We know that the Rowlett name started to appear in London England in the 1600s and throughout the 1700s. The area settled was also the area of the French Hugonaughts, those escaping religious persecution in France. John Rowlett (1772-1846) moved to Philadelphia, and although he was the first known Rowlett in that area of the new world, many other Rowletts had already settled in the Virginia area for quite some time prior. The name Rowlett is of French origin, and the family story has always been that "we came from France". Was this claim referring to the times prior to our relatively brief settlement in London? The goal of this DNA research is to help determine where we all originated from, and also whether the Virginia Rowletts are of a different family who happened to have the same last name or if we did all originate from the same family and while we eventually made it to the new world some of us simply took a century long detour through London.