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THE GIBBS SURNAME DNA PROJECT
Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Why do many of the first three columns of the findings table have cryptic numbers for the Participant's name and "Unknown" for the Earliest Known Ancestor?

There are two reasons. First, the site is new and we only display what the participants ask us to display. Second, when your results have not yet been matched by another participant, you may wonder if you really are a Gibbs! We have such diversity of Y-DNA in our project that it can be a bit unsettling to have the same surname as others, but different Y-DNA. It can cause you to question where you really come from. We had one individual who is a complete twelve level match to over a hundred other people in the FTDNA database, with many different surnames - not one of which was the GIBBS surname or any of its variants! This points out the limits of the 12-Marker test, and illustrates the reason why we encourage participants to opt for the 25-Marker, or newer, more definitive 37-Marker test instead.

Until your Y-DNA signature is confirmed as a new GIBBS haplotype we withhold your name to avoid any embarrassment that could result from discovering that you match with another surname. As the project grows, and more participants are tested, we can expect our earlier participants to find matches, and we can confidently post the names that go with the numbers - if (and only if) the participants ask us to do so.

Q2. Where do you get the "conventional" information about your Y-Lines?

The information we post for our Y-Lines is provided by the participants themselves. We are a group of "amateur" genealogists, with a common love (or compulsion) for "ancestor hunting". As such, we all have searched for lost relatives in every conventional manner possible. Some of us have been doing so for many years. All of us eventually reach a point where conventional sources no longer hold any more answers and we hit the "brick wall". We hope that by comparing the fruits of our conventional work we can help each other.

It is important to remember that the information we post for our project participants is unedited, except for the application of a common format, and is otherwise posted as the participants submit it. We are not in a position to verify any of the facts these submissions contain, and we cannot confirm or deny any of the submitters' suppositions. We do, however, make it a rule to post any sources cited by the submitters and we encourage everyone to make it clear when they are making a statement of proven fact versus making an educated guess.

Q3. Will this project eventually tie all of the Gibbs lines to one common ancestor?

Unfortunately the answer to this is definitely "No". When we started this project we expected to find that all of the Gibbses alive today would prove to be descended from a common Gibbs line that could be traced back to an ancestral "homeland". We now know that this is not the case. Among the participants so far we have identified 12 distinct haplotypes, or Y-DNA lines. These lines have not been related for thousands of years. If we were studying a more common surname, like "Smith" which is derived from an occupation, we might expect such diversity, but "Gibbs" had been assumed by many researchers to be a "patronymic" surname - one that is derived from the given name of an early ancestor. Our DNA testing is showing that it seems more likely to have originated from an appellation, like "Strong", "Young", or "Redman", which might have been descriptive of many individuals. This means it isn't traceable to a single ancestor, or ancestral line.

Q4. Will it help the project if my brother and I are both tested?

It is not necessary for more than one male member of a family to be tested. You, your father, your brother(s) and probably all of your uncles and male cousins on your father's side of the family (the Y-side) share the same Y-DNA markers with only a rare possibility of minor differences or mutation (which occurs only about once every 500 or so births in a given line). Testing your brother, or another male relative will only prove (or perhaps disprove) your relationship to him, it won't add anything more to the projects findings.

Q5. If I have already had a Y-DNA test by another company (not FTDNA) can I join the Gibbs Surname DNA Project with those results?

Since different companies include different DYS markers in the testing they do, the results they provide don't always corrolate one-on-one with those included in the FTDNA testing used for our project. Also, since different laboratories use different testing protocols, there is no guarantee that the results obtained by one lab will be comparible to those from another. Therefore, a new test by FTDNA is requried to upgrade the test results of other companies to the FTDNA standards before new participants can use those results to join the Gibbs Surname DNA Project. FTDNA offers a conversion test at the 37 marker level for those who have previously been tested by Ancestry.com, or other companies, and a slightly different test for those who have previously been tested by Oxford Ancestry. Alternatively, you can join the Gibbs Surname DNA Project directly, by ordering a new FTDNA test at the 37 marker level at our reduced group rate, which is the same as the cost for the conversion tests. The new tests ensure that we can accurately compare your results to those of our other project participants and preserves the integrity of the FTDNA database.

For FAQs of a more technical nature, see the FamilyTree DNA web site FAQ page.