Status as of June 10, 2011:

Additional results have been posted and indicate:

William and his descendants belong to the general Haplogroup R1b1a2 (the most common haplogroup in European populations.  It is believed to have expanded throughout Europe as humans re-colonized after the last glacial maximum 10-12 thousand years ago.) (See our Results page for the table of values.)  This haplogroup was formerly called R1b1b2, but the nomenclature changes over time as additional haplogroups are discovered.  This does not mean the results have changed - only how they're designated.

Recently one of his descendants had a deep clade test indicating that William and all his other descendants  in fact belong to the more specific haplogroup R1b1a2a1a1b.  We'll be updating this site soon with what this tells us of his deep roots.

We now have enough participants to be confident of all 67 of William's marker values!  We are beginning to see where marker mutations occured in each of his descendant lines as more participants are tested.

A few participants with documentation connecting them to William do not in fact appear to be related to him.  We would strongly encourage more participants from those two lines to try and determine where the "disconnect" occurred (adoption, name-change, or weak paper link, or non-paternal event). These include, for example:

William -> Edmund -> Joseph -> Nathan descendents
William -> Joseph -> Joseph -> Elisha descendents

I.e. somewhere in Nathan's or Elisha's lines these genetic disconnects occurred. We KNOW that both of the Josephs (fathers of Elisha and Nathan) were descended from William, based on the marker similarities we found from other descendents in those lines.

mtDNA:

It would be great to try and determine Joanna Blessing’s haplogroup. We can do this if any descendant comes forward who descended from an exclusively maternal line from one of William and Joanna’s daughters. By definition you would have a different surname in every single generation. Contact us if you think you might qualify!

The ultimate purpose of this page is to discuss our DNA results.

• An example of what this page will look like over time is the Hodges DNA Project Discussion Page
• Feel free to discuss this project on the Towne Family Forum
• Click here to place an order for a DNA test at Family Tree DNA

Participating in a Surname DNA Project provides:

• A report on the participant's genetic DNA, which is very close (and sometimes identical) to the earliest known ancestor
• A classification of the participant's "deep" ancestry, which gives insight into the prehistoric origins of your surname ancestors
• A sense of camaraderie with all who participate in the Family Project, which is particularly strong for those who share a genetic ancestry
• Stimulation to family research and sharing of information
• A wider sense of identity and relationship, as we begin to realize how much we are a World Family.
• A chance to compare your genetic ancestry with those of the Surname and the Variant Spellings
• Locates the genetic matches that do not share your common surname