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In late March 2016, we received the results of a new DNA project member who traces their paternal ancestry to Johann Heinrich Flick Sr., who was born about 1727 and lived in York County, Pennsylvania. According to the documentary records available, Johann Heinrich Sr. and his wife Elizabeth had at least three sons named Johann Heinrich Jr. (Henry), Johann Jacob, and Johann Adam, and a daughter named Barbara (there may have been other children, like a brother Johannes or "John").
Henry Jr. was baptized Jan 7, 1753, and married Susanna Varner in Chambersburg, PA. Jacob was baptized Oct 31, 1756, and Adam was baptized Apr 18, 1759. The records appear to indicate that Jacob and Henry (and possibly Adam) moved to Brothersvalley in Bedford County, PA, and then Jacob and Henry appear to have moved again to Hampshire County, VA (now Mineral County, WV). Then Jacob moved away from Hampshire County around 1794, and the paper trail appeared to end.
Going back to the DNA results... The project member who traces their paternal line back to Johann Heinrich Sr. was an identical Y-chromosome DNA match to descendants of a Jacob Flick who lived in Butler County, PA from the late 1790s to 1820. This Jacob Flick shows up in the census records for Middlesex Twp, Butler County in 1800 and was married to Mary Katherine (or Catherine) Mathews.
So, what does this mean? What the DNA evidence proves without a doubt is that the descendants to Jacob Flick from Butler County are related to and come from the same paternal line as the descendants of Johann Heinrich Flick Sr, who lived in York County, PA. The DNA evidence we have cannot prove that the Jacob Flick from Butler County is the same person as the Johann Jacob Flick from York County. However, given the considerable circumstantial documentary evidence (roughly matching dates of birth, leaving WV around 1794 and showing up in Butler shortly thereafter, and other details such as German naming conventions), these DNA results add extremely strong evidence to the conclusion that these two Jacobs are one in the same.
The theory that Jacob Flick from Butler County was the same person as Johann Jacob from York County had been proposed to me personally by two Flick genealogy researchers over the years, Liz Laughlin and Ann Schwirian. I am absolutely confident that the DNA results above show their theory to be correct. Many people have been searching for the parents of Jacob Flick for decades, and now we have an answer.
Now, the next mystery for us to work on is where Johann Heinrich Flick Sr. and his wife Elizabeth came from, and who were their parents? I'm optimistic that between further traditional genealogy research and genetic genealogy efforts, we'll eventually solve this mystery as well.
(special thanks to Liz Laughlin for fact-checking the above genealogical details about the Flick brothers in York County, PA)
March 2016
As of March 2016, the project has 16 participants with the surnames Flick, Fleck and Fleek who have tested their Y chromosomes. Results of these tests are as follows:
G2a Group 1 - Six men belonging to haplogroup G2a have been found to be confirmed matches to each other. As noted above, they are each related to the Flick family that lived in York County in the mid-1700s.
G2a Group 2 - One man belonging to haplogroup G2a is not a close match to the six men above in G2a group 1. This individual has several mismatching genetic markers to the other G2a participants. Typically, that many mismatches would indicate no relation. However, it could also be that this individual's Y chromosome mutated at a higher rate than is normally seen.
I1 Group - There are four men who belong to haplogroup I1. Strangely, none of them are close matches to each other. I have consulted with an experienced genetic genealogy researcher who did not think these four men were related at all, despite the similarity of their surname and all being in the same haplogroup. Further testing on other individuals might shed some more light on this situation.
R1b Group - There are five men who belong to haplogroup R1b. As in the I1 group, these men are not close matches to each other either. Perhaps each of them are very distantly related, and this accounts for their mismatched genetic markers. More testing of Flick, Fleck and Fleek men could help find intermediate markers that show a link between the current participants.
Other Results
Results from several other men who have tested with other DNA companies cannot be shown on the Y-DNA results page. However, we have listed some general information below about their haplogroup results. Thus far Flicks, Flecks and variant spellings of the name appear to fall into only three haplogroups: G2a, R1b and I1.
-A Fleck male has tested as haplogroup G2a, but there are several marker differences between his sample and the two Flicks above. Each marker difference is only at a distance of 1 value, except for one marker which is off by a value of 2.
-A Flick male from the UK has tested as R1b.
-A man with the surname Fluke, also in the UK, tested as R1b, however his results differed on several markers from the Flick male in the UK.
-A Flock male, who I believe is in Germany, tested as R1b, and differs on only a few markers from the Flick male in the UK.
-A Flikke male has also tested as R1b. He only tested 12 markers, but shows some similarity to the Flick male from the UK, differing on a few markers, but at small values.
We welcome any men with the surnames listed above - or similar variants - to join the project and test. Testing through the project will get you a discounted rate.