Version 1A, November 21, 2011

Analysis – Family Finder results - 10 Casey submissions

Step 1) - Search Family Finder for those claiming Casey ancestry

Unfortunately, the Family Finder system is based on the sponsor's individual test compared to all other Family Finder submissions that match the individual. There is no concept of a Family Finder Casey DNA Project, so my analysis will be primarily based on comparing the Family Finder results of my submission (Robert Casey who descends from Ambler Casey) compared to all other Family Finder submissions. In an attempt to eliminate this bias of using my submission as the baseline, I have requested the "Chromosom Browser" report (spreadsheet summary of matching submissions) from others who matched. I have only received two reports (the Jesse Walker and Barbra Bartz submissions) which has helped significantly since both submissions cover the Henson Casey line. Their are six Family Finder tests for descendants of Ruth Casey, b. 1801 who married Hix Jones Ray, b. 1798. Another submission from Larry Stephens lists Louise Casey as his oldest proven Casey ancestor. I have exchanged several emails for the following submissions: Barbra Bartz (Henson Casey), Terri Walker who is the sponsor for Jesse Walker (Henson Casey), Mary Cuthbert (who is the sponsor for the six Ruth Casey submissions) and indirectly with Larry Stephens (via Barbra Bartz).

Here is a high level summary of possible known Casey Family Finder submissions:

Robert Casey (Ambler Casey, b. 1790)
Jesse Walker (Henson Casey, b. 1834)
Barbra Bartz (Henson Casey, b. 1834)
Larry Stephens (Louise Casey, b. 1850s)
Mary Cuthbert (Ruth Casey, b. 1801)
Charles Cochran (Ruth Casey, b. 1801)
Hiram Cochran (Ruth Casey, b. 1801)
Alice Garland (Ruth Casey, b. 1801)
Elizabeth Chandler (Ruth Casey, b. 1801)
Paula Thompson (Ruth Casey, b. 1801)

I have not downloaded the raw Family Finder data for analysis in GEDMATCH or used David Pike's Family Finder research tools. Usage of these tools may prove useful in future iterations of this analysis but having the chromosome browser reports for all submissions will probably be sufficient. However, I have observed several minor problems in the FTDNA chromosome reports (not sure if this is a programming issue or biological sampling issue). Having access to all raw data reports would be required to adjust for these issues and would be very labor intensive.

2) Step 2 - Look for segments with the most common submissions

CHROMOSOME 2 (134M to 137M, 1.46 cM)

This part of chromosome 2 currently has a common segment for all four Casey lines found and six submissions. This segment is found in two of the six Ruth Casey submissions and it is assumed that this segment no longer exists (over 1.0 cM) in other four Ruth Casey submissions. Since this segment includes both the Ambler Casey line and the Henson Casey line, it can be concluded indirectly via Y-STR submissions that all ten Casey submissions belong to the South Carolina Casey cluster. Since the current sample size of Family Finder lines covers only four lines, it is currently not known if this segment represents part, all of the South Carolina Casey cluster and may even be a false hit. However, it is believed that this segment does represent the ancestral Casey DNA segment for all currently known Casey Family Finder submissions.

Even though four of the Ruth Casey submissions are missing this segment, it can probably can be safely deduced that many of their Casey ancestors had this segment. Since the two Cochran submissions have this segment and the sponsor of these Ruth Casey submissions claims that all are proven descendants of Ruth Casey, it is assumed that the Ruth Casey line is more remotely connected to the other Casey lines. Many of Ruth Casey's descendants no longer have this segment remaining in their current DNA. Access to the chromosome browser reports for all Ruth Casey submissions and the Larry Stephens submission may shed more light on the connection of these Casey lines.

Chromosome 2 (134M to 137M, 1.46 cM): Robert Casey (Ambler), Barbra Bartz (Henson), Jesse Walker (Henson), Larry Stephens (Louise), Hiram Cochran (Ruth) and Charles Cochran (Ruth).

CHROMOSOME 4 (169M to 171M, 3.04 cM)

This segment represents the second most representative segment for the South Carolina Casey cluster. It covers three of the four lines and is found in four submissions. Only the six submissions of the Ruth Casey line are missing which is assumed to no longer contain this segment. As with chromosome 2, this implies that the Ruth Casey line is more remotely related to the other Casey submissions since this segment is not found in the Ruth Casey line. Access to the chromosome browser reports for all Ruth Casey submissions may shed more light on the connection of Ruth Casey's descendants.

Chromosome 4 (169M to 171M, 3.04 cM): Robert Casey (Ambler), Barbra Bartz (Henson), Jesse Walker (Henson) and Larry Stephens (Louise).

CHROMOSOME 10 (95M to 97M, 2.25 cM)

This segment represents the third most representative segment for the South Carolina Casey cluster. It covers three lines and is found in four submissions. Two submissions for the Ruth Casey line have this segment (both Cochran submissions) and is missing one of the Henson Casey submissions (Barbra Bartz) and the Larry Stephens submission.

Chromosome 10 (95M to 97M, 2.25 cM): Robert Casey (Ambler), Jesse Walker (Henson), Hiram Cochran (Ruth) and Charles Cochran (Ruth).

OTHER CHROMOSOME SEGMENTS OF POTENTIAL INTEREST

There are seven more segments that are shared between two or three Casey Family Finder submissions. Where fewer matches are found, the odds are being part of the ancestral Casey DNA decreases (but still is possible). As more Casey Family Finder submissions are discovered / tested and more chromosome browser reports become available, some of these segments may become more significant to Casey researchers.

