Phips and Phipps Y Chromosome DNA Study

23 March 2005

A Phips and Phipps Y Chromosome DNA study has been established to determine the genetic connections, if any, between the English Phipps families and those of the United States and other former or current colonies of the United Kingdom.

Testing

In order to make these connections, we are looking for males with the Phipps surname, and all its variant spellings, to take a Y chromosome DNA test to see if their Y DNA signature matches other Phipps surnamed males.

You can test at either Family Tree DNA or at DNA Heritage. If testing at FTDNA use this page to join, and indicate that you are part of the Phipps DNA study to get a price discount. You can test on 12, 25, or 37 markers at FTDNA or on 25 or 43 markers at DNA Heritage. While 12 markers will give you some preliminary results, I recommend 25 markers as a minimum to allow us to differentiate families which may have identical 12 marker results. Mismatches at 37 or 43 markers are less from 25 marker matches than are mismatches at higher numbers of markers from 12 marker matches.

Phips and Phipps in England

Some Phips and Phipps families in British North America before 1700

• James Phips of Maine, here in 1640, father of Sir William Phips, Governor of Maine;
• Solomon Phipps of Cambridge, Mass. here by 1641;
• Joseph Phipps of Philadelphia and Reading, Berks Co., PA, here by 1680;
• Henry Phippes, married at St Mary's Co., MD 1677, granted land 1678;
• John Phipps or Phyps, of James City Co., VA here in 1640. May be the John Phyps assigned land in Surry Co., VA in 1650 and 1656/7;
• Edward Phipps of Northumberland Co., VA here by 1654.

Several of the families listed above are supposed to be related as follows:
Robert Phipps had two sons, Francis Phipps and William Phipps.
Francis Phipps had a son, Sir Contantine Phipps, b 1652, Reading, Berkshire, England.
William Phipps had a son, James Phips, who immigrated to Maine.
James Phips had a son Sir William Phipps, b 1646, Governor of Maine.

Joseph Phipps of Pennsylvania also was from Reading, Berkshire, England, in the same time period.

Current Results

We have results from descendants of Sir Constantine Phipps; a descendant of Joseph Phipps of Reading, Berkshire, England, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; an unknown Phipps; and from descendants of Solomon Phipps of Charlestown, Massachusetts. We need results from other descendants of these men to verify these signatures. In addition to these lines, we are looking for descendants of the family of James Phipps of Maine.

We expect to have another descendant of Joseph Phipps join the study.

Phips and Phipps Y DNA test results

Kit Number, Ancestor, Location, and Date		Loci, DYS#, and Alleles reported by Family Tree DNA or DNA Heritage
		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40
		3 9 3	3 9 0	19/ 3 9 4	3 9 1	3 8 5 a	3 8 5 b	4 2 6	3 8 8	4 3 9	3 8 9 i	3 9 2	3 8 9 ii	4 5 8	4 5 9 a	4 5 9 b	4 5 5	4 5 4	4 4 7	4 3 7	4 4 8	4 4 9	4 6 4 a	4 6 4 b	4 6 4 c	4 6 4 d	4 6 4 e	4 6 4 f	4 6 4 g	4 6 0	G a t a H 4	Y C A II a	Y C A II b	4 5 6	6 0 7	5 7 6	5 7 0	C D Y a	C D Y b	4 4 2	4 3 8
Haplogroup R1b
#xxxx1,Francis Phips, Esq. Reading, Berkshire, Eng.	b. ~1600	13	23	14	10	10	11	12	12	12	14	13	30	17	9	10	11	11	25	15	19	30	15	15	17	17				11	11	19	23	16	15	19	15	36	37	12	12
#23323,Joseph Phipps Reading, Berks, Eng to PA	b. ~1640	13	23	14	11	11	14	12	12	12	13	13	29	18	9	10	11	11	25	15	19	30	15	15	17	17				12	11	18	23	17	15	18	17	36	40	12	12
#30,299,Phipps	b. ~1640	13	22	14	10	11	15	12	12	11	14	13	30
Haplogroup G
#xxxx2,Solomon Phipps Charlestown, Mass	b. ~1641	14	22	15	10	13	14	11	12	12	12	11	30	19	7	9	11	11	23	16	22	29	12	14	14	14				12	10	19	20	15	-	-	-	-	-	12	10

