So far the posts on this blog have concentrated on our AYERS line of ancestors which, of course, follows my father’s line of male ancestors. Now I will turn to our DERRIE line of ancestors which follows my mother’s line of male ancestors as shown in the chart below. The actual surname Derrie has completely changed over the last four centuries. As you will see in subsequent posts, it started out as Dürrenberger, with many spelling variations in Europe, then changed to Terryberry / Derreberry / Derryberry, with many spellings in the American colonies and Canada, and finally to Derry / Derrie for our most recent ancestors. None of the name variants are very numerous in the USA today, accounting for no more than several thousand persons total.
Recall that the DNA haplogroup for my Ayers line is R1b. Well, it turns out that the haplogroup for our Dürrenberger >>> Derry line of ancestors is R1b1b2, which is a subgroup of the R1b haplogroup. Although this may at first appear to be a strange coincidence, it is not really as it is well known that western Europe is home to a predominance of R1b descendants.
