William Martin, of Floyd County - R-BY27212 (Y-DNA)

Hello Cousin, I descend from William Martin and Susannah Meador through their son Joel Martin and his wife Rebecca Fletcher. Then Joel's daughter Elizabeth Jane "Jennie" Martin and her husband David Woody Allen. Jennie & David had 17 children. 15 children who became adults, married, and had children. I descend from their son William James Morgan Allen and his wife, Sarah "Sally" Hicks. Then I descend from their daughter Jane Allen and her husband, Sam Hale. Their daughter Susannah Maudie Hale Layne was my Paternal Grandmother. There are great stories about William Martin and his son Joel Martin. Does your French DNA show up? I have a cousin Dan Martin who is a direct line from our WIlliam Martin that shows up with a high percent of French in his DNA. Great to meet another cousin online!

Good to meet you online, too!

I've been focusing on YDNA to find my 4th great-grandfather, and all the YDNA evidence points to a Martin man. The patriarch of our Williams surname line was born about 1796 in what is now Scott County, Virginia. He migrated with his wife and three young children to the original Floyd County, Kentucky, circa 1821. He is known as the "father" of the Oil Springs Set of the Williams family of Johnson County, Kentucky.

I can answer your question about ethnicity.

Our YDNA line appears to be Danish-Dutch prior to the UK or Ireland. The family clade for R-BY27212 is R-YP658, and we have two BigY-700 matches to men who live in the Netherlands: Raap and van der Horst. Mr. Raap tells me his ancestral name was changed to Raap from Vrijgesel.

This is part of the R1a haplogroup, which is fairly rare in Ireland, UK and northwestern Europe. R1b is much more common. However, R1a is common in Sweden, Norway, Poland, the Baltic states, Russia and Ukraine.

Autosomal testing, of course, takes in all your family history, and I am 47% England & Northwestern Europe; 18% Scotland; 13% Ireland; 11% Sweden & Denmark; and 11% Wales. This pretty much sums up my ancestral tree as I know it.

My sister is 44% England & NW Europe; 31% Scotland; 10% Ireland; 8% Wales; and 7% Sweden & Denmark.

May I ask you where you have tested your DNA, so I can see if we are an autosomal match? I'm at Ancestry, MyHeritage, GEDmatch, FTDNA, Geni and others.