About us
Welcome to the Rockwell Y-DNA Surname project. I’m Ken Rockwell, administrator of the project. This website gathers the test results for Family Tree DNA customers with Rockwell ancestry, and provides a forum for discussing Rockwell genealogy. If you are a male whose direct male ancestry bears the surname “Rockwell,” you are encouraged to join the project by getting the Y-DNA test through FTDNA. Or, if you are a close relative (male or female) of a qualifying man, you could arrange to have him do the test.
In addition, this project will accept Y-DNA results for the ROCKHOLD surname. Why we’re doing this is part of the backstory of the project. Read on…
Background:The Rockwell surname goes back to 1630 in America, when William Rockwell settled at Dorchester, Massachusetts. He and his brother, John Rockwell, later moved to Windsor, Connecticut. Soon another John Rockwell appeared at Stamford, Connecticut, in the year of its founding, 1641. Later, a Josiah Rockwell appeared in New London, Connecticut, soon moving to Norwich. From these three families arose most of the families now bearing the name of Rockwell. Still another early settler, in Virginia and Maryland, was Robert Rockhold, sometimes called a Rockwell in some records. A number of his descendants in various branches assumed the Rockwell surname. And there are a few individuals who migrated into the United States,either with the Rockwell surname or changing their names legally. If one is stuck on one’s ancestry, it can be difficult to figure out from which of these families one descends.
In 2002, the new technique of using DNA to answer genealogical questions was just becoming available on the market. I contacted a number of e-mail correspondents from various Rockwell lines and organized a project to compare the Y-DNA of male descendants. The Rockwell Family Foundation, a small genealogical club, provided the funding for over 30 tests. We drew on descendants from the three old Connecticut lines and also the Rockhold family, as well as descendants of known individuals whose more distant ancestry was uncertain. We used a company in my Salt Lake City area, Relative Genetics.
The results were most decisive: The three Connecticut lines matched on most markers, demonstrating what we had always suspected: that they were closely related. Meanwhile, the Rockholds showed a distinctly different haplotype, and one of our mystery Rockwells matched that pattern. Several other “mystery” lines matched the Connecticut haplotype.
Relative Genetics was later purchased by Ancestry.com, which continued the Rockwell DNA Project for as long as it offered the Y-DNA test. Unfortunately, this ended in 2013, and the useful tables that were previously accessible online disappeared with the test. Today (2016), only Family Tree DNA offers the Y-test on the market, and it has started to receive samples from Rockwell descendants. FTDNA offers to convert the results of the Y-DNA tests done at other companies, and I have had this done for my own sample. Now I am assuming the role of administrator of a Rockwell Project to gather the results of the Rockwell tests together. I have invited another descendant, Doug Lockwood, to serve as co-administrator. I'd also be interested in a volunteer from the Rockhold line to represent that family.