Summary of results

Now with 12 results (13 in the Results tables as one person is duplicated), only two participants show a definite relationship.

The following table shows the probabilities based on a 12-marker test of each pair of participants having a common ancestor within 24 generations, or, if we assume 30 years per generation, then since about the year 1300.

Most pairs have a negligible chance of a common ancestor within 24 generations, whereas a few pairs have some chance, but only one has a realistic chance.  Indeed, if this pair, 57430 and 388921, is compared on the 67-marker test then that predicts a 99% chance of them having a common ancestor within only 12 generations. Unfortunately neither has been able to trace their ancestry back far enough to find who or where the common ancestor might have been.

If the table is re-sorted by haplogroup (below) then it shows that all but one of the pairs that show some chance of a common ancestor within 24 generations are haplogroup R.  So the increased probability reveals little more than that they share a more recent common ancestor than with the members of other haplogroups.  If the two that have 68% chance are compared on the 67-marker test then these probabilities drop to 31% and 17%.

Four of the 13 are Haplogroup I, which tends to be more prevalent in Northern and Eastern Europe, three E, which seems to be rare outside Africa, and the remaining five R, which is more prevalent in Western and Eastern Europe.  Another participant, who has not had the test above, is J. In southern Germany, where there is the greatest concentration of the surname Gauss, about 58% of men are Haplogroup R, 18% I, 8% E and 6.5% J.  

If we exclude 241953, who is known to have a female Gauss link then, assuming the remaining 12 of us are male ‘Gausses’ back to the dawn of surnames, it is clear from the results that the name has multiple origins and that we are not all descended from a single individual.  Given that so far only two out of the 12 are certain to be related, there are likely to be considerably more than 12 distinct Gauss lineages.  In fact (if my statistical analysis is right!), to have a greater than 50% chance of picking 12 persons at random from different lineages, from a large pool of individuals of each lineage, and getting only one match, would require in excess of 99 lineages.  (To clarify this, supposing there were only 10 lineages, then the chance of picking randomly one person from each of 8 with no duplicates, would be only 2%. In other words, there would be a 98% chance that at least two of the eight would share a lineage.)  This suggests that there could well have been more than 99 individuals with the surname Gauss from whom all present day Gausses are descended. 

With this conclusion of a multiple origin, comes the need for a multiple origin of the surname.  The most plausible meaning of ‘gauss’ is that it is the Swabian dialect word for ‘goose’ and as such perhaps became the surname of numerous gooseherds in the area.  But even then, the surname for over 99 unrelated individuals?  If anyone has a more plausible conclusion, please let me know!

Participants

41340: The descent back to Florian Gauss in 1574 runs through many generations living in Württemberg and is well documented, though of course there could have easily been an illegitimacy or adoption which is not recorded as such.

47931: Has an origin in Baden, Germany.

48102: Stephen Gauss is known to have come from Croatia, and the closest matches on the Y Search database are also mainly from Slavic Eastern Europe.  This suggests that his surname was either a Croatian name which happens to have been spelt the same way as the German name (there were 10 families with the name in the area at the time), or that an emigré German adopted a Croatian boy, either knowingly or through illegitimacy.

57430: Does not know much about where his ancestors came from, other than from Germany.

60363: Has an origin in Felldorf, Württemberg, Germany.

179594: Has an origin in Baden, Germany.

210660: Uncertain

211434/N88454: Has an origin in Croatia.

241953: Has an origin in Württemberg, Germany, but through a female Gauss.

388921: Has a presumed origin in Germany.

754956: Probably actually a Haus. Conrad Haus emigrated to Russia where his name would have been pronounced 'Gaus'.

N121723: Has a presumed origin in Germany.

N123942: Has an origin in Germany, but location uncertain.

(Updated 19 Dec 2018)