Y DNA results on William Graham

 

Margaret Graham Blake

Dwight, grandson of Margaret Graham Blake, wrote the following after getting the results back on our cousin Joe's Y-DNA (R-M269).  Y DNA traces the paternal line back for many generations.  We were surprised to see that we match Henry and Thomas Parks DNA---we were expecting Graham or Grimes (they are both the same name---just spelling differences).  So, Dwight went back to the autosomal DNA results we had gathered from about 12 William Graham descendants using primarily GEDmatch.  Autosomal or atDNA analyzes all of a person's DNA but only goes back 5 generations accurately.  What we wanted was information on7 generations back.  To do that with atDNA, we had to lower threshold from 7cM to 4cM and we could only do that on GEDmatch.  We were able to find several among the dozen of William Graham's descendants who were able to match Henry Parks and Henry Grimes family members barely below the 7cM threshold and several above that threshold.  For more on DNA and genealogy, click here.

For more on R-M269, click here

"I think just Y chromosome test, and tables showing correlation of us with Henry Parks and with John Grimes... we then learn three things.

1. Our Y chromosome matches that of Henry Parks (b.1758 in Albermarle County). Henry Parks Y chromosome is a sub-variant type of that for the other Parks of Albermarle County. It can not be conclude that Henry Parks is a male descendant of the Thomas Park family of Albermarle, as the difference in Y chromosomes has about 8 mutations. But, he did migrate with the family of Thomas Parks to Wilkes County NC, after his birth.
2. The atDNA analysis of our WmGraham group compared to 4 Henry Parks descendants shows high cM correlation values for that many generations back. This is consistent with the data demonstrating the matching of our Y chromosome to that family
3. The atDNA analysis of our WmGraham group with the descendants of John Grimes (b. 1758, Hannover County VA) shows an equally high, if not higher, cM correlation value. John Grimes, and his brother Henry Grimes, obtained early land Patents in Washington County TN, along with our James [Graham], in 1777. Our family name Graham probably comes from this family. John and Henry Grimes are known sons of Capt. William Grimes (with his 1^st wife). Captain William Grimes was killed in the Service of our young Country in Philadelphia in July 1777, under the command of General Washington.

This information together has provided us with windows into our shared heritage. We think we now know the lineages, but are not for sure which line is James Graham's father and which his mother. Unfortunately, the Court House in Guilford NC was destroyed in the Revolution, and the Court Houses in Hanover and Albermarle Counties of Virginia were destroyed in the Civil War. With the loss of these Court houses, and with the fact that DNA matching decreases effectiveness quickly with increasing number of generations, identification of our shared heritage has been difficult. It was only because of the large number of people on our side that had DNA tests done that we were able to draw these conclusions. It was the large number of people working together that was able to give confidence."

Thank you for all who helped us try to solve this puzzle.  We are still working on it, so stay tuned.

Watson Roots

My grandmothers:  Vennie and Vivian

My grandmother Vennie was always a bit of a mystery having been raised in foster care.  She was 14 when she married my grandfather and the marriage license says she was an orphan which wasn’t quite true.  Her father had died from a horse accident but her mother was living in Farmington in an insane asylum. 

She had no known family since her brother had died young.  In 1976, I started researching genealogy to find more information about Vennie.  But, it wasn’t until the past two years that I’ve discovered her heritage through DNA.

Her maiden name was Watson, a Scottish surname.  When I asked what Grandma’s heritage was, Mother just shrugged her shoulders and said, “Scottish and Indian”.  Knowing the family was from Appalachia, I assumed Cherokee.  I had unravelled the mystery of Grandma’s mother, but her father, G. W.,  remained a mystery until a year or two ago.  With DNA on Ancestry.com, I could search surnames but Watson was a name on Grandma’s AND Grandpa’s side. I had hundreds of people to contact and didn’t have much information about G. W.

Finally it occurred to me to consult those who shared the most DNA and had the Watson family name (Grandpa’s Watson was several generations further back).  I found a woman, Cheryl, whose ancestor was from Cape  Girardeau, Missouri which was promising.  Cheryl’s ancestor was Melvinia “Vinnie” Watson and her parents were Arthur and Manurva Watson. I’d known that Grandma’s name was originally Louvenia Minerva Watson or “Vennie”.   I had found Grandma’s grandparents since Cheryl’s ancestor was Grandma's aunt. 

