I have had paternal DNA testing
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?mode=thread&id=18134

Parental DNA test

With my involvement with the Watkins FHS DNA Project I have gained a reasonable knowledge of DNA testing. The parental DNA test of yourself would not be able to help you link your results to your distant ancestors. A parental test, as the word implies, determines a biological relationship between a father/mother and their child.

Y-DNA - Male Test

This is the DNA test used with genealogy as the Y-chromosome element of DNA passes from father to son basically unchanged.

Males can test their Y-DNA to determine the origin of their paternal line. Note that the Y-DNA test strictly checks the paternal line, with no influence from any females along that line. Females do not receive Y-DNA, and therefore females cannot be tested for the paternal line. If you are a female and would like to know about your paternal line, you would need to have a brother or a male relative from that line tested.

DNA Results

Very often what some people consider a close DNA match is in reality not a close match at all. If you have results of Y-DNA - Male Tests please send them to me as I shortly intend to add a DNA section to our website and I may also be able to help you further in determining if they are a close match.

Yeah its YDNA. I'll forward you the results when I get home, thanks.

I find it amazing that some people believe they can link themselves with other people of a similar surname using D.N.A, the companies offering this service are scamming you. Also don't forget that quite a lot of F.O.D families have Welsh origins who use patronymic naming which totally contradicts the theory put forward by these claims. It makes a mockery of family history.

One important study from using D.N.A analysis is that it is posibble to tell you where in the world you have the same genetic traits to other native peoples. A few years ago a study was carried out amongst a group white ethnic British people, and a large proportion had connections with the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe.

The only true way to research family history is by searching records.

I went to a workshop on DNA testing at the recent WDYTYA show. While the speaker agreed that it is no substitute for research, he did say that it could be useful in particular for families with unusual names. However, even this can be fraught with problems. The speaker, name of Swinfield, had his done and has an incredibly rare marker, so he encouraged other Swinfields who he was in contact with to do likewise. All the others had the same marker as each other - but not with him!
So he went back to the censuses. It appears that, several generations back, Mr and Mrs Swinfield had several children and a lodger, Mr Brown. By the following census, Mr S had died and Mr B was head of household, with Mrs S and kids still there.
Of course nothing can be proved, but the suspicion is that Mr B fathered the speaker's ancestor (and possibly a sibling or two as well) and that it was he who had the rare DNA marker.

Joss

DNA is a very complex subject and various types of DNA tests are used for a number of reasons. So first of all we should clarify that here we are talking about the Y-chromosomal DNA (Y-DNA) test.

The Y-chromosome is always transmitted largely unchanged from a father to his sons, this is not a theory, it is a fact. Using DNA as an aid to studying genealogy is a good thing, and it works, because it is a proven scientific procedure. Thus by studying one's Y-DNA one learns about one's direct line of male descent.

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Many times in the process of searching through our family histories, we reach points where assumptions have been made regarding the family lineage. The presence of indiscretions within a family may be omitted or covered-up, depending on the era when they occurred. Recent studies that we have participated in have both verified and denied male lineage. However, when you really want to know, Y chromosome testing may be the best new technology available to answer that question.

Patrick Williams, Ph.D.
Scientific Director Benchmark Genetics

Should we all get Y-DNA tested? Is it expensive? Then, having got the profile I suppose the result is only useful if suspected relatives have a profile also and are willing to have them compared. Effective research might prove or disprove the connection without Y-DNA comparison.

Roger

The latest example of the use of the Welsh Patronymic System (WPS) I have found in the FOD is in the Will of Thomas Morgan of Newland of 1609. He names his son Morgan Thomas. So as a provisional guide I would say for those with Welsh names in the FOD born after about the mid 1600s an identical surname adds to the probability of a common recent male ancestor. Before this time, the use of the WPS must be born in mind.

Chris Morgan

Dr. Colleeen Fitzpatrick PhD has a very informative website which explains why DNA can be your most valuable research tool. You will find all the answers to the questions you have asked in an easy to understand way.

