A star in the person's rectangle indicates that the match has been proven by DNA (in addition to standard genealogical documentation). The DNA proofs are absolute, and they are plentiful.

An X in the person's rectangle indicates that I could have inherited DNA from the X chromosome of that person. Shared DNA on the X chromosome cannot rule an ancestor "in," but it can rule an ancestral line "out." For example, if I share DNA on the X chromosome with someone, that person and I canNOT share my paternal grandfather as an ancestor. So, if we share on the X chromosome, look at the chart to see which lines we canNOT share, and do not consider them as you attempt to find the match.

Nota bene #1: On the above pedigree, you will see my mother's paternal grandfather listed as "Francis Frank Reed." Everything above him is unknown, and he was a major mystery. He was a Quebec-born French-speaking man believed to have been of Irish ancestry. His story is HERE and HERE.

The attempt on this page and at the sites linked is for my genealogical research and analysis to survive my death. The attempt is to leave a message that can be found by a DNA relative even after my death. I was born in 1950; none of us lives forever, but I want my genealogical research to live on to help future genealogical researchers.

For me, autosomal DNA testing and Y-DNA testing arrived after over 25 years of standard genealogical sleuthing: birth, baptismal, marriage, and death records created by civil authorities and by church officials; wills, probates, and estate settlements found in court houses; land records (transfers and taxes); military records (service and pension); school records; local histories; cemetery records; funeral home records; burial records; grave stones; old photos; old letters; old Bibles; voting records; city directories; old newspaper stories and obituaries; ship passenger lists; immigration and naturalization records; census records (with the realization that those census records have many errors); any other record I could find. And I listened to stories told by old family members -- even when those stories were old family "secrets." Most of my work was done before the internet and the magic of easily accessible records found online. Writing to court houses, traveling a few hundred miles to search through attic archives, and digging for buried grave stones were common events.

Then came all of the easily accessible records at ancestry.com and other internet sites, ballooning after 2000.

And then, after 2010, came cheap and easily accessible autosomal DNA tests and Y-DNA tests. For me, the DNA tests verified the paper documentation. I have tested with three testing companies (familyTreeDNA.com, 23andMe.com, and ancestry.com), and I have uploaded my raw data at gedMatch.com: # M591138.

These are basics to understand regarding DNA testing:
(1st) Y-DNA testing shows straight-line paternal information: a man's father's father's father's father, etc. A Y-DNA test shows two things: a long string of numbers showing "STR markers," and a short code for the paternal haplogroup. If two men do not have the same paternal haplogroup, absolutely they are NOT father and son. And if they do not share that long string of numbers showing "STR markers," absolutely they are NOT father and son. A Y-DNA test can rule out a relationship between a presumed father and son. Alone, it cannot prove a father/son relationship.
(2nd) Autosomal DNA testing will work, no matter the sex and no matter in what way the two people are related.
(3rd) With autosomal DNA testing, for two people who are 1st cousins or closer, the testing companies say that there is a 100% certainty that testing will show the relationship. For two people who are 2nd cousins, there is a greater than 99% chance that autosomal testing will show the relationship. For 3rd cousins, the relationship will be found in about 90% of the cases. For 4th cousins, there is about a 45% chance that the relationship will be found. At 5th cousins, the chance of there being any shared DNA found drops to about 15%.
(4th) Autosomal DNA tests determine the percentage of shared DNA. Here are possible relationships:
50% shared (3,400 centimorgans): parent/child; or full siblings.
25% shared (1,700 centimorgans): grandparent/grandchild; or aunt-or-uncle/niece-or-nephew; or half-siblings; or double first-cousins.
12.5% shared (850 centimorgans): first cousins; or great-grandparent/great-grandchild; or grandAunt-or-uncle/grandniece-or-nephew; or half-aunt-or-uncle/half-niece-or-nephew.
6.25% shared (425 centimorgans): first cousins once-removed; or half first-cousins.
3.125% shared (212 centimorgans): second cousins; or first cousins twice-removed.
1.563% shared (106 centimorgans): second cousins once-removed; or half second-cousins.
0.781% shared (53 centimorgans): third cousins; or second cousins twice-removed.
There are variations in relationships, and those percentages are not exact. The point that you should understand is that even 2% of shared DNA would indicate a reasonably close relationship. Anything about 5% would be family who, normally, would have known of each other growing up.

