Re: Updates
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In reply to:
Re: Updates
Clyde Rice 12/21/06
Hi Clyde,
I'll email you the directory for the area then. If there isn't funding and you have to work on a shoestring budget, or out of pocket, then it's best to make an educated guess about which UK patriarch lines you'll specifically want to test. On the assumption that most Royce lines in England are distinct and not related ( there's no evidence for or against this idea yet, but it is the safer of two assumptions ) I see two main possibilities for Robert Royce's origins:
a) He is from one of the old Royce families of Lincolnshire. These seem to have been concentrated around Epworth on the Isle of Axholme, about 120 km north of Stamford, but who their Y-descendants are today, if the lines even survived, isn't clear. The two Lincolnshire Royce lines from the patriarch postings might descend from them, but since the locations in which these Royces resided were far to the south in that county they might equally descend from Royces in the Rutland area;
b) He is from the Royce families centered around Rutland; if so then he is probably the Robert Royce christened 1605 at Ketton, about 6 km west of Stamford. Numerous Royce families in this same area probably do share the same ancestor, and they would still have a large number of descendants.
To test at a minimum expense ( $200 ) you would want to find a descendant from each of the following groups ( note that the groupings are hypothetical and haven't been formally linked with DNA; formal linking would cost considerably more ).
Group A – Royce Lines of Lincolnshire ( possibly related )
( LIN1766 ) Thomas Royce
( LIN1810 ) William Royce
Group B – Royce Lines from Greater Rutland ( probably all related )
( LCR1795 ) Richard Royce
( NHM1806 ) Unknown Royce
( NHM1813 ) William Royce
( NHM1829 ) Thomas William Royce
( RUT1691 ) Allen Royce
( RUT1764 ) Richard Royce
( RUT1768 ) Matthias Royce
( RUT1773 ) William Royce
( RUT1777 ) George Royce
( RUT1813 ) Richard Royce
( RUT1821 ) William Royce
If you can find two correspondents who can establish their respective Y-ancestries back to a patriarch in Group A and Group B then you can probably establish the basic ( i.e. 12-marker ) form of the Lincolnshire and Rutland Royce haplotypes, on the assumption that the hypothetical groupings hold. From what I understand Robert Royce's haplotype is relatively distinct, i.e. few haplotypes from non-Robert Royce descendants resemble it, so two 12-marker tests should be enough to establish a connection if there is one. Ideally samples would be collected from at least one descendant of each of the 30 patriarchs listed ( assuming all lines survived through to the present day, probably not ) but the cost for that would be considerably more. For Robert specifically, the groups given above have the most potential for a match.
About 25 Royces are currently listed for the area of Lincolnshire-Leicestershire-Rutland. People do move around a lot over the centuries but there should be at least a few descendants from these lines still in the area.