SAYRE Project- Background

Background

After more than a decade of researching primary and secondary genealogical sources to identify my great-grandfather, I turned to genetic genealogy after narrowing the identify to three possibilities. An interview with the granddaughter of the first man convinced me that her grandfather was not my great-grandfather despite having briefly been married to my great-grandmother.

Y-DNA testing with SMGF and Ancestry ruled out the second of three men who fathered additional children with my great-grandmother. Soon thereafter a Y-DNA match strongly suggested SAYRE was our paternal lineage. Subsequent collaboration and research seemed to support this claim. More recently, however, two SAYRE cousins participated in Y-DNA testing, one at Ancestry DNA and the other at FTDNA and although they matched closely, they neither matched me nor my SAYRE match--their alleged cousin. Additionally, other SAYRE males descended from the same progenitor also match the two recent SAYRE participants.

It now appears that Thomas SAYRE (1597-1670) was J2 haplogroup as were his male descendants. My father, myself, and my Y-DNA match are R1b, (I am confirmed R1b1a2a1a1b4). We do not descend from SAYRE.

Additional participants descended from my grandfather, Robert Emmett Morley, Sr., include my father, Robert, Jr., and first cousin, Bonnie Marie Larrow. Family Finder results from both of them are forthcoming.

Project Stats