FOR OCTOBER 2009 Don Peacock As of October 1, 2009, the PFAS DNA Project has 82 members and all but three test kits have been processed by FTDNA.

Family Tree DNA made an announcement of a special promotion reducing test prices until June 30, 2009, but unfortunately, I was able to find only one person to test.

If you have been thinking of doing a Y-DNA or mtDNA test, male or female, please let me know and the next time FTDNA has a special offer I will contact you. We need more testers for all of our Peacocks as we get better results and a better understanding of how our Peacock families tie together.

In addition to the benefit the Peacock Group gets from more testers, the overall DNA database develops into a better tool for showing migration patterns and how we all can learn how our ancestors and others have moved around the world. As of September 2009 FTDNA has done over 500,000 tests. That is a fantastic resource to help us find more matches of our kin.

David Ian Peacock, of Manchester, UK has just started a 67 marker test and Is the first person in the UK to do a direct test. We are hoping David’s test may lead us to a descendant of Samuel Peacock One. His test results won’t be available until November. We have 4 other testers whose ancestors came from the U.K., but they did not match each other, or any of our current FTDNA Peacock project testers. It would be a great help if we could find a match to our “Commoners” of the Samuel One line in the UK. That may lead us to others that can shed a light on Samuel One’s ancestors.

A recent article on Eastman’s Online Genealogy by Dick Eastman “How DNA Proved My Family Tree Connection”, he explained an old problem that many of us have faced. “I must admit that I have always been a bit embarrassed to admit that I cannot prove the origins of my own surname. I have been researching my family tree for more than thirty years and have found most of my ancestors back into the 1700s with quite a few families traced even further back. Yet there has always been one glaring exception: the origins of my EASTMAN ancestors. I once remarked in a video interview, “Well, for years I’ve had this mystery. I have a greatgreat- grandfather who was deposited by a Martian spaceship...”.

“Obviously, that’s a bit of a joke; but this man’s origins remain a mystery to me. It is as if he had come from another planet. I have not been able to prove his origins. Along the way, I have traced the origins of other families in his area who shared the same surname. Indeed, I have strong conjecture and circumstantial evidence of his origins, but I have never found the one scrap of paper that ties him into the other Eastman families in the area. Now, thanks to some great assistance from Katherine Hope Borges and from the folks at Family Tree DNA, I have that proof.”

“To be sure, DNA does not give the first names of any of these ancestors. It does not state, “Your greatgreat- great-grandfather’s first name was...”. DNA cannot do that. However, for the first time, I now have proof that I am a member of the same family as the other EASTMAN men who have had their Y-chromosome DNA tested. Since most of the other men have been able to document their descent from Roger Eastman (often spelled “Easman”), a 1638 immigrant to Salisbury, Massachusetts, I am almost certainly descended from the same man.”

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