Note: I am currently completing the process of transferring my y-DNA 46 marker results form ancestry.com to ftdna.com. On the basis of what ftdna.com has have received so far (my DNA test kit that I returned to them and the marker values from ancestry.com), I have been identified by ftdna.com as being in Haplogroup I-M253.
In researching this specific haplogroup entity, I sent an e-mail to Mr William Hartley, who is identified as the I-M253 Haplogroup Project Leader.
I’m sharing the following e-mail correspondence with my vikingsandvirginians.com readership:
E-mail correspondence to Mr William Hartley, I-M253 Haplogroup Project:
Hi William –
I have recently transferred my 46-marker Y DNA test results from ancestry.com to FTDNA and they placed me in the I-M253 haplogroup.
I will be ordering the 111 marker test from them, and will be most interested in following your I-M253 project.
Cordially, Bill
E-mail correspondence from Mr William Hartley, I-M253 Haplogroup Project:
Hello William, good to hear you’ve joined our I1-M253 Project.
I see one Y-37 Burnett listed who is from Ohio, I1-M253 [Generic] no known ancestral origin but he has matches to the Creasy family, do you have that surname in your research?
Once your STR markers show up I’ll take a look, see if you match this gentleman, and see if I can better place you both.
Burnett Name Meaning – Scottish and English: descriptive nickname from Old French burnete, a diminutive of brun ‘brown’ (see Brown).
The surname is more commonly found in the North of England and Aberdeenshire, as you likely know.
The Y-111 will very likely tell us a lot more than Y-46. Once that result comes through I’ll look again.
E-mail correspondence to Mr William Hartley, I-M253 Haplogroup Project:
Hi William –
I do have genealogical information to supplement your I-M253 entry surnamed “Burnett”. I have discussed this at considerable length on the website vikingsandvirginians.com.
In fact, early in the first decade of the 19th century in Bedford County, Virginia, three “out of wedlock” sons were born to Priscilla Carter Burnett, the apparently estranged (but not divorced) wife of Williamson Burnett, a Bedford County slaveowner.
The father of Priscilla’s three boys was either Julius Saunders or a male relative who shared his genetic line. All three boys fathered sons and the male descendents of all three boys are numerous. I have direct knowledge of men from each of the three lines who have taken y-DNA tests that have confirmed this information.
My own male ancestral lines include men who lived close to and likely married into the Creasy family. (I have discussed this on my website.)
All of the families descended from these three sons of Priscilla Carter Burnett were members of two “anti-establishment” religious sects, the Quakers and the Baptists, who in the early 19th century were both anti-slavery.
Many of those Quaker and Baptist families left Virginia for Ohio (a free state), those who stayed behind were in anti-slavery counties of Western Virginia, a big chunk of which joined with the Union during the Civil War and became the state of West Virginia.
All of this information suggests that the Burnett with Creasy relationships living in Ohio is with almost absolute certainty descended from one of the three Burnett sons – William(son), Joseph and Christopher Ammon, whose mother was Priscilla Carter (Burnett) and whose father is Julius Saunders of Bedford County, Virginia or a brother Saunders.
Saunders and Creasy are prominent names in the Southern part of Bedford County, Virginia (itself in the Western part of Virginia).
You may wish to share this information with the Ohio Burnett you include in your study. Interestingly, most Saunders in the Sanders/Saunders DNA surname project are not I-M 253, but a couple are. I can see another line of inquiry to be pursued thee.
Cordially, William Burnett
I have further e-mail correspondence to share, but will first follow through on the processes required to order the 111 marker DNA test.
For those wishing to correspond with me directly on this matter, please use ffvsearch@yahoo.com.