Gant Surname

These results make a little more sense to me compared to the results in my previous post, though I still don’t fully understand the science and the theory behind the DNA.

England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 86%:
– Both my parents
Southern England, East Anglia & Essex:
– My father’s GANT family
Southern England, South East England:
– Both sides of my mother’s family came originally (1300s + 1400s) from
Sussex and Surrey
Ireland and Scotland:
– It’s thought that my mother’s maiden name originated in Scotland
Sweden and Germanic Europe:
– Possibly confirming the theory that the GANTs were Flemish weavers who escaped across the North Sea in the 1500s
Cameroon, Congo, Southern Bantu, Benin/Togo:
– I’m still puzzled by this one!

Also, I’ve discovered I have a DNA match to a couple of people who belong to the largest GANT tree in England, going back to Francis GANT and Johanna COLTMAN who married around 1683 in Stoke by Nayland in Suffolk. This is the largest tree by far, and has many GANTs in Groton (Suffolk) in the 1800s. This is huge progress for me, although I still don’t know exactly how I connect to that tree as I can’t make any connection with my 3 x Great Grandfather William GANT, born around 1750 in Little Blakenham.

I have some DNA matches as well to some GANTs in the United States who can apparently trace back quite a way, presumably we all have a shared GANT ancestor “somewhere”. One day it’ll all become clear. Maybe.

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I finally got around to doing the Ancestry DNA test, as I thought it might help in connecting my very small Gant tree with one or more of the far larger ones – more in a moment. These are my results, more or less as I expected as I’m coming round to the idea that the Gant surname in the eastern part of England (which is where the vast majority of English Gants are) originated with the Flemish weavers who came to Britain in the 14th century onwards. That might account for my 35% Western Europe.

These results are of course from my mother’s side of the family too, so which bits of DNA come from where are open to interpretation. Then of course there’s the mystery of the <1% Africa Southeastern Bantu. I can confidently trace both sides of my mother’s family back to the 1400s in Surrey and Sussex in England, so no Bantu there 🙂 I’m quite sure that I’m misunderstanding all these percentages – the Ancestry help pages explain it all in a great deal of detail, but most of it goes right over my head!

Anyway, back to my hope that it might help me connect my little tree with at least one of the larger ones. I was quite excited when I logged in to my results to see that I had 56 DNA matches of 4th cousins or closer, and one match with a common ancestor who was my father’s maternal great grandparents. Not a Gant unfortunately, but a good result all the same. And for the other 56 matches? Difficult to say as out of those 56 people who had also taken a DNA test, only about 20 of those had linked their test to a family tree. Out of those 20 family trees, I could see that we were related through my mother’s side on 6 of them. For the remaining 14 with a tree, I had no idea as I didn’t recognise any of the surnames. And the 36 people with DNA matches who hadn’t submitted a tree…. I have no idea who they are which is a huge disappointment. They could all be Gants for all I know 😦

So simply put, out of 57 DNA cousin matches there was 1 common ancestor, 6 cousins on my mother’s side, and 50 matches where I don’t have the slightest idea who they are. I’d be interested to know if anyone reading this has also taken the Ancestry DNA test, and if so, what were your results like? (I hope you linked your test to an Ancestry family tree 😀 😀 )

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