Our Name

A word about our new name: Recently Gratia Mahony was talking to a descendant of the Deacon John Dunham line in Ohio, and was surprised to discover that this person thought the new association was only for members from the Dunham/Singletary line out of Woodbridge, New Jersey. Let us correct that misapprehension at once. Our new family association is for ALL descendents of ALL the Dunham families in North America and elsewhere, and we urge all of you to join. The new name simply recognizes that one large group of Dunhams in America did derive from Richard Singletary and his eldest son, Jonathan. When Jonathan moved from Massachusetts to New Jersey about 1665, he changed his name from Jonathan Singletary to Jonathan Dunham alias Singletary. We do not yet know why, nor why he chose the name Dunham. Surely he had a good reason, and we must believe that somewhere, in some way, Jonathan or his father, Richard, had connections to a Dunham or a Dunham family that Jonathan thought important enough to justify him changing his name. That implies further Dunham-Singletary connections that we do not know about or understand today. And this standing question mark presents us with a research challenge. We don’t know where future research may lead. It may lead back to a connection with one of the other Dunham family groups to which many of you belong who are not direct descendants of the New Jersey Dunham-Singletary line. Our association name simply acknowledges that one major Dunham family group had its origin in the family of Richard Singletary. But our association, certainly, is a big tent for all Dunham descendants of all Dunham family groups, and perhaps even a few Singletarys.

The Future

Today there is more reason than ever for a national, even international, family association. The Internet has made possible easy, quick, inexpensive communications that gives us the ability to share records and exchange thoughts that thirty years ago was unimaginable. We can do today truly collaborative genealogy. A national family association can therefore become an on-going, electronic, central meeting place where we can meet, share resources, and pursue questions and issues of mutual interest, regardless of where we may reside across this broad land. What I shall try to do in the newsletter is focus on issues of more general interest and solicit commentary on them. As with this issue, it will be published on-line. I am proud to serve as its first editor and look forward to working with a great number of you out there in electronic space. Incidentally, if there are Dunham descendents out there who want to be members but do not use computers or the Internet, let me know directly. We can manage to mail to these members a limited number of print copies, so that they can be participating members of the association. But for most of us, it is easier, quicker, and cheaper to distribute the newsletter online.

This Issue

This first issue features two articles. One by Gratia Mahony gives us a “big picture” of the three major, independent Dunham families she has discovered in her research. Two of these families comprise most of the members so far tested in the Dunham family DNA project¹. Thirteen men from the Deacon John line, fifteen from the Singletary line, have been tested and their results posted. They make up twenty-eight of the thirty-five male Dunham descendants for whom we now have “DNA signatures.” Those distinctive genetic signatures are what group them into these two family groups, which are otherwise identified in Gratia’s and other records.

Then we have in addition two groups of two individuals each that match each other internally but not between them; finally yet another group of three individuals (one from England) that match each other somewhat but less well. We are trying currently to persuade a living male member of the third major group identified in Gratia’s records to be tested so that we might ascertain the DNA signature of this group.

The second article I have contributed, which explains something of the science, limitations, and potential of DNA testing, so that we will all have some grounding in it as a new tool of genealogical research. It is an important new tool, and it will be a goal of the association to persuade as many living male Dunhams as possible to be tested.

¹ This important and informative project has been most ably managed by Paul C. Dunham of Helena, Montana. You may see the results of it

Some tests are more important than others. We expect brothers, who had the same father, to match; also first cousins, who had the same grandfather. But they needn’t. Mutations, which occur rarely, occur randomly and can appear within a single generation. All the same, the more important DNA tests in mapping the Dunham families are those of individuals who are uncertain of their lineage and more distinct relatives. These individuals need to be tested to determine to which Dunham family group they belong. Their tests will also place their known close relatives. In time, as more and more tests are done, a very nice statistical profile of all the Dunham families will emerge. That is our goal. We all have much more to learn about DNA testing, and follow-up articles will appear as we move along. My article aspires to tell us what we have learned from it so far.

So you think people move around a lot today? Well, some of our ancestors did too!

An occasional feature of this newsletter will be to trace some of the migration patterns of our Dunham ancestors. As a basis for these articles a summary of three distinct families will be presented here.

