How can I remove incorrect Y-DNA linkages.

Question

About 20 years ago Professor Hamilton at PSU started an  extensive Y-DNA study of males with the Hamilton surname. That study continues and has involved many hundreds of  subjects. It has included members of the Aristocracy from England, Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere (who have well documented trees maintained by the UK Government). One result from the study is that there are two main groups of Hamiltons with well defined trees back to the 14th and 15th century and these can be placed in either Group A with haplogroup I1-M253>L338>A376 or Group B with haplogroup I1-M253>Z63>L1237>Y6615 at a macro level.

However a "descendant" of the early Hamilton keeps linking his Y-DNA result (R-M269) all along the Hamilton male line. This is simply not possible and despite repeated requests for him to fix it the error stays in place. Clearly he has a problem in his tree and has made an incorrect paternal link on it somewhere.

 Follow the male line down from the profile listed below. How can this be fixed? Wikitree loses a lot of credibility with this sort of nonsense in place.

For a detailed look at the Hamilton study just go here. I would appreciate this issue being esculated to wherever it needs to go to get fixed.

Answer 1

I'm no expert on DNA or the  Scotish aristocracy but the DNA linkeage as shown in the side panel will have  no worth if the pedigree has errors. Just a quick look at this one shows  there are  places where no evidence is given for a parental link.

 In particular I'd look at this profile https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hamilton-7003. He is one of two sons named James born to  John, 3rd Lord of Belhaven. This second James has a birthplace in Delaware and a mother who also died in America . Her supposed marriage to John (3rdLord) is said to have taken place before the death of John's first wife.

According to the profile of John (3rd Lord). he had  sons  John (4th Lord) and James who became the 5th Lord. According to the bio on James (5th). the line failed at that point with no more heirs, the title passing to another zHamilton.I believe this wouldn't be true if there was another brother (James  of Delaware) with an heir. (but Scottish aristocratic inheritance isn't in my comfort zone)

I suggest that you make a comment on the Delaware James asking for some evidence of parentage or anything on the profile.There are no valid sources .  This might start a discussion. If not you could move the question to G2G tagging Scotland. There are several members with expertise in Scottish aristos. If it transpires thst there's no evidence, the paternal link can be broken.

Comments

Thank you for your response to this question, you have put the spotlight on the most likely incorrect linkage on the tree. As you point out there was a title involved and given the year that the 5th Lord of Belhaven and Stenton died (1777) the Privileges Committee of the House of Lords (UK) became involved in deciding the succession. There was, as expected, rival claims to the title and the Committee decided that Robert Hamilton was de jure the 6th Lord and so his son William was the 7th Lord (1793). That Committee keeps very accurate family trees and there was no consideration of a second son named James.

The error, as you point out, is on the Hamilton-7003 profile and there are a number of managers of that profile including the Scottish Project Wikitree. I will raise the issue with the managers of that profile and hopefully have the second James removed. As pointed out elsewhere the "system" should then fix the DNA issue.

Thanks also to the others who took the time to answer my question.

Answer 2

I have no real input here (not dna proficient) other than I found your discussion very interesting to follow.  I am female and descend from a John Hamilton of VA/GA.  I clicked to follow the discussion just out of Hamilton interest.  I did find another discussion concerning similar issues and thought I would "bring it to the front" as those of you with this deeper dna knowledge and capability might want to include some of these interested genealogists also.

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/462994/hamilton-project-group-james-hamilton-baron-cadzow-the-baron

Answer 3

DNA in the connections section can't be removed from individual profiles, it's calculated based on the relationships in the tree. So to remove it, someone needs to find where there is an incorrect relationship and disconnect the profiles from each other.