How to Join the Ackley Surname Project at FTDNA

I've gotten a pretty strong response to the last post, "A Report on the Status of the Ackley Surname Project Y-DNA Testing", both from current project members (two of you have purchased Big Y tests -- Yay!) as well as people who want to know if they can join the project, so I thought I would do a quick follow-up post.

Who Can Join the Project?

The primary purpose of any surname project at Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) is to provide a platform for men with a common surname to do Y-DNA tests and then share the data within the group to analyze relationships and provide insights. The ultimate goal is to provide information to project members that will help them with their genealogy. Many surname projects restrict membership to only men with the surname of interest who have done some type of Y-DNA test. We do not have that restriction in the Ackley Surname Project -- there are non-Ackley men and women in the project who have Ackley ancestors and have done autosomal DNA tests. However, most of the tools available to project administrators center around Y-DNA testing, so that is the main focus of the recruiting we have been doing and will continue to be. As such, men with the Ackley surname would be the most likely people to join the project. 

The person who will benefit most from joining the project at this point is a male with the Ackley surname, or a female who has Ackley males in her family that she can test, who knows something about their genealogy but may not know which Ackley family group they belong to and would like to try to find out more. We have identified two groups of Ackleys in the project so far: descendants of Nicholas Ackley (the majority of project members), and descendants of Johan Hendrick Eckler who changed their surname to Ackley (see this post for more information on this line). If you are a male with the Ackley surname and have no idea about your ancestry, joining the project and taking a test could connect you to one of the existing groups or establish a new Ackley family group that has not yet tested. We would love to have you!

If you know you are related to one of these groups and you already know how, you probably won't learn much new information by joining the project and doing a Y-DNA test. However, we would still love to have you join the project if you are interested in taking a test and adding to our data. The more data we have, the better able we will be to help members with their genealogy.

Will the Project Pay for my Test?

At this time, the project does not have any funds to pay for testing. Earlier this year we had received some donations and used them to run a small recruiting drive, but we have used up those funds for now. If we receive more donations, we may have another concerted recruiting effort in the future. You can always pay for your own test and join the project.

How Much Does a Y-DNA Test Cost?

FTDNA is currently running a holiday sale on DNA tests. The "entry-level" Y-37 test is on sale for $99 (regular price is $129), the more advanced Y-111 test is on sale for $199 (regular price is $249), and the most advanced Big Y-700 test is on sale for $379 (regular price is $449). Could be a good Christmas present for somebody! A link to the ordering page is below in the Link of the Day.

What Test Should I Take?

The test you take depends on what you already know about your genealogy, what your goals are, and how much you are willing to invest. If you don't know much and want to find out more, a Y-37 test will get you in the door and will establish which Ackley family group mentioned above you belong to (or establish a new group). If you already know a lot, are interested in adding to the group's knowledge, and your budget can handle it, a Big Y-700 test might be right for you. If you know a lot but aren't sure you want to spend a lot of money on testing just yet, you could do a Y-37 test to start out and then upgrade to a Big Y later on. Upgrading from a Y-37 to a Big Y does not cost full price; the sale price for that upgrade right now is $319.

How Do I Join the Project?

If you buy a test, you will establish an account at FTDNA, and the top of your home page will look something like this:

To join a project, hover over the "myPROJECTS" link at the top of the page and click on "Join A Project". That will take you to a page that looks like this:

You may or may not have a list of suggested projects to join like this shows; if you do you can click on the Ackley project if it shows up in your list and you will end up at the page below. If not, click on the "A" under the "SURNAME PROJECTS" section. From there, you will see a list of surname projects that start with the letter "A"; scroll down to Ackley and click on it and you will end up at the page below:

Click on the orange "Join" button and you are in.

Hope this answers any questions you may have about joining the Ackley Surname Project. If there are other questions, please post them in the comments section and I'll answer them as soon as I can.

Link of the Day

Here is a link to the order page at FTDNA: https://www.familytreedna.com/

The Y DNA products are on the lower left.

Quote of the Day

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

– Helen Keller

A Report on the Status of the Ackley Surname Project Y-DNA Testing

Since there has been a lot of activity in the Ackley Surname Project at Family Tree DNA over the past several months, I thought I would provide an update on where the project stands and plans for the future. Much of this information has been provided in bits and pieces in other posts; I wanted to take this opportunity to present it all in one place. Although the project includes male and female members who have done autosomal tests as well as men who have done Y-DNA tests, I will restrict this report to just those Y-DNA tests that are relevant to the Ackley surname.

Project Members

The Ackley Surname Project currently has 22 members who joined the project and did some level of Y-DNA test to determine their relationship (or lack thereof) to the Nicholas Ackley family. A table of the project members and their kit numbers is shown here:

Table of Project Members Who Have Done Y-DNA Testing

There are 4 men (Ackerley, Akeley, Acra, and Hackley) who joined to see if their non-Ackley surnames might be variations of the Ackley surname. As discussed in previous posts, none of these 4 men are a match for any of the Ackley men in the project.

There are 16 Ackley men who joined presuming they might be descendants of Nicholas Ackley. Based on known genealogies and test results (discussed in more detail in the next two sections), 15 of the 16 Ackley men (listed in the table as Nicholas Ackley descendants) are most certainly related to each other and Nicholas Ackley is their common ancestor.