The first Dunham to come to these shores was John Dunham, who came from Leiden Holland with his second wife Abigail (Ballou). The family probably came to Plymouth Colony with the last of the Leiden group about 1629

30. John Dunham’s family at this time consisted of his second wife, (his first wife having died in Holland), and two or possibly three children from his first marriage. John, Humility, and Thomas were the children of his first wife Susan Kaino, and we know that John and Thomas came with him. Humility may have died in Holland, as there is no trace of her in Plymouth Colony records. The children of his second wife who came to Plymouth with John and Abigail were Samuel, Jonathan, and Abigail. Additional children born in this country were Joseph, Hannah, Persis, Benajah and Daniel.

Another family who came early to these shores was the family of Richard Singletary. Still shrouded in mystery is the puzzle of how this family relates to any English family of Dunhams. Several theories have been developed, but to date none have been proven.

Richard Singletary was born about 1599 in England and died 25 October 1687 in Haverhill, Essex County Massachusetts. He is first recorded in Newbury, Essex County Massachusetts in 1638. He married circa 1639 in Salisbury, Essex County Massachusetts Susannah Cooke, but this may have been a second marriage. Richard Singletary’s oldest child, Jonathan, was born in Newbury 17 January 1639/40.

The intriguing story behind this oldest son of Richard Singletary, and the reason for his taking the surname of Dunham still remains unanswered. However, all the descendants of Jonathan used the Dunham surname, while the descendants of Richard’s other children used the Singletary surname.

The line which continues from Jonathan Singletary/alias Dunham has created some interesting migration patterns, some descendants remaining in New Jersey, some going to South Carolina, and others to western Pennsylvania.

Jonathan married Mary Bloomfield about 1657 and they resided in Haverhill until Mary’s father Colonel Thomas Bloomfield became interested in the opportunity to settle in Woodbridge East Jersey. In 1665 Jonathan and Mary moved their family to the new settlement where Jonathan built and operated a grist mill.

A third Dunham/Denham family, not yet proven by DNA analysis to belong to either of the other Dunham families, was that of Mr. Thomas Denham. Mr. Denham was a puritan parson. He seems to be the minister of Saco Maine in 1659 whose preaching was “disturbed” during his “publique exercise”. Thomas Denham witnessed a deed 11 February 1662/3 in Sheepscott, then in the Massachusetts Bay colony but now in Maine. Very likely he remained near Sheepscott until the advent of Indian uprisings (1676) and he may have suffered losses as a result of that conflict.

From the “Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut” [2:321], dated October 1677, “This Court being informed that Mr. Thomas Denham is likely to settle at Rye as minister there…in regard to his late loss by the war, this Court haue granted him the sume of ten pounds…”. Mr. Denham ministered to the people at Rye until he answered a call from Bedford (now in New York state) 28 January 1687/88. He did not serve there long for he made his will in Bedford 2 May 1688 and his inventory was taken of 5 August 1689.

It should be noted from the will of Mr. Thomas Denham, that the surname was spelled in two different ways within the document, thus:

The early land transactions of the sons of Deacon John Dunham are interesting because they show a pattern of consolidation of land holdings into particular areas near Plymouth where each of the Dunham sons chose to settle. Portions of these land holdings were passed down to the third generation and either lived on by the third generation sons or sold as that generation began to move away from Plymouth. These third generation children settled in the towns of Barnstable, Eastham, Edgartown, Bridgewater, Plympton, and that part of Plympton which became Carver.

The children of Rev. Thomas Denham spread out even farther. The oldest daughter remained in Sheepscott Maine at least until after her father’s death but was of Lynn MA in 1719. Oldest son Isaac resided in Rye and later in Bedford New York as did the youngest son Josiah. Son Nathaniel is the man who lived in Wrentham MA and Hebron CT and his line will be followed in greater detail. Sarah and Hannah are of record living in Stamford, Connecticut.

A major goal of the early settlers was to colonize this new land. Our Dunham ancestors surely did their share in opening new areas, remaining there for awhile, then moving on to settle in other new places. In future issues we shall trace out some of their migrations.