That information allowed me to trace my ancestry back to David Solomon Collins and Thompsy Posen who lived in Virginia in the late 1700’s.  I decided to google them.   What I found answered a lot of questions my DNA had raised:  where did the Native American and African come in? My DNA showed that I descended from at least one slave but it was in such a small amount, it had to have been from Colonial America.

David Solomon Collins was Melungeon:  a derogatory name for people who were tri-racial (African, Native American and European) living in Virginia and North Carolina.  Often Melungeons lived in their own communities since they didn’t really “fit in”.  But, it’s important to emphasize they were not slaves although descended from slaves.  My family, early on, passed for white—I cannot find any reference to any of them being “mulatto”.

This is where some knowledge of Colonial American history is important. 

"Interracial relationships, common-law marriages and marriages occurred since the earliest colonial years, especially before slavery hardened as a racial caste associated with people of African descent in the British colonies. Virginia and other English colonies passed laws in the 17th century that gave children the social status of their mother, according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, regardless of the father's race or citizenship”.   

While the mixed race children of an African mother were slaves, the mixed race children of a European mother were free.  So, I descend from a European mother who was probably an Indentured Servant who lived with the household slaves.  I may never know who David Solomon Collins parents or grandparents were—records with names for indentured servants and slaves are not good.  And, some think that the family name Collins was adopted by David and his siblings.

I do know the names of some of my Native American ancestors from my grandmother Vivian's family because they were considered “royalty”, but I don’t know who the Watson-Collins Native Americans were.  With the label “Melungeon” I know they were partly Native American.  David Solomon Collins lived in eastern Virginia which is not Cherokee, but has several other Native tribes including Pamunkey.

One interesting side-note.  David Solomon Collins had 10 children.

Aaron William Collins d. 1855 Twin Bridges, Douglas County, Missouri

Elvira Collins Lawson d. 1855 Hawkins, Tennessee

Eleanor Collins Bull d. 1870, Douglas County, Missouri

Margaret Collins Dodson d. 1870, White County, Tennessee (my 4 great grandmother)

David Collins d. 1844 North Carolina

Nancy Collins Collins d.1850, Grainger Co. Tennessee

Levi Collins d. 1860 Falling Springs, Oregon County, Missouri

Isaiah Cuppy Collins d. 1888 Dora, Ozark County, Missouri

Solomon “old Sol” Collins d. 1882, Douglas Count , Missouri

Hiram John Collins d. 1857 Morgan County, Indiana

Five out of 10 settled in the Ozark area of Missouri with 50 children among them. Today, there are 60.000 people that live in the region (3 counties)  they settled in—I’m probably related to many  of them. . . .

G. W. Watson

Wes Wicker, Vennie Watson Wicker
Louise Wicker Long 1922

My mother never met her grandfathers:  one died before her father was born and one died when her mother was very young.  John Wicker left behind nieces and nephews who  told us a few stories, but with G.W. Watson we had nothing---no relatives that we knew of.  We only knew that he died from a horse accident (as did John Wicker), he was of Scottish descent, he was buried near Alton (Grandma remembered going to his funeral) and he had only one child who lived to maturity---my grandmother Vennie. We didn't even know when he died but it had to be between 1906-1910.  Oh, we also knew Grandma had Native American, but we didn't know if it was through her mother or her father.

From 1976 until 2018, all of my research only turned up a marriage certificate in Dunklin County, Missouri. September 2, 1894 G. W. Watson married Mattie Silas (sic) in Malden.  Mother thought his name was George. I had my DNA done but the task was complicated because my grandfather's great grandmother was also a Watson.  So, I had to weed out all of the Watson DNA matches in Kentucky and Tennessee.  I finally found a woman whose grandmother had also lived in Southeast Missouri and her name had been Malvina (Vinnie) Watson.  What really caught my eye was her mother's name was Manurva Prince.  My Aunt Billie had once told me that Grandma's name was originally "Minerva Lou".  I had found Grandma in the 1910 census (with a widowed mother) and her name was listed as "Louvinia".  So I had high hopes that I had found G. W.'s parents:  Arthur Watson and Manurva Prince in Dyersberg, Tennessee.

With that information, I was able to find the family in 1860 census in White County Illinois.  His name was George Watson and he was born in 1857.  So far, that is the only census I have been able to find him in.  I haven't found the family in the 1870 census, George would have been 23 in 1880 census and probably living in a boarding house.  The 1890 census was destroyed and I haven't found him in the 1900 census yet.  This was obviously a family that didn't have roots.  Arthur was born in North Carolina, lived in Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee and Missouri.

