My Thompson DNA

I keep putting this disclaiming "My" in front of Thompson because there are a lot of Thompsons. The closest Thompson to me at the Thompsons DNA Project are Robert Thompson before 1775 Scotland (we mismatch on 6 markers) and Benjamin Thompson, c 1766 England (we mismatch by 7 or 8 markers). In the world of FTDNA that means we're likely not related. But they're close-ish like maybe 500 to 1000 years ago.

So there is the distinct possibility that I'm not a "Thompson". Family names are a pretty recent invention and especially with a group as large as the Thompsons (second only to Smith) there's a lot of room for play in naming.

I have closer matches at Y-Search (QNYHC) and Ybase (K87WM) (both free) with people outside my family name. Again most of them would be hundreds to thousands of years away. Many of them oddly have Belgian or German names, most are in Northern England or Scotland or have surnames that evolved there. Some are on the east coast of Southern England. And some are in eastern and northern Ireland.

I tested with Ancestry.com as R1b, not real helpful since most everyone in Western Europe is R1b. Genetree lists it's confidence as "High" that I'm at least R1b1b2a*-S128, which on a color map is most prevalent in Ireland (Gaels) and Western Scotland (Gaels/Picts) followed by England (Normans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Britons), Belgium (Flemmings, Walloons, Angles and Gauls), North Western France (Normans and Gauls) and northern Spain (Basques).

It's the parent group for many more described markers that look a lot like me. We match fairly close to the Irish Modal (Ui Niall) and the Scots Modal and a set of markers loosely ascribed to the borders region of Scotland among the "Border Reivers" although the same site has matches for us listed twice (also listed as Niall of 9 Hostages). We have a lot of markers in common with the MacLeods (Western Scottish Isles) and the Sinclairs (who came to Scotland with the Normans in 1066).

We're OGAP19 which is a migration group put together by Oxford based on a very small haplotype. Their migration path comes from the mainland and swings through lower England and Wales. It continues to Eastern Ireland and then up to the North before it swings in a high arc to the Highlands and Islands of Western Scotland where it evolves or changes to a different OGAP group while moving east. Here are the markers for the different OGAP groups.

We match a fair number of people in Donegal and Ulster Northern Ireland...some are alternate versions of the name Thompson (like McCombe and Holmes) and a few further south into Wexford and Carvan, but they may be related because Normans invaded Ireland in 1169 or later after the Scottish Plantation in Ireland.

We match a number of people from Northern England or with names whose origins lie there in York and Northumbria and on the Western side of Northern England around Dumfries and in Cumberland. We also match several people in southern England who have Northern English names but live in and around Kent. Oddly some of these people have relatives with Thompson in their names like Ezra Thompson Knowlton. The Thompson seems to spring up out of nowhere.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the few people we match from Germany and the Netherlands. We match fairly close (1000s of years) with several German families living in Germany. We match quite a few people with German or Dutch names but ironically they live in England, Scotland and Ireland...or as one group showed they have people in their recent past with "Thompsons" in their family. You find that Grandpa Colson's grandmother is a Thompson..which should have no bearing what so ever because that's maternal DNA...but still it's odd because the family is also living in Hamilton Ohio..where I trace my Thompsons.

No one matches me any closer than 300 or so years ago. Which Ironically is in the century that my paper trail ends.