There are many Miller surname lines with early American roots in the south Blue Ridge Mountain area of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina. These lines have often become erroneously intertwined in family trees that have been copied, giving an appearance of accuracy. I learned this the hard way.

My mother worked on our family’s genealogy for about 30 years. As a result, I believed our Miller line was determined all the way back to William Miller, Sr. (c.1735-c.1825) who lived much of his later life in locations near Boone, NC. The line to William Sr. was copied by others many times, giving me more confidence. Sound familiar?

YDNA testing brought our paternal line relationship with William into question, along with our relationship to his son Henry (born c.1770). Two YDNA testers whose results prove their paternal lines do not connect in genealogical times cannot both connect to the same paternal ancestors born in the 18th century. In my case this happened with with both William and Henry.

Starting my research over I have validated our Miller lineage back to Henry Miller, Jr. who was born circa 1809 in what was Ashe County, NC at that time, but may be part of modern Watauga County. He lived in Macon County for a time and moved to Clay County shortly after the Civil War. He died sometime after the 1870 census, probably in Clay County, NC or Towns County, GA.

I have at least two unanswered questions: 1) “Which of the multiple Henry Millers is Henry, Jrs. father?” and 2) “Is Henry Jr. really a Jr?”. There is only one document that calls him Henry, Jr.

These problems and the ability of Y-DNA testing to definitively establish paternal connections led to an idea: a YDNA group project focused on defining the various Miller lines rooted in the south Blue Ridge areas of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina could help us all to unravel and organize our Miller lines, providing the Miller genetic genealogist with a defensible foundation to build upon.