Burgess Surname DNA Project Newsletters

I've just revised those portions of my website, www.millefleurs.tv, dealing with the Burgess Surname DNA Project, to reflect the new members that we've added in the last month, plus the addition of information on each individual's earliest known Burgess ancestor.

Please go to the main page of the site, and click on the "Burgess Genealogy" link on the left-hand side of the page. The DNA section is broken into two pages, with test results being linked to the bottom of the first page. Those of you who are direct participants in the project should review what I've said about your ancestry, to make certain that it's correct and complete, at least for the first generation or two. If you do not want your name listed there, please inform me immediately, and I'll remove it.

We now have eleven members, with test results due back sometime in October and November from seven individuals. Two of the latter affiliated when I did background research on their lines, and discovered that both were distant cousins out of the Prince George's Co., Maryland Burgess family. Their numbers should match very closely when received.

We have one participant from the Keziah Burgess line of Bedford Co., Virginia, and the possibility of a second volunteer from another descendant of her three sons. This should establish 1) whether the same father sired at least two of her sons; and 2) whether this line is affiliated with the major Bedford Co. Burgess line, for which we already have another test in progress. No matter what the results, we will know more about this family than we did before. This is a dead-end line which has frustrated researchers for decades.

I'm still looking for volunteers from the Col. William family of Anne Arundel Co., Maryland, and from the Thomas Burgess family of Massachusetts. These are very large lines with a great many current-day descendants. I'm willing pay for one test from each of these groups, if someone will just step forward.

Finally, we have one conclusive result thus far: the Prince George's County/ Pittsylvania Co. Burgess line is unrelated to the family of William Burgess of Richmond (later King George) Co., VA. Also, the three tests that we have in hand from the latter family match each other closely enough that those three branches are conclusively linked to a common ancestor.

I welcome any suggestions for improvements to the website. Please encourage other Burgesses to join the project. We already have represented in the project enough families to account for perhaps 8-10% of all the Burgesses currently living in the U.S., plus a significant line in the U.K. I'm expecting some exciting results as the numbers begin to arrive this fall.

We've just received the first few tests from the latest batch of Y-chromosome DNA numbers, and the result has been astonishing. We now have our first unexpected match between two ancient (pre-1800) Burgess lines.

The families of William Burgess (b. ca. 1735) of Bedford Co., VA, and of William Burgess (d. 1712) of Richmond (later King George) Co., VA, have a common Burgess ancestor, probably not too far removed from the time these lines first appear in the American colonies. There is no possible way that we could have demonstrated this connection from any surviving civil or legal records.

As of today, we have sixteen participants in the project, with four more likely to appear in the next few weeks. These represent twelve ancient Burgess lines, accounting for about 18% of all the Burgess individuals living in the United States today.

We expect to receive test numbers by October 17th for five individuals doing 12-marker tests, plus results from two enhancements from 12 markers to 25 markers by October 21st. Two kits have been received by Family Tree DNA, but have not yet been scheduled or sent to the lab. Three kits have not yet been received by FT DNA from the participants. We won't get results on these latter five tests until sometime in November.

We now have a representative from the largest Burgess family in America, the line of Thomas and Dorothy Burgess of Sandwich, Mass., dating back into the early 1600s. This is a very important Burgess family, with a huge number of offshoots.

I wanted to mention once more that I'm willing to pay for the first test from any major Burgess line currently unrepresented in the project, with me making that determination. Specifically, I am looking for a male volunteer from the family of Col. William Burgess of Anne Arundel Co., MD. This is another important early family, and it's one that is likely to affiliate with several other lines.

Project News Letter #3
09 November 2004

Dear Cousins,

Just a quick update on the status of the Burgess Surname Project. Family Tree DNA is running at least two weeks late on the current batch of tests; that delay may be extended even further as the holidays approach. I received notice today that two of our 12-marker tests, including the one out of the Thomas Burgess line of Sandwick, Mass., the largest and earliest Burgess family in the Americas, were botched completely and will have to be rerun; this will extend their delivery time until, supposedly, the end of November (in reality, it'll probably be sometime in December).

