My new webpage is the culmination of 4 years of research of the basics of genetic genealogy and of participation as an Administrator of the Family Tree DNA, Milam Surname Project. MILAM is an uncommon name and the Project has only ~ 80 members. 39 of 49 Americans are descendents of John Milam ( ca 1725 - 1789) and Thomas Milam ( ca 1716 - 1775) of the Piedmont of Virginia. 28 are MILAM men recruited from Great Britain including our 19 new recruits of 2017. We mailed letters (~100) to all the MILAM men we could find in the British Telecom’s online directory of land phone lines then telephoned them.

 

YDNA-37 results are complete for 20 of the Englishmen. We now know that they represent 6 genetically different MILAM families. For example, we tested 5 Englishmen from Berkshire County, England, and found they represent 3 distinct genetic lines which are not correlated with the spelling of their surname. Two who spelled their surname Milam are actually from genetically different lines; the same for the two men who spelled their surname Mileham – not genetically related. There also was no correlation with the county of origin of their oldest known ancestor. Such results gives one pause in relying on classical genealogy which is so dependent on surnames.

 

My webpage discusses: 1) The Origin of Surnames in England, 2) Basic Concepts in Genetic Genealogy, 3) Y-DNA Testing for Surname Genealogy and, as an example, 4) Genetic Genealogy of American Milams.

 

The webpage:  http://www.milaminvirginia.com/genetics.html 

 

Our surname project’s Y-DNA Results:  https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Milam/default.aspx?section=ycolorized 

 

William Milam, MD

www.milaminvirginia.com 


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