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December 14, 2009 |
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DNA Pedigree of Ulster Gaston descendants
- In 2009 our Gaston DNA project grew from 15 to 25 members. It was both an exciting and disappointing year. Exciting because we fulfilled several objectives such as attracting members from Ireland and Spain, as well as developing a crude DNA profile of the Ulster lineage - a profile that is largely consistent with what we know from paper documentation. Disappointing because we are as far as ever from discovering a genetic link to France; and none of our five French and Spanish Gastons are related to each other.
But we should put this disappointment in perspective. We had naive expectations about either proving or disproving our Huguenot legend. For one thing, we perhaps did not sufficiently heed the experience of Bryan Sykes (geneticist and author) who showed how many unrelated families in England went by his surname. We should not have expected anything different for our French and Spanish Gastons. The fact that we don't find the same diversity in Antrim and the US reflects the fact that it was mainly descendants of our Irish patriarch who brought our name to Canada and the US. If we have not yet found the genetic trace of our Ulster ancestor, it could be that this lineage has died out in France, or we simply haven't tested enough French Gastons. The latest estimate is that there are about 4300 Gastons (male and female) in France, 4 of whom are in our project.
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