Merrell, Merrill and Merle Family Genealogy
I've just posted the message below on the Merrell and Merrill forum pages.The Merle family is included here as some of us believe our names may have originated with the Merle or DeMerle surnames.
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Something which might interest you:
My name is David W. Merrell.For some time I've been doing a little family history research as a hobby.On my paternal side, I have a paper trail back nine generations to William Merrill, born about 1645, who came to this country as an indentured servant, settling along Pitts Creek in Somerset County, Maryland.
Upon trying to connect my William to a family group in England, a number of Merrell and Merrill families have been found that may end up being separate and distinct lines without common ancestry.As surnames were not common until the 1400's for much of humanity, it is very possible these folks are totally unrelated.On the other hand, genetic genealogy testing can and does answer these questions.As most of us do not have a way to document our family roots back that far, it is the only way we can confirm family relationships and identify our ethnic and geographical origins.
Along the way, I began communicating with a Bill Merrill who lives in New Jersey.Bill was also interested in his family roots and agreed to have a 37-marker Y-DNA test done at Family Tree DNA so we could compare our markers.I was very excited about this as he was one of the Warwickshire, England Merrill's, a family group I believed my William descended from.His test results, although also being classified as "R1b", were too distant from my own and actually fell outside of the values where we could even be distantly related.
As you are probably aware, though, there are many Merrell and Merrill family groups.If you have spent time with your own family records, you may realize a number of Merrills and Merrells came to America about the same time.There are the Merrills in Maine, the Nathaniel Merrill family group in Massachusetts, the Staten Island and Hopewell, New Jersey Merrills, the Rowan County, North Carolina Merrills (Merrells) and my own Somerset County, Maryland Merrills, among others.
Added to all this, of course, is how our Merrills and Merrells originally came by our surnames.That's another story(ies), though.If you're interested drop me a line and I'll tell you what I know about the Merle's, Meriel's, Muirgheal's and others and why some of us may be more closely related, say, the Smiths than to other Merrills or Merrells.
I'm hoping you too might want to add your genetic piece to our puzzle and try to figure this all out.If we can get six of us to have the Y-DNA test done, we can start our own "Surname and Genealogical Based Project", which many others have done.The results of your test is easy to compare with others (even families closely related not sharing our surname).I've ascertained some quite surprising family relationships, relating to a common ancestor many generations ago in common with a number of British Isle families.You will do the same, believe me.
For the Y-DNA genealogical test, you must be a male bearing the Merrill, Merrell, Merle name or some related variation.If you want to check it out, and I very much hope you do, please follow this link:
www.ftdna.com
To be of any real benefit, the 37-marker test must be done to get the highest resolution results (more markers to compare).
I have a home page at www.merrell.net that I've recently put up.As Bill Merrill's results have come in, though, I need to go back and make some changes to my ydna.html page.If you go to my website, you will find links to explain not only DNA testing but some of the family history stuff I've been doing.I apologize in advance to those not being able to crank their screen resolution up to 1600 x 1200.I designed it that way, and it's caused me quite a bit of grief.I figure by the time I get around to changing it to something like 800 x 640, most folks will be using monitors with native resolutions of 1600 x 1200 or better.
If you have any questions or comments, please drop me a line at [email protected] or [email protected].
I look forward to hearing from you.If you should also be related to my William Merrill of Maryland, I really look forward to hearing from you.:)
Thanks for taking the time to read through this.I appreciate your time and I do hope we share an interest in our family's history.