A few of the members are closely related and are exploring common backgrounds. We have an exact match with a surname 'Bates' - it appears there was some unknown 'relations' a while back! To date the results confirm that Barbers are most closely related to surnames from England. Anthropologists break down the Y-chromosome into branches called Haplogroups or clades. Our Haplogroup results so far have all been R1b. Haplogroup R1b is the most common haplogroup in European populations. It is believed to have expanded throughout Europe as humans re-colonized after the last glacial maximum 10-12 thousand years ago. This lineage is also the haplogroup containing the Atlantic modal haplotype. Haplogroup R1b - is the most common Haplogroup in European populations. Its frequency changes in a cline from west (where it reaches a saturation point of almost 100% in areas of Western Ireland) to east (where it becomes uncommon in parts of Eastern Europe and virtually disappears beyond the Middle East). It is believed to have expanded throughout Europe as humans re-colonized after the last glacial maximum 10-12 thousand years ago. The members of R1b are thought to be the descendants of the first modern human Paleolithic hunter-gatherers who arrived in Europe before the last Ice Age about 40,000 years ago (Aurignacian culture). Those R1b forebearers were the people who painted the beautiful art in the caves in Spain and France. They were the modern humans who were the contemporaries - and perhaps exterminators - of the European Neanderthals. During the Last Glacial Maximum, about 18,000 years ago, the people bearing the R1b Haplogroup wintered in Northern Spain. After the glacial retreat about 12,000 years before present, R1b began a migration to the north in large numbers and to the east in declining numbers. An R1b haplotype can be difficult to interpret in that they are found at relatively high frequency in the areas where the Anglo - Saxon and Danish "invaders" originally called home (e.g., 55% in Friesland), and even up to 30% in Norway. This Haplogroup is also characteristic of the Basques whose language is probably that of the first R1b, and who are genetically the closest to the original R1b population (which probably amounted to only a few thousand individuals). Contrary to common belief, the people who entered Europe about 4000 years ago and gave us the Indo-European languages, did not leave much of a genetic footprint on Western Europe. My friend, Don Barber, has a wonderful site for extensive Barber genealogy and many Barber lines.Check it out! Also check out cousin Bill's great site!Cool! Please Join Us!!! Here's another site to check on Irish Barbers http://sites.google.com/site/barbersofsligo/

If you descend from on African American line of Barbers (bearing haplogroup E-M2) we most likely have the surname of either a person who helped to free our ancestors from slavery, or, from an owner. I pry that one day we will be able to test enough African men and find our direct paternal lines. Until then, if we are fortunate enough, we may come up as a match to each other as "Barbers", and seek to see if we can triangulate geographic locations and identify a common slave master, and perhaps find those slave registers and identify at least a port from the African coast.