R1b Haplogroup Signature:The Y chromosome scores (haplotype) of David K. Faux indicate that his paternal ancestors were among the earliest individuals to enter Europe via Anatolia in Paleolithic times (30,000 years ago) as part of the Arignacian Culture, and probably "wintered over" in Southern Spain ("Franco - Cantabrian Refugium) after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The general grouping (haplogroup) is known as R1b (formerly HG1 also Eu18). Individuals with this haplogroup are descended from a single male, known as "the patriarch", whose descendants spread all across Europe, with declining numbers as one goes from Ireland or Spain (where the percentages are often 90% or more of the males in the region) to the borders of the Middle East (where the numbers taper off to a few percentage points in most of the populations). This fact makes it difficult, but not impossible, to ascertain with any certainty the origin of the male ancestor say 2000 years ago.
Genealogical and Historical Evidence: The male ancestor of the Faux line leading to David K. Faux came to England sometime prior to 1380 when John Falke of Worlingham Suffolk County wrote his will. The name Falke "morphed" to Faux and other variants over time, but the name appears to have arrived with the Normans (but as a "font name" not a surname). Therefore while Faux is technically a Norman name (Fauques meaning "son of falcon" in Old Norman), it does not prove that the ancestor was himself a Norman who landed in England in 1066 with William the Conqueror. Since the documentary record is inadequate to provide a clear answer, we must turn to DNA evidence. However, the problems in having a "common" haplogroup have already been noted - it being notoriously difficult to detect regional structure in R1b signatures..
Evidence from Various Y-DNA Databases: There are many databases available to assist in interpreting haplotypes. Most, unfortunately, suffer from serious flaws that make them problematic for determining ancestry pre 1200 AD (approximately when surnames were adopted) - unless one has a very rare R1b haplotype. For example there is the YHRD Database compiled by the Forensic Users Group. They have a database of over 22,000 individuals comprised of samples taken at many locations across Europe, but with unfortunately poor representation from Great Britain. Using the signature of my father's second cousin as the Faux ancestral haplotype (the reasons outlined in the Faux Surname DNA Study at www.davidkfaux.org/fauxsurnamedna.html) there are 21 exact matches. All are from Iberia (majority), Ireland and Stutgart, Germany (the largest samples in this database are from Germany). Percentage wise the largest number are from Spain, Pyrenes and Ireland. This will take on some significance as other information is tallied. A database using 10 markers is the Y-Chromosome Database of Oxford Ancestors. Here there are typically matches from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, the "Deepest Known Paternal Ancestor" of the clients. There are 10 exact matches for the Faux ancestral haplotype and of these 5 are from England and two from Scotland and the rest unknown. These matches are less than informative since almost all of their clients are from these locations (or the Britain, USA etc., not e.g., Lithuania - and so is not representative of Europe). Potentially more useful is the Haplogroup Database of Family Tree DNA which includes 12 marker data collected from locations worldwide as part of a scientific study, and which includes SNP testing (single nucleotide polymorphism - unique events with markers that characterize a particular haplogroup such as R1b). Family Tree DNA has a second database available to customers, combined with the former, known as the Recent Ethnic Origins database. Here England, Scotland, Ireland and Germany matches predominate largely because this database includes not only the above mentioned Haplogroup database, but also the haplotypes of clients, including many large surname studies which skew the information toward the United Kingdom and Ireland as well as Germany. However a careful analysis of this information shows low bias, and that the region with the largest percentage of matches to the ancestral haplotype is Shetland, followed by Ireland and Spain. Perhaps oddly, the ratio also holds in relation to Shetland when considering 11/12 matches - a disproportionate number of matches come from that geographic area and with Aboriginal Shetland surnames (surnames ending in "son") which would otherwise be considered to be likely Norse but there are no Norway matches at all for this haplotype. Possibly these are Pictish (early Britonic Celt) signatures. Perhaps even more informative is a marker by marker analysis. Each marker in the Faux ancestral haplotype was compared to Robert Tarin's "Allele Frequencies of Iberian and Non - Iberian Haplotypes". While for the most part the haplotypes of Iberians who are R1b are very similar to those of Non - Iberians such as German. There are 6 markers which are relaively rare in the Faux haplotype. Examining each one is is determined that 5 have the common Iberian motif and one does not. This appears to be a finding the is greater that chance alone. It suggests a remarkable similarity between this one English haplotype and what one would find in Iberia or areas colonized by Iberians - either 6000 years ago or 600 years ago. The Ysearch of FTDNA (uploaded data from customers and others) as well as Ybase of DNA Heritage suffers from precisely the same problem noted above of being highly skewed - although in this case most of the entries to date are submissions by the public and neither are terribly informative for the purposes of this study. Although the Sorenson Genomics database with about 20,000 haplotypes shows promise, at present there are no high resolution matches to the Faux haplotype, and what emerges depends on the markers chosen such that one could get the results desired simply by selection a particular subset of the markers. Other public databases to check include Promega which tests 12 loci with a 4004 sample database. The results here are 5/1311 Caucasian (.004) and 3/894 Hispanic (.003). The Reliagene database has a similar database and the results are 42/1242 Caucasian (.034) and 12 of 452 Hispanic (.027). In other words there are equal numbers of Hispanics (presumably of Iberian descent) and Caucasians (presumably some from Spain). Another approach is to seek out SNP (single nucleotide polymorphisms) data. All of the descendants of "the patriarch" should have the nucleotide base change from ancestral at marker M269. My DNA is being tested for this SNP presently. In addition, there have been a few SNPs identified downstream from M269, but most tend to be from Iberia. To date I have been tested for M37, M65, M126, M153, M160 and SRY-2627. On each one I was ancestal (negative). The distribution of the first in the list is unknown since it has to date only been reported in 28.6% of an Australian sample (ancestry unknown). M153 has been observed in 16% of a Basque sample, and SRY-2627 is perhaps most interesting since it has been studied most extensively, but again almost all in Iberia. The percentages range from 1% of a very large Galacia (Northern Spain) sample (3/292) up to 11%, 13% and 3% in R1b Basque samples. The largest showings have been in Catalan where it has been seen in 31% of a small sample. This is in Southern Spain. So far no Briton has turned up with any of these markers suggesting that the separation between the Iberians of Northern Spain and the Celtic British has been in the order of thousands of years (the time it would take for these SNPs to take a strong hold in the Spanish populations). If perchance even a small percentage of Britons showed up with these Iberian SNPs, then we would have to assess the timing of any possible separation between the two populations.
