Happy Father’s Day to the Sinclair DNA Study

Every year since 2004, when Stan and I started the Sinclair DNA study, I call my dad up and say, “Thanks for the YDNA, Pops.”

Every year I once again explain what it’s all about and how DNA helps solve genealogy questions. What we involved in here, friends, is a very obsessive hobby. Not many people understand it, even those who gave us our DNA.

As I think back over the last 11 years, we’ve learned a great deal about the fathers of our fathers. We could never have done this without the men and women in our family who have embraced this new methodology so completely.

Now, with Family Tree DNA’s Big Y test, we’re able to get all the data that can be extracted from our DNA and compare it to others to learn the final branches of our family trees.

In my own L193 study, Gary and I have both taken the Big Y. We now know our “Family SNP.” Because we both descend from Alexander Sinkler, and we both took the Big Y test, we now know our terminal (family) SNP is ZS4576. It will be instructive to learn the timing of the MacRae family, just above us who currently show the non-terminal SNP ZS4585.

(Click to enlarge)

Up right above the L193 SNP in the chart is the name Jolley. Apparently that name has Norman origins and shows up in medieval records there and in England (Yorkshire, for instance).

Alternative spellings of the name:

• Giolif
• Jolliffe
• Joliff
• Jolyman
• Jolyf
• Yoly

So, being obsessive, I'm now looking into medieval records for any mentions of benefaction of the Giolif family to medieval abbeys and priories.

I recommend that every lineage in our study get two people to take the Big Y. Then you will know your own family SNP, and it can be compared to the others in the study. For those who are already in the YDNA study, it’s $565. It is literally the last test you will ever have to take.

Click here to access the full chart from above.

Jolliff Family Website

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.