About us
Origins of the Project
When the project was set up in mid-2007, I had been undertaking what is called a ‘one-name study’ for about ten years. The study was registered in 1998 with the Guild of One-Name Studies. I had reached the stage where I had gathered a considerable amount of data and put together a number of family trees. For some of these family trees, the earliest ancestor identified was born no earlier than the 18th century, by which time the family had probably moved away from where their earlier ancestors had lived. For my family tree, for example, the earliest known ancestor was baptised in Greenwich, Kent, England in 1717. Other Sadgrove families, however, had ancestors who had been born in Berkshire or Oxfordshire, that is in the Thames Valley, well to the east of London. Having read about DNA testing and what it can achieve, I decided that it offered the chance of finding whether a number of Sadgrove families had ancestors in common who may also have lived in this region.
What can a DNA test tell us?
YDNA is passed, virtually without any mutation (change) down the male line of a family, that is, from father to son in each generation. When two or more brothers have male children, then the number of family branches increases. Eventually there are so many different branches that members of these do not realise that they are related, albeit distantly. YDNA tests on two or more males of the same surname may give matching results and thus show that their families are truly related. It is not possible to determine when their common ancestor lived but it can be said that he lived after the surname was first adopted, say between 1300 and 1500 AD.
When the project was set up in mid-2007, I had been undertaking what is called a ‘one-name study’ for about ten years. The study was registered in 1998 with the Guild of One-Name Studies. I had reached the stage where I had gathered a considerable amount of data and put together a number of family trees. For some of these family trees, the earliest ancestor identified was born no earlier than the 18th century, by which time the family had probably moved away from where their earlier ancestors had lived. For my family tree, for example, the earliest known ancestor was baptised in Greenwich, Kent, England in 1717. Other Sadgrove families, however, had ancestors who had been born in Berkshire or Oxfordshire, that is in the Thames Valley, well to the east of London. Having read about DNA testing and what it can achieve, I decided that it offered the chance of finding whether a number of Sadgrove families had ancestors in common who may also have lived in this region.
What can a DNA test tell us?
YDNA is passed, virtually without any mutation (change) down the male line of a family, that is, from father to son in each generation. When two or more brothers have male children, then the number of family branches increases. Eventually there are so many different branches that members of these do not realise that they are related, albeit distantly. YDNA tests on two or more males of the same surname may give matching results and thus show that their families are truly related. It is not possible to determine when their common ancestor lived but it can be said that he lived after the surname was first adopted, say between 1300 and 1500 AD.