I'm not happy about any of this, but there's absolutely nothing I can do to speed things along. The last time I complained about something to FT DNA, several weeks ago, the representative who responded was unnecessarily rude and quite abrupt. I think they're tired of hearing from me.

I won't update the website or post any further notices to the Burgess genealogy newsgroups until we actually get more results in hand. I do appreciate the efforts of all of you who have contributed both time and knowledge and money to the project. Thanks particularly to Dr. Scott Burgess and Mildred Guernsey, who donated $100 each to subsidize future testing. FT DNA did match these gifts with a grant of $200, but we have to expend the matching funds before the end of the year.

I have a lead on another representative of the Col. William Burgess line, so I'm still hopeful that someone out of that very important family will step forward. Given the antiquity of this line, one would think that locating male descendants would be quite easy, but just the opposite has been true. One entire branch of this family, numbering in the many hundreds, has now shrunk in terms of male representation to just two brothers and their offspring.

We've now received a few more test results for the Burgess Surname DNA Project, including one for the Thomas Burgess line of Sandwich, Mass., representing the oldest and largest group of Burgess descendants in North America. Alas, these numbers don't match anyone else's, at least not yet.

We do have quite a few test results due by the end of November, and one in the first week of December, so I'll wait until then to post any public report on the three Burgess genealogy newsgroups, and to update my website (www.millefleurs.tv) with the new data. But I thought you might like to see the actual numbers for the existing 12-marker tests, broken out by the ancestral families covered in the project. The general rule of thumb is that you must match at least 10 of 12 of the numbers in these basic tests to indicate a potential relationship; sometimes an enhanced test to 25 markers is necessary to prove or disprove a relationship with a non-predicted match.

Two tests with identical results are represented by these numbers, both known to be out of branches of this line; the tentative match with the John Burgess line above has been discounted by doing enhanced, 25-marker tests for both participants.

This test matches with the median test values of the family of William Burgess of King George Co., Virginia. An enhanced test showing 25 markers has been ordered to see how closely these two families are related.

This test would seem to indicate a relationship to the second test of the Burgar group (above), matching 11 out of 12 numbers; however, an enhancement to 25 markers has been ordered to determine whether these families are actually affiliated.

Altogether, ten separate Burgess lines are covered by these tests. Two of families have affiliated, two others may be affiliated, and one has split into two segments. The other families represent unique creations of the Burgess name, with no possible genetic relationship between them.

Haplogroups and haplotypes: what are they? This is a just a convenient way for scientists to divide Y-chromosome DNA markers into very broad but distinct genetic groupings. They're arbitrarily labeled from A-R, with various subgroups under each category. The oldest known groups are those listed earliest in the alphabet; these derive from Africa. The commonest haplogroup for the Burgess project is R1b, one of the latest to be developed, indicating a probable origin in the underlying Celtic populations of Spain, France, and the British Isles. Several of the haplotypes recorded in the project are fairly rare in the West, and may indicate descent from an interloper, or possibly a change in the family name at some distant point in the past.

Anyone participating in the project is invited to update his data into www.ysearch.org, a free, public, easily searchable database showing Y-chromosome values from around the world. There are links from the Family Tree DNA site to this valuable site. If you want to do this and don't know how, just drop me an e-mail, and I'll be happy to act on your behalf. You do NOT have to display your e-mail address.

Thus far, all of the predicted affiliations between different branches of the same Burgess family have in fact occurred. This indicates that the system does work. The absence of agreement among the numbers of the descendants of Keziah Burgess was suspected, but couldn't be proved until now. We have yet to find a participant from the third branch of that family.

We eagerly await the test result from the descendant of the Col. William Burgess line, which may be affiliated with that of the Burgess family of Prince George's Co., Maryland; and from the descendant of Thomas Burgess of Orange Co., Virginia, another possible branch of either or both of these lines.

