Sinclair DNA in the Shetlands, on Limited Data

By Steve St Clair

This web page, posted by David Faux of a Shetland DNA study, gives a good ideas of just how little we all knew about Sinclair DNA in the early days. The posting was from March 21, 2004, not long after Stan and I started the St. Clair / Sinclair DNA study.

Click here to read a post made with very limited data about Sinclair DNA ... but that's all any of us had at the time.

It's human nature to want to figure things out, even with limited data. And we certainly had limited data in the early days of the Sinclair, St Clair DNA study. In fact, we had about 12 or 25 markers; no more. In hindsight, making judgements based on such limited data seems futile. Given that, we still made some very good decisions.

In this case, David Faux noticed the migration of Sinclair DNA from Caithness up into Shetland and Orkney. His logic was good and has still held up to scrutiny.

St. Clair DNA Trip

I was traveling this week by car down to Virginia. As I always do, I drove by the old St. Clair Cemetery between Bedford and Roanoke Virginia. I suspect many members of our St. Clair DNA lineage known as L193 have also been to this cemetery.

Unfortunately, this time the old gravel road which leads up to the cemetery had a brand-new shiny fence put in front of it. The road had been freshly graveled, and made much wider, as well as having taken a new path up the hill. Because I had my teenagers with me, I only had a few minutes in which to try to find the cemetery (they do not share my interest in genealogy, and they are teenagers). I was not able to get to the cemetery on this day. This leaves me wondering if the cemetery has been moved, damaged, or made more difficult to access.

I write all of this to remind the members of our St. Clair DNA study to keep up with these precious resources of our history. We all still have a great deal more research to do. And these resources of our past will be a vital part of that research.

St Clair DNA Plus Peter Sinclair’s Work on Our English Family

Peter Sinclair has just posted new information on the St Clair family of England which I encourage everyone to read AT THIS LINK..

This page about Hubert de St. Clair is new, but you’ll also note several other links on that page. Peter covers the Burgh family, as well as the FitzWalters, the Marshalls, the Lanvelei, and the Moreleys. It's one of the largest additions of research Peter has ever put up at once; quite a lot to read.

Many in our family are aware of Peter’s work. He’s on the ground in England and has a great deal of information others would never be able to get their hands on otherwise.

St Clair DNA in England

On the St. Clair Research website, you’ll notice a link called “A Confluence of Surnames.” In this work, I compare what may be a super-family of surnames that existed before surnames became fixed and carried through generations.

In that study, I kept bumping into the names Lanvelei and Marshall, as well as others which were signing the same documents and charters, and making gifts to the same priories and abbeys in Normandy and England.

Through our DNA study, I’m hoping that I can offer more data to geology studies like Peter’s. Where this will all lead is anyone’s guess. But careful documents research, plus unbiased DNA work will hopefully one day lead us to certainty on our St Clair ancestors in medieval times.