From: acornish@imm.cnrs.fr   
      
   On 2019-04-23 17:40:19 +0000, Ian Goddard said:   
      
   > On 21/04/19 18:12, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:   
   >> According to Brian Sykes, approximately 50% of men with the surname   
   >> Sykes have a Y chromosome that seems to have originated from somewhere   
   >> near Pontefract. That means that 50% do not. So where did they get   
   >> theirs from?   
   >   
   > For a start it's a toponym - a syke is a minor watercourse or even a   
   > ditch so it can have arisen a number of times.   
      
   Logically, yes, but Brian Sykes concluded that it didn't. I don't   
   remember why not. I have the book somewhere, so I might be able to   
   check.   
      
   >   The early instances are round Huddersfield, some in the manor of   
   > Wakefield and some in the very extensive collection holdings which   
   > formed the Honor of Pontefract but not necessarily close to that.   
   >   
   > Redmonds lists it as early as 1296 in Flockton.  He also lists it in   
   > 1391 in Holme as "John by the Syke"; that seems sufficiently   
   > descriptive of a habitation as to be distinct from a hereditary name   
   > from a century earlier.  In fact "Holme" in the Wakefield manorial   
   > rolls is sufficiently vague that this Syke might well be Black Syke   
   > which is still identifable today.  If this man gave rise to an   
   > independent Sykes surname it wouldn't be surprising if his line was   
   > much less numerous than one with a few generations start.  If Black   
   > Syke was ndeed the place John of 1391 could even have been the same man   
   > as Redmonds' John Sykes of Austonley in 1416 and I'd think it more   
   > likely that I'd be descended from him than from William I.   
   >   
   >> Some no doubt, from local farmers, ploughmen etc., but you only need a   
   >> small proportion to come from the nobility for their descendants to   
   >> spread all over the place. It's vastly more likely for a noble to   
   >> impregnate a farmer's wife than it is for a farmer to impregnate a   
   >> nobleman's wife.   
   >   
   > The fact that one line proliferated to provide half the men with that   
   > name doesn't mean that the rest were illegitimate,   
      
   Of course not, and it's not what I said. It's not that the rest were   
   illegitimate, but that the rest have each at least one "non-paternity   
   event" (as Sykes rather coyly put it) in their direct male line.   
      
   >  nor does it mean that those who were illegitimate were descendants of   
   > William I.  It's more likely that the father of an illegitimate child   
   > of a woman names Sykes, at least here in the Sykes homeland, as it   
   > were, would be someone of the same background.   
   >   
   > The thing is that if you're going to make a sweeping statement   
      
   It's not my "sweeping statement". Everyone familiar with population   
   genetics agrees that when enough time has passed either everyone living   
   is descended from a particular person (with, as I said, exceptions for   
   recent immigrants from distant places), or no one is. In the case of   
   William I the "no one is" option is sufficiently unlikely to be set   
   aside.   
      
   >  that we're all descended from William I the only way in which this   
   > would be supportable would be to trace everyone's ancestry back to the   
   > C11th.   
      
   That's not how it's done. It's a matter of statistical analysis.   
      
   >   As that's not possible it's not a testable statement.   
      
      
   --   
   athel   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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