The families of William Burgess of Richmond (later King George) Co., VA, and of William Burgess of Bedford Co., VA, have a common ancestor who probably dates from at least the mid-1600s--but perhaps not much earlier than that.

The families of Edward Burgess of Prince George's Co., MD, and of William Burgess of Montgomery Co., MD, also have a common ancestor. These two men, both born in the 1730s, may be descended from Charles Burgess, youngest son of Col. William Burgess of Anne Arundel Co., MD; we'll know for certain when the test result from a descendant in the latter family arrives in mid-January.

The families of Dean Burgess, a possible descendant of Thomas Burgess of Sandwich, MA, and of George Henry Burgess of Lancashire, England, may have a common ancestor; further testing is being done to validate the possible connection. If the results are correct, this will be the first firm link established between an ancient (pre-1800) American family and a British Burgess line.

Test results from descendants of two of the sons of Keziah Burgess do not match; these lines have separate progenitors. We're currently testing a representative from the line of her third son to see if he matches either of the others.

The test results from a descendant of James Burgess of Fayette Co., WV, show that this James is not the same person as the James Burgess son of Thomas Burgess out of the William of Bedford Co., VA, line, as had previously been supposed. Further research is being conducted, but already it appears that the father of this James may be another William Burgess, hitherto unrecorded.

Test results from two descendants of different branches of the Thomas Burgess family of Sandwich, MA, do not match; further testing and research will need to be done in order to determine which result is the "true" result for the Thomas line, and where the break occurred. Thus far, nothing obvious has shown itself. Because this family is quite old (almost 400 years), finding the discrepancy may take some time. We do have a test pending from another possible descendant out of this line living in Canada.

All of the five predicted matches in the family of William Burgess of King George Co., VA, have in fact occurred, as has the one predicted match in the family of Edward Burgess of Prince George's Co., MD.

I want to thank all of you for agreeing to participate in the project, and for your continuing wise counsel and enthusiastic support. Mildred Guernsey and Dr. Scott Burgess each donated $100 to the project, enabling us to get a matching grant of $200 from FT DNA during the short window it was available to us. Thanks also to Bennett Greenspan and all the good people at FT DNA for enabling both our DNA project and the hundreds of others that they've sponsored, and for suggesting the grant program in the first place.

We've made an excellent start this year. Every test that we receive from this point on just adds additional information to our growing database of numbers. We'll see more random matches between major Burgess lines, and, alas, a few more predicted matches that fail. All are helpful in delineating the real connections between Burgess families throughout the world. We'll find more links between families in North America and Burgesses still living in the British Isles.

My website (www.millefleurs.tv) will be updated later this week with more detailed information on the DNA results we've received thus far. Please feel free to visit there. I'm also editing down a portion of my own Burgess genealogy from the line of William Burgess of King George Co., VA, in order to add the first few generations of that family as an adjunct page to the website.

I wish you all a blessed Christmas and holiday season. Mary and I plan to spend a quiet two weeks doing more genealogical research and working on our book projects. When I return to the University on January 3rd, I'll start the process which will ultimately lead to my retirement in September of '05.

Number markers received for the line of Col. William Burgess of Anne Arundel Co., Maryland, do NOT match those of Edward Burgess of Prince Georges Co., Maryland, and Pittsylvania Co., Virginia, and also do NOT match those of William Burgess of Prince Georges and Montgomery Cos., Maryland, although the latter two individuals do match each other and have a common Burgess ancestor. Many genealogists had assumed that these were all one family. That's not the case, and it's clear that we must look elsewhere for a possible father or ancestor of the latter two men (who could be brothers).

However, Col. William may be related to Thomas Burgess of Sandwich, Mass., and to George H. Burgess of Lancashire, England; further testing is being conducted to determine whether these tentative matches are real. Also, additional research is being done to move George's ancestry back a few more generations.

The numbers from the family of John Meredith Burgess of Kanawha Co., (West) Virginia, match those of William Burgess of Bedford Co., Virginia, and William Burgess of Richmond (later King George) Co., Virginia; they have a common Burgess ancestor, name unknown.