Within the past five years, a powerful new tool of genealogical research has become available². It consists in applying DNA analyses to ferreting out solid evidence of relationship (or lack thereof) in family trees. These studies rely on the fact that the male Y chromosome remains stable over very long periods of time—up to 500 generations. Yes, that’s right: ten thousand years! To say that the Ychromosome remains “stable” means that patterns of alleles (specific groups of genes) in the DNA of male members of a family remain in a distinctive, recognizable form from father-to-son-tograndson, and so on, over quite surprising durations.³ This extraordinary fact makes it possible to trace back male lines of descent to the dawn of recorded history, and even farther for whatever that is worth. Another great virtue of DNA analysis is that the information it yields is of very high reliability—close to certainty. In this respect, it is superior to records and thus can supplement them

² Family Tree DNA was launched in May 2000 by its current president, Bennett Greenspan. FTDNA is today the preeminent provider of genealogical DNA testing.³ A shortcoming is that DNA analysis relies on an unbroken male-to-male succession. An intervening generation of all female offspring from a preceding generation of all siblings of a common set of parents will break the chain of evidence. We are fortunate that in the past people tended to have large families, increasing the probability of some males in each set of siblings, and, in turn, some males in each sibling’s flock of children, considered collectively (that is, the full set of first cousins).

by way of strong reinforcement or, in the alternate, signal to a genealogical researcher that a given record, contradicted by DNA evidence, is almost certainly mistaken.

A Little Biology

To understand this better, let’s review some basic biology. Each organism carries within each of its cells two chromosomes, the fundamental units of heredity. The pair of female chromosomes, which pass on the hereditary contribution of females, is designated XX. Both of a woman’s X chromosomes carry genes only for female sexual characteristics. This means that if only females begat new offspring, they would all be females. Males, on the other hand, carry two chromosomes designated XY, where the Y chromosome transmits male sexual characteristics, and the X, as with women, female ones. When male and female mate, each parent contributes one chromosome to the new individual. Females always contribute an X (that’s all they have). If the male also contributes an X (of his XY pair), the issue will be female (XX). If he contributes a Y, the issue will be male (XY). Since males, on a random basis, contribute an X about fifty percent of the time and a Y about fifty percent of the time, the balance of males and females in human societies (and other populations) stays about even. But the fact that only males create other males means that the male Y chromosome faithfully tracks the male-to-male, father-to-son hereditary chain. Because the male Y chromosome is stable for so long, a given line of male-to-male inheritance can be traced far back with considerable accuracy.

Who To Test?

In our social customs, the male surname survives, and is passed on as the family name. That makes it easy to know which individuals to test—namely, all those males with a common surname (that I shall call ‘a surname group’). What the tests reveal is a list of genetic “markers” or alleles (related groups of genes), to which biologists have given a set of standardized numbers. If two tested males with a common surname have exactly matching markers, they are almost certainly related. A limitation of DNA tests is that they reveal only that two individuals are related (or not). They do not tell how they are related. Being related in this context means that somewhere within the last ten-to-twenty generations⁴, they share somewhere up the line a mutual common ancestor. How closely they are related is a matter of how many generations back before they converge on this mutual common ancestor. The DNA tests do not reveal this exactly, although testing a greater number of “markers” can refine things a bit. The standard DNA test is for twelve markers; additional tests for twenty-five and thirty-seven markers are also available. When two males within a common surname group (such as Dunham, Donham, Denham, Dunnam) are tested and match exactly, say, for

⁴ The standard tests are for 12 markers; that standard test is the reference here.

each of twelve markers in a twelvemarker test, there is a very high probability, approaching certainty, that they have a mutual common ancestor within the last ten to twenty generations. If their markers do not show a matching pattern, it is virtually certain that they are not related.

