Origins through DNA (General)

by Richard Hulan , Sunday, August 12, 2012, 04:04 (4489 days ago) @ Roger Griffiths

Autosomal results are very general, since every ancestor you have is treated with equal weight. For those interested in the Isles in general, and in the Forest of Dean more specifically, there are usually more fruitful results from surname research, following straight line Y-DNA. This is transmitted from father to son -- girls don't have Y-DNA, but all their paternal ancestors did; and it's the line through which British surnames have been transmitted for as long as the Forest has had written records.

I recommend the recent book by George Redmonds, Turi King, and David Hey, Surnames, DNA, & Family History (Oxford University Press, 2011) as a good place to start learning why this sort of testing is useful and rewarding. The part about British surnames and their origin is entertaining; and the science of genetic genealogy is very clearly explained, though it's a complicated subject. That's on pages 148 and thereafter -- but don't neglect the color plates, between pp. 116-17.

And it's not entirely beside the point that the Hulin family from the FoD is mentioned, as one of the numerous English surnames found in Wales... p. 89. (Although they spelled it Hullin, and didn't mention the Forest of Dean.) Anyway, that's the local family that I wish was testing Y-DNA -- and joining some public database -- so I could see whether we match.