← Family history research index
Shenandoah Valley, Virginia
Using the same pedigree framework as in Anybody Holmes?, my own paternal AncestryDNA matches at 20 cM or more were sorted by family line. The breakdown is summarized below.
| Family line | Matches |
|---|---|
| Helen Freudenberg (paternal × John Borland) | 122 |
| Weldon Borland (paternal × John Borland × Elizabeth Forbes) | 49 |
| Frank Forbes (paternal × John Borland × Elizabeth Forbes × Pearl Price) | 0 |
| Virginia Kail (paternal × John Borland × Elizabeth Forbes × Pearl Price × Rezin Price) | 20 |
| James Price (paternal × John Borland × Elizabeth Forbes × Pearl Price × Rezin Price × Mary Holmes) | 5 |
| Isaac Holmes (paternal × John Borland × Elizabeth Forbes × Pearl Price × Rezin Price × Mary Holmes × Elizabeth McNabb) | 3 |
| George McNabb (paternal × John Borland × Elizabeth Forbes × Pearl Price × Rezin Price × Mary Holmes × Elizabeth McNabb × Isaac Holmes) | 0 |
| Thomas Shepherd (paternal × John Borland × Elizabeth Forbes × Pearl Price × Rezin Price × Mary Holmes × Elizabeth McNabb × Isaac Holmes × Elizabeth VanMeter) | 0 |
| John VanMeter (paternal × John Borland × Elizabeth Forbes × Pearl Price × Rezin Price × Mary Holmes × Elizabeth McNabb × Isaac Holmes × Elizabeth VanMeter × Margaret Molenaar) | 0 |
| Maria Hay (paternal × John Borland × Elizabeth Forbes × Pearl Price × Rezin Price × Mary Holmes × Elizabeth McNabb × Isaac Holmes × Elizabeth VanMeter × Margaret Molenaar × Joost Molenaar) | 0 |
| Joost Molenaar (remainder of my paternal matches form a single cluster; segment traces to NY c. 1650) | 35 |
While I did not have a massive cluster like my brother, I did have a notable cluster of 35 matches on a single segment, traceable to Joost Molenaar of New Netherland, born around 1650. Four singleton matches could not be placed in the chart above because of insufficient tree data: two where I could not distinguish Borland from Freudenberg, one where I could not distinguish Borland from Forbes, and one where I could not distinguish Price from Holmes.
There may well be additional clusters among the Virginia Kail, Weldon Borland, or Helen Freudenberg branches of the chart; this article instead focuses on a group of 16 matches, each sharing between 20 and 22 cM with me—a set I call the Bright Cluster, for reasons that will soon be explained.
The matches in this cluster are listed below. I have also included shared matches below the 20 cM threshold wherever I could identify them. Given how tightly the group hangs together in the shared-match network, these cousins appear to inherit the same single segment rather than several unrelated pieces of DNA.
| MatchcM | MatchcM | MatchcM |
|---|---|---|
| Michael22 | T. B.21 | Jason21 |
| Austin21 | Joey21 | B. B.21 |
| Pamela21 | H. D.21 | David21 |
| Ryan21 | Carolyn21 | Grant20 |
| T. B. (2)20 | Sonya20 | Renee20 |
| Garth20 | Jeff19 | Kermit19 |
| Amy17 | Jennifer17 | Linda16 |
| A. B.15 | April15 | Amanda15 |
| Christy15 | Dorothy15 | Jay15 |
| Kathy15 | Lori15 | McKenzie15 |
| Sharon15 | Storm15 | Thomas15 |
| A. S.14 | Constance14 | J. R. H.14 |
| Jamie14 | Kathleen14 | Kathleen (2)14 |
| K. V.14 | Matthew14 | Mindy14 |
| Carolyn (2)14 | Rachel14 | Sherry (2)14 |
| Tracy14 | D. W.13 | F. A. W.13 |
| Janie13 | Vonda13 | Lloyd13 |
| Karen13 | Kerisa13 | Richard13 |
| Ann12 | Takoda12 | Bernard11 |
| Jolynne11 | Nana11 | Vickie11 |
| Walter11 | J. T.10 | Jax10 |
| Kim10 | Meredith10 | Tina10 |
| Heidi9 | Neil9 | Sherry9 |
| Sharon (2)9 | Sue9 | Betty8 |
| hmgaster8 | Ivy8 | Ruth8 |
The table is not exhaustive: many more distant shared matches in this network were left out for now and may be added to the study later if the present list does not resolve the relationship behind the cluster.
