United States by 1880.  I do not know if Peter and Margaret left Ireland.

The records for review for Ardara were:  Marriages 1867-1875 and Baptisms 1869-1880.  These were not years conducive to my little group, but I looked through all the images anyway.  Nothing jumped out at me.  There were lots of entries for ODonnells and Gallaghers, but little information beyond names of the parties and sponsors.

Neighboring Killybegs was my next choice.  These records were for Baptisms 1850-1881.  I was more excited for this collection because these years would contain the five children of Peter and Margaret.  Yet I found no children baptized with parents named Peter ODonnell and Margaret Gallagher.  Again, plenty of people with these surnames.

I found two baptism entries for the year 1855, listing Peter ODonnell as a sponsor.  Margaret ODonnell was also a sponsor for one; Margaret Byam for the other.  "Peter" is not a common name in this collection.

March 23, 1855:  James, son of Patrick Mc[?] and May [?Boyle?];
sponsors Peter ODonnell and Margaret ODonnell.

September 9, 1855:  Mary, son of Denis ODonnell and Mary Byam[?];

sponsors Peter ODonnell and Marg Byam.

From this information, we don't know if we have the correct Peter ODonnell and Margaret Gallagher.  These records may place the couple in the area.  Perhaps their marriage record and their children's baptismal records are in a neighboring parish, if those years are available.

Of note is that these records from Donegal did not contain any entries for some of the other Irish surnames in my lines:  Preston, Joyce, Sheehey, reflecting Ireland's areas of surname concentrations.

Cousins in Common

The prior article concerned DNA cousins in common.  Finding DNA cousins who match you and some of your other DNA cousins is not uncommon.  You must be careful in drawing inferences in these situations.

Finding cousins in common is a tool at FamilyTreeDNA and GedMatch.  You can manually compare cousins at 23andMe to ascertain if someone matches your cousin- as long as everyone is sharing genomes.  The glitch arises when two of your cousins match each other, but not on the same segments of DNA where you match each of them.

The query:  If three people share different segments of DNA with one another, are they related through a common ancestral line?

Answer:  Maybe, maybe not.

Unless the match is very close, I don't pursue cousins in common.  Early on in my genetic genealogy pursuits, I was overwhelmed with my mother's DNA matches.  They matched her and her other DNA cousins, though not on the same segments.  To this day, I have no direction in this undocumented branch of her family tree.  These cousins either live in or have recently immigrated from Eastern Europe.

Two years ago, my maternal third cousin appeared among the matches at 23andMe.  We share a pair of great great grandparents, John Preston (1857-1928) and Bridget Sheehey (1857-1916).  John was born in Dutchess County, New York to Irish parents.  Bridget was born in Ireland.  (I have no idea where in Ireland they lived.)

Here is the graph of his shared DNA with my mother- three segments:

With this new close cousin's DNA, I compared him to my mother's distant DNA cousins to round up some people that we could place in the Preston/Sheehey branch.


Comparison of my mother's distant DNA cousins from Eastern Europe revealed that this Irish Preston/Sheehey cousin matched a lot of them on multiple segments.  Lots of cousins in common, but from different branches of their respective trees.  To date, no DNA cousin from Eastern Europe matches my mother and this Irish Preston/Sheehey cousin on the same segments.

The point is to be cautious when looking at cousins in common who do not share the same DNA segments.

A More Precise Irish Hometown?

I found a website detailing the history of a school in Meentinadea, County Donegal, Ireland.

I was directed to the page by searching for a priest in the family, Father Charles O'Donnell (1884-1934).

The site mentions that Father O'Donnell's father (Cornelius or Neil O'Donnell) was from Altnagapple, "two miles from the school," and his mother, Mary (Gallagher), was from Cullion, Killybegs.  Father O'Donnell "visited his ancestral home at Altnagapple" on a return trip from Rome in 1923, saying Mass while an uncle, Charlie Mhici O'Donnell, "and relatives were present."

This information expounds upon the little information I previously had, which was from Father O'Donnell's book.  In a poem in the book, Father O'Donnell wrote that his father was from Ardara and his mother from Killybegs.  They met on the road in Donegal.

Father O'Donnell's father, Neil O'Donnell, was a brother of my great great grandfather, Patrick Francis O'Donnell.  Neil and Patrick's parents were Peter O'Donnell and Margaret Gallagher.  I am hoping that Margaret Gallagher was also from this area of Donegal and is related to the Mary Gallagher who married her son Neil O'Donnell.  That should make finding records easier.

I did not know that Neil and Patrick had a brother, Charlie, who remained in Ireland.

Hopefully this additional information will enable me to locate some more generations in Ireland.

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.