I have been a Sullivan for 5 generations. My DNA matches a known
Sullivan cousin who descends from the same man but by a different son.
We don't match any other tested Sullivans.
Doesn't that tell me that, at some point, my paternal ancestor wasYes, but that's true of all Sullivans. Even if the surname has
not a Sullivan?
Our DNA is also an exact match with a Wyatt and there appears to be no
way I can link to him.
The problem is that the Wyatt doesn't match any other tested Wyatts.That's certainly a possibility, but I don't think you can jump to that conclusion yet.
Wouldn't that mean we had a common male ancestor who was neither a
Wyatt nor a Sullivan?
A MRCA indicates a 95% possibility of a match with Wyatt at 6
generations.
And I find one Sullivan family in a county where 3
Sullivan females birthed bastards.
None of the children are named but Church Wardens are ordered to bindOkay, so we have a court ordering the churchwardens to place a child in
out a male Sullivan at the proper time period.
One Wyatt is present in the county.
I know it is not proof....
...but is it sufficiently logical to presume the baseborn male of a
Sullivan female is the start of my line if I can follow the genealogy
to my earliest proven relative?
On 12/10/2019 16:35, J. Hugh Sullivan wrote:
I have been a Sullivan for 5 generations. My DNA matches a known
Sullivan cousin who descends from the same man but by a different son.
Are you counting yourself in those five generations? I.e. is the
ancestor that you and your Sullivan cousin descend from your great great >grandfather?
We don't match any other tested Sullivans.
When you say you don't match, is that at a haplogroup level (e.g. you
are something unusual like T and all other Sullivans are R), or at a
marker level within a haplogroup? If the latter, how many markers are
you away from the nearest Sullivans, and how many markers have you had >tested?
Doesn't that tell me that, at some point, my paternal ancestor was
not a Sullivan?
Yes, but that's true of all Sullivans. Even if the surname has
descended down the male line with no "non-paternity events", as they're >euphemistically called, eventually you get back to the point where the >surname was first adopted and before that you have paternal ancestors
who were not Sullivans. I'm not saying that out of pedantry, but
because it's useful to think about how surnames arose. The idea that
there was once a man called Suilebhan and his descendants took the
surname O Suilleabhain may well have some truth, but it is almost
certainly not the whole story.
You should also bear in mind that the vast majority of
Sullivans have not been DNA tested, and whole families may well have
been missed. This could include other, more distant branches of your
family.
Our DNA is also an exact match with a Wyatt and there appears to be no
way I can link to him.
Did you discover this Wyatt match by searching some DNA database for
likely matches, or did you have some other reason to investigate this >particular surname or person?
The problem is that the Wyatt doesn't match any other tested Wyatts.
Wouldn't that mean we had a common male ancestor who was neither a
Wyatt nor a Sullivan?
That's certainly a possibility, but I don't think you can jump to that >conclusion yet.
A MRCA indicates a 95% possibility of a match with Wyatt at 6
generations.
I'd like to know more about this. First, is this based on Y-DNA or
autosomal DNA? I.e. is it saying there's a 95% probability that there
is a common make-line ancestor within six generations?
Secondly, even if that is how it has been presented, the actual result
will be about the total number of generations between the two tested >individuals and the common ancestor. They've probably halved this and
shown that number to you. But if there are different numbers of
generations on your side and the Wyatt side, that becomes relevant.
Thirdly, does the six generations count you?
And I find one Sullivan family in a county where 3
Sullivan females birthed bastards.
Do you have a feel for how many Sullivans there were in the county, or
even the state, at the time?
I'd also be interested to know what, if
anything, you know about the social status of your earliest Sullivan >ancestor. In England in my experience, the very rich and the very poor
were much more likely to have illegitimate children than the yeomen
farmers and master craftsmen who formed the middle class. But American >society might well differ.
None of the children are named but Church Wardens are ordered to bind
out a male Sullivan at the proper time period.
