DNA testing is hardly a cure all--I now have Mason six brick walls instead of the one I started with.

But it has done a remarkable job of correcting errors in connection made by earlier researchers who tended to attach people to the nearest person by the same surname.

I am a researcher of Masons in colonial Virginia. These families have been hopelessly scrambled by researchers of previous generations, connections based mostly on proximity. But through DNA we have begun to realize that those connections are simply incorrect. More importantly, we have begun to realize just how many DIFFERENT Mason families lived in colonial Virginia. Sometimes we are finding there are as many as two or three Mason families in a single county--yet in the past family historians have assumed--and tried to force--a connection, mostly based on name alone. 

A major mystery DNA has revealed is a Gerard Alexander Mason who married in Effingham GA 1818 (of record) and had one son. His descendants, based on the name alone, tied him to the Gunston Hall Masons.  George Mason had a grandson named Gerard Alexander Mason. This connection has been in Gunston Hall files for years.  DNA says no--and connected him to my Mason families in Stafford and Culpeper, so I started to dig. Did not take me long to discover the document (his widow's will) in GA that said he was deceased by 1824 (the PW Gerard Alexander died 1849) and "of North Carolina."  The Gerard Alexander of the Gunston Hall line never left Prince William Co. Moreover, he was too young to be the father of the Effingham Mason, and he left a will in PW which named his brother and a nephew--no son in GA. 

It seems very clear to me (and to DNA!) that we are dealing with two completely different Gerard Alexander Masons--yet every time I post anything about the one in GA someone sends me the Gunston Hall files!  

Several other Masons in our DNA group have also been attached to the wrong father. Once DNA reveals a discrepancy, new research begins---and we discover the smoking guns that earlier researchers missed. 

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