Burroughs Descendants

I have been researching the BURROUGHS family for about 25 years. There were a number of BURROUGHS who lived in the 1600s and early 1700s, and many of them were named John. I recently started a project at Family Tree DNA to try and determine which of these branches are closely related. Family Tree DNA is one of the leaders in the new field of DNA testing for genealogy research. If we can get one or two volunteer descendants from each of the branches, then we should be able to tie together some of the BURROUGHS families.

DNA is sort of a misnomer for the test used for genealogy, because the test just involves looking at a man's Y-chromosome. This chromosome is passed exactly from father to son, with only an occasional random mutation. This makes it perfect for studying a surname. If two living men with the same surname have very similar Y-chromosomes, then they have a common paternal ancestor within a handful of generations.

So far, one possible descendant of John of Enfield has been tested. His Y-chromosome matched very well with a descendant of John BURROUGHS of Newtown, NY. Maybe John of Newtown was an uncle of John of Enfield. We need to find a definite descendant of John of Enfield to know for sure. Would you be willing to help find a participant from our branch of the family? It has to be a male with the surname BURROUGHS. The test is easy, painless, and handled by mail.

Steve Warling
SWarling@cox.net

P.S. I don't receive anything from Family Tree DNA for being the group administrator of the BURROUGHS project. I'm doing it because of my interest in genealogy. I have also been the administrator of another group for about a year, and we have made some exciting discoveries.