December 2002: The final results are in for the Wells DNA project! You may see the data at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/dnaproje/baseline.html

Basically they confirm that Aaron is a relative of the Robert Wells famly and the Zachariah Wells family and that none of them are related to the "old Wells families" of Maryland and Virginia (or anywhere else in the US, for that matter.) There has been a lot of speculation in the past that Aaron was a part of one of these other major Wells families.

We have already published some information about Robert Wells in the past, having already come across evidence that he was part of our Aaron Wells family.

One thing we have noticed about Zachariah. He does have one thing in common with our boys -- he suddenly appears from out of nowhere. We are considering the possibility that they were immigrants themselves or the first generation in America. Zachariah's family has the oral tradition of being Welsh. That would certainly explain why they weren't related to the English Wells. We also think that Scotch-Irish origins are a possibility. This seems to narrow down our search quite a bit. That is very helpful, we have wasted a lot of time looking in the wrong families.

Here are some web pages that mention Zachariah Wells. In light of the new DNA evidence, we'll need to examine these for accuracy, there are some problems:

  • http://www.ipinc.net/~bhobbs/homepage/wells.htm
  • http://osborn.accessware.org/osbornbits.htm
  • http://www.redeemer.on.ca/academics/polisci/genreport.htm
  • http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/otherhtm.html
  • http://www.familytreemaker.com/users/w/e/l/Claude-E-Wells/
  • http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=1281189&pageid=r&mode=ALL&query=Zachariah

    Another name that has come up is an Augustine Wells. In each of these families, the common thread seems to be no one knows much about where they came from or their ancestry.

    It's my understanding that there will be further results released in December from Great Britain (UK). Maybe we will learn something there.

    We'll be adding more to this as we go along. The newsletter will have more details. -Jon and Patricia (December, 2002)

    
Subject:  DNA Study and new wells lists
  Date:   Thu, 04 Jan 2001 22:22:24 -0800
  From:   "Orin R. Wells" 


This message is going out to a lot of newly found Wells researchers as well
as many of you who have been with us for a long time, so please forgive me
if I repeat information you have already seen.

If you have no interest in Wells research or do not want to receive further
communications from us regarding the DNA research project or other Wells
matters, please send me a message so stating and I will remove you from the
mailing lists.

First, for those who have not heard about this before.  The Wells Family
Research Association in cooperation with the Brigham Young University
"Molecular Genealogy" project is conducting what I have termed the "Wells
Special DNA Study".  Through this study we hope to be able to answer a lot
of long standing quiestions on Wells ancestry for many if not all
researchers including connecting to English families for many.

Participation in the project is free.  It will be open to all Wells
researchers in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.  It is
unlikely that sample collection events will be arranged in other countries.
 We want all descendants who are interested to participate whether they are
named Wells or not.  This will be a detailed study to find DNA markers
using both male and female chromosomes etc. and the objective is to find
the markers that will identify specific ancestors as well as identify
specific family lines current Wells descendants connect to.  We are
especially interested in male Wells descendants who carry the Wells name,
but we want all of you and your relatives who are interested in
participating.  DNA Samples will not be shared with any insurance company,
government agency or any other third pary.  Only the BYU project will see this.

We are currently working on the pedigrees for the primary Wells lines that
must be in the BYU database before we start collecting samples.  We hope to
start collecting this month.

See the following link for more information.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/dnaproje/dnaproje.html

We have opened up three new Wells discussion lists on RootsWeb which are:

Wells-UK-L@rootsweb.com
For UK Wells discussions  We must be boring the English researchers to
death on this list.  And yet, all of us have English roots (if we could
only find them).

Wells-ANZ-L@rootsweb.com
For Wells researchers who are in Australia/New Zealand or have connections
there

Wells-Canada-L@rootsweb.com
For researchers with Canadian Wells Ancestors or connections.

To subscribe to one of these lists, send an email to the above address
adding "-request" behind the "L" (or "D" for digest mode), (e.g.
Wells-UK-L-request@rootsweb.com) with no subject and the word "subscribe"
in the text without quotes.

I need to hear from the Australian and New Zealand researchers regarding
the DNA sampling in their neighborhoods.  The BYU Molecular Genealogy
project is planning to schedule collection events in Australia and New
Zealand in the May to June time period.

If you are not aware of the Wells-L@rootsweb.com list, you might want to
subscribe there.   It is monitored by over 300 Wells researchers with
knowledge of many different Wells families.  It is one of the best sources
for answers to your Wells problems.

If you have not heard from me before, I would like to encourage you to send
me your mailing address and phone number to help me coordinate the upcoming
DNA Study.  We need to know where you are located to pick the best cities
for the collection events.  If you are uncomfortable sending me this
information, please at least identify what major city you are near.



Orin R. Wells
Wells Family Research Association
P. O. Box 5427
Kent, Washington 98064-5427

http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
Subscribe to the "Wells-L" list on RootsWeb