I think it likely that John Meredith Burgess is the same individual as the Jack Meredith Burgess mentioned in unattributed lists of the children of John Burgess of Fluvanna Co., Virginia, eldest son of William of Bedford--but there's as yet no proof of this. There was an oral tradition that John Meredith was born in Beaver Dam, Virginia, and there is a Beaver Dam Creek and Beaver Dam Baptist Church in Fluvanna Co.

In December I began surveying some of the early personal property tax lists for Bedford and other several counties in Virginia and West Virginia. These lists amount to a complete annual census of all adult free males in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky, beginning in 1782 (except for 1808 and the Civil War years).

Dan Burgess's ancestor, James Burgess, is listed in Bedford Co. between 1810-18, usually in tandem (through 1816) with one William Burgess, a presumed relative. Curiously, Armstead Burgess is apprenticed in Bedford Co. in 1817 at the age of nine; if William had died during the preceding year, and if William had been providing support for this family, his death might have been the occasion for the family of Keziah Burgess to seek additional financial support through the work of her eldest son. These are the only Burgesses mentioned in the county records during this time.

I have now completed my initial sweep of the tax records of several of these counties, and I await your further instructions about which counties you think ought to be examined next. Also, if any of you computer whizzes want to take my detailed information and begin building a data grid to post on the web for the personal property tax lists of the Burgesses families of early Virginia, I'd be happy to transcribe the now handwritten information, and to add in anything else I might have in my notes, or any similar data that might be supplied by other Burgess researchers. I think this would be a very helpful device in tracking the paths of some of these early families through Colonial Virginia, (West) Virginia, and Kentucky. I can get these lists on interlibrary loan through my University, five reels at a time.

We now have 39 participants, with 31 test results in hand. Some of the latter are in the process of being enhanced from 12 to 25 or even 37 markers. As always, please check my personal website, www.millefleurs.tv, for the latest information and the actual test numbers for the project, as well as for background information on the Burgess families currently represented.

We've received a few more Y chromosome DNA test results recently. Both of these new tests matched 12 for 12 with the numbers of one of the descendants of the line of Thomas Burgess of Sandwich, Mass. Although we're not absolutely certain of the chain of descent of these two gentlemen, their numbers would seem to suggest that they may perhaps represent the "true" markers for the Thomas line. We have another test in the works where the ancestry of the individual being tested is well established, and these results, when they appear in April, may finally tell the tale.

We now have 44 participants in the surname project, including several individuals representing (for the very first time) some ancient South Carolina Burgess families. We hope that these folks will connect with some of the others already in the project.

Over the holidays, I reworked the display of the test results sections of my personal web page (www.millefleurs.tv), both to make them easier to navigate and to load, and to better present the material in a more usable format. The result is to break up what was becoming a rather cumbersome single page display into four different pages, including a new one that arranges the results by Burgess family groups. I hope that these will be more informative than they were in the past. I also am adding early census records for Burgess families, and the results of my searching of the personal property tax lists in Virginia, which I eventually hope will record all of the Burgesses resident in early Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky, beginning in 1782.

I get questions about what the DNA numbers mean. The lab workers are literally counting the repetitions at certain locations of junk DNA segments on the Y chromosome. Amazingly, these repetitions are themselves unique to different families, and are passed down in the direct male line as a genetic characteristic. The specific locations where these segments reside have "addresses" called "loci" (singular, "locus"), which are labelled, for example, DYS 393, DYS 464d, etc.

Certain combinations of numbers at certain addresses are much scarcer than the other numbers possible for those locations. For example, the descendants of Edward Burgess of Prince Georges Co., Maryland, and William Burgess of Prince Georges and Montgomery Cos., Maryland, each share a consecutive number set at DYS 391, DYS 385a, and DYS 385b of #10, 11, and 16, respectively. As it happens, this is a very rare combination, occurring in the FT DNA database in only seven-tenths of one-percent (.7%) of all individuals tested. Hence, this number becomes a useful "flag" for the direct male descendants of these two related families, since no other Burgesses currently in the project have these markers, or are likely to.

