The beginning of this journey
This story begins with a book written about our Forgey/Forgy family written in the 1950's called "A Genealogical History of Forgy, Forgey and Forgie in America" . In that book the author Lucille Forgy Wallace speculated whether all of the early families coming to America were related? In 1958 there was no way to prove this because no documents survive that would prove or disprove a relationship. All of these families came to America in the 18th century. They were ethically Scottish but many of them came from Northern Ireland. Since all of these families were coming from the British empire there are no passenger lists to even trace these families back to a specific place, which might prove a relationship. |
| From Lucille Forgy Wallace's book |
One of the goals of our Forgey/Forgy & Forgie DNA project at Family Tree DNA has been to test the hypothesis that all families carrying these names are related? A distant cousin of mine with the surname Forgey was the first to test for our group. That was back in 2011. His first match with a related surname was a Forgie. This match was a mismatch by 3 markers on 37 markers. Mismatching by this many markers does prove a relation, but that relationship would be quite distant going back to Ulster, Ireland or Scotland?
Initially having only one surname related match I checked the Y-Search and noticed there was another Forgy male in that database but that man had a different haplogroup. My distant cousin's haplogroup was I- M223 and the Forgy at Y-Search was in a different I-M253 haplogroup. I felt like maybe we were seeing proof all Forgey/Forgys weren't related? According to an Irish surname study and Lucille Wallace's book the Forgey/Forgy and Forgie surnames are variants of Ferguson. There are different unrelated Ferguson lines so it's possible all people with the surname Forgey etc. aren't related either.
My Uncle later tested and matched our first tester and distant cousin on 37 markers. They mismatched each other by 1 marker on 37 markers. They are now both in the Big Y project at Family Tree DNA, and they now have their own SNP named I-BY19896 which is hundreds of years younger than our previous SNP prediction. So we are confident that all of the Forgey/Forgys that headed south from Pennsylvania to initially settle Tennessee, along with the border area of Virginia, and North Carolina are all related.
Discovering a different haplogroup and possible different unrelated family line led me to seek out more people descended from that line to confirm there was another haplogroup and not an NPE.
A Surprising Thing Happened
It took me a few years to find another person in that line to test. In 2014 another male in the Robert Forgy DNA line tested. A surprising thing happened when his test results came in. He didn't match his distant cousin, who was a 5th cousin on paper, or anyone in our Forgey group which had now grown larger. Most testers matched the I-M223 haplogroup. This man was in a R haplogroup. Now we had two distant cousins who didn't match anyone? Did both of these lines have NPE's or just one? We needed more testers to find out.
Six years later
Fast forward 6 years later we had someone in another line which had not tested join our group. He was from the Hugh Forgey Revolutionary War veteran line. He turned out to be from the very common R-M269 haplogroup also. He had many pages of matches. One of his 12 marker matches turned out to be our R-M269 match that didn't match his cousin or anyone else. Our previous Robert Forgy descendant was only tested on 12 markers. These two men were perfect matches on 12 markers. With such a common haplogroup this could be a coincidental match? The 12 marker test needed to be upgraded to at least 37 markers, which we did.Last Friday the upgraded results came in and these two men still match on 37 markers. I'm confident now there is a different haplogroup shared by those with these shared surnames. The I-M253 haplogroup could unfortunately be an NPE?
Our two R-M269 haplogroup matches mismatched by 2 markers on 37 markers. Our more distantly related testers tend to mismatch by two markers on 37 markers. There definitely isn't a close relationship between these two cousins. The relationship could be 300 or more years ago.
Does this prove that all Forgey/Forgys were never related? It certainly could be there was a line break hundreds of years ago resulting in different male haplogroups? Both of the R haplogroup men do match a Ferguson so it is possible that their surname comes from a different Ferguson line. We do now know there were two different male lines going back hundreds of years that aren't related. So it appears that all of the men that originally came to America were not related through the male line.
As more people from different surname lines test we might solve more mysteries and find more haplogroups. We may solve problems and find new problems to solve. DNA is always unpredictable.
I am a female descendent of Hugh Wilson Forgey the Revolutionary War Veteran. Since I was born in 1950 genealogy was just coming into school books this is all interesting. I gather there may be a possibility that Lucille Wallace's book mentioning a Norman connection for Forgeys could be possible with this new line. Does the testing of these two Rs show anything more than just broad information about potential origins or length of stay in a geographical area?
ReplyDeleteI am reading Winston Chruchill's A History of the English Speaking Peoples and none of the groups you have for Forgeys are out of range for the middle areas of the Isle of Britain. The new people who came to the island never managed to rid themselves of all of the previous islanders! Of course Hugh Wilson Forgey came from Antrim in Ireland; still there is an excellent chance he could be connected to Britain ultimately.
Linda Clement