My name is Dan Flanagan and I have recently volunteered to be the Project Administrator for the Nabors surname. My mother?s maiden name is Nabors.

I have had my Y-DNA tested and have compared myself to other Flanagans who have had THEIR DNA tested and with a FEW exceptions, none of us match anyone else.

How can that be? Why isn?t very single one of us matching everyone else in the table? After all, we are all related to each other, right?

Wrong!

When last names were first adopted (in Europe, that would be AD 1400 to AD 1600) it was a very ?unscientific? process. Anyone who was good with arrows was assigned the name Archer and anyone who worked with barrels was assigned the name Cooper even if they belonged to the Flanagan family (or the Nabors family or any other family). Flanagans were assigned that name merely because they had red hair or the real fair skin with freckles and blue eyes even if they belonged to the Archer family (or the Cooper family or the Nabors family and so on). You can see that there were almost certainly a huge number of errors in assigning last names at the outset and then, because it was not yet a tradition, the same last name didn't get handed down.

It could be after enough Nabors join the surname project that we all match each other but it could also be likely, if not more so, that none of us match each other.

So I am sending you this e-mail in hopes that you will have your DNA tested. And if you have already done so, that you join the Nabors surname project.

Two quick notes:
1) there is no cost to joining: it?s free; and
2) the DNA test is nothing more than a ?cheek swab,? that is, there is no blood test, no medical procedure of ANY kind, and certainly no pain.

To join, simply launch your browser to connect to the Internet, then visit Family Tree DNA?s web site, log in (username and password), then click on JOIN PROJECTS (it?s about midway down and on the left side). You will be taken to a new page listing a large number of projects of all kinds: the one that you want is N 79, which is listed under the SURNAME projects (the ?N? is simply all the surnames that begin with that letter and the 79 (as of this writing) is the NUMBER of them so there are 79 surname projects that begin with the letter ?N?). Click this ?N 79? and you will be taken to another page listing all 79 of the surname projects that begin with the letter ?N.? Nabors/Neighbors will be listed alphabetically: click on the name. You will be taken to one more different page which will contain the word JOIN in the lower right corner: click this and you are in!

If you have any questions or comments, I can be reached here:
dflanagan@austin.rr.com

Thanks!
Dan Flanagan
Austin, TX