If they exist at all, documents can record exact relationships. Yet documentation can be misleading and contain erroneous information. In contrast, DNA can only tell you that two people are related. It cannot tell you the exact nature of the relationship, but DNA cannot be destroyed or changed, and it is never "wrong".

http://fitzpatrickdna.com/what_good_is_dna.htm

The reason why I have directed you to her website is because Colleen has a great knowledgeable of DNA and has written a book titled DNA & Genealogy.

I am also a member of the Fitzpatrick Study group because my own DNA tests give me very close matches to many people with the Fitzpatrick surname throughout the world. It is certain that somewhere in the past 300 years in my direct male lineage the surname was Fitzpatrick.
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?mode=thread&id=1885

If we could get enough people interested in having their DNA tested we could form a Forest of Dean DNA Group of our own which would lead to answering a lot of unanswered questions which have been posted here in the forum. This new technology is with us and is available to all of us, so why not use it!

I would be..Kibbles on fathers side. Would be interesting as I don't think there are any records of the family matriarch Ann Kibble/Keble

i know the matriach ann keble married a john stacy 10 years after the birth
of her son henry

Presumably, this Y-DNA route only works if there is a vast or universal database. My researches are stuck around 1720. I can't see the benefit of having my DNA tested and recorded unless my contempories descended from my antecedents prior to 1720 also have theirs done.

Personally, I think all people should have their DNA profile recorded for selfish family history reasons, helps solve crime also.

I think it was in 2008, a Y-DNA exercise was undertaken in Eastern and Central England and in Western Europe from Southern Denmark down to Holland. 65% of the people tested were close matches. Given the intense cross migration of peoples within the UK in the last 3 centuries, a remarkable evidence of the Anglo Saxon presence. After all, England = Angles from Southern Denmark, the smallest group of the Anglo Saxon invasions.

Roger

Yes, of course, 95% of Europeans are descended from a dozen people or a dozen couples who wandered into Europe from India 100,000 years ago or whatever. That's why we are Aryans (Indo European race).

Roger

This seems a reasonably good thread on which to mention the fact that the "People of the British Isles" project -- which has sampled the DNA of about 4,000 mostly rural persons, as focused control populations -- included the Forest of Dean (paired with Oxfordshire) as the source of DNA samples to represent the ancient population of central Britain. Over the next decade or so, the results of this very large scientific investigation will be published; the first paper has already appeared, in the European Journal of Human Genetics. Note that this url links to a downloadable PDF document, not a website:

http://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/pobipaper.pdf

Eventually, this project is going to influence the perception of DNA studies in the popular press. When you read about it somewhere, and see a coded table or graph with the symbol CN (for Central Britain -- as distinguished from Orkney, Cornwall, Kent, etc.) you should be aware that that's the home team. Much more information about the People of the British Isles (PoBI) project is available from its website, here:

http://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/

Hi

I'm in the process of getting my DNA done and also my 91 year old Grandmothers. I would be very interested in being a part of any FOD DNA group (although I'm in Australia I have a significent amount of ancestry from the FOD area).

If there is a plan to start a section of the site for DNA comparisons and scrutiny, please count me in. I'll happily put up our markers to start the ball rolling.

Regards

Lawrence Finn

PS research is so excruciatingly slow at this point that DNA seems a sensible idea to try and break new ground and or provide hints to move forward with.

There have been several references to the "appreciation" threads about the late David Watkins as a form of tribute to his leadership. I agree that that has been consistently excellent; although I joined recently, and had almost no direct personal interaction with him, I have used the archived messages here, and any number of linked sites and tools. This is a truly useful site, and he deserves a world of credit for getting it up and running -- from West Australia.

One of the uses to which it could still be put, as David proposed a bit over three years ago (in this thread), would be as the gathering mechanism for a Forest of Dean Y-DNA project. This type project is typically associated with a surname. It often uses Y-DNA to sort the several lines that share a name, especially a common one (such as Smith, Brown, Johnson) that must represent a great many founders -- each of whose direct male-line descendants would visibly group together, in such a project. There are also large and useful projects organized by haplogroups (typically for deeper and somewhat more anthropological study of related populations), and organized by geography (as would be the case with a Forest of Dean project) for groups of surnames having a considerable degree of shared family history.

