Oyster Bay Wright DNA Test 67 Marker Results

The Y-DNA 67 marker test results of the Oyster Bay Wright descendant have been completed and are now posted on the Wright Y-DNA Test Results page. The Wright DNA Project Results page should also be updated in the next few days to reflect the new results. At the 67 marker level, the Oyster Bay descendant is a match with the first five 67 marker testers in the pink section (starting with kit number 235938) at the top of the Wright DNA Project Results page, with a difference range of four, five and six steps.

Kit number 88542 is an eight step difference and is not considered close enough to be a likely match to the Oyster Bay descendant when directly comparing the two kits. However, Family Tree DNA says in their Learning Center “A 58/67 or 59/67 match between two men who share the same surname (or a variant) means it is possible but unlikely that they share a common ancestor within the genealogical time frame. If you test additional individuals you may find the person whose DNA results falls in-between the persons that are 8 or 9 apart demonstrating relatedness within this family cluster or haplotype.” Therefore, if the true DNA signature of the Oyster Bay progenitor was the same as the DNA signature of kit number 235938, both the Oyster Bay descendant and kit number 88542 would be matches and therefore closely related. This possibility must be kept in mind since there is no way to positively know what the true DNA signature of the Oyster Bay progenitor was, and we have to rely on a derived DNA signature to base comparisons off of.

This means that, in all likelihood, the pink section (starting with kit number 235938) at the top of the Wright DNA Project Results page is indeed the Oyster Bay Wright group, and the Flushing Wright family and Oyster Bay Wright family are not closely related along their direct paternal lines. Learning this will be a great help in knowing where to focus my future research efforts to locate the correct ancestral family for my Wright line’s earliest known ancestor, Gabriel Wright.

Wright Autosomal DNA Testing

An autosomal DNA test of kit 317601 is now pending. Of the living descendants I have located of our earliest known Wright ancestor, Gabriel Wright, this tester is the least number of generations removed (five). With autosomal testing, the amount of shared DNA between two testers is reduced by 50% for each successive generation that the testers are removed from the common ancestor. At a relationship range of third cousins or closer, autosomal testing has about a 90% success rate in correctly detecting a match. However, because of the 50% reduction that takes place from generation to generation, the success rate in correctly detecting a match drops to less than half once the relationship range of third cousins is exceeded, and less than 25% once the relationship range of fourth cousins is exceeded. Therefore, each generation closer you can get to a common shared ancestor significantly increases your chances of discovering matches.

Our shared ancestry to Gabriel has already been established via the Y-DNA tests that my uncle and kit 317601 have taken. With kit 317601 being two generations closer to Gabriel than my uncle, I’m very hopeful his autosomal test may prove to be key in locating matches that help to determine the correct ancestral family of Gabriel. In further helping with determining Gabriel’s ancestral family, the father of kit 293820 has also taken an autosomal test. Triangulation of potential matches between kit 317601 and kit 293820’s father, should prove very fruitful in determining potential Wright families to research further for a connection to Gabriel. As has been shown previously by the Y-DNA testing, it’s likely that Gabriel’s ancestral family has ties to the Wright family of colonial Flushing, Long Island, New York and to George Wright, who signed the Flushing Remonstrance.

With autosomal testing, the more comparisons that can be made, the better, so if there are Gabriel Wright descendants reading this who have taken an autosomal DNA test (Ancestry DNA, Family Tree DNA Family Finder, or 23andMe), or are interested in taking an autosomal DNA test, please contact me.

Searching For The Wrights Of Oyster Bay Newspaper Article

Diane Wright, the fellow Wright family researcher from Australia who I’ve mentioned previously (https://stonefamilytree.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/wright-dna-testing-update-3), has accomplished a wonderful thing in getting the local Oyster Bay newspaper, the Enterprise Pilot, to publish an article on the search for a documented Oyster Bay descendant for DNA testing (http://www.antonnews.com/oysterbayenterprisepilot/news/36986-searching-for-the-wrights-of-oyster-bay.html).

Great work, Diane! This should provide plenty of exposure to the ongoing quest to verify the DNA signature of the Oyster Bay Wright family. Diane has been kind enough to give me permission to post a copy of what she submitted:

Searching For The Wrights Of Oyster Bay

Written by Diane E. Wright

Oyster Bay residents may be able to help solve a local mystery that spans centuries. One famous Revolutionary-era Oyster Bay resident is currently a dead end in genealogical research, but someone out there probably has DNA that would match, and tie together two loose ends of Oyster Bay history.

Much is known about the early history of Oyster Bay, such as how it was settled by a small group of Quaker families who came here from Cape Cod and how those families started a prosperous settlement which has thrived to this day. But in the Wright family, a connection has been lost between those early settlers and their descendants who spread far and wide across America in the succeeding years.

Today, genealogists are trying to put the pieces back together and to find out which Wrights are descended from the family of brothers Peter and Nicholas Wright of Oyster Bay; in some cases their search is rewarded with documentation, written in spidery handwriting and viewed on microfilm or online and in other cases, genealogists from times past have written up their family histories and documented their connection to Oyster Bay. However, not everyone is fortunate enough to find resources like this. This is where DNA testing comes in to fill in the gaps.