The 16th Ackley man (kit 938688) did not match any of the other Ackley men in the project. However, one of his matches leads us to believe that he may be a descendant of Johan Hendrick Eckler, some of whose descendants changed their surname to Ackley (see this post on the Eckler/Ackler/Ackley line). This member recruited two known Ackley descendants of Johan Eckler and their test results have recently become available. These three men do match each other, so a new grouping for the Eckler/Ackler/Ackley line has been created in the project.

Known Genealogies

The family tree below is a simplified view of the lines of descent of all 15 Nicholas Ackley descendants in the project. The kit number rather than a name for each of the 15 men is shown at the bottom of the tree, and the first names of all of their Ackley male ancestors up to Nicholas are shown. Note that there are 5 men (in various shades of gray) whose connections to Nicholas are not yet known. These 5 men are matches to each other as well as all of the other 10 men whose relationship to Nicholas is known, so we can be confident that they are descendants of Nicholas. Project and individual next steps (discussed below) should be developed to help these men discover their connections to Nicholas.

Simple Family Tree for Nicholas Ackley Descendants

Note that the project currently has descendants of 3 of Nicholas's 5 sons. Nicholas's son Nathaniel is not known to have had any children, and so far we do not have any known descendants of Thomas in the project. Finding descendants of Thomas will be discussed in the next steps section below.

You can see that the 4 descendants of John Ackley are closely related; kits 891932 and B313386 are first cousins, and kits MK45499 and MK45500 are brothers and the sons of kit B313386.

The figure below is a similar view of the lines of descent for the Eckler-Ackler-Ackley group. Since there are only 3 members in this group, the tree is pretty sparse at this point, but these are early days for this part of the project. The immediate goal of determining if member 938688 is a descendant of Johan Henrich Eckler has been achieved; future actions will need to be identified to help determine his actual line of descent.

Simple Family Tree for Descendants of Johan Hendrick Eckler 

Summary of Test Results

Some of these results have been presented in previous posts but are repeated here for completeness. Recall that Y-DNA matches are measured by genetic distance; I won't repeat all the details on how this works here, but if you need a refresher, see this post. The relationship between genetic distance and relatedness is summarized in the table below. We will make our comparisons at the the 37 marker level since many of the testers in the project have tested only at that level.

Table of Relatedness for Y-DNA Testers

The table below gives the genetic distances between every pair of Ackley men at 37 markers. The cell colors reflect the relatedness of the two kits at the intersection of the cell. The 15 men at the top of the table are the descendants of Nicholas Ackley, while the 3 men at the bottom of the table are the newly found Eckler-Ackler-Ackley group. You can see that the genetic distances between the top 15 men are all 5 or less, indicating that they are all probably related. The same can be said of the 3 men in the Eckler-Ackler-Ackley group. The genetic distances between the Nicholas Ackley descendants and the Eckler-Ackler-Ackley men are beyond the threshold for reporting, so those cells are red to reflect the fact that the two groups are not related.

Table of Y-37 Genetic Distances

The tables below show the STR values for each of the 18 Ackley men in the project. The ancestral values at the top of each group are the mode (most frequently occurring value) for each marker. The tables are split into three separate pictures, both for ease of readability as well as according to the standard panels defined by Family Tree DNA. The values of the individual markers are not important in and of themselves; it is the comparisons between individuals and to the ancestral values that give us information. Comparisons between individuals is how the genetic distances discussed above are calculated. Comparisons to the ancestral values can possibly reveal patterns that can be used to identify branching within a family group. Unfortunately, I don't believe we have enough samples for each group or enough diversity within each group to make effective use of this data at this time for branching. For example, all of the members in the John Ackley descendants group are closely related to each other, so any patterns we might find in their data may not necessarily be found in other descendants of John.

STR values that match the ancestral values are shown in green; values that are below the ancestral value are in blue, and values that are above are in red.

Panel 1 - Markers 1-12

Panel 2 - Markers 13-25

Panel 3 - Markers 26-37

Another way to view the STR results from the table above is to create what is called a mutation history tree. A mutation history tree presents much of the information from the tables above in a compact, visual manner. The mutation history tree below was created using a program called SAPP [1]. The program uses the STR values for a group of men and compares them to the ancestral values to attempt to create nodes of individuals who appear to be closely related. These nodes are in dark blue in chart below. For each node, the program uses a sophisticated algorithm to estimate the Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor (TMRCA). This estimate is given as a number of generations as well as a range of years. The group most recent common ancestor (represented by the larger blue node at the top of the tree), who we know to be Nicholas Ackley, has an estimated TMRCA of 14 generations (+/- 6), which works out to the year 1550 AD (range between 1400 and 1750 AD). Of course we know Nicholas was born about 1635 AD, so the estimate is relatively close.

The other two dark blue nodes represent the two closely related groups of testers mentioned above. Node #16 is for a father/son pair and gives a TMRCA of 0 generations, which is of course correct given the closeness of their relationship. The four members under node #21 are two first cousins and the sons of one of them, and the TMRCA of 2 generations is also accurate given that the common ancestor is known to be the great grandfather of the two first cousins.

The notes above each block give the deviations from the ancestral values; for example, the notes above member 177515 are 392=13->12, 464c=16->15, 456=16->15. This means that for this individual, marker DYS392 mutated from the ancestral value of 13 to 12, marker DYS464c mutated from the ancestral value of 16 to 15, and marker DYS456 mutated from the ancestral value of 16 to 15. The small red number to the upper right of each individual gives the number of markers that the individual has tested.

