Burgess Surname DNA Project Report #15--Mar. 2006

We're got some great new results to report.

The Y-chromosome DNA numbers from the family of Achilles Burgess of Wake Co., NC, match those of Thomas Burgess of Elbert Co., GA; the latter may be the same individual as Achilles's son, Thomas. In any case, they definitely have a common male ancestor.

Two samples from the family of William Burgess of Middlesex Co., MA, match two other Burgess lines: William Burgess of Hartford Co., CT, and Ralph Burgess of Cheshire Co., England. This links together three different lines not previously known to be connected. William of Hartford may well be descended from William of Middlesex.

A descendant of Armstead Burgess, son of Keziah of Bedford Co., VA, has matched at 25 markers with multiple samples from a Hale family descended from Nicholas Hale of Lancaster Co., VA, the ancestor of most of the Bedford Co. Hales. Although further research must be done on these lines, this strongly suggests that Armstead's father was a Hale (we know he probably wasn't a Burgess).

An African-American descendant of John Burgess of Henry Co., VA, has matched with a participant from the main line of this family; he's believed to be descended from a servant in the household of one of the existing member's Burgess progenitors; we hope to sign him for the Project shortly.

We simultaneously received results from two descendants of William Burgess Jr. and Jane Pigg of Pittsylvania Co., VA, matching that family with William of Bedford Co. This is the ninth and final branch of the combined families of William of Bedford and William of King George to be linked genetically with this family group.

We've also received numerous test enhancements; these are beginning to show minor differences in the numbers for some of the major Burgess lines, and are helping to delineate their respective branches.

We now have 87 members of the Burgess DNA Project.

The rest of my remarks are directed to the Project participants.

There are 5 test kits currently outstanding, several of them ordered just recently. We obviously can't get your results until your kits are returned to FT DNA, so please expedite them. The oldest dates back half a year.

28 of you have uploaded your data to the free YSearch database, and one of the two members who has done the MT DNA test has uploaded his matrilineal data into Mito Search. I urge all of you to follow suit. This is very easy to do from the Family Tree DNA website, but if you can't figure it out, just write me, and I'll walk you through the process or do it on your behalf (but none of these changes will ever be made without your permission).  

34 of you still have the default setting in the Set-Up Preferences section on your personal page at FT DNA. When you initially return your kit to Family Tree DNA, they establish a separate page for you and give you a password to access it (together with your kit number). As Project Coordinator, I also have access to this information.

The default setting restricts your data to being compared only within the Burgess Surname DNA Project. If you click on the Set-Up Preferences, you can change this setting so your numbers are compared generally with all the numbers in the FT DNA database, giving you a much broader set of potential matches. Since we want to see more matches, this is almost always a very good thing to do. Again, I'm happy to help you with this.

Four of you have attached your Burgess family ancestral information to your personal page at FT DNA. In order to do this, you have to have your genealogical data organized into a program that will generate a GEDCOM file. Again, this is a free option at FT DNA, and one that I encourage everyone to use.

We have our first order for the new sub-clade haplotype test, and I'll report back to the group on the significance and use of this test whenever we receive the results.

We're making great strides in linking together previously unconnected Burgess family groups. The key is increasing the number of tests until we reach a critical mass. Yes, we're still getting some unique numbers and probably always will, but not as many as before. It's encouraging to see some of our earlier members with unique markers beginning to link randomly with other families.

We should reach 100 participants by summer. I'll be updating the website (www.millefleurs.tv under the "Burgess Genealogy" link) in the next few weeks. Please review your ancestral data to make sure that it's accurate. The e-mail links on the site were apparently down for a few weeks, but have now been restored.

Thanks again to all our members for making these marvelous results possible. Many more tests are currently in process, so keep watching those numbers fly! I try to update the site monthly.

All good wishes:

Prof. Michael Burgess