Family Lore vs. YDNA, Please Advise

[Hersey33]

georgian 1950, One of the moderators of the Big Y results has just told us he would study our results and give us his views. Our research, through the Mennonite Census records, and those friends in Switzerland today helping with research have currently settled on Andreas or Andres Hirschi, born April 26, 1590. His first wife was Christini Danner, born 1590 or 1592. They married in Signau Church, near Bern, on October 22, 1610. Christini would die by 1620 and Andres would remarry. We have found records indicating that my ancestor was the son of Andres' first wife, another of our group traces his heritage to Andres' second wife Anna Rehs or Räss. Many records were destroyed in the religious wars, we are very fortunate that these were preserved. We can only hope this is accurate and keep investigating. Thanks for your interest!

[georgian1950]

Hersey33, thanks for the update. Looks like you are making great progress.

Do you have a name which you can share for that potential common ancestor born in 1590?

Good luck with future findings.

Jack

[Hersey33]

Update: All 5 of us have now completed the Big Y 700. In the Block Tree Diagram, two of the other 3 are shown directly in my Branch with Private Variants of 3. The other two , who know they share a common AMERICAN ancestor that the others don't share, sit in a block directly beside us and also have Private Variants of 3. Their group is shown as R-BY98354. My group is shown as R-BY62958. On the website known as " The Big Tree: R-DF99/S11987", Alex does not list my 62958 on his block. Two of us believe that we share a common ancestor that was born in 1590, which would be 11 generations ago, in Switzerland. Any analysis from people who understand all of this would be greatly appreciated. All of our names are cognates, Hirschi in Switzerland, Hirschy in France, Hershey and Hersey in America.

[bartarl260]

Update:

A person that FTDNA identified as a close male relative, with a similar surname at 111, and I have encouraged two others with closely similar name and genetic distances of 2 and 3 at 67 to take the 111 test. We have found that both of these people are at distance 3 at 111. One lives in Switzerland, one in Alsace. We all signed up for the Big Y500 Test in late December and were pleased to be informed by FTDNA that we were being upgraded, free of charge, to the new Big Y 700, since our results have not yet come in. So 4 of us, with close genetic distances at 111 and similar last names, only a letter or two apart, are awaiting what the 700 test will provide. To be continued .....

Great news for your family, and your more distant cousins it looks like on this one. Hopefully BigY helps shed more light on the connections involved.

[bartarl260]

Most 37 marker matches are no longer a Y67 or Y111 match when they have had a Y111 test which means that the most distant common ancestor in the direct paternal line is from many thousands of years ago. The only way you can know if the common ancestor is from less than 2,000 years ago is if you were to convince your match to upgrade or if you paid for his upgrade. If he is a match at Y111 then you can get with a haplogroup admin to help get a better estimate on when the common ancestor likely lived.

Since the thread is active. My take on TiP reports at 37 markers or less is you use it to check for very low probability results on MRCA. If its 0 or in the 20th percentile by 24 generations, that's a line you can probably safely ignore. That TiP can let you check STR marker levels higher than what you match at also makes it very useful, as you can have SNP matches who fail to fall within the matching criteria for Y25+. So being able to do a 67/111 marker TiP report on a 25 marker match is much more useful than just looking at the 25 marker GD data.

[georgian1950]

Wow, appreciate the update.

[Hersey33]

Update:

A person that FTDNA identified as a close male relative, with a similar surname at 111, and I have encouraged two others with closely similar name and genetic distances of 2 and 3 at 67 to take the 111 test. We have found that both of these people are at distance 3 at 111. One lives in Switzerland, one in Alsace. We all signed up for the Big Y500 Test in late December and were pleased to be informed by FTDNA that we were being upgraded, free of charge, to the new Big Y 700, since our results have not yet come in. So 4 of us, with close genetic distances at 111 and similar last names, only a letter or two apart, are awaiting what the 700 test will provide. To be continued .....

[Hersey33]

Thank You Jack!

[georgian1950]

I am considering sponsoring an upgrade of the test from 37 to 67 for my Alsatian relative with a genetic distance of 2 at 37 markers to see if I can gain more specific details about our relationship. Is this worth my while or a wast of time? Thanks!

In my view, I think it would be worthwhile. The additional points would help clarify how closely you are related. If the additional markers have a lot of mutations, the subject may fall off of your close match list, while fewer may make the estimation of when you had a common ancestor closer.

Jack

[Hersey33]

I am considering sponsoring an upgrade of the test from 37 to 67 for my Alsatian relative with a genetic distance of 2 at 37 markers to see if I can gain more specific details about our relationship. Is this worth my while or a wast of time? Thanks!

[Hersey33]

Thanks!

Thanks for your kindness! This is my set of postings on this site and am amazed at the number of helpful and educated responses in such a short time!

[georgian1950]

Yes, Hershey or Hirschy. It seems to be Hirschy in Alsace, where my closest match lives. Hershey in the Pfalz and Switzerland. I hired Ancestry to work in Delaware and in the village of Herce, near Mayenne, in France. The Herce name is found concentrated in that area, (and Sarthe) but seems to have dispursed sometime after 1300. My ancestor's given name was Isaac. I am told that this was another sign of nonconformity, as Old Testament names were popular with non-Catholics. His son was Solomon, and his grandson Benjamin. At various times, my Delaware immigrant ancestor's name was written as "Hershe" as well as Hersey. Thanks Again!

We are probably real distance cousins. I have an Hershey line that goes back through Lancaster PA to Switzerland, but it is not my paternal line. I think I see your kit on the Hershey Project, but I do not see one that is part of my group though. I'll keep an eye open for males who have the paternal line for Hershey and encourage any that I find to take a Y-DNA test if they already have not done so.

