Summary of Ackley Surname Project as of November 2023

It has been a while since I have written a summary of the data from the Ackley Surname Project at Family Tree DNA. We've had some new results recently that I have not yet reported on. This post is quite long, but I thought it was important to take a comprehensive look at what we know about the various groups of Ackley men who have joined the project.

STR Testing - Description and Results

Before jumping into STR testing results, a little refresher on STR testing is in order. Family Tree DNA offers three levels of Short Tandem Repeat (STR) testing: Y-37, Y-67, and Y-111. It is not necessary to understand all of the science behind this testing, but a few words on the basics might be helpful for understanding how these tests are used. According to the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG):  “A short tandem repeat (STR) in DNA occurs when a pattern of two or more nucleotides are repeated and the repeated sequences are directly adjacent to each other.” [1] According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH): “A nucleotide is one of the structural components, or building blocks, of DNA and RNA. A nucleotide consists of a base (one of four chemicals: adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C)) plus a molecule of sugar and one of phosphoric acid.” [2] STR testing counts the number of repeats on specific segments of Y DNA (called markers), which are designated by the letters “DYS” followed by a number. The marker values for two men are compared, and if the number of non-matching markers (a measure known as genetic distance) falls below established thresholds, there is a high likelihood the two men are related. We have used Y-37 STR testing in the Ackley Surname Project to determine group membership; i.e., to check if a tester is in the group of Nicholas Ackley descendants or a member of some other group.

The table below gives a list of all men in the project who have tested at the Y-37 level or higher. Although most of the members carry the Ackley surname and are descendants of Nicholas Ackley, we have a number of other men with similar surnames who have joined to see if they might be related to the Ackley surname. The testers are grouped by surname and color-coded for easy identification in later data tables. I realize the font in these pictures is quite small, but you can click on any table/picture to open a larger version. Note that the Nicholas Ackley descendants are divided into two subgroups; the men colored in darker orange are descendants whose connections to Nicholas Ackley are known, while those in lighter orange are men whose connections to Nicholas are not known, but are presumed to be descendants because they match all of the other Nicholas descendants whose relationships are known. The descendancy column shows how each tester descends from their earliest known ancestor.

Among the light orange group are men who are members of what has become known as the "New Jersey Line" (kit numbers 938425, 947514, and 950608); they are descendants of Daniel Ackley of New Jersey. While the exact line of descendancy from Nicholas is not known, we now know from Y-DNA SNP testing that they are likely descended from Nicholas's son Samuel. Likewise, kit number B16608 belongs to a man who is a descendant of Lewis Ackley, who is the progenitor of what is known as the "Ohio Line". See this post for a discussion of these two lines.

As mentioned above, relatedness between two men is measured by genetic distance. In theory, the higher the genetic distance, the less chance two men are related. The table below shows the degree of relatedness based on the number of markers tested and the calculated genetic distance.

Note that at 37 markers, any two men whose genetic distance is greater than 5 are considered "Not Related". FTDNA does not report genetic distances greater than 5, so I used a program called Still Another Phylogeny Program (SAPP) [4] to calculate genetic distances between all men in the project at 37 markers, which are shown in the table below. Note that there are many genetic distance cells that are red, indicating that the men being compared are not related. Most of these cells occur for comparisons between men who have different surnames; i.e., Ackley vs. Hackley, etc. There are a few exceptions, which will be discussed in more detail below.  Also note that the genetic distances in all red cells are greater than 30, further validating the conclusion that the groups are unrelated to each other.

Ackley Men Who Are Not Descendants of Nicholas

As mentioned above, there are a few men with the Ackley surname in the project who are not descendants of Nicholas based on their Y-37 test results. The first group of these are men who are descendants of Johan Hendrick Eckler whose ancestors changed their surname to Ackley (darker brown grouping toward the top of the table). We have three project members in this group. A more complete discussion of the Eckler-Ackler-Ackley group can be found in this blog post.

