Recreating the genome of Abigail Courtney b1871

The best chance we have of finding George is to identify the specific segments of DNA his descendants have inherited from him.

Abigail Roberts (nee Courtney) c1912

The only known descendant of George is his daughter Abigail Courtney, she married Edward Roberts in 1891.   

Abigail had two sisters, Edith and Alberta.  Edith however is only a half sibling sharing their mother Abigail Paice, so no Courtney DNA there.  It is unknown what happened to Alberta, she was Abigails twin and alive and well in the 1871 census at 3 months old.  However, there is no record of her in any subsequent census, nor can I find a death record.  

Abigail, George and Alberta are all missing from the 1881 England census so we cannot be sure if she was with them at that time.  I have concluded Alberta probably died young and the death was not registered even though it would have been a requirement at that time


We can currently seek to identify up to a maximum of 25% of George Courtney's DNA inherited by his grandson - Ted Roberts, through the tests of 4 of his children using a technique called 'Visual Phasing'.  With each generation we lose more of Georges DNA (on average 50%, but depending how the segments recombine - it could be more or less) and the lack of descendants is problematic.  

We do however have another DNA tester, a grandchild of Jimmy, who may have inherited a further 6.25% of George DNA.  This means, in time, we might be able to have around 30% of George's DNA to work with.  Testing other descendants of Jimmy could assist in increasing the percentage closer to 37%, but that would depend on whether there were significant recombination differences between the siblings.





The visual phasing process applied to the children of Ted Roberts will identify the segments they each inherited from their paternal grandmother Abigail Courtney.  The challenge is to then identify which of Abigails parents contributed to Ted's maternal segments on all 23 chromosomes.

As we are having trouble identifying George's antecedents, we first need to eliminate the segments that were inherited from her mother Abigail Paice, to be left with the remaining segments that should have been inherited from her father George for further examination.

To date, the following segment map has been developed for Abigail Courtney.  It is an ongoing 'works in progress' and will be progressively updated.  


You can view an expanded and up to date view of the chromosome map at DNA Painter, by clicking here.

Identified genetic groups can be found on this page.

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This blog is dedicated to finding my second great grandfather Arthur 'George' Courtney c1841.   To see a summary of my research click here.  

If you help with any of questions raised in this post, please contact me using the contact form on this blog or send me a private message via Wikitree, Ancestry or Facebook. 

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