What My Y-DNA Tells Me About Where I Come From?
I started looking for my paternal line in the late 1980’s using what was available at the time: paper records and microfiche. I was hoping to solve the mystery of my 3 great-grandfather David Gibson. But the paper trail led me down a path that did not match the stories I had been told as a kid. When DNA started to become available, I did some testing and in doing so, I found a whole lot more than I thought I would. I still don’t have all the answers and probably never will, but who knows, maybe someday.
Family Trees can be muddled; they are, including mine, full of mistakes. There are mistakes in records, in census and marriage and even birth records. Names are changed and confused. Peoples’ recollections as to who was married to whom, when someone died, or someone was born all get turned around. DNA does not lie.
In July of 2013 I took my first Y-DNA test. I had already taken a couple other tests, mostly not knowing what I was doing. DNA is difficult to understand, and even today there is much I don’t get, so I still stumble around.
When I got my first matches from the Y 37 test one thing really stood out. I had a lot of matches but very few Gibson’s. The other thing that stood out was all the Swedish or Norwegian names in those matches. Then I noticed a couple McKenzie’s which kind of validated that my GGGF David could be a McKenzie. Here is a small part of my Y-37 matches.
| Genetic Distance | Full Name | Earliest Known Ancestor | Y-Dna Haplogroup |
| 0 | Franklin L. Gibson | John Gibson. B1795 Died. 1879 | I-M253 |
| 1 | Ivar Anskar Dypbukt | Jon Sivertsen Halås 1612-1670 Eide | I-Y36104 |
| 1 | Genn Ahlström | I-M253 | |
| 1 | Mr. Torger Heldal Hoel | Jens Larsen Stenbøl, D.1709 Askim, Østfold, Norway | I-M253 |
| 1 | Frankie J. Mckenzie | I-M253 | |
| 1 | Corey Mckenzie | I-M253 | |
| 1 | Lars Boman | Nils Nilsson Menlös 1736-1804 Klintsjön (AC) | I-M253 |
| 1 | Mr. Chadwick B. Gibson | David Gibson B Abt 1842 D1910 Clay Co, Ky | I-M253 |
| 1 | William James Simmons | James H Simmons, B. Abt 1848, AL And D. After1880 | I-M253 |
| 2 | Mr. Charlie Mckenzie | I-Y15929 | |
| 2 | Lynn G Seamans | William Seamans B Abt 1785 D 1820 | I-Y15583 |
| 2 | S Branch | Dennis Branch B.C1790-1800 And D.1847 NC | I-BY34582 |
| 2 | Mr. Michael Ellis Branch | John Branch B Abt 1740, Bladen Co., NC | I-Y36133 |
| 2 | Peter Tore Larsson | Per Larsson, B 1550 Själevad, Västernorrland | I-Y85687 |
| 2 | Darryl Hunt | Thomas H. Hunt B. 1715 – Abt 1791; NC | I-BY34582 |
Of the two Gibson’s I found on the list, I knew who one of them was, but did not, and still do not know who Chadwick’s family is. Update. Chadwick has been found; he is a 3rd cousin 1x removed. Descends through James, son of David.
Soon after getting these results, I received an email from one Jakob Norstedt who was interested in my apparent Swedish ancestry. Jakob asked me to take a SNP test for L1302 which I did in 2014 and tested negative for. Jakob informed me that by testing negative, I was Swedish, but that I was not pure Swedish, I was Swedish via the British Isles, which made me a descendent of Vikings.
Not long after my interaction with Jakob, I received another email from a lady named Gail Riddell who is the administrator for the Simmons Surname Project. She had the same question as Jakob, how does a Gibson fit into a Simmons family? I had noticed of course the number of matches I had with people with the name Simmons, and at the time I just choose to overlook them. I was looking for McKenzie’s, not some other family, but I told her what I knew, which was I was clueless as to how that connection came along. As I tested further higher levels of Y-DNA the Simmons connection became more and more prevalent. Here are my 67 marker results showing the top matches. All the Swedish matches dropped down in the Genetic Distance and the one Gibson, and one McKenzie stayed, along with the Simmons matches. (Simmons, Seamans, and other variations are the same family).
| Genetic Distance | Full Name | Earliest Known Ancestor | Y-DNA Haplogroup |
| 1 | Mr. Chadwick B. Gibson | David Gibson b abt 1842 d1910 Clay Co, Ky | I-M253 |
| 1 | William James Simmons | James H Simmons, b. abt 1848, AL and d. after1880 | I-M253 |
| 2 | Mr. Charlie McKenzie | I-Y15929 | |
| 2 | Lynn G Seamans | William Seamans b abt 1785 d 1820 | I-Y15583 |
| 2 | Dr. Dana Gerald Seamans | William Seamans b 1785 d1820 | I-M253 |
| 2 | Odell G Seamans | William Seamans d 1820 | I-M253 |
As I tested further to the 111 marker the same thing happened. Some drop off due to the fact they only tested to 37 or 67. If those people ever test to a higher level, then some of them may rise to a higher genetic distance. Until they do this, I will not know.
