On September 20, 2008, the North American Council of the Paisley Family Society, with the Paisley Family Chieftain in attendance, voted to start a Paisley family DNA project.

Here are some of the results of our project:

1)   Most of the participants can be sorted into one of two very different Haplogroups (ancient families):

a.   R-M269 - HaplogroupR-M269 is the dominant lineage in all of Western Europe today. It is found in low frequencies in Turkey and the northern Fertile Crescent, while its highest frequencies are in Western Europe

b.   I-M253 - TheI-M253 lineage likely has its roots in northern France. Today it is found most frequently within Viking/Scandinavian populations in northwest Europe and has since spread down into Central and Eastern Europe, where it is found at low frequencies. Haplogroup I represents one of the first peoples in Europe.

2)   The majority of men in the R-M269 Haplogroup are closely connected within a 500 year time-frame and are believed to have originated in Scotland. Over the centuries, Paisley men have stayed in Scotland or traveled out to Ireland, England, Australia, Canada, or the United States.

3)   The R-M269 Paisley descendants in the United States (with extremely close matching Y-DNA) fall into two categories:

a.   Emigrated from England in the 1600s to the early Virginia colony.

b.   Emigrated from Tyrone County, Ireland in the 1700s and 1800s.

4)   The I-M253 Paisley men in the United States appear to all be descended from William Peasley (1531)of Gloucestershire, England, whose grandson Joseph Peasley (1598) immigrated to the Massachusetts colony by 1630.