Being an admin of the Cooley DNA Project, I have an advantage: I can look
at the matches for all the testers in the project. The number of the
matches found among our Cooleys is very, very small. At 67 markers, for
example, you match only to Cooleys--the five of us who have tested at 67
markers--with genetic distances of between 0 and 5. At 37 markers--there
are 13 matches, only two of which are non-Cooleys. On the other hand, a
tester in CF07 has 186 matches at 37 markers--all but two are not Cooleys.
Of course, he is of the more common R1b haplotype.
Kit #267628, which is R1a1a, has 57 matches at 25 markers, including the
three Cooleys in the group that have had at least 25 markers tested. But
there are *eight* matches to Ferguson(!), which I would think is very
telling.
Of course, our effort at finding eligible testers has been unusually
intense, matched only by CF02, which would have a lot of matches in any
case because of being R1b.
I believe I had written to the Whitfield tester several years ago but
never received a response. It is interesting to note that CF09 matches
*fairly* closely (but not nearly close enough) to CF02 to about 27
markers, after which the comparison falls apart. It might be worthwhile to
encourage Whitfield to upgrade to 67 markers. If we still a match, then it
would not likely be due to a statistical anomaly.
-Michael
> Does anyone have any ideas why our Cooley Y-DNA matches men with the
> surname Whitfield (or Whitefield) so closely? My only explanation is that
> before surnames started being used in the British Isles about 1000 years
> ago, the Cooleys and Whitfields were part of the same family. If so, this
> gives us a solid clue as to where our Cooleys lived a 1000 years ago.
>
> Below is an email I sent 4 years ago with attachments.
>
> -Don
>
> *************************************************
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Cooley <cool.hg.r1a_at_gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 4:42 PM
> Subject: The Cooley - Whitfield Y-DNA Match Over 42 of 43 Markers
> To: BlakeInt_at_aol.com, paladin46077_at_yahoo.com, loughmiller_at_gmail.com,
> r.ernst_at_cooleysgardens.com, sandystanton_at_prodigy.net,
> bobvickie200159_at_yahoo.com, day_at_eskimo.com, michael_at_newsummer.com,
> leecooley_at_cpiadvisors.com, jackcooley_at_mac.com, Roldscot_at_aol.com
>
>
> All:
>
> As promised in earlier emails, find enclosed the details of the almost
> perfect Cooley - Whitfield Y-DNA Match. As you can see over 43 Y-DNA
> markers, Nick A. Whitfield of Oklahoma disagreed with my Y-DNA values only
> at Marker 456, where Nick was 15 and I was 16. Also note that Nick has the
> value 13 at marker 464b which is incredibly rare -- Cooleys up to now have
> been the only men in haplogroup R1a to have a value of 13 at Marker 464b
> instead of the usual 15. (Note that Lee Cooley is 15 here.) So I match
> Nick
> Whitfield better that both Lee Cooley and Michael Frank Cooley. (And we
> know Michael Frank Cooley and I are 5th cousins.)
>
> I also match a Donnie Jack Whitefield from the state of Washington over 28
> out of 29 Y-DNA markers. We disagree at Marker 458, where he is 16 and I'm
> 15.
>
> We also match a Walt Whitfield perfectly over 12 markers as you've
> probably
> already noticed since he tested at at FTDNA like us, instead of
> Ancestry.com. (I don't know where Walt lives.)
>
> I've sent Nick,Donnie & Walt emails, but none have responded yet. (The
> email to Walt was 2 years ago!)
>
> I think this close of a Y-DNA match is very significant. My conclusion is
> that our Cooleys and the Whitfields / Whitefields came from the same area
> of the British Isles.
>
> I went to this website to compare surname maps:
> http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/Main.aspx . Using their surname
> distribution maps, I found that the Whitefields are most common in
> Scotland, the Whitfields are most common in northern England (the
> Newcastle
> area). The Cooleys (according to this link) are most common in Ireland and
> are found rarely (with our surname spelled exactly "Cooley") in Scotland,
> whereas "Cooley" is found commonly throughout England.
>
> I'm curious what you all think about these very close Cooley - Whitfiled /
> Whitefield Y-DNA matches.
>
> Best Wishes,
> Don
>
>
> P.S. I probably need not mention this, but there are NO Whitefields or
> Whitfields to be found anywhere in the Netherlands -- yet another nail in
> the coffin of the Dutch Cooley origin theory. But so far not a single
> person of the dozen or so that I contacted who claim that our Cooleys had
> Dutch roots on Ancestry.com has changed their pedigrees despite the Y-DNA
> evidence! It is very, very hard to change bad pedigrees once they've been
> in circulation for a long time. It is not what is true, it is what is said
> or written the most often that is believed.
>
--
Second VP, the Cooley Family Association of America
Administrator, the Akins DNA Project
Administrator, the Ashenhurst DNA Project
Administrator, the Bishop DNA Project
Administrator, the Eldridge DNA Project
Administrator, the alt-McDowell DNA Project
Co-Administrator, the Cooley DNA Project
Co-Administrator, the McDougall DNA Project
Instructor "Genealogy and Family History," the Osher Lifelong Learning
Institute (OLLI)
B.A. Humboldt State University, History
Received on Sun Nov 03 2013 - 16:14:00 MST