Okay, so we have a court ordering the churchwardens to place a child in
an apprenticeship. Is there any reason to assume this male Sullivan is >illegitimate? I'm not familiar with American poor law, but if
responsibility for the apprenticing a child had fallen to the county or >churchwardens, isn't that more likely to be because they were a pauper
or an orphan than being due to illegitimacy?
One Wyatt is present in the county.
I know it is not proof....
...but is it sufficiently logical to presume the baseborn male of a
Sullivan female is the start of my line if I can follow the genealogy
to my earliest proven relative?
It's a possibility to explore further, but I wouldn't go so far as
presuming it to be true.
Does the state in question have anything like bastardy bonds which might >record the name of the father?
I tested 67 markers. I am R1a1a1a, L-664. Other Sullivans (except one
cousin) are R1b (Irish). I am almost certainly an Anglo-Saxon from
Germany with a female Irish ancestor by following L-664 from the Black
Sea.
On Sun, 13 Oct 2019 15:05:32 GMT, Eagle@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh
Sullivan) wrote in soc.genealogy.computing:
I tested 67 markers. I am R1a1a1a, L-664. Other Sullivans (except one >>cousin) are R1b (Irish). I am almost certainly an Anglo-Saxon from
Germany with a female Irish ancestor by following L-664 from the Black
Sea.
The only 67-markers test I know is from FTDNA. However, FTDNA is
no more using the format R1a1a1a. They show something like
R-L664 (and not R-L-664). L664 would be the most recent SNP
in your line but is not available from the Y-67 test, so you
have probably a SNP pack. Big Y would help to figure when
your lineage is splitting from other close Big Y results.
Martin Voorwinden, Co-administrator R1a1 Project (subgroup Tenths) by e-mail… Because your haplotype shows DYS388=10 this means you are part of the subgroup 2. (North-Western European Branch). This subgroup is also called the Tenths because of theunique 10 for DYS388=10 which is normally 12. Nearly all members of this subgroup (97%) have their origin in the countries around the North Sea (British Isles, Norway/Sweden, Denmark, NW-Germany, Netherlands). This subgroup is further identified by the
https://www.familytreedna.com/public/y-dna-haplotree/R;name=R-L664
has 108 results from Big Y. Most are in UK then Germany, but some
from East Europe (perhaps a matter of how many people were tested).
If you click on this SNP, you have 4 more, and more if you go
deeper. You can see where they concentrate. But the surnames
are available only from your personal dashboard (if you tested) and to
the admins of projects you have joined.
On Sun, 13 Oct 2019 12:39:02 +0100, Richard Smith wrote:
We don't match any other tested Sullivans.
When you say you don't match, is that at a haplogroup level (e.g. you
are something unusual like T and all other Sullivans are R), or at a
marker level within a haplogroup? If the latter, how many markers are
you away from the nearest Sullivans, and how many markers have you had
tested?
I tested 67 markers. I am R1a1a1a, L-664. Other Sullivans (except one
cousin) are R1b (Irish).
I am almost certainly an Anglo-Saxon from
Germany with a female Irish ancestor by following L-664 from the Black
Sea.
Our DNA is also an exact match with a Wyatt and there appears to be no
way I can link to him.
Did you discover this Wyatt match by searching some DNA database for
likely matches, or did you have some other reason to investigate this
particular surname or person?
Family Tree DNA notified me - exact match at 67 steps.
I did his genealogy and they were in MA, never in NC.
So we apparently have the same ancestor but probably in England whereThe Sullivan clan is from Munster (i.e. south-west Ireland), while Wyatt
there were two Wyatt families that have never been linked.
Okay. Let's step back and remind ourselves how DNA works. Each time aA MRCA indicates a 95% possibility of a match with Wyatt at 6
generations.
I'd like to know more about this. First, is this based on Y-DNA or
autosomal DNA? I.e. is it saying there's a 95% probability that there
is a common make-line ancestor within six generations?