Note that the SAPP program was not able to find any other nodes (groupings) of individuals to suggest that they are closely related, which seems to confirm the statements made above concerning the small sample size and lack of diversity of the samples.

Mutation History Tree created by SAPP

With only three individuals in the Eckler-Ackler-Ackley group, a mutation history tree would not be especially interesting and so is not presented here.

The final set of results to be discussed is the SNP testing that has been done to date in the project. We have had 3 members do full Big Y tests and 3 members do individual SNP tests to confirm they are positive for the SNP identified by Big Y testing as the defining SNP for Nicholas Ackley descendants. Recall from this post about Viking DNA that positive SNPs determine the placement of individuals on the Y haplotree, sometimes referred to as the tree of mankind. The figure below shows the portion of the Y haplotree that is relevant to the descendants of Nicholas Ackley.

A Small Portion of the Y Haplotree

Note that the haplotree is hierarchical; i.e., the branches below and to the right of any branch are sub-branches of that branch. For example, R-BY10450, R-BY23657, R-FGC52285, R-FGC52286, and R-FGC52300 are all sub-branches of R-FGC22897. R-BY23657 and R-FGC52285 are both sub-branches of R-BY10450, but note that R-FGC52285 is not a sub-branch of R-BY23657 because they are at the same level under R-BY10450. The known surnames of the testers on the lower branches are listed to the right; note that two of the Ackley testers are on a sub-branch of the branch for four other Ackley testers. We'll discuss that in more detail below. Another important thing to recognize here is the fact that the Ackley surname is on a sub-branch under Bergin does not mean we were once Bergins that changed our name to Ackley. We did have a common ancestor, but the age of the SNP we have in common (R-FGC52285, formed about 2900 years ago) puts that branch well before surnames were adopted.

The figure below shows a more detailed view of the Ackley portion of the haplotree in a format known as a block tree. You can see that this shows the R-FGC52285 branch and sub-branches discussed above.

Ackley Portion of the Block Tree

Before discussing the details of this block tree, it is worth mentioning how individuals are placed in the tree as a result of testing. As a SNP-based test, the Big Y test examines over 700,000 locations on the Y chromosome looking for Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs). A SNP is the change of a nucleotide value at a specific location on a chromosome from the expected value to something different. The SNPs that are found for an individual are compared to a known, named list of over 260,000 SNPs (known as named variants in FTDNA terminology), and the individual is placed in the tree at the lowest (most recent) named variant for which he has tested positive. To be named, a variant needs to have been found in at least two men. After this process, it is possible that an individual has some variants that are unique to him because so far no one else with those variants has tested. These are known as unnamed or private variants. You can see that this process makes the placement of an individual in the haplotree somewhat temporary because as long as he has private variants there is a possibility that someone else who also has those variants will test, the variants will be named, and the individual will be moved to a lower sub-branch below his previous branch. With that background, we'll discuss the evolution of the blocks of the block tree above as it pertains to the Ackley Big Y testers.

The first Ackley project member to do a Big Y test was B37138. At the time of the test, he was assigned to halpogroup R-S1051, which is several steps above the R-FGC22897 branch shown in the haplotree above. Shortly after that, the Hogge tester came along, and the assignment was updated to R-RBY10450. In early 2018, Ackley member B313386 did a big Y test, and the two Ackley testers were now on their own branch named R-BY52286, establishing the Ackley branch on the haplotree. At that point, B313386 had just two private variants remaining and B37138 had six. To further refine the branches, B37138 had his son (934998) do a Big Y test earlier this year, and 934998 had all six private variants, allowing them to be named and establishing a separate branch named R-FGC52300. The block tree above reflects this current state. Note that with no private variants left for either B37138 and 934998, they are truly at their "terminal haplogroup" because they have no unnamed SNPs that could possibly be matched by subsequent testers. 

You can see in the block tree above that there are 4 people listed in the R-FGC52286 block. The three additional individuals in that block are the first cousin and two sons of B313386, who did individual SNP tests for R-FGC52286. We will discuss the use of Big Y testing and individual SNP testing to help establish branching within the Ackley project in the next steps section below.

Next Steps

A discussion of next steps should include two things -- what needs to be done to achieve the overall goals of the project and what individual project members should do to achieve their genealogy goals. As you will see, some of the next steps for the project may include additional testing for individual members that may not be of immediate benefit to the individual.

The overarching goal of the project is to provide data in the form of test results and interpretations of those results that can help people with the Ackley surname with their genealogy. To attempt to achieve that goal, I have developed a testing strategy that involves Big Y testing of appropriate individuals to identify the SNPs that define each of the branches representing the sons of Nicholas Ackley who had sons (Thomas, Samuel, James, and John). As shown in the family tree above, we already have project members who are descendants of Samuel, James, and John. Research so far seems to indicate that there are not many Ackley male descendants of Thomas; one has been identified and a letter has been sent to him, but no response has been received yet. Efforts to identify other descendants of Thomas will continue.

