What Surnames Are You Working On?

[Lirio100]

Not really a matter of closeness, actually. Most of my great grandparents were immigrants (we thought all were) and my only goal was to trace them back to the point of origin. I really didn't think it would be that hard, since I knew what nationality they were (pause for laughter here). We were all surprised to find that one great grandmother came from colonial families and it's her parents that I'm still trying to trace back.

[rms2]

The Holy Grail of my genealogical quest is to find my immigrant y-dna ancestor, so I focus on my surname line. It's not that I am not interested in the others, but what I learn of them I pick up along the way, and often that's a lot. Wish I could stumble into as much about my surname line as I do about the lines I am not actively researching.

[Lirio100]

That one great grandmother I mentioned as being the one I was trying to trace turns out to be (of course) the line for my mtDNA.

[msmarjoribanks]

Not really a matter of closeness, actually. Most of my great grandparents were immigrants (we thought all were) and my only goal was to trace them back to the point of origin. I really didn't think it would be that hard, since I knew what nationality they were (pause for laughter here). We were all surprised to find that one great grandmother came from colonial families and it's her parents that I'm still trying to trace back.

It's not closeness for me either. It's more that my dad's surname is Jones, which seemed daunting to research initially, so I picked out the names that seemed most fun, initially my mom and grandmother's maiden names, but I've branched out. But if I run into a Smith or Miller, they tend to get ignored. I've managed to trace my Joneses and a separate Jones line decently far (the separate one is back to the John who the original Jones in that line was the son of), but I still like the less common names better.

That aside, like you, my initial goal (when I was silly and naive) was to trace back all my immigrant ancestors to their country of origin. At the time I only knew of (didn't have the research for) a few lines of my maternal grandmother's family, who came from England in the 1630s. But I didn't think it would be that hard. Ha! The few more recent ones and some of the longest ago ones are done, but several other lines seem completely lost in the 1700s America.

[msmarjoribanks]

Oddly enough, my dad's mtDNA ancestor is the one I have traced back farthest (and with lots of matches). A woman born in 1568 in Rattlesden, Suffolk, and her mother Joan (surname not yet known). His Y-line immigrant was easy, because it's my one English line that came in the 1800s, around 1870 (only my Swedish ancestors came later, in the 1880s).

My own mtDNA line is stuck in the late 1700s in what is now Kentucky.

My dad's Y-line continues to frustrate, though, since he has NO matches in the Jones project, and his closest SNP match is 3500 TMRCA.

[JFWinstone]

I'm currently working on my 5x great grandparents John Lyons and Sarah Finnagan/Finnegan who married in Godalming, Surrey in 1805. All the Finnegan/Finnagan matches we have seem to have ancestry from Nobber in County Meath. John Lyons is listed as being a private in the 9th Regt Dragoons.

[spruithean]

I've been searching for more information on the people in my tree with the names Gallagher, Condon, Twomey, McKenzie, Kelly and so on. So far more progress with McKenzie as of late. I originally had been looking for my paternal surname but after several years it has become a rather circular search and I've sort of forgotten about it, at least the Y-DNA trail has the potential to get interesting.

[Ohio]

Funk

Graf

[zsepthenne]

Genetic testing has greatly influenced my research and specializing in YDNA really limits your focus:

Casey (significant) - my surname cluster has 18 67 marker testers with two YElite tests.

Hey, my g-grandmother was a Casey who lived in Morgan Mill, Texas!

I'm pretty entranced with my surname mostly because I'm a Murphy who descends from Mcmurchy's who immigrated from Scotland. My father is deceased and I'm so bummed that I'm not able to share that we're not Irish Murphy's at all. He would get such a kick out of it.

Teasdale/Tisdale-- I have a g-g-grandmother I am not able to tie a paper trail to any other families in Texas. I feel I have enough Dna evidence to tie her to some cousins line on Ancestry, but feel uncertain without documentation. Curse that 1890 census being destroyed!

[RobertCasey]

Hey, my g-grandmother was a Casey who lived in Morgan Mill, Texas!

Over 90 % of Casey in the southern states originate from western South Carolina around 1750 (left Ireland during the droughts in the 1740s). There are more descendants of this South Carolina Casey line than Caseys in Ireland today (and it is in the top 25 surnames in Ireland). These are all very closely related from a genetic genealogy point of view (related in the last 200 to 300 years). We do have two outliers - a Kersey tester found in Oxford, England in the early 1600s and descendants of the Dempsey Casey line out of North Carolina (this line ended up McMinn County, TN with my line but probably did not know they were related). If you have male descendant of your Casey line, get them YSTR tested and join the Casey surname project (I am the admin of this project).