Ruth, The DNA Study has shown us that there are five main unrelated Pennington families in the USA and about 80% of Penningtons fit into one of these five lineages. There are probably more lines of Penningtons that are concentrated in the UK and we have only picked up the odd descendant of these families in our study, since there are simply far fewer of these Penningtons living in this country these lines look like they are singlets for now. So far, 14 Penningtons who did not know their lineage took the test and 12 of them fit into one of these 5 PRA lineages that is an 86% success rate! What does this tell us about the Pennington surname? Most Penningtons took their name from one of two small villages in Lancashire and so one would expect that there would be relatively few separate families. Virtually every DNA based surname study, and there are 830 of them now, have found multiple genetic lines for surnames. For example in the Walker DNA study they have already found over 35 different lines of Walkers not surprising for this class of surname. It has been said that the PRA should encourage more groups and this is fine so long as we realize that these group numbers represent how well the paper trail can be linked together only. In reality the majority of these new PRA groups will be related ie have a single relatively recent male ancestor. Nick P. [email protected] 01/07/2004 06:42 PM Please respond to PRA-L To: [email protected] cc: Subject: Re: [Pennington-L] OK, I'm very happy with the site. Barbara, Thanks for explaining how you and others have worked so hard to make the Pennington group and site such a good one. I'm new to this site, so it's been interesting to see what information you have. I do belong to other family sites too and they all are a little bit different in different ways. It's the family that counts, so I consider all of the Pennington groups as my family and the only confusion I've had so far is that they are all separated into groups. I assume we are all from a common ancestor, but maybe I'm wrong about that. Thanks so much to you and everyone else who makes the site what it is. Ruth ==== PRA Mailing List ==== ==== PENNINGTON RESEARCH ASSOCIATION ==== For more information about the PRA DNA Study, visit our Web Site at http://www.penningtonresearch.org