There are Wright families living today in Oyster Bay who are likely descended from the original Wright settlers. Those trying to make the connection would appreciate it if someone among them would assist family historians all over America by taking a Y-DNA test, and thus provide a benchmark result for the Oyster Bay Wrights.  The most accurate DNA test to follow a family name line is a Y-DNA test taken by a man who bears the surname. The Y-DNA from all men descended from the same family line will closely match no matter which branch of the family they are from or how many hundreds of years have passed since their ancestors were closely related.

The author of this article has taken up the challenge of solving the mystery of her family’s roots spurred on by the desire to share this with her nonagenarian father who has spent most of his life on the opposite shore of Long Island Sound  in Connecticut. After tracing her Wright line back to Captain Peter Wright (b. 1740 Hempstead, Long Island) she has reached what genealogists term a ‘brick wall’ where no further written documentation is known to exist. Captain Peter Wright is a well-known figure in American Revolutionary times and he is reported to have had as many as 16 children, although only 11 or so are documented. His descendants are many but his ancestry is unknown.

Circumstantial evidence points to his father being Joseph Wright of the Oyster Bay Wrights. Unfortunately, Joseph died before Peter was born, although Joseph’s will mentions that his wife is carrying a child. Was that child Captain Peter? This is where Y-DNA testing can help. A Y-67 DNA test has been taken by this author’s brother as the Y-DNA carrier of her branch of the Wright tree. The results are posted on the website of the Wright DNA Project http://www.wright-dna.org. Test 235938 in the bright pink section sits with other results, but none so far are from a documented Oyster Bay Wright descendant. So the search is on to find a direct male line descendant of Peter or Nicholas Wright of Oyster Bay who can trace his lineage. Such a tester will help to solve not just one but two genealogical mysteries, the second one being whether or not the Wrights who settled Oyster Bay and Flushing are related.

If there is someone among the Wright descendants interested in taking the test, please email dewrightct@gmail.com to discuss how to go about this. A swab of cheek cells is all that is needed to solve this mystery and the privacy of the tester is maintained during testing. Further information about genealogical DNA testing can be found here: http://www.dnaexplain.com/publications/pdfs/dnatestingforgenealogybasics5-19-09.pdf

The first direct paternal line tester to come forward with a verifiable line to the Oyster Bay Wrights will be eligible for a free DNA test.

Wright DNA Testing Update

After several months of searching, with help from fellow Wright researcher Diane Wright of Australia, a well documented Oyster Bay Wright descendant has been found and has agreed to participate in the Y-DNA testing. This tester’s family is profiled in the book The Wright family of Oysterbay, L.I. [Long Island, New York]… by Howland Delano Perrine (http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005785225 and http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=15286), starting with his grandfather, so his lineage looks to be very sound. As such, his test results will be especially informative and helpful, and should help to be able to confidently answer at last the question of whether or not the Flushing Wright family and Oyster Bay Wright family are closely related. This tester’s results will also help Diane answer the question of whether or not her earliest known ancestor, Capt. Peter Wright (http://www.danstone.info/g5/p5683.htm), is descended from the Oyster Bay Wright family as believed. The first panel of twelve markers should be back in about two and a half months.

Another Wright DNA Testing Update

A descendant of the Wright family of Flushing has submitted a sample for Y-DNA testing. This should allow for verification with the previous Flushing family member who tested, and in turn allow me to determine whether or not my Wright line has a close connection with the Flushing line. The next step is to locate an Oyster Bay descendant for testing, to compare against the two other people who are thought to be descended from the Oyster Bay line and have already tested (and did not match each other). Once there are at least two matches from both the Flushing and Oyster Bay lines, it should be possible to determine whether or not there was a close connection between the two lines. Determining if my line matches either the Flushing line or Oyster Bay line will then give me a direction in which to focus my Wright research in the hopes of being able to verify Gabriel Wright’s ancestral line. If anyone reading this knows of a documented Oyster Bay descendant, please contact me.

Wright DNA Testing Update

I had hoped to use autosomal DNA to help determine if my Wright line is descended from the Oyster Bay (New York) Wright family or the Flushing (New York) Wright family. Unfortunately, it seems there were many intermarriages of the various New England Wright families, so the autosomal comparisons have not been conducive to drawing any conclusions. Therefore, I’m shifting my focus back to Y-DNA.

After much searching, I have finally located a descendant of Jonathan Wright of Flushing who has a strong paper trail lineage and is agreeable to doing the Y-DNA testing. Test results should be available in March. Documented descendants of Jonathan seem to be in very short supply, so I’m extremely grateful to have located this testing participant.

Documented Oyster Bay Wright family descendants seem to be much more readily available. I currently have several requests for DNA test participation out to the various descendants I have located. Hopefully, I will soon be able to report that one of them has agreed to participate in the testing.

In the meantime, if any documented paternal line direct descendants of either of these family lines happens to come across this posting, and is interested in participating in testing, please get in touch with me.  

Oyster Bay Wright Line DNA Testing

As I’ve posted previously, I believe there’s a possibility my Wright line may be descended from the Wright family who were some of the first European settlers of Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. The Y-DNA test of my uncle has a match with a descendant of Peter Wright of Oyster Bay, as well as a match with a descendant of Johnathan Wright of Flushing. In order to try to clarify which family my line descends from, or whether there is a possibility the Wright lines of Oyster Bay and Flushing are actually related, it has been hoped another descendant of either line would test. I believe I have located a couple of descendants of the Oyster Bay Wright line, and have contacted them to see if they may have already tested, or are interested in testing. Hopefully, there may soon be some resolution in regards to sorting these two lines out.