When I began looking at my mother’s DNA matches in TwentyThreeAndMe I initially focused on the last names and on the states or regions that people listed as the birthplace for the grandparents. I have been most interested in finding the connection between a large group of people whose known ancestry includes Monroe County, Alabama and another large group of people whose ancestry traces to Drew County, Arkansas. What those 2 groups have in common is that at the top of the maternal family trees are women who were born in Maryland. So, I’ve been trying to connect the 3 women at the top of our known family trees: Charlotte Phillips, born 1835 in Calvert County, Maryland; Rosetta Fleming Goodwin born about 1830 in Maryland and Flora Matilda, born about 1846 in Maryland.
A large number of people from both groups had taken the Ancestry.com DNA test and I could see how many centimorgans and how many DNA segments that we matched. What I could not see was on which chromosomes the match occurred. Several of those Drew County, Arkansas DNA matches had profiles in Gedmatch.com where I could finally see the location of the DNA matches. Half of the Drew County, Arkansas profiles matches were on the 23rd chromosome, which indicated that a woman was the connection. Three women matched on a segment that began at 113,295, 113,036,398 and 112,757,116. The corresponding matching segments ended at 120,270,432, 121,091,867 and 121,028,128. Two of these women were 2 sisters and the third a child of one.
Each also had a shared match on chromosome 4, beginning at 182,854,996 and ending at 190,915,650. Their brother’s profile also matched on chromosome 4, beginning at 180,023,943 and ending at 190,915,650. Their chromosome 4 segment match reflected the match with a Calvert County, Maryland women that we knew to be a direct DNA cousin. The direct DNA cousin match on chromosome 4 spanned 182,195,518-190,915,950.
So, I began looking for 23 chromosome matches in TwentyThreeAndMe. What I found were 2 more women from Drew County, Arkansas with segments that began and ended surprisingly similar to the first 3 women. Their segments also began at about 113,xxx,xxx, but each ended at about 139,xxx,xxx. The only match these 2 had with each other was on the 23rd chromosome. One shared a small amount DNA on their sixteenth chromosome with my mother.
Because TwentyThreeAndMe provided haplogroup information, I checked to see if those matched for the 6 women. They didn’t. The ethnicity profile was significantly European for one of the profiles. So, I began to think differently about what the significance of the 23rd chromosome match meant. I am tempted to dismiss the match as just a distantly related woman from Africa whose descendant landed in Drew County, Arkansas. Perhaps that explains the fifteen or more descendants of Flora Matilda in Monroe County, Alabama as well. But the fact that there is a Maryland born woman at the top of all 3 of our trees keeps me looking to find Flora Matilda and Rosetta on a ship leaving Maryland or Virginia as I had found my 4th great grandmother Charlotte Phillips!
So, I’ll be scouring the Slave Voyages database to see if I can find them!! Perhaps I’ll find answers to my 23rd chromosome questions.
Best,
My Maryland-Louisiana Roots 