Third Party Confirmations!

As much as I work as a lone wolf so to speak in my genealogy work I do enjoy having others input. Recently I took the plunge and enrolled in a small tribal band of Metis-Cree people. As a help for others I explained the methods I had used so far in differentiating my own genetic markers for native blood. To my great surprise another member messaged me who was quite confident with using gedmatch himself. He is lucky enough to be a direct male descendant from Henri Membertou's band of Mi'kmaq. I was provided from him a three way match between him, myself and a even less diluted relation. The result was a positive match to the Mi'kmaq peoples. I would say to Henri himself but more likely it would be through one of his many contributing female relations.

Chr Start Location End Location Centimorgans (cM) SNPs
10 92446647 95958204 3.7 903
11 56368374 59769693 1.2 717
13 83990938 88896945 3.1 816
21 21293037 24043081 4.0 716
Largest segment = 4.0 cM
Total of segments > 1 cM = 12.0 cM
Estimated number of generations to MRCA = 7.1

Comparison took 0.05190 seconds.
Distant relation.


So this is a interesting factor in what I already know since I compose over four regions of native populations in the small sector I carry. Another cooperation comes from having limited access to my fathers genetic data. Being able to look at his smaller portion of native dna cleared up any possibility of my larger portion coming from him. Indeed my two largest portions of north amerindian and arctic do not come from him. My fathers tracers are for small portions of the south amerindian and mesoamerican. This I had already presumed but rather it is nice to have confirmed in mathematical calculation.

Another change from this last few weeks of research is discovering some depth to two of my fathers grandmothers lines. Along with that is some details on what was coined "Southern European" in earlier results. I now have confirmation through oracle population matching that my southern component is predominately Spanish with only a smattering of Italian. This follows at least the presence of late Italian ancestry in one portion of my tree but I have yet to connect the Spanish in genealogical records.

Statistical Work in Aborigional Ethnicity Prediction

Last year I set out to comb through the rough of my DNA sampling with many algorithms until I found the clearest percentages. In doing this I clustered Asiatic derivative groups under the heading of tricyclic populations as direct relation to the genealogical evidence of First Nations ancestry. However I did not at the time have a major justification for doing this except that these evidences were non compliant with the majority of my recent generational admixture. I also had my mtdna tested which is passed down from my farthest known matrilineal ancestor who came from Kirkgunzeon, Scotland. The result was the mtdna haplogroup H. I had not considered anything further about haplogroups until today.

Someone had also recommended to me that it could be useful to make a genealogical data map. I decided to place within it known birth locations as well as the locations of genetic populations I matched. The variability of genetic population was in some ways shocking. It did however follow the typical water trade routes in it's spread. The deep Asian line however and the Americas seemed not to be related with the exception of two locales of Aleut. Recently I provided information to the younger sister's of my husband about their own native history as Saginaw band of Ojibway. I did this with only name places, some stories and a map. It surprised me how much a map can say and so I thought of this again for myself.

My statistics produced the average of hard 19%, and soft 20% if one accounts for decimals, of Native genetic material per gene. This 20% however was also not a solid component. 53% was of Inuit derivative, 38% Americas proper including Central/South and lastly a unresolved 21% that was more closely related to Asian heritage. Some strict populations that occurred were Aleut, Inuit, Pima, Maya, Ecuador, Colombia, Peurto Rican. The more exotic was Samii, Tibetian, Han, Thai.

These places however share a major component of Haplogroup. Indeed in map review of the locales it is quite evident that the underlying mtdna associated with the portions of my DNA would be Haplogroup A. The great evidence of this is that Tibetan only hosts A of those also present in the Americas. Asian haplogroups are the predecessor of native american strands which is why it is proper to review them together especially in the absence of actual Asian heritage.

Since Catherine Dufour spoke French-Cree I have come to the assumption that she was Métis-Cree herself as other varieties of Metis would speak their own aboriginal language. Of the localized groups the Cree associated with the region she lived refer to themselves as the Innu. I would not however assume to be exact on which regional tribe of the Cree Catherine came from until we ever have the exact name of her mother. There remains as well the possibility that her father Peter was also of mixed ancestry. Within the Boussey family work I am lucky to have not only a exact name for Anne Marie dit Metisse but also the Indian settlement she lived. Port Royal, Nova Scotia is under the Bear River Nation of Mi'kmaq today. It would be lovely to have exacting answers but native american DNA methods are extremely limited.

Wismer not so Wise...

Something I don't normally do is research areas of my family history that are already overly championed by dedicated people. This would probably include anywhere from 25-45% of my entire tree. That probably seems like a high range to some but these groups are fully vetted at least 5 generations back. Not much left then to research honestly. Recently GEDMatch.com had a server crash and so has been offline or with limited capability for sometime.

The cousins who were in contact with me broke off for the time being so while my inbox is empty I did not have much to do, (not counting graduate school!) It occurred to me after playing around with the repaired website that perhaps I did have something to say on the subject of one of my well researched surnames. I have also been a fan of the show "Lost Girl" for sometime particularly enjoying when Kenzi spoke slavic in a few episodes as I hadn't heard it before.

