H1-H8 Ralph Burgess 

This county of Cheshire in England features the densest concentration of the Burgess surname in early parish registers and the first censuses. We have 5 families with distinct DNA signatures in Cheshire County, but this line stands out as matching the most other Burgess families including one other from Cheshire, one from Wales, one from Lancashire and two American lines. The terminal SNP for this family is fairly recent, having arisen in the 1600s. There are only 7 equivalent SNPs at the same level and an average of 3 private variants. As such, the American lines are certain to connect fairly recently to the lines in Cheshire, Wales and Lancashire. This Burgess line is very most likely the one found in the ancient parishes of Cheshire such as Wilmslow, Great Budworth, Knutsford, Davenham.

There are many matches (37) from  neighbouring SNPs that include several families, notably Farley of the Norman de Falaise, and several "B" surnames, Barber, Barbour, Blount and Branch.   These are off of a sibling branch JFS00284 the parent of both branches dates to about 950 CE and therefore before the invention of surnames. All of the matches under JFS0039 are Burgess'.

Project members: 16
Terminal SNP: R-JFS0039

Ancestral Families:

Research Objectives:

1. It would be useful to have the line from Wales and Lancashire test BigY. This may split up the current block for JFS0039 into sub-branches.

2. More BigY Results in the American line as well to attempt breaking up the JFS0039 block and obtaining more recent branches downstream.

3. More testers from the County of Cheshire with lines documented to the ancient parishes in that County.