New FMS match (U5b2b2)

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It might be possible that my rather rare HVR1+HVR2 haplotype (assume U5b2b2) were low class indentured servants from west England. One founding female started a clade in Massachussetts in the early-to-mid 1600s. She seems to have come from the Somerset/Bristol region of England. My own direct female line may have gone to Virginia, with daughters (1) Melungeonizing and (2) marrying with Gypsy descendants somehow. Number 1 eventually ending up in Oklahoma, while mine went via NC > KY > IN. Even if with Covington of eastern shore Maryland (from VA), that lineage has 2 or 3 Gypsy-related names in their tree. Another Gypsy-related surname that I see now and then as connected to FF matches is Hawkins. Maybe the renowned maker of the Hawkin's rifle descended from tinkers (metal workers) back in England?

I just bumped into a tree at Ancestry who is a distant cousin match to me (Covington). I really didn't think I was actually related (I'm glad I as wrong). Anyway, he does not have a trace South Asian. So that seems to mean that my direct maternal line (U5b2b2) is not connected to Gypsy/Romany. But my Linville > Morgan/Jarman from Wales does have a South Asian trace.

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One problem in tracing my direct female line back into colonial times is her apparent deliberate break with he own family, leading not only to an alias first name, but also her maiden name. At least it superficially seems that way. Rather than coming from a low class family, she came from a snobby Anglo land-holding family (tobacco). Furthermore, they may have at first been Tories! I'm making this up, but it sure is a plausible scenario. So she burned her bridges behind her and never looked back. But clues are there as to who she really was, including her daughter that was in my maternal line. That daughter named her first child by her mother's real name (Rachel). If I waited around for verifiable data to somehow reveal itself, I'd never get anywhere with my tree.

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My HVR1+HVR2 is rather rare. I put together a tree in Massachusetts and area in earliest colonial times a few years ago. There were quite a few daughters in the resulting branches with my HVR1+HVR2. Some are well recorded as to birth, marriage and death. Others, however, only show birth. New England is quite good at keeping records. But if they moved out of the area as children, marriage and death would not be available. I saw one line that went down to Maryland and Tennessee. But that was a male line. Most others simply disappeared off the record. The surnames Davis and Evans, for example started out in MA. So I'm wondering if and whether my direct maternal line really came from New England. Well, it is a possibility to keep in mind.

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The surname Lee pops up now and then among surnames people give with their matches. Are any of them connected to General Robert E. Lee? (ha ha). I do have one rare U5b2b2 FMS match (genetic distance of 1) that just popped up in the last couple of days. But his Lee line comes from New England.

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The surname Lee pops up now and then among surnames people give with their matches. Are any of them connected to General Robert E. Lee? (ha ha). I do have one rare U5b2b2 FMS match (genetic distance of 1) that just popped up in the last couple of days. But his Lee line comes from New England.

Colonial trees are probably quite interconnected to each other. I bumped into a separate match that also connects to the above New England Lee. That's on either side of 1700.

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I once entertained the idea that my mysterious maternal line came from the Highlanders who settled in SE North Carolina. Since they tended to be Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, I gave that idea up. But now I'm again wondering about that possibility. In any event, I still think my U5b2b2 might have come with the Norse (to Scotland and the Western Isles, etc) back in the 900s or so. With the Highland Clearances and economic migration down to England after the Industrial Revolution, there may not be any 228A remaining up in Scotland (if that scenario is more or less correct).

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I once entertained the idea that my mysterious maternal line came from the Highlanders who settled in SE North Carolina. Since they tended to be Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, I gave that idea up. But now I'm again wondering about that possibility. In any event, I still think my U5b2b2 might have come with the Norse (to Scotland and the Western Isles, etc) back in the 900s or so. With the Highland Clearances and economic migration down to England after the Industrial Revolution, there may not be any 228A remaining up in Scotland (if that scenario is more or less correct).

228A, within U5b2b2, might be considered Scottish diaspora.

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228A, within U5b2b2, might be considered Scottish diaspora.

