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Archiver > VA-NORTH > 2005-07 > 1122232071


From: "William Hurst" <>
Subject: Re: [VA-NORTH] DNA Tests:
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 15:07:51 -0400
References: <1d5.408e1c54.30142261@aol.com> <002301c58ffb$dad543a0$75e822d0@s> <42E33521.4070605@charter.net> <001601c5901d$29cd0300$784118d8@GLeeTwo>


Hi all,

The Hurst Surname DNA Project is also in search of participants from
Northern Virginia. So far we have found two major lines of Hursts from this
area. The largest, the so-called "Hursts of Shenandoah," traces back to at
least Stafford County and probably Northumberland County before that. We
have a good representation of descendants of those who moved to the
Shenandoah Valley. What we need now are tests by descendants of the Hursts
who moved to Fairfax County, specifically John Hurst who died in 1789 and
his brother James Hurst who died in 1766. Their descendants soon moved out
of Fairfax to Fauquier or to present-day West Virginia and beyond. Also, a
test by a direct male descendant of Thomas Hurst who died in Northumberland
County in 1721 could extend our family tree by two generations. In addition,
there were Hursts who moved to Culpeper County and supposedly changed their
name to Hurt. All those with any of the spelling variants are welcome to
test; we have one person named Hust who has a perfect DNA match with this
Hurst branch.

We have also found another Hurst family from Loudoun and Fauquier counties,
some of whom moved directly to Southwest Virginia in the early 1800s. Their
DNA is easily distinguished from that of the Shenandoah line. I believe the
Hursts who were in Fairfax County later on were either in this second line
or were perhaps of a different line. The early Hursts in Loudoun and some of
the later ones in Fairfax used the spelling Hirst.

The project results so far are at http://www.familytreedna.com/public/hurst/
To sign up for the test, use the "Join This Group" link in the
upper-left-hand corner. We encourage questions before signing up.

Bill Hurst

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