Francois Joseph Savoie SOLVED

According to Geni, Danielle le Marais is my 15th Cousin twice removed. And this is not through Francois Savoie.

According to Geni, Philip Babin is my 11th Cousin thrice removed. And this is through Francois Savoie.

This roughly translates to an MRCA of 16 (11+3+2), where 2 is the distance between you and your grandparents.

And my paper distance from Felipe II is exactly 16 generations.

Mind-boggling.

Danielle, I do have a family tree on Ancestry.com send me your email by message via geni and I will send you an invite. That goes for anyone else interested.

This maybe a question for Angus... what's our next step with this development on the story of Francois Savoie?

I am a direct descendant of Francois Savoie. My family has always claimed to have been royally descended but I have always dismissed this as being wishful thinking. My father is now deceased but my uncle visited Turin, Italy a few years ago and he was startled to discover Duke of Savoy portraiture that was an amazing likeness to his brother’s son, my cousin. I realize this is pretty flimsy, but interesting. My own DNA is mostly Northern European but does link to Spain as well. I’ve encouraged my uncle and my brothers to have their DNA done. Is there a particular company where they should have it done and is there anything specific they should be asking to have done? Thank you for your help, Evelyne Savoie Gaudet

Hello Cousin Evelyne! I'm so glad you have shared your story. I never doubted the family stories since I was a small child. On my wall in my home I have the portraits of Tomasso, his parents and his grandparents. At a recent family gathering people have noticed the resemblance of my youngest daughter to Princess Catherine, Tomasso's mother and the resemblance of Tomasso to myself in the eyes especially. It is a remarkable thing given the generations that separates us but there it is for all to see.

Evelyne,

For you to be able to perform the DNA comparison we made for the 6 Savoie siblings and Philip Babin, your DNA must be uploadable to Gedmatch. And right now, Gedmatch only allows DNA test result uploads from three (3) companies - Ancestry, Family Tree DNA, 23andMe.

If you just want to restrict the scope of your initial DNA analysis activities to autosomal results, therefore, Ancestry will suffice. Currently, Ancestry will also give you more autosomal DNA matches, and thus, will give you the best chance to overcome your brick walls.

Once you are ready to venture into mtDNA and yDNA testing, then that's the time to select a more advanced DNA testing company.

Bill re. our Savoie connection..The line I have which is through a line in Belgium, was removed to our common ancestor by some curators who objected that there were no record to prove our descent from from the individual concerned, who was Jacques de Savoie Comte de Romont..So sadly unless I can convince them otherwise .eg.the DNA matches with Joseph's family..., nobody on Geni will find me as a cousin through the Savoie family lines..

Actually it's not quite true nobody will find me as a cousin, but it will be through a line in my tree which goes back to Scotland..This is how I (currently) connect with Bill.

Bill. I think Danielle's question does point out that it would be helpful to hear from the curators on our discoveries.

I have an interesting case for you if you: Tim Clifford A698330

Tim was born in Montreal but was adopted and lives in the US now. He matches the Savoie siblings and he has the far East Asia signal that some Savoie males have. Could you see how he would match to you? We think he may be a Francios Savoie descendant.

I am the Curator to whom Danielle refers, who locked the parents of Mahieu de Savoye (my 11th gr grandfather) following this Discussion: https://www.geni.com/discussions/180570?msg=1212328.

While I would be very delighted to establish a match back to these noble ancestors through the South African French Huguenot progenitor Jacques de Savoye, SV/PROG (and my father's DNA is available if that's useful), this Discussion doesn't seem to provide a reason to validate Mahieu's parents, Danielle.
False connections on Geni are far worse for research - including DNA research - than no connections.

On the analogy to the case of the Jefferson illegitimate children: it's probably important to note that the family stories were confirmed by using Y DNA matches - which is not what you guys are looking at here.

Hi Sharon! It's great to have a curator drop in. Given the lack of written records it seems that DNA tests can be helpful along with oral traditions.

Doesn't Danielle's DNA tests help move her story further along to confirmation?

I'm not an expert here, Joseph, so I'm really just brainstorming why Danielle's DNA proves Mahieu de Savoye's father.
We already know that she and I are direct descendants of a French Huguenot deSavoye. The question is how many deSavoyes exist at this time period in history.

Hi Sharon is there a way for someone who has experience in this area to take a deep analysis of this? DNA results are intriguing.
Thank you!

Joe Bolton

Joe, I'm not sure how anyone on geni will be able to do that if you don't have your tree on geni to plot the connections.

I'm happy to help you add it, if you need that.

Hi Sharon, thank you for the offer to help! At this time, I was asking on behalf of Danielle with respect to her (and yours) ancestry.

As cor my tree, can I upload one from ancestry.com?