Similarly, among the descendants of the William Burgess line of Richmond (later King George), VA, and William of Bedford Co., VA, the combination of the numbers 11 and 13 at 385a and 385b, together with the number 14 or 15 at 392, only occurs in 3.04% of the tested population. The descendants of John Burgess of Derbyshire, England, have the numbers 10, 11, and 15 at 391, 385a, and 385b, a combination which occurs in only 2.72% of the samples in the FT DNA database. The three matched tests from the Thomas Burgess line of Sandwich, MA, show a 14, 13, and 30 at 389/1, 392, and 389/2, a combination which occurs in only 14% of the tests recorded in the FT DNA database.

The latter set of numbers is shared by a descendant of George H. Burgess of Lancashire, England, who otherwise matches only 20 out of 25 numbers, an inconclusive result at best. The fact that both groups share these less common markers, however, may be an indication of a distant relationship between these two family groups. It's not proof, just an indication.

I've also had questions about YSearch, which is a database sponsored by Family Tree DNA. The idea of YSearch is to provide outside individuals with the ability to search Y chromosome test results either by number or by surname, with the hope, of course, that they might find a match. Participation is entirely voluntary. To join YSearch, you have to log in to your personal page on the Family Tree DNA website (www.familytreedna.com). In the righthand column of the main page of the FTDNA site are two blank slots to insert your kit number and password. If you don't know these, please drop me an e-mail, and I'll be happy to give them to you.

When you reach your personal page, you'll see a link to YSearch in the top center of the page. Click on that, and you'll be taken to the YSearch homepage (www.ysearch.org). There you'll need to "create a new user." If you've already loaded previous results onto YSearch, and you wish to update your information, you will need to know your YSearch user name (which is publicly displayed) and your password (which is not). I do not have a list of passwords for this database; in creating my own entry, I used the password from the FT DNA database, so I would never forget what it was.

Also on your own homepage at FT DNA is an option called "Setup" that allows you to do a number of things. You can make your test numbers visible to all of the other participants in FT DNA database, if you choose--or restrict access and comparison only to other members of the surname project (this is the default option). You can also add information about your earliest known Burgess ancestor, if you wish.

If any of you have problems figuring out how to do these things, or interpreting what you see on the FT DNA pages, please don't hesitate to drop me a note, and I'll be happy to act on your behalf, if you authorize me to do so, or to explain what I can, or to ask the appropriate questions if I don't know the answer.

We have a great many tests currently in the works, with results due back in the latter part of February and March. There continue to be some delays with receiving the results of the 25-marker tests. One of our 25-marker tests came back in January with 26 markers! This is normal, but only occurs in rare cases, and in effect creates new fields at 464e, 464f, etc. So we have one test in the group with 26 markers instead of 25.

Project Newsletter #8
06 March 2005

Dear Cousins,

A second test in the line of Col. William Burgess of Anne Arundel Co., Maryland, matched the first; however, an enhancement of the original test also arrived, demonstrating that the Col. William line is not related to the Thomas Burgess line of Sandwich, Massachusetts, or to any other Burgess family currently listed in the project.

The Burgess families of Rutherford Co., North Carolina, and Greenville and Spartanburg Cos., South Carolina, have now affiliated; they have a common Burgess ancestor who antedates the earliest known ancestor in either line. Since these counties are actually located on either side of their respective state boundary, the connection is not surprising, and probably goes back no more than another generation or two.

The family of William Burgess of Smyth Co., Virginia, although unique, seems to share some number characteristics with the family of James Burgess of Bedford Co., Virginia and Fayette Co., West Virginia; further testing is being conducted.

A new test from a descendant of Jacob Burgess, the third son of Thomas Burgess of Sandwich, Mass., matches those of the other three examples we have for this family, which would seem to firm up once and for all the standard markers for this group. Dean Burgess and I are working on an article on the Thomas line and the Burgess DNA project for the New England Genealogical Association Quarterly, so we're looking for additional participants from this family.

