DNA Results

We are starting to get DNA results back in from FamilyTreeDNA.com. A while back we submitted a DNA test kit taken by Wendell Allen. We are hoping to confirm or deny the family story that John William Allen (Wendell's grandfather) was the son of Andrew Jackson Allen of Carroll County. So far we have received results for 25 of 37 genetic markers on the Y chromosome.

Our preliminary test results place our Allen line in a certain Haplogroup. A Haplogroup is determined by genetic markers that mutate very infrequently. Everyone belonging to a certain Haplogroup descends from the first male to show that specific sequence so Haplogroups are used to determine ancient origin dating back thousands of years. Our Haplogroup is called M269 and generally people of this group come from Western Europe. In fact, as many as 80% of Europeans belong to this group. This result is not surprising given the migration patterns of Europeans to America. Although there have been family rumors of his mother, Frances Shiflett, being part Native American, John William Allen's father was a white, western European.

As the more detailed Y-37 results come in, the web site will point us to others in their database that are exact or close matches to Wendell's results. I will wait until the last 12 markers are processed before jumping to any conclusions, but we have found two exact matches and neither one is an Allen. Their last names are Stewart and Ellis.

More to come....

Herring Family Cemetery

On May 22, I found time to pay a quick visit to the Herring Family Cemetery off of Dickerson Road in Albemarle County. The cemetery is located just to the west of Lucian Herring's old home on the southeast side of Piney Mountain. View the location on Google Maps by following this link.


The cemetery is surrounded by a chain link fence and has a gate at the north end. When I visited, the cemetery and the area around it had not been mown in some time. There are a few large trees shading the cemetery, including a very large empress tree.

Most of the grave markers are in good shape, though the grave of Katherine Hamm Herring (wife of Benjamin Franklin Herring) is broken. I have posted pictures of some of the stones below.