Many have heard that our William might have been of Cherokee descent. His appearance from nowhere around 1820 seemed to fit the theory.

My grandmother, Mary Addie Wolfe, had even told that we were of German and Indian descent. Unfortunately, she did not say which ancestor was which.

The DNA pages say that everyone descended from a common East African ancestor. As the groups migrated from Africa, some of them split off in differerent directions. The group identified with the R1b haplogroup, eventually migrated into Europe.

The group that migrated into Asia and eventually into the Americas via the Bering Strait land bridge, is identified as the Q3 haplogroup.

The genetic mutations that identify them as Q3 happened after they split off from the other groups. That is, the R1b haplogroup doesn't contain those mutations.

So, if our William had been of Cherokee origin, he would have had the Q3 mutations and would have passed them along to his children and my test would have had them.

The R1b results supports the other theory that William might have been of German descent, possibly related to the Lewis/Ludwig line.

There's been nothing found to substantiate any relation to Lewis except the Florida lady's comment to brother Joe that "you need Lewis"...