Y-DNA - Male Test used with genealogy: Sterry/Sterrey (General)

by peteressex , Tuesday, November 22, 2011, 07:47 (4754 days ago) @ admin

I'm wondering how many other Forest families may have had success in tracing themselves back through the wonders of biology beyond where written records can help.

The Sterry/Sterrey family of Lydney (my paternal grandmother's line) had been unable to track back beyond a marriage at Minsterworth in the 1790s (Richard Sterry to Ann Toomey or similar) and subsequent movement from there via Awre to Lydney. But, through a project accessed via www.sterryworldwide.com, a living male Sterrey provided a DNA sample a few weeks ago which has turned out to prove that our line connects with the Sterrys of Longhope, thereby linking us to the marriage of a Richard Sterry (then spelt Stirry) there in 1686 and therefore to the putative birth of that progenitor around the early 1660s. This has been achieved despite the fact that the old Longhope registers are in a bit of a state where they survive at all, so that we still can't spell out the tree from the one Richard to the other.

With a spot of speculation, given the proximity of Longhope to Ruardean, we can now imagine ourselves connected to the Sterrys of Ruardean who go back to a marriage there in 1539 (and therefore a birth in say 1515) and are the oldest proven Sterry line in the world. As the order to keep parish registers only went forth in 1537, and early compliance was patchy, we would all be very lucky to prove ancestry older than that.

Without DNA, I would have been stuck at my gt-gt-gt-gt-grandfather's sudden manifestation as a bridegroom in Minsterworth a mere 218 years ago. Anybody had similar joy?