More on the Norse Ancestral Origins of Some Related Families

The following chart supplements the discussion at The DNA Evidence for Norse Origins of My Paternal Lines.

Whereas the values in the previous discussion were derived from the Paternal Ancestry Chart for four individuals  (supplemented with the data of a fifth individual, identified as RB on the chart below), these values are extracted from the Surname DNA Project charts for the surnames Burnett, Saunders and Crump.  The participant in the Crump Surname DNA Project identified as ADC is present on both lists.

The DYS values on the top line represent six areas in which the five individuals have identical (or almost identical) DYS values, and in which those DYS values differ from the “typical” value of the haplogroup subcategory (subclade).

Although there are other DYS values that would meet the criteria of the preceding sentence, I have included the six for which each of the persons represented below have been tested.

For ease of perusal of the data, I have listed in parantheses before each name the number of the six DYS values that each person shares.

I have a sense of some of the methodological problems in approaching genealogical research this way – not even to speak of DNA research – but much of genealogy is developing educated guesses as to where to look for the information you need.

Since there is strong evidence that all of the descendents of three brothers surnamed Burnett, born in Bedford County, Virginia in the last half of the first decade of the 19th century would have had the Saunders surname in other circumstances, I would have liked to have seen persons with all six values surnamed Saunders in the table below.

But the participants in the studies are almost certainly a very small sample of the universe of persons surnamed Saunders, assuming that those males in the paternal ancestral line of the brothers Burnett had abundant progeny, an assumption that the genealogical evidence appears to support.

Where does one go from here? One avenue would be to identify as much as possible about the relationships between the men who share these six DYS values.

Of course “relationship” might means something that has occurred over centuries. Earlier on the day I am writing this, I responded to an e-mail from another DNA researcher who was interested in my ideas that part of my ancestry is French Norman and I began to consider different reasons why Norse men would have left one geographical area for another. (I’ll discuss these on-page here at another time.)

We have specific genealogical information from 1805 through 1820 as to why some persons named Burnett should be considered with the Saunders surname rather than the Burnett surname.

Right now I cannot explain how Crump, Kerling and Burnett/nee Saunders males are related. Perhaps the Crump, Kerling and Saunders/nee Burnett males whose DNA seems so aligned are descended from brothers who lived in the 11th century, but have had witno ties of any kind since.

On the other hand, each of these families had representatives, not only in Virginia, but, at various times, in the same counties of Virginia, and Crump, Kerling and Saunders were all present in Southern England, at various times in the same English counties.

So it is with the families of those listed below in these latter centuries that I expect to spend some time.

I invite comments and further discussion at ffvsearch@yahoo.com.