If you and I share a goodly portion of DNA, but you do not know why, please consider your DNA an introduction and feel free to contact me with your DNA results.

MY FATHER'S Y-DNA INFORMATION:

Additionally, my father's paternal haplogroup was L-M20.

There is zero doubt about this Y-DNA information: Autosomal testing between me and two known 2nd cousins proved that we are 2nd cousins. Those two 2nd cousins are grandchildren of my father's father's brother. In other words, we all three share Jesse BEARD and Sarah C. HOOKER as great-grandparents. One of those two 2nd cousins is a male (straight-line male descent); in addition to the autosomal DNA test, he did a Y-DNA test. Thus, my father's Y-DNA is known.

MATERNAL HAPLOGROUP:
My maternal haplogroup is V. One's maternal haplogroup comes from one's mother; it is straight-line maternal information -- a person's mother's mother's mother's mother, etc. For genealogists, there is little value in a mitochondrial DNA test, and I have not had one done. However, 23andMe provides maternal haplogroup information with its autosomal test.

MY ANCESTRY COMPOSITION:
Each of the three companies has its own way of reporting ancestry composition.

Report from 23andMe:

Report from familyTreeDNA:

Report from ancestry.com:

AUTOSOMAL DNA PROOFS:
Shared DNA proves that two people share ancestors. The two examples below will show what proof of shared DNA looks like with autosomal DNA testing, and it will show how exact the science is. Both "cousin #1" and "cousin #2" are my second cousins. The three of us are great-grandchildren of Jesse Beard (1867-1939) and Sarah Catherine Hooker (1871-1952). I descend from that couple's son George Irvin; my second cousins descend from that couple's son Marvin. Cousin #1 descends from a son of Marvin; cousin #2, from Marvin's daughter.

Match with second cousin #1:

Cousin #1 total shared DNA: 309.44 centimorgans (cM):
chromosome 1 from position 22750400 to 59044077 for a share of 38.88 cM.
chromosome 3 from position 178361699 to 184694720 for a share of 5.57 cM
chromosome 5 from position 60972692 to 124601508 for a share of 56.96 cM
chromosome 5 from position 178172090 to 180625733 for a share of 5.06 cM
chromosome 6 from position 2799366 to 19277327 for a share of 28.56 cM.
chromosome 6 from position 105919333 to 143820647 for a share of 36.26 cM
chromosome 12 from position 61508412 to 79811443 for a share of 18.65 cM.
chromosome 12 from position 108378411 to 130064899 for a share of 43.09 cM
chromosome 14 from position 18325726 to 42798860 for a share of 31.52 cM.
chromosome 15 from position 24541779 to 33803012 for a share of 13.18 cM.

Match with second cousin #2:

Cousin #2 total shared DNA: 323.57 centimorgans (cM):
chromosome 1 from position 23030709 to 59044077 for a share of 38.46 cM.
chromosome 3 from position 42426416 to 62290352 for a share of 16.74 cM.
chromosome 3 from position 71635056 to 77469545 for a share of 8.73 cM.
chromosome 4 from position 96346892 to 112351238 for a share of 13.18 cM.
chromosome 5 from position 8758837 to 11481508 for a share of 5.97 cM.
chromosome 5 from position 60972692 to 123937399 for a share of 56.31 cM.
chromosome 6 from position 11393983 to 27543003 for a share of 20.77 cM.
chromosome 6 from position 29444126 to 49695186 for a share of 24.18 cM.
chromosome 6 from position 106265726 to 146914378 for a share of 38.74 cM.
chromosome 7 from position 130538121 to 138299077 for a share of 10.22 cM.
chromosome 9 from position 36587 to 3422447 for a share of 7.28 cM.
chromosome 12 from position 22906265 to 61495890 for a share of 33.76 cM.
chromosome 18 from position 10501383 to 39546701 for a share of 24.62 cM.
chromosome 18 from position 73253766 to 76116152 for a share of 9.4 cM.

