St Clair Sinclair DNA L193

The L193 marker has led to a great deal of understanding for one lineage of our family, the descendants of Alexander Sinkler. Alexander came over in 1698. He was born in Glasgow about 1666. This video and recent discoveries make it clear that Alexander's family likely never spent time in the highlands. Instead, we were likely in the border regions and then, further back, in England.


Click here if you can't see the video above.

Sinclair DNA Video

A quick overview of ancient DNA discoveries in the last few years.


If you have trouble seeing the above video, click here.

Recent discoveries in the field are adding new understanding to our Sinclair DNA study and, of course, many others around the world.

Sinclair DNA Exposing Some Myths

This slide show hosted on Slide Share helps to explain some of the myths of the Sinclair family. Our Sinclair DNA study is adding a bright light to many of these myths.

 

Sinclair Dna from Steve Clair

If you can't see the one above, click here.

For instance:

• There weren't Templars at Bannockburn. 
• The stone in Rosslyn Chapel which refers to William de St. Clair as a Knight Templar was put there in the 20th Century.
• The Westford Knight is difficult to see, but the sword there is very convincing.
• The Newport Tower is very convincing, but there's no evidence it was built by Sinclairs.
• The carving of "two knights on a horse" in Rosslyn is one man on a horse and one behind. I've seen it in person.
• Some Sinclairs testified against the Templars in Scotland, but some testified on their behalf.
• Our Sinclair DNA study is beginning to prove the real facts of our family.

In Praise of FTDNA

What Family Tree DNA has made available has been incredible for the St. Clair Family:

1. We've found a path towards the true history of our family. We don't all descend, as the dusty old books say, from Rollo or William the Conqueror. We have 12 distinct lineages, and a much more complex history. 
2. FTDNA's Family Finder test has helped 3 of our family members solve, or start to solve, their questions about adoption. 
3. With continued SNP testing, we're getting much closer to "connecting the branches to the leaves" as Bennet Greenspan said. In two cases, we feel there's a chance we may solve the entire history of family lines back to the very early medieval period. None of this would have been possible without the ongoing advancements of FTDNA.

That list could go on an on. When I think back to the time 10 years ago, before Stan St. Clair and I took the first tests in the family, genealogy was so inexact. People argued over competing documents and made wild claims. And no one had any certainty before the 1600s.

Now, using FTDNA and SNP research, many of us have a direction of where to look and when we might connect to much older records.

By making the complicated science of DNA easy for the masses, Family Tree DNA has truly helped genealogists overcome brick walls in their families.

Sinclair DNA in East Lothian, Scotland

I recently got back from a whirlwind trip around East Lothian Scotland. Among the stops were Dirlton Castle, second castle of the de Vaux in Scotland.

The de Vaux's first (named Tarbet Castle) was on Fidra Island, formerly called Elbottle, about a mile off-shore in the Firth of Forth. All this land (the barony of Dirleton) was given to the de Vaux family by King David I of Scotland.  Later, the island was given by William de Vaux to Dryburgh Abbey in 1220.  Dryburgh is the beautiful Border Region abbey founded by Hugh de Morville.

Sinclair DNA is very interested in the de Morvilles, the St Clairs of Herdmanstoun, the de Vaux, the Seatons and the Giffards. Note some of the witnesses of the gift of Fidra Island (Elbottle) to Dryburgh Abbey -

• Alexander Seaton
• Henry Sinclair
• John of Fenton
• Nocholas of May
• Patrick of Herdmanstoun
• Robert of Keith
• and others

I'll be posting video from this trip soon.

 Wikipedia page on Fidra / Elbottle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidra

 Source for Fidra gift information -
PoMS, H3/586/4 (http://db.poms.ac.uk accessed 03 November 2012)

Sinclair DNA on Family Tree DNA, Our Most Listened-to Blog Talk Radio Show

I've hosted quite a few Blog Talk Radio shows about our Sinclair family DNA study. Of them all, the one with the most listeners featured Bennett Greenspan, one of the founders of Family Tree DNA.

Click here to launch the show.

Bennett makes this complex subject easy. I highly recommend listening in, no matter what level you are in your own DNA.

How Sinclair DNA members avoid getting pulled into the hype

As in many aspects of life, there's a tremendous amount of hype that happens in particular parts of the DNA world. This blog post is about avoiding the hype and staying focused on the facts.

1. No one, I repeat, NO ONE knows with any real certainty who their ancient ancestors were. When I say ancient, I mean sometime around or before the 1300s. Genealogists who are good at what they do, know that records before the 1600s are incredibly scarce. So if someone is claiming that they know with absolute certainty who their ancestors were in the 1300s, it means that they must be of a royal family in England, France, or elsewhere. Or they're simply making it up.

While records run out sometime around or before the 1600s, DNA cannot get close enough to that time period to finish the story. There are currently a few SNP tests which can give you some sense of the geography of a common ancestor who might have lived about 1000 AD. But that leaves a 600 year gap. And lots of things could've happened during that 600 year gap.

Traditional records-based genealogy research works backwards in time. DNA research works forward, from our exit out of Africa, to where we are today. The advent of SNPs has allowed us to get much closer towards the 1600s. And while it is tempting to think that you have solved it,  you will most likely be proven wrong. For this reason, I offer point number two.

2. Watch for words which signal proclamations. There are a bunch of Yahoo groups out there, many of which contain very solid researchers. But often, lurking in the shadows, are some of what I call "true believers."

How do you recognize a true believer? You will see people using words like:

• We've solved it
• Certain
• Absolute
• Definite
• Finally
• Merovingians
• Holy Grail
• Bloodline
• Knights Templar
• Da Vinci Code

And here are some words you will not see them using:

• Possibly
• Probability
• Evidence
• Footnote
• Chance
• More research
• Lewis C.  Loyd
• K.S.B Keats-Rohan
• Non-Internet research
• Library
• Trip to the NAS
• I'm not sure

3. Choose your Sinclair researchers carefully. I don't blame Dan Brown, really. He could not have known the effect his book, The Da Vinci Code, would have on the genealogy and DNA world. A quick look around the Internet will show you many families (with only the slightest of links to the Sinclair family) who have decided that they are in fact our blood relations. Even within our own family the book has caused huge divisions. A few members of our family are utterly convinced they descend from a supposed union of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. This is not a subject which should even be discussed when one is working on DNA. If you doubt me, look at how your local library (there's that word again) puts The Da Vinci Code on its shelves. It's in the fiction section.

We have a wonderful group of people researching the history of the Sinclair St. Clair family. We host this group on Google Groups, and we maintain high standards. If you are a serious researcher, and have some reason to be researching the Sinclair St. Clair family, please get in touch with us at our website StClairResearch.com

Our methodology page at the Sinclair DNA website

Keep up with our Sinclair family DNA study on Facebook

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The Sinclair DNA study puts out frequent YouTube videos.