No Civil War records, and census records were not found.  The only story we had was he died riding a horse.  Mother told the story often that both of her grandfathers died riding horses "those were the automobile accidents of the day."  She implied that they were probably racing as young men like to do.  I decided to try to find G. W. / George in the newspaper---maybe there was a record of his death somewhere.  So I went to newspaper.com, entered "G.W. Watson" and "horse".  After some research I found a G. W. Watson who was a harness racer between New Orleans and St. Louis.  He raced in Kinloch and Delmar Tracks (both in St. Louis area) in 1903 and in New Orleans in 1909 with a horse named "Kitty".

New Orleans 1909

This was very interesting since I'd known my grandfather had been a jockey, but my grandmother's father has been a jockey, too?  I don't have any real proof that the jockey G. W. Watson was my great grandfather but I do know that I'm 5'1" and my grandparents often went to "the races" in Illinois.  Recently I did the math on G. W.  If he was born in 1857 and died in 1909,  he was 52 years old. If he died racing horses, he was a little old to be drag racing with his friends as mother implied.  But, a man earning a living by racing horses makes more sense.

My DNA and genealogy held more clues to G. W. Watson.  I've known since a child that I had Native American (doesn't everyone) and we naturally assumed it was Cherokee (doesn't everyone).  The first time we had DNA done we had mitochondrial, the maternal line, examined.  We wanted to know what Vennie's mother's line was.  My siblings and I placed bets on what we would find.  My sister thought Romany (gypsy) since Grandma Vennie read tea leaves.  My brother was rooting for Native American because he wanted to claim some casino money (just jokingly).  I, on the other hand, believed there was African.  The DNA results came back. . ..Irish.  We were all a little disappointed since we believed Grandma (who grew up in foster care) had more exotic roots.

The refinements in DNA over the years have given us more information. My brother and I have both had our DNA analyzed---they are a little different but we both have about 98% European.  We are a little different in what the 2% is.  His is more Native American and mine is more African.  The amount of African DNA puts it in Colonial America and Sub-Saharan----slave.

Working on G.W.Watson's genealogy, I came across the name David Solomon Collins, Arthur's great grandfather and G. W.'s great-great grandfather.  My 5th great grandfather was born in 1750.  For some reason, I decided to google him, not really expecting to find anything.  I was wrong.  I should not have been surprised, but he was Melungeon which explains a lot.

DNA Ethnicities

Mary(Polly) Sollis Reasons

Mary Ann Sollis Dickerson

As some of you know Jim and I have had our DNA sliced and diced several different ways. We have achieved our goals for the most part---we know where our Long family is from in Virginia (Culpeper), we located Grandma Vennie Wicker's mother's family (Sollis not Silas), we matched with the Wicker family I always felt we were related to  (There was a political writer Tom Wicker that I thought looked like Grandpa Wes).

My latest quest was to find out if we were part Indian which is what my grandmother and mother always said.  At first we didn't find anything (but we did find 1% African---definitely slave from 1700's---so I thought, "someone was dark, didn't want to admit African so called it Indian"?) 

I had received a photo of the SISTER of one of our ancestors (see photo) Mary Ann Sollis (b. 1834). Her descendants have no African but when examined on GEDmatch, they did show American Indian.   

I also saw a note someone left on Ancestry.com

 "I have been looking into the link that my father maintains is fact, that we have Cherokee blood in our family line. I found that Mary (Polly) Sollis,wife of John Rhodes Reasons (see photo ablove) was half Cherokee, her father, Abraham Sollis married into the Cherokee tribe and renamed his Indian wife Martha. This backs up my father's claim and puts the Indian question to rest. 

So, I put Jim's DNA and mine on GEDmatch to see if we could find that American Indian DNA.  On the Eurogenes K-13 test, we found it.  Jim has 1.1% and I have .51%.  Yes that is a very small amount.  Click here if you want to find out more about American Indian DNA and why Jim and I have differing amounts.

So, yes, we probably do have American Indian in addition to the African, but both are probably back in the 1700's.  We are primarily  North Atlantic (English, Scottish, French, Irish,  German) with around 50%.  Then, another 25% is Viking (they settled in Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Germany).  That leaves about 25% Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Red Seas, African, American Indian.  If you want to know more about the Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Red Seas, Click here to learn about our very unusual J2 on the Williams line. To get a refresher course on my DNA journey, click here.

atDNA

While I was OK with my test results (above), I was a little bothered by Dave's (below).  I knew my French, English, Scottish ancestors lived along the coast and were probably Viking, but the Vikings did not settled much of Wales where Dave's ancestors were from (on two sides of his family).  Even his "Uncertain" didn't bother me because he has American Indian rumored on both sides of his family.  "Uncertain" just means there isn't a big enough sampling, but over time we may have a better idea.

