What a fascinating subject to read about. I'm envious of your understanding of your lineage, even if you can't tap each separate ancestor back to the Vikings. What a good example you are for the rest of us. Irene -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 3:40 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [VAPATRICK] DNA shows two early Harris families of Patrick County were not related There were six Harris families in Patrick County at the time it was formed in 1791, but only William and Samuel Harris appear to have had descendants in the county a century later. William Harris married Sarah Steele in Cumberland County VA, and around 1785 they settled on Jacks Creek in what was then still Henry County. William had six sons who owned hundreds of acres on the headwaters of Smith River, but most soon left the county. In the 1880 census their only descendants in Patrick County were in the families of their grandson William III (1790 - 1876) and their great grandson Samuel Green Harris (1833 - after 1910). The other Harris patriarch was the Samuel Harris who married Sarah Elizabeth Hollandsworth in Patrick County in 1793 and settled on Blackberry Creek. Samuel had several sons, but only Daniel (ca. 1809 - 1879) remained in Patrick County and had Harris descendants there in the 1880 census. Since the families of William and Samuel lived within 10 miles of each other, it would be reasonable to assume that they were related, although there is no documentary evidence that they interacted. Results of DNA tests posted at _www.harrisdna.org_ (http://www.harrisdna.org) now indicate that William was in fact not closely related to Samuel. There are two test kits (numbers 8895 and 28636 in Group 10) from Harris men who trace their male line back to William, and one kit (number 8871 in Group 12) from a male lineal descendant of Samuel. The first two kits match exactly with each other, but they differ from the third kit. This indicates that one Harris male was not the biological ancestor from whom both William and Samuel got the surname Harris. The three DNA samples are similar enough, however, that they belong to the same type, called haplogroup I, which is common in Scandinavia. The explanation may be as follows. In the ninth century Viking warriors conquered Normandy, France, then after 1066 some of their descendants followed William the Conqueror to England. The Harris name originated among Normans at about that time. William and Samuel Harris were therefore probably descendants of Vikings, who became Normans, then Englishmen. William and Samuel may have descended from two of the English Harris men who arrived at Jamestown beginning in 1611. Charles Leon Harris ==== VAPATRIC Mailing List ==== Patrick Co., Va. List Administrator Barb Stanley [email protected]