Do all the
persons named Boorman spring from a common ancestor?
Is there any
truth in the story that there were three Dutch brothers who came to Kent
or Lincolnshire?
There are
certainly three major lines of Boormans but so far no connection has been
found.
Well-established
surname directories are quite certain that the name is a corruption of
Bowerman - a servant of the bower. They attribute Boreman, Boreman,
Burman, and Bourman to the same source. This would make the name
location/occupation based much as "Smith" or "Butcher".
Many feel that
the spelling variations of "Boorman", "Bourman" etc., are due to the
interpretation of local accents of speech; the recording clerk wrote what
he thought the person had said. Whether or not this theory stretches
far enough to include "Bowerman" is debatable. In the last five
years DNA testing has made it possible to check out some of the ideas. Y -
DNA testing works on the direct male line only and as such is just what we
need to give more clues to the Boorman/Bowerman mystery. This DNA
testing should not be confused with tests used by the police or those used
for assessing the likelihood of inherited disease. The DNA test used
in genealogy examines 43 markers in the junk region of your y-chromosome.
They contain no medical information. DNA testing is not going to
save all those hours searching records but it may encourage researchers
and guide them on new lines of investigation. It will not solve
parental mishaps and it cannot cope with adoption. It could show that we
are from a common source, which would demolish the Bowerman theory.
There are many
firms in the DNA business, as a search of the Internet will reveal.
My own checks and question of other family history researchers lead me to
choose DNAheritage.com. They are US based but have an office in
Weymouth UK.
Go to
www.dnaheritage.com for more information. There is a good
tutorial on
www.dnaheritage.com/tutorial1.asp
To join the
project go to
www.dnaheritage.com/oracle/join.asp?GroupUnique=334145116
The best results
will be obtained by using all 43 markers