Evidence from Published Journal Articles: In the hunt for clues beyond what can be found in the databases presently available, some research papers include information that may be potentially useful in the quest to find the early origins of the Faux ancestor. A summary of this information, as well as the important data from the YHRD database can be found by clicking on the button below.
Usefulness of Knowing the Faux Y Signature: For the present, the primary use in knowing the specific Faux Y-DNA signature is in being able to compare it to others with the same surname. Here the DNA evidence is powerful enough to be able to rule out someone as being even a remote relative - though they also have the Faux surname. It will also allow me to identify (as I have already done) those with the surname Faux who are descended from the same ancestor. This only works when 25 or more markers are used since there will be many random matches with 12 or less markers; and also the person must have the same surname since it is remotely possible for two people to have 25/25 marker matches and not be related within a time frame of genealogical interest. There are, however only matches of 22/25 or higher with others with the surname Faux. Clearly the second set of 13 markers contain some relatively rare values. One of the main goals is to determine the "deep ancestry" of the Faux signature. In other words, over the past 40,000 or so years where has the Faux ancestor resided? Here follows some possibilies.
History and Prehistory of England: After the glaciers left England circa 13,000 years ago the land became habitable again for humans. Evidence from Gough's Cave (Cheddar Gorge) provides evidence that by 12,700 BC humans had begun to recolonize Britain. It is unknown whether these peoples spoke a language in the Into - European family, of possibly that similar to the Basques who provide the major candidate for an isolated Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) population that my have infiltrated Britain. There is no reason to supposed that Britain has not been occupied continuously since the early arachaeological finds. What is unclear is the cultural and linguistic connections of the early inhabitants. By 4000 BC the eastern part of England and Scotland was apparently settled by Indo - Europeans but what is unknown is whether it was the culture that diffused or whether there was a migration of peoples from the Continent at this time. The culture in Britain at this time is called the Windmill Hill Culture and there are strong parallels to that of Michelsberg in the Rhineland of Germany. By 2750 BC there was a fairly uniform West Indo - European Culture that extended to all of Britain and Ireland. Five hundred years later the "Bell Beaker Radiation" occured, bringing a new cultural tradition to the shores of Britain (and the completion of the earlier version of Stonehenge). It is not know if these peoples spoke a Celtic language but most probably at least a proto version. What is interesting here is that some of the peoples who migrated to Britain were apparently from Iberia. A common Celtic tradition that began as the Hallstadt and then the La Tene periods (latter circa 415 BC) covered the map of Europe from the Danube to Britain and Spain. By 375 BC the Central Europeans had become known as the Gauls, leaving Britain and Spain on the periphery of mainstream Celtic developments and probably with little migrations into these areas. However, the Belgae moved from their German heartland and by 323 BC occupied all of Southeastern England and by 301 BC the Gaul peoples were now established in what would lager become the Danelaw. There is no indication that they entirely displaced the original peoples of the area, and it would have been unusual had they done so. By 270 BC all of what is today England was Gaulish, leaving Northern Iberia, Ireland and Scotland untouched. The year 43 BC brought Rome's Ceasar to Britain's shore. By this time Britain was orgainized into Celtic tribal regions based on the geographical territory held by the respective kings and queens. In 43 AD the Romans has arrived in southern England and despite a nearly successful revolt by Boudicea, Queen of the Iceni Tribe of East Anglia, occupoed England to Hadrian's Wall by 79 AD. If the Faux ancestor was an Aboriginal Briton, then in all probability he was a member of the Iceni Tribe which held Norfolk and Suffolk. At the dissolution of the Roman Empire circa 425 AD, the Anglo - Saxons of Friesland began arriving in larger and larger numbers until they overwhelmed the Celtic culture and became the dominant elite of the country west to Wales (which with Ireland largely escaped both the Roman and Anglo - Saxon influences. Next to arrive were the Norse Vikings who sacked Northumberland (Lindesfarne) in 793, but confined most of their activities to Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Mann. Danish Vikings arrived in the 800s and soon occupied the Eastern part of England setting up the Danelaw with Anglo - Saxon hegemony only left in the Southwest. Next came the Normans in 1066 and a series of other smaller movements of people from the Continent until the Faux ancestors can be definitely identified in Suffolk in the mid 1300s.