Y-DNA.
Do you have a feel for how many Sullivans there were in the county, or
even the state, at the time?
I have a reconstructed 1740 VA census and I have tracked the recorded Sullivans. There were 2 Sullivan families in Amelia Co. VA at the time
- one from York Co. - female and I know her genealogy. Also a John
Sullivan was on the 1740 Tax Rolls. That's why I presume the three
Sullivan females were his daughters. The LDS Church records a marriage
for him.
On 13/10/2019 16:05, J. Hugh Sullivan wrote:
On Sun, 13 Oct 2019 12:39:02 +0100, Richard Smith wrote:
And is this known Sullivan cousin a perfect 67 out of 67 match? I'm
assuming the answer is yes.
I am almost certainly an Anglo-Saxon fromGermany with a female Irish ancestor by following L-664 from the Black
Sea.
It's a clue, but not one to pay too much attention to because you don't
know when this happened. It could be that a Viking raider visited
Ireland in the Early Middle Ages and fathered a child with a married
woman in the O'Sullivan clan.
Our DNA is also an exact match with a Wyatt and there appears to be no >>>> way I can link to him.
I did his genealogy and they were in MA, never in NC.
North Carolina and Massachusetts are certainly some way apart. How far
back did you trace the line in Massachusetts?
Do you have any reason to believe either your male-line ancestors or his
were likely to have travelled long distances as work? For example, was >anyone a mariner, or a worker on the railways? The purpose of this
question is to see how likely a more recent relationship is.
If this Wyatt testee is still contactable, he might be willing to do an >autosomal DNA test. If you and he are third cousins or closer, there's
a 90% chance or better of this being detected by modern autosomal DNA
tests. Maybe you've already done this.
I've research quite a few Wyatt lines in England, and there
are certainly a lot more than two families which no-one has managed to
link.
You've traced your line in America to the late 18th century, and have a >possible line back at a few more generations, so you're probably talking >about an ancestor settling in America in the late 17th or early 18th
century.
If the Wyatt tester had a distant male-line cousin who could be
persuaded to take a Y-DNA test, and he is found to be a 67/67 match too,
this would eliminate another swathe of possibilities involving
non-paternity in the documented Wyatt line, and so the most likely time
for the MRCA would be pushed back further. It is as Sherlock Holmes
said: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter
how improbable, must be the truth."
At the moment, I would suggest the DNA evidence suggests the MRCA was
most likely born in the early 18th century.
Have you found anyone who is a 66/67 or even a 65/67 match that might
help pin down the lineage from the other direction? (Of course, a 66/67 >match can be a closer relative than a 67/67 match, depending where the >mutation occurred.)
Do you have a feel for how many Sullivans there were in the county, or
even the state, at the time?
I have a reconstructed 1740 VA census and I have tracked the recorded
Sullivans. There were 2 Sullivan families in Amelia Co. VA at the time
- one from York Co. - female and I know her genealogy. Also a John
Sullivan was on the 1740 Tax Rolls. That's why I presume the three
Sullivan females were his daughters. The LDS Church records a marriage
for him.
Is your theory that Charles, the possible grandfather of Russell, is the >illegitimate son of one of John's daughters?
If Charles's father is an
ancestor of the Wyatt family in Massachusetts, this would be consistent
with the DNA evidence as I understand it. However, pushing the MRCA
further back is starting to stretch the interpretation of the DNA evidence.
You say there's a Wyatt in Amelia Co. at the right time. Have you tried >tracing his known children?
Is there any possibility he may have had a
son or grandson who moved to Massachusetts was ancestor that family?
On a related note, is there any evidence documenting the family's move
from Virginia to North Carolina? Or is it simply the case that a man >disappeared from the record in Virginia at about the same time as a man
with the same name and age appeared in North Carolina? There's nothing
wrong if that is the case, but it is more circumstantial and raises more >question marks in an already shaky lineage.
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