I need advice on how to recruit English people to Y-DNA test

[chrstdvd]

Hello.  My name is David M Christopher and I live in Virginia, USA. I am sure my ancestors came from southern England.  Searching for my last known Ancestor, Nicholas Christopher b. 1683 has not resulted in any finds.

I have Y tested at FTDNA in Dec 2015. At that time I matched a Surname "Fry" and my 2nd cousin. Over the past year and a half, I built my tree on Ancestry.com and managed to recruit 7 other Christopher's who are a match to me. 3 of the 7 dead ended at their 2nd Great Grandfathers between 1814 and 1830 in Abbeville, South Carolina. We have been able to use Autosomal DNA to determine that those three were brothers and the sons of a David Christopher b. 1790 the son of Ambrose Christopher Sr. b 1754 the son of William b abt 1712 the son of Nicholas b 1683.

We have 2 living Fry's living in America who are matches and 1 Fry in Australia who is a match.  We are all R-FGC29470 Haplotype.  The 2 Fry's in America find records that their ancestors came here from Dublin and the Australian man traces his ancestors to Somerset County England. The distinguishing Marker in this haplotype is DYS 393 that has a value of 10.

At a lab in Germany, www.yseq.net, it is possible to test for this one marker for about $10 plus shipping. 

Does anyone have an idea of where I could post or how to find living Christopher or Fry men to have this one marker tested who live in the British Isles?   

Thank You

David M Christopher

[Deer243]

Hi David,

I am in a similar situation in terms of having done an STR test, then Big Y but after more people with my surname to test. I posted on the Ancestry boards forum about Y-DNA testing and encouraging people to test. Ancestry forums seem to have a sub-forum for a lot of surnames, e.g. there is a Dillon sub-forum and there may well be a Christopher sub-forum. Posting there may well be worthwhile, particularly if you include a link to the Christopher/Fry DNA projects and maybe briefly explain that Y-DNA testing doesn't give away any health info and only requires a saliva sample etc just in case anyone has privacy concerns.

You could perhaps contact the Christopher/Fry project administrators to see if they would be interested in helping you with a recruitment drive.

By the way, I am R-L2 as well, although a different sub-clade to you, I am L2>BY3508>L135>BY3506.

Hope this helps!

[chrstdvd]

Thanks for your reply. We are all on the R-U152 Project: https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/r-1b-u152.  The Co-Administrator for the DF 90 branch is Dr. Andre Viau. He is a distant cousin of mine and his haplotype is a DYS 393 = 13 and is listed in this group
U152> L2> Z41150> DF90,FGC29428. et al.> FGC14641> ~22237861> FGC29470

The two Fry's are listed in this group:
U152> L2> Z41150> DF90,FGC29428. et al.> FGC14641> ~22237861> FGC29470> FGC59711 et al

The Christopher's are listed in this group:
U152> L2> Z41150> DF90,FGC29428. et al.> FGC14641> ~22237861> FGC29470> FGC59711 et al.> FGC59702 et al

I work with Andre almost every day on this.  He has me and James Fry trying to find our MRCA but
James Fry dead ends in Ireland like I dead end in England. We have found a Fry in Ireland who seems to be related but has not been tested and says he will this fall. This particular branch of Fry's have hints their ancestors immigrated to Ireland from Somerset County England where our Australian Fry can trace his ancestor's origins. (It was Andre who was able to use all our Autosomal DNA and verify the 3 Abbeville men were brothers.)

I can find some Christopher's in the 1600's and 1700's in the southern counties on Family Search, but there do not seem to be trees connected to any records I find.

The main problem in paper records is almost everyone back in the day was named William or John and different branches of the same surname all use them. 

There is a Christopher group at Ancestry.com and I have posted there.  My question is do people in the British Isles see what I post there?  Ancestry has different extensions for different countries. One can not search information in England or Australia unless they purchase the International Subscription which I have, but like I say, paper records are useless so far.  That is why I decided to recruit Y testing as a way to find more.

David M Christopher

[Deer243]

I do not subscribe to Ancestry and I can see all the forum posts there if that it what you are wondering?

[chrstdvd]

OK thank you. I Googled it and found the board for Christopher surname and made a post there. It is the same board I had posted on before, but back then I was not looking for info from overseas.

Let us see if I get any hits.

Dave

[RobertCasey]

I have a very similar situation on my Casey ancestors. We now have around 25 testers at 67 markers but all have only ties to the South Carolina Caseys that arrived there in the 1750s. Around 25 % of all Caseys in the project are R-L226 (under L21>Z253). We even know that 80 % of the 540 L226 testers come from southern Ireland (where Irish counties are known). Mainly from five counties: Tipperarry, Clare, Cork, Kerry and Limerick. However, after 75 Casey testers have tested - we still do not have any testers that currently reside in Ireland today.

I have posted on this forum several times stating that I will sponsor testing of the 37 marker YSTR test for any Caseys in these counties that can at least go back to 1850s with their Casey ancestry. There are dozens of Caseys living in these counties in the Irish phone books, I think it is time to cold call some of these asking for the genealogist in the family (worked pretty good for genealogy).

Our only reasonable match in Europe is a Kersey tester who can trace his line back to Oxford, England in the early 1600s. We suspect that he was a Casey who moved to England and changed his surname to the English surname of Kersey to hide his Irish heritage. Ancestry.com ties our South Carolina line to the Virginia Caseys. To date, several Casey testers with early Virginia ties were proven genetically to be unrelated in the 5,000 years. So, that connection has been greatly discounted (but still persists in Ancestry.com databases).
 

[hurworth]

You could start a blog about your genealogy.

Here is Roberta Estes' blog.   
https://dna-explained.com/2012/10/18/the-speak-family-3-continents-and-a-dash-of-luck/
When she writes about a family she often incorporates how DNA has helped confirmed relationships and how DNA may help to find out more.  And she offers a scholarship (free test) to people that might help. 

A relative by marriage of mine has a blog about her genealogy research and relatives have made contact with her through that. That's how we got in touch and since then we've collaborated.

[Seaton Smithy]

I've found a letter to the Editor in the local newspaper to be successful in finding relatives.

There's a Somerset County Gazette: http://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/communitynews/

There may be others.

PS:  It looks like you have autosomal matches at FTDNA to my mother-in-law (surname Drinkwater) and wife (surname Mawdsley).

[KGarrad]

The Western Daily Press is a daily newspaper covering the West of England.
www.westerndailypress.co.uk

However, that URL takes you to a website:
http://www.somersetlive.co.uk/

Generally speaking, we Brits are not much taken with DNA testing, and few bother to get tested.