If we assume we are all related, somehow, then there must be a common ancestor. If we further assume we are a place name family from the town of Hobkirk, formerly Hopekirk and Hoppchirk, we should be able to reconstruct the DNA of our original ancestor or ancestors if we have enough DNA samples. The town of Hoppchirk dates back to 1220, so our common ancestor could go back close to 800 years.
We currently have eleven samples, from seven distinct lines, to work with.
The Melrose line. We have 4 samples from descendants of three brothers.
They are from John(born 1809), William(born 1811) & Alexander(born
1823)
We had two samples from the Alexander line, one with
a mutation. The other three samples matched perfectly.
The Glasgow/Dalkeith line. We have two samples, but we could use one from another part of the line.
The Largs line. We have one sample that matched 36 out of 37 markers with the Melrose line.
The Hopekirk line. We have one sample from the eldest living male from the only known Hopekirk family we've been able to contact.
The Cavers Hobkirk line. We have one sample.
The Southdean Hobkirk line. We have one sample.
The Jedburgh Habkirk/Hobkirk line We have one sample.
By comparing the initial results, we can see where the common values are and we can tell which lines may have mutated over the the last 800 plus years.
The more samples we get, we may be able to determine which lines are more closely related. This may be useful in determining the direction of further research for some of the lines. That is to say, if a family in London can only trace their family back to the early 1800's but has similar DNA to a family from Newcastle that dates back to the 1600's, they may be able to concentrate their research in a specific area.
Following is our more detailed analysis of the results:
In the first 12 markers, the following mutations occurred:
Hopekirk mutated on the 1st, or #393 marker.
Glasgow mutated on the 6th, or # 385b marker.
The 12th, or 389-2 marker is unclear, as we have 3 different values.
In the the next 13 markers, the following mutations occurred:
Melrose Hopkirk mutated on the 13th, or #458 marker, sometime after the year 1685.
Melrose & Largs families mutated on the 18th marker, or #447 marker, sometime before 1685.
Glasgow mutated on the 21st, or #449 marker.
Southdean Hobkirk mutated on 25th, or #464d marker.
For markers 26 through 37 we have the following:
The 28th, or Marker #607 is a value of 23 for the Hopekirks and the Southdean
Hobkirks, but for all other branches the vaule is 19.
This is a major deviation, which leads us to believe these two branches of
the family split off from the others many years earlier.
Based on the above information, we can guess as to the DNA of the "original Hoppchirk" and the above lines have the following number of mutations from the "first" Hoppchirk, excluding the 12th and 28th markers:
Largs as one mutation
Melrose has two mutations
Glasgow has two mutations
Hopekirk has two mutations
Southdean Hobkirk has two mutations
Jedburgh Habkirk/Hobkirk has one mutation
With all the thousands upon thousands of samples in the Family Trees DNA database, only 6 samples have 22 or more markers in common with the Largs sample, from the 25 marker batches. They are the Melrose Hopkirk, Glasgow Hopkirk, Jedburgh Habkirk/Hobkirk, Southdean Hobkirk, the Hopekirk, and one other individual with a different last name. So there must be some kind of connection. I have no explanation for the one unrelated individual, but he disappears from the radar screen when the sample is expanded to 37 markers. So it may just be a fluck, or he could be someone that is more distantly related from a time prior to the use of surnames.
This page last updated on 1 June 2008