Living Russell Descendants

One of the genealogical brick walls that I’ve always had is tracing the origin of my Russell ancestors. I’m pretty certain that my great*6 grandfather was Robert Russell who was born around 1730. He left a will when he passed away in 1811 which named all his children, including his oldest son, John, who was born in 1756. John, in turn, left a very detailed will when he passed away in 1833 which not only named his children, but where they all lived. I have DNA connections for individuals descended from several of John’s children, confirming my being descended from him, and this in turn means that I am descended from Robert as well. But the typical DNA analysis from Ancestry or 23andme only gives an idea of what parts of the world you are descended from and connections to other individuals is limited to going back 5-6 generations.

However, there is another type of DNA analysis called y-DNA which looks at a number of markers on the y chromosome and can group people into what are called haplogroups. It is limited to tracing lines of males since only males have a y chromosome.

My cousin (2^nd cousin, once removed), George contacted me indicating that he had ordered a DNA test for this type of analysis. There is already a Russell grouping to which these results can be submitted which will indicate which haplogroup you belong to and who else is in that group. He is hoping that by matching to other individuals we may be able to combine our research and potentially get matched to others who may be able to take our ancestral line back farther. One of his requests was to ask if there were other living Russell males related to us who might be willing to take the y-DNA test as well. This type of research is right up my alley.

 

Methodology

I started at Robert Russell and began building a downward descendant tree. Since we are only looking for male descendants who can pass on the y-DNA from Robert, all females can be ignored, including their descendants. Also, any of the males who died young, or did not have children can be scratched out. If all lines down from anyone terminate for any of these reasons, then that person can also be eliminated. I continued downward using information in ancestry.com (family trees, census records, etc.) until getting to individuals who were born in the early 1900s (census records currently stop at 1940). If there were family trees who had placeholders for male descendants which were “hidden” (indicating that the individual was still living) or there were other indications that the individual may have had male descendants, then I started using other sources (obituaries, phone directories, etc.) to try and find male descendants who might still be living. Most of the time I was able to find the names of these individuals and often a phone number or city where they are living. Once I found a living male Russell, I did not search deeper (for example, I would stop at myself and my brothers and not be concerned whether they had male children/grandchildren in more recent generations). Thus, most of the individuals I identified were in my generation.

 

Results

Robert Russell had three sons – John (1756-1833), James (1757-1808), and Abijah (1765-1836). John had the largest family (and the most sons), but James and Abijah also had male offspring. Below are listed each of these family and what I found.

John

Caleb (1775-1830): The only continuous male lines from Caleb are from his grandson, Walter. The eleven living males include myself and my brothers, two cousins in New Milford, CT, George and his siblings/nephews/cousins, and one other 2^nd cousin in CT. Since I know all these individuals, George be the representative of us in getting his y-DNA tested. None of the other lines from Caleb have continued unbroken.

William (1778-1848): There are four living males in this line carrying on the Russell name – one man and his three nephews. They are all over 60 years of age. I was able to locate contact information for three of them.

Lee (1800-1888): There are a total of fourteen males in this line carrying on the Russell name. I was able to get names for eleven of them and contact information for five of them.

Levi (1813-1896): Four individuals still passing on the Russell name and I was able to get contact information for three of them.

James

There are a total of eight individuals here, all descendants of James’ great-grandson, John (1828-1907). I was able to get contact information for seven of them.

Abijah

Only one individual possibly here, but I could not locate a name or contact information for him.

Summary

There are a total of 42 living individuals who have a continuous male connection to Robert Russell. That’s a pretty fair number of people, so I’m pretty sure that we will be able to convince a few of them to participate in our y-DNA contribution project.

 

Family Tree DNA – Russell group

As I mentioned above, there is already a website that is collecting male Russell individuals y-DNA results. There are roughly 340 results in this database. Russell is a very common name. Thus, there are a number of different haplo-groups to which these individuals have been linked (E1b1a, E1b1b1, I1, etc.). But 70% of the individuals who have submitted results are in the haplo-group R1b. These individuals have been further subdivided into a number of different “Lineage” groups based on their sharing a common identified ancestor or a small section of their descendant tree. In looking through these results, it appears that there may be one person in the above list of Robert Russell’s descendants who has submitted his y-DNA results. That person identified his ancestor as “David Russell, b.c. 1823, Putnam, NY, USA”. I believe this to be David M Russell (1829-1905), one of the sons of Lee (1800-1888), as Robert’s descendants lived in Putnam/Dutchess County, NY. If correct, this means that one of the three living male descendants of David whom I identified in my research may be the person who submitted that y-DNA result. This result is currently in haplogroup “R1b – No match” as there are no other individuals with whom they share a section of their tree. If George’s y-DNA results match, then we will contact the individual and confirm our shared ancestry. However, since this individual only apparently knows his ancestry back to David and George and I already know it back three more generations (David – Lee – John – Robert), then it may not add much to our knowledge of where Robert came from.

However, in looking at the overall results of all the individuals in haplo-group R1b, the place of origin (which is supplied by the individuals submitting their results) is overwhelmingly similar – with the primary places being Scotland, Northern Ireland, Unknown Origin followed by England, United Kingdom, United States, and a few miscellaneous entries. For those with common lineages, the first three greatly dominate. The other places of origin such as England and United Kingdom primarily show up among those for whom there is not yet identified a common lineage. This seems to me to be pretty good confirmation that my suspicion of my ancestor, Robert Russell, being from Scotland is correct.

Genealogical research is not simple. One needs to look at not only the obscure details given in records, but also be able to step back and look at the totality of the information and how it all blends together to tell the story of our ancestors and their history. The patterns that can be seen in the collection of haplo-groups is just one more type of information to take into account.