Saturday, February 6, 2016

Family Tree Repair: O'Donnell

More markers were tested for an O'Donnell cousin's Y-DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA.  We originally started with only 37 markers, but the results were too numerous to work with.  Now 111 markers are tested.

(Y-DNA is passed almost identically from father to son through the generations.  A match on the Y chromosome means that somewhere back in time, two men share an ancestor on their direct paternal lines.  The fewer the differences between their Y chromosomes, the more recent the common ancestor.)

At this point, there are over 800 matches at 37 markers, but over 1400 matches at the higher level of 67 markers.  Jumping to 111 markers eliminates all but three genetic cousins.  If someone did not test at the 67 or 111 marker level, then they would not appear in those subsets.  A lot of the 67 marker matches are viable.  They just have not tested more markers.



The top match at the 111 marker level is the same O'Donnell cousin of my initial focus.


This O'Donnell line came to Boston, Massachusetts from Ireland.  When I originally encountered this line, the most distant ancestor was listed as Philip O'Donnell.  After some research into two men both with this name living in Boston in the 1800s, Cornelius O'Donnell (1828 - 1899) seemed like a better match for the tail in this tree.  Cornelius' death record listed his parents as James O'Donnell and Mary Kerr of Ireland.


Adjustments have been made in my O'Donnell line as well.  To research in Ireland, you need an exact location.  I had a hometown courtesy of a more prominent branch containing Father Charles Leo O'Donnell (1884 - 1934).  The obituary of Patrick O'Donnell (1856 - 1931), my great great grandfather, stated that Father Charles, president of Notre Dame University, was his nephew.


Online trees and articles provide the parents of Father Charles as Cornelius "Neil" O'Donnell (1837 - 1909) and Mary Gallagher (1852 - 1924).  I thought that Neil O'Donnell was a brother of Patrick O'Donnell, my great great grandfather, and so my line was from Ardara as per the poem.  But- keep in mind that none of this online information is a primary or even secondary source.




I noted that Mary Gallagher had the same surname as her husband's mother (working with the idea that his parents were Patrick's parents), but both names are plentiful in Donegal and not indicative of recent familial ties.

Then greetings came from Ireland.  (Thanks EO!)  A cousin of Father Charles wrote to me.  Neil O'Donnell was not the brother of Patrick O'Donnell, but rather a brother-in-law.  Mary was not named Gallagher; she was an O'Donnell herself.  So my O'Donnells were from Killybegs (see the poem), not Ardara.  Patrick and Mary were siblings; their parents were Peter O'Donnell and Margaret Gallagher.

I had no marriage record for Neil O'Donnell and Mary "Gallagher."  Their first child, Rose, was born in Indiana around 1870.  The Indiana marriage index (online at Ancestry.com) has an entry for Neil O'Donnell and Mary O'Donnell, married 4 November 1869 in Hancock County.  I ordered the certificate by mail to try to confirm if this is the right couple.  They may have met "on the road, in Donegal," but they married in Indiana.





Friday, January 15, 2016

Second Y-DNA Match for Duryea

Another bonafide Y-DNA match appeared in my Duryea cousin's matches at FamilyTreeDNA.  (You can read about the first match here.)  To find the ancestor in common for someone who shares an identical Y chromosome, we trace the direct paternal line.

At FamilyTreeDNA, the Y chromosome can be tested on 12 to 111 markers.  This new cousin tested at the 25 marker level.  When compared to my close Duryea cousin, only one marker out of 25 is different.  When compared to the first Y-DNA cousin, the match is 25 out of 25.  The variation on one marker possibly arose in my line.



This new cousin traces his Duryea line back to the immigrant Joost Duryea, as do the first Y-DNA cousin and I.  But we do not have to go back to Joost in the 1600s for the most recent common ancestor.  This newest cousin is related more closely.  He is my sixth cousin.  He is a fourth cousin, twice removed of the person who donated the DNA for my Duryea line.  He is descended from Joshua Duryea, a brother of Garrett Duryea (1777-1834), the former stray and link of my family to the larger Duryea family.


This DNA link does not prove that Garrett and Joshua were brothers, only that we share a common ancestor along our Duryea lines.  But it is great that the match is someone whose paper trail splits at the point previously in question for my line.



Thursday, January 14, 2016

Family Tree Repair: Duryea

Before we explore the next Duryea Y-DNA match (you can read about the first one here), I need to clarify my branch of the Duryea family.  This is important because it took years to figure out and erroneous online family trees persist.

My Duryea branch traces its direct paternal lineage back to Stephen C Duryea (1814-1887) of New York City and Pound Ridge, New York.  Stephen's father was Garrett S Duryea and his mother was Ann Cornell.  The trick was fitting Stephen's father, Garrett, into the larger Duryea family.

The theory (thanks to RAM) was that Garrett S Duryea, the father of my line, was the youngest son of Jacob Derye (died 1781) and Sarah Smith of Jericho, Queens County, New York.  [His will is transcribed here.]



No other researchers had published what became of this Garrett.


The clue that linked my Duryea branch to the larger Duryea family occurred because the State of New York did not pay John Frazee (1790-1852), architect, for his work on the Custom House.  [His papers, including family tree diagrams, are digitized online.]  John Frazee's widow, Lydia Place, sued to recover wages due to her late husband.  My ancestor, Stephen C Duryea, testified on her behalf.  He stated that he was "distantly related to the petitioner; the claimant's father and my father were half brothers."



This testimony meant that my stray Garrett Duryea had a half brother.  Further research showed that Sarah Smith, widow of Jacob Derye, remarried to James Place in 1783 and had a son, Thomas Place.  Thomas Place had a daughter, Lydia, around 1815, and she married John Frazee.  See the diagram below for a picture representation of this.



Once this connection was established, additional interactions between PLACE and DURYEA became more apparent.

Garrett Duryea, the son of Jacob Derye and Sarah Smith, died in Jamaica, Queens County, New York, on 29 March 1834.  Settlement of his estate was disrupted two years later by the death of his son, John Horton Duryea, administrator.



This is not the same Garrett Duryea who died in Blooming Grove, Orange County, New York, contrary to what most online family trees assert.