In The Valentines in America, 1644-1874, Thomas Weston Valentine gives a sketch of each of the three great families of the name Valentine in America; and he wrote: If any inquire why it was not done with other families, we answer, it was simply impossible to obtain the necessary data. And while written in 1874, his book still contains more information in regard to the family Valentines than any other book available.

T. W. Valentine is a fourth generation descendant of John Valentine, Esq., and in 1874, he wrote that nearly all the Valentines in America are descended from Richard Valentine, John Valentine, and Benjamin Valentine, the progenitors of the three great Valentine families in America, and traced back a few centuries farther these three families and some more recent Valentine emigrants would meet in some old family in Holland or Germany. Now T. W. V.'s genealogy of the Westchester county Valentines was made up partly from Robert Bolton, Jr., who in 1848 wrote in his History of the County of Westchester that Benjamin Valentine is the ancestor of this Valentine family of Yonkers; however, in History of Harlem (1881) James Riker rather makes the claim that Valentine Claessen is the founder of the Valentine family of Westchester. Now the Valentine Surname Project has proven relationships between several families of Valentines who had no record of relationship to each other but has found no relation between Westchester county Valentines and other familes of Valentines.

T. W. V. told us that Benjamin is a Hollander, and that Richard is of English origin, and that John is a native of Lancastershire, England. James Riker told us that Valentine Claessen was from Saxenlant, in Transylvania; and the Project has found that direct male descendants of Westchester county Valentines are in a haplogroup that ages thousands of years in Scandinavia and Germany; however, no direct male descendant of Richard or John with Y-DNA results has been identified.

The Project is currently looking at Y-DNA results from Lancashire Valentines and descendants of Irish and German and Portuguese and Italian emigrants. The Project is also taking a closer look at James Riker's claim regarding Benjamin Valentine and Valentine Claessen.