In 2007, we began a genealogical DNA study of the descendants of Zachariah Dutton, in order to shed more light on our heritage, to find ancestral connections with other families, and to verify our relationship with families we know.
DNA is the genetic building block of life. All living things have DNA in their cells which tell a tree to be a tree, a lizard to be a lizard, and a human to be a human. An organism's DNA contains the set of instructions for producing all the proteins that build and maintain its life.
Your DNA ultimately defines everything about you, from the color of your hair and eyes to the shape of your nose to even elements of your personality. DNA explains a great deal about heredity and inherited traits, why we look like our parents and grandparents and share characteristics with our siblings and cousins, and so it is naturally interesting to us genealogists.
DNA is arranged in a cell into chromosomes, long strands of DNA molecules. Humans have 46 chromosomes (23 pair). Every chromosome contains hundreds of genes, and a gene or set of genes define a trait.
Humans and most other mammals possess sex chromosomes — a pair of specialized chromosomes which determine one's sex, known as the X chromosome and the Y chromosome. Females have a pair of two X chromosomes (XX). Males have an X chromosome and Y chromosome (XY). When a child is conceived by the combination of the father's DNA and the mother's DNA, he or she receives one sex chromosome from its mother and one from its father. If this combination results in "XX", the child will develop into a female; if it is "XY", the child will develop into a male. In order for a child to be a female, she must inherit one X chromosome from her mother and one from her father. But to be a male, he must inherit one X chromosome from his mother and his father's only Y chromosome.
This is of particular interest to genealogists. When a son inherit's his father's Y chromosome, it means that his father also inherited the Y chromosome from his father (the new child's grandfather) — the very same Y chromosome (at least, a copy of it) that both the son and the grandson possess. And his father (great-grandfather) inherited the very same Y chromosome from his father (great-great-grandfather). By this mechanism, the Y chromosome is passed down by each generation from father to son intact and unchanged. The Y chromosome a living male possesses ought to be an exact copy of the very same Y chromosome possessed by his many-greats grandfather.
Genetic genealogy or DNA genealogy consists of two major branches: the study of this Y chromosome (Y-DNA), following the direct paternal line, and the study of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), following the direct maternal line (mother-to-mother-to-mother, and so on). Only males possess the Y-chromosome, so only males can participate in Y-DNA research.
And so, to study the Y-DNA of the Dutton family, only direct male descendants of the Dutton family, who will most likely be named Dutton, and whose fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers were named Dutton, may participate. By studying the Y-chromosomes of the direct patrilineal (paternal line) descendants of Zachariah Dutton, we may in effect construct a picture of what Zachariah Dutton's Y chromosome probably looked like.
We can also, by the study of this same Y chromosome, accomplish most of the objectives outlined above. If two men named Dutton are related, even very distantly, then their Y chromosomes ought to be very much alike, having been inherited relatively intact along their patrilineal lines until at some point the two men have a common ancestor, from whom the Y chromosome of both would have been passed. If a man who does not know his ancestors proves to be a close genetic match with another man of the same name, then it is likely the two have a common ancestor at some point in the past. In this way, we should be able (1) to identify distantly kin families and establish connections to them, (2) to find and prove undocumented or poorly documented descendants of Zachariah Dutton (who ought to have the same Y chromosome as Zachariah's other male descendants), (3) to verify our research (by proving that each branch of Zachariah Dutton's patrilineal descendants possesses the same Y chromosome as all the rest).
Finally, the study of Zachariah Dutton's Y-DNA should reveal something about his deep ethnic origins (4). If he inherited the same Y chromosome that had been passed down from his father and his father and his father, for many centuries, then it will allow us a peek at the DNA of our ancestors who lived beyond the reaches of written history. We cannot know these men's names, but by examining their DNA, we can make guesses about who they were and where they came from. Ethnic groups and the populations of geographic regions should have very similar DNA on the Y chromosome, by the same mechanism that allows us to study our ancestors in smaller scale. Similarities and differences between the DNA of different genetic populations can reveal ancient origins and patterns of migration. By comparing the Y-DNA of Zachariah Dutton to these studies, we can reveal the ancient origins of his patrilineal ancestors and from where they probably migrated.
Over the course of many generations, small mutations naturally occur in Y-DNA. Even if two tested samples are not a 100% match, they may have a common ancestor, for their Y-DNA may have mutated at some point. There is a very small chance that Y-DNA may mutate at each generation, so we may find there to have been mutations in some family lines even between ourselves and Zachariah Dutton. Don't panic! This is normal, and may sometimes even be helpful in tracing different branches of a family.