It is obvious that there is little point in testing just a single male within a family or surname group. His isolated test tells you only that he has a certain set of markers, nothing more. It is when multiple male members of a surname group are tested that patterns of relationship, in terms of matching markers, begin to show up; or, in the alternate, patterns of non-relationship, where the marker patterns between tested males do not match. Without comparative information, there is no information. Both sets of facts—of relationship and non-relationship—are useful in building up family profiles. Our Dunham family DNA project is an illustrious case in point. For several years, when I first got into genealogical research on our Dunnam family, I spent time trying to discover how we were tied to the family of Deacon John Dunham of Plymouth, believing, in the footsteps of my father, that we probably were. I know now, thanks the Dunham family DNA tests, that we are not related to the Deacon John line. We derive rather from the Singletary line. Now I spend my research time more fruitfully pursuing ties that I know exist.

It is also fairly obvious that there is comparatively little value in testing two brothers. Since both had the same father, both are highly likely to have exactly matching markers, though a mutation could show up between them or in both of them compared to their common father. The stability of the Y chromosome means that mutations are rare, on the order one mutation per marker every 500 generations. But mutations, however infrequent, occur randomly and it is impossible to predict where and when one “is due.” The same considerations hold for testing male first cousins in a line of male-to-male succession; since they had the same grandfather, they will in all likelihood have exactly matching markers, though, again, likelihood isn’t a hundred percent. If DNA tests were free, it would be worthwhile testing all living males of a surname group, including brothers and first-cousins, on the unlikely (but nonzero) probability that rare mutations among these close kin might be found. But resources are limited and the tests are not free. Thus testing where relationships are not known, and testing certain “strategic” individuals⁵, rather than obvious close kin (known by records) simply makes good sense in order to get a broad, accurate profile of a diverse surname group, such as the Dunham families.

The highest value testing will be that that is performed broadly across a surname group, as has been done in our Dunham family project. This more discriminating approach will be productive of more new knowledge. Spelling conventions for surnames, especially in the more distant past, vary widely. A strength of DNA analysis is that it certifies the genetics and ignores the spellings. A good local example in my own case turned up recently. For fifteen years or more I have known a

⁵ An example of a “strategic” individual will be given shortly in the case of the Thomas Denham family.

personable young man here in Austin whose name is David B. Dunham. Dave and I have joked around in the past with feigned greetings of “cousin Dave” and “cousin Sam,” because many of our mutual friends suppose that we are related. Since Dave spells his name with an ‘NH’ and I use rather the ‘NN,’ I believed that in truth we were probably not related. Nevertheless, I’d urged Dave for several years to get tested. Finally he did. To our mutual surprise, we match exactly! Dave and I still have no idea of just how we are related. But that test tells us that we have, somewhere back there, a mutual common ancestor; and that even in Texas we have relations who use both spellings. There is now motivation on both our parts to find our mutual common ancestor and to try to get a better idea of the various families in Texas.

A Powerful Reinforcement Effect

This circumstance illustrates another aspect of the contribution that DNA testing makes to genealogical research. When conjoined with the traditional search of records, the two methods of researching our ancestors make a powerful combination. They reinforce and extend each other, and make possible inferences about our ancestors that neither separately could pin down quite so easily or forcefully. For example, if I have a certain DNA pattern, then I can be certain that my male forebears, whom I can identify by records, also had it. They had to have it to pass it down to me; if they had not had it, I could not have it. It is not necessary to dig up our ancestors to know their DNA; it can be reliably inferred from tests of the currently living generation.

Family Groups in The Dunham Surname Group

The DNA testing on our Dunham surname group has turned up evidence of what appears to be at least five separate Dunham families who claim the surname but are not, as family groups, related to one another. There is first the family of Deacon John Dunham, which is well documented in early American records. Next there is the Dunham family deriving from Richard Singletary, by virtue of his son Jonathan’s name change. Then there are two sets of two individuals each who match each other exactly but do not match the Deacon John or Singletary lines. They represent Dunham groups three and four. Finally, there is a fifth group of three individuals who match one another closely enough to reveal a pattern of probable relationship but not, among them, a very close relationship. Also, they match none of the other groups. One of this last group, Mark Dunham, is from England. Because of these—what we shall now call ‘minor’ Dunham family groups—we cannot yet appraise the profile of the entire Dunham surname group. There is need for a considerably greater number of individuals to be tested, especially from groups three, four, and five, before we can claim with reasonable confidence that we have an accurate statistical picture of the entire Dunham surname group. What we are calling ‘minor’ groups now may not be minor; that they currently appear so may be simply an accidental bias of our very small sample size of thirty-five individuals thus far tested. Finally, there is a dangling question. We do not yet have any DNA tests on surviving male members of the Rev. Thomas Denham’s family, which Gratia Mahony has identified in her records. Hence we not yet know whether that family will match one of five Dunham families the DNA tests have revealed so far or whether, by itself, it constitutes yet another—sixth—family. There is a living male member of that family and Gratia is seeking to persuade him to be tested. This is an example of a “strategic” individual test.

