Sinclair DNA Connnections

By 1086, the Bigod family held land in 692 locations in southeastern England. A study of the families who held of the Bigod is very informative. Among them are Vaux and St. Clair.

It seems Roger Bigod, Richard St. Clair and others were not necessarily nice to the Saxons in England -

“Multiplied vexations ruined its Saxon Citizens, and rendered it uninhabitable to a great number of them, who emigrated into the province of Suffolk, to the neighborhood of Beccles and Halesworth. There three Normans, Roger Bigot, Richard de St. Clair, and Guillaume des Noyers, seized their persons and made them tributary serfs, although they were at the time too few to be an advantageous property.” (1)

King (pages not numbered) has a nice account of the ascension of King Stephen (‘of Blois’) in 1135. In this chapter, he writes of the

“noble officers of the household: the constables Robert de Vere [Vaux], Miles of Gloucester, Robert d’Oilly, and Briad Fitz Count; the stewards William Martel, Hugh Bigod, Humphrey de Bohun, Simon de Beauchamp, Robert Malet, and Robert Fitz Richard de Clare; the butlers William d’Aubigny and Eudo Martel; the chamberlains: Aubrey de Vere [Vaux?], and William de Pont-de-l’Arche. There there are the barons Robert de Ferrers, William Peverel of Nottingham, Simon of Senlis, Geoffrey de Mandeville, William d’Aubigny Briton, Payn Fitz John, Hamo de St Clair, Ilbert de Lacy, Geoffrey Talbot, Walter Espect, Roger of Valognes, Henry de Port, Walter Fitz Richard de Clare, Walter de Gant, Walter de Bolebec, Walchelin Maminot, William de Percy. (2)

Sources -

(1)Scale, Henry “Ancient history, English and French: exemplified in a regular dissection of the Saxon chronicle; preceded by a review of Wharton’s Utrum Elfricus grammaticus?, Malmesbury’s Life of St. Wulstan, and Hugo Candidus’ Peterborough history: wherein the principal Saxon annalists are now (for the first time) identified,” J. Hatchard and son, 1830

(2) King, Edmund, “King Stephen,” Yale University Press, 2010 ISBN 978-0-300-11223-8

By Steve St Clair

If you spend some time on reliable records websites which specialize in the medieval time period, you can learn a lot about your family. 

One of my favorite is People of Medieval Scotland. If you look into their “Database” you’ll be able to search by place or family name. It’s been very illuminating for me to study all the available records of both the Roslin Sinclairs and the Herdmanstoun St. Clairs. So far, I’ve found no witnessing of charters or documents between these two families. It’s as though they didn’t know each other until the 1300s. Yet I’ve found lots of interesting coincidences between the witnesses of charters and our Sinclair DNA matches. More on that later.

Below, Herdmanstoun

By Steve St Clair

Being a fan of Beryl Platts, I now keep an eye out for armorial bearings. This one popped up today for the town of Pont-de-Vaux.

That symbol - the crescent - is also found on the arms of the medieval Oliphant family (below).

And, as Beryl Platts pointed out, those arms are nearly identical with the Seaton / Seton family. 

I find this very interesting because Thomas Sinclair’s book, “The Sinclairs of England” says the Seaton family were of the same blood as the St Clair family. Other researchers think the crescent entered heraldic devices for those families who had participated in the crusades. Perhaps 3 crescents means the Seatons went on 3 crusades. I haven’t found any evidence that the St Clairs were ever on crusade.

The Sinclair DNA study is looking for connections between documents and DNA, armorial bearings and DNA, as well as St Clair / Sinclair family stories and DNA. 

By Steve St Clair

I’ve been working with a great researcher in the UK who’s working on the Counts of Boulogne. Along the way, the usual suspects begin showing up. Then a family we hadn’t seen before began to appear in the records - the De Laval. As is often the case, research into K.S.B. Keats-Rohan cleared this up. 

The name De Laval is the same as de Vaux. Take a look at Keats-Rohan’s “Domesday Descendants” (if you can lift the book - it’s quite large). On page 543 is Gilbert de Laval. KR goes into depth about Hubert de Vallibus (the Latinized spelling of de Vaux) and how he was a knight of Robert de Mowbray, earl of Northumberland. This De Laval / de Vaux gave tithes of Seaton Delaval (that name Seaton is terribly important in our family) to St Albans.. He was also a benefactor of Hexham Abbey. 