The descendant of Samuel has just agreed to do a Big Y test and the test has been ordered. We will need to identify and test another descendant of Samuel to fully define the SNPs for that branch; recruiting will continue. As discussed in detail above, B37138 and 934998 have done Big Y and thus have identified the SNPs defining the branch for James. We have one descendant of John who has done a Big Y, and he has just ordered a Big Y for one of his sons, so the SNPs for that branch will soon be defined. So, we are taking steps to define the branches, but there is more work to do.

Next steps for the individuals in the project will vary depending on their current level of testing and how much is known about their genealogy relative to their Ackley family group. For example, someone like B37138 who has done a Big Y test for himself and his son and has a solid genealogical record back to Nicholas Ackley has very little opportunity to learn more by testing other family members. The next piece of information we'd like to know is where Nicholas came from in England and who his father was. This would require finding Ackleys from England to test in the hope that one or more of them would match project members. I have just recruited an Ackley man from New Zealand whose father was born in Lancashire, England. I will be anxiously awaiting the results of this test!

On the other hand, some of our newer project members (kits 938369, 938425, and B16608) who have learned from their Y-37 tests that they are likely to be descendants of Nicholas but don't yet know how they are related would benefit from SNP testing to help them establish to which branch (son) they belong. While not a new member, 792301 also is not certain how he connects with Nicholas, so he would also benefit from SNP testing. Note that one of the kits in gray, 205619, was left off this list. This is because he is actually a long-time member and knows his connection to Nicholas Ackley but has not shared that with the project.

The next question to be answered for these testers is what type of SNP testing they should do. The quickest way (but also the most expensive way) to gain information on which branch they belong on would be a Big Y test, and if any of them are so inclined and have the budget for it I would recommend a Big Y test. The alternative is to wait for some of the testing mentioned above to complete and define the branches for Nicholas's sons. They could then do SNP testing for just the branch-defining SNPs, which should be less expensive than a full Big Y test. This approach will probably require us to set up a SNP panel test with FTDNA.

Next steps for the Eckler-Ackler-Ackley group are a little less defined with so few members in the project. The two new testers (942081 and 942097) have a solid genealogy back to the progenitor so they do not really need additional testing to help with their family connection. If they are interested in confirmation and further refinement of their haplogroup (predicted to be G-M201), a Big Y test would provide that information. If they both did a Big Y, that would define the SNP for their branch of the Eckler family. For member 938688, a combination of good old fashioned research, working his autosomal matches looking for Eckler-Ackler-Ackley matches, and recruiting more men with known connections to the Eckler-Ackler-Ackley family to gather more data would be the best course of action.

Sorry for the length of this post and the somewhat technical nature of much of it. Hopefully I have given project members a feel for the next steps they can take to help themselves and the project move forward. As always, if anyone has any questions or comments about anything in the post, please use the "Post a Comment" at the end of the post.

Link of the Day

This is a link to the public version of the haplotree at Family Tree DNA:

https://www.familytreedna.com/public/y-dna-haplotree/R;name=R-BY10450

Quote of the Day

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." 

-- Benjamin Franklin

Sources

1. Vance, David. "SAPP", a tool on the website SAPP, The Life of Trees (Or:  Still Another Phylogeny Program), accessed online 13 Dec 2020.

Eckler-Ackler-Ackley Line

If you've been keeping up with the recent posts on the Ackley Surname Project Y-DNA recruiting effort (part 1 here and part 2 here), you know that one of our new Ackley testers did not match the other Ackley men in the project, and we have reason to think he may be connected to the Eckler-Ackler-Ackley line. He has recruited a couple of other Ackley men from the Eckler-Ackler-Ackley line to join the project and test, so I wanted to give some background on this family.

The Book on the Eckler-Ackler-Ackley Family

As mentioned in a previous post, based on his test results there is reason to believe that our new project member is related to A. Ross Eckler, who literally wrote the book on this line -- "The Eckler-Ackler-Ackley Family" [1]. The book seems to be pretty comprehensive; Mr. Eckler collected information for the book for over 25 years and interviewed or corresponded with over 100 Eckler descendants.

A. Ross Eckler earned a PhD in mathematical statistics from Princeton and was employed at Bell Labs working on statistical and probabilistic problems in military research and development. Genealogy must have been in his blood -- his father, A. Ross Eckler, Sr., was Director of the Bureau of the Census.

The book will be used as the main source of information for this post, and will be referred to as the book in the rest of this post to keep things simple.

The Progenitor

Johan Hendrick Eckler (some sources call him Hendrick or Henrich) was born on 16 October 1711, most likely in Germany. According to the book, family legend stated that the family originated in Holland, but A. Ross Eckler refutes that idea with several facts, including that baptismal entries in the family bible were written in German rather than Dutch, that the name Eckler is definitely of German derivation (it means "lives on a small corner"), and that the surname is unknown in Holland.

Johan Hendrick Eckler arrived in America in 1732. He can be found in the "List of Foreigners Imported in the Ship Judith, of London, Robert Turpin, Master, from Rotterdam, Qualified Sept. 25, 1732" [2]. He arrived in Philadelphia on that date and signed the oath to the Crown of Great Britain and the Province of Pennsylvania required at the time (remember, this was 1732, before the American Revolution).

Hendrick settled in Canajoharie, a small town in the Mowhawk River Valley in New York between Albany and Syracuse. It was there that he married Margaret Young (also spelled Jung) in 1738.