Chromosome 3 (129M to 132M, 1.87 cM): Barbra Bartz, Jesse Walker & Larry Stephens.
Chromosome 5 (128M to 131M, 1.93 cM): Charles Cochran & Larry Stephens.
Chromosome 8 (49M to 52M, 2.34 cM): Larry Stephens & Hiram Cochran.
Chromosome 8 (132M to 138M, 9.85 cM): Robert Casey, Barbra Bartz & Jesse Walker.
Chromosome 11 (48M to 55M, 1.00 cM): Jesse Walker, Larry Stephens & Robert Casey.
Chromosome 18 (22M to 23M, 1.84 cM): Jesse Walker, Barbra Bartz & Charles Cochran.
Chomosome 21 (32M to 35, 4.54 cM): Larry Stephens, Barbra Bartz & Robert Casey.

CAUTIONARY NOTE FOR FAMILY FINDER ANALYSIS

Many of the above chromosome matches may be false hits. The shorter the segment becomes, the more likely false hits will be found. There are two major sources of these false hits: 1) the shorter the segment becomes, the more likely the segment may be a populational segment. These segments randomly match to unrelated lines simply because the short length of the segment increases the odds for similar segments having no genealogical relationship. 2) many common segments may be for other non-Casey lines where other non-Casey ancestors may be shared. Since I have only just begun to analyze my Family Finder submission, I have not yet identified segments that belong to other non-Casey ancestral lines. I have also not analyzed the myriad of ancestral lines for the other submissions as well.

Step 3 - Look for shared segments and long segments that indicate closer relationships

This part of the analysis is currently very biased towards the Robert Casey (Ambler Casey) submission and the Henson Casey submissions (Barbra Bartz and Jesse Walker) since this is the only source for the chromosome browser reports. Below is the summary of the degree of the relationship of each Casey submission:

125.1 cM shared & 28.5 cM longest segment: Barbra Bartz & Jesse Walker
(this is expected since both are known descendants of Henson Casey).

91.1 cM shared & 18.41 cM longest segment: Barbra Bartz & Larry Stephens
(this implies a close relationship between Henson Casey and Louise Casey)

72.9 cM shared & 32.0 cM longest segment: Robert Casey & Larry Stephens
(this implies a close relationship between Ambler Casey and Louise Casey).

61.1 cM shared & 18,4 cM longest segment: Robert Casey & Barbra Bartz
(this implies a close relationship between the Henson Casey and Ambler Casey line, both are known to have resided in Roane County, TN and McMinn County, TN in the 1830s).

47.7 cM shared & 14.7 cM longest segment: Robert Casey & Hiram Cochran
(this implies that the Ruth Casey and Ambler Casey is closely related).

44.7 cM shared & 19.9 cM longest segment: Robert Casey & Jesse Walker
(this supports that the Henson Casey line is closely related to Ambler Casey).

42.7 cM shared & 9.4 cM longest segment: Jesse Walker & Larry Stephens
(this supports that Louise Casey is closely related to Henson Casey).

With only three chromosome browser reports, other degrees of relationships will not be listed due to lack of DNA documentation. Since there are six submissions for Ruth Casey, the chromosome browser reports for these lines could assist in sorting out Casey segments from segments not related to Casey submissions. It is unfortunate that it requires sponsors of submissions to extract chromosome browser reports only for their own submissions which creates a signficant bottleneck in the analysis.

Step 3 - Conclusions

All four Casey lines represented by the Family Finder submissions appear to be connected to the South Carolina Casey Y-STR cluster. Since both Ambler Casey and Henson Casey are tested for Y-STR markers and belong the South Carolina cluster, all other lines can be assumed to be connected as well (since there are significant Family Finder matches supporting a connection to both Ambler Casey and Henson Casey).

For the Ruth Casey line, this line already has suspected connections to South Carolina Casey lines. This line is speculated to connect to Abner Casey, b. 1786, SC (who married Elizabeth Bowen) and John Casey, b. 1782, SC (who married Anne Turner) - both lines are Y-STR tested and belong to the South Carolina Casey cluster. A third suspected brother of Ruth Casey is Samuel Casey, b. 1785, SC (who married Haney Lynch) that has not been tested for Y-STRs. It is highly recommended that descendants of Ruth Casey locate a male descendant of Samuel Casey line for Y-STR testing to validate these speculative connections.

The Louise Casey line associated with Larry Stephens appears to most related to Ambler Casey and then next most related to Henson Casey. The Louise Casey line obviously has strong ties not only to the South Carolina cluster - but both the Ambler Casey and Henson Casey line that resided in Roane County, TN and later in McMinn County, TN (1830s) and later lived in common areas in Arkansas as well. The Louise Casey line probably has ties to Tennessee and Arkansas as well.

Step 4 - Possible Action Items:

1) Still need the chromosome browser reports for most Casey Family Finder submissions. Without these reports, I can only analyze my Casey Family Finder submission in depth. I need all six reports for the Ruth Casey submissions and need the report for the Larry Stephens submission. I have received reports for both Henson Casey submissions.

2) I do have a general idea of the tradional family history of most lines - but the exact connections for many of these lines is not known. Once I receive the chromosome browser reports for the Ruth Casey submissions, I will need the exact relationships between all the Ruth Casey submissions in order to analyze these lines.

3) In a future iteration of analysis, I may datamine for more Casey submissions in the GEDMATCH database which specializes in collecting raw autosomal files and presents an alternative to the FTDNA chromosome browser which is limited to finding matches only to my submission. Additionally, there are many other submissions that could have Casey connections but are not listed in their ancestral lists or GEDCOM files. A form letter to many matching submissions with the above Casey chromosome segments will certainly reveal even more Casey Family Finder submissions.