Repeating the methodology from Anybody Holmes?, I created secondary clusters in hopes of finding structure among these 75 matches. I applied the same 90 cM threshold used there: any match who shares at least 90 cM with at least one other match on the list is treated as part of a sub-cluster. The members of a sub-cluster do not each have to share 90 cM with every other member, but everyone in the group must connect through at least one such pair—signaling that they are likely closer cousins to one another than to the rest of the segment-level network. I chose 90 cM because, according to the Shared cM Project 4.0, a match of that size is about 99% likely to be fourth cousin or closer and roughly 90% likely to fall within third-cousin range, so the shared ancestor often appears in workable trees. Several such sub-clusters appear in this segment-level network; below I take them up one at a time, in the order I analyzed them.
I began with sub-cluster 1 because it was the largest 90 cM group and included several of my highest cM matches on this segment. The grid below compares genome-wide shared DNA (in cM) between kits in that Bright group (from Sub-Cluster 1.csv). Values are not limited to the focal segment; they reflect total shared DNA on Ancestry. The cM column is each match’s shared DNA with me. Green marks shared DNA of 90 cM or more (including the diagonal, where a match would equal themselves); yellow is 45–89 cM; orange is below 45 cM. Thick borders outline three blocks on the diagonal: Michael through Kathleen (Joseph Bright (1809)), Tina (David Bright (1824)), and B. B. through Renee (Magdaline Bright (1820)).
Once the 90 cM filter linked these kits into a single network, the heat map above resolved into family lines that all descend from Peter Bright (1786) and Magdalena Bowman. That common Bright–Bowman ancestry is why I call this the Bright Cluster.
These groupings combine the shared-cM structure in the matrix with genealogy from match trees on Ancestry and with trees I built or extended from public records on Ancestry.com where kits had no tree, an unlinked tree, or only a partial tree. Where DNA alone carries the argument, that is stated explicitly below.
Joseph Bright (1809), David Bright (1824), and Magdaline Bright (1820) were full siblings, all children of Peter Bright (1786) and Magdalena Bowman. The heat map’s three boxed blocks mirror those three grandchild lines; together they form one Bright–Bowman kindred that converges in my DNA through the Joost Molenaar segment.
After sub-cluster 1, I turned to four singleton matches at relatively high cM—kits that stand on their own in the shared-match list rather than anchoring a larger 90 cM group.
Joey and Ryan, each at 21 cM, have no Ancestry trees.
The next singleton, Amy (17 cM), has a linked Ancestry tree that places her on the Musselman branch as a documented descendant of Magdaline Bright (1820).
Linda, the next singleton at 16 cM, also had a tree, but I found no obvious connection to my family or the Bright family.
Sub-cluster 2 is the second 90 cM group taken up here. None of its matches share more than 15 cM with me—the highest values in that column below—yet the kits still form a tight shared-match network among themselves. The Trumpower family lines documented in these trees are associated with Washington County, Maryland. At this stage I see no known genealogical connection between the Trumpower and Bright families; both groups inherit the same segment-level match with me through separate colonial lines.
The grid uses the same scale and layout as sub-cluster 1 (Sub-cluster 2.csv). Thick borders outline two blocks on the diagonal: Jamie through Constance (descendants of Samuel Trumpower (1845)) and Lori with J. T. (descendants of Joseph Peter Trumpower (1842)).
As with sub-cluster 1, these assignments combine shared-cM structure with match trees on Ancestry and trees I built or extended from public records on Ancestry.com.
Joseph Peter Trumpower (1842) and Samuel Trumpower (1845) were brothers, both sons of Thomas Jefferson Trumpower (1805) and Mary (Miller) Trumpower (1806). The two boxed blocks on the heat map mirror those sibling lines within the same segment-level network.
Sub-cluster 3 was the next 90 cM group I took up. It comprised six matches—Dorothy, Kathy, Sharon, Sharon (2), Thomas, and Matthew. Genealogy from Ancestry trees and public records on Ancestry.com places them on a single descendant line of George W. Bright (1817). Within the 90 cM network they behaved as one nuclear family: every kit was an immediate family member of every other kit in the group.
I have not included a pairwise heat map for this sub-cluster. A full matrix among six immediate family members would be entirely green at the thresholds used elsewhere—informative for confirming relationships already visible in the trees, but not worth a separate diagram.
Whether George W. Bright (1817) was a sibling of Joseph Bright (1809), Magdaline Bright (1820), and David Bright (1824) is not yet proven. His birth year and residence in Rockbridge County, Virginia make that connection extremely likely in my view, and would tie sub-cluster 3 to the same Bright–Bowman kindred described in sub-cluster 1.
Sub-cluster 4 was the next 90 cM group. Its five matches—Christy, Richard, Sherry (2), Tracy, and Amber—are very close family members of one another. None of them shares more than 15 cM with me; Christy, at 15 cM, is the highest in that column for this group. I have not included a pairwise heat map for the same reason as sub-cluster 3: the grid would add little beyond what their trees and shared-match structure already show.