Clan Campbell is the prime suspect. I have a HVR1+HVR2(228A) match back in PA (Elizabeth Craig b. 1794 or so). Craig might indicate sub-clan Craignish. Then there is a FMS match with a Jane Frasier (Clan Fraser) b. 1800 in NC. It is one length away from exactly matching. I still wonder how accurate my own FMS is. Maybe it should match exactly. I have a low level FF match (Fraser) from Canada that apparently was never in the USA. Fraser came from France originally (De Frezel of Touraine). It seems that I can't entirely escape the Norman connection.

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Then again, since my precise U5b2b2 haplotype is so rare, it could have followed my earlier scenario, but with different actors. Instead of a Hunt connection, another family line (unknown) did the same: Massachusetts > New Jersey (Hunterdon, etc) > PA on one hand, and Virginia on another. All that happened prior to the Revolutionary War. Well anyway, I'll keep that scenario on the back burner.

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Then again, since my precise U5b2b2 haplotype is so rare, it could have followed my earlier scenario, but with different actors. Instead of a Hunt connection, another family line (unknown) did the same: Massachusetts > New Jersey (Huntingdon, etc) > PA on one hand, and Virginia on another. All that happened prior to the Revolutionary War. Well anyway, I'll keep that scenario on the back burner.

Yeah, I decided to return to the early MA origin hypothesis. I erected a tree based on a Margaret LNU, born about 1620 in England, died 1643 in Boston. She married Capt James Johnson of Kent, England (married in MA). I haven't been able to connect myself to her tree, though. She may have had a sister or two. People traveled mostly as families to MA.

The SMGF (Sorenson) database is no longer available. But I recall several exact HVR1 matches with a Denmark origin. Kent had settlers from Jutland (Jutes). Hmm...

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I found two entries with the same earliest known female ancestress with U5, 228A (assume U5b2b2). Location = Denmark (Odense, Amt, DK). She was born in 1776. There are 3 mutation differences, but 2 of them are 16519C and 309.1C, Then one more additional in HVR1. There is plenty of time to have split from mine back in Medieval times. So I'm thinking in terms of Jutes > Kent, England.

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I found two entries with the same earliest known female ancestress with U5, 228A (assume U5b2b2). Location = Denmark (Odense, Amt, DK). She was born in 1776. There are 3 mutation differences, but 2 of them are 16519C and 309.1C, Then one more additional in HVR1. There is plenty of time to have split from mine back in Medieval times. So I'm thinking in terms of Jutes > Kent, England.

Actually, she had 2 mutations, while I added one to mine in all that time since the split back in ancient times. She added 16304C and 16519T in HVR1. And I added 309.1C to my HVR2. If this does not go back to the Jutes, then the only other possibility that I would guess was King Harold Bluetooth. He had several daughters, a few of which went to Normandy. But I don't want to claim royalty unless I get more information.

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That ^ Odense connection was just a side game; isolated and therefore allowing mutations to take hold. A I said earlier, I had 3 or 4 HVR1 matches at SMGF that exactly matched mine. So those were probably from the main body of Jutes, who arrived in Kent a couple of centuries before William-the-Conqueror arrived. The Jutes cooperated and mingled/married with the ruling Saxons. So I could also have some sort of connections to the Saxons of pre-conqust England.

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I'm still poking around, looking for alternate possibilities regarding my direct maternal line. One surname that was in the Carolina area of interest is/was Love. Now it started out being just little people trying to get their feet on the ground. That love seems to go back to Scotland (Luiff) via Ulster via Pennsylvania. One line within it, Gaston, goes back to France and the Bourbons. I haven't gotten into that; maybe later. It looks like there's an aristocratic myth in everybody's family tree, ha ha!

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I'm still poking around, looking for alternate possibilities regarding my direct maternal line. One surname that was in the Carolina area of interest is/was Love. Now it started out being just little people trying to get their feet on the ground. That love seems to go back to Scotland (Luiff) via Ulster via Pennsylvania. One line within it, Gaston, goes back to France and the Bourbons. I haven't gotten into that; maybe later. It looks like there's an aristocratic myth in everybody's family tree, ha ha!

I'm envious of that Bourbon-Medici connection above. I was looking mainly at one family tree here on FTDNA that cuts off before that point. But I can see that she is a good genealogist, and must know where that line leads. If I'm in this Love tree, which looks weakly possible, it is one generation upstream from the Love-Gaston line junction.