My aunt is the daughter of Arlene Aurelia Carrier, descendant of Daniel York. As you might notice from looking at Daniel's profile, not much is known about him. He seems to mysteriously appear and then disappear at some point.
My aunt, sister, and I all had our DNA tested through Ancestry. Our shared ancestor, Arlene Aurelia Carrier, has no ancestors south of Pennsylvania in the USA. On a whim, I decided to comb through our DNA matches for the surname "York", looking to see if I might be able to break down this brick wall using DNA.
I quickly began to notice a pattern:
- I matched two people who descended from Richard York, five from James York, two from William York, two from Richard York II, and a handful of Kentucky Yorks who don't have profiles on WikiTree.
- My sister matched one person who descended from Richard York, two from James York, two from Richard York II, and a handful of Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee Yorks who don't have profiles on WikiTree.
- My aunt had 3 pages of Yorks and I gave up after 1.5 pages. She matched two people who descended from Richard York, two from James York, five from William York, seven from Richard York II, and a whole lot more including seven British Yorks, several NJ Yorks, NC Yorks, AL Yorks, AR Yorks, OH Yorks, GA Yorks, SC Yorks, VA Yorks, MD Yorks, ME Yorks, and IN Yorks... if I kept going through the pages, I'm sure I'd have ran into more.
This got me thinking...
... are the York families of the US all related?
Most of these people don't have their DNA on GEDMatch, and I've reached out requesting they add it in the past with no response. But I'm starting to think all these Yorks are related to each other. My second cousin twice removed (daughter of Donald Marian York) overlaps with almost all the York matches my aunt has. She might have even more, seeing as she's another generation closer to our shared ancestor, Abraham York.
Thoughts?
