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From: Neal Watts <>
Subject: Re: [NCScots] murray surname dna project announcement
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 11:35:26 -0600


Allen,

Hooray - This sounds great.

I have been a participant in the Watts surname Y-DNA project for about 18
months. With as few as 40 participants we have made some startling
discoveries. E.g., We have found several well researched Watts families
that are closely DNA related in the early 18th century. We are now looking
at collateral families, locations, etc. in an attempt to determine how this
jigsaw fits together.

We have found at least three undocumented adoptions. Apparently, small
children were often raised using the surname of the stepfather after the
death of the father and remarriage of the mother.

The overall trend we are seeing is that there appear to be far fewer unique
families than I would have previously guessed. In our Watts lines, current
data indicates fewer than 10 unique families immigrated in the 18 century.


Good hunting (genealogy wise),

NEal


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