Maybury DNA Project Update

What have we learned since 2018?

When Don Collins launched the Maybury DNA Project in 2003, the available Y-DNA tests examined only 12 markers or locations on a chromosome – Y12 STR tests – but Y25, Y37, Y67 and then Y111 tests became available later. The Maybury DNA Project has the results from all of these tests in its database, although FTDNA now offers only Y37 and Y111 tests. In 2016, the results from the first BigY test were obtained, providing Y111 results and the identification of SNP mutations. BigY testing accelerated by the 2020s and began to reveal the broad picture of Maybury family relationships.

BigY testing shows that, on present information, most Maybury Project members are positive for the SNP R-BY13824, regarded as John Maybury of Sussex’s haplogroup. Following John, three main family branches emerged among his descendants. These are identified by the SNPs R-FT379334, R-FTA43422 and R-FTA84209. Coincidentally, John Maybury produced three sons who are known to have, in turn, produced sons:  Nicholas Maybury (c.1567-1634), Clement Maybury (1575-after 1628) and John Maybury of Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire, England (1577-1651). A convincing case has been made for John Maybury of Cleobury Mortimer to be the progenitor of the R-FTA84209 family branch, thanks to the genealogical research into the Maybery family of Gloucestershire and Australia. Significant gaps in historical documents relating to Nicholas and Clement Maybury have made the identification of the progenitors of the other two family branches difficult. 

Nevertheless, there are indications that the mutation R-FT379334 is associated with Nicholas Maybury. In 2011, Don Collins proposed the theory that Richard Mayberry (m.1626/27; d.1643) of Churchtown (Cartmel), Lancashire (now Cumbria), was a son of Nicholas Maybury based on naming patterns in his children. Richard’s son, John Mayberry (1628-1677) migrated to Kilrea, Co. Londonderry in Ireland’s north in c.1657 and is known to have had at least one son, Richard Mayberry of Lisnagrot, and either a son or grandson, William Mayberry (c.1688-1764/65). William married Bathsheba Dennis in 1714 and subsequently migrated to America, settling in Windham, Massachusetts (later Maine). A small community of Mayberrys became established in Co. Londonderry and Co. Antrim near Kilrea in the following centuries. This region seems to have had a concentration of R-FT379334 Mayburys: a descendant of William Mayberry of Windham has tested positive for R-FT379334 as have two descendants of Alexander Mayberry, who lived around Lisnagrot in the late 18th century, and a descendant of a Mayberry family who migrated from Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland, to Canada.

A Maybury from western Co. Cork, in the south of Ireland has also tested R-FT379334. His ancestry has only been traced back to the 1840s. However, there is a history of Mayburys living in the west Cork region with the earliest record dating back to 1620 when a Maybury arrived in Bandon with a party of tradesmen. This is very early and might indicate that a son of John Maybury of Sussex’s eldest son, Nicholas, may have relocated to Ireland. Far more documentary research needs to be done on Mayburys in this area. 

What has strengthened the case for regarding R-FT379334 Mayburys as descendants of Nicholas Maybury has been the results of recent research into the R-FTA43422 branch of the Mayburys that strongly suggest that its progenitor was Clement Maybury. 

Descendants of Francis Maybury (d.1712) of Surry County, Virginia; descendants of the Mayburys and Mayberrys of Co. Kerry, Ireland; and a Mayberry with ancestral links to the Bucks Co. Pennsylvania and Hunterdon Co. New Jersey have all tested positive for R-FTA43422. The Mayburys/Mabrys of Virginia and the Mayburys/Mayberrys of Kerry are very closely related - the modal DNA haplotypes for 103 STR markers are identical for Kerry and Virginian Mayburys except for three sites.

Even more telling is that both the Virginian and Kerry families had Francis Mayburys conducting themselves on separate sides of the Atlantic around the 1670s: Francis Maybury (d.1712) of Surry County and Francis Mayberry, hammerman of Glanarought, Kerry, and Enniscorthy, Wexford. They were contemporaries, estimated to have been born roughly around the 1640-50s and dying around 1710. It is likely that they shared a grandfather. It is also likely that the hammerman Francis Mayberry had a father, Thomas Maybury, recorded as the probable master of his team of hammermen – such teams were typically composed of related individuals.

This pointed to the two Francis Mayburys having, as their grandfather and common ancestor, Clement Maybury, who incidentally had a son Thomas Maybury, baptised 10 July 1621 at Wednesbury in Staffordshire.

Unfortunately, the identity of Francis Maybury of Surry County’s father is still elusive. Clement Maybury had another known son, Edward (1609-1665) but it seems that this given name was not carried on to Francis’ descendants (nor was it popular among the Kerry Mayburys). It is very possible that Clement had other children whose names are not to be found in surviving records.