What have we learned from the Study So Far?

Are all Francises descended from one individual with the Francis surname?
No. Our study has turned up 7 different haplogroups. This implies that any common paternal line ancestor of all of our participants would have to have lived tens of thousands of years ago. That said, some of the participants in our study clearly do share a common ancestor.
Does the study support the majority of sources that say Francis is a British name?
Yes. Nearly all participants in the study who provided Y-DNA and listed an Old World ancestral origin listed England, Wales or U.K. The single exception to this listed Ireland. Of course, many others put down "unknown" or listed a New World country, such as Jamaica. Furthermore, the DNA results are consistent with possible British origins for every member. All 7 haplogroups found in the study are reasonably common in Great Britain. One (and probably both) of the two individuals in Cluster 1 of the I2b haplogroup (listed on the results page) are the type of I2b most common in Britain, as opposed to those found on the European continent.

Of course, this does not mean that every Francis anywhere, or even all participants in the study, have British ancestry. One of the E participants believes that he and his father (the other E) descend from a child who was adopted into a Francis line and might have originally had a German surname. Going purely by haplogroup, the most likely bet would be the Balkans, since that is where it is most common. Similarly, the two R1As in the study have been found to have haplotypes that are characteristic of Ashkenazi Jews. and may be examples of a cases where Jewish families changed their names to Francis upon arriving in an English speaking country. See the surname page.

Nonetheless, though, the majority of the evidence suggests that Francis is predominantly an English and Welsh line.

What else does the study say about the deep ancestry of individuals in the Francis surname project?
Scientists have determined that Great Britain has been a kind of melting pot for thousands of years. It has been populated and repopulated by different invaders many times. Although it is a somewhat controversial business, scientists have been able to link certain haplogroups with certain groups of invaders or immigrants. Based on that, I have divided the study's participants into 3 broad groups: Celtic, Germanic and Other.

Scientists such as Bryan Sykes and Robert Oppenheimer originally linked the R1b haplogroup with the Celts, who are believed to have come from western or central Europe in different migrations from after the end of the Ice Age almost up until the Roman invasions. R1b is nearly universal in Ireland. It is also by far the most common in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. Even in England, it is the dominant haplogroup, but by a smaller margin than elsewhere. Other scientists have since concluded that some of these individuals, such as R1b1b2g may actually have arrived with Germanic invasions.

There is less controversy about I1, which is most common in Scandinavia, Germany and the Benelux countries. When found in England, it is usually associated with various Germanic invaders, such as the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans. I2b overlaps with I1 in Germany and the Benelux countries, and is also common in parts of France, Italy and other parts of Europe. People of British descent who have this haplogroup may be descended from Germanic invaders like the I1s, or they may be among the earliest residents of Britain. R1a is a widely spread haplogroup that is very common in Eastern Europe, but also has many members as far away as Eastern Europe. The writer Bryan Sykes believes that R1a primarily came to Britain with Swedish Vikings, since the haplogroup is reasonably common in Sweden. But they might also have come to Britain with Ashkenazi Jews, an eastern European group that came to the country with the Anglo-Saxons called the Wends, or some other group. .

The final group of haplogroups -- G, J2 and E1b -- is a bit harder to place. G is most common in the Caucasus, J2 in the Middle East and E1b in the Balkans, although they are not uncommon in Britain. Some scientists have associated them with the spread of agriculture out of the Middle East, while other research has associated at least J2 and E1b with Roman settlements.

Where in Britain did the different lines of Francises came from?
So far, there seem to be two large nodes: Eastern England on the one hand, and Wales, Cornwall and southwestern England on the other. The eastern England group seems to be made up primarily of I1s, while R1bs predominate in the west. This is not surprising. I1 is more common in eastern England than any other part of Britain, although even here, it is much less common than R1b. On the other hand, R1b is much more common in the west. Aside from the R1bs and I1s, the only other individual we can place in a part of England is a J2, which comes from Wales.
What lines of Francises have you isolated?
Some lines that we understand reasonably well in terms of both a paper trail and DNA are:
  • The Baltimore Line of Samuel Francis
  • The Wales to Pennsylvania line of Philip Francis
  • The Theodore Francis sub-branch of the Wethersfield line
There are several other lines that are reasonably well-documented in terms of paper trail, but do not have enough matches to isolate the DNA signatures, while another cluster has 4 matching individuals, but has not provided much information about its background. For others, we have neither enough paper trail background nor enough matches. Even the Theodore Francis line above is only a sub-group of a major group of Francises that is not yet well-understood.
Are the Francises related to other individuals with similar names?
So far, in addition to Francises, some individuals named Francies, Francois and France have also participated in the study. Both individuals named Francies have been found to have links to Francis lines. On the other hand, the Francois did not match, and the results for the France are not back yet.
What other ties have been uncovered?
Several Francis lines have close DNA matches with individuals with other family names. These matching family names include Rose, Haydon,and Hunt. At this point, we do not know for certain why any of these matches exist.