Solomon Joseph Hartley's Y-DNA: What Will It Reveal?

I'm waiting!

Last month I had my dad do the Family Tree DNA Y-DNA test (to 37 markers).  I have since received notice from the company that they had received the kit and were processing the results.

The results are expected sometime between 04/27/2016 - 05/11/2016.  It is sooo hard to wait.

I've looked high and low online, but it doesn't appear that any men with the Hartley last name who are direct descendants of Solomon Joseph Hartley (1775-1815) have made their Y-DNA results public, or even if any have done it at all.  When I went through my tree I quickly realized that there really aren't too many of those Hartley's left.  The line has daughtered out to a large degree.

My Hartley line.  Since no one else appears to have tested to discover Solomon's Y-DNA yet I will have no way of knowing if there are any non-paternal events, but I'm pretty confident this line is correct.

After watching a few Family Tree DNA videos on Y-DNA results ("Family Tree DNA Results Explained: Y-DNA Markers, Matching and Genealogy" and especially "Help, My Y-DNA Matches Have a Different Surname!") I think I will have one of the three following types of results:

1.  Most of the men my dad will match to will also have the last name Hartley.

I'm not expecting this, due to discovering that Solomon was either from Germany or Poland (according his two sons' 1880 census), and Hartley to a very large extent appears to be English or British Isles.  I suspect Solomon is Dutch, German, or Polish, and would therefore have a name reflecting that.  I think this would be the most convenient result, however, as that means I could continue researching the Hartley name.  I have signed up to the Hartley Y-DNA Project already, and will be able to see how Dad's results measure up to the others.

2.  Most of the men my dad will match to will all have a similar name to each other, but not Hartley.

I think this would point to an adoption or non-paternal event, or maybe he just adopted a new name in the US.  This kind of result would be very convenient, as then I'd know what new name to pursue.  Although this would be the most desirable result (from my research perspective), I think it is the least likely. This is because I think he may come from an ancestry that either follows Scandinavian patronymic patterns, or may even be of Jewish origin, and they didn't adopt surnames until quite recently.  Which leads me to what I think I am most likely to find when the results finally come up....

3.  The other testers will have a large variety of names with no common last names, but maybe they will tend to have an origin in a similar region in Europe (I'm assuming Dad has a European Y-DNA), like maybe all in the eastern Europe, or largely in the Netherlands, etc.

I think this is the most likely result.  Maybe I'm just being cynical, but since everything else about Solomon's ancestry has been such a battle to discover, I think it is pollyannish to think I'll get a straightforward result with the Y-DNA.

For fun, here are some successful Y-DNA stories at Family Tree DNA.




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