We do have one test result from this line whose ancestry still can't be connected to Thomas Burgess, although it's likely; the earliest known ancestor is Seth Burgess, a very common name in the line of John Burgess, Thomas's second son. We also have a family out of Jacob Burgess, the third son, which should have matched the results of the others and didn't, and we don't know why; we also don't have any idea of where along the chain the break occurred, thereby creating a new Burgess family. The only way we can determine this is through additional testing over time of further descendants out of this branch.

We also received a second test result from the family of Emanuel Burgess of Union Co., South Carolina, and this matched the first, as expected. We're hoping that this family will connect at some point with the other large South or North Carolina Burgess lines.

Finally, we've received several results that don't match (at least so far) the numbers of anyone else in the project. These include a Virginia family, and two lines coming out of southern New England, the first New England families that are distinct genetically from the Thomas Burgess line.

About a third of the results that we receive fail initially to match those of any other known Burgess line; I say "initially," because a number of these have connected at some later date. Right now we have 50 participants in the project, and 44 actual results in hand, with some of these tests currently being enhanced to reflect additional markers and information. 14 of these results presently display a unique set of numbers; these include four (perhaps five) lines known to descend from female ancestors, where the male progenitor is unknown, but who was unlikely to have been named Burgess. 29 results have at least one match (the largest matched group is nine; in addition, there are three sets of four each, and four sets of two each). There's also one family that's a possible match with the Thomas line, but is just too close to call.

Many of the tests that are initially ordered for the project are simple, 12-marker tests. These are often enhanced to 25 or 37 numbers at some later date, as needed or desired. The enhancements bring the elapsed time since a common male ancestor lived down to an average of either seven or five generations, respectively (about 125 years at the lowest level). Currently, we have twenty-two 25-marker tests in the project, with four on order, and six 37-marker tests, with two on order. We've had a number of our close 12-marker matches (11 numbers out of 12 the same) fail to match when 25-marker enhancements were finally received. This isn't at all unusual, particularly with the R1b haplogroup (the underlying Celtic population of Britain, France, and Spain), which is the commonest of all the groups, both generally and in the Burgess project. We also have several other haplogroups represented, including I, I1b, E3b, and G.

Depending on the time and availability of my long-suffering webmistress and dear friend, Carolyn Shilts, we usually update the website very quickly once new results have been received, often within the week, with the date of the update being noted at the bottom of each page. I've also been adding compilations of the early personal property tax lists of Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky to the website (www.millefleurs.tv), plus transcriptions of the earliest Burgess census records (now complete for 1790 and 1800). Some of these are quite interesting, and I urge any of you with families from early Virginia to examine the posted tax records. For example, Edward Burgess of Prince Georges Co., Maryland and Pittsylvania Co., Virginia, is usually cited in most sources as having died in 1814, the date when his will was actually probated (it was composed in 1799); but the tax records clearly show that he really died between 1801 and 1802, when he is listed as Edward Burgess Ex(ecutor) & Son.

The Burgess Notes Newsletter website of Dave and Margaret Burgess also contains a great many valuable Burgess records, plus an active Burgess newsgroup; and the Burgess Search site of Dan Burgess includes increasingly detailed genealogies of the families covered in the Burgess DNA Project, as well as copies of these occasional reports, plus many, many other things of interest. Please take the time to visit both sites.

We have two new major connections to report, both of these random match-ups of DNA numbers that pointed the way to further genealogical research, which in turn finally tied these lines into their respective ancestral families.

The family of Samuel W. Burgess of Rockingham Co., Virginia, is a branch of the line of Col. William Burgess of Anne Arundel Co., Maryland, through his great-grandson, Samuel West Burgess. We don't know yet whether the other Burgesses listed in the early records of Rockingham Co. (particularly Henry Burgess and James Burgess, his presumed son) are related to this group.

