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I have been researching my Avery Family for 40 years.  I quickly got back to my great great grandfather, Jacob Avery b. ca 1784 in either PA or MA according to the census. And got stuck. Everyone who researches my line gets stuck at Jacob.  In hopes of finding others researching my line I did DNA testing. Initially I did 12 markers and found two Averys. One suggested I upgrade to 37 markers which I did when there was a sale.

 

At 37 markers those Averys faded away and I found two men closely related at 35 of 37 and 36 of 37. Unfortunately their last name is Perry! So now I am trying to make sense of this. There could have been an adoption, someone took a Perry child to raise and gave them the name Avery, or an Avery had a child with a Perry and the child kept the Avery name. I used to joke about some of the older males in my line having some "help" if you catch my drift, but now it seems that it may not be such a joke. Or another old joke should I look for a milkman named Perry? Could someone have read the flowery handwriting of the 1600's incorrectly and mistaken Perry for Avery?

 

So all humor aside. Am I an Avery or a Perry. How do I proceed with my research? Do I look for where the Perrys and the Averys may have lived nearby on another? The Averys I thought I belonged to lived in Dedham MA around 1660. My closest Perry relative has his line traced to Watertown MA about the same time.  Could this be a clue? The two towns are 18 miles apart by highway, but even closer by backroad or as the crow flies.  I am really not sure how to proceed or what to look for.

 

Surely I can't be the only one with this problem. Any suggestions on how to proceed would be appreciated.

 

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That is a cunundrum, isn't it Jim? It has been said, that DNA doesn't lie, so perhaps you should track the PERRYs for a while and see where that leads. My ex has a similar situation -- on the wagon train west, a son of a family got sick and they had to leave him behind with a family. That family was named Cooper, and so, from him down to now, they are known as Cooper's. The million dollar question is: what was their original family name?

I noticed when I started this whole jolly expedition, that some of the states listed people who were being held responsible for children not their own. It is possible an Avery put up a bond for a Perry (or vise-versa) and said that they would be responsible for the child. I think father's did this for daughter's who had a child born on the wrong side of the blanket, too. But it is avenue to try. And it could be that the Perry lad loved his "step parents" so much for taking care of him - rescuing him -- that he simply used their family name instead of his own.

Well, food for thought! ☺
Or an apprentice that chose, for various reasons, the name of his sponsor.

Jim, I would definitely start looking for connections between the closest Avery and Perry families.

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