The persons that share DNA sequences with one or more of the close family mapped on MyHeritage or GEDmatch can be seen on DNA Painter. This is Michael Jefferies' Profile and will open in a new window on your browser. You can expand, contract and look at individual matches as you like; the key at the side shows which of the matches are thought to be from the individual ancestral lines. You can also switch from all matches to Paternal or Maternal using the line at the bottom right under the coloured key. Persons with names between #....# are persons with known family links as well as DNA matches. These people will appear with a DNA symbol next to their name in the Person Index on this site.
In an attempt to explore the Jefferies line back in history, I took a y-DNA test with FamilyTreeDNA at the Y700 level, the most comprehensive one can go.
Of the results FTDNA says:-
Haplogroup R-FTD1795 paternal line was formed when it branched off from the ancestor R-FGC49427 and the rest of mankind around 1500 BCE. The man who is the most recent common ancestor of this line is estimated to have been born around 1350 BCE.
So far my closest matches are 4 at 67 markers out of 700. No recognised surnames have appeared at this level nor at lower levels. However at the 37 marker level one name stands out as Longacre from an ancester given as Anders Peterson Langacre (born 1657), with a country of origin as Sweden. This is very interesting as the new feature on Ancestry showing genetic origins of parental genome suggests Swedish/Danish links on chromosomes 2, 5 and 16 and Germanic links on chromosomes 6 & 10. The FTDNA site has a page that compares my test against DNA retrieved from archaelogical discoveries and the most recent of these suggest shared DNA with persons from Scandanavian sites such as one, for example from Jutland in the Viking Denmark cultural group around 800 years before the current era (CE) with our common ancestor living 4000 years ago.
For the Germanic matches the dates are, for example, for two for persons living in the early Bronze age in Bavaria around 1800 BCE but our common ancestor lived around 2500 BCE (4500 years ago).
Before describing the more detailed results for the family one our early problem was the origins of 'our' Jefferies before 1800. In spite of much work in the early days, including paying for local research in the archives of the area, we could not go further back with any reliability. In October 2024 a new match suggested a line of descent from Jefferies/Jeffreys from north east Essex and suggests that John Jefferies moved to Sible Hedingham around 1760 from Arkesden, married and settled down.
This match is with Roger Poulter who appears as the father of Anthony Bentley at 13cM. The suggested descent led back to Matthew Jefferies who had married twice and so had two lines of descent. One of these lines was more commonly called Jeffreys and this became more fixed as records became more common. The village of Arkesden is 4 miles from Saffron Walden and 6 miles from Bishop's Stortford and both these places appear in the family history as places associated with other of our Essex families, the Camps and the Andrews.
The Camps are key to this better understanding. The first person known in this family is Frances Camp who was born in Bishop's Stortford but was employed as a servant to a family in Sible Hedingham and then married into the Harrington family. DNA matches to the Camps and then another family, the Andrews headed by Lewis Andrews from the same area quickly showed that Jefferies links to the same area were established. DNA matches to the Camp and Andrews lines came with a match to Joyce Nannie Orton first and then to Gerald Moulton Gross, both from the US but descended from Lewis Andrews of Saffron Walden.
There are three close cousins to me, MGJ, descendants of Peter Button Jefferies, and Sarah Harrington.
The first is Heather S Jefferies, (test name Heather Sharpe) descended from Peter Button's eldest son, William Frederick. The DNA share is 99cM on 4 segments. There are matches common to myself and Heather with the surnames of Shwky, Kirby, Wood, Sohye & Williams but not resolved.
The second is Vivienne Upton, descended from Peter Button's second son, Peter James. The DNA share is 139cM on 9 segments. There is one other matches shared by me & Vivienne apart from known family & that is to Eddie Pugh; his connection is discussed below as part of the Cheasley family.
The third is to Nicholas Alan Charsley, descended from Peter Button's daughter Alice Ethel. The DNA share is 220cM on 9 segments.
The link between the English and American descendants of the Jefferies is very well supported by a number of tests at 4th & 5th cousin level all descended from Henry Jefferies (Peter Button's brother) and Martha Atkin, whose family went to Florida after Henry's death in 1895. These matches are around 70cM maximum. Using DNA Painter a number of these matches are to chromosome 17 but it is clear that these matches can be to Jefferies or Britton lines and this needs more work. However there are matches on up to 6 chromosomes and not always the same ones.
The match to Lee William Collins is particularly interesting in that he has matches to me on chromosomes that other descendants of Henry Jefferies do not show. The shared matches as seen on MyHeritage are on chromosomes 3, 8.8cM, 5, 33.5cM. 7, 23.9cM, 9, 17cM, 13, 16cM.
A number of other 4th cousin matches are known, varying from 34cM downwards and with shared matches to other American lines; so far 17 are recorded but more are not resolved. The main matches are on chromosome 17 and some on chromosome 22.
Another Jefferies descendant has been identified. He is Richard Jefferies, descended from Samuel Jefferies who is Jonathan Jefferies & Charlotte Britton's youngest son. The match is at 10cM on 1 segment which is small but the documentary evidence is strong. This reinforces the connection to this pivotal couple.
Further back there are a number of matches that confirm a connection to families from Sible Hedingham, the birthplace of Peter & Henry Jefferies' father Jonathon. The main link is to three matches with the surname of Cheasley and linked names including Pugh & Pickford. It now seems that the Cheasley family is descended from the daughter Lettice of John Bretton & Martha Bowtell, parents of Charlotte Britton. Charlotte has been suggested before as the mother of Jonathon Jefferies but, until now, not verifiable from documentary data. Note that the DNA matches are to me and NGJ but not the other close family.
Another match to John & Martha came to light, descendants of another sister of Charlotte and Lettuce, namely Mary Martha down to Jane Hawkridge at 16cM. This clears up a major unresolved question about the relationships around several Jefferies families in the area and a number of other matches from the Bretton/Britton family are now documented.
DNA matches have been found that establishes connections to Sarah Button, a daughter of John Button and Sarah Keer. These lead to Carol Hill and Deborah Howlett, both matches only to my nieces Melissa and Elinor. In addition 3 common ancestor matches have been identified that are related to another Button line at significant levels. One is George William James Smart who has 3 decendants with DNA matches and this may allow a better identification of the family connections to the large Button families in Suffolk.
Sarah Harrington was the daughter of James Harrington and Frances Camp. None of Sarah's siblings have living descendants that I have found. However a link to the grandparents of James, of Charles Harrington & Elizabeth Garner has come to light from a small but documented match to the grand-daughter of Clarence George Whittaker, Alison Senlake. There may be more such connections not yet elucidated.
The analysis on DNA Painter shows many other matches both to Jefferies and to the Bretton/Britton roots but with no tree evidence available to resolve them as yet.
The DNA analysis created by DNA Painter is at this link. Remember that this is a work in progress as more data is added and the way the data is handled may change over time as specific matches are labelled more accurately or reassigned to other lines.
Revised April 2025