Hendrick and Margaret had 10 children. They were:

1. Henry, born 11 August 1739

2. Maria C., born 13 November 1740, died 4 August 1743

3. John, born 12 October 1742, died 8 August 1743

4. Christopher, born 12 August 1744, died 5 May 1746

5. Elizabeth Catharine, born 17 September 1746

6. Christopher, born 25 December 1748

7. John, born 24 June 1751

8. Peter, born 2 July 1754

9. Jacob, born 30 October 1757

10. Leonard, born 22 May 1760

Hendrick was naturalized in 1761 as noted in this excerpt from New York state laws [3]:

Hendrick Eckler Naturalization

Hendrick was a sergeant in Captain Jacob Klock's militia company, and apparently served in the French and Indian War. According to the book, the company responded to an Indian raid at German Flats in 1763.

Hendrick died 6 December 1781 in New York.

Where Did Ackler and Ackley Come From?

In the book, an Ackley descendant of Hendrick Eckler remarked that "Eckler was the German spelling, Ackler the English spelling, and Ackley the Yankee spelling." [1] Although this seems more like a clever attempt to explain the different spellings than a statement of fact, the fact is that within a couple of generations all three spellings were being used by the descendants of Hendrick Eckler.

Hendrick's youngest child Leonard was one of the first Ecklers to change the spelling of his surname to Ackler. According to the book, Leonard's surname was usually spelled Ackler in church and town records, but it is not clear if this was intentional or started as a mistake that got perpetuated. In any case, all of Leonard's descendants used the Ackler spelling, and it is even recorded as such in Hendrick Eckler's family Bible.

The Ackler spelling was also adopted by Peter, son of John Eckler and grandson of Hendrick, and all of his descendants.

The first Hendrick Eckler descendant to adopt the Ackley surname was John Eckler, brother of Peter Eckler just mentioned above. The story of how this came about is quite interesting. Around 1795, William and George Smedley came to the area to collect livestock from the farmers to sell in the east. They made their headquarters at their uncle Capt. Henry Eckler's house, and hired John and Henry Eckler, sons of Capt. Eckler's brother John, to help them. The father John was known to be hard on his boys and was expecting them join him in his tailoring business, so there were some hard feelings between John and his sons. The Smedleys hired John and Henry for two or three years running, and at some point the boys decided to make their home with the Smedleys and returned home with them after one of the livestock drives. John would end up living with William Smedley, and it was during this time that he changed the spelling of his surname from Eckler to Ackley. [1] Although it is not known for sure, there is some conjecture in the book that John's brother Henry also changed his surname to Ackley.

This line will be revisited in future posts as test results are received and more is learned about the descendants of Hendrick Eckler.

Link of the Week

This is a link to "The Eckler-Ackler-Ackley Family" on Family Search: 

https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/item/164460-the-eckler-ackler-ackley-family?viewer=1&offset=0#page=1&viewer=picture&o=info&n=0&q=

Sources

1. Eckler, A. Ross. The Eckler-Ackler-Ackley Family. Self-published, Morristown, New Jersey, 1970.

2. Egle, William Henry. Names of foreigners who took the oath of allegiance to the province and state of Pennsylvania, 1727-1775, with the foreign arrivals, 1786-1808. Harrisburg, Pa. : E. K. Meyers, state printer, 1892.

3. State of New York. The colonial laws of New York from the year 1664 to the revolution, including the charters to the Duke of York, the commission and instructions to colonial governors, the Dukes laws, the laws of the Donagan and Leisler assemblies, the charters of Albany and New York and the acts of the colonial legislatures from 1691 to 1775 inclusive. Albany, New York: J. B. Lyon, state printer, 1894.

Were Our Distant Ancestors Vikings?

I recently ran across an interesting collection of articles about DNA analysis of skeletal remains excavated from several Viking burial sites throughout northern Europe. I first read about this analysis in DNA Explained, an excellent blog on genetic genealogy written by Roberta Estes [1]. The original study was published in Nature [2] and had 90 people listed as authors (Nature is a pay site, so if you follow the link below, you can read the abstract for free, but the full article will cost $8.99). Links to other (free) articles about the analysis can be found in Roberta's article.

The findings published in the main paper are the result of six years of research conducted on 442 skeletons found in Viking burial sites in Russia, Faroe Islands, Sweden, Denmark, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, England, Poland, Scotland, Estonia, Italy, Ukraine, and Ireland. A major part of the study involved sequencing the DNA of the remains, and in cases where the samples were high enough quality, determining the mitochondrial (mtDNA) haplogroups for all samples and the Y-DNA haplogroups for the males. Family Tree DNA was fortunate to be involved in the process and added the haplogroup data to the Y haplotree. FTDNA also shared the data with Roberta Estes so she could publish it in her blog; see the link in reference [1] below to see the full list of remains examined and details about where they were found, haplogroups, etc. 

The findings from the study promise to change our ideas of what we think Vikings were all about. An article on the CNN website [3] describes it thus:

"The results change the perception of who a Viking actually was. The history books will need to be updated," said Eske Willerslev, a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.

"We didn't know genetically what they actually looked like until now," Willerslev added.

He said the new research "debunks" the traditional image of blond Vikings, as "many had brown hair and were influenced by genetic influx from the outside of Scandinavia."

The study also revealed genetic differences between the various Viking populations within Scandinavia, which suggests different groups were more isolated than previously thought.

