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July 22, 2004 - Stirling DNA Project - Has A Big Breakthrough!
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Report by Robert Sterling, St*rling DNA Project Coordinator 
We've had a big breakthrough on the DNA research front. Keir Brooks Sterling, a descendant of William Sterling of Lyme, Connecticut, has received results back indicating that his Y-chromosome matches that of descendants of Isaac Starling of Accomac, Virginia (among whom I am included). This means that both families definitely descend from the same man. Isaac and William might even have been brothers, as both are similar in age. We'll be able to tighten this up with additional participants from among the William descendants.
These results goes a long way toward confirming Leola Starling's hypothesis that the Virginia family originated in a migration from New England, rather than arriving directly from the British Isles. They tie together what I believe are the two largest St*rling groups in North America into one family - Albert Mack Sterling would be delighted. I'm not really much of a genealogist - I'm just the nerd who runs the DNA project. So I wanted to hand this off to those of you who are better researchers than I. Some questions: What do we know about these two men that might show how they fit together? Can we demonstrate or prove a relationship using existing records, rather than just relying on DNA evidence? Thanks to Keir for joining the project and helping us make this connection! We have another suspected William descendant already on the rolls, but Keir's family origins are strongly documented and so his results clinch what we have long suspected. We could still use additional male-line William descendants just to cement the findings. Let me know if you're interested. Also, if you suspect you are a William descendant but cannot prove it with records, join up! Rick Stirling St*rling DNA Project
St*rling DNA Results
Followup: Jun 2, 2005 by Rick Sterling St*rling DNA Project Administrator
Further DNA testing now connects James Stirling of Cornwall, CT born ca 1746 to William Sterling of Haverhill Mass and Isaac Starling of Accomac. James was most probably a great-great grandson of William by his son Richard. More research is needed.
It is very interesting that the DNA haplogroup for William of Haverhill, James of Cornwall and Isaac of Accomac is "I1a" and given other DYS values this indicates a AngloSaxon heritage for this St*rling line. This comports well with the history that the maidenhead of the Stirling line in Scotland was Thoraldus de Strivelyn, an AngloSaxon noble who came north with David I, king of Scots, when king David acceded to the Scottish throne after the death of his brother, king Edgar. Thoraldus is acknowledged as the first chief of Clan Stirling by the Lord Lyon of Scotland.
Rick Sterling dnaproject @ clanstirling dot net
Join the St*rling DNA Project Edited: May 22, 2006 R Stirling
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August 19, 2003 - Join the Clan Stirling DNA Project
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JOIN THE STERLING Y-CHROMOSOME DNA PROJECT A letter from Rick Stirling - Sterling DNA Project Coordinator Hello
Some of you may be aware of a project underway to genetically analyze the distribution of families with names that sound like "Sterling". Several participants have now been tested and received results back from the lab, and so we have successfully identified the "genetic signature" of the Starling/Sterling line that arrived in Accomac County, Virginia in the late 1600s.
The next step is to recruit people from other lines: Sterlings from the Lyme, Connecticut branch, Scottish Stirlings, Starlings in the UK and Australia, Stallings and Stahlens, Soderlings in Scandinavia and even Asteritas from Spain and Latin America. We welcome all comers, especially people with well-fleshed-out family trees.
The purposes of this effort are several: - The written records for many of our lines go back only a few hundred years, but our Y-chromosomes are useful in tracking backwards for thousands of years. Though we may never know the details of how we are related, through Y-DNA testing we should be able to prove that some of our surname groups are--indelibly--family.
- Developing genetic signatures for various lines may show proximity, and help researchers determine where a group originated. Perhaps someone named Sterling in Australia has no idea where his forebears came from--but by having his DNA tested, he may find that his "genetic signature" matches the Soderlings of Oslo, the Starlings of Norwich or the Asteritas of Madrid. Such a boost can be of enormous help in genealogical research, as most of you probably recognize.
- It's interesting and groundbreaking. This is a revolutionary new approach to genealogy, and it's exciting just to be part of it.
- It places your genealogy research in the context of the development of the family of man. Given ongoing research in haplotypes and other genetic markers, we may be able to track the migration of our sperm-line back thousands of years. Was the first St*rling a Celt? A Goth? When did they arrive in Britain? As more and more people are tested, researchers are able to attach a probability to these things, and they become knowable. In the Accomac Starling/Sterling research, we've found that our "genetic signature" is extremely distinctive and has a fairly rare structure. While there are no closely related lines in the publicly accessible European or North American databases, we do find distant relatives (dozens if not hundreds of generations' separation) located in Eastern Austria.
The restrictions are two-fold: - Only men can submit genetic material to the project, since only men carry a Y-chromosome. There is a test women can take, the mtDNA or "mitochondrial DNA", but it tracks descent along the egg-line, not the sperm-line, so it is not useful for surname tracking. Our interest at this time is surname tracking.
- Because we're part of a surname project, we get a discount, and the test costs only $100 US. Because I've been asked before, I'll tell you that none of that money goes to me or anyone else in the project. It is the fee charged by the lab, FamilyTreeDNA, and it is the lowest-priced alternative we were able to locate.
Find the latest DNA test results here ... DNA Test Results Page
You can submit a request to join the project here: Join
Please consider joining! The more participants, the better the results.
Rick Stirling
Montpelier, ID, USA
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March 16, 2002 - New & Updated Family Posts!
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Bloomington, ID 16 Mar 2002 - Rick's almost complete revamp of the website software is getting closer and closer to completion! Today the process of republishing many of the family sections has begun. We're republishing the pages using Adobe's Acrobat software, which creates a single file for each family group. The pages are published much more professionaly, and are printer ready for research and reading needs.  PDF files require a reader software program to view. This reader software is available for free from Adobe. You can download the program from adobe's website by clicking on the image to the right.
Here are a some of the new links - more will be added over the next couple of days, we encourage all to review the family pages sections. Only the first couple of posts will show up on the main family page for each locale, so it's important to look around some more. USA - SCOTLAND -
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January 1, 2002 - Who is Clan Stirling
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Last month I was browsing the internet and ran acros a Scottish oriented site with Clan information. I searched for Clan Stirling and the page that popped up said that Clan Stirling was a sept of Clan MacGregor ... This is patently not true, so I wrote an email to the site editors ... this is that email ... UPDATE May 2, 2002: The 'Scottish website' mentioned above is using a software package called "Clan Finder" written and/or published by Viking Technology, Ltd. Glasgow, Scotland. I have contacted Mr. Mike Daw at Viking and he apparently is not interested in correcting the errors in their programming. All we can do is not patronize those sites that use "Clan Finder" and send the site owners an email telling them why.
UPDATE Sep 27, 2006: "Clan Finder" from Viking Technology, Ltd. now includes Clan Stirling information.
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