Heritage Album

family history dna results?

ive just had my dna family history results,and ancestry has matched me with descendants from the usa,im now confused as i thought the results only come from the male descendants but none of the matches have got my surname.the matches are said to be from 12 generations ago about 300 to 400 years ago,im from the uk so does that mean some of my family went to usa 300 to 400 years ago,i have got back with my family tree to 1750s so if i went back a few more generations perhaps i could find who emigrated,.im still confused to who they could be,would they have the same ggggggrandfather as me,or maybe they are related to a someone who marryed into my tree???

Public Comments

1. Ive not heard of that dna on that site cant see how it can be correct as dna is done with swabs in the mouth.
2. sugerbabes
3. It seems likely. Many people in the US have English ancestry. I do. People who emmigrated before about 1800 either died young or had enormous (by current standards) families. There don't seem to be a lot of colonials with 2 kids, a dog and a house with a white picket fence. They prospered or died. the ones who prospered would, over 200 - 300 years, give you lots and lots of 8th cousins. Most of the people who matched me on 12 points - which is 400 - 500 years ago - do not have the Pack surname either.
4. People in Europe, as a rule, did not have surnames until the last millennium. Most in England had one by the end of the 14th century. However, it was a couple of more centuries in many cases before the same surname was passed down to subsequent generations. They weren't started to identify a person as a member of a family but for taxation purposes. Too many Freds in the same town or village and they had to tell them apart. Also when they got through taking a surname it wasn't impossible for legitimate sons of the same man to have a different surname and still each could have shared their surname with others unrelated. They were based on a)being the son of someone b)where they lived c)their occupation d)some characteristic about them. Supposee there were more than one man named John in a village. George, the son of one of he Johns became George Johnson. However more than one man named John had a son named Henry. One of the Henrys became Henry Johnson but the others Henrys who were sons of a man named John took the name of their occupation, Henry Baker, Henry Smith, Henry Taylor and the one with black hair became Henry Black. However, Henry Black had a brother named Joseph and none of the other men named John had a Joseph in the village so he became Joseph Johnson. Henry Baker had a brother named Ralph and none of the other men named John had a Ralph so he became Ralph Johnson. You have to look at the hypothetical possibilities. Another thing when a child was orphaned often times he was taken in by grandparents or aunt and uncle. There would be no official record of the adoption. If the child was very young he might have been given the surname of the adopted parent and the knowledge of that has been lost down through the generations. This is why in genealogy a person can get overly involved in a surname. Surnames are helpful in identifying people, but not everyone with the same surname shares ancestors.
5. I have the same problem that you're experiencing - I match 36 out of 37 markers with another of a family name that's not in my family tree, nor is our name in his. Additionally, someone else that has traced his family tree back to the same ancestor on the paternal side - through a different offspring - took the same test and the results were even more interesting - we're not related! At least in my case, the DNA project raised more questions than provided answers - at least for now.