How can I find my DNA link with the Farnhams?
The common ancestor could predate surname origins
QI have taken a Big Y test with FamilyTreeDNA ( familytreedna. com). My only Big Y match is with a Farnham from Maine, USA. He is a descendant of Ralph Farnham who migrated from the UK on board the James in 1635. Mr Farnham and I are currently searching for the non-paternity event or name change, possibly c1600s or earlier. We do not connect at the autosomal level, and I have not found any Farnhams in my DNA matches on the various sites I have tested with my Y tree. I can’t get my ancestry out of Norfolk, my nearest link to Farnhams is possibly from Cambridgeshire, but I can’t find any that have been tested or are doing family trees.
Darren Reed
ADNA testing is very good at telling us that two people are related, but on its own it can’t tell us precisely how we are related. FamilyTreeDNA will be providing age estimates for Big Y matches, but the date for the roll-out of this feature is not yet known. In the meantime, you can get an estimate of the time to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) for you and Mr Farnham by looking at the Big Y matching menu and checking the number of non-matching variants. With the Big Y-700 test, a new variant occurs on average every 83 years. If you and Mr Farnham have 12 non-matching variants (ie, six each) this would place the TMRCA at about 500 years ago. With more non-matching variants than this, the common ancestor could predate surname origins and the availability of genealogical records.
All second cousins should match with an autosomal DNA test, so the lack of a match with Mr Farnham shows that you must be more distantly related. Are you getting autosomal matches with the surname Reed? It would help if you could find known male relatives who share your Reed ancestry from Norfolk who could take a Y-DNA test. Ideally you want to find men who are more distantly related (eg fifth or sixth cousins) so you can triangulate the matches back to your common ancestor and rule out a recent non-paternity event (when someone’s presumed father is not in fact the biological father). A 37-marker test would suffice for such testing.
To locate and recruit men with the Reed or Farnham surname for testing, try searching the electoral registers at Findmypast ( findmypast. co.uk), 192.com or
The Phone Book Online ( thephonebook.bt.com/ person/). Build out the trees to identify people with the appropriate ancestry. Then send them a letter, or give them a call.
Debbie Kennett