| Genetic Distance | Full Name | Earliest Known Ancestor | Y-DNA Haplogroup |
| 2 | Lynn G Seamans | William Seamans b abt 1785 d 1820 | I-Y15583 |
| 2 | Dr. Dana Gerald Seamans | William Seamans b 1785 d1820 | I-M253 |
| 2 | Odell G Seamans | William Seamans d 1820 | I-M253 |
| 3 | William James Simmons | James H Simmons, b. abt 1848, d. after1880 | I-M253 |
| 5 | Sam Henry Seamons Jr | I-M253 | |
| 6 | Mr. Don Thomas Simmons | Joseph Seamands d. abt. 1729 | I-M253 |
| 8 | Peter Chapman | Chapman b. abt 1804, d.1880 | I-Y11312 |
| 8 | Darryl Hunt | Thomas H. Hunt b. 1715 – abt 1791; NC | I-BY34582 |
At the 111 level the closest matches have a genetic distance of 2. As an example below is the TIP report for my top match at 111, Lynn Seamans. As seen at 4 generations away Lynn and I have an 84 percent chance of sharing a 2nd great grandfather. Do we share a 2nd great grandfather? No. Because this is Y-dna, we are only looking at one male line, and that is my father’s line, so while there are 16 grandparents at 4 generations, only one could be a common one between Lynn and myself and that would be Woodard Gibson and while it is possible for Woodard to have had a son who carries the Simmons name, my next match down Dana Seamans shares these same percentages, so again Woodard would have had to have had another son who took the name Seamans. So, no this is not where our Simmons connects. The next generation showing the probabilities is 8. At 8 generations we are looking at a 98 percent chance we share a 6th great grandfather, again we only look at my father’s line. If there was no question as to the Gibson line, then the 6th great grandfather we would be looking at is one Thomas Gibson b. in 1718, but we know because our Y-dna haplogroup is not the same as Archibald, who descends from Thomas, that this is not our line.
COMPARISON CHART
| Generations | Percentage |
| 4 | 84.58% |
| 8 | 98.72% |
| 12 | 99.91% |
| 16 | 99.99% |
| 20 | 100% |
| 24 | 100% |
But why are we looking at Simmons? Where are the McKenzie’s? Why am I seeing Simmons at all? I’m supposed to be a McKenzie’s. I am seeing Simmons for a couple reasons. Reason one is that there are only a few McKenzie’s, which match me, who have tested, and of those only one has tested to the highest level. That one McKenzie has tested to the BigY level and Charlie McKenzie is my top match in the BigY test. Just below him on my match list is Lynn Simmons. Lynn is the only Simmons who has tested at BigY level (that matches me). Something here to point out; while I match Charlie and Lynn at the same level, their place at that level indicates how closely we match, I match Charlie just a little closer than Lynn. Therefore I can assume that Charlie is closer to me distance wise than Lynn, which makes sense if my theory of the Gibson / McKenzie / Simmons trail is correct.
Here is my explanation for all this. The McKenzie branch that I match is actually Simmons. Much the same way my David Gibson started out life as a McKenzie. There has been in the past an event that caused a Simmons child to take the name McKenzie, much like a McKenzie child took the name Gibson.
When did this happen? Looking at that Generation Comparison Chart, it gives the percentage probability of where two testers match. In the case sited, there is a 98.72% chance I match the Simmons at 8 generations and a 94% chance of match Charles McKenzie, but while Charles took the BigY test, he skipped the 111 marker test, so the results are not an exact match because I can only run a TIP report for Charles at 67 markers, but with Lynn Simmons I ran the TIP report at 111. If you look at a generations chart most will show the date of the generation in the case of 8 generations it is around 1710 for someone born in 1950. This is a very broad and loose inference figuring on each generation being 30 years. So my best guess is sometime in the 1700’s a family of Simmons and a family of McKenzie’s were living in proximity to each other, and knew of each other, maybe were even friends. Something happened to cause a Simmons child to take up with a McKenzie family and keep the name. That person went on to have descendents, and one of those descendents for some unknown reason sent 2 or possibly 3 of their children to live with the Gibson’s.
