Saxons Anyone?

I decided to post yet another map of matches. These are my 25 marker matches at FTDNA and my lone 37 marker match along with several people at the U106 project who seem to follow my pattern of  DYS390 = 25, DYS385b = 11, YCA2a and b = 19 and 22. Within the spreadsheet for U106 those markers are enough to make the modal look like me and give my values for several other markers like DYS447 = 24, without even trying. Blue guys are people who match that self imposed pattern. Red are 25 matches, Yellow is the 37. London is unfairly represented because if people just said "England" I plopped them into London. I also plunked my Boettcher German FTDNA match in Neidersachsen based on House of Names.

So this is why I'm guessing Saxon English for us. I should note here that even though my matches are English many have names that are assigned to Belgium by House of Names like Dameron or Huguenots like Pipkin. House of names is not the trusted source for all surnames of course, but it makes me think about my 23 and me matches to people with Huguenots from Ulster and New Paltz New York. Still, I have a much stronger showing among Germans as far as bulk goes so I'm left back with the most obvious Saxon conclusion until evidence to the contrary presents itself. My best guess, knowing what little I know is that we're among some group of Anglo Saxons who made their way to England after about 400ad.

I hate to lose my Danish matches but I imagine we are just more distantly related to some common ancestor farther back in time.

Again, according to FTDNA, IF I shared a surname with that yellow Elmer we would most likely be related within the time frame of the common use of surnames in Europe. So, I think we're talking about the 1100s on up. If we share a common SNP and still remain close at 67 markers..then I think the time frame would be much closer.

If there is a crossover, I suspect that it would happen with the Thompsons from New Jersey in the 1700s or the Thompsons from Braintree Massachusetts and farther back in Braintree England in the 1600s to early 1700s as both Thompsons and Elmers exist in those areas at the same time and at least in the case of the New Jersey Thompsons, definitely intermarry. 

At a minimum, I think we and the Elmers are at least people from the same area, possibly from the same town and we're definitely related because we share the U106 SNP. The only question left is WHEN are we related. Our common ground could be in England in the 1600s...or even farther back. 

I have my doubts about "The Aunts" knowing this when they related to my father that we were "English" Thompsons. So much of what I'm doing is chasing things they may have already known, but I think if they knew we were secretly "Elmers" they would have related that as well. That leads me to think that they were aware of a family of English Thompsons here in the U.S. and that they had tied us to it, rightly or wrongly.

I am trying to be evidence based of course but I'm at the point where I can't ignore the "English" story any longer. I'm not unbiased, I've been considering it the whole time, but I do remain skeptical of it on principle. I've looked at it, thinking there was a grain of truth, but I have to think now that it is just a truth truth. I also think most people would have accepted it at face value and moved on so I think I've done my fair share of homework on it. I may be coming to the wrong conclusion, but I don't think after these past years, that I am jumping to it.

Since I can't really dispute "English-ness" without better or further evidence, I should probably take them at their word and see what English Thompsons I can come up with. This is difficult. Irish and Scots Thompsons I can get by the bucketful. English Thompsons are a bit harder to come by right now. Among Thompsons anti-English sentiment is still running pretty high (after hundreds of years). I wonder if it was different when "The Aunts" were doing their search.

Time has moved on and things have gotten lost. I cannot go back to talk to them.

Thompsons Thompsons Everywhere

So now I have another ball in the air. These Berks PA Thompsons. Without more details on where their information comes from, I can't say what to do with them. Is it a story, does it come from a church record, are there siblings for Levi? With a birth and death date for Albert E Thompson it seems like it has some source, but what is it? Were they passing through Butler PA when Levi was born? Is that baptismal record for Albert the right Albert? I just can't say, and there it hangs. I can't add them in.

I also can't add in any Thompsons from Butler PA. There are great candidates, but there are too many candidates and without some tangible proof like a church or census record..there's nothing I can do with those. The only thing I can think to do is go through any church records I can find in Butler PA for some sort of baptism record for Levi. 

With my results from FTDNA in, I'm left to think that we're most likely from Southern or Southeast England and with all my Danish candidates falling away, it would appear that we're Saxon English, or at least that my father and I are. Then all my other English matches fell away and left just one single Elmer match. Along with that record comes the realization that I still don't match any Thompsons on the Y in any database. In fact, I've only gotten further away from the ones I had hoped to get closer to. The idea of an NPE becomes more likely.

As was pointed out to me in the past, The Elmers do overlap with a Thompson family in the 1700s in New Jersey. I have some autosomal matches who are related to that Thompson family and the Elmer family with them. What to do with them? If I recall, some of those Thompsons do make their way to Pennsylvania. I probably should do a survey of them to make sure of it. The time between those New Jersey Thompsons and Elmers and Levi gets kind of tight though especially if I am to consider the Berks PA Thompsons (Albert E's parents) who were likely born in the 1780s. That is assuming that an NPE would occur between those families. 