Jack

[Armando]

My first trace of my direct male ancestors dates to 1723 in Delaware. In the 1800's, one member of the family asked other relatives for information on the original nation or group. It was written in a family tree that our family originated in southern Normandy, (Mayenne), and fled to the Palatinate in the 1500's, as they were religious nonconformists. Eventually unable to own land as they were not germans, my ancestor fled to America through the Netherlands and settled near a colony of Labadists on the Chesapeake Bay.

I took the YDNA test up to 111. At the 37 level, I have a variant of my family name with a genetic distance of 2. He has not taken the 67 or 111. He lives in Alsace, France, but traces his family back to Switzerland and the Mennonites and other nonconformists. My ancestor was not a Mennonite. He did not marry one or settle with them. His son helped found Methodism on the DelMarVa peninsula.

What are the possibilities to reconcile this? Is my family history just plain wrong? Alsace and Mayenne are at least 400 miles apart.
Ancestry says I have a 90% chance of a common male ancestor with the Alsatian no more than 12 generations ago, and a 95% chance no more than 14 generations ago. Is this "ironclad"? I can trace 8 direct male ancestors here in America.
Any advice would be much appreciated!

Most 37 marker matches are no longer a Y67 or Y111 match when they have had a Y111 test which means that the most distant common ancestor in the direct paternal line is from many thousands of years ago. The only way you can know if the common ancestor is from less than 2,000 years ago is if you were to convince your match to upgrade or if you paid for his upgrade. If he is a match at Y111 then you can get with a haplogroup admin to help get a better estimate on when the common ancestor likely lived.

[TwiddlingThumbs]

"Ancestry says I have a 90% chance of a common male ancestor with the Alsatian no more than 12 generations ago, and a 95% chance no more than 14 generations ago. Is this "ironclad"?"

I have a very dim view of the accuracy of TMRCA (time to most recent common ancestor) calculators, including TiP. The probabilities are just numbers that an algorithm pops out. There are lots of different ways to calculate TMRCA (time to most recent common ancestor), some better than others. Generally the more sophisticated algorithms result in TMRCA's that are more distant than less sophisticated algorithms, up to 2x more distant. See https://file.scirp.org/Html/3-1590553_70004.htm However, all of them (even the most sophisticated) are pretty crude because they assume things such as: (i) that the mutation rates used by the algorithm for individual STRs are accurate (there are actually not a lot of great studies on this and the studies differ in their results), (ii) that the mutation rates in both your particular line and the other male's were the same as the overall assumed mutation rates, (iii) that back mutations occur at the same rate as forward mutations in each of the STRs (assuming the TMRCA calculator even takes back mutations into account, which it should), (iv) that any STR with a 0 value is the result of a single mutation (if the algorithm doesn't treat them like that, the TMRCA calculation will be way off if either person has a 0 value), (v) that every other STR difference was the result of a number of mutations equal to the difference in values. Since at least some of these assumptions are almost certainly incorrect to a greater or lesser degree in a particular case, the probabilities produced will generally be inaccurate to a greater or lesser extent.

Subjectively, from what I've seen, TMRCA calculators frequently grossly overestimate the probabilities of relatedness between people who are only very distantly related, at least in certain haplotypes where one gets a lot of "false" matches (eg R-M269).

As an example, my surname is Ashley. Here are my matches at 37 STRs, with the genetic distances and TiP's calculation of the probability of a common ancestor within 8 generations, listed in order of highest to lowest probability.
McAdam - 3 - 89%
Boyd - 3 - 89%
Kennedy - 4 - 89%
Young - 4 - 88%
Carpenter - 4 - 72%
Dill - 4 - 72%
Anderson - 4 - 72%
Cantrell - 4 - 71%
Oliver - 4 - 50%
Ashley - 4 - 31% (well documented common ancestor 7 generations ago)

Things didn't improve much going up to 67 markers:
McGarvey - 7 - 70%
Diffley - 6 - 51%
Kennedy - 7 - 51%
Mullins - 7 - 51%
McElhaney - 7 - 51%
Cadden - 6 - 50%
O'Kane - 7 - 50%
Fox - 7 - 50%
Rogers - 7 - 50%
Ashley - 5 - 33% (well documented common ancestor 7 generations ago)
Smith - 7 - 33%
Stewart - 7 - 17%

At 67 markers, the other Ashley and I have the smallest genetic distance but the third lowest TiP probability. In my case, raw genetic distance did a much better job at showing closeness of relationship than TiP -- ie, all the detailed science/math that went into the TiP calculation was worse than useless.

So NO, I would not view the 95% chance of a common ancestor with 14 generations as "ironclad." Since the surname of your match is a variant of yours, I think there is a reasonably good chance you are related within the last 12 generations or so, but I wouldn't put too much weight on the probabilities or time frame estimates that any TMRCA calculator spits out.

[Hersey33]

Thanks!

Is the variant of your family name "Hershey"?

I don't think it took much to get kicked out of the Mennonites. Maybe your line was Mennonite somewhere in the past.

Jack

Yes, Hershey or Hirschy. It seems to be Hirschy in Alsace, where my closest match lives. Hershey in the Pfalz and Switzerland. I hired Ancestry to work in Delaware and in the village of Herce, near Mayenne, in France. The Herce name is found concentrated in that area, (and Sarthe) but seems to have dispursed sometime after 1300. My ancestor's given name was Isaac. I am told that this was another sign of nonconformity, as Old Testament names were popular with non-Catholics. His son was Solomon, and his grandson Benjamin. At various times, my Delaware immigrant ancestor's name was written as "Hershe" as well as Hersey. Thanks Again!