Haplogroups: The Deep Past

Finally there are some very interesting things that we have learned from a sample size of just thirty-five. These pertain to the haplogroups into which these five distinct Dunham family groups fall. You may think of a haplogroup as a broad, generic racial stock category. According to Bennett Greenspan, President of Family Tree DNA, our testing agency, anthropologists break down the phylogenic tree of homo sapiens into branches. Each branch is given a letter (like A, B, C) which defines clear splits in the backbone of the tree (of all humankind).

Both the Deacon John and the Singletary family groups fall in haplogroup “I.” The origins of haplogroup “I” are in the Balkans and Scandinavia (the areas of their greatest concentrations today). People of haplogroup “I” from the east coast of England (East Anglia) and the west coast of France (Normandy) are descendants of the Vikings, who, around 800 A.D. swept down from Norway, Denmark and Sweden and raided, later settled, in these areas, taking wives from the local populace and generating offspring. Their haplogroup “I” genes can today still be sharply distinguished from those of the surrounding peoples among whom they settled and bred. Thus, while the Deacon John and Singletary lines of Dunhams are separate families today, they share this common genetic background and probably came from nearby areas in East Anglia, as indeed some records attest.⁶

On the other hand, of the two groups of two individuals each, one (Durwood Dunham and John W. Dunham) falls into haplogroup “G” and the other (Donald C. Dunham and James L. Dunham) falls into haplogroup “R1a.” Bennett Greenspan says of haplogroup “G” that it “is Central Asian in origin and is found in Europe in low percentages” with “its highest percentages found North and East of Turkey.” Haplogroup “R1a” is dominant “in a crescent from Northern India and Pakistan to East Germany. I have called these Dunham family groups three and four respectively.

Finally, the fifth group of three individuals—who seem to be related but not so closely (A.W. Dunham, Mark I. Dunham, and John S. Dunham)—falls into haplogroup “R1b.” Bennett says of this haplogroup: “[These] are the first guys to reach Western Europe, and they are the folks who made those pretty cave painting[s] in Southern France; they lived out the last Ice Age in Spain and quickly repopulated all of Western Europe beginning about 10,000 years

⁶ There is a subtle point here. They do not share membership in haplogroup I because they likely came from the same area of England. Rather, this area of England is where their Viking forebears settled and where those Viking gene pools are most commonly found. Their membership in haplogroup I was doubtless a settled fact long before the Vikings mounted their raids south.

ago.” I have called this Dunham family group five.

It is virtually certain that, with the exception of the first two Dunham surname groups (the Deacon John and Singletary groups), family groups three, four, and five are not related, even distantly, either to these first two family groups or to each other⁷. One goal of our national family association should be to encourage much more extensive testing of related individuals in groups three, four, and five, while also continuing to urge individuals of the Deacon John and Singletary groups to be tested. This holds especially for any Dunham male who doesn’t know for sure from which of these family groups he descends. There is a very high likelihood he will belong to one of these now known five family groups. We can be certain there will be more surprising revelations and growth of a much richer body of knowledge about our Dunham heritage.

In closing, I hope the above primer on our family DNA testing project has been informative, and that it will enlist your support and interest in continuing it. In future articles there will be examples of how combinations of DNA analysis and records shared by scattered members of the various families have helped uncover facts that would have otherwise remained hidden or, at best, highly uncertain. Finally, please don’t hesitate to send in your questions to me on this subject. If I cannot answer them, I’ll find someone who can.

⁷ We are all related, of course, if we go back far enough. But having our family origins in different haplogroups is a very distant relationship.