The Davidson/Davison/Davisson DNA Testing Project now has around 130+ 
donors/members.  Out of that number, there are about 40 or so people who do 
not currently "match" anyone else named Davidson/Davison/Davisson.  I assume 
that some reasonable percentage of these 40 +/- people are simply the first 
donors from their lines to be tested.  I have to also believe, however, that 
some reasonable percentage do not match anyone named 
Davidson/Davison/Davisson because these DNA donors are actually not "blood 
Davidsons/Davisons/Davissons" themselves (i.e., they have a male direct-line 
paternal ancestor who was not a Davidson/Davison/Davisson himself, and these 
donors are the "result" of an "affair," a simple name change (for whatever 
reason) or an adoption (with an associated name change), somewhere "along 
the line").  In some of these cases, the donors DO closely match other 
donors with OTHER surnames, but in other cases, the donors currently have no 
close matches at all, irrespective of surname.   I have no reason to believe 
that these results for the Davidson/Davison/Davisson surname are 
substantially different from the results generated by many of the other 
surname DNA testing projects.  The bottom line is that DNA testing "in 
support of genealogy" seems to be showing that "affairs" and/or 
adoptions/name changes were a LOT more prevalent than most people would have 
ever expected (or wanted to believe).

In my own case, I can trace my paternal Davidson line back to at least the 
1600s (Davidson to Davidson to Davidson, etc.), with support from DNA 
testing.  On my mother's "Brown surname side of the family," however, DNA 
testing shows that her "Brown" family was almost certainly a "blood Smith 
family."  The DNA from my mother's living male "Brown" cousin matches no 
Browns at all, and he currently matches only two "Smith men" who trace back 
to an Alexander Smith who was in Lancaster/Middlesex Co., VA by at least 
1658.  My maternal gg-grandfather was named SMITH W. Brown, and I now 
suspect that he was probably a "Smith infant" who was adopted around 
1818-1822 by John and Mary (Bennett) Brown of Middlesex Co., VA (and who 
apparently changed the infant's last name to "Brown").  Of course, Smith W. 
Brown could have been the result of an "affair" between Mrs. Mary (Bennett) 
Brown and a Mr. Smith, but I don't think that she would have "announced" 
such an affair by naming her son "Smith," especially since her husband John 
Brown was still living with her.  There are various clues that suggest an 
adoption versus an "affair," but I am researching this with an open mind.

Note: Per my research, it does not seem very likely that the 
father/step-father named John Brown was actually "already a 'blood Smith' 
himself," but even that remains a remote possibility.

My search for the exact "Smith/Brown connection" is made a little more 
difficult because all of the members of Alexander Smith's direct line seem 
to have left that area of Virginia, long before Smith W. Brown was born.  I 
see various clues, however, that suggest that the Nicholas Smith/Colonel 
Francis Smith family in Essex Co., VA (where I believe "my" John Brown lived 
until about 1804), as well as the John Smith family in Richmond Co., VA 
(this John Smith married Mary Colston in the 1730s) MAY have been related to 
Alexander Smith.  If these two other families WERE, in fact, related to 
Alexander Smith, then my "Smith blood" could have come from one of these two 
"branches" of this overall Smith family (and unlike Alexander Smith's 
family, members of these two "branches" in Essex and Richmond Counties were 
still in that general area of VA around 1818, when and where Smith W. Brown 
was born).

I have researched a lot of the documents available at the Library of 
Virginia (with no "concrete results") for Middlesex, Essex and Richmond Co., 
VA (including orphan's accounts), but I have not yet looked at the Court 
Order Books for those three counties.  I am hoping to find something in one 
of those documents that provides input on the above potential/apparent 
adoption/guardianship around 1818-1822.  A fellow "Brown" researcher once 
found (several years ago) something in an index at the Library of Virginia 
for Middlesex Co., VA that seemed to mention John Brown and some association 
with an orphan, but this researcher ran out of time before he could locate 
and read the actual record/document itself (apparently on microfilm). 
Unfortunately, this researcher is not sure in what exact file/record this 
index existed (but maybe it was in the Court Order Books). 

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