The family of Joseph D. Burgess of Burke Co., North Carolina, and Pickens Co., Georgia, has now been linked to the line of Edward Burgess of Pittsylvania Co., Virginia, through the latter's youngest son, William Burgess of Surry and Yadkin Cos., North Carolina.

We now have 55 members of the project, with more results due back in May and June. I can't emphasize enough that the more participants we have, the larger the database grows, thereby enabling many further possible connections down the road. We still have a fair number of unique number sets in the project, but these are gradually being tied together with markers from other families as new individuals sign up.

The John Burgess family of Lawrence Co., Kentucky, has now been linked genetically to William Burgess of Bedford Co., Virginia. Genealogists have long speculated about the possible connections between these two lines; we can now confirm that they actually exist. With this result, we now have numbers from descendants of three of William's four sons, and these markers match each other 12 out of 12, a 100% match.

This family's profile also matches the number markers present among seven descendants of the five branches of the family of William Burgess of Richmond (later King George) Co., Virginia, through a common ancestor that dates back at least to the mid-1600s, either in Virginia or in Europe.

There are several early land-owners named Edward and William Burgess living in the coastal Virginia counties of King William and King and Queen in the early 1700s; these may be possible candidates for William of Bedford's father. Unfortunately, the civil records of both of these counties were lost during the Civil War, and very little survives today.

Two other families have now been linked to Thomas Burgess of Sandwich, Mass. One of these lines was located in Washington Co., NY, but the family was intermingled in the county records with a large Burgess group known to be descended from John Christian Burgess (originally Burger?), a Hessian immigrant from the Revolutionary War era. We can now confirm that the likely ancestor of the George Burgess Sr. and Jr. who derived from Rensselaer and Washington Cos., NY, was Benajah Burgess, a descendant of Thomas Burgess Jr., eldest son of Thomas Burgess of Sandwich, MA.

These new results point toward a developing trend in the Burgess DNA Project. The known larger Burgess families are beginning to break out from the pack, with multiple random affiliations becoming apparent, even from families whose ancestral information was largely unknown before their participation. The large families are showing more random matches simply because they have a much greater descendant base, and this trend should continue into the indefinite future.

Of course, we still have a number of families with unique DNA profiles, and we probably always will, even though some of these will undoubtedly find matches of their own as the project continues to develop. If a Burgess family has been created relatively recently through a break in the chain of descent, or if for whatever reason it has a relatively small number of present-day descendants in the male line, establishing matches becomes that much harder and takes somewhat longer.

The relative sizes of different Burgess families often has very little to do with each line's antiquity. There are five branches extant of the family of William Burgess of King George Co., VA, who died in 1712. They've all been extensively researched by me. Two branches account for about 5% each of the total male descendants in the line, two for 20-25% each, and one for over 40%--and that "one" actually represents just the offspring of the third son of the ancestor in question. Each branch started out with three adult male sons, so there's no obvious reason why there should be such disparities in the numbers of present-day offspring--but there are.

I knew when I started this project that the family of Thomas Burgess of Sandwich, Mass., was the oldest--and probably largest--Burgess line in North America, and this is generally proving to be true. The same assumptions have been made about a number of other Burgess lines with multiple correlations. I would expect to find a few more very large families emerging from the project over the next year.

The questions that we have about possible overseas connections, both with Britain and with its former colonies, have yet to be answered, but I'm confident that they will be answered in due course. The key is more participation from Burgesses in the British Isles. As the project becomes better known, we'll begin seeing some astonishing linkages.

As always, please check my personal website (www.millefleurs.tv, under the "Burgess Genealogy" link) for updates to the DNA project, and for additional Burgess family data which I'm compiling from the early records. Dan Burgess has kindly cumulated the previous versions of these occasional reports at his own website, www.burgesslegacy.org.

Finally, for those of you who are interested in such things, I've just sold a new book, the second edition of Codex Derynianus (with Katherine Kurtz), which will be published in trade paperback by Underwood Books in October of 2005.