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).

Which DNA test to buy for genealogy?

People ask me often:  Which kind of DNA test to buy?

I tell people they should do an autosomal DNA test.  This is the only test sold by AncestryDNA and 23andMe.  Family Tree DNA also offers this test, called Family Finder.  The price has dropped to around $100 at all three companies.

An autosomal DNA test matches you with other people whose DNA is identical to yours in a few spots, as most will be distant cousins.  These identical areas were passed down from an ancestor common to you and your match.

Diagram of Autosomal DNA inheritance

The goal is to figure out which of your ancestors you have in common.  This is not easy.  The DNA test will not produce a family tree for you.  You still must research your ancestors in records to find the leaves of your family tree.  You may find a close cousin who has done a lot of research and this cousin may provide you with his/her research.  You may find others who help you work past a tail end in your tree suspected of holding the ancestor in common.  If you were adopted, you may find close relatives who can help you identify your biological parents.

If you are serious about finding relatives, you need to test your DNA at all three companies.  You may have a close relative at one site who is not going to test multiple times to find other relatives.  You have to find them by testing at all three sites.

Confusion arises with the Y-DNA and mtDNA tests.  These tests are offered by FamilyTreeDNA and vary in price based on number of tested markers.

One ancestral line only:  Y-DNA testing and mtDNA testing

The Y-DNA test is for males.  Testers are matched to other men who share an almost identical Y chromosome.  The value of this test is that you don't have to figure out which ancestral line holds the common ancestor.  The common ancestor will always be on the direct paternal line, father to son, because this is how the Y chromosome is inherited.  Fewer differences with a match indicate that the common ancestor is within fewer generations.  This test is useful in surname studies, if your direct paternal line comes from a community that perpetuates last names from father to children.

The mtDNA test (mitochondrial, not maternal) is similar to the Y-DNA test in that the common ancestor will be in one ancestral line, mother to daughter.  MtDNA is passed on from mother to children, both sons and daughters.  Men and women may take this test.  A man will not pass his mtDNA on to his children, so that is why the test-taker can be male, but the common ancestor will be found in his mother's direct maternal line.  Unlike the Y-DNA test, the most recent common ancestor could be thousands of years ago, as mtDNA does not vary generation to generation as much as Y-DNA.

These Y-DNA and mtDNA tests provide your haplogroups, which is useful in tracing ancient migratory paths of humans across the globe.  23andMe provides predicted haplogroups with their autosomal test.  This is not the same as taking a Y-DNA or mtDNA test.

Anyone who has been researching their family tree should try the autosomal DNA test.  Your tree will grow.

Genographic Project: Deep Ancestry

This is part two of my exploration of the Genographic Project's Geno 2.0 kit submitted by my paternal uncle.  (Prior post:  Regional Ancestry.)

In this post, I discuss Deep Ancestry, the term used by the Genographic Project to describe the information gleaned from haplogroups, which are determined by the Y chromosome ("Y-DNA") and the mitochondrial DNA ("mtDNA").

These types of DNA are useful for both anthropology and genealogy because they pass from generation to generation almost unchanged along prescribed paths of inheritance (father to son for Y-DNA and mother to children for mtDNA).  From an anthropological viewpoint, haplogroups based on Y-DNA and mtDNA reveal the migratory paths of humans across the globe from the beginning of civilization, hence the squiggly arrows on the world map below.  For us genealogists, Y-DNA and mtDNA testing can prove or disprove a genetic relation on a particular ancestral line.

My uncle's haplogroup designations through Geno 2.0 were R-Z36 for his paternal line (Y-DNA) and K1 for his maternal line (mtDNA).  These are common European haplogroups.

These haplogroup designations were interesting because they were already measured in some manner by prior DNA testing of the family.  We'll look at the paternal haplogroup first.

Paternal haplogroup of uncles (and maternal cousins) at 23andMe

Paternal haplogroup of Jody's father at 23andMe

23andMe offers autosomal DNA ("atDNA") testing, not Y-DNA; however, you will receive predictions about your haplogroups.  (Women do not have a Y chromosome, so they will not receive a paternal haplogroup prediction.  A woman's DNA matches at 23andMe are based on autosomal DNA, which comes from both of her parents.)  My father tested at 23andMe four years ago.  His siblings tested two years ago.  My father's predicted paternal haplogroup is R1b1b2a1a2d*.  His brothers tested as R1b1b2a1a2d.  The difference is with the *asterisk*.  All three brothers should have had the same exact result.  According to a customer care page at 23andMe, the *asterisk* indicates that the haplogroup does not fit into any further subgroups.  It is possible that a brother has a mutation and the other does not.  Another factor may be that the testing process slightly differed two years later, when the brothers submitted their samples.  (This is one of the reasons why I caution people to disregard haplogroups when analyzing their matches at 23andMe.)

