2015 - sale - FFinder "find"

If you want a great kickstart to the year, I have some remaining coupon codes for further $$ off the current sale prices for anyone interested.
The coupons range from $5 or $10 off any test (which could be used to transfer ancestry tests to FTDNA and unlock all your matches) through $5 or $10 off FamilyFinder , Y-DNA 37/67/111, mtDNAFull Sequence to  $100 off BigY.
Sale and coupons expire midnight 31st December Houston time.



It would be a great time for anyone with FAIRBAIRN ancestry to consider FamilyFinder tests, a very useful tool in our genealogy toolkit.
The more tests we have, the more data, and the easier it gets to divide your matches into specific lines and pinpoint the common ancestors.

FamilyFinder has turned up trumps for me and looks to have given us hope to finally prove a theory about the family of Archibald & Alison (CROSSER) FAIRBAIRN, namely that the Robert FAIRBAIRN living in Canada by about 1827/8 and living in Richmond, Ontario 1850s is indeed their son.
We never have managed to find/convince a direct male line FAIRBAIRN to test Y-DNA to prove this, but live in hope.
But we do now have a triangulated match on chromosome 5 between myself (Lorna), GD (F-29) a descendant of David son of Archibald and Alison, and a descendant of Robert's granddaughter Mary Catherine KELLAR nee FAIRBAIRN via his son William.

Looking good to start the new year.

As 2014 draws to a close, I wish you all a great 2015, with many thanks to all of our FAIRBAIRN project participants who have helped with some fascinating discoveries since the project began.

The original question that led to the creation of the project was helped immensely with our very first kit and match - the ancestry of Archibald FAIRBAIRN (married Alison CROSSER).

My second question, also specific to my family, was to prove John FAIRBAIRN in New York by 1840, father known to be a Walter, was the son of my Walter.
That took some time to prove, but was eventually proven both by Y-DNA matches and shortly thereafter with a missing piece of the papertrail.

The more generic question was the inter-relatedness of the Scottish Borders FAIRBAIRNs in particular, but FAIRBAIRNs in general.
That has led to some surprises, thanks to all of those contributing their Y-DNA.
Several paper trails turned out to need revision, but in the main, the bulk of those tested, do indeed relate to each other, belonging to haplogroup I1, with the earliest tree, and modal value for that haplogroup being the Cockburnspath FAIRBAIRN ancestral lines.

Perhaps in 2015 we could add a few more lines from further afield into the project - Yorkshire FAIRBURN in particular.

1660s split?

The supplementary pages have now been updated to include the latest set of full results, from the line of John & Christian(WOOD) FAIRBAIRN.
This includes a relatively major revamp of the dna signature chart for Lineage 1 "clump 2" incorporating this new knowledge - hopefully sensibly.
Any contributions to this interpretation are most welcome!

Looking at the marker results we now have available, I'm guessing that there was a split in the "clump 2" lines about the 1660s, where those including the above John, also James and Helen (GOODFELLOW), and F-11's James, can be deemed to have genetically split (slightly).
Take a look at the by now very wide signature chart and see if it makes sense to you.
(It also now includes the Eckford line of F-27).

The project is still very interested in finding representatives of other known lives to aid in piecing this huge jigsaw together - direct male line descendants of John and Helen (ANDERSON), and of the Ednam Blacksmith family with all the Edwards would be most welcome - and what about the Selkirk families?
Check out the Wanted! pages for some lines we are particularly interested in, but any not listed on the pages anywhere are also "wanted", just not yet documented.
Then of course there are the Yorkshire ones, are they related?

Subsidies for testing may be possible for the first of a line to test.
Those ineligible to join in the fun by reason of sex, or descended from a female line may help by contributing towards the subsidies - simply follow the "Contribute to the Surname Project General Fund" link on the lhs of our Family Tree DNA project pages.