My husband's surname is the maiden name of his paternal grandmother 'Webb' even though we know that this is not his correct surname, both he, his father and his children all bear this name including me as his wife. Sorry to contradict, but under UK, USA and most Commonwealth law, it is his correct surname as it was the surname of his mother at the time of his birth. Am I missing something here? After all, it has been a busy Christmas and New Year holiday and perhaps I’ve just lost the plot. If WEBB is the paternal grandmother’s surname how can it be his mother’s surname at the time of his birth? If you know the maiden name of the paternal grandmother then you know the surname name of the man she married, ie the grandfather, unless the child was born prior to their marriage - but then why use the paternal grandmother’s details and not the maternal grandmother’s? Has any research been done with the mother? If born illegitimate wouldn’t the child’s surname have been the mother’s surname or associated family name? However, in family history, often nothing adds up! Kathy -----Original Message----- From: essex-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:essex-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Julie Webb Sent: 01 January 2013 05:28 To: essex-uk@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [Ess] DNA Although the DNA discussion is technically 'off topic', may I give an example of it's very important role in Family History. My husband never knew who his grandfather was, the birth certificate of his father has in the place of his father a blank line. I spent at least 10 years searching by every means possible, paper trails, oral history etc to find out who this man may be, to no avail. My husband's surname is the maiden name of his paternal grandmother 'Webb' even though we know that this is not his correct surname, both he, his father and his children all bear this name including me as his wife. I am a great believer in the value of DNA studies no matter how significant they may be at this stage of their scientific development. With this in mind we lodged my husband's DNA sample over 4 years ago using the Webb surname group as a start. Of course, he does not match any of the identified ' Webb' DNA groups and is in the unclassified group. This is OK and we knew that would be the case when we started down this road, it was my hope that somewhere along the line his DNA would match with someone to give us an idea of where we may search, really doing things back to front when it comes to male DNA lineage. About July of last year we had a request from the convener of the Stewart DNA group to become a member and to upgrade from our known markers to what we could afford, this then went to 67 markers and we started to get many matches at this level. Over the course of months there has been much discussion with scientists and surname coordinators of the project, suffice to say my husband is now an accepted member of the Stewart DNA group, having tested at Y111, his DNA connection to the Stewart family comes at about 370 years ago, we have also done SNP tests and indeed Royal Stewart testing which is causing a lot of controversy to say the least (having a Webb surname in the middle of 100 Stewart surnames does not sit well with some!). We have no paper work to prove who his ancestral paternal line may be and we don't know what part of Scotland his ancestors came from, BUT, he now knows he is a member of the Stewart family, this in itself has given him great peace of mind and does indeed show the value of DNA testing, miracles can happen ! Regards Julie Webb (Stewart) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Any problems, please contact the List Admin: Essex-UK-admin@rootsweb.com ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ESSEX-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message