Project Results and Discussion

Lineage II  Five Dorsey/Dossey Lines from the Mid-Atlantic Colonies

Though the name Dorsey is fairly common in the United States (ranking 604^th with a frequency of about .02 in the general population¹), it is rarely found in England and Ireland, the more common variant of the surname there being Darcy (D'Arcy).  Other variants found in the United States are the less common Dossey² (ranking 20939^th) and Dawsey³ (27807^th).  In many cases, these variant spellings are reflective of the spelling skills of census takers and other clerical workers of the 18th and 19th centuries with variant spellings often found sprinkled through legal documents of one individual or one family line (even within the same document).  However, there are several lines in which the Dossey spelling has persisted or, at least, alternated with the Dorsey spelling a significant portion of the time.  The Dorsey project has participants from five such lines.  The results for those participants are shown in the first five lines of  Table II-1. 

The first row of results in Table II-1 is the haplotype of a descendant of Daniel Dorsey/Dossey, a son of Elias Dorsey/Dossey who was living in Bute/Franklin County, North Carolina in the 1700’s⁴ and who later moved on to Oglethorpe County, Georgia where he died in 1796.⁵  DNA marker values in the next row are from a descendant of Matthew Dorsey/Dossey, another son of Elias Dorsey/Dossey.  Descendants of this family use both the names Dorsey and Dossey. These Dorsey/Dossey descendants match each other exactly.

 Line three of Table II-1 is a descendant of James Dossey who died in Albemarle County VA c.1815. His son Joseph was in Missouri by 1850.⁶  Dossey researchers have suspected a connection between this group and the Elias Dossey branch, owing to 1) the persistent use of the Dossey vs. Dorsey spelling, 2) some tracks, including families of spouses, in the trail through Virginia from MD to NC, and 3) some similarities in given names.

The fourth member of this group is a descendants of Jeremiah Dorsey, who died in 1828, in Barren County, Ky.  Again, Dossey researchers have suspected links between this branch and the Elias branch owing to 1) the early 1800's presence of a Jeremiah Dossey in Franklin County, NC . ^77,8,  2) possible land dealings between the families of Elias and Jeremiah⁹  3) North Carolina being the birthplace of Jeremiah's sons,¹⁰ and 4) the persistence in the use of the Dossey spelling. 

The most recent results for Lineage II (Table II-1) are from a descendant of Soloman [sic] Dossey who was also present in Bute/Franklin County, NC in the late 1700’s.  Soloman may have been a brother to Elias, for they are linked many times in land dealings and other activities in the late 18th century in North Carolina.  However, when Elias migrated to GA around 1787, Solomon stayed in North Carolina, where he left a will in 1818.¹¹

Interestingly, although they represent lines that separated and lost touch many years ago, all five lines match perfectly at all 25 markers which along with the persistent Dossey spelling and a few entries in the public record, confirms a recent common ancestor for these lines--yet to be identified.  A smattering of records place most Lineage II participants' earliest known ancestors in close proximity and suggest a common 17th or 18th century ancestor in the mid-Atlantic colonies, North Carolina and/or Maryland specifically.

Many of the markers shared by this group are found frequently in individuals of western European descent (see Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype, Row 1, Table II-1).  However, though they have a number of 22-24/25 marker matches with individuals of different surnames within the Family Tree DNA database, they have only a couple of perfect matches with other surnames at all 25 markers.  The last row of values in Table II-1 records the frequencies at which each of the marker values of this group are found in members of the R1b Haplogroup.  Three Lineage II markers show a relatively low frequency, DYS #’s 458, 449 and 464d.  DYS 449 is a very volatile marker and in spite of its low frequency, 29 is the most commonly occurring value. However, Lineage II values of DYS458 (= 18) and DYS464d (= 18) are present in only 22 and 23 percent of R1b populations respectively giving the group two unique markers to distinguish their line.

Descendants of Daniel Dossey and Jeremiah Dossey have upgraded their tests to 37 markers.  Those results are reported in Table II-2.   The match between these two lines continues with the exception of a