Hi Woofie,
It is a bit complicated; first of all, let me say that I don't know whether we are related. The reason I started the Wood research is because my great-grandfather, William Henry Marshall b. 1857 Barnsley, Yorkshire, was the natural son of Mary Marshall; he took his mother's name and the family have never been able to find out who his father was. To this end, we did y-DNA testing, and have come up with many matches to people by the name of Wood, most of whom are Americans whose ancestors migrated between about 1650 and 1780, possibly because of religious persecution in the earlier years. Most of these ancestors were from Derbyshire and Cheshire and possibly Yorkshire.
It has however now gone beyond my own need to find out where we belong, in that it turns out that most of us have tested to a fairly rare subgroup of the haplogroup R1b1b2, i.e. L20. It also transpires that we are all closely related, within a timeframe of about 12 to 7 generations. This subgroup is only about 1800 years old (which is very young in DNA terms), and relatively few people have tested to this group so far. The name Wood in the northern counties is overly represented, although there are many other names in the group from other parts of the British Isles. A researcher by the name of Steve Gilbert is conducting a research project into the migration patterns of this group of people and I am assisting with the genealogical stuff. If you would like to look at the project, let me know and I will email the link. Getting back to William Henry, the family legend has it that his father was a wealthy man; in the 1871 census he was described as a "glass presser" (aged 13); he was told to "stand by the gates a 9 o'clock and he would see his father pass by". We have wondered whether his father could have been the factory owner. Any help you could give would be much appreciated.
Cheers,
Tisy
