Hi Darrell,
Are you still active/subscribed to this group? Not sure what happened, but the group went silent after last September. Hoping it is still working and wish we could get more Hackleys to participate. But the old rootsweb Hackley group was also not very active and was run ("ruled") by a very rude and controlling person. I dropped out because of her many years ago. For what ever reason, there do not seem to be many Hackleys researching their genealogy. We are a sparse crowd. I get the most interest from younger relatives who are not Hackley surnamed. There were many Hackley researchers back in the 90s, but I think most of them have since died.
Anyhow, I'm writing to update you on the FTDNA results. Since last fall, we have two more Big Y testers matching in what is now clearly a Hackley haplogroup. Three are surnamed Hackley. One of those descends from a well-documented immigrant who arrived in the late 1600s in Connecticut. I refer to this as the "northern" line. This person is Ethan Hackley. Another person who is not surnamed Hackley (Paul Cummings) had stated that his grandfather was born out of wedlock and the father according to family lore was named Hackley. Quite an unusual name to make up if not true. Well he finally tested Big Y and is a match to our haplogroup (so the family lore was dead on).
In fact, he and Ethan share a unique SNP that created a sub-branch off the main haplogroup. So Paul's grandfather was probably descended from the northern line of Ethan. Another person named John Murphy also matched with Big Y testing, suggesting there had been a name change event in his line at some point. His Murphy family has roots in Culpeper County VA (as do I and my distant cousin Richard Hackley). We have been unable to establish when and where this name change occurred, but John accepts that it is likely a real event. So there are now 5 of us in this haplogroup.
Since I am still working full time and not knowledgeable enough about working with Y DNA data, we were invited to join the Ackley family group at FTDNA. It is more active and there was some thought that perhaps the two surnames were related (they are not). But the manager of that group has been helping me to sort out the Hackley results and to understand the proccess.
I also identified two male Hackleys through Ancestry.com who live in the UK. They are interested, but I have not yet been able to get them to test. If they do, and they match, that will connect us to at least one branch of Hackleys in England and will say a lot about the surname origins and uniqueness. I've also identified at least one well documented male Hackley from the Virginia line who lives out in California, but he has not responded to me at all. I even found his FB site and still no response. I've offered to pay the full cost for testing.?
I will probably initiate a Hackley project in FTDNA, but not until I know what I'm doing and have time to do it. Right now I would struggle to respond to genetic questions and really do not understand the procedures for comparing Y DNA data. So for now we'll stay in Ackley and take advantage of that Manager's kind help.
As for Hockley, clearly no Hockley's on FTDNA match this haplogroup. Your Hackleys that matched turned out to be Vaughns. So I think for now this connection is a dead end. That said, I did some research on maps from the 1700s and 1800s in the area east of London. I noticed on some maps there was a cluster of Hackleys, but several decades later that cluster seemed to be spelled as Hockley. So it is possible that the name has been spelled or sounded out differently depending on the time period and location. I know it can be difficult to differentiate between 'o' and 'a' in some hand writing on census and other docs. That means it will be hit or miss matching Hackleys with Hockleys. I think they are two different surnames. Woodford Hackley, when he visited a name specialist in London many years ago, stated that he was told these two names are distinct...for whatever that's worth.
Unfortunately, the Culpeper Hackleys you mention (such as Lt John Hackley) to my knowledge had no male offspring. So the only "relevant" Culpeper Hackleys are those who descend from James Hackley and Mary Freeman of Hackley's Crossroads near Amissville, VA. That area is now in Rappahannock VA but was part of Culpeper before about 1840 or 1850. Many of his descendants lived in the nearby parts of northern Culpeper (Little Fork region) and western Fauquier County. Some went west to MO. His brother Francis went west to KY in the early 1700s. His brother Joseph had at least two sons who migrated west to KY in the 1700s as well. Brother John who married Judith Ball (a cousin of Mary Ball Washington, George Washington's mother) also had children who moved west to KY. So there are a lot of Hackley descendants in KY still who all trace back eventually to a common ancestor in VA. That's the line I'm trying to test.
I've said it before and I'll repeat it here....if anyone is a male Hackley descendant of this Virginia line, please contact me. I am willing to split costs for testing at FTDNA. Come join our growing Hackley haplogroup (branch on the Y-DNA tree of life).
Vince Hackley (
vahackley@...)
Darrel Hockley