Tradition tells us that there were three Higdon brothers who came from and settled in Colonial Maryland. The families eventually spread south and west. My own Higdon family, my father’s maternal line, comes from . I have traced that line back to Andrew Francis Higdon born abt. 1833 in , but I have not been able to locate his parents. 

In my research attempting to find A.F. Higdon’s parents, I became aware that there were many Higdon family branches that do not seem to find their way back to , as our tradition tells us they should. That is one of the main reasons that I began this project; to try and identify unique Higdon families through testing of the Y-Chromosome of Higdon men.

The Y-Chromosome is passed almost unchanged from father to son, generation after generation. Coupled with western society’s convention of passing along the father’s surname to his children, Y-Chromosome testing becomes a very powerful tool in the genealogist’s tool kit for identifying potential family members, even when separated by hundreds of years and without a paper trail connection.

Y-DNA testing can actually help the family genealogist to refine their research by suggesting locations to look for records of their ancestors because of the locations of a matching member’s ancestry.

I hope that you will consider joining our Higdon Family Y-DNA Project and together we can fill in the missing pieces of our shared family histories.

Yours Truly,

George F. Locke – Project Administrator