April 2024: We've discovered a distant but triangulated autosomal DNA match between a member of our group who descends from John Saintsbury and Ann Davis (married in Bedminster, England in 1790) and a pair of third cousins from the clockmaking line of Hugh Byron Sainsbury. These are families of particular interest because records are scarce, and several descendants over many years have tried to trace their distant roots. We are therefore keen to investigate this connection by welcoming Y-DNA test-takers into the project from the line of "clockmaking" Sainsburys of Wilton, Wiltshire; Bridgwater, Somerset; and Clerkenwell, London.

April 2024: The combined results of nine Y-DNA test-takers in the Sainsbury-Sansbury family with roots in in South Carolina, Wiltshire, and Somerset suggest they all descend from a Sainsbury man in the early 1500s. However, members of this family are not genetically related in their direct paternal lines to a larger and probably much older Sainsbury family represented in this project. Documentation supports the theory that the South Carolina/Wiltshire/Somerset family may descend from a weaver named George Sainsbury who lived in the town of Trowbridge, Wiltshire in the mid- to late 1500s. A warrant was issued for his arrest in 1586, but the details of that case are unknown due to record loss and his fate is therefore unknown. Additional information about this individual and his family is available on WikiTree: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sainsbury-856.

September 2023: We've discovered a Y-25 match between a SANSBURY family with roots in Darlington County, South Carolina and a Gabonese representative of the Fang people--a Bantu ethnic group in Equatorial Guinea, northern Gabon, and southern Cameroon.

March 2023: New Y-37 results from a descendant of John SAINSBURY (bap 1778, West Lavington) confirm our August, 2022 hypothesis that Joseph SAINSBURY of Devizes, husband of Mary Ann NORTH, was not the Joseph baptised in Market Lavington, Wiltshire on 12 Sep 1790 (son of John SAINSBURY and Grace Smith HOBBS). We are confident that Joseph SAINSBURY who married Mary Ann NORTH was baptised in 1787 and was the younger brother of John SAINSBURY (bap 1778, West Lavington). Joseph and John were sons of James SAINSBURY and Mary NORRIS. Additional DNA and documentary evidence tend to refute the theory that this line descends from John SAINSBURY the younger of Urchfont (1664-1719). (See August 2022, below). John and Joseph's father was James SAINSBURY, baptised 1747 in West Lavington, the son of James and Elizabeth SAINSBURY. However, that James's identity is unclear because there is only one 1720s James SAINSBURY baptism in West Lavington, but there are two James SAINSBURY marriages in that parish: 1742 to Mary SAINSBURY and 1743 to Elizabeth LEMON. So it's possible the James SAINSBURY who was baptised in 1723 married Mary SAINSBURY (when he was still a minor); the identity of the James SAINSBURYs who married Mary SAINSBURY and Elizabeth LEMON needs to be confirmed.

February 2023: Family Tree DNA rolled out a great new tool for surname projects like ours. It's called "Group Tree" and it shows how various branches of Sainsbury-Sansbury families, and others with matching Y-DNA patterns, are related on patrilineal lines. With this tool, we can now see that the most recent common patrilineal ancestor of all Sainsbury/Sansbury families in our project with members who've tested at the Big Y-700 level was a Stone Age man who lived around 47,000 year ago(!) Here's a link to our Sainsbury-Sansbury Big Y-700 Group Tree. You can select and de-select groups to see relationships among group members with Big Y-700 tests: https://discover.familytreedna.com/groups/sainsbury-sansbury/tree?subgroups=176838,266399,272624,299270

August 2022: Results from a new Y-DNA test indicate Joseph SAINSBURY of Devizes, husband of Mary Ann NORTH, was not the Joseph baptised in Market Lavington, Wiltshire on 12 Sep 1790 (son of John SAINSBURY and Grace Smith HOBBS). This is a significant discovery because more than 100 public family trees on Ancestry indicate he was their son. Based on this new Y-DNA evidence, we believe Joseph may descend from John SAINSBURY the younger of Urchfont (1664-1719).

July 2022: Family Tree DNA’s new DISCOVER tool indicates most members of our group (i.e., those who belong to Y-DNA Haplogroup I-Y42503) descend from a man estimated to have been born around 500 years ago. This would place their common ancestor in a timeframe that includes John SAINSBURY, rector of Ewelme, Oxfordshire (d. 1464) and the John SAINSBURY who lived in Easterton, Wiltshire in 1507 (and likely had a son, John, b. c1507).

January 2022: Big Y-700 testing indicates the SANSBURY family of the southern US, the SAINSBURY family of north Somerset (UK) and one SAINSBURY line of Urchfont (UK) descend from John SAINSBURY the younger of Urchfont (1664-1719); additional evidence indicates John SAINSBURY the younger was not the biological son of his documented father.

July 2021: Big Y-700 testing has further refined the I-M170 haplogroup of SAINSBURYs and SANSBURYs to Y-DNA haplogroup I-L38.

June 2021: We found DNA evidence that links a large SAINSBURY/SANSBURY family from Portsea, Hampshire with an 18th-century SAINSBURY family in Westbury, Wiltshire and a SANSBURY family from colonial Prince George's County, Maryland.

March 2021: We identified a new genetic cluster (Y-DNA Haplogroup I-M170) that includes two 18th-century SAINSBURY families in England and a SANSBURY family from Prince George's County, Maryland.

December 2020: We found a surprisingly close genetic connection at the Y-67 level between a tester of Basque origin and the SAINSBURY-SANSBURY families of north Somerset and South Carolina; Big Y-700 testing later indicated this was a more distant match than the Y-67 numbers suggested. But it does connect those families with a tester in the apparent place of origin of this haplogroup just prior to their arrival in England, perhaps about 2,000 years ago.

March 2019: We discovered a genetic connection (Y-DNA Haplogroup R-M269) between the 18th-century SAINSBURY family of north Somerset, England and the 18th-century SANSBURY family from Cheraws District (later Darlington County), South Carolina.