By Donald G. Locke Jr.

I trace back to Richard Lock b. about 1675 in England. Richard Lock and family are first found living in Calvert County Virginia in 1728, likely a bit earlier. For the last 10 years, we had no clue where in England Richard Lock came from. There were 1000's of Lock's in England and no one source proved who his family was.

In 2005 I started the Lock / Locke DNA project in hopes all the Lock(e) family's of the USA could find answers. Very recently, I had a Mr. Locke in England DNA test, he is a 65/67 DNA match to me. That is a near perfect match! Mr. Locke in England traces back to Henry Lock of South Cerney Gloucestershire England 1750's. And both family's are in a rare DNA group called Haplo Group H.

It is rare regardless the surname. Haplo Group H in England clearly has a close association with being Romany or Travelers. My English Locke cousin has very close blood ties to the Smith, Boswell, Perry and Hall family's, of which Smith and Boswell are known Romany family's.

Matthew Lock son of Henry Lock, Matthew married Memberance Boswell..

So DNA testing has told us, Yes Henry Lock of South Cerney, did share a common male ancestor with my Richard Lock of the USA. To date 5 Richard Lock descendants have DNA tested and

1 Henry Lock descendant have DNA tested, we all DNA match each other.

A 2nd Henry Lock descendant has just ordered his DNA test.

So we now know Richard Lock had to have been fairly closely related to Henry Lock and that Richard Lock also had to have been a Romany who came to America early 1700's.

Because of our rare DNA and even the DNA company had very little information about our rare DNA, I then started the Y chromosome Haplo Group H DNA project in early 2007.

As expected, several men of Indian descent joined this project. That was to be expected because

Haplo Group H is found in larger numbers in India then anywhere else in the world.

But as the project gained more men in the project who are in Haplo Group H, we found 7 differnt surnames in the USA who share this rare DNA with each other. They are Lock(e), HIte, Bailey, Carter, Jewell, Ruffin, Campbell.

All but Campbell, can trace our lineages back to early Maryland and Virginia 1700's - 1800's.

It would have beaten all the odds to have found 2 or 3 family's from early Maryland and Virginia in this rare DNA group, yet here we find 6 possibly 7 surnames with direct ties to early America, who can trace back to Maryland and Virginia.

Several Romany experts have told me they know for a fact that Lock(e), Carter, Campbell are old Romany family's and that Bailey is thought to be a Scotish Traveler family, though not thought to be Romany. Other Romany researchers believe they have seen the surnames Hite and Jewell also as Rom family's.

My theory here is, either by force or through pressure, many Rom family's left England for America, and if the shipping route that I am looking at is the very same route most of them took, it would explain why we are finding a larger then normal population of Haplo Group H in early Maryland and Virginia.

One of the known shipping routes was England to Barbados to Maryland or Virginia, both states were recorded as places ships ported at.

Several Romany articals suggested Romany family's were being deported out of England to

America and Australia 1700's - 1800's. Haplo Group H alone suggests the USA English family's are of Romany descent. And now having a 65/67 match between a USA Locke and a England Locke, and the English Locke clearly has direct ties to well known Rom family's in England, suggests that the other 6 USA family's are also very likely Rom.

There is still a lot of research needing to be done to prove my theory, but if I am right, there was a much earlier migration of Rom to America that doesn't seem to have been recorded.

I am collecting any kind of record which names the USA family's in Haplo Group H.

Here is an interesting record which clearly names 2 known Rom surnames, along with other surnames known to be in Haplo Group H.

Oaths of Fidelity 1778 Montgomery County Maryland

Surnames; Bosswell, Bailey, Campbell, Carter , Henry Lock and William Jewell

Boswell and Lock are clearly known Rom family's. Bailey, Campbell, Carter and Jewell are proven to be in Haplo Group H. While I can't prove the men named in this 1778 record are related to the men of the same surnames in Haplo Group H DNA project, it is interesting to see all the surnames listed in one place. I would have to think there is more to this 1778 then meets the eye, they are very likely Rom or Travelers from England.

To my knowledge, no one has ever recorded proven Rom or Traveler family's in early America.

They didn't seem to be practing Rom or Travelers while in America. In fact other then this one record, it doesn't appear the family's even associated with each other once they got to America that I can find record of.

I can find only but 2 family's who may have known they were Rom and may have traveled together once they got to America. Lock(e) and Jewell family's are the 2 better researched trees,

Lock(e) and Jewell both trace back to England to Maryland 1700's, and both family's ended up in Virginia, and both family's were in Barren County Kentucky by 1800.

But we can find no association between the Lock(e)'s and Jewell's while they were in Virginia and Maryland, they lived in differnt areas, yet they both ended up in Barren County Kentucky.

I have requested with FTDNA that I be allowed to start the Romnichel DNA project. There seems to be quite a lot of interest in such a project and it could help show many branches are related in the end. The Rom are made up of most all European DNA groups according to past Gypsy DNA studies. But Haplo Group H should be rare even in the known Rom clans.

It is thanks to me starting the Y chromosome Haplo Group H DNA project that found the 7 USA family's who are clearly of English and Scotish descent who are in this rare DNA group.

Even the DNA company had no idea Haplo Group H existed in such numbers in England / UK.

If there are 7 USA family's one of which has a DNA match to his surname in England, that proves there has to be more Rom / Travelers in England / UK to be in this rare DNA group, though I wouldn't expect to find a lot more just because it is a rare DNA group.

The majority of Roms will be in the more common European DNA groups like

Haplo Group R* and it's sub groups, Haplo J2, Haplo I. Possibly other Haplo Groups.

Past Rom DNA studies failed to give exact locations of where the DNA was taken, and they failed to provide surnames of the Rom people who were DNA tested.

My DNA project will provide the surname, (not the full name of the participant) to be associated with his DNA. By being able to see the DNA results along with the surname, we could in turn start to see paterns past DNA studies over looked. The past DNA studies actually cared less about the participant, they were building a database on the many various Y chromosomes found with in the many peoples of the world.

I am a genealogist for the Lock(e) family, I am not a DNA expert by any means, and I am not a historian. So my knowledge on the Rom and Traveler family's and their DNA is very limited, but I have 2 years of experience running 2 differnt DNA projects, both of which are going very well.

It is because of my genealogy experience that I found this patern, and I am trying to follow this patern in the records to try to prove an earlier migration of Roms and Travelers to America.

Add in the records along with DNA testing, who knows where this will lead us to! :)

As soon as the Romnichel DNA project is up and running, I will start spreading the word out that this project is now available. The project will be open to all known Romnichel and Traveler family's of

England / UK and will likely grow to include all Rom's regardless where they came from.

But I will need Rom experts to help with the project to study the family's who join this project to be sure they are indeed Rom family's. There are some wannabe's out in the world who want to be this or that, and will do anything they can to be a part of something they aren't.

I know American's who so badly want to be Native American that they can taste it, so I know some will make claims that can't be proven, and the experts and researchers will need to help weed out the wannabe's lol.

I never knew the Lock(e)'s, my Lock(e)'s were Rom until I DNA tested and DNA matched Henry Lock's lineage. For me it was totally unexpected to have a blood link to a Rom family. And that is something I am still trying to understand because my American family has no verbale Rom heritage passed down to us. We only knew we were of English descent.

For further information, contact:

Donald Locke

We will add to this page as we obtain these records and manuscripts.

Anyone with information on this family please contact me.

References

Copyright ©2004, Dr. Frank O. Clark. this document is copyrighted and may not be sold, nor given to anyone who may attempt to derive profit from same.