Although I can't totally explain my Eastern European, I do have an idea.  It could have hopped along with the Viking or it could be that crazy J2 on the Williams side of the family (Click here for more explanation of the J2).  It could even be part of my Reiter heritage---Northern Germany and Switzerland should have registered Central Europe, but tribes wandered and paid little attention to boundaries.

DNA Ancestry.com

Although my brother and various cousins had their DNA tested by Familytreedna, I couldn't resist a special by Ancestry.com that claimed it could get results from women AND link me up to other family trees available.  Since I already had a good idea of what my ancestry was, I decided to give it a try.

My ancestors came from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, France and Germany, so shouldn't I expect to have French, German, Celtic, British ancestry?  Other than the Eastern European, I was not surprised that I was 81% Scandinavian because all of my ancestors came from those parts of the countries settled by Vikings.

But, I have been very surprised at how well, ancestry.com has been able to give me leads on lines where I had hit brick walls.  For example, we had given up on trying to find where Louis Reiter was from in Germany.

His Civil War records said he was from Cassel, Germany and Carkert Co. Germany (the latter does not exist) and that was the best we could hope for.  Sure, his grandson Roy (my grandfather) used to insist he was not German but Swiss, but we always thought that was the anti-German sentiment of WWI talking.  For more on Louis Reiter, click here.

Imagine my surprise when ancestry matched me up with an individual with Reiter ancestors from Cassel/Kassel Germany.  I wrote the individual, told him of Grandpa's belief that he was Swiss, laughing it off.  He sent me a document about his ancestor which stunned me.  His Reiter family was originally from Switzerland.

A Reiter with a DNA match from Cassel Germany has ancestors from Switzerland!  I may never make the actual connection with this family---I suspect Louis might have been a nephew or cousin---but I have had to apologize to Grandpa Roy many times this past week.

Dancing in Heaven

This year I've been very fortunate to meet 3 cousins I'd never met before---all of them are pretty distant---even my parents had never met them. We met through genealogy, we got to know each other better through Facebook---I love the internet and the relationships that can be formed.

My sister says I'll have quite a fan club when I get to heaven, but I prefer seeing this image of ancestors high-fiving each other whenever I meet one of these distant cousins.
I met Ricky in Arkansas this Spring. Our relationship is a bit complicated because My great grandfather is the brother of his grandfather AND my great grandmother is a first cousin of his grandmother. So, we're a little closer that 3rd cousins once removed.
But can't you see our mutual ancestors (on the Wicker side) high-fiving. Above is Virginia Sampson (my g-g grandmother and Rick's g-grandmother).
And, this is John Wicker (my g-g grandfather and Rick's g-grandfather).
A few days later, while on vacation in Alabama, I met up with Catherine. Her mother Claudia below. . .
Is first cousins with my grandmother Vivian (below) making us 3rd cousins once removed also.
This weekend, I met up with Steven---we don't know how we're related but his DNA matches my brother's 67 out of 67 markers. We have an 89.97 % chance of being related within 6 generations.
So, ancestors that lived back in Virginia (see below) are high-fiving that we have met. I chose this place for a photo to show the photos of my daughters, parents and grandchildren to reflect the circle of life.

Or, maybe. . .our ancestors are really having a circle dance. Each time I meet another cousin, the circle gets larger. . . Hey, I think I really like that image.

Milton Long and DNA

This summer, we got an e-mail from Family Tree DNA that we matched L.H. Long on 67 markers---that means we are pretty closely related. He was about the 5th person we matched 67 markers on, but we have never found HOW we were related. I wrote back to L.H. to welcome him to our DNA Band of Brothers. L.H., being a very savvy octogenarian, saw that I had this blog. He clicked on the link, looked around and wrote me this e-mail:
"we have a picture of Milton Long and wife. We have several tintype picture that we are unable to identify. Jaclyn - seen blog - Milton's pic same - Johnnye Van Hook - 2nd cousin once removed - came upon a box pic and tintype in Chatsworth, Ga - where she was attending a funeral. Va Hook is from Texas. No names on picture."
I was stunned. Milton's father, Thomas Long (b. 1792), had moved to Missouri around 1812. Milton's parents died around 1840. If Milton was born in 1830, this photo was probably made in 1860-70's. And, yet, this photo was in a box which L.H. Long had in Alabama. Thank goodness, several other events also happened. Janice B. had put together a Long family history and Vincent had his DNA also analyzed. Those verified that Thomas Long was the son of Bromfield Long(b. 1749) who left Virginia to settle in Kentucky with four of his children moving on to Missouri. With Janice's help, we were able to determine that L.H.'s ancestor was probably Bromfield's brother William (b. 1770)