In the overlapping graph below, my matches with cousin #1 are orange; with cousin #2, blue:

Nota bene #2: In August 2001, when my mother was 80 years old, she told me a story as we sat in a restaurant near her home in Mishawaka:

Your brother Dale has a son. He was born about the time the school year ended when Dale had just turned 16. A girl phoned me while she was still in the hospital and said, "I want you to know that you have a grandson. Dale is the father, but Dale's name won't be on the birth certificate, and the baby won't have the Beard name." The girl lived in the neighborhood, close by. I used to know her name, but I can't remember it any more. When the baby got a little older, she and the baby lived on Main Street, south of McKinley, in an apartment in an old house. I used to drive Dale there to see his son. When the baby was about two-and-a-half years old, the mother told Dale that she no longer would let Dale see the boy. She said that she was afraid that the boy would start asking who Dale was, and she didn't know what to tell the boy.

My mother further said that, when she told Dale about the phone call, he said, "If she says that I'm the father, I'm the father." He then walked to the hospital and saw the baby for the first time. The fact that he walked to the hospital says that the baby was born in Mishawaka or in South Bend. The hospitals closest to Normain Heights in 1975 were the old Mishawaka Hospital (on 4th Street, just west of Main) and the old Osteopathic Hospital (on Jefferson, near Ironwood, in South Bend). They were about equidistant from Normain Heights.

It should be noted that, although my mother appeared to be 100 per cent lucid and presented as if she believed what she was saying, I have zero proof of anything that my mother said. Also, in addition to having no proof of what my mother said, it should be noted that -- even assuming that my brother believed he had fathered a son -- there is no way that he would have had DNA proof that he was the father. Taking the story at its best, all that is known is that some female claimed that the child she birthed had been sired by Dale and that Dale believed that claim.

Dale was born May 3, 1959. He turned 16 in May 1975. In Mishawaka, the school year typically ended in the month of June. Dale lived at 230 Palau, in Mishawaka, Indiana, in a neighborhood known as "Normain Heights." Normain Heights was a distinct neighborhood of 315 houses, arranged over an 80-acre rectangle, with a park at the south end of the rectangle. The 230 Palau address was home for my mother from late 1949 (when she and my father married) until mid-2006 when she moved to a nursing home. The reasonable conclusion is that, in 2001 when my mother used the words "in the neighborhood," she meant "in Normain Heights," or at least close to Normain Heights.

Assuming that what my mother said in 2001 was correct, the following deductions can be made:

• The male child was born in about May or June of 1975, in Mishawaka or in South Bend.
• The mother of the child lived in or near Normain Heights in about May or June of 1975.
• It is reasonable to deduce that she also lived in that area nine months earlier, in about August or September 1974.
• In August/September 1974, Dale was 15 years old. Human nature suggests that a 15-year-old male's intimate partner would have been about his age. However, who knows?
• It is reasonable to guess that Dale and she had some of the same acquaintances. Certainly someone must have known that the two at least knew each other.
• Sometime after 1975 and before December 1977, the mother lived on Main Street, south of McKinley, in an apartment that was part of a house. Likely the address was north of Jefferson. If the address had been south of Jefferson, it is likely that my mother would have identified the address as "south of Jefferson" rather than "south of McKinley."
• Dale's son's eye color could be brown or blue. Both of Dale's grandfathers had blue eyes, but both of Dale's parents had brown eyes. In other words, each of Dale's parents carried a recessive gene for blue eyes, and Dale could have carried a hidden recessive gene for blue eyes.
• Dale's Rh factor was positve.
• So, short version is that the mother .
  • lived in or near Normain Heights in 1974 and 1975, and
  • gave birth to a son in about May or June of 1975, in Mishawaka or in South Bend, and kept the child, and
  • lived in an apartment on Main Street, south of McKinley, in 1976 or 1977.

My attempt is to preserve the record, and to preserve my mother's fading memory from 2001. The DNA evidence that I have assembled would provide the proof. My DNA would match at about 25% with a child of my brother. My DNA would match at about 12.5% with a grandchild of my brother. My DNA would match at about 6.25% with a great-grandchild of my brother. Additionally, any son of any full-brother would have the exact Y-DNA as my father. [See above.]