This week’s blog is about DNA. I am committed to sorting through my DNA matches. If you have taken a DNA test with one of the companies that offer an autosomal DNA test, this may interest you, or maybe we are related, and you are curious about some of our family lines. For those who have tested, have you been able to sort your matches by whether they are on your paternal line or maternal line? If you are on Ancestry and you have identified matches by Ancestry’s “Thru Lines” they may have already started identifying your matches. Before the “security breach at 23 and Me last October, I had been sorting my matches utilizing the family tree tool. Since the “security breach” at 23 and Me last October, we no longer have the chromosomes and many of my matches have changed. They may have left or changed their settings on the site. The most recent data of my DNA matches I downloaded to my computer was from 2018. Many of those I had connected with have their chromosome information where we match. Any new matches that tested after my download and before the breach in 2023 I have lost that information. Since last October, we have been unable to save the data on our DNA matches.

This week, I was reading my online Family Tree – UK magazine about what happened at 23 and Me on September 17: “23andMe board steps down en masse.” This one-page article suggested referring to Roberta Estes’s blog DNA explained her recommendations; “see the article by Roberta Estes at ‘23andMe Trouble – Step-byStep Instructions to Preserve Your Data and Matches’, “ at https://dna-explained.com . I decided I needed to do this before I could make good comparisons on my genetic lines.
This has turned out to be more time-consuming than I had planned.

My Dougherty/Ferguson line was planned as my next line to follow and I want to show you that and the results with my DNA matches from the different websites.

In the above graph, John L. and Margaret Helen (Ferguson) Dougherty had seven children. Starting at the left was the eldest, May Dougherty (Hattie). Hattie did marry and lived until 1943. She and her husband had no children. John L. and Margaret’s second child, Howard died at the age of eleven. Inez their third child, had a daughter, Charlotte. Only one record has been found for Charlotte, the 1920 US Census; she is in the household of John L. Dougherty with her mother, Inez Earle. While Both Inez and Charlotte Earle are listed as daughters of the head of the household, I believe that this is an error; the age of Inez is 40, and the age of Charlotte is transcribed as 30; looking at the original document online the age is illegible on this copy of the census. I believe that Charlotte was Inez’s daughter and possibly about 20 years old.

The next child is Alice. She had three children: Carrol, Helen, and John. Carrol had a daughter, Constance; Helen had three children, Robert, Frances, and Caryl; and John had a son, Richard. John L. and Margaret Dougherty’s fifth child was William, who died as a toddler. Their next child, Dorothy, died when she was nine years old. Their seventh child was my grandfather, John E. Dougherty. He had three children: my mother Dorothy, Robert, and Walter.

The chart above is the tree that I have so far with Genetic matches. Match “A” comes from 23 and Me, this one was easy to decipher because of her last name. It was Alice Dougherty’s married name. Using those matches in common with myself and match “A,” I quickly found her aunt. Potentially, there are three more second cousins in the same generation as match “B.”

This is where genealogical research comes into play. I needed to build out my cousin tree, from Alice Dougherty’s children to my second cousins and their children.

Descendant Research

Here is what I found.
Carrol’s daughter, Constance, had three children. Two boys who were most likely twins and a daughter. At 21 years of age, Greg died. Earlier that year, he had been best man at his brother’s wedding. Their sister married. No children have been identified. Helen’s son Robert may not have married. Her daughter Frances died as an infant and Helen’s daughter Caryl was married at least twice and possibly a third time. Her Social Security records show three name changes. Only two marriages have been located.

DNA Matches

There is not a large pool of descendants among which to find matches. To review matches I looked for matches with no more than 3.125% of their DNA or between 14 and 353 centimorgans (cM). At 23 and Me, I can only see percentages now. Checking my sister’s matches on Ancestry did not identify any matches. Match ‘B’ on 23 and Me matches at .55% on three segments. Match ‘A’ matches at 1.30% on four segments. Match ‘A’ matches Match ‘B’ at 25.03% indicating an aunt/niece relationship.

On 23 and Me, I can still do relatives in common. For Match ‘A’, I have 33 matches, of which four are known matches. Match 3 is my third cousin (3C), and Match ‘A’s third cousin twice removed (3C2R). The others in common with Match ‘A’ are undetermined.

For Match ‘B’, I have eleven matches. Match 3 also appears in common here and would be my 3C, and Match ‘B’s third cousin once removed (3C1R). There are two more that match both Match ‘B’ and myself, and they identify with the same generational most recent common ancestor (MRCA), most likely descendants of Margaret H. Fergusons’ siblings. That would be the match just below Match 3 and SN at the bottom of this match list. Most Matches on 23 and Me do not link to their family tree or add surnames or location place names for their ancestors. Without contacting matches, determining how we are related can become a tedious task.

I have not found any matches that correspond to the surnames that I have been able to add to my list of descendants just by looking at the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, 2x great, and 3x great-grandchildren of John L. and Margaret H. (Ferguson) Dougherty. In a way, after this exercise, I am grateful we are descendants poor.

I will stop here for now and plan to pursue more next time. Thanks for stopping by, and if you have questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. Either leave a comment below or contact me. Until next time.