I am so impressed that great-uncle William's family was still corresponding with his brother's orphan grandson. And, this is photo mystery #3 this month---I identified one of mine "Valle Girls?", a Texas Maupin cousin identified one of theirs "Maupin Siblings" and L.H.Long in Alabama identified one of his. Isn't the internet marvelous!?

Wicker Roots, Part Two

Fast forward to recently. . .the internet and DNA have helped genealogy tremendously. A cousin, Ricky, referred me to his cousin's wife Leigh who was interested in genealogy. She had written R. Fenton Wicker (author of the Wicker Book and the one who had told me we were Newberry Wickers) to find out if we were related. She was not aware of the amount of research I had already done on the family. I became frustrated just hearing about it again, and then recalled a letter R. Fenton had written me indicating there was a possibility we were related. Ambrose Wicker (whom I'd always thought we were related to) had a son named Hugh Mack (my ancestor Hugh M. was my "brick wall") and R. Fenton gave me the name of one of Ambrose's descendents---G. E. Wicker.I wrote G. E. a letter; we traded e-mail addresses and photos. Seeing his photo made me more interested in finding out the truth, and I knew that was DNA. Ricky contacted his cousin Kevin (Leigh's husband) and I contacted G. E. (it needed to be someone with the surname WICKER). They agreed to scrape their cheeks. The results after 25 markers is that we are related. But, can't you tell by the photos below that Ricky and G. E. share some genes?
Thanks to Ricky, Kevin, Leigh and G. E., we now know a little bit more about our heritage. First, we are North Carolina Wickers. Also, we are Il (that's not I1) Look below at the population densities of those who are Il. If you double click on the photo to make it larger, we are M253 positive.
Basically, this tells us that our WICKER ancestors were probably Vikings originating in Denmark, Sweden or Norway. 22% of the British are Il or Wodan (the name assigned by Bryan Sykes in his book Saxon, Vikings, Celts); 64% of the British are R1 (Sykes' name for that is Oisin) like my LONG family.
If we are indeed of Viking DNA, this chart indicates it was probably in the 11th century and involved settlement not just raids. Our family was from the yellow area in England; green are Viking raiders; burgundy 8th century settlement; red 9th century settlement; orange 10th century settlement.

Although we still aren't in the Wicker book, I think I can make that dotted line on my chart solid. And, the R. Fenton Wicker book? Well, it went from $27.95 to around $80.00 on the secondary book market.

Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA is different than the Y DNA used to trace the paternal line and different from the Nuclear DNA which makes up who we are. It traces the maternal line and technically is a parasite embedded in our DNA. But, it is more stable and is often used to identify victims of crime and to learn more about ancient bones. Men and women have mitochondrial DNA, whereas only men have the Y DNA. Again, we used my brother Jim's DNA to help us solve another family mystery.

My great-grandmother Martha Silas Watson is almost a complete unknown. She had a very difficult life plagued with mental illness and no relatives that we know of. Although I got a court order to have her records released from the mental institution, I still didn't learn very much about her family.

My sister Jane thought she might have been a Gypsy; my brother thought she might have been an American Indian. Although we knew the mitochondrial DNA would not help us with her immediate relatives, we would know if she was a Gypsy or an Indian.

I had first became interested in mitochondrial DNA when I heard about the book The Seven Daughters of Eve. Having the mitochondrial DNA would also tell us which of the Seven Daughters she came from.The map above shows the Seven Daughters and where they came from. By having our X DNA tested, we discovered we belonged to the halplogroup U5a which Bryan Sykes identifies as Ursula.

There are about 10 pages of a fictionalized account about Ursula in the book---below is a summary:

Ursula (Latin for she-bear)

Ursula lived about 45,000 years ago in what is now northern Greece. She was among the first arrivals of a new, modern human to set foot in Europe. She was slender and graceful, in marked contrast to the thickset Neanderthals with whom she and her clan shared the land for another 20,000 years. Her kind brought with them a new and more sophisticated type of stone tool with which to hunt and butcher the abundant game, animals that soon appeared on the walls of limestone caves as the first expression of human art. They spread right across Europe, west across France and north as far as the British Isles.

