A group of RAMSEY/RAMSAY researchers have started a RAMSEY/RAMSAY DNA project. To participate you have to be a male and either descended from Ramsay, Ramsey, Rumsey or any variation of, or if one thinks their family contains the Ramsey Group DNA.

If you're intrigued, let's get started! Click HERE to get a FREE Heritage Evaluation to see if your line is already part of this heritage quest!

Also Click HERE if you would like to join the RAMSEY DNA Mailing list for the Rootsweb forum discussions about our project.

The Y chromosome is passed from father to son unchanged, except for a mutation about every 500 generations. Testing the Y chromosome will provide us with a genetic finger print consisting of 1 - 67 numbers. By comparing this finger print to others with the surname RAMSEY/RAMSAY, we can determine if we are related. If you are not a male with the last name of RAMSEY/RAMSAY you can have someone else do it for you, your husband if he is a RAMSEY/RAMSAY, a brother, cousin, uncle, father, or grandfather.

Will this be beneficial? Please read the following statement:

Greetings RAMSEY-DNA members,
My husband's RAMSEY line ended in 1826 in SC with no supporting documentation or clues beyond that date. He submitted a 67 marker Y-DNA kit about 4 years ago. Since then, we have had several close matches, including one exact match at 37 markers. While all of the matches help add to the reams of information we have collected, none of them explained what we knew to be true about his family's origins.
This month, we received a notice that he had a close match to a RAMSEY in York County, SC. This was exciting news for us; we have been looking at the York County SC Ramsey's since 1999 for a variety of reasons. Now we have a solid match and one that makes sense given the information we have collected. While there is still much work to be done, we are thrilled to finally have a specific location to research and we welcome the challenge of trying to find how our family fits into the York County SC line.
Without strong DNA evidence to help focus our research, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, to identify the correct RAMSEY line with any certainty!

Brenda Ramsey
Research Lead, RAMSEY-RAMSAY DNA Project


The objectives of Surname Projects vary. Here are a few:
*Identify others who are related
*Prove or disprove theories regarding ancestors
*Solve brick walls in your research
*Determine a location for further research
*Validate existing research

Help the Ramsey / Ramsay Heritage team solve the Ramsey mystery that has alluded our researchers for hundreds of years by making a donation to the General fund for use in helping those that can't afford DNA testing so we can uncover their Ramsey heritage before the DNA evidence is lost forever! Please use the link on the left side of this page to donate.

Over the last several years, due to the unmatched growth of our database, numerous people have confirmed and found new connections with others of their surname, and adoptees and descendents of adoptees have even found their biological surname.

These successes are due in large part to the size and quality of our database, which, with your help, has achieved critical mass. We have made tremendous progress, but we feel that we can do more. If you have tested 12, 25, or 37 markers, an upgrade to 37 or 67 markers could provide the relevant connection that you or your matches have been waiting for.

Ramsay/Ramsey Y chromosomes:

When the paper trail fades in traditional genealogy, where can you turn? Modern science now offers a possible way forward. In the process, new insights into our origins emerge, and we are taken on journeys we never thought we would take.

A small beginning has been made to investigate the origins of the world’s Ramseys and Ramsays. Do we all descend from Simon de Ramesia of Huntingdon in 1140? Already the answer to that one is clear:



We now have 168 Ramsey/Ramsay we have matched and brought together with multiple families.
How, please read on:
The markers on the Y chromosome tell us a clear story: they are passed down unchanged from father to son, like our surnames, with only occasional mutations every few generations or so in each one. In other words, using a 12-marker test, we can expect no Y chromosome change at all in some family lines since surnames were adopted perhaps 700 years ago in the UK, and only a couple of changes in other lines.

What does this mean? For Ramsays (and Ramseys, the names were interchangeable in earlier times), just as for many other surnames, it seems that our forebears came from several different stocks. We are not Smiths, so each village did not contribute a Ramsay based on vocation. Far more likely is that as some Ramsays became powerful or popular, others with no surname adopted the name of their ruler or role model adding diversity to the name. How often this took place is not something we will know until many more Ramsays add their samples and Heritage files to the growing databases.

Of course, there are other means of adding diversity to the Ramsay surname. Unrecorded adoptions, illegitimacies, re-marriages and deliberate name changes could further confuse descendents turning to family history. However, it is generally thought that most diversity in single surnames traces back to the origin of the name.

How does the test work? Family Tree DNA sends out simple kits which involve rubbing the inside of the cheek of a male Ramsay with a small paper scraper which is then discharged into a small tube. Two such tubes are sent to the lab, where 12, 25 or even up to 67 positions on the Y chromosome are assessed according to the choice of the participant. The fingerprint obtained can be compared to others in the Ramsey DNA Project, or to others of any surname held in the Family Tree DNA database. Confidentiality is an issue taken seriously, and your Family Tree DNA data is treated according to your wishes, both within the Family Tree DNA system and amongst Ramsay DNA project members. So far, many participants prefer to be fairly open, in order to gain the greatest advantage from exchanging information with others in the project.

What do you get from it? Straight away, on receipt of your results, you will know whether your family joins one of those already identified or founds a new dynasty. Linking with those already years into the study of their family’s history can give you a wealth of information on your ancestors and current-day relatives as well as giving your new extended family valuable information on their links. Furthermore, Family Tree DNA will give you data on the ethnic origins of your particular Y chromosome and its near variants by comparing your Y chromosome with those of its other customers. Some will have relatively common NW European Y chromosomes, whereas others may have rare ones barely represented in the database. If you have any problems with the interpretation of your results, Family Tree DNA has lots of help pages, and there is also expertise within the group to help you out. And finally, if you tell Family Tree DNA to regard your own data as ‘open’, then in the years to come you can expect to hear from others who find that their Y chromosome matches yours. - Written by Gavin Ramsay
Edited 14-Aug-2010 DR

   
 
  
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