(Updated November 11, 2007)
So far, two patrilineal descendants of Zachariah Dutton have had their Y-DNA tested. These results came back in August 2007. Even with this very limited data, certain things approaching our objectives have been revealed:
Our two testees were descended from two different sons of Zachariah Dutton, one from Edmond Dutton and one from Samuel Sneed Dutton. We may breathe a great sigh of relief: The tests resulted in an exact match, proving beyond a doubt that the two lines have a common ancestor — Zachariah Dutton!
Because the two samples matched exactly (at least, to the extent of the DNA that was compared), we can be sure that there were no mutations along the line, and that the string of DNA they reveal was inherited ultimately from Zachariah Dutton himself. This should be very useful in future testing, in comparing our DNA to other testees and other families. It's also humbling to realize that you're looking at a piece of someone who lived over two hundred years ago.
When we contributed our Y-DNA to the Dutton DNA Project, the results were returned that we are not kin to anyone else on the project (except ourselves). There are members of a number of different American Dutton families on the project, including the Massachusetts Duttons and the Pennsylvania Duttons, and all appear to come from different Dutton lines from us entirely.
Sadly, this means that we are not kin to Michael R. Dutton, a friend of ours from the DUTTON-ZACHARIAH group who urged us to have our DNA tested in the hopes of proving his own ancestry. He believed his ancestor, George Washington Dutton, who lived in Washington, D.C., to have been born in Charles County, Maryland, same as our Duttons, and speculated that his ancestor also descended from Thomas Dutton (whom we claim). He hoped that if his DNA matched with ours, it could prove his speculation. And we hoped that if our DNA matched with his, it would strengthen our claim that we do descend from Maryland Thomas. But we do not match, so both he and we must pursue other strategies.
If you've known me for any length of time, you know of my tendency to leap long and high to conclusions, and to come crashing down with tremendous force when they are confounded. Well, this is another case of that.
Testing Y-DNA can also show us our haplogroup, defined by specific gene mutations that occurred long ago. This is what can reveal our deep ethnic origins as described above. It can reveal where our Duttons ancestors were in ancient times, or from where they might have migrated at some time in the past.
With a name like "Dutton", I fully expected our Duttons to be British through and through — to not have migrated from anywhere. Dutton is a very old English name, with etymological origins in the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) words dun ("hill") + tun ("enclosure", "settlement")1. There are two English towns called Dutton, one in Cheshire and one in Lancashire.
The most common haplogroup in Western Europe and in the British Isles is called Haplogroup R1b. I fully expected us to belong to it. But I understood very little of haplogroups, and when the results returned, I was in for a shock...
Zachariah Dutton belonged to Haplogroup E3b1 (probably the alpha cluster). This haplogroup indicates an ancient, ancestral origin in Eastern Europe, where it is most common, especially in the Balkans. To our vast surprise, we began receiving DNA matches with over a dozen Ashkenazi Jews (i.e. those in Eastern Europe)!
What does this mean? Probably nothing immediate, and certainly nothing definite. All we know for a fact is that at some point, probably many centuries ago, some direct male ancestor of Zachariah Dutton migrated to Western Europe from Eastern Europe. We have no reason as yet to believe that Zachariah's more recent ancestors did not come from England as we previously speculated. To head off any panic:
Without documentation, we have no way of knowing who Zachariah's ancestors are, when they migrated to England, or why they are members of Haplogroup E3b1. The best we can do is speculate. Surnames were not adopted in England until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. What we can know with reasonable certainty, if we accept the assumption (which is not altogether proven) that Zachariah's ancestors did come from England, is that either his ancestors were in England prior to the adoption or surnames (i.e. before the 1300s or 1400s) and adopted the surname "Dutton" because they were living in or near one of the towns of Dutton; or that at some point afterward, for whatever reason, some ancestor of Zachariah's changed his name and adopted the Dutton surname. (A third possibility is the occurrence, at some point in history, of a "non-paternity event" in Zachariah's family line — an adoption, illegitimate birth, or infidelity which would cause a son not to have the surname of his biological father. For the sake of speculation, we will assume this isn't the case.)
When did Zachariah's ancestors migrate to England? I do not know enough about English history to even reasonably speculate. Our E3b1 ancestor may have been a member of any of the groups of peoples who settled or invaded England over the centuries — Celts, Danes, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, et ceteri. I intend to do some reading and research. One novel hypothesis that has captured my imagination, and which I will mention here, was given to me by Carole Dutton Malisiak, administrator of the Dutton DNA Project at FTDNA. When the Roman Empire sent its armies to Britain during the first through fourth centuries A.D., they may have drawn some of their legions from the Scythians or other peoples living in Eastern Europe. It is known that there was a Roman fort at Chester. Roman soldiers, who may have been of this Eastern European descent, may have chosen to settle permanently in northwestern England, or may have fathered children there.