Also of note:  two of my father's maternal cousins tested at 23andMe.  They received the same paternal group prediction as my father's brothers.  This is a coincidence, as they do not share the same paternal line.

The best way to determine a Y-DNA match for genealogy is through testing at FamilyTreeDNA.  On the webpage of the Genographic Project was a link to upload results from Geno 2.0 to FamilyTreeDNA- for free!  So I did.  My father and his maternal cousin have already tested their Y-DNA at FamilyTreeDNA.

Y-DNA haplogroup for my paternal uncle at FamilyTreeDNA based on results transferred from Geno 2.0

(Haplogroup designations at FamilyTreeDNA and the Genographic Project are abbreviated.)

Y-DNA haplogroup (R-M269) for my father at FamilyTreeDNA.  37 marker test.

FamilyTreeDNA shows a deeper subgroup for my father's brother than for my father.  I do not know the scope of the Y-DNA test of Geno 2.0.  The website reads, "The genetic technology we use for our testing is a custom-designed genotyping chip optimized for the study of ancestry, with far more Y-chromosome and mtDNA markers than are available with any other test."  I don't know, at this point, if the difference in haplogroups is because of testing variation or if one brother has a mutation that the other does not.

Y-DNA haplogroup (R-P312) for my father's maternal cousin at FamilyTreeDNA.  37 marker test.

To illustrate the contrast of the 23andMe haplogroup designation with FamilyTreeDNA, note that 23andMe placed my father's maternal cousins in the same haplogroup as my father's brothers.  Y-DNA testing of one of these cousins places him into a different subgroup from both my father and his brother.

Uploading to FamilyTreeDNA from Geno 2.0 did not allow for matching with others.  (My father's test allows for matching to others, but there are none.  To see men with a common ancestor on their direct paternal line, go to my post about my cousin's matches.)

Next is the mtDNA haplogroup.  Geno 2.0 assigned haplogroup K1 to my uncle.  23andMe assigned my uncle and all of his siblings to a subgroup, K1c2.

Reflecting back on earlier testing, in the year 2010, my paternal aunt tested simply as haplogroup K at Ancestry.com.  Ancestry no longer offers mtDNA and Y-DNA testing.

I have not tested anyone's mtDNA at FamilyTreeDNA because the results are likely not genealogically relevant.  Mitochondrial DNA mutates at a much slower rate than Y-DNA.  A "match" in mtDNA may go back thousands of years, before written records.

Ancestry.com discontinues original DNA tests

Ancestry.com will no longer offer or maintain its oldest DNA services, the Y-DNA and mtDNA tests.  I was notified in an email.  I am not surprised by this announcement.  I have three such tests done at Ancestry.  The results have not been updated in years and are overshadowed by FamilyTreeDNA's offerings.  I uploaded the data file from the Y-DNA test to ySearch.org, which is free.  Although the tests and the results will disappear from Ancestry, you can download the data for use elsewhere.

***Ancestry continues selling and servicing their atDNA (autosomal) kits for $99.  This test captures DNA you inherit from all of your ancestral lines.

Last month, during a sale, I purchased two atDNA kits from Ancestry for my father and me.  The results are pending.  Two years ago I purchased a kit for an adopted person.  A close match appeared recently for her, confirming her surname at birth.  (The person has not responded to my inquiries.)

My very first DNA test was Ancestry.com's Y-DNA test for my father, purchased in 2009.  His results are compared against others in the database.  Men who have the same markers on their Y-chromosome share a common ancestor on their direct paternal line.  The more variation in the marker values, the more distant the relation.  Matches were found, but none were predicted to be related closer than twenty generations.  I cannot trace that far back on my father's direct paternal line.

I tested my aunt and myself for mtDNA, also called mitochondrial or maternal.  Similar to Y-DNA testing, this service matches you against people who share mtDNA with you.  Again, no close matches appeared.

In the last few years, FamilyTreeDNA has grown in popularity.  They offer Y-DNA and mtDNA tests, as well as atDNA tests.  Last month I purchased a Y-DNA test through FamilyTreeDNA for my father.  Results are pending.  When the results are available, I will post them and offer my analysis.