Descendants of John Griggs of Gravesend

y-Chromosome DNA Test Results

Background

The Griggs/Grigg/Gregg y-Chromosome DNA Surname Project, of which we are a part, was started several years ago by Dan Wharton. Dan's original goal was to attempt to determine if one of his maternal lines that descended from Moses Grigg/Gregg of Lunenburg County, Virginia was in anyway related to the other Griggs/Grigg/Gregg lines that immigrated through Virginia. Since that time Dan has expanded the scope of the project to include all Griggs/Grigg/Gregg lines that immigrated not only through Virginia but also through Massachusetts and New York.

The tests are administered by a company named "Family Tree DNA" . The actual test is quite simple, participants are mailed a DNA Test Kit and all they have to do is swab the inside of their mouth a couple times, mail the kit back and that's all there is to it. It takes about 4-6 weeks to get the results back. Each male will have one of several possible "alleles" at each "gene site." These differences are what distinguish individuals and their close paternal line relatives from other individuals and paternal lines. The more differences between any two individuals, the more generations there are that separate the two individuals from a common paternal ancestor.

Project Results

The Y-DNA test results for the participants whose ancestors immigrated through Virginia places them in the R1b, G or I Haplogroups. The participants who descend from Thomas Griggs of Roxbury (Massachusetts), that have been tested, also fall into the R1b Haplogroup. The test results for the descendants of John Griggs of Gravesend have a different result. Six out of the seven descendants of John Griggs that have been tested have identical markers at the 12-marker and 25-marker level and all fall into the Haplogroup R1a. The seventh descendant of the Gravesend Griggses that has been tested had significant enough variation at the 12-marker level that his test needs to be expanded to additional markers to confirm his placement. "Family Tree DNA" defines Haplogroup R1a as:

"Haplogroup R1a is believed to have originated in the Eurasian Steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas. This lineage is believed to have originated in a population of the Kurgan culture, known for the domestication of the horse (approximately 3000 B.C.E.). These people were also believed to be the first speakers of the Indo-European language group. This lineage is currently found in central and western Asia, India, and in Slavic populations of Eastern Europe."

Thus, because the descendants of the Gravesend Griggses that have been tested fall into a completely different haplogroup, those of us who descend from John Griggs of Gravesend not only do not share a recent common ancestor with any of the Griggs/Grigg/Gregg of Virginia or Massachusetts, but any possible common ancestor would have been long before the establishment of surnames, and thus the fact that we share a common surname with them is only coincidental.

The Haplogroup R1a occurs with greater frequently on the European Continent and is rather rare in England, but it does occur there. Therefore these test results are not inconsistent with the known heritage of John Griggs of Gravesend because we know that he was from England because based on 1698 Kings County Census John Griggs and his son John, Jr. had an (E) affixed next to their names meaning that they were English, plus no Griggs signed the 1687 Oath of Allegiance at Gravesend, Kings County, New York, thus their exclusion indicates that John Griggs and his son had no need to sign such an oath because they were English.

The following is a chart that sets forth the lines of the above six participants who descend from John Griggs of Gravesend.

Summary