My name is Bette Brownlow. I am a 7th generation descendent of William and Jane Brownlow who emigrated to the American colonies via Charlestown, South Carolina in 1767 from County Armagh.
I began my genealogy research quite by happenstance in 1992. I struck up a conversation with an ancient Dutch sea captain while crossing the English Channel. I made some inquiries about an ancestors' Dutch name on my mother's side of the family that really provoked my curiosity. Since most of my family members who could answer those questions were deceased, I followed the leads and began tracking those lines.
It was not until 1993/94, I discovered a Brownlow cousin (Beth Evans Novack) living near Phoenix who had done significant research about the Brownlow's from NC>SC>GA. I was living in Tucson at that time. We met, we shared (she more than I), and it was not too much longer (1994), I took my first trip to Northern Ireland without a clue as to where to begin. Again serendipity led me to a man named Kieran Clendinning who very graciously gave me a tour of the various places John Brownlow had lived since arriving in 1608/9. He gave me some compendiums of his Brownlow family research and launched me on the Brownlow quest to discover how all the various Brownlow branches fit together.
There are so many Brownlow family researchers and each has his/her own special area of interest and they are quite good at it. My interest mushroomed in a compelling interest to tie the lines together via Y chromosome testing. I knew the dna testing would help resolve many questions, as well as, potentially, create conundrums.
I have a BA in History; an M.Ed in Counseling Services; an MS and PsyD in Clinical Psychology. My passion remains to this day conducting research, history and the ancestors.
If you are interest in DNA of your family tree go to familytreedna.com. If you choose to join the project, you should do at least 37 markers. Doing 12 is fairly unhelpful. If you want your mitochondial dna tested it can be found at Familytree DNA.
Before her death in November, 1999, Joyce Brownlow of the UK had done some amazing research in attempting to link the various Brownlow family branches. Paper trails become less common the further back in time we need to go and that can frustrate the finest genealogist. Joyce believed that all Brownlow's of today orginated from a common ancestor who was found in Rivington, Lancashire over 1000 years ago. She found established records of Brownlows fanning out across the UK across the centuries but originating in the Rivington area. Results to date suggest separate groupings of Brownlow's/Brownlee's. We are finding some recent autosomal matches between Brownlow and Brownlee descendants from Northern Ireland which may help us actually genetically link the Irish titled line and the English titled line of Brownlow's as well as their connection with many Brownlee's.
One subgrouping of Brownlow's have a J2 haplogroup which is semitic in origin. There is one hypothesis that this line springs from a group of Moorish archers brought to Lincolnshire around the time of William the Conquerer. I am sure there are other theories...but this one is the most engaging at this time. The other Brownlow line is alleged to originate in Rivington, Lancashire. I am interested in finding more participants from this lineage and comparing results to Brownlee's of Ireland and Scotland. It was recently brought to my attention that the Brownlee's were a sept of the Clan Hamilton over the border in Scotland. It needs further testing.
****Seriously looking for men who are direct descendants of Patrick Chamberlaine who married Leticia Brownlow (their line became the Baron Lord Lurgans in Northern Ireland). Also, we need one or two representatives of the Cust family who hold the English titled line. I understand that both titled lines male lines died out in the late 1600's but there is still much we can learn by having the y chromosomes of these two groups for comparison.
*****Also, seriously looking for Brownlow's/Brownlee's from Ireland to test.
Background of the Project
This Y chromosome study was initiated in February, 2004. It is dedicated to Joyce Brownlow of Liverpool who passed away November 1999. She did an amazing amount of Brownlow family research. She hypothesized that all Brownlow's came from the Rivington, Lancashire area of England. She noted how over the centuries in which records about Brownlow's were found, various branches moved out from Rivington to other parts of the kingdom, and then, on to the colonies.
Due to the patterns emerging not only with ydna samples and the Family Finder Test, this studies I have been making promising strides in connecting the dots with many of the different Brownlow/Brownlee lines. A recent Family Finder test result has found shared dna between a Brownlee and Brownlow whose ancestors were in Northern Ireland.