Hubert had a son, Robert, who used the alias Setun. This family were involved with the Bolum / Boulogne family.

The St. Clair / Sinclair family are matching the DNA of the de Vaux family in a SNP called R-L193, a relatively recent match.

By Steve St Clair

If you watch the Tour de France, you’ll see lots of landmarks that are familiar to members of our Sinclair DNA study. This is the Abbey of St Wandrille. The Tour went right past it. Our close cousins made (and witnessed) many gifts to this abbey:  The families of de Vaux, Meullen, Bigot, Bellmont, Vilers, Talebot, and Longuespee are written in the Cartulary (register) of St Wandrille.

By Steve St Clair

The U106 SNP has an unusually high number of researchers working on understanding their ancient roots. Maybe it’s because there are so many people alive today who have this SNP. There certainly are a lot in our Sinclair DNA study who have it.

So, what are they learning. Well, over the past few years, there has been a lot of SNP activity “downstream” of U106.

U106* - We’ve got a small group showing U106, but nothing so far downstream of it, thus the asterisk.

Z9* - We’ve got one participant who shows this SNP, but nothing yet below it. This participant has a Burkes Peerage paper trail that claims a connection to the Earl of Caithness.

Z2 - This is our Argyle Lineage and it’s got over 10 members as of this writing.

Z1 - Our Northern Scotland Lineage. This is a large group, many of whom have good documents back to Caithness in the 1700s.

So, what can we prove?

Very little, to be exact. DNA is not a “silver bullet.”  However, the fact that this U106 group divides up by geography is extremely interesting.  Some researchers think we might be proving that people with the U106 or its downstream SNPs were in the UK before the adoption of surnames. 

If you’d like to keep up with the latest on the SNPs of U106, Click Here.

By Steve St Clair

Recently, a good friend of mine sent something he’d found online about my ancestor, Alexander Sinkler.  As we often find, the person who posted this online didn’t list sources - not a single source. The document also claimed to know the wife of the man, something no researches have ever found (again, no sources). It also claimed to know his father and mother, an obvious attempt to tie him into the Rosslyn bunch. 

I followed many others who did good genealogy research on Alexander Sinkler, the 1698 immigrant from Glasgow to Prince William County, Virginia. The main genealogist, for 35 years, was Jean Grigsby who is now retired from all that work. She wrote the main book on the descendants of the man and several addenda as her research continued.  I verified much of what Jean had done, added some new information in Richmond County Virginia, and then spent the next 7 years focussing on his possible connections in Scotland and the wider U.K. 

My point is this:  If you’re doing research on your family, be stubborn about listing your sources. The questionable research mentioned above had Alexander Sinkler’s birth date as 1672. Here’s more accurate research, with the source shown - 

Alexander testified in a court regarding a land dispute on behalf of John Mercer. 

In a deposition given in Virginia on September 7, 1745, Alexander stated he was born in Scotland, and was about 79 years of age, which indicates a birth year of around 1666. [Source - John Mercer Land Title Book, page 17; VA State Archives Acc. #20487.]

The “A” above is from October 13th, 1736, when Alexander Sinclair picked up a quill pen, leaned over the Will of James Redish, and marked that he was a witness of the will with his initial. (Stafford County Will Abstracts 1729-1748)

Ravenscraig Castle was planned by King James II of Scotland. Unfortunately he was killed in an accident. Hi wife, Mary of Guelders completed Ravenscraig and lived there until about 1463. James III gave it to William Sinclair in exchange for vast estates in the Caithness Scotland. The Sinclairs completed the castle about 1471.

Built by George, the Fouth Earl of Caithness for his son, William Sinclair. Built c. 1570 on the north coast of Scotland.

By Steve St Clair

The Sinclair DNA Study has several participants who have been using the Family Finder test, plus very inventive research, to find their identities. 

As you watch the video below, note just how careful this gentleman was in the way he approached finding out his real surname. He took his time and used all the tools at his disposal. 

The Sinclair DNA study has lots of wonderfully patient and careful records researchers:

• They scour the web looking for their St. Clair / Sinceler / St. Clair ancestors.
• They don’t leap to conclusions.
• They are very patient and careful about making grand proclamations.

Eventually, because of all the above, they’re rewarded with much more clarity about their true ancestry. This video is a great example of a man who agreed to tell his story to FTDNA: