Rowland Genealogy Newsletter Issue #14 (Vol 5, No 1) — June 2024
Hello Rowland Genealogists,
Most of my research this year has been spent documenting Untested Rowland Lines, which is the focus of this newsletter issue. It’s a topic I’ve covered a few times before, but I think it is important enough to discuss again.
The calendar says it is now June, which means FamilyTreeDNA should soon be promoting its annual Father’s Day DNA sale (if they haven’t already begun doing so).
In the previous newsletter, I mentioned that my Facebook account was hacked, disabled, and deleted. It was not a simple temporary suspension for breaking the rules. Instead, Facebook disabled my account and deleted all traces of my existence. This also impacted the Rowland Genealogy Facebook page since I could no longer access it. It took five months, but the wizards at Facebook eventually restored my account and all of my history. I’m back in business.
Father’s Day Y-DNA Sale
If history is any indication, FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA) will soon announce a Father’s Day sale on its Y-DNA testing. If you are not on their distribution list, then keep checking its Y-DNA Testing page for the announcement and details.
FamilyTreeDNA is the only place providing the Y-DNA testing used in the Rowland DNA Project. The company has recently streamlined its product line and now focuses on its Y-37, Y-111, and Big Y-700 test kits. These tests are the only way to determine which Rowland DNA Group you are in. There are also upgrade kits if you have taken an older Y-12, Y-25, or Y-67 test. In most cases, you will not need to submit an additional DNA sample. If you can afford it, I strongly recommend upgrading to Big Y-700 for the rich set of additional features it provides.
Untested Rowland DNA Lines
There are 14 Rowland Y-DNA groups containing at least two “matched” members. Group J is the largest with 21 members. Additionally, 38 Rowland males have taken a Y-DNA test but have not been “matched” to any others. These 38 are now listed in Group Z, which are essentially groups of one. The 15 groups (14 matched plus Group Z) are all part of the Rowland Y-DNA Tested Club. It is a rather small club, although its members would like to see it get bigger — much bigger.
Conversely, the number of Rowlands not tested and not knowing their grouping is hundreds of times larger. About a year ago, Newsletter #12 highlighted the thousands of Rowlands who are not part of a defined Y-DNA group. It described the 17 Untested Groups and their 28 unique descendant trees. Over the past year, much effort has gone into expanding this list. Today, the size of the Untested Rowland Lines page has nearly doubled with 55 descendant trees documented.
Each of the Untested Rowland Lines is identified by the geographical designation of its earliest known ancestor. Australia, Canada, and England account for eight of the lines, with the bulk being located in the USA. The list is organized alphabetically by country, state, and county.
Some of the locations contain more than one ancestral line. For example, New London County, Connecticut has three Rowland lines. It is believed these lines are all related, although this has not been verified with either a Y-DNA test or a paper trail.
Some locations have been broken out into multiple entries. For example, there are four separate categories for Chester County, Pennsylvania. Unlike the Connecticut lines described above, it is believed the Chester County lines are unrelated. Additionally, it is assumed none of them are related to a fifth Chester County line defined as Rowland DNA Group B. Until these four other lines are tested, we will assume all five are unique and unrelated.
Two locations (Cambria County, Pennsylvania and Bedford County, Virginia) have recently been moved off of this list. As a result of Y-DNA testing, they have been identified as belonging to one of the previously defined groups. That is the goal for all of these geographically designated lines, so please consider taking a Y-DNA test if you and your Rowland ancestors are part of a line described below.