And the research also indicated that Viking identity wasn't something exclusive to Vikings themselves.

Two skeletons found on Orkney, off the northeast coast of Scotland, which had DNA similar to modern-day Irish and Scottish people, were buried in Viking-style graves. This suggests they may have taken on Viking identities, researchers say.

The last two points are particularly key to understanding why this study is relevant to us. First, a refresher on Y haplogroups.

Background on Y Haplogroups

I've written a couple of previous posts about Y-DNA here and here, but to save you having to go to another post, I'll give a quick summary here.

According to Family Tree DNA, "Y-chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) haplogroups are the major branches on the human paternal family tree. Each haplogroup has many subbranches known as subclades." [4]

Y-DNA haplogroups are determined through testing the Y chromosome for Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs, pronounced "snips").

From Family Search [5] we get the following definition of SNPs:

SNPs are defined as: “A single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP is pronounced snip) is a DNA sequence variation occurring when a single nucleotide adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), or guanine (G) in the genome (or other shared sequence) differs between members of a species or paired chromosomes in an individual.” SNPs need to be confirmed by specific DNA SNP tests and are resolved in series of SNPs from basic Haplogrouping into the specific haplotypes or sub-types.

... the older or lower resolution SNPs are higher on the tree. The lower the defined SNP is on the tree, it is farther away in time from the top of the tree. This is where you will find the newer or higher resolution SNPs.

That's quite a mouthful; in simple terms a SNP is the change of a nucleotide value at a specific location on a chromosome from the expected value to something different. For example, the substitution of a C for a G in the nucleotide sequence AACGAT, producing the sequence AACCAT, is a SNP. The older the SNP; i.e., the further back in time the mutation occurred, the higher up in the tree it is and the older the haplogroup is. Haplogroups are defined by letters of the alphabet, and each haplogroup can trace its origin to specific geographic areas and time periods. Below is a simplified picture of the Y-DNA haplotree. Haplogroup A at the left is the oldest haplogroup, and you can see the branching nature of subsequent haplogroups.

Haplotree from University of Illinois School of Chemical Sciences [6]

The formation of haplogroups over time can also be viewed as the migration path of humans out of Africa into Asia and Europe. There are five men in the Ackley Surname Project who have done Y-DNA SNP testing that places them in the haplogroup R-FGC52286 (a subclade of R1b). Those who have not done SNP testing have been predicted to be in the R-M269 haplogroup (higher in the haplotree). If they did further testing, it is likely that they would end up in the R-FGC52286 group or a closely related group. The migration path for these haplogroups looks like this:

Migration map generated with SNP Tracker [7]

What the Study Found

The authors of the original paper published in Nature [2] summarize their findings thusly:

We find the Viking period involved gene flow into Scandinavia from the south and east. We observe genetic structure within Scandinavia, with diversity hotspots in the south and restricted gene flow within Scandinavia. We find evidence for a major influx of Danish ancestry into England; a Swedish influx into the Baltic; and Norwegian influx into Ireland, Iceland and Greenland. Additionally, we see substantial ancestry from elsewhere in Europe entering Scandinavia during the Viking Age. Our ancient DNA analysis also revealed that a Viking expedition included close family members. By comparing with modern populations, we find that pigmentation-associated loci have undergone strong population differentiation during the past millennium... We conclude that the Viking diaspora was characterized by substantial transregional engagement: distinct populations influenced the genomic makeup of different regions of Europe, and Scandinavia experienced increased contact with the rest of the continent.

In short, the presence of various Y-DNA haplogroups found at the Viking burial sites showed that not only did Vikings move into other parts of Europe during the Viking Age (which we already knew), but it seems they brought people back to Scandinavia with them. There was "restricted gene flow" within Scandinavia, which to me implies they tended to leave each other alone and instead looked westward to expand their spheres of influence. It even seems that they stayed out of each others' way in their conquests, with each group sticking to pretty specific locations on their raids.

The Y-DNA data used to support these conclusions was provided in detail in Roberta Estes' article [1]. Of the roughly 300 males in the study, 285 had high enough quality DNA samples to obtain Y haplogroup results. I have summarized the data by major haplogroup in the table below:

Note that the I haplogroup, a predominantly Scandinavian haplogroup, had a high frequency in the study as expected. While some of the subclades of the R haplogroup are thought to have formed in Scandinavia, most of them are thought to be prevalent in Western Europe, including the British Isles. So, the high frequency of R haplogroup samples led to some of the conclusions about movement of Western Europeans into Scandinavia mentioned above. Another interesting conclusion coming from the presence of R subclades in some of the Viking burial sites was that "... comparing DNA and archaeology at individual sites suggests that for some in the Viking bands, 'Viking' was a job description, not a matter of heredity." [8] As we will see next, this idea is key to the relevance of this study to Ackleys.

Why This Is Relevant to Ackleys

Regarding the concept of Viking as a job description rather than heredity, the study found that "Viking-style graves excavated on the United Kingdom’s Orkney islands contained individuals with no Scandinavian DNA, whereas some people buried in Scandinavia had Irish and Scottish parents." [8] One of the samples found in Orkeny, VK203, is of particular interest to us. This set of remains was found at a Viking burial site known as Brough Road Birsay. See below for a map of the Orkney Islands (part of Scotland) relative to the British Isles as well as a close-up map of the island where the site is located.