We also have two Ackley men with English heritage who have tested and are not related to the U.S. Ackley men or to each other (lighter brown grouping at the bottom of the table). One of these men was born in England and has a paper trail of English ancestors. The other was born in Australia, but his father was born in England and also has a paper trail of English ancestors. For more information on these men, see the posts here and here.

The newest members of the project are two men who have the Ackley surname, but turn out not to be descendants of Nicholas Ackley. The Ackley line of descent for the first of these new testers is: 

Jacob Ackley (1764-1840) -> Samuel Jacob Ackley (1794-1874) -> James Lawrence Ackley (1823-1918) -> Elmer Ellsworth Ackley (1861-1946) -> Keith Ellsworth Ackley (1905-1999) -> Kit 998479

This man does not match any of the other Ackley men in the project, but somewhat surprisingly he does match two men with the Ackerly surname in the project (grouped with them in the aqua grouping at the top of the table). I have seen plenty of evidence in paper records (mostly England census) where the two names seem to have been used interchangeably for the same family over different census years. In those cases it is always difficult to know which of the names is the "correct" name. It is entirely possible that the two names originated in England as a single name (I don't know if Ackley or Ackerly was the original name) that split when they came to America. More testing and more research is needed to sort this out.

The line of descent for the second of the new testers is:

Benjamin Ackley (1758-1835) -> Benjamin Ackley (1810-1857) -> Uriah Ackley (1852-1928) -> Edward Ackley (1871-1946) -> Willard Ackley (1892-1967) -> Rexford Ackley (1913-2007) -> Private->Kit 1001089

This family lived in Bradford County, Pennsylvania for many generations. Some of the records for the earlier generations spell the name as Ackla or Acla rather than Ackley; as usual it is hard to know if those are misspellings or if the name was originally Ackla and gradually became Ackley. This tester did not match any of the other men in the project with any surname (grouped with the two UK men in the light brown group at the bottom of the table). As with the previous tester, more testing and research is needed.

SNP Testing - Description and Results

While STR testing has been used to test group membership as discussed above, we have used SNP testing to define the Ackley branches on the Y haplotree (sometimes known as the "Tree of Mankind"). This approach has been helpful in defining genetic branches for the sons of Nicholas Ackley, which in turn has helped some project members refine their genealogy research. SNP testing identifies Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms. From Family Search: “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.” [3] For example, the substitution of a C for a G in the nucleotide sequence AACGAT, producing the sequence AACCAT, is a SNP. The Big Y test examines over 700,000 locations on the Y chromosome looking for SNPs. SNPs found are compared to a known, named list of over 260,000 SNPs (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. The FTDNA SNP test is known as the Big Y-700 test.

Of the 19 men in the Nicholas Ackley group, 12 have done a Big Y test. The results of these 12 tests have created a branch on the Y haplotree for Nicholas and sub-branches for 3 of his 4 sons who had male children. We have not yet had a descendant of Nicholas's son Thomas join the project. A fifth son, Nathaniel, does not appear to have had any children. FTDNA uses a graphic known as a block tree to represent branches of the haplotree. Here is the block tree for the Nicholas Ackley branch and sub-branches:

I have labeled the blocks (branches) for Nicholas and his sons Samuel, John, and James, and replaced the names of the testers with their kit numbers to protect their privacy. The combinations of letters and numbers in each of the blocks represent the SNPs that a given set of testers have tested positive for. If there are multiple SNPs in a block, that means that current testing has not been able to differentiate the time of formation of that group of SNPs and they are considered equivalent. Typically one of the equivalent SNPs is chosen to name the branch represented by the block of equivalent SNPs. For example, R-FGC52286 is the current name for the large blue block at the top of the block tree that represents Nicholas. 

All testers below each block are positive for all of the SNPs in that block. Thus, the 12 Big Y testers from our project whose kit numbers are listed above were all positive for R-FGC52286 and the other equivalent SNPs in the Nicholas block. Moving down the tree, there are 5 testers who are positive for R-FTA24085, which we have been able to identify as the "Samuel Branch" based on traditional genealogy research.

