created 1997

Results

• determined that the early Andrew and William Barbee lines are NOT related. This means that there are at least 2 distinct Barbee lines that have different DNA patterns in the U.S. and that a DNA test will show whether you are related to one of these two lines.
• identified previously unconnected Barbee lines that are related to the Andrew or William Barbee lines. This helps those families narrow their genealogy research.
• found genetic differences between related Barbee lines which may be helpful in narrowing down where family connections occurred.
• determined that the Barby line from England IS NOT related to the Andrew and William Barbee lines in the U.S.

• 5 known descendants of William Barbee and 14 other Barbee families that are related to William Barbee.
• 2 known descendants of Andrew Barbee and 3 other Barbee families that are related to Andrew Barbee.
• 1 known descendant of Edward Barby, born 1691 in England.

November 2008 - Nine of the participants who are related to the William Barbee line chose to upgrade to a 67 marker DNA test. Thanks to Jim Barbee, David Barbee and Janet Barbee who paid for these upgrades to benefit the project. You can tell in the Results table who these individuals are. We are still waiting on the results of a few markers for Kit 76432. We did this to see if upgrading to 67 marlers adds useful information to the project. The 9 participants only vary on 1 of the additional 30 markers - DYS 578. I would appreciate feedback on whether project participants think that testing the additional markers is useful.

The lab is offering $30 holiday discounts for new participants until December 31, 2008. If you are are interested in joining the Barbee DNA project, please click on the Join menu button at the top of each DNA Project Page. The prices shown are the normal prices - you will see the discounted price on the order form.

If you would like to stay informed about the Barbee DNA Project, subscribe to the Barbee-DNA Mailing list - Instructions. To be notified on a weekly basis when results are added to this page via an automated system, please follow instructions on using the "Be Notified" menu button located at the bottom of this page.

Donations will help fund testing of other Barbee descendants. We need your help!

Raw Data and Analysis

The results are most useful when you refer to the ancestry of the participants on the Members page.

Participants have been DNA tested for various combinations of 76 markers. First, I consider all markers in identifying which Barbee line the participant fits into. Once the correct Barbee line is identified, then most participants want to focus on mutations within that Barbee line in order to get clues about how their particular branch might fit in to the documented Barbee line. Therefore, as an experiment, the first table presented below shows only those markers where one of the Barbee/Barby lines experienced a mutation. The mutations are highlighted. The full results follow the Mutations table, but are broken into 3 separate tables that cover the first 25 markers, the next 25 markers and the final 26 markers. Please let me know if you have any suggestions that would improve the presentation.

Tips for analyzing mutations

Unique mutations may help identify what branch you connect to. For example, my John "Smith" Barbee line is the only part of the William Barbee line so far that has a mutation on DYS marker 454. My first cousin once removed has the same mutation as my brother. Because of the uniqueness of this mutation, I feel safe in assuming that our most recent common ancestor, my great grandfather, had this same mutation and handed it down. My hope is that someday we will test a participant that has this same mutation. This would most likely indicate a close relationship and could help me find how I connect to the William Barbee line.

Determine approximately when the mutation occurred. This is done by testing relatives in the same Barbee branch as I described above for the John "Smith" Barbee line. For the second DNA test, I recommend testing the most distant cousin you can find. If the two participants match then your most recent common ancestor likely had the same DNA and the mutation probably occurred in earlier generations. If your DNA results differ, then testing another distant cousin or somewhat closer relative may help narrow when the mutation occurred.

Rapidly mutating markers may be less useful in identifying how a participant connects to others. Markers that are thought to mutate frequently across the general population are highlighted in red but the actual mutation rates vary by family. For example, almost half of the participants tested that are part of the William Barbee line have a mutation on DYS marker 439. Notice that, of the 3 descendants of Hilary W. Barbee who was born in 1819, 1 participant has a mutation. This mutation likely occurred sometime in the last 4 generations. Even though there are other participants who share the same mutation they have already traced their Barbee lines beyond 1819 when Hilary was born, so this marker is not really helpful in identifying others who may be closely related to the descendant of Hilary Barbee. This mutation may have occurred independently in various branches of the William Barbee line.

On the other hand, one participant who is descended from Joseph William Barbee who was born in 1864, has a 2 step mutation in DYS marker 439. If another participant is tested who matches this mutation, it could be a significant clue.

CDYa and CDYb are a special case. They are 2 copies of the same marker that can mutate independently. Unfortunately, there is no way of distinguishing CDYa from CDYb. The lab reports the lowest value for a participant as CDYa and the other value for CDYb. That means that you have to consider those 2 columns together. For example, kit 23700 reports CDYa as 39 and CDYb as 40. However, these results could be reversed, i.e. CDYa might actually be 40 and CDYb might actually be 39.

Remember that the modal haplotype merely reflects the most common result for those who have been tested. We have no assurance that the modal haplotype reflects the most common value among all Barbees -- it may change as more people are tested. For the markers where everyone in a particular Barbee line matches (like DYS 19 in the William Barbee line), it is likely that William Barbee's son, John (the only son known to have descendants), had the same value for this marker. The more people who are tested the more persuasive this becomes. At this point, we have not tested enough participants in the Andrew Barbee line to reach a similar conclusion.

Keep in mind that mutations can occur up or down and reverse themselves in subsequent generations.

All but one of the five documented descendants of William Barbee have mutations. However, without testing other documented descendants of that branch, we have no way of knowing how recently that mutation occurred. It could have been anytime in about the last 9 generations back to William Barbee's son, John. Therefore, be careful about drawing conclusions that you descend from the same line because you share a mutation with one of the documented descendants.

The bottom line is that we have made a lot of progress, but we need more extensive testing of the documented descendants of Andrew and William Barbee before we can draw conclusions about branches in these Barbee lines. Also, remember that we have not tested a single descendant of William's grandsons, Christopher and Frances. (However, some researchers think that the Haws Barbee line is descended from Frances.) Finally, I'd like to remind you to use the DNA project to identify avenues to explore and prove through traditional genealogy research.

Mutations

Table Notes:

• The modal haplotype consists of the most frequent values.
• The Haplogroup represents deep ethnic ancestry. All related persons should have the same Haplogroup. R1b1b2 is a more refined test than R1b1.
• Haplogroups consist of many Haplotypes (the string of numbers). That explains why the Barby line from England and the William Barbee line have the same Haplogroup, but are unrelated. R1b1 is the most common Haplogroup in Western Europe. Haplogroup “I” is thought to be Viking in origin.