Analysis

We have four sequences, representing 6 participants. XXXX1 has two persons who match at 25 markers, and XXXX2 has two persons who match at 25 markers. So, four results are in HAPLOGROUP R1b which is consistent for an origin in the British Isles. Preleminary analysis says these lines are not related in a genealogically meaningful way. This would mean that the New England Phipps families and the Pennsylvania and Virginia Phipps families are not recently related. Until we have more results to verify these lines, we can not say much more than this.

The other two results are for Solomon Phipps of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and William Phipps of Nova Scotia. These are in Haplogroup G and are not related to the other lines. Two people from this line have tested and are a 37/37 match.

Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Viking, Celt?

At this time, it is not possible to absolutely differentiate between the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavian and Norman Vikings through DNA analysis, although the following articles make a start in that direction using Haplogroups of selected markers.
See,:
Helgason, etc., "Estimating Scandinavian and Gaelic Ancestry in the Male Settlers of Iceland", Am. J. Hum. Genet., 67:697-717, (2000);

and, this article:

Wilson, J. F., Weiss, D. A., Richards, M., Thomas, M. G., Bradman, N., Goldstein, D. B. "Genetic evidence for different male and female roles during cultural transitions in the British Isles". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., vol 98 (9) p5078 (2001)",
contains evidence for the following preliminary table of Y DNA markers for Celtic/Basque, Anglo Saxon and Norwegian ancestry:


 
                                  DYS19/ 
         DYS388-DYS393-DYS392-DYS394-DYS390-DYS391 
Celtic/Basque:  12-----13-----13-----14-----24-----11  
Anglo Saxon:    14-----13-----11-----14-----22-----10 
Norwegian:      12-----13-----11-----16-----25-----11 
 
------------------------------------------------------ 

 
Other Y DNA marker sets: 
                                  DYS19/ 
         DYS388-DYS393-DYS392-DYS394-DYS390-DYS391 
Atlantic MH*    12     13     13     14     24     11 
Cohen    MH     16     12     11     14     23     10 
*=Celtic/Basque 
MH=Modal Haplotype       





Preliminary results from a more recent study are reported in this article from the BBC:
Nicola Cook, "Viking Genetics Survey Results", reporting on a study done by Prof. David B. Goldstein at University College London. Once Dr Goldstein's results are published, a link will be made to the paper.

More Information on DNA and Genealogy:

The following page at the University of Leicester contains links to primary scientific research on the Y chromosome: The Y Chromosome as a Marker for the History and Structure of Human Populations.

The following article is one of the more important discussions of Y DNA: Semino, et.al., "The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y chromosome Perspective", Science 2000, v 290, p.1155 et. seq.

This is a glossary of genetic terms: Talking Glossary of Genetic Terms from the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Information on Y DNA testing and Genetics in family history research is available from the following web page:
Chris Pomery's DNA Portal: DNA & the Family Historian.

This page by Dennis Garvey discusses Haplogroups and gives frequency tables for the possible variations: Haplogroups.

This page by Nancy Custer gives information on the Y-STR Loci Allele Frequencies as Reported in the Y-STR European and USA Databases.

Kevin Duerinck's page gives information on the various testing laboratories:
Genetics Laboratories and Testing Sites

See also:
GENEALOGY-DNA-L Listed URLs
and,
Genetics and Genealogy

There are online Y DNA databases for YSTR Europe, YSTR America and YSTR Asia at the Y STR sites.

There is a discussion list at Rootsweb. Instructions for subscribing and searching the archives are at this URL: https://mailinglists.rootsweb.com/listindexes/legacy/other/Miscellaneous/GENEALOGY-DNA.html.

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Steven C. Perkins
[email protected]