A reader sent a reference to the genetic research that the Pennington Family is conducting, see: Pennington Research Association . Portions of this are very interesting, and, even though some new terminology is introduced, the gist of the story is evident. I copy some of it here:
When the male Y chromosome is analyzed, the majority of the UK [United Kingdom] population (68%) falls into a large group called Haplogroup 1 (HG1), but in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales this rises to 90%. The Haplogroup is defined by a set of very slowly mutating groups of bases at locations that reveal deep ancestry, well before surnames were adopted. These classifications are so broad that they are not very useful for family reconstruction studies, but knowing your HG can be fun because it appears to correlate with an early tribe of Europe (Saxon, Jute, Dane, Viking, etc.). It is also useful to the extent that if two Penningtons have different HG's then they must be very distantly related in that they came from different European populations.
The HG can be hinted at by looking at the 12 numbers that were measured for each individual. It turns out that a specific group of six repeat numbers tend to occur frequently only in certain Haplogroups, thus one can guess from the data, with good confidence, at the HG of the individual; without actually measuring the HG defining mutations.
There is a signature called the "Atlantic Modal Haplotype" (AMH), which is a subset of the group HG1, and is found frequently on the Atlantic coast of Europe. [The Pennington] results suggest that the six related Pennington groups are almost certainly HG1 (called HG 1.15+). In fact all of our family groups tested so far are HG1, with the exception of Group 33 (HG2, more properly a subset of this group called 2.47+) and Group 6, that we do not know how to classify, based on our current understanding. As expected with hindsight, many other families are getting such AMH matches. This means that the other six loci (numbers) that were tested are the important ones in assigning families to groups with common ancestors. The scientific literature to date suggests that the AMH (and our six related groups) seem to indicate ancestry in the original population of the UK before 800 AD. In other words, Celts or Ancient Britons.
The result for Group 33 is predicted to be HG 2.47+, and considered likely to be Viking or Norman (considering the part of the UK from which this family originated). A recent genetic survey of the UK population, at Viking Genetics Survey Results , found that, although HG 2.47+ was common in Norway, it was also present in North Germany, where Anglo_Saxons originated, and so differentiation was difficult. Only 18% of the UK population are HG2, but 50% of present Norwegians are HG2.
Another meaningful site is
The Mumma Surname DNA Project
, which has some good material.
(30 Aug 02)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.