Zachariah Dutton's haplogroup shattered my expectations. But this is a good thing! Haplogroup E3b1 is relatively rare in the United States; according to a recent study, only about 3% of Caucasian males in the United States are members of E3b1.2 Our haplogroup will both make it easier to spot genetic matches and easier to weed out mismatches. Being a member of a much more common haplogroup like R1b would make us subject to many false matches; but if we come across any other Duttons of Haplogroup E3b1, and their alleles match closely with ours, we can be almost certain that we are kin.
In October and November of 2007, we received three new samples from new and different branches of the family, including two new sons. Each was a match with the already tested DNA, confirming in each the kinship of the branch. The following lines have now been tested and are verified to descend from Zachariah:
We now have verification for four of Zachariah's seven testable sons. I am thrilled! They are firmly and undeniably united into our tree!
Most notably:
The verification of Alexander Dutton's line is the greatest triumph of our DNA testing thus far. Alexander Dutton (born ca. 1784? in Charles County, Maryland, died 1818 in Madison County, Alabama) came to what is today Alabama in around 1809, the earliest of Zachariah's sons to do so. Few records survive of him. He married Rachel Feazel in 1810, fathered four children, and died in 1818. Following his death, his widow and children removed to Louisiana with her father and brothers.
This unfortunately severed the ties between Alexander's descendants and the rest of the Duttons remaining in Alabama and North Carolina. Within a few generations, the name of Zachariah Dutton had been forgotten. There was no evidence among Alexander's descendants of their ancestry, no direct evidence tying them back to North Carolina or Maryland, and certainly not to the family of Zachariah Dutton. Researchers working in the 1960s came to the conclusion that Alexander Dutton was born in Cheshire, England and was the son of one Thomas William Dutton.
I believe we have to thank Darlene Cole, a pioneer in our research, and Julie Dutton, my cousin, for grafting Alexander back into the tree. When I came on the scene in 1998, Darlene's speculation sheet, attached to Zachariah's will, listed Alexander as a son and cited the records in Madison County. Julie conducted research on the Duttons in the early 1990s and tracked down Alexander's descendants. She corresponded with Don Feazell, who sent her a copy of a book on the Rachel Feazel family written in the early 1980s by Nellie Hodges Steed and Sherry Gresham Gritzbaugh, which she passed along to me. It is only here that I picked up the research.
I found what I considered strong evidence that Alexander Dutton was in fact the son of Zachariah Dutton, evidence that probably wasn't available to researchers in Louisiana or which might not have made sense without all of the pieces:
This was by no means conclusive proof. It was actually rather flimsy. It was not enough for most of the Feazel researchers with whom I corresponded to overturn forty years of long-held belief. There were moments when I myself doubted. But now, thanks to the miracle of DNA research, and thanks to Marelle Dutton Urso, who arranged to have a cousin on her line tested, we now have our conclusive proof. The record has been set straight. Alexander Dutton was irrefutably the son of Zachariah Dutton.
We now have two 67-marker tests, showing the full breadth of Y-DNA research possible at present. We can reconstruct, to a greater degree than before and with greater accuracy, the Y-DNA haplotype of Zachariah Dutton himself.
Our new tests reveal several DNA mutations in the lines of descendants. Do not panic! I can assure you that no one will be sprouting extra limbs. The word "mutation" sounds scary, but it is quite natural and in fact fascinating. With every child born, there is a very small chance that any given allele of DNA will not replicate exactly. A difference from the DNA of one's parent is called a mutation, and these mutations are usually quite harmless. Some alleles have a faster mutation rate than others (i.e. they are more likely to mutate). The more alleles are tested and the more samples we have, the more likely we are to see mutations.
This is actually a good thing for us. A mutation is passed down to one's descendants just as any other DNA, so it is possible to distinguish and subdivide different branches of a family by that branch's common mutations. It works in a similar way to the way ancient texts are reconstructed by the way transcription errors are passed down and propagated. That's exactly what these mutations are, in fact: transcription errors.
We are off to a good start! Looking at the five objectives I stated above:
So far, it does not appear that he was. But as more families continue to be tested, we may find connections, which will mutually benefit both our family and others in our quest for the past!
