What would a reasonable person do?
FTDNA DY8VJ is the 37 marker haplotype of my ancestral family of interest, CARROLL of
various spellings, which is the surname of my maternal grandfather. SRY 10831- puts it
in haplogroup R1a, or whatever the correct nomenclature is today. Proven paper only goes
back to 1798 in Pennsylvania. Family myth says Pennsylvania Dutch, which we know means
German speaking, but I have no idea from where in Europe the immigrant came. My hope is
that genetic genealogy will someday allow me to pick up the trail in Europe. This was an
implied promise of Y-DNA testing when the current projects got underway.
From all I can learn here it seems the DY8VJ haplotype is most probably a Slavic variety.
Indeed, the single 12/12 match as of today is from hrachonviste, Slovakia, but of a
different surname. Different but not impossibly so; both start with "K" and
are of two syllables. I am awaiting this "match's" results of his extension
to 37 markers. FTDNA seems so slow...
Now I feel impelled to ask this advice today because I just discovered three archived
queries at the "Searching Slovakia" website from 1998, searching for the surname
KAROL and KARROLL in Slovakia, and even mentioning a particular village. I sent emails to
the three posters and received one response from a woman whose mother's maiden name,
born 1917 in Slovakia, was Karol. The other two email addresses were stale. She named
her mother's parents and siblings, including her mother's two male brothers. (Her
mother is still alive). And she also mentioned a related Karol family in Canada.
I would dearly love to see these Karol males Y-DNA tested and see their halplotype, to
compare with my Carroll's. I don't know how best to make such a suggestion, and I
don't want to frighten her away either. Naturally any real connection would go back
hundreds of years, if they matched at all. That she posted at all in 1998 seems to
indicate she has some interest in her mother's family of origin in Slovakia. Any
advice about how best to proceed would be most welcome, especially from those of you who
have successfully done it.
Eric Olson
CARROLL-DNA-L Admin.
Ericbear01(a)earthlink.net