Since posting the First Comprehensive Report, I've been contacted by many folks about other research they've found online. This one is intriguing, but I must caution my readers that theyr'e reading what may be biased research. First, anytime I see that someone has found DNA evidence that proves their line connects to some important family I get very skeptical. It immediately reduces their credibility.

Second, I don't know John Raciti, the author of this research. I'm attempting to contact him, as he's likely found some very solid evidence, but I urge caution. While his approach is very close to my own (he's apparently using name matching to determine common haplogroups among likely descendants), I dont' see any further research posted that would point out what other possibilities there are and a responsible listing of the other haplogroups which show matches to known descendants. He's simply focusing on his 'modal haplogroup.'  If you study the work of folks like Ken Nordtvedt, you won't see them listing only one side of their research. You also won't see them doing work that seems to take an approach about their line alone. They're letting the data lead them to conclusions.

Finally, full disclosure - myself and the AMH Lineage are matching directly with what you're about to read. There - enough disclosures and disclaimers.

Raciti has stated that he's found a specific modal haplogroup that identifies Anglo-Norman families that were important in the the right time frame to be descendants of the Conqueror. Specifically -  "Anglo-Norman houses with - my 12 Marker Y-DNA (Exact Matches with 1412 people in the FTDNA Database)

"Anglo-Norman families with exact matches to R1b1b2:
13-24-14-11- 11-14-12- 12-12-13- 13-29"

Note, Mr. Raciti is only using 12 alleles to make this modal haplogroup. The timing of the Conqueror is fairly recent from a DNA perspective, so this is a relatively small number of markers for the time period. HOWEVER, what's really interesting is that he identified this group in June 2008, and in that recent a time frame found only 1412 people in the FTDNA database who matched these markers exaclty. Given the size of the database at that point plus the fact that we're talking about the Atlantic Modal Haplogroup which is incredibly large being the most successful breeders in Europe, this is quite significant. 

He identifies 3 tribes from western Europe that are the origins of these families, the Veniti tribe, the Curiovolitae tribe, the Asismii tribe.

These are the specific SNPs he's found - R1b1b2 M173+ M207+ M269+ M343+ P25+
Our AMH Lineage hits these markers and SNPs directly with an exact match.

These are the Anglo-Norman houses Raciti lists with exact matches:

House of Livet (Levett);
House of Malet;
House of Clare;
House of Saint-Clair;
House of Aubigny (or of Albini); Bourgeois,
Bourgondiën, Bourgeois
House of Bellême; Bell
House of Bohun;
House of Lacy; Lacy-Hulbert
House of Mortimer; Mortimer Byrd
House of Montgommery;
House of Saint-Clair; Sinclair"

Does this prove that our AMH lineage is the one which descends from the Conqueror? Not yet. However it's interesting in that this lineage so far has the most names in our Name Matching Project with the known descendants of Duke William. The reason I can't sy we're definitively "The descendants" is that there are others in our project with completely different haplogroups who still match some of the known desdendant names. At this point, any one of them could be the right one. Time will tell. You can read what I think is my more responsible approach on the previous page at the link - "Assessing Family Stories - William the Conqueror"

source = http://norman-dna.blogspot.com/2008/08/topic-anglo-norman-dna.html

What we'd expect to see in the DNA

(1) Exact matches with the families listed, which we do. Our AMH group has many such matches and I find this interesting. (2) No matches at all in our other members who have differing haplotypes, such as our I1, S21 and other Lineages - which we DON"T. Several in our project with clearly different haplotypes and 'modal haplogroups' do in fact match names of likely descendants proving it's just too early to leap to hasty conclusions.

Conclusions

It is simply too early to make wholesale "definitive" conclusions. As relatively recent as DNA makes all this seem, the period of the Conqueror is too lacking in documents to accurately track a clean line of descent. Stay tuned however. I'm still looking.
 


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