An early success of Y-DNA testing was the discovery that the Travis family descended from Asa Travis of Ohio around 1800, are all in fact descended from the line of Garrett Travis who lived in Westchester County, New York in the 1630s, bringing these two published family trees together as one.  Y-DNA test results (Big-Y) show living descendants of Garrett Travis are in the two haplogroups shown in bold below.

                                                        R-BY64252

                                               ________|________

                                              |                              |

                                       R-BY66469            R-FT260469

                                                                             |

                                                                     R-FT261990

These groups are both derived from the R-BY64252 haplogroup, which must have been the haplogroup of their common ancestor.

Recently it has been discovered using Y-DNA testing that the Travers family who have been in County Cork, Ireland from the 1580s, shares a common male-line ancestor with the descendants of William Travers who was in Maryland from about 1663, and with the descendants of Matthew Travers who married in southwest Lancashire in 1738.  Their haplogroups are shown below.

                                                      R-CTS11317

                                                  _______|________

                                                |                             |

                                       R-FT80840         descendant of Travers 

                                                |                      family of Cork

                        _____________|_______________________________

                       |                                     |                                     |

            R-Y57249                      R-FT382360                       R-FT19517

   descendants of Travers         descendants of            descendants of Vess

    family in Lancashire             Travers family          family in North Carolina

              in 1738                      in Dorchester Co.

                                              Maryland since 1663

It seems that the ancestor common to all of them may have been in England, before a branch of the family moved to Ireland and another moved to Maryland.  It also seems likely that the Vess family were originally called Travers. With more testing the picture will become clearer still.

Another recent discovery shows how DNA can shed light on family origins, even when no connection to published Travis family trees can be established (yet). One group member descends from a Travis family marriage in Lancashire, England in 1787.  DNA testing showed a relationship to an Australian group member, a descendant of a sailor who was a crew member on a convict ship that sailed from England to Australia in 1808 – nothing is known of the sailor before this voyage.  Then a new member was tested and found also to be related - he descends from a Travis who married in Lancashire in1775.  All people tested had hit brick walls trying to extend their family trees back in time, but DNA testing shows them to be cousins, all in haplogroup R-FTA45533, this haplogroup being a new one, discovered based on their DNA tests. This example shows again that constant spelling of surnames over time cannot be relied on.  It also shows that the sailor ancestor probably came from Lancashire, which was completely new information as Dorset was the previous theory as to his origins.   What these three group members ideally need now is for someone else to match their DNA, who can trace their family history a little further back, to the time when their common ancestor was living.  We are actively seeking a Y-DNA tester of the Travis/Travers surname from Dorset.

Do you have a success story based on Y-DNA testing?  If so, it would be great to hear from you.