Glenda Thank you for this Email. I knew that this family was familiar to me, but I first could not find it under Cecil County, Maryland. On a second thought, I would check to see if he was a DAR listing and found I have listed his family was Ch 25/1260 in Volume 25 for Boyd families in PA. His DAR entry is - Details? DAR Patriot Index of 1990. William: b 10-8-1731 IR d 4-2-1821 PA m Sarah Johnson PS DE All this only says that he came from Ireland, but not the County or any area within a County. The Clan Johnson came from the River Nith Valley in Dumfriesshire, both north and south of Dumfries. This is near the Maxwell's whom I know that the Boyds had close links with. So you maybe looking for an area in Ireland where either the Johnson's or Maxwell's settled and William Boyd's might have also come form the Dumfriesshire area of Scotland in the 1600's. Mike Boyd -----Original Message----- From: Glenda Denniston Sent: Monday, March 10, 2014 11:38 AM To: [email protected] Cc: Glenda Denniston ; Norman Boyd Subject: William Boyd and Sarah Johnson descendants Hi, Mike - I'm a direct descendant of William Boyd, b. 1731 in Ireland, and his wife Sarah Johnson (differing reports of birthplace - Ireland or Cecil Co., Maryland). My line runs through William's son, William (my 3rd great grandfather), b. 1765 in Cecil Co., Maryland or in Delaware. His tombstone inscription (Greenfield Cemetery in Highland Co., OH) says he was born in Delaware. From what I've been reading, though, there may not be an actual conflict as to place of birth - the borders of Maryland, Delaware and PA were at this time contested; the different accounts might actually be referring to the same place. At any rate, this younger William Boyd was born in the southeast colonies, and not in Ireland, which means that the family came to America before 1765. He then moved with his father and the rest of his family to Pennsylvania. In 1816 he moved to Ohio with other members of his family, including his wife, Anna Murray and their son John, b. 1806 in Northumberland PA (my 2nd great grandfather). This William died in Greenfield, Highland Co., OH in 1857. His father and several of his siblings had already moved to Waterford, Eire Co, OH where they remained. John, b. 1806, married in Ohio and had a son, John Wesley Boyd (my great grandfather). His son, Leon Ellis Boyd, married Frieda Marie Prietsch in Cincinnati. I have a couple good photographs of John Wesley Boyd, one with his grandson Norman Wingate Boyd, my late father. I have one sister and two brothers. My brother Norman Wingate Boyd Jr. And I were recently genotyped (his Y DNA tested by several companies including Family Tree DNA, at the 111-marker level). You are welcome to any of this information - it's all public, and I'll be happy to "invite" you to check the data if you want to. Just let me know. The thing I've found most interesting is that his Y DNA very closely resembles that of the Ian Cam branch of the MacGregor clan. Most people with the surname Boyd are quite different. We have, though, found at least some other Boyd's with the "MacGregor pattern." Our branch of Boyd's seems to be in actuality a branch of MacGregors who changed their surname (the MacGregor surname was outlawed in Scotland through much of the 1700s). I'd very much like to get other male Boyd's who are descended from William, b. 1731 DNA-tested. This could help sort out the innumerable confusing Boyd's who came to America. Another major problem is the seeming confusion of at least two Pennsylvania William Boyd's : 1) My William, b. 1731 in Ireland, emigrating via Newcastle to America and showing up in Northumberland County and later in Eire Co. PA, with some of his children accompanying him and others instead traveling Highland Co., OH or elsewhere (Robert). 2) The William Boyd family detailed in Five Scotch Irish Families... Who lived in Lancaster County. The list of children in these two different William Boyd families are noticeably different from each other. Because of the ease of importing data from other people's files in Ancestry.com, some of the supporting data for each of these families has become quite messed up in various family trees. I'm no genealogist, but I've spent many hours over the years trying to unravel these various Boyd connections. I think I might have a major lead in the DNA evidence I've mentioned, but it will only be useful for genealogy if descendants of other Boyd lines are tested (at 67, or better yet 111 or more markers for Y DNA) and the results compared with each other. I'm sure this is more than enough from me for the moment, but if you hear of other US Boyds who have been genetically tested, please let me know. I'm copying my brother as well as one other Boyd family member who has corresponded with me, so that as many people as possible will be comparing data. Thanks, Glenda (Boyd) Denniston in Madison, WI=