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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2002-08 > 1029451680


From: "John F. Chandler" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] RICE OR ROYCE DNA
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 18:48 EDT
In-Reply-To: armstron@silcon.com message <000501c23aae$e1e66b10$936900cf@DJC9DL11> of Fri, 2 Aug 2002 23:30:17 -0600


Ruth wrote:
> A few days ago someone by the name of RICE posted a message that he had been
> informed by a lab testing his DNA that he was really a ROYCE.

I suspect that's a paraphrase that lost something of the original. For
one thing, those two spellings were virtually interchangeable in the
16th century (when surnames were young), and there was considerable
jumping back and forth even later. If you want to see the background,
go to the Edmund Rice Association web site

http://edmund-rice.org

and look at the DNA study page. The table of results includes a group
of four testees who are tentatively identified as descendants of an
early Connecticut settler named Robert ROYCE (by modern spelling
conventions). They are so identified only because one of them has
traced his ancestry back to Robert Royce. The others do not have
lineages back that far. As it happens, all four of them spell their
surname as RICE, but that's just evidence of the jumping back and forth
that I mentioned earlier. At any rate, the assessment of the one
documented ROYCE lineage is still tentative because it's the only one.
We are hoping more Royce descendants will come forward to be tested and
place this group on a firmer foundation.

John Chandler

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