About us
The Girdlestone family originated in North Norfolk but has spread worldwide. There are many well-researched branches but it is difficult to tie these together using paper records alone. This is because before c1750 we have lots of people with similar first names in very close proximity to each other, so telling with confidence which John / Robert is which becomes a guessing game. This project therefore aims to test as many men from as many branches as possible to find out from Y-DNA how the family developed.
Thanks to everyone who has participated - I'll keep this site up to date with our progress!
We have made a brilliant start - eight men tested from across the traditional branches of the family - Kelling, Wramplingham, Little Walsingham and Burnham Westgate. This proves that these branches descend from the same man, who lived around 1600 - which lines up well with what we know of the original Girdlestones of Kelling. The more people who test, the more detail we'll get about when these different branches separated and when our ancestors first came to the UK. We have already established two members of a sub-branch originating around 1750 in Kings Lynn.
The results also give us a fascinating insight into how our male line ancestors came to be in North Norfolk around 1600 - all the way back to the original human migrations out of Africa.
Please get in touch if you are interested in learning more about our results, or in taking a test yourself. The project has a general fund which I and our testers donate to. We can therefore cover the cost of tests to members of the branches which can tell us the most about how the 17th and 18th Century Girdlestones were related to each other.
Thanks to everyone who has participated - I'll keep this site up to date with our progress!
Chris Girdlestone
Bristol, UK
c.girdlestone337@googlemail.com