Looking at Eurogenes w/oracle today and having already recognized much to my father's horror that I have no central European (more than 45% of his composite) it was odd to see a component of projected populations owing to that area. Immediately I was thinking of a small research I did on the Wismer family, my grandmother Lucienna's maiden name, regarding the orientation of that name. Commonly it is assumed to be a amalgamation of anglicized Germanic words meaning "wise-person". I haven't had a reason to doubt this presumption until DNA became available. The two interesting results were, Ukrainian_West 15.33%, Erzya 8.18%, Russian 5.80%, three populations not previously attributed to my admixture. I'll continue here with my previous research...
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"Wismer Family Morphology"

Two interpretations of the origion of the Wismer clan have existed. Anglo saxonry dictates that the name is a germancised account of a trait name "wise-man". Recent admixture however points to a genetic source outside of the North Sea. The term Wismer is a placename given to the inhabitants of the port town called Wismar in the german state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The small historical town is formed by a natural harbor to its north from the baltic sea. While Wismar was under Norwegian control for some time and rests in northcenteral germany is was origionally colonized by Palobian Slavs from the eastern Baltic region.

Palobian Slavs are unfortunate to be extinct in language. As a group of Lechtite people their genetic heritage exists still in other members of the same cluster notablly the Polish. The Sorbs of Lusatia remain the only unique cultural descendants of Palobian Slavs still maintaining those language and physical cultural traits such as dress. As a coastal region the town of Wismar was prone to genetic drift from resulting neighbor groups as well as bleed through from its closest relation Poland. Notably Poland itself is a conglomeration of the Lechite tribes assembled under the Duke of Poland, Mieszko I. Therefore the Wismer family heritage represents a north eastern slavic peoples and more recently german adjunct influence not that of Britain.
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...More onto the recent identity of the Wismer descendants as German that is a over simplified fact. Only three of the men born before the immigrant ancestor came from  Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany. Hidden inside the older generations is a large amount of Austro-Bavarian, Swedish, and Danish. It is a important reminder to the genealogist, especially any amateurs reading my blog, that birthplace doesn't always convene with genetic population. Obviously this might be the case of African american individuals researching there family who are surprised to find relatives in Spain or the like which was simply a host nation to many generations. A subject I'd love to breech is that of a African cousin in my ancestry.com match maker I did not know I had. Upon my last visit reviewing genealogy with my father he conveyed to me this was not news to him. A great uncle of his had returned to Europe and as a sailor had taken a wife from the north African coast. Somethings are just beautiful discoveries of the amazing global culture we all share.

The Curious Trail of Catharine Dufour

It’s always great to hear from people interested in family history, at least that’s what I tell myself. I let my website go stale for some time now as I was finishing undergraduate school and wasting my free time on video gaming. I gather that at some point Google updated its service protocols making my page live in Web searches. Suddenly I have people who were wholly uninterested to help seeing my document list and deciding they have loud opinions to share. I ranted some posts ago about people not understanding the organic nature of self publishing versus professional works. No doubt the comments and demands would eventually fall onto my favorite topic, Catharine Dufour. I was lucky that the third party relation who wanted my work indeed contacted Mr. Charpentier of my post “midnights are not for making friends”. He was kind enough to look into the information our family has especially as he is in my opinion a specialist in French river region history. The work has come out most fruitful this time, a majority of that owning to Mr. Charpentier’s access not mine.

Catharine’s birth date has always been passed down since her sons based on the interview she gave in 1905. While her husband was alive however documents including her in his household indicated an 1813 birth year. The summative works of French genealogy do not have an individual born in 1805 to any of the Dufour, Deveaux couples. The death certificate that I was provided an image copy of by a 3^rd cousin does state Mr. Duforse as Catharine’s father. Nay, the Duforse name is nonexistent in records of that period. Adjusting her birth date uncovers a slew of records due the family most especially while they lived in Canada for some years. Three of the known children now have French catholic baptism statements. One of these children was of the missing portion of eleven that did not survive to adulthood. Marie- Agathe Jones died the same year that Edward Junior’s baptism took place. Indeed it was Catharine’s grandmother, Josephe Garand, who sponsored his baptism as Edouard Jones at her local parish. The same parish had baptized Henry John earlier as Honoré Jones. As French culture in that area was dying out it is not surprising that the children simply lost sight of their heritage.

Yet what about Catharine’s account in the newspaper, does this all not invalidate it? Not exactly.  Catherine’s parents by document consensus were Pierre Louis Dufour and Archange Garand married in 1811 as St. Anne Cathedral. As a family they lived in Frenchtown, a small settlement south of Fort Detroit. While Catharine was born at the height of the war she could not have witnessed the surrender. However she may well have been mistaking the final abandonment of the Frenchtown settlement due to increasing raids and attacks. The emerging soldiers in uniform may well have been coming to protect the settlement. The direction as well that she describes her home from the Fort agrees with the assertion she is recalling Frenchtown. Now while I am ashamed of my third party relative’s reaction to this data I can also say that my own qualms regarding it are just as silly. Indeed this would seem to dismiss the assertion that Catharine was a Métis child. Yet not enough is known of her mother Archange Garand to me yet as well as Louis Dufour’s mother also being undiscovered. I look forward to finding more documents to uncover the Dufour/Dautour/ Garand connection. Meanwhile I have work to update my website to keep me busy!