So how come this even happens? In today’s world children wouldn’t just be passed off to the nearest family, there would be a legal process, and usually the children would be placed with a grandparent, or an aunt/uncle etc. If that was not an option, then foster care and formal adoption. In other words there is a safety net. Go back two hundred years; there is a house fire, the kids make it out but the parents don’t. Maybe there are 5 or 6 children left with no parents. You are living in a remote area, far from any authority, and those kids need clothes, food, and a place to sleep. The neighbors come forward, one can take two of them in, another can take one, and a couple more neighbors take in the rest. After a while those kids are absorbed into those new families and take their name. This is all just conjecture. I could also be that a Simmons man did something or wronged someone, and the prudent thing to do was to move on down the road and change your name along the way. Regardless of how it happened, it happened. A Simmons became a McKenzie and later a descendent of that person became a Gibson.
How do I know that the McKenzie that I match also matches the Simmons that I match? This was a little more difficult to determine. I belong to the Gibson surname project; this is where I determined that my haplogroup is not the same on as David’s ‘fathers’ haplogroup, thus proving David was not a ‘real’ Gibson. I also belong to a McKenzie project, which while showing me in with McKenzie’s, including Charles. I belong to the Simmons project that confirms my connection to the Simmons. And finally I belong to the I1-L1301+ L1302- which are managed by the Swedish man Jakob that is referenced above. This is the test that proves Scandinavian ancestry. The issue is Charles McKenzie does not belong to either the Gibson or the Simmons project, although he could. And the Simmons matches do not belong to the McKenzie or the Gibson project; so it is difficult to get a comparison. However, I belong to the Simmons project and so does Lynn, so I copied our y-dna markers from that project. I then copied Charles McKenzie’s from the I1-L1301+ L1302- project, since he and I are both matched there, I put them in to a spreadsheet and manually compared them. I can’t fit them all on the page, but suffice to say the three of us match virtually on every marker. In fact the only hiccup in our matches is in the marker CDY. I looked up this marker and found that it is one of only a couple markers that are fast mutating. Its mutation rate is 0.03531, whatever that means, and the marker number is only 1 off between me, Lynn, and Charles, (Lynn and I match all the way across).
People have a great pride in their name. DNA can cause someone real distress when their long held belief is called into question. There are people in my family that want nothing else but to be Gibson through and through. They ignore, or choose not to believe the science; but DNA does not lie. Likewise I sure there are those in my other two main matching families that hold the same, so there is a need to tread carefully when speaking about how families intertwine.
So exactly where did my Gibson / McKenzie / Simmons line originate? First it must be understood that origins estimates are just that an estimate; in other words it a guess. Now it is a well thought-out and calculated guess, but it is still a guess. DNA testing companies use it for a marketing tool, and it sells a lot of tests, but the actual science behind origins testing is not nearly as sturdy as actual DNA testing is. First numbers matter, how many people from a given region have tested? If no one has tested from France, and you think you are French, you may find that you show very little ‘French’ in your genetic makeup. There are a number of WebPages and videos that address origins determinations if more understanding is needed. The other problem with most origins testing is that if autosomal DNA is used, (and that is the most popular test to take), it only goes back reliably about 4 or 5 generations. So if you think you have Native American ancestors they need to have been your 2nd, 3rd, or maybe 4th great grandparent for that DNA to show in a meaningful amount. However, Y-DNA is much more stable, and does not dilute with each generation. So a Y-DNA origins estimate is much more conclusive. MtDNA which is even more ignored than Y-DNA and is your maternal side is also not prone to mutations, and can show your maternal line way back in time.
When I spoke to one of the Simmons family, sorry I don’t remember which one. They said that the Simmons derived from Seamans, the dictionary defines it as: “a sailor,” in Old English sæmanna (plural); sea + man (n.); in Dutch Zeeman, in German Seemann, and in Old Norse sjomaðr. So the Simmons name has at its base is of Norse origin which falls into what Jakob Norstedt told me; I descend from Vikings, and in his words Vikings who settled in Brittan. So to answer the big question, I am descended from Scandinavian’s via Britton, with stops in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales most probably. Maybe more importantly, as far as I can determine I have virtually no African, Middle Eastern, Asian, or Native American, which goes to dispel the notion that I believed for a while that I may have been Melungeon. It also ruins the whole ‘Cherokee Princess’ idea too. I think that the Archibald Gibson line may very well be Melungeon, or similar mixed race. That is why I believe there is a thread of Melungeon association with my ancestors, but again DNA shows me that David is not of that line.
So I will stand by my interpretation until proven otherwise, my branch of the Gibson family is of Scandinavian descent filtered through a stay in the British Isles. We are not related to any Gibson’s biologically, past David Gibson, DNA does not lie. While David did come from a family with the name McKenzie, (and I use McKenzie as a preferred spelling but there are several variations on the way it is spelled), in reality we are in truth descended from a Simmons family (again many different spellings), and how exactly that happened, and who the actual people were will probably never be known.