Map of the Brough Road Birsay burial site in the Orkney Islands

Close-up of the Brough Road Birsay site

VK203's age is estimated to be Viking 10th century and his Y-DNA haplogroup is R-BY10450. This is the interesting part for us; as mentioned above, there are five Ackley men in the Ackley Surname Project who have done SNP testing that puts them in the R-FGC52286 subclade. This subclade is just a few short steps below R-BY10450 in the Y haplotree:

A word about how the relationships in the haplotree work before discussing the implications of this information. All of the subclades below a particular haplogroup share a common ancestor at some point in time; the separation between the subclades (actually the number of mutations) determines how distant the relationship is. The rule of thumb is that mutations happen at the rate of about once every 144 years. The SNP Tracker application discussed above uses this concept to provide age estimates for SNPs [7]; a portion of the table for R-FGC52286 is given below:

Age Estimates for R Subclades

Note that haplogroup R-M269 that was discussed above was formed about 13,000 years ago, and all of the haplogroups below R-M269 have common ancestors about that number of years ago. Dropping down to the bottom of the table, R-BY10450 (the haplogroup of our Viking), was formed much more recently, about 3,400 years ago, and R-FGC52286 was even more recent, about 1,500 years ago. While those numbers are not "close" in terms of being useful for genealogical purposes, they are relatively close in the grand scheme of things.

One other important thing to note -- haplogroup R-BY10450 is not considered a Scandinavian or "Viking" haplogroup. I wrote a post discussing the origins of our haplogroup about 4 years ago. At the time, SNP testing had established that one of our members was in haplogroup R-S1051 (see it in the table above, 2 steps above R-BY10450), and the project administrator of the R-S1051 haplogroup project stated that he thought the group had its origins in Scotland and that the group was part of the Pictish culture that lived in eastern and northern Scotland during the Iron Age. This would definitely put our VK203 Viking in the group of individuals with no Scandinavian DNA. So, he could have been one of those men for which "'Viking' was a job description, not a matter of heredity." [8] Although our distant cousin wasn't a Viking by blood, he appeared to have lived a Viking life.

Link of the Day

This is a link to a summary of the study in Science Daily: "World's largest DNA sequencing of Viking skeletons reveals they weren't all Scandinavian"

Quote of the Day

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people's thinking."

--Steve Jobs

Sources

1. Estes, Roberta. "442 Ancient Viking Skeletons Hold DNA Surprises – Does Your Y or Mitochondrial DNA Match? Daily Updates Here!", DNAeXplained - Genetic Genealogy, 18 September 2020.

2. Margaryan, Ashot, et. al. "Population genomics of the Viking world", Nature. 16 September 2020.

3. Clarke-Ezzidio, Harry. " Vikings weren't necessarily blond. Or Scandinavian. Why everything you thought you knew about the Norsemen may be wrong", Cable News Network (CNN), 16 September 2020.

4. Family Tree DNA. "What is a Y-chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) haplogroup?", accessed online 2 Oct 2020.

5. Family Search. "Y-Chromosome Single Nucleotide Polymorphism testing", accessed online 2 Oct 2020.

6. McDonald, J.D. "Simplified Tree of Y-Chromosome Haplogroups". University of Illinois, School of Chemical Sciences, accessed online 2 Oct 2020.

7. Spencer, Rob. "SNP Tracker", a tool on the website Tracking Back: a website for the exploration of genetic genealogy and population genetics, accessed online 2 Oct 2020.

8. Curry, Andrew. "‘Viking’ was a job description, not a matter of heredity, massive ancient DNA study shows", Science. 16 September 2020.

Report on New Recruits - Part 2

The final two kits from the Y-DNA recruiting effort have completed, about a month earlier than expected. For the details on the first three kits, see this post.

Kit #4 was for a known descendant of Nicholas Ackley through his son Samuel. This represents something new for the project; all current members who have a known connection to Nicholas are descendants of either his son John or his son James. The quick and dirty tree for this tester (again, leaving off the most recent generations to protect his privacy) looks like this (sorry for the small font):

The final kit belongs to a descendant of Lewis Ackley, born in 1809 in Otsego County, New York. I wrote about the Lewis Ackley line in this post a few years ago. Here is a quick and dirty tree for this line:

The Results

As expected, the kit from the descendant of Nicholas Ackley through his son Samuel matched all of the other known descendants of Nicholas. The fifth kit also matched every one of the known descendants of Nicholas, so he and anyone else who is a descendant of Lewis Ackley of Otsego County, New York can focus their research on finding their connection to Nicholas. Interestingly, as mentioned in part 1, one of the other new members is a descendant of another Ackley from Otsego County, James D. Ackley, born in 1799. Certainly more research is needed, but perhaps James D. and Lewis were closely related; their birth years are close enough that they could be brothers or close cousins.

The relationship between genetic distance and relatedness is summarized in the table below (same table in part 1). Since the new testers all took a Y-37 test, we will make our comparisons at the the 37 marker level.

In the table below, all of the Ackley men in the Ackley Surname Project who have done a Y-DNA test are compared to one another. Kit numbers of new testers are highlighted in green. As discussed in part 1, one of the new testers (938688) did not match any of the other men, and thus it can be assumed that he is not a descendant of Nicholas Ackley. His genetic distances to the other men were above the FTDNA reporting threshold, so they are not reported. However, since we know he does not match anyone else we can color his cells red to indicate not related.

