Y-DNA  (My Paternal Side)

 

My paternal side is documented back to William Merrill who was born about 1645 and lived in Somerset County, Maryland.    It is not presently known where he emigrated from.   Honington, Warwickshire, England was once thought to be his home, however Y-DNA testing now shows this not to be the case.    The best documented line to have come out of Warwickshire are the Merrill's of Staten Island.    They descend from Richard Merrill who was the first of his family line to have come to America.

Finding out where our families originated is a pet project of mine.   Records indicate most Merrill and Merrell families originated in the U.K., in the near-term.   But where did those Merrills and Merrells come from?    As much as many would wish to believe, they certainly didn't just sprout out of British soil.    My desire to know more was stimulated by finding writings suggesting some bearing the Merrill name were originally Merle or DeMerle.   The family was said to have resided in France before making the jump to England sometime before the 1500's.    These folks are believed to have been Huguenots (Protestants) who most likely found themselves hauling their collective butts out of France with Catholics in hot pursuit.

However, the DeMerle connection is just one of many possibilities.   We now know there are at least five distinct Merrill family lines, as determined by recent Y-DNA testing.    Presently those tested are of either Haplogroup "G" or Haplogroup "R1b".     Thankfully, DNA testing will one day help us put this big genealogical puzzle together, allowing us to understand more about our near-term and distant past.    Everyone working on their family's past should also realize surnames were not used by much of humanity before 1400 A.D.    Therefore, the only sure means of linking with our distant cousins and lost family members can be found along the helical strands of our DNA, which makes each of us unique..

I used Family Tree DNA for both my Y-DNA and mtDNA tests - - - more about mtDNA later.    FTDNA is the largest and most respected DNA testing service for genealogical purposes.    They also have the largest database for posting and comparing your results with others.    If you are like me and have the test done, you'll soon be surprised at the people you are closely related to and the growing body of data suggesting where our family lines once lived.

My Y-DNA test results are shown below so one can have an idea what they look like.    The testing I had done was the full 37-marker Y-DNA test (for the paternal side).    Only a male can be tested.   Such a test traces a line back from son, to father, to grandfather, to great-grandfather and so on for tens of thousands of years.    As more people have Genealogical DNA testing done, the greater the pool will be to make comparisons and logically deduce where they may have lived.

This is a scan of my Family Tree DNA Y-DNA Certificate:

Next, is a scan of my Haplogroup:

 

Haplogroup "R1b" is, as the certificate shows, the most common Haplogroup in European populations.    When I received my 12-marker results (the first you receive), I was then classified as belonging to that group.    Within just a few hours, I received emails from a number of people matching me on 12 of 12 markers.    This was very significant to me, as they had documentation showing their ancestors were from the Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Latvia.

Later, after all of my test results had come in on my 37-marker test, my Eastern European cousins were pushed more generations away from me or farther down my family tree.    What I now had were many more near matches from England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Spain and Germany.

Next, as I urge you to also do, I joined the Genealogy - DNA Mailing List at RootsWeb and have their ongoing discussions emailed automatically to me.    Of course, the vast majority of what the geneticists discuss goes way, way over my head.   Although, some of their deliberations do somehow manage to massage a few of my still-functioning brain cells and by chance leaves an impression, which in turn spurs me to dig a little deeper to find answers myself.

As time has gone by, I consider myself fortunate, learning a little extra nearly every day.    But it doesn't always just fall in one's lap.   One must pay close attention and follow up on the offered links.     Because of this, I now know my ancestors spent time in the Iberian Peninsula or in southern France.    My marker DYS390 has an allele of 24, which, I've found, separates my clan from those who followed others to locations in Northwestern Europe or from those clans who remained on the plains of Eastern Europe.

 

Posting of Y-DNA Test Results

The first thing one should do, after receiving their test results, is to go to YSearch and post their results.   Immediately, you will be able to search the database after receiving your User I.D. and will find those most closely matching your DNA test results.     If you would like, go to YSearch and input my User I.D. (8Q5NN) and see what I mean.   The vast majority of my matches come from Great Britain.     Recently, though, I also inputted my results in a large forensic DNA database in Germany and found three exact matches - - - one in Freiberg, Germany and two in Tyrol, Austria.

Although it is impossible to document everything one might need to construct my ancestor's meanderings within the limited space provided on this website, one can easily catch a glimmer of my beginnings and what I've so far learned about the ancestor who provided me with my unique Y-DNA markers.    I now know he was amongst a group of people once living along the Asian Steppes and the plains of Eastern Europe.    At some point, after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), my ancestors followed the receding ice and most likely spent time in Germany, Northern Italy or Austria.    From there, they setup shop either in southern France, Spain or Portugal before jumping across to Great Britain.

As more and more people have the same testing done, we will all undoubtedly learn much more.    I'm very excited by this, as it might even be possible for me to one day pin down the exact area within England where my clan lived before taking out across the pond.    The expansion of our knowledge base depends largely upon others being tested, and hopefully by the largest number of people possible.

Again, I wish you luck on this grand adventure.