I doubt if young people, today, appreciate the social pressure there was on our predecessors to have illustrious ancestry. That pressure is part of the reason for so much very bad genealogy in the past, especially the era of "vanity books" in the late 1800s and early 1900s. That pressure came down to my parents' generation in that two of my aunts (one on my father's side, one on my mothers) worked on the family genealogy for decades in an attempt to confirm our alleged illustrious connections. Ironically, while nearly all the family myths on both sides were bogus, our "true" ancestry has connections that are just as illustrious and far more interesting, if they could only have given up on the myths. On that score, my projects, some ten years old now, have been repeated dispensers of disappointment for some members, including a situation exactly parallel to the one you describe. How you do even consider connecting someone who arrived indentured for his passage to a wealthy, powerful aristocratic family? But people did, and genetic testing has now proven them not to be related. I was the only one delighted. Being skeptical saves you from a lot of disappointment when reality sets in. Diana > From: Matthew Simonds > Sent: Monday, June 09, 2014 2:23 AM > To: y-dna-haplogroup-i@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [yDNAhgI] Am I in error regarding RASEY-RAZEE non-match? > > "it seems the problem is that he got totally invested in the "big family myth" > and isn't prepared to let > it go....the big myth connects us to an illustrious family that is Hg R1b." > > LOL...I've got the same kind of myth in my own family that my immigrant > ancestor William Simonds (1611-1672) of Woburn, MA was the grandson of a > gentleman named William Symonds (d. 1606) who had a coat of arms, was a mayor > and alderman of Winchester, is buried in Winchester cathedral, and left a very > large estate. Unfortunately, the immigrant to America, William Simonds of > Woburn, MA was probably an indentured servant and married a woman who also > came to America as an indentured servant. He was also probably illiterate > since in numerous Massachusetts court records, he always signed his name with > as "X" unlike a number of other people in Woburn, MA. None of this fits the > profile of someone from the landed gentry. But this totally unsupported notion > that he did come from the landed gentry is a myth that many people want to > believe in and which ought to be debunked. > > Matthew Simonds