Ancestry family trees place them on a single descendant line of Lucinda Bright (1817), who is portrayed there as a double cousin of Joseph Bright (1809), David Bright (1824), and Magdaline Bright (1820). In those trees Lucinda was the daughter of George Bright (1784) and Frances (Bowman) Bright (1787); both parents are said to descend from the same Bright and Bowman families that produced Peter Bright (1786) and Magdalena Bowman, so Lucinda’s line and Peter’s children connect through parallel Bright–Bowman pairings rather than a single sibling set. I have not independently verified every link in that double-cousin reconstruction, but it fits sub-cluster 4 cleanly into the wider Bright–Bowman kindred already visible in sub-cluster 1.
Sub-cluster 5 was the next 90 cM group—only three kits, but enough structure to show in a small matrix. Jay and McKenzie each share 15 cM with me; F. A. W. shares 13 cM. The grid uses the same color scale as the larger heat maps above. Values are genome-wide shared DNA on Ancestry, not limited to the focal segment.
Match trees on Ancestry place all three on descendant lines of Lucinda Bright (1817), the same anchor proposed for sub-cluster 4. The 3,488 cM between Jay and McKenzie marks a parent–child (or equivalent) relationship within that kindred; F. A. W. shares 141 cM with Jay and 76 cM with McKenzie, consistent with a closer cousin tie to Jay’s branch. Sub-clusters 4 and 5 thus represent two distinct Lucinda Bright (1817) descendant networks within the same segment-level match list.
Sub-cluster 6 was the next 90 cM group—only two kits, Carolyn (2) and Sue. Only Carolyn (2) has a linked Ancestry tree; Sue has none. I have not drawn a pairwise heat map for a pair that small.
Carolyn’s tree places her on a descendant line of Susanna (Bright) Van Winkle (1797), who was born in Pennsylvania. Although I have not yet established how Susanna connects genealogically to the Virginia Bright families identified in the earlier sub-clusters, her Pennsylvania origins provide an important clue to the source of the shared DNA segment. Until now, every Bright line identified in this cluster was also connected to the Bowman family through marriages between the two families, leaving it unclear which ancestral family had contributed the segment. The Bowmans associated with these Virginia lines had migrated from Maryland into Virginia, where the Bright and Bowman families intermarried, while Susanna’s Bright ancestry was already established in Pennsylvania before those Virginia connections. Her presence in the same segment-level network therefore provides independent evidence that the segment originated with the Bright family rather than the Bowman family, resolving an ambiguity that the earlier sub-clusters alone could not address. Carolyn (2) shares 14 cM with me.
Next, I examined a singleton Rachel, who descends from yet another branch of the Bright family, Lucinda Bright (1817)’s brother Jeremiah N Bright (1806). Rachel shares 14 cM with me.
The other singleton was Storm, at 15 cM, whose tree places the match through Lucinda and Jeremiah’s brother Joseph Bowman Bright (1814).
Sub-cluster 7 was the next 90 cM group: six matches—Jolynne, April, Amanda, Michael (2), Janie, and A. S.—that I am not yet able to resolve. I created trees for three of the matches and have not yet found any intersection between them, nor any intersection with the Bright or Trumpower families; nor do I recognize any familiar surnames from my own tree. For the time being, I will set aside this sub-cluster and return to it in the future.
I was able to locate the underlying segment on my chromosomes using the MyHeritage chromosome browser. First, I searched my matches there for surnames Eikenberry, Musselman, and Grove. I found one match to each of those surnames and examined the family trees to confirm that they were of the same lines descending from the Bright family. They were, and they were all across the same paternal span of chromosome 18.
Per my chromosome map at Borland Genetics, I inherited this segment from my great-grandfather Weldon Earl Borland. The coordinates of the segment are as follows (Build 37):
| Chromosome | Start position | End position | Centimorgans |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | 12,338,469 | 38,877,849 | 27 |
On Weldon’s father’s side there is only one opportunity for a link to my tree. My ancestor Lydia Gregg was born in Winchester, Virginia, and her mother Ann may have been of German descent. On Weldon’s mother’s side there are two opportunities. Either the connection could be through my ancestor Harrison Miller (he was German and is believed to have had ancestors from both the Shenandoah Valley and Berks County, Pennsylvania), or through my ancestor Daniel Smith, who was German and/or Swiss. Andrew had no known ancestors in the Shenandoah Valley, but the connection could be a generation or two back in Germany. As the segment partially overlaps (5 cM) with another segment I share with a descendant of Ella Genevra Miller (a descendant of Harrison Miller), I strongly suspect that my Bright cousin or ancestor is on Harrison’s side of the family.