by Phillip G. Goff, GGFA DNA Project Manager

The United States population of Goff and Gough families is dominated by descendants of the Goff and Gough families that arrived on the shores of America by the early 1700s. In genetic terms, this is called a population bottleneck (only certain families migrated to America from the British Isles) followed by the founder effect. The founder effect means that simply being in America sooner means that there are more living descendants today, generally speaking.

Gough and Goff families continued to move to America. While these families do not have the same degree of benefit of the founder effect, they have an enormous advantage in identifying precisely from whence they came in the British Isles. An example is Martin Goff/Gough, b. ca. 1836 Ireland, who migrated to the USA in the mid-1860s and settled in Cuyahoga Co., OH.

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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 over 100 participants.

One thought on “Martin Gough of Ireland migrates to Cleveland OH ca. 1863

  1. Martin/Catherine Goff is the line Im searching (my son’s gggrandfather). Interesting to know there is a Petrus Goff born before Martin Wm b:1862. There is 2 Peters buried at St Johns (Cleveland, OH) in the same Lot as Martin. One being born in 1845 – 8/1875 and the other B: 1870 – 2/1875, his son. Wondering if Martin’s brother was Peter but after searching forever can’t seem to find any info on these Peters.
    Been a member of the Goff/Gough site for awhile now and have had no luck with the Cleveland Goffs. Will search more into the 4 Goff brothers of W. Virginia. Thank you so much for the posting.

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