I encourage everyone who joins the study to have a minimum of 37 ydna markers assessed. Also, with the recent decrease in overall prices, I encourage all to have the Family Finder Test so that more patterns of connection between various lines can be established with dna.
**** We need especially direct male descendants of James and Kate Brownlow from Virginia and who were the ancestors of Parson Brownlow.
**** We need also direct male descendants from the Lord Lurgan line in Northern Ireland.
**** We need more Brownlee's whose lines go back to Northern Ireland to take the Family Finder Test as well.
Everyone is welcome to participate and I ask that those who do, please send me your lineage as far back as you can. It will help us sort out the different lines over time.
Some public projects require permission to join the study but I do not want to do that. But I cannot stress enough how important your lineage contribution is to the overall success of our efforts to sort out our various lines.
We deeply appreciate your participation and contributions to this work intended to benefit us all.
Please be assured that your results are private. Only your earliest known ancestor is listed along with your kit number. On the NEWS page of this site, with your permission, we post your lineage from 1900 back in time to help others connect who may share your markers.
I am making every effort to upgrade the website and information for this project. We will be making separate groups of clusters of those participants with similar dna.
I am also considering setting up a Facebook page closed group for those who are interested in sharing Brownlow/Brownlee dna or other family related information such as lineage data, dna data, photographs and family oral histories. It is called Brownlow/Brownlee Family Genealogy and DNA Project. Please feel free to participate.
Brownlow/Brownlee DNA Project Goals
1) The first goal is to assess if, in fact, all Brownlow's have a common, direct male ancestor.
2) The second goal is to determine the relatedness of a variety of Brownlow branches for which there have yet been no records found to document a connection.
3) In the event where paper trails support a connection but the dna does not, 37 marker tests of a number of individuals from those branches may help determine roughly when those events occurred, i.e., adoption, infidelity, or rape.
4) I hope to find representatives from each of the two titled Brownlow lines, both Cust and Chamberlain. Both Brownlow male lines died out roughly three hundred years ago. This information will be very helpful in sorting out those lines that are distinct from the main lines out of Rivington.
Brownlow/Brownlee Project Results
1) Our North Carolina branch is related to those of several English branches for which no paper trail has been identified.
2) A Brownlee family branch has validated family oral history that their immigrant ancestor was a Brownlow prior to emmigrating to the US colonies and changed their name to Brownlee once here.
3) One sample from James and Kate of Virginia branch has shown so far that there is not a match between the tested North Carolina branch and the Parson Brownlow line. More branches will be needed to verify this consistently.
4) The NC>SC>GA> and NC>TN>OK>TX branch has a J haplotype which was the last thing I expected. I felt sure we would show up with a Viking haplotype but did not. The J haplotype was validated via testing. Those with J have an origin back in the Fertile Crescent around 9,500 BCE and are thought to have been early neolithic farmers who moved up into Asia and Europe over the millennia teaching agriculture.
5) The James and Kate line, New York, and Minnesota lines, show a haplotype of R1b, which is European and Celtic deep ancestry. There is, however, a paper trail to connect the Minnesota branch with those in England with the J haplotype. It will be interesting to see, as more people participate, if we can determine where this split occurred.
6) Participants are encouraged to test with at least 37 markers since at least half of the current participants have a unique mutation on marker 464 where there are 6 sub markers rather than the normal or more common 4 sub markers.
7) 3 participants of Irish immigrants have the same markers which have a greater similarity to the Chamberlain study markers than those of the Brownlows. Since the Irish titled male line died out in the late 1600's when Lettice Brownlow married Patrick Chamberlain, this connection makes sense. We still need a collateral Chamberlain sample who might be related to this particular line of Chamberlains to make sure. As of this writing, we have no known matches to anyone in the Chamberlain study.
If you have questions or problems with this site, please email me. Every effort has been made in order to document all sources. In some areas we have made speculative inclusions based on the best information available.