As the climate deteriorated 25,000 years ago, the clan began its long migration south; eventually reaching Spain and founding what became a refuge for all humans during the coldest millennia of the last Ice Age. As the climate warmed, the scattered clan led the march back to the North to reclaim the once frozen lands. They reached the British Isles and left an indelible record in the limestone caves of Cheddar Gorge. In 1998, DNA was recovered from the famous skeleton known as Cheddar Man and our analysis showed that it belonged to the clan of Ursula. In a dramatic demonstration of genetic continuity, we found that a teacher at the local school, only a few hundred yards from the cave entrance, was clearly a member of the same clan.

[Cheddar Man is below]

As you can tell above U was neither Gypsy nor American Indian. Corresponding with others whose DNA is similar to ours, we know that Martha's mother's mother's mother's. . .was probably Scotch-Irish with Viking roots.


Both The Seven Daughters of Eve and Trace Your Roots with DNA are pretty readable books. If you want a more general discussion about genetic roots, try Spencer Wells' book and video The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odessey.

Common Family Names--DNA can help

As I explained in the first post, although I'm interested in genealogy, the family stories are what really interest me. Several times, the family stories have helped me with the genealogy. And, sometimes they lead me down the wrong path.

My family names are among the worst to try and trace: Dad's great-great grandfather Thomas Long (about 40 in Virginia in the 1700's), Mom's great grandparents James and Mary Williams (several dozen in Kentucky in mid 1800's), Dad's great grandfather William Reed (hundreds in England in mid-1800's).

One of the ways we have approached this problem is with DNA. My brother graciously contributed his DNA to be analyzed to help with the Thomas Long problem. We corresponded with 6-8 people we matched. This helped us all pool our information. Although we haven't found where we are all related, we did discover that we were each independently looking at one family line---the Bromfield Longs (That's not the progenitor, but that's a name common to our family for 7 generations). We match some of the Longs on 67 markers meaning our ancestors were probably brothers in the late 1700's (we can't find a sooner match). We are R1B1 (red on the map above)which is our haplo-type (like our tribal designation). See below for distribution---very heavy in Britain.

Williams cousins also had DNA traced and we learned that we aren't related to any other Williams family that has had their DNA traced. So, hopefully, when someone else pops up in the data base, we can find out more information. Our haplotype is J2 (green on the top map) which is very puzzling for a Welsh name---it's a Mediterranean "tribe". One source suggested:

"J2 Haplotype #18

This haplotype has a wide range, with high frequency matches in Italy, Iran, Hungary, Macedonia, Egypt and Spain.
It appears to be strongly oriented around the Mediterranean, and very likely came to Britain with Roman settlers or troops." See below---heavy in Iran and Turkey with a little darkness in Wales.


So, I was sitting around thinking, "I wonder if I could locate one of the Reed cousins and convince him (has to be a him) to have a DNA test." I'm so glad that I never did that because I got an e-mail which in part encouraged me to create this blog.

So, how is it the DNA for Reed wouldn't have worked and the DNA for Williams doesn't match anyone else? Y DNA is a paternal tracing which works out well because our family names are paternal, too. If the DNA doesn't match the family name, there are several possibilities: adoption, illegitimacy, "confused" paternity, identity theft, name change. We aren't sure on the Williams line, but we think it was probably before family names were assigned---family names were a very late practice in Wales (often the family name wasn't established until the family left Wales) We do, now, know that William Reed changed his name when he emigrated from England. More on that later.

If anyone is interested in getting their DNA tested familytreedna.com is the place to go. If you are a Long or a Williams, it's already been done---yours would not be significantly different from ours UNLESS you don't know that you're related. First, you want to see if there is a Surname Project for your surname. You want to apply through them because it's often cheaper.

Finally, for genealogical purposes, only males should apply---the markers needed are on the Y chromosome (women only have 2 X). So, if you're a female, you'll need to find a brother, father, uncle, cousin with the surname you want traced. I did all of the application and most of the payment process, my brother scraped his cheek several times a day---we mailed it off and received results every several weeks for abut 3 months---but we had a pretty comprehensive study with 67 markers on the X and we had the Y chromosome also studied. More on that later, too.