Since I am personally interested in a Forest of Dean family (Hulin, of St. Briavels and vicinity), I have hoped that such a project would be set up. My preference would be for the American company, Family Tree DNA (FTDNA), because it has a very large database of tested persons whose male lines are from the British Isles. But DNA is DNA, and the project could be based somewhere else, with genealogical comparisons possible as long as the records are accessible by the public. This is not the case with a number of companies; nor with specific privately funded projects such as the People of the British Isles (currently working with autosomal DNA rather than Y-DNA), or the Genographic Project (which has a huge database, but of lightly tested samples given with a promise of anonymity -- making them virtually useless for genealogists).

Speaking of the People of the British Isles project: if any of you will be in London between July 3-8 (rather soon, at this writing), that project will have a display at the Royal Society's "Summer Science Exhibition," on the topic of Genetic Maps. The Forest of Dean population was specifically targeted in this large project (over 4,000 samples of DNA from British rural dwellers, all four of whose grandparents were born in the same area). This is a work still in progress, although most of the samples have been taken. I believe they are currently drawing samples in Yorkshire, and photographing the faces of the people who have already been sampled. Here is a large scale preview of the genetic map of the UK they have been drawing:

http://sse.royalsociety.org/2012/exhibits/genetic-maps/

Wouldn't you like to know what the dark blue color stands for, on that map? I would. Somebody, please go see the exhibition, talk to the people staffing it, pick up their literature, take digital photos of their captions -- and share that with the rest of us.

The Summer Science Exhibition is in progress at the Royal Society, and Brian Swann has posted a picture of one of the map details for the Forest of Dean area. I don't know what the blue triangles, etc. represent genetically (i.e. how they differ from Anglesey, Cornwall, etc.); but each symbol stands for the place of birth of one grandparent of some person who was sampled. You can just see the arrow going to the Forest of Dean at the bottom of this photo:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3746429657618&set=o.11416337921&type=1&a...

I asked the question about the different colours and got this response
"The colours simply denote a genetic cluster. So, for example, all individuals marked by a red square are in the same genetic cluster. They also happen to be found predominantly in Central and South England, whereas individuals in the yellow genetic cluster are found predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland."

The current exhibit at the Royal Society shows 19 separate clusters for the whole country. These clusters aren't based on Y-DNA so they won't break down by surnames, clans, or other specifically male groupings. However, Y-DNA results were recorded for the samples that came from males, and eventually that can also be mapped. It's not what is shown on these maps.

The sort of study suggested by David Watkins was a Y-DNA Forest of Dean project, that would be based on surnames. After one is organized, it takes a while to accumulate enough test results to be useful. But if that does happen, it will probably get a dose of new, comparable data from the sampling that has already been done for this People of the British Isles project.

The PoBI project is based on blood samples, whereas most DNA sampling for genealogical purposes is done with cheek swabs or saliva. Another difference is that the PoBI project selects its candidates and covers the cost; whereas in genealogical projects the candidates select themselves, and typically pay for the test themselves. This often translates into sampling that is skewed a little in favor of people who can spare a few hundred dollars (or some other currency) on a hobby. But once it's done, the results are useful to a much wider circle. Mine, for example, currently relate directly to my two sons and three grandsons, but indirectly to a much wider circle of people much less closely kin to me. From that perspective, the per-person cost becomes negligible -- but I realize those cousins are never going to pay me back. I'm OK with that, because it's my hobby, not necessarily theirs.

A highly informative article about this large DNA project has just appeared in Oxford Today magazine, and is available online here: http://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/Article2013.pdf

The map that shows samples from the Forest of Dean in blue is reproduced (at a very small scale) in the article.

The idea of a unique genetic sub-set in the FOD is borne out by my having only 57 exact matches to my Y-DNA at the 12 allele level.

On the other hand, out of these matches 61% have Welsh names (Jones, Davis, Jenkins, Lewis and Williams) which are also very common in Wales.

Perplexing.

I have traced my ancestry back to 1640 in the FOD.