Kit B16608 is a descendant of Lewis Ackley, 938816 is a descendant of Samuel Ackley, 938425 is a descendant of Daniel Ackley, 938369 is a descendant of James D. Ackley, and 938688 is a descendant of Edmund Ackley. As discussed above, 938688 is not genetically related to any of the other Ackley men in the project; therefore, the Edmund Ackley line opens up a whole new research opportunity.

As mentioned in part 1, I feel like this recruitment effort has more than met my expectations. I plan on conducting a similar effort during the next FTNDA sale (most likely between Thanksgiving and Christmas). Next time I will be looking for more descendants of Samuel Ackley, descendants of Nicholas's son Thomas (we have none in the project yet), Ackleys whose connection to Nicholas Ackley is as yet unknown, Ackleys who may have a connection to the Edmund Ackley line, and the ever-elusive Ackleys who live in England. If you fit in one of these categories or know someone who does, please contact me if you are interested in doing a Y-DNA test.

Report on New Recruits

The results for the new recruits for the Ackley Surname Project that I wrote about in a previous post are starting to come in. I feel a little bit like Steve Martin in "The Jerk" when the new phone books came in:

Here is some background on what is known about each of their ancestors and an update on how their results compare to the rest of the Ackley men already in the project.

The first new member is a descendant of James D. Ackley of Otsego County, New York. Presently, James is a brick wall for this Ackley line. The following biography from "History of Floyd County, Iowa" [1] gives a good overview about what is known about James:

There is also a good paper trail for James' descendants. I built a quick and dirty tree on Ancestry for our new member's family (leaving off the most recent generations to protect his identity):

The second new member is a descendant of William Ackley, of whom not much is known. I wrote about William's son Daniel Ackley in this post back in 2016, who is believed to have been born in Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey and settled in Pennsylvania. As with the first new member, this line hits a brick wall at William. There is also a decent paper trail for this family up to Daniel; I have also created a quick and dirty tree on Ancestry for Daniel's descendants:

The third Ackley recruit is a descendant of Edwin/Edmund Ackley, born about 1832-1834 and died of typhoid fever in 1862 while a soldier in the Civil War. He lived in Livingston County, New York. Here is his quick and dirty tree:

The Results

Here is the exciting part. Two of the tests that have come back so far indicate that two of these men are almost certainly descendants of Nicholas Ackley. The third tester does not match any of the Ackley men in the project, and is just as certainly not a descendant of Nicholas Ackley. Although this may seem disappointing on the surface, the information we have from his test may help another Ackley line extend their tree several generations back in time as we learn more.

Recall that Y-DNA matches are measured by genetic distance; I won't repeat all the details on how this works here, but if you need a refresher, see this post. The relationship between genetic distance and relatedness is summarized in the table below. Since the new testers all took a Y-37 test, we will make our comparisons at the the 37 marker level.

In the table below, the two new testers who are descendants of Nicholas Ackley are highlighted in green; 938425 is the descendant of Daniel Ackley, and 938369 is the descendant of James D. Ackley. The genetic distances between the testers are contained in the cells of the table. The cells are color-coded according to the table above, and you can see that there are no red cells for the two new testers (in fact, there are no red cells between any of the Ackley men in the project). There are a few yellow cells, meaning "Possibly Related". The two men with whom all of the yellow cells occur (648886 and 177515) are both known descendants of Nicholas Ackley, so I believe it is safe to conclude that they are in fact related.

While this information is not enough to break down the brick walls that exist on these Ackley lines, it does narrow down the search tremendously; these two men (and anyone else who is a descendant of either James D. or Daniel Ackley) can restrict their research to the descendants of Nicholas.

Note that the third tester is not included in the table above. This is because the genetic distance between him and the rest of the Ackley men in the project is greater than the upper limit set by FTDNA for reporting. He has only two matches at both 12 and 25 markers, neither of which has the Ackley surname. Both of these matches have only tested to the 25 marker level. One of the matches has the surname Schroeder and the other has the surname Eckler. I'm not sure what to make of the Schroeder match yet, but the Eckler match could be significant. There is an Eckler family that had some members who changed their surname to Ackley. There is a published genealogy titled "The Eckler-Ackler-Ackley Family" [2] written by A. Ross Eckler. Without going into detail to protect the privacy of the testers, there is good reason to believe that the Eckler match to our Ackley tester is related to A. Ross Eckler. Further testing of more Eckler/Ackley men will be needed to further confirm (or refute) a possible connection between our Ackley tester and the Eckler family, but it is a promising path for further research.

The results for the final two testers are not expected until late October. I will write an update when the results are available. So far this recruitment effort has provided exactly the kind of information I was hoping for; I expect similarly useful information from the remaining two tests.

Sources

1. History of Floyd County, Iowa: Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Townships, Educational, Religious, Civil, Military, and Political History; Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens. History of Iowa, Embracing Accounts of the Pre-historic Races, Aborigines, French, English and American Conquests, and a General Review of Its Civil, Political and Military History, Volume 2 (Chicago: Inter-State Publishing Co., 1882), p. 1082.

2. Eckler, A. Ross. The Eckler-Ackler-Ackley Family. Self-published, Morristown, New Jersey, 1970.