Nine Matching Segments With Tara

Tara (again)
I have discussed Tara's matches with my families here and here, but there have been some changes in the GEDmatch results and in any case, I'd like to develop and summarize it all in one place.

Tara approached me last summer with a match of 70 cM on chromosome 3 with my father's late first cousin Herb and a set of other family members within that large segment. This is a remarkably large segment with a total stranger.

Subsequently, I found three others in my family on that segment, but the GEDmatch "one-to-many" search does not see them. Those three are my fourth cousins Anna and David (half-siblings) and my third cousin Joe.

In the meantime, Tara's mother and her paternal grandmother have also tested, so we can see from whom Tara received her matching segments. Let's look at them one at a time.

Chromosome 3 (left)
It's a small segment and normally I wouldn't bother mentioning it, but it's right here in front of me. The five blue segments are my parents' children and the 12.5 cM green segment is my half second cousin Fred. The triangulation is good. So while this is not a large match, it does point someplace fairly specific - my Rosenzweig/Zelinka side from Trencin County Slovakia.

Tara's mother has this same segment. Her family lived in Romania - not close but not far. In any case, it is clearly not from a recent common ancestor.

Chromosome 3 (right)
Most of my family matches on this large segment are from Tara's mother. None are from her paternal grandmother. Vladimir and my third cousin Joe match neither, so must be from Tara's paternal grandfather. (Joe's segment is a bit to the left of Vladimir's, so they may come from different ancestors.)

The matches who show up on the one-to-many are all descendants of my great-grandparents so the common ancestor could be upstream from either the Kwoczkas or the Pikholzes. But when we add in Anna and David, we lose the Kwoczka option. So the common ancestor with Tara's mother feeds through my third-great-grandparents Izak Josef Pikholz and his wife Rojse, whose surname is unknown.

According to the "Matching Segments" tool at GEDmatch, there are eight kits that match both Tara's mother and my cousin Herb and are greater than 12 cM. Two are 12.7 cM and two (with a joint email) are 15.6 cM. The other four are in the 18-23 cM range and I have written them all. Maybe something will come of that.

Chromosome 6

The two matches on this nearly 11 cM segment belong to Steve and his cousin Jen. There are a few other smaller segments with these two matches. Steve wrote about his family recently and it seems to me that this match is on Steve's Werfel side. We know nothing about them except that they lived in east Galicia.

Tara received this segment from her mother.

Chromosome 8

This is a 13.3 cM segment. Lines 1,2 and 5 are my sisters and line 4 is my brother. Line 3 is my first cousin Kay on my mother's side. None of my second cousins on either side have this segment, so I cannot be more specific. The geography is Belarus/Lithuania.

Tara received this segment from her paternal grandmother.

Chromosome 23 (left)

These X segments are two of my sisters and me. The largest of the three is just over 16 cM. Since I get no X from my father, this must be on my mother's side. But with no second cousins, we cannot be more specific than that.

Tara received this segment from her mother. Her family lived in Romania and my mother's in Belarus and Lithuania, so this is likely very far back.

Chromosome 23 (right)

Lines 1 and 3 of this 11 cM segment are my sisters and line 4 is my cousin Kay, so all we get from that is that it's my mother's side. However another match in the same place shows up only on a one-to-one search.

That would be my second cousin Ruth, on my grandfather's side. So we know that on my side this is Gordon or Kugel. From Tara's side, this is her paternal grandmother.
Ruth has done a full MtDNA test, so we know that our great-grandmother Chana Kugel's haplogroup is R01a. I have suggested to Tara that she have her grandmother do a full MtDNA test.

Three more matches
The title of this blog refers to nine segments and I have summarized six. The other three are from Tara's grandmother but did not come down to Tara.

The five matches on the left are nearly 11 cM. The first of the five is my second cousin Terry on my Pikholz/Kwoczka side; the other four are two of my sisters, my brother and me. It probably represents a fairly distant common ancestor.

The four matches on the right are my second cousins Sam and Beth and my first cousins Kay and Leonard. Sam and Beth are first cousins, as are Kay and Leonard. Sam's segment is over 16 cM. This is a Rosenbloom segment, from Borisov Belarus, further back than our information. We know no other surnames in my maternal grandmother's family.

The last matching segment is on chromosome 12 and the five matches are between 9.4 and 10.5 cM. The problem is that they are all children of my parents. No cousins of any sort. So there is nothing we can do with that.

Housekeeping notes

I am still waiting on details for my presentations in St. Louis and Kansas City. 

There may be a third venue as well. Unfortunately it will not be Pittsburgh, even though I plan to be there anyway.

30 April 2018 – Jewish SIG of the St. Louis Genealogical Society,
Place, time and topic to be announced

2 May 2018 – Jewish Genealogical Society of Kansas City, Johnson County Central Resource Library, Carmack Room, 9875 West 87th Street, Overland Park Kansas
4:45 – Topic to be announced
6:30 – Additional topic to be announced