Note that below R-FTA24085, block R-FT165378 spans only 3 of the 5 kits that have been identified as descendants of Samuel. This means that the 3 kits under that block (947514, 938425, and 950608) have tested positive for R-FT165378, while the other two kits (938369 and 938816) were negative for R-FT165378. The implication of this is that the 3 men under R-FT165378 must share an ancestor in which the mutation represented by that SNP formed, while the 2 men who do not have that mutation do not share that ancestor. The three men who are positive for R-FT165378 are in the "New Jersey Line" discussed previously. Although we know who their most recent common ancestor is (Jehu Ackley, see "Descendants of Samuel" family tree below), at this point we cannot label the R-FT165378 block with his name since we can't tell if the SNP formed in Jehu or some other ancestor between him and Samuel.

Going down one more level in the Samuel block, there is yet another block, R-FTA50958, which spans only two of the three kits under the R-FT65378 block. This again reflects the fact that the two men under that block (947514 and 938425) tested positive for the SNP known as R-FTA50958, while the other kit under R-FT65378 was not positive for R-FTA50958. The relationship between these two men is uncle and nephew, and the common ancestor between them is the father of kit #947514 and grandfather of kit #938425 (Paul on the "Descendants of Samuel" family tree below). We can in fact label this branch the "Paul Branch" on the tree, and we would expect any other descendants of Paul who do a Big Y test to fall under that branch.

The "John Branch" does not yet have any sub-branches below it because all 3 testers on that branch are closely related; in fact they are a father and two sons, and they are all positive for the same SNPs. As other descendants of John test, we would expect sub-branches to form under R-BY135594.

Similarly the "James Branch" does not have as many sub-branches as the "Samuel Branch". The two testers under R-FGC52300 are father and son and have defined their own sub-branch under the main branch of R-FT82490, but currently there are no SNPs separating the other two testers under R-FT82490, so we can only conclude that they are both descendants of James from the block tree. 

While the block tree is useful for displaying the relationships between Big Y testers and their haplogroups, it lacks the detail of more traditional family trees. Following are streamlined family trees showing the paternal lines of descent for Nicholas's sons Samuel, John, and James as well as partial trees for 4 men whose relationship to Nicholas is not yet known.

Next Steps

With the number of Big Y testers in the project and their distribution among Nicholas's sons, we now have a good structure to help other testers identify their connection to Nicholas. For example, if any of the four testers whose connections are not currently known were to take a Big Y, there is a high probability that those testers could learn which of Nicholas's sons they descend from. Further, if the right combination of members tested (such as members 648883 and 205619, who are both descendants of Zebulon Ackley), sub-branches could also be defined. As of this writing, two of those four members have recently purchased upgrades to Big Y, and we will soon learn more about their connections to Nicholas Ackley.

Even with the progress we have made, there is more that can be done to grow the Ackley portion of the haplotree. Finding the connection to England is still the highest priority; I will continue to search for English Ackley men and try to persuade them to test. Likewise, I will also search for Ackley men who are descendants of the untested sons of Nicholas's sons to try to define additional sub-branches. The detail provided by these additional branches could be helpful for testers who have not yet identified their exact connection to Nicholas.

Link of the Day

This is a link to an explanation of the Big Y test from FTDNA: https://blog.familytreedna.com/big-y-700/

Quote of the Day

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” 

—Martin Luther King Jr.

Sources

1. International Society of Genetic Genealogy. "Short Tandem Repeat". ISOGG Website, accessed 25 Feb 2023.

2. National Institutes of Health. "Genetics Review - Nucleotide". National Center for Biotechnology Information Website, accessed 25 Feb 2023.

3. Family Search. "Y-Chromosome Single Nucleotide Polymorphism testing". Family Search Website, accessed 25 Feb 2023.

4. Vance, David. "Still Another Phylogeny Program (SAPP)." Available online at https://www.jdvsite.com/. Accessed 5 Oct 2023.