Other families with Highland Livingstone DNA results

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Canadian Livingstone
Posts: 2770
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:00 pm

Other families with Highland Livingstone DNA results

Post by Canadian Livingstone »

Hi All,
Recently I was asked by one of our clansman how a person whose name was not Livingstone or Livingston could be a relatively close Y chromosome DNA testing match with persons of highland Livingstone origin whose family name is Livingstone or Livingston. I am the Clan historian and not an expert on the familytree dna project or DNA testing by any means, but for what it worth here is my thinking on this and one possible explanation. This question actually has come up in particular with one highland group with Livingstones and a few non Livingstons where some relatively close matches have been found in the past.
Since the Maclea Livingstone DNA project began about 10 yrs. ago one of the things that has shown up in the results of one highland group I am familiar with was that some participants with names other than Livingstone are close matches to Livingstons in this group. THere are quite a few at very distant matches but for some of those who are particularly closely matched with highland Livingstones one I think has to factor in the possibility of adoption. That is the say the participant's ancestor, ancient or more recent was born a Maclea or Livingstone and was adopted into another family Smith, Jones, whoever.In at least one case which is probably an adoption situation it appears that it took place in more recent times and within the last 200 years in America.

Now regards to the possibility of more ancient Maclea or Livingstone highland adoptions one should understand that it not uncommon for highland clans to adopt members of other neighbouring clans into their Clan and thus in any Clan today from the highlands you will have those who are tied by blood and others whose ancestors were adopted at some point in the history of the Clan and became part of the family but were non blood relatives. So that is one reason why in the Y Chromosome testing of familytreedna for a highland group for example you might notice for example a DNA participant with known highland scottish name or someone of another highland clan name matching very closely with the DNA results strong indicating that their ancestor was either a Maclea or in more recent time a Livingstone. I am speaking of those whose matches are relatively close at the 67 marker test level with highland Livingstones but don't go by the name of Livingstone. It should also be considered that some of these matches I am mentioning are more recent in terms of a time line than others with some possibly indicating a family connection with Livingstones in the more distant past.

regards,

Donald
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