After RootsTech 2024, I wrote Testing the Full Text Search in FamilySearch Labs - An Immediate Success!!, and immediately rejoiced because I found a maiden name for the "last" wife of my 4th great-grandfather, Cornelius Feather (1777-1853). See the genealogical sketch for Cornelius Feather for the information that I have about his life.
The maiden name of the last wife of Cornelius Feather was Mary Partridge (1792-1855). She is named as Mary Feather in the first record with her name on it in the 1850 U.S. Census, age 58, born in Pennsylvania. If age 58, she was born in about 1792. Now she is named as Mary Feather[s] in the 1830 land deed found. Mary's parents are Thomas Partridge (1758-1828) and Hannah Wakeman (1763-1814). But is she the first wife of Cornelius Feather and mother of Sarah Feather?
After some thought, I realized I had a problem because my 3rd great-grandmother Sarah Feather (1804-1948) was born when Mary (Partridge) Feather would have been about age 12, and when Cornelius was about 27 years old. So I wrote "Mary Has a Maiden Name," But "Who Is Sarah Feather's Mother?" to sort out the available data and discuss the next research steps.
One of the tasks I assigned myself was to evaluate my autosomal DNA matches on AncestryDNA, MyHeritageDNA, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDMatch. Do I have any matches with Partridge and Wakeman surnames in their trees?
1) Since my trees on AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDMatch did not have Mary Partridge in them, I needed to connect Mary Partridge as a wife to Cornelius Feather as a TEST. I reasoned that if I had no DNA matches to Mary Partridge then that would be negative evidence for her motherhood of Sarah, and that Mary was not the mother of Sarah Feather and her three siblings.
I changed the name of the unnamed first wife of Cornelius Feather in my Ancestry Member Tree from "Mrs. Cornelius Feather" to Mary Partridge (1792-1855). After two days, the Ancestry ThruLines indicated that I had 15 ThruLines! Here are two screens that show the top of the ThruLines:
There are ThruLines for 8 children of Thomas Partridge and Hannah Wakeman. My line is in the top screen for Mary Partridge. Sons George W. Patridge has 4 matches, son David H. Partridge has 6 matches, and sons Jasper, Samuel, Jonas, Isaac and William Partridge have one DNA match each. Only daughter Sarah Partridge has no DNA matches.
I tabulated these ThruLine matches using a spreadsheet, with information about relationship to me, shared cM values, segment number, tree size, common ancestors and notes. Here is the table:
The relationships range from 4th cousin 2x removed to 6th cousin. The cM values range from 8 cM (1 match), 10 (2 matches), 11 (4 matches), 12 cM (1 match), 14 cM (3 matches), 15 cM (1 match), and 17 cM (3 matches).
Six of the DNA matches have large family trees (2000 to 16000 people), six have medium size trees (400 to 700 people), and 3 have small trees (less than 60 people).
I checked the ThruLines for each DNA match listed. The line for the 7th one down the list looked wrong, claiming Jonas Partridge as the son of Thomas Partridge, but I noted that the rest of the line to the match was good from the family trees, but the connection to Thomas Partridge should have been through son Jasper.
Some researchers accept 15 cM as a certainty, and along all accept 20 cM as a certainty, especially with only one matching segment. So I am probably on shaky ground here.
The DNA Painter Shared cM Project shows that 0-20 cM has 59% of the cases for a 6th cousin, as shown below:
That's encouraging, I think. At 11 cM, the chart shows that 36% of the cases for a 6th cousin are between 0 and 20 cM.
Since Thomas Partridge and Hannah Wakeman are (perhaps) my 5th great-grandparents, I cannot obtain ThruLines for their parents because AncestryDNA provides ThruLines for 5th great-grandparents and closer.
2) I looked on MyHeritageDNA for DNA matches for Thomas Partridge and found none. I searched on GEDMatch and found none.
I searched on MyHeritageDNA for DNA matches with George Wakeman and Sarah Hill, the parents of Hannah Wakeman (wife of Thomas Partridge), in the trees of DNA matches. I found 3 DNA matches: AW with 30.2 cM in 2 segments, KH with 29.1 cM in 2 segments, and CG with 25.5 cM in 1 segment; all had large trees.
I also searched on AncestryDNA for DNA matches with George Wakeman and Sarah Hill in their trees, and found two matches with large family trees (JH with 49 cM in 3 segments, and DH with 28.8 cM in 2 segments). There may be more for other matches without large trees, but they aren't in ThruLines for whatever reason.
49 cM for a 7th cousin is very rare - only 2% of the cases in the Shared cM project are 50 cM or more. And only 5% of the cases are 30 cM or more. I sure wish AncestryDNA had a chromosome browser!!
3) So my summary of this situation is:
* I have 15 DNA matches to persons whose family trees include Thomas Partridge and Hannah Wakeman. The cM values are 8 to 17 cM, with an average of 13 cM. I would be much more confident if it at least one or two of the matches had 20 cM shared DNA or more.
* I have 5 DNA matches as probable 7th cousins (3 on MyHeritageDNA and 2 on AncestryDNA) that have cM values, between 25 and 49 cM, with an average of 33 cM.
* Can the Wakeman DNA strain be that strong? It's on both MyHeritageDNA and AncestryDNA!
* Obviously, I need more data! 'Tis a quandary!
The answer to my question in the post title is: YES I DO, but only if Mary Partridge (1792-1855) is the mother of my 3rd great-grandmother Sarah Feather (1804-1848).
4) What do my readers think? Do I have a case for claiming Thomas Partridge and Hannah Wakeman as my 5th great-grandparents based on DNA? Then there is Mary Partridge being a mother at about age 12 with a 27 year-old man. Hmmm.
The URL for this post is: https://www.geneamusings.com/2024/03/do-i-have-any-5th-great-grandparents.html
Note that all comments are moderated, and may not appear online immediately.
Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share your comments on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.
1 comment:
I don't know about the DNA matches, but from my own research experience, I've come across a couple of 12/13 year old mothers in my husband's Southern lines, but never in any families in the Northeast. Not impossible, though!
Post a Comment