If we find a match with an unknown family, the first question we will ask is, "Is it conceivable that this person might be descended from our Zachariah?" Remember that Zachariah has a missing son, Zachariah Dutton, Jr., who very well might have descendants out there somewhere. Also, we know that John Dutton had at least one son who is unaccounted for. We may yet solve these mysteries through DNA research.
The first two objectives depend on waiting for other Duttons to be tested, but this objective is one that we ourselves can pursue, and why you should participate in our project. So far we have tested descendants of four of Zachariah's sons, and proved them all to be related. I would like to see descendants of the remainder of Zachariah's sons also tested, in order the verify their family lines also. I am most pleased to announce our great success in this objective, in verifying the disputed ancestry of Alexander Dutton and Rachel Feazel's line.
Our initial results have shed much light on this, but further testing needs to be done. The classification of our DNA as Haplogroup E3b1 is only a prediction; there is another test needed to verify it. Also, this test will reveal what haplogroup cluster and subclade Zachariah belongs to, narrowing down the field and clarifying the picture of Zachariah's deep ethnic origins.
I hope that this page will be a useful contribution to DNA genealogy. Feel free to e-mail me if you have read this page and have any questions or comments! I want to encourage everyone, no matter your family line, to study DNA genealogy and pursue it. I hope that as more and more people become involved in it, it will become less expensive for FTDNA to perform the testing and less expensive for us, the consumers.
Only patrilineal (direct male line) male descendants of the Dutton family may participate in Y-DNA research for the Dutton family. That is, only if you are a male and your father's name was Dutton, and your grandfather's, and your great-grandfather's (meaning that most likely, your name will also be Dutton).
If you are a woman, or like me, are not a patrilineal descendant (it was my maternal grandmother who was a Dutton), there is still a way you can participate. You can order a test, and enlist a male relative (a patrilineal Dutton descendant as described above) to be your DNA donor. Testing a brother will give you the Y-DNA results of your father; testing a cousin will give you the Y-DNA results of your grandfather; and so on.
We do our Y-DNA testing through Family Tree DNA. There is a lot of information on their website about the testing process (it is quite simple), privacy concerns (there aren't any), and what you can expect, but briefly, I will give you a rough overview:
Upon ordering your DNA test, FTDNA will send you your test kit in the mail. The DNA collection itself is simple and painless and you yourself can do it. It involves the rubbing of a cheek scraper across the inside of your cheek (about the same as rubbing it with a soft-bristle toothbrush), which will collect cheek cells from the surface of your skin, which can be used for DNA testing. You then mail the test kit back to FTDNA. It will take approximately seven weeks to receive your test results.
DNA testing is not inexpensive, but I believe the cost to be worth the reward. We do receive a significant discount from FTDNA's posted rates when we participate in the Dutton DNA Project. The rates are as follows:
| Markers | Cost |
|---|---|
| 12-marker | $99.00 |
| 25-marker | $148.00 |
| 37-marker | $189.00 |
| 67-marker | $269.00 |
The more markers are tested, the more certain you can be of a match. A 37-marker match is much more certain than a 12-marker match (we received many 12-marker matches with families that are not immediately related to us). I recommend the 25-marker test, but even the 12-marker test would be a great contribution, and given Zachariah Dutton's rare haplogroup, it should be sufficient to accomplish our goals.
Be sure when you order that you order a Y-DNA12, Y-DNA25, Y-DNA37, or Y-DNA67 male paternal test! If you don't, you are ordering the wrong thing!
To order a test kit and join the Dutton DNA project, follow this link.
Without further ado, I am pleased to present the Y-DNA results of our project!
| DNA Match to Modal (Zachariah Dutton) | 1-Step Mutation | 2-Step Mutation | 3-Step Mutation |
The first column gives the FTDNA kit number of each tested individual; the second column that individual's haplogroup (haplogroups in red are unconfirmed by testing). The header row gives the identification of each tested allele.
The string of alleles which we study for Y-DNA is known as a haplotype. The first haplotype, labeled "Zachariah Dutton" and marked in yellow, is the haplotype of Zachariah Dutton as best as we have been able to reconstruct it from the tests of descendants (this is called the modal haplotype).
For each son of Zachariah Dutton, I have added a heading. The names in gray are sons for which no descendant has been tested (testees are needed!). The names in green have had descendants tested for them, and those descendants' haplotypes are shown below.
Many thanks to Dean McGee for his wonderful Y-Utility, which has been essential in processing this data, computing this modal haplotype, and generating this HTML. It would take me years to grasp the math that must have been involved in this.
To see more Dutton DNA results, and to see our results compared to other Dutton who have tested, please visit the Dutton DNA Project!