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By C. John Phillips (Phillips Family Group 8)
Presumably members of this DNA project share a common objective. That is to trace back as far as we can our bloodline, revealing distant relatives and gaining glimpses into the history of those who helped fashion our characteristics that make us into who we are today. Each of us seeks distant Phillips's, recognising that somewhere the trail will finish but with the help of DNA we may be able to add a few more generations.
Eventually, we will find links with other surname groups who share our DNA and Smiths and Jones will begin to enter our family trees. We are simply Phillips's because sometime in the past an ancestor chose the name Phillips. Why? Was he a horse dealer or lover as the Greek Origin suggests? Was it for political or religious aspirations or did he merely like the name and chose it in preference to the many others available? Some make choices to belong to a group; others seek the opposite and want to be different. Ultimately each of us, I suppose, is seeking the tribe to which we belong.
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By Danny W. Phillips (Family Group 9)
I am 53 years old with 3 grown children, two granddaughters and another due in June. I have lived in Macon County, Tennessee, my entire life. Macon County is about one hour west of Overton County, Tennessee, where many Phillips lived. I have worked as a meat department manager since high school.
I started genealogy about 25 years ago and zipped right through my mother's family but found that my Phillips line was not so easy. I spent hours in libraries, courthouses, even flying to Oklahoma where my great grandfather migrated in 1905. NO LUCK. After all those years and TOO much money, I heard about DNA.
I had my doubts but was willing to take a chance. I am so glad I did...shortly after testing, I received emails from two matches. Beverly Phillips' husband and I are almost exact matches and Doyle Phillips is very close. Beverly was a great help in sorting out my connections. Without her help, I would still be looking for that missing link. I also enjoy Doyle's emails and applaud his hard work. Nancy and Carolyn have also been very helpful.
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By Ron Phillips (Phillips Family Group 20)
I joined the Phillips DNA Project at the request of James Phillips, who believed that the lineage I had traced for myself might help him find out more about his. James, as it turned out, had correctly guessed we might share common ancestors. And we do. James and I and four others are represented in Group 20. This, alone, might be reason enough to participate in the project, collecting cousins who may not know their detailed lineage, but suspect they are in a group of relatives from a common geographical area, and then sharing genealogical information about their common ancestors.
However, I also wanted to solve an old genealogical puzzle. Based on my own genealogical research, I was convinced that I traced back to Rev. George Phillips of Watertown, Massachusetts. After all, genealogists and historians for over 150 years have claimed lineage links from the original colonists of Massachusetts, who came with the Winthrop fleet seeking a better life in the New World, to the Newtown, Long Island, and old Hunterdon County, now Mercer County, New Jersey, Phillips families. As these printed references claimed, Theophilus, Joseph, Daniel, and their sister who married Henry Mayle, who lived at and helped found the town of Newtown, Long Island, descended from Zerobabel Phillips of Southampton, Long Island, Rev. George Phillips and his second wife, Elizabeth's first son. After all, if it was printed in a book, let alone many books, how could this claim be wrong? Well, there were "hints" over the years that this might not be correct and always ended in too many "unknowns."
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By Roger Phillips (Phillips Family Group 1)
When my father died, I discovered a sketchy family tree going back to my great-great-grandfather Phillips who had five children who lived to adulthood - the tree showed most of the descendants of two of the five (my great grandfather and one of his brothers) but little information about the others. There was a letter from a third cousin of mine of whom I hadn't even known existed. He was descended from my great grandfather's brother and had recorded the information about his line. What I wanted to do at that point was to trace back my Phillips line as far as possible but there were no leads.
On a visit to England, I met my third cousin but he could shed no light on other Phillips ancestors of ours. I then decided to track down descendants of my great-grandfather's other siblings. Two were males. The tree indicated one had left for Australia about 1871, had married "Emily", and had a son "Harry" but where in Australia the English side had not heard. I decided to look for my Australian Phillips's later. Another brother had stayed in England. Using census information for England taken in 1901 (there are no more recent censuses publicly available at this time), I discovered he was still single at age 41.
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