So I decided to look at it the way most other people did when they first started with only 12 markers several years ago. I decided that EVERYONE IS LOST BUT ME. Indiana Jones style.
So instead of worrying about not fitting any of the other modals out there. I decided to make my own and see where it lead. I took the basic test my "basic" 12 markers (the same everyone tests) and I decided to only look at the slow changing markers...of which there are 9. Ysearch allows you to have a listing with only 9 markers so I did that and then searched to see who matched.
Now with other people's 9 markers there are hundreds to thousands of matches on this basic test. Too many people to sort through and these would be really ancient matches well before surnames were invented. So keeping in mind that people only need to match me on 9 markers out of 67 or so that come in standard tests and that these are basic slow markers, it was amazing to me that I only matched 250 records.
I tacked on another 20 from different ethnic group DNA projects I thought might fit like the border reivers project and the Scotish projects. The Campbell project and the British Isles projects. I even ran some I didn't think would fit like Finland. The only big group I'm missing is Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg). The Brabant (Benelux) project requires participation to view results.
So with 250 tests in the world matching my most basic numbers, it was much easier to get a handle on the data. I copied it into Excel and began sorting and using house of names to figure out where different names were from...if they didn't know themselves.
These are the maps that display where people say they are from in Ysearch and a handful of other DNA projects.
Fair disclosure: If someone just said Ireland or Scotland or England in their listing. I used House of Names to figure out where in those countries they may have come from. The many people from the East coast of the U.S. and Carolinas don't appear on the map above although they also have perfectly good Scotch, Irish or English names. Northern Ireland appears more populous than it otherwise would be because of the Ulster Scots...and one Welsh man who lived there. Also I've cut off a few markers in Caithness in Scotland on the British map.
Below are maps using only House of Names to get a geographic location..unless I couldn't find it and had to take the families word for it.
I think here the distrobution on the continent is a bit more westward although there was still a hit in the far north and a few spaniards and italians. The distribution in England is much more even using House of Names and Ireland seems a bit more coastal and less populous without the Ulster Scots. The issue with House of Names can be that names have multiple homes.
For instance. I match a number of Knowltons very closely. They say they are from Kent. House of Names says they are from Kent. Chances are they got their location from House of Names. Knowlton is a place name like Sutherland. There is also a Knowlton in Dorset England which could also be the Home of that family name, but you'll only find that at Surname Database. I also match a family of Damerons. Dameron is a Belgian name according to HON, but the family hails from Ipswitch England and there are also a number of Damerons from lowland Scotland.
But if you're not too picky about exact placement, these maps are good for a broad overview. Most of these people are from the British Isles, but there is a big enough showing in Germany and (probably the low countries if the benelux project was freely available) to give a decent idea of an origin.
