We currently have 24 tested participants.
See: Acree Project History
The objectives of this project are:
All males with the surname Acree are encouraged to participate, particularly those living in the U.S. Those with close surname variations (including Acre, Acrey, Acrea, Akrie and Akre) are invited to participate to assess the extent of common origins, which have already been found. Males with the surnames Acres, Ackers and Akers, particularly those living in the British Isles, are invited to join a separate project in the U.K. that is specifically intended to examine kinship among them, in connection with One Name Study. See: The Acres Surname Project
This project compares the unique Y-Chromosome (Y-DNA) profile segments that fathers pass intact to their sons, which remain basically stable from generation to generation, with only minor, infrequent mutational changes:
Females may participate by convincing an Acree-surnamed male relative (grandfather, father, brother, uncle or cousin) to provide requisite Y-DNA for testing as a representative of her line. Our seven female participants, as interested family historians, have arranged and financed tests of their surrogates.
This project may provide physical evidence that will further validate Acree lineages found through documentary research. It may help those who have sought to extend their Acree lines back to colonial-era America, by suggesting ancestral focal points for further research. The efforts of those who have been successful in establishing personal descent from colonial-era Acrees may be assisted by evidence of genetic commonality or disparity among project participants, with resulting implications for extended ancestry.
While the Acree surname is relatively uncommon, it is more prevalent than many suppose, with favorable incidence for a DNA project. According to the census, there were 7035 individuals with Acree/Acre/Acres/Acrey/Akre surnames resident in the U.S. in the year 2000, nearly two-thirds of whom spelled their name Acree. The more numerous Acker/Aker/Eaker individuals appear to have primarily Germanic/Scandinavian origins. That surname cluster, however, also arose independently in the British Isles, where it may have been related historically to the evolution of the Acree surname, which has seldom been spelled with two e's on that side of the Atlantic.
Most of the Acrees who were born in the U.S. and have successfully traced their early paternal ancestry, descend from a few residents of colonial Virginia and Maryland who are believed to have emigrated from the British Isles, often spelled their name Acre, and appeared in documents using that spelling and others that were phonetically similar. Some of their sons migrated to North Carolina in the mid 1700s.
Most of the early Acree/Acre lineages that have been published or appear on the internet show descent from six 18th-century progenitors:
Joshua was the son of an earlier William Acree (c1710-c1767) of Hanover Co., Virginia, whose ancestry has not been established. That earlier William was probably also the father of William and Isaac, who reputedly migrated together from Hanover Co. to Warren Co. He was probably also the father of John, who took a similar migration route from Virginia to Bertie Co., as well as the father of Abraham, who resided just across the Hanover/Caroline county line - the Pamunkey River from William. (Ancestral trees have been posted elsewhere on the internet that affirm these father-son relationships but lack supporting evidence.)
It has been determined that the William Acree from Maryland was unrelated to the Acrees from Virginia. He may have been the son of a Quaker family who immigrated to the Philadelphia area and moved with coreligionists to successive Quaker settlements in Frederick Co., Maryland, and Guilford Co., North Carolina, before William himself moved on to Kentucky.
Additionally, it is understood that some descendants of Colonial-era Aker/Acker families eventually changed the spelling of their names to Acree, causing two noteworthy immigrants with those surnames, who settled in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, to become Acree progenitors, as well as progenitors of far more numerous descendants who kept their original spellings. The first was William Akers (c1640-1715), of English or German ethnicity, who purchased land there before 1698. Several of his great-grandchildren moved into the Virginia piedmont by way of Pennsylvania and apparently became forefathers of the Acrees who crossed the mountains into West Virginia in the early 19th century, when migration toward the Northwest Territory began. The second was Peter Acker, Sr. (c1730-1815), possibly related to William Akers, who came to the same area of New Jersey from Germany about 1750 and migrated to South Carolina before the Revolutonary War. Several of Peter's grandchildren moved on to Alabama.
Surname DNA projects such as this usually begin by testing as many people as possible who have identified their ancestors from documentary research - attempting to find close genetic matches and arranging them by earliest claimed ancestors.
This project was initiated by its coordinator in August 2006 with the advantage of having identified the genetic profile of "Cashie" John Acree, Sr. of Bertie Co., North Carolina (above), which is available to participants for comparison. This "ancestral haplotype" was initially found through an exact match of 46 Y-DNA marker values between two distant Acree cousins who had independently traced their lineages to John Sr. from his second and third sons, John Jr. and William. The match, considered newsworthy, was the subject of a promotional press release. Click the link below to see it:
Since then, the ancestral haplotype has been further validated by matches with a descendant of John Sr.'s son Henly and with three descendants of his son Edward. The lineage of another participant, an Akrie, has not been thoroughly defined, but he matches the profile of Edward's descendants, who share an identifying mutation.
The project has also identified the ancestral haplotype of William Acree of Wilkes Co., Georgia (above), which is identical to that of John Sr. This discovery emerged from the matching profiles of six distant cousins (one of them an Acrey), who have traced their lineage to William through his son John. A participant who has been unable to extend his lineage beyond his Acree-surnamed grandfather probably descends also from William.
The profiles of two descendants of Abraham Acree of Caroline Co., Virginia (above) match this same ancestral haplotype. Also, two men named Williamson, who had an unexplained orphan in their 19th-century lineage and joined our project upon discovering their genetic Acree connection, have been identified as probable descendants of Abraham.
These combined genetic findings indicate that John Sr., William and Abraham were closely related. Documentary confirmation is unavailable, but, from these test results and circumstantial evidence, it is evident that they were sons of the above-mentioned William Acree of Hanover Co., Virginia.
Additionally, this same shared halpotype, which includes a distinctive micro-variant" allele, has been found in two men named Brown and Collier - indicating that they had common ancestors with our matching Acrees sometime ago. Contemporary existence of the haplotype in the U.K. has been found in two residents of north-central England, named Willoughby and Hall - supporting the presumed British ethnicity of many Acrees living in the U.S.
Here is a depiction of the known lines in which successive Acree fathers passed this nearly identical genetic profile to their sons - from three Acree progenitors, through several generations, down to the majority of our project participants (in blue):
A confirmed minority haplotype has now emerged, resulting from the matching test results of two descendants of William Acree (1752-1833) of Wayne Co., Kentucky (mentioned above). Here is a depiction of how the two participants (in blue) descend from that progenitor, as distant cousins:
Future participants whose test results match the majority haplotype will be confirmed as descendants of John Sr., William, Abraham, their brothers, or cousins (in the U.S. or British Isles). Specifics must be determined through documentary evidence. A preponderance of matches, as the project proceeds, is strengthening the case that most Acrees living in the U.S. today descend from William Acree of Hanover Co., Virginia.
Future participants whose test results do not match the majority or minority haplotypes will provide alternative genetic profiles. If several differing profiles develop as the project proceeds, it would suggest that Acrees in the U.S. descend significantly from multiple immigrant ancestors.
Unanticipated test results may be unwelcome to participants. This physical evidence may cast doubt on well-documented Acree lines of descent that were previously considered firmly established, by indicating that an informal adoption or an undisclosed illegitimacy of birth probably occurred in one or more generations within a lineage. These so-called "non-paternity events" were (and remain) far more common than we generally appreciate. Their frequency rate in our culture is estimated to be about two percent in each generation.
The test is simple, painless and private. Participants will receive a kit in the mail, swab inside their cheeks with cotton tips provided, and submit these specimens by mail.
Because the several DNA testing laboratories look at different sets of markers, one laboratory has been selected to ensure consistency of results: Sorenson Genomics, which uses an effective set of markers that are conveniently reported in numerical order, renders precise marker values ("alleles") that conform to industry standards, double-checks its findings, enables comparatively favorable pricing, and provides the best turn-around time from specimen submission to the communication of results. Relative Genetics, which has employed the Sorenson laboratory and provided excellent service to the project since its inception, has been acquired by DNA Ancestry, which retains the partnership with Sorenson.
Just as a comparison of one person to another is aided by focusing on a greater number of characteristics, a comparison of genetic profiles is improved by testing a greater number of markers (at greater expense). DNA Ancestry offers Y-DNA tests for 33 or 46 markers. The latter is recommended for the purposes of our project. Participants must pay for their tests, but will benefit from a 20% discount when testing for 46 markers. The coordinator is unaffiliated with DNA Ancestry and receives no material compensation for his efforts.
John Acree, Sr. (born c1735 in VA) & Patience (born c1740 in VA)
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John Acree, Jr. (born c1762 in NC) & Penelope Hayes (born c1767 in NC)
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Joab Cotton Acree (born 1799 in NC) & Sophia Campbell Marshall (born 1805 in VA)
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James Hardy Acree (born 1832 in TN) & Nancy Peyton Waugh (born 1840 in KY)
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James Walter Acree (born 1874 in TN) & Wilhelmina Sachse (born 1888 in MO)
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Parents - private
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Participant - private
You will be notified of your results within a few weeks. They will be a series of values associated with the markers for which you have been tested, which will be displayed on an "Acree group" webpage at the DNA Ancestry website - permitting comparison with the results of other participants. Our group's webpages at DNA Ancestry (completely separate from this website) are all password protected. In the interests of privacy, alphanumeric identifiers replace our names there, as well as at this website.
Apart from project participation, Acree family historians are invited to direct queries regarding their indefinite or undetermined lineage to the project coordinator, who maintains an extensive off-line data base.
by Charles Acree. All rights reserved.