Each Untested Rowland Lines entry contains the quantities of descendants documented on WikiTree, the earliest known Rowland ancestors, and a list of descendant locations (pre-1900). The geographically designated lines are:
- Australia
- New South Wales from Devon, England
- New South Wales from Middlesex, England
- New South Wales from Rutland, England
- Victoria from Cornwall, England
- Western Australia from Yorkshire, England
- Canada
- Northwest Territories from Orkney Islands, Scotland
- Ontario, Perth from Somerset, England
- England
- Cumberland, England
- USA
- Arkansas, Saline County
- Connecticut, New London County (3 lines)
- Delmarva Peninsula, Delaware (2 lines)
- Georgia, Emanuel County
- Indiana, Jay County
- Indiana, Morgan County
- Kentucky, Hopkins County
- Kentucky, Simpson County
- Michigan, Lenawee County
- Mississippi, Yalobusha/Calhoun County
- Missouri, Moniteau County
- New Jersey, Somerset County
- New York, Herkimer County
- New York, Montgomery-Fulton County
- New York, New York City from Altenburg, Thüringen, Germany
- New York, Suffolk County from La Tremblade, France
- North Carolina, Montgomery County
- North Carolina, Robeson County
- North Carolina, Warren County
- North Carolina, Yancey County
- Ohio, Delaware County from Montgomeryshire, Wales
- Pennsylvania, Bedford County
- Pennsylvania, Berks County
- Pennsylvania, Cambria County from Caernarvonshire, Wales (now in DNA Group D)
- Pennsylvania, Chester County
- Pennsylvania, Chester County (Quakers)
- Pennsylvania, Chester County (to Kansas)
- Pennsylvania, Chester/Montgomery (aka Shovel Work) from Pembrokeshire, Wales
- Pennsylvania, Clearfield County
- Pennsylvania, Greene County
- Pennsylvania, Lebanon County
- Pennsylvania, Washington County
- South Carolina, Lexington County
- Tennessee, Hawkins County
- Tennessee, Rutherford County (now in DNA Group J)
- Tennessee, Smith County
- Tennessee, Williamson-Hardeman County
- Utah from Nottinghamshire, England
- Virginia, Bedford County (2 lines)
- Virginia, Frederick-Clarke County
- Virginia, Hanover County from Glamorgan, Wales
- Virginia, Henry County
- West Virginia, Mercer County
Recent Articles
Articles written and posted since the last issue of the newsletter include:
How a Love Triangle Brought Down the Career of Adele Rowland (published 03 Apr 2024). It all happened 107 years ago. She tried to “Pack Up Her Troubles” but they did not all go away.
Using Ancient DNA Connections and History to Interpret Your Ethnicity Results (published 12 Mar 2024). Guest author Nick Rowland explores the Ancient Connections feature at FamilyTreeDNA and explains how knowing history helps in understanding your DNA ethnicity results.
Rowland in the David Rumsey Map Collection (published 22 Feb 2024). If you haven’t seen the David Rumsey Map Collection for Genealogy, the fact that you can now search for ‘Rowland’ on the maps may entice you to take a look. This historical collection contains more than 129,000 maps. All of them are online and all are free to use by genealogists.
Untested Rowland Genealogical Lines (published 06 Feb 2024). With numerous untested Rowland lines, knowing how we are or are not genealogically connected remains a mystery. This article describes 40 Rowland descendant trees containing thousands of Rowland profiles documented on the WikiTree.
Introducing DNA Group Z – Groups of 1 (published 10 Jan 2024). The Rowland Project DNA Results page at FamilyTreeDNA rolled out DNA Group Z this past week. The members of Group Z are Rowland males who have taken a Y-DNA test but currently do not have any matches among the Rowland Project members.
2023 Statistics for Rowland Genealogy (published 05 Jan 2024). It is time to review our year-end 2023 statistics and discuss the 30 DNA kits that disappeared. Before we get into details, please remember that Rowland Genealogy consists of many moving parts…
Free WikiTree Help
I am convinced that WikiTree’s vast richness of tools, its policy of a single profile per ancestor, and its pledge to remain free, make it the best choice for documented tree building. I’m aware that WikiTree can be somewhat daunting to newcomers, especially those without prior experience with document markup language techniques.
Therefore, I will help you get started by connecting you (or your recent Rowland/Roland ancestors) to the global tree. Please note that I will not add living people to the tree. That is something you will need to do so that you can control the privacy level. If this is of interest to you, then please email rowlandgenealogy@gmail.com with your ancestral information. Note: if you already have a public tree documented on another site, then I can work with that.
Subscribing to the Website
In addition to subscribing to this newsletter, it is also possible to subscribe to new posts on the website. Doing so will enable you to receive an email notification each time we publish a new article. To accomplish this, go to the Rowland Genealogy website. Then, if you are on a desktop computer, in the right-hand sidebar area, just below the “Subscribe to Rowland Genealogy Newsletter” widget is the “Subscribe to website” widget. If you are on a smartphone, you need to scroll down to near the bottom of the page to see the “Subscribe to website” widget.
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Past Newsletters: You can access past issues in the Rowland Genealogy Newsletter Archives.
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Ron Rowland
Editor & Publisher
PS – I welcome your suggestions for improvements, features, topics, and website restructuring. Please let me know of any errors, inconsistencies, or additional Rowland/Roland lines.