by Phillip G. Goff, GGFA Director of Genetic Genealogy
The 1564 GOUGH/GOFF (GB-OXF/US-MA-BRI/US-VA-BHM/IE-DUB) R-FTB51877 genetic family traces back to a man born around 1564, likely from Oxfordshire or the Welsh Marches. YDNA testing has so far identified four early branches: English Goughs of Souldern, Oxfordshire; a New England branch descending from Anthony Goff, who was in Billerica, Massachusetts by 1685, a Virginia Goff/Gough line appearing in Buckingham County tithables in the 1760s-70s and an Irish branch beginning with William Goff, married in Dublin in 1799.
With a new Big Y 700 result from the Irish branch, the project’s naming has expanded to (GB-OXF/US-MA-BRI/US-VA-BHM/IE-DUB), formally recognizing the Irish descendants alongside the English, Virginia, and Massachusetts branches.
Further Big Y 700 testing of known descendants of this family and especially those with brick walls will help to reconstruct the family tree of all Goff, Gough and McGough families around the globe. Anyone reading this should consider trying to recruit new Big Y 700 candidates.
For more information, please check our DNA Family Groups pages or email me at dna@goff-gough.com. Each new participant helps to fill in the history of the Goff/Gough families.
Phillip Goff is the co-author, along with Roy L. Lockhart, of The Four Goff Brothers of Western Virginia. Since 2004, he has run the Goff/Gough Surname DNA Study, which today has about 400 participants.