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Our sixteen-year-old Project gained just two participants this year, raising our membership total to 106. Fifty-four of them have been tested at the Family Tree DNA firm (FTDNA). The others tested for the most part years ago at Ancestry.com, when it offered our required Y-DNA testing, or more recently at the relatively-new YSEQ firm. A few (unknown) men have taken advantage of the self-test opportunity that we enable through YEQ at http://acreetree.net/ydnaselftest.html , which has confirmed or disproved their lineages privately, without requiring them to join our Project itself. YSEQ conveniently posts anonymous test-result totals.
These days, we are focusing less on growth than on discovering specifics of our genetic, geographic and genealogical origins.
One of the two newcomers was my great-grandson, who took FTDNA's revealing "Big-Y" test. As expected, he inherited the consecutive Y-SNP mutations A2156, A2155 and A2154. The first of those confirmed him as a descendant of William Acree (c1710-c1767) of Hanover Co. Virginia, who had probably inherited it from a grandfather. The second confirmed his descent from William's son, John Sr. The third confirmed his descent from John's great-grandson, who was my grandfather. My great-grandson didn't acquire a subsequent, detectable Y-SNP, as I expected. Atypically, five generations have passed in my line without yielding a new identifying mutation.
The other newcomer, surnamed Tweedale, tested for the maximum 111 Y-STR markers (included in the Big-Y, which also discloses the more valuable Y-SNPs). He was found to match the 'Virginia Acrees" closely at those markers, as twelve other non-Acrees in our Project do--sharing our rare, distinguishing, fractional microallele (13.2 at DYS385b) in particular. He tested additionally for A2156, but, like the other closely matching non-Acrees, was found to lack it; so it remains an exclusive mutation that identifies the Virginia Acrees. If he should upgrade to the Big-Y in the future, he can be expected to share with the non-Acrees BY3313--the Y-SNP that immediately preceded A2156 chronologically, in addition to all of the Y-SNPs that originated before BY3313 and a few Y-SNPs that originated during the several hundred years afterwards that pertain to his own line.
There have been no developments this year regarding the very distantly related Maryland Acrees, New Jersey Akers, Oldakers, Acras, numerous descendants of the orphan Jasper Newton Acree, or their respective Y-DNA matches.
The table below summarizes how our participants, listed by surname in the rows, fit into identified genetic groups in the columns. (Those in the Singles column lack matches.) It shows in the Totals column that 63 of us have the name Acree, that a total of 21 of us have variants of the Acree name, and that 22 others have entirely different (non-Acree) surnames. The latter have joined our project because their closely-matching test results associate them with our genetic groups, indicating that they share early ancestors with Acree and Acree-variant participants.
| Participants | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Genetic Groups | VA Acree | MD Acree | NJ Akers | VA Acra | Jasper | Singles | Totals |
| Acree | 53 | 3 | - | 1 | 3 | 3 | 63 |
| Acrey | 2 | - | - | - | - | 1 | 3 |
| Akrie | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 |
| Acrea | - | 1 | - | - | - | - | 1 |
| Acra | - | - | - | 1 | - | 2 | 3 |
| Akers | - | - | 4 | - | - | 2 | 6 |
| Acres | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| Ackers | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| Dacre | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| Oldaker | - | - | 3 | - | - | - | 3 |
| Acord | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| Others | 13 | 6 | 1 | - | - | 2 | 22 |
| Totals | 69 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 14 | 106 |
Last year's report emphasized that our Project has been unable to learn the circumstances of the arrival in America of any of our Colonial progenitors, the identities of their respective parents, or their specific places of origin in England.
With regard to William Acree, progenitor of the Virginia Acrees, who is the forefather of most living Acrees including the above 56 Project participants, genetic and genealogical evidence indicates that he had "Scots-Irish" origins in the western English-Scottish border area and may have been associated in some way with the 14th-century Dacre Barony there. "Ancient DNA" findings hint that he descended earlier from a Norwegian Viking who came to that area about a thousand years ago. He was almost certainly an immigrant to Colonial Virginia because he can't be connected to any Acrees or men with similar surnames who lived there before him. From family lore, we have concluded that he came to the colony as a young man within the huge influx of Scots-Irish immigrants in the early 1700s.
We don't know where William lived in northwest England before he arrived in Virginia, but he was probably from historic Lancashire, where recorded baptisms of Acrees of various surname spellings were abundant, especially with the spelling Ackers. He was probably born into an Ackers family. From an examination of baptismal records, his most likely parents appear to have been John and Deborah Ackers of Prescot, Lancashire. (Please don't post this tentative conjecture anywhere.)
Among the non-Acree men who closely match the Virginia Acrees genetically (the 13 "other" Project participants above who are surnamed Ashley, Brown, Collier, Peel, Tweedale, Wells and Williamson, and 7 non-participants who are surnamed Cowpe, Hall, Unsworth and Willoughby), a few have researched their patrilineal lines back to the 17th century. Their common origin, coincidentally, was in Lancashire--specifically the area within the 65-mile corridor stretching from Liverpool to Leeds that includes mentioned towns of Prescot, Wigan, Manchester, Rochdale, Bradford, Rainhill and the Yarrow River. This provides more conclusive evidence that William Acree, as well as the less-researched non-Acree matches, once lived there, too.
Our Project is fortunate to include a participant surnamed Ackers (Ackers043), an accomplished Ackers researcher, who lives in that specific area of Lancashire and has taken the Big-Y test. Belonging to haplogroup T, his lineage is quite remote from the Virginia Acrees, who belong to haplogroup R1b, as well as from our Project's other genetic groups. But he and I have conceived a practical methodology that may greatly assist geographical discernment and genealogical research for both him and for the 56 Virginia Acrees (who, with their 13 non-Acree matches, together constitute nearly two-thirds of our Project's participants).
It's likely that the numerous Ackers men currently living in that area of Lancashire possess widely differing ancestral Y-SNPs, given the probability of diverse early origins and the numerous possibilities of mistaken paternity that occurred through the centuries. Some of them surely share the discovered Y-SNPs of Ackers043. It's reasonable to suppose that some of them may also be found to share those of the Virginia Acrees.
Our plan is to convince a few local Ackers men, selected mostly at random, to test for both Ackers043's and the Virginia Acrees' distinctive mutations at the YSEQ firm, at a cost of $20 per test. We would follow up by researching the men's early lineages if matches for either are found, rather than attempting laboriously and probably fruitlessly to determine genealogically the most promising candidates beforehand. For the Virginia Acrees, we will test for our distinguishing microallele at DYS385b, not initially for A2156, in order to cast a wider net and be of help also to our matching non-Acrees. We are fortunate to have developed the ability to test for single markers, including this one, rather than for lengthy strings of Y-STRs, and to be able to do so inexpensively at YSEQ. This can't be done at FTDNA, which requires costly prior testing for multiple Y-STRs.
Our venture is admittedly a long-shot, but we may get lucky and achieve a significant breakthrough. We anticipate that test subjects will not be motivated to pay for their own tests merely to help us. So, we'll have to pay for this initiative ourselves. Some contributed Project funds remain available. I'll finance additional tests myself. Ackers043 must conduct the difficult task of convincing British strangers, who have little or nothing to gain personally, to test in behalf of himself and a bunch of curious Americans. He will also provide invaluable local genealogical work. Even if this doesn't work out, we will owe him a huge debt of gratitude.
I again encourage everyone (males) to take the Big-Y test at FTDNA, which has been of crucial importance to our Project and is currently on sale. Twenty-five participants have taken it. If more descendants of William Acree of Virginia would take it (only five have done so, including me and my great-grandson), we may be able to discern Y-SNPs that distinguish William's other sons (my John's brothers) and confirm specific lines of descent. All Big-Y testers will discover Y-SNPs that are unique to their own lineages.
As both we and the Project age, it's worthwhile for participants who have FTDNA accounts to designate a beneficiary to take charge of their test kit in the event of death. This will assure that its worth will not be lost to posterity. Simply navigate to the Beneficiary Information page in Account Settings, under your name on the upper right. I have designated my son. If you have no one special to name, FTDNA encourages you to choose the option to "Designate Group Project’s Administrator" (in our case, the Acree Surname DNA Project administrator), who is not a specific person (currently me) but whoever will be managing our Project at the time.