A few years ago when I began the very interesting but arduous journey to discover my Ashby ancestors my knowledge only went back to my grandfather. I did not have a paper trail, just several oral histories that conflicted w/ each other. Like most people on here I began looking at records and talking to other researchers and looking at other family trees. Having a medical background I took the approach,if it is not documented it didn't happen, that makes the task harder but much more accurate.In 2006 I attended a genealogy conference that focused on Y-DNA and haw it could be used to track male lineage. Well, I thought that was the tool we needed to advance male genealogy research. It would place an Ashby male in the right blood line, it would confirm paper trails, and it would show any divisions in the Ashby lines. In short order it would let you know your position and point you in the right direction. However, for it to work effectively, Y-DNA requires an adequate database. At last count there 17 Ashby males with recorded info. on FTDNA. That is not nearly enough when you have 22,000 Ashbys in this country. If we want to take advantage of YDNA a larger database must be created. So, I ask everybody that knows of an male with the Ashby surname to contact him and ask that he submit a YDNA sample to one of the testing labs. I would suggest you refer him to www.FTDNA.com they have an Ashby surname project in place. Plus, it explains how it works and their privacy policy etc. Until we have a much larger database of Ashby YDNA this valuable tool will remain ineffective. It is like having a GPS system in your car and only one satellite in orbit. It is up to us, Ashby researchers, to make it work as it should. Again, please make an effort to encourage any Ashby male you know to submit a YDNA sample.
Ernie Ashby
eashby@sc.rr.com
ernroe@yahoo.com