Project Newsletter #9
31 Mar 2005
Dear Burgess Cousins,
We've had a few more Y-chromosome DNA results posted this past week.
A new test from a descendant of Jacob Burgess, the third son of Thomas Burgess of Sandwich, Mass., matches those of the other three examples we have for this family, which would seem to firm up once and for all the standard markers for this group. Dean Burgess and I are working on an article on the Thomas line and the Burgess DNA project for the New England Genealogical Association Quarterly, so we're looking for additional participants from this family.
We do have one test result from this line whose ancestry still can't be connected to Thomas Burgess, although it's likely; the earliest known ancestor is Seth Burgess, a very common name in the line of John Burgess, Thomas's second son. We also have a family out of Jacob Burgess, the third son, which should have matched the results of the others and didn't, and we don't know why; we also don't have any idea of where along the chain the break occurred, thereby creating a new Burgess family. The only way we can determine this is through additional testing over time of further descendants out of this branch.
We also received a second test result from the family of Emanuel Burgess of Union Co., South Carolina, and this matched the first, as expected. We're hoping that this family will connect at some point with the other large South or North Carolina Burgess lines.
Finally, we've received several results that don't match (at least so far) the numbers of anyone else in the project. These include a Virginia family, and two lines coming out of southern New England, the first New England families that are distinct genetically from the Thomas Burgess line.
About a third of the results that we receive fail initially to match those of any other known Burgess line; I say "initially," because a number of these have connected at some later date. Right now we have 50 participants in the project, and 44 actual results in hand, with some of these tests currently being enhanced to reflect additional markers and information. 14 of these results presently display a unique set of numbers; these include four (perhaps five) lines known to descend from female ancestors, where the male progenitor is unknown, but who was unlikely to have been named Burgess. 29 results have at least one match (the largest matched group is nine; in addition, there are three sets of four each, and four sets of two each). There's also one family that's a possible match with the Thomas line, but is just too close to call.
Many of the tests that are initially ordered for the project are simple, 12-marker tests. These are often enhanced to 25 or 37 numbers at some later date, as needed or desired. The enhancements bring the elapsed time since a common male ancestor lived down to an average of either seven or five generations, respectively (about 125 years at the lowest level). Currently, we have twenty-two 25-marker tests in the project, with four on order, and six 37-marker tests, with two on order. We've had a number of our close 12-marker matches (11 numbers out of 12 the same) fail to match when 25-marker enhancements were finally received. This isn't at all unusual, particularly with the R1b haplogroup (the underlying Celtic population of Britain, France, and Spain), which is the commonest of all the groups, both generally and in the Burgess project. We also have several other haplogroups represented, including I, I1b, E3b, and G.
Depending on the time and availability of my long-suffering webmistress and dear friend, Carolyn Shilts, we usually update the website very quickly once new results have been received, often within the week, with the date of the update being noted at the bottom of each page. I've also been adding compilations of the early personal property tax lists of Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky to the website (www.millefleurs.tv), plus transcriptions of the earliest Burgess census records (now complete for 1790 and 1800). Some of these are quite interesting, and I urge any of you with families from early Virginia to examine the posted tax records. For example, Edward Burgess of Prince Georges Co., Maryland and Pittsylvania Co., Virginia, is usually cited in most sources as having died in 1814, the date when his will was actually probated (it was composed in 1799); but the tax records clearly show that he really died between 1801 and 1802, when he is listed as Edward Burgess Ex(ecutor) & Son.
The Burgess Notes Newsletter website of Dave and Margaret Burgess also contains a great many valuable Burgess records, plus an active Burgess newsgroup; and the Burgess Search site of Dan Burgess includes increasingly detailed genealogies of the families covered in the Burgess DNA Project, as well as copies of these occasional reports, plus many, many other things of interest. Please take the time to visit both sites.
All good wishes:
Prof. Michael Burgess