There is also the point to consider that an NPE can happen at any time. I'm definitely related to my father, but now I would need to search for possible Elmer parents at every generation back along my male line. From the advice of others in the genetic genealogy community, I should consider this seriously and proceed accordingly. 

So, genetically speaking, I need to figure out when this may have happened. Of course that requires still more testing. On the Y side, the advice is to test other known Thompson relatives. For instance, my father and I match, but what about the Indiana Thompsons. If they don't match then we could suspect an NPE between Albert 1870 and my Grandfather 1925. There is also the possibility that if they don't match me, that they match a group of known Thompsons, which would be nice. If they do match then we would suspect an NPE from Albert 1870 back. 

Also, I should continue working with the Elmer family to see if our match gets closer over time. So I would need to order more SNP testing to make sure we're still on the same branch of R1b-U106 and the 67 marker test at FTDNA to make sure we don't diverge too much. All of that is because there is still the possibility that even that match falls apart and we are then probably just men who are related way back beyond any records I'll find. At that point if the Elmers fall away, it would be good to have those other Thompson results, matching or not to continue with.

Autosomal testing comes into play too. I should have at least one of the Indiana Thompsons tested at 23 and me (which has been my plan) to see where they overlap with my father. It could be very telling if they share the same autosomal matches that contain Elmer related people. It would, also remove my paternal grandmother (directly but not indirectly as they are probably also related to her like everyone in america). They may also have some matches that my father does not, that further point us in a good direction. 

It seems that every time I lop a head off this thing, two heads grow in it's place. No one said it would be easy, to the contrary, I was absolutely told it could not be done. This day at least, I'm starting to feel the sting of that statement. Every possibility from the past is still open and more are being added. 

Will I be able to pull this swirling miasma into some sort of shape before I run out of resources?

FTDNA Results

At my last post  I was waiting for my "upgrade" to 37 markers with FTDNA. I'm excited to get news that they are in. Ironically, a project manager contacted me before the FTDNA company email went out. The shocking bit is that with these new results all the Knowltons and Emerys and Damerons completely disappeared. Even the Boettcher who matched at 24/25 was gone. At Ysearch they all dropped like flies as well. The only one left was the Elmer. At FTDNA I match an Elmer at 35/37 and at SMGF I match an Elmer at 34/37.

With these results and the relative proximity of the two different Elmer families (one with a late 1700s brick wall in New York the other from Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts) I think it's highly likely that they are related. At this point the SMGF Elmer and FTDNA Elmer would only mismatch by 1. FTDNA and SMGF use different markers but it would probably be a pretty close match for them regardless.

Where does that leave me and Levi Thompson? Well, broadly speaking, I think it would be safe to assume that we're from the British Isles as the oldest man in the family says. It would also be safe to say that we're English like my father has always said. I would probably go a step further and say that we are most likely Saxon English.

Without something extraordinary cropping up, I think my Y DNA bids the Swedes, Danes and Finns farewell sometime between 2000 years ago and today. That's a lot of ground to cover of course but it's just my way of thinking about it. There are many Finns, Swedes and Danes in the Z18 project that I hope to also be a part of, it just seems to me that at the end we have been in a see-saw battle between Germans and English. For now, I think the English have won.

The odds for Thompsons in general are in favor of being Scots Irish and I think for the vast bulk of Thompsons that plays out. Early on, that seemed to be the way we would go too.

Having played this game for a while now though, it seems to me that even if we lived at some point in Ireland or Scotland we are more likely to be the stereotypical English Thompson that the (p) was added for. At this point I don't even think I can get us close to the border with Scotland, at least not with our Y. We look like some subset of people who live in Norfolk or Suffolk England. This is the reason my Y DNA brings all the Germans to the party.

What about my closest match? Well, the closest is the Elmer from New York, but that brick wall is pretty well in place. The oldest man in that line is listed as Daniel Ephraim Elmer. The other Elmers go back to John Elmer in Connecticut born 1778 and then a few trees run him back to Edward Elmer from Braintree England in the 1600s...and other trees run him back to Samuel (Aylmer) Elmer, b. 1546/1557, Tilney, , Norfolk, England .

Since that is not too awful far away from other matches of mine labelled "channel English", it seems reasonable enough.

What about Tilney? This from the Wikipedia article: The village of Tilney St Lawrence did not exist in its own right at the time of the Domesday Book although the settlement of Islington, which lies in the very northeast corner of this parish, is listed. Today very little is left of the settlement of Islington,^[5] which is thought to have been a populous and a valuable Late Saxon settlement.

Be sure to check it out and note the famous person listed in the article. From a different wikipedia article we get the etymology of the name Islington..this article was about Islington in London: Islington was originally named by the Saxons Giseldone (1005), then Gislandune (1062). The name means "Gīsla's hill" from the Old English personal name Gīsla and dun ("hill", "down"). 

So would I bet my life on it? No, the world is full of too many weird quirks and wonderful coincidences. Do all the signs seem to point in this direction? Yes.