Joe

Oh, I the Sally Hemming's case thank you for the clarification on what kind of DNA test was used. However, I did bring it up as an example of how DNA tests can provide answers that our different from the conventional expectation.

yDNA testing will only work if you have a confirmed direct male descendant of the male ancestor to use as a benchmark. What is considered "confirmed" is also subject to debate. Because even official birth records can be inaccurate.

For example, even if just one of the male ancestors in the line was cuckolded by his wife, yDNA testing will already produce inaccurate results.

Joseph,

Unfortunately, I did not have any single match with Tim Clifford at the location of interest - Chromosome 1, 155M to 161M.

Even at the 1 cM-100 SNP threshold.

Hi Bill, thanks that means that Tim is not a Savoie. Thanks for checking though. And thank you for your work on this project.

Joe, on uploading you tree - you'd have to add it profile by profile until you linked into the world tree. I'm happy to help you do that, though.

On Danielle and I, we are 8th cousins. We've known that for a long time. One of the benefits of the one world tree.

On the Y DNA point in the case of Jefferson - Yes, they were confirming a male descendant, and they knew Jefferson's Y DNA to start with. It was pretty simple to confirm.
That's why what you're doing here is a whole different kettle of fish.

On this: " thanks that means that Tim is not a Savoie." It doesn't.
atDNA doesn't work like that at the cousin levels you are talking about. It's perfectly possible to share no significant atDNA matches, let alone a match on a specific chromosome, with bonafide cousins - as far as I know.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you two; you are assuming that there will be only one possible family line of Savoyes. Something we do not know is true. And you are assuming you can disprove relationships at generational distances that are impossible to use to support such assumptions.

Hi Sharon, our approach with Francios Savoie is holistic as Bill has explained in a previous post on this thread. Looking at the whole picture, it is very probable that Francios Savoie is the son of Tomasso. There is no such thing as 100% certainty but it is the best fitting explanation.

I think that is kind of what Danielle is saying. We may not have 100% certainty but what is the most likely possibility given what we know. I dont think there should be a problem with posting the best guess on a disputed parentage as long as the appropriate caution statements and caveats are clearly stated with the profile. That way descendants can make up their own minds based on the evidence given.

As for Tim Clifford, it is true what you say about the DNA at this level of cousins. However, since he was adopted it just means he is more likely connected to my family through other lines besides the Savoies since he is a relatively close cousin.

As for my profile/family tree. It would be very daunting for me to manually upload it here. On ancestry.com I have been working on it for 4 years and it has 12,000 names.

This has been an interesting discussion so far.

Hi according to geni Jacques is my 9th great grandfather but I also have no gedmatchs to the above profiles.

Perhaps just a quibble - but there is such a thing as 100% certainty in DNA.

I can't comment much on the François Savoie, son of Thomas Francis of Savoy, prince of Carignano proof offered by Bill, except to say that
*There seems to me to be insufficient information about the numbers of Savoy ancestors - must have been hundreds - that existed in this time period to rule out everybody except this link.
*Bill's family tree isn't well built out on geni, except for this line - and the 3 % of European ancestry at this generational distance isn't necessarily going to translate into one family only (I don't think?)
*A death bed confession of noble illegitimacy is too convenient and beneficial on the part of those who reported it to carry much solid historical weight.

That being said, Bill does seem to make good points. Surely the deSavoy descendants still in Italy must have had DNA tests, and surely it is only a matter of time before researchers start to track and compare the DNA on the different paper trail descendant lines? At which stage, Bill's DNA is likely to be extremely interesting.

Eileen Winifred Warren II can you upload your DNA to geni? It would be interesting to see if we have an atDNA match, or if you and Danielle have an atDN match.
Danielle and I don't.

Danielle's matches to Joe suggest that you might also have them.
That is, if Joe and Bill upload their DNA to geni too.

Can I upload Ancestry.com DNA to Geni?

My Acadia journey started in 2016 when I had an 8.5 cM, 6.8 MRCA match at Gedmatch with a Comeau descendant (at Chromosome 1, Location 155M to 161M). At that time, I didn't even know where Acadia is.

Since I do not have any known Acadian ancestor and this guy's family tree does not connect to the royal families of Europe, our logical hypothesis then was that someone in the Acadian Comeau line descended from the royal families of Europe.

I researched the Geni trees of Acadians and came up with two (2) possibles - Jean Bourg (House of Bourbon) and Francois Savoie (House of Savoy).

A few weeks later, I discovered another match with an Acadian descendant (this time from the Boucher line) at the same location (Chromosome 1, 155M to 161M). The match is 8.0 cM long but did not meet Gedmatch's SNP threshold. Thus, no MRCA estimate was generated.

Since this guy's family tree does not also connect to the royal families of Europe, our hypothesis was also that someone in the Acadian Boucher line descended from the royal families of Europe.

And in all likelihood, this could be Jean Bourg (House of Bourbon) and/or Francois Savoie (House of Savoy).