Subject: Re: Merrill family William of MD
Date: Tue, October 21, 2008 12:44p

Question: Janice Merrill Johnt wrote:

I am trying to accurately track back the family of William Merrill (my GGGG grandfather). The information I have so far is: William Merrill (1803 - 1867) son of: Robert Merrill (1755 - 1823) son of: Jacob Merrill (1720 - ?) son of: John (or Joseph) Merrill (1679 - 1760) son of: William Merrill (1645 - 1710) I am not sure how accurate the dates are for Jacob, John, or William Merrill. I have Robert Merrill and after all being born in Somerset or Pitts Creek, Maryland. I am particularly interested to see when/where we came over at. I would greatly appreciate any/all information you could provide!

Answer: Janice:

Thank you very much for your query regarding the William of MD line. Immigrant William came to Somerset Co MD in 1668 as an indentured servant, worked off his servitude, m. Eliza (__?__) and left 9 sons and and 4 daughters when he d. in 1710. We have the line pretty much as you have it down to Jacob, ca 1720. What evidence have you found that Robert [and his brother Benjamin] were the sons of Jacob? We have not found anything about Jacob's wife or family. We feel pretty sure that Robert belongs to this family, but don't have any documentation. There is a Robert in Somerset Co MD in the 1800 census, but we are not sure he is the same Robert that m. Rebecca Reid and had your William in 1803.

How do you descend from William, 1803? We notice your maiden name is Merrill. Is your father living or do you have brothers? We are very involved in DNA testing of Merrill males from different Merrill immigrant lines. The DNA associated with the male Y-chromosome is passed from father to son essentially unchanged over many, many [tens or hundreds] generations. So the DNA pattern of your father should match that of the immigrant William, or any of his other male Merrill descendants, barring an adoption or other non-parental event. Only a few descendants of William of MD have been tested, but if your father, or brother's dna pattern matched those that have been tested it would confirm your descent from William.

We are Howard and Jean Merrill. For twenty five years we have been trying to database the Merrill/Merrell family nationwide from the original immigrants down to the present day for all immigrant lines. So far we have info on over 60,000 Merrill males plus their wives and daughters in our database, but we estimate there have been well over a100,000 so we have a long way to go, and need and appreciate all the help we can get, particularly with the later generations. We use this database strictly to try and help folks trace their Merrill roots. Be assured that no info on living individuals will become internet accessible from us.

While our database is not internet searchable, we will be glad to search it for anybody and share what we find at no cost. All we ask is that folks share their Merrill data with us so that we can expand our database and do a better job of helping solve Merrill lineage problems.

Howard and Jean Merrill