Skaggs Family Groups based on DNA Testing

It's time for an update on the Skaggs Y-DNA testing.  We currently have 19 Skaggs who have taken the Big-Y DNA test and are descendants of Viking ancestors from the Isle of Man.  We call these guys R1a Skaggs.  We also have a few other Skaggs who are not part of this Isle of Man family and we call them the R1b Skaggs.  Both are Skaggs, just two completely different families. Both are really interesting, however, in this post I'll discuss the R1a Skaggs and group them into families based on their DNA.
You can see how these family groups are related on the Y-Full tree of the total human Y-chromosome.  The Skaggs section of the Y-chromosome is here.  I'll point out each Skaggs group by its Y-haplogroup.

Group 1 - The Longhunters
We have four tests from Longhunter descendants.  The parents of this group were James and Rachel Skaggs.  We have tests from the descendants of two of their sons, James Jr. and Jacob. Longhunter descendants in general appear to have the R-BY44771 Y-haplogroup.  Descendants of William "Brock" Skaggs, who are a subset of the Longhunters under James Jr., have a more specific R-BY114454 sub-haplogroup.

Group 2 - Old Peter Skaggs
We have five tests from descendants of this group, including a Sullivan who matches this Skaggs family (orphan adoption?).  Old Peter's descendants all fit together nicely under a single group R-BY99605 except for descendants of his son Peter Jr. who have a sub-haplogroup of R-BY114642.  It would really help if we can get tests by Skaggs descendants of the Turkey Cove, Lee County, Virginia Skaggs to finally prove whether Zachariah Skaggs belongs in this group, perhaps as Old Peter's father.

*** The interesting news is that the DNA shows that Group 1 and Group 2 descend from a common ancestor (perhaps Richard the original immigrant?).  Here is another place where additional testing could help us.  We need tests from descendants of the Maryland Skaggs, i.e. Richard Skaggs and Sarah Selby from Prince George's County and the William Scaggs who died in Kent County in 1742.  If you descend from the Skaggs from the Maryland Eastern Shore or the area around what is now Washington D.C. please consider taking the Y-DNA test.

Group 3 - The Safeway Skaggs
We have three tests from this group who descend from the Charles Scaggs who first appeared in the record in South Carolina, then eastern Tennessee and finally the illegal Sims Settlement in the Mississippi Territory.  In this group is the James C Skaggs who filed a Revolutionary War pension application for service in South Carolina and the famous Safeway Skaggs family that founded Safeway, Osco Drug, etc.  It appears that the famous musician Boz Scaggs also fits here. This haplogroup is R-FT12801.

Group 4 - Aaron Skaggs
We have three tests from this group that I don't know much about.  This group appears to descend from the Aaron Skaggs that we thought might have been a Longhunter brother who disappears from the record in the 1780s.  This is the Aaron who had two sons who were brought up on adultery charges in 1781 in Washington County, Virginia.  We need to do more genealogy work on this group which is R-FT48276.

Group 5 - James Scaggs and Susanna Moredock
We have two tests from descendants of the James and Susanna (Moredock?) Scaggs family group.  This James is frequently confused with the father of the Long Hunter brothers but they were actually a generation apart in age and their descendants are easily separated by Y-DNA results.  Several famous Skaggs were in this group including the E. H. Skaggs who perfected Faro gambling, his brother E. M. who ran a casino and racetrack in California and the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Katherine Anne Porter.  This haplogroup is R-BY93447 and we sure could use another tester in this group to see if they are more closely related to Group 3 than they currently appear with only two testers.

Group 6 - William Scaggs and Esther
We have one test from a descendant of William and Esther Scaggs who were in the New River Valley of Virginia about 1775. This group appears to be closely related to Group 5 so perhaps this William Scaggs was brother to the James Scaggs from Group 5?  This group tests as R-FT6584.

Group 7 - The Ohio Scaggs Pioneers
We have one test from a descendant of Ohio Scaggs pioneer John Scaggs, born in the early 1760s in Maryland and moved to Ohio via Pennsylvania in the early 1800s.  This group tests as R-BY101522.  Based on the DNA results this group may have been from a separate immigrant ancestor from the other six groups.

So that's how the R1a Skaggs 19 test results look at this point.  This definitely is a work in progress and our results seem to change a little bit each day as more test data comes in and we refine the genealogies.  More results will likely allow us to refine these groups and identify relationships that we haven't been able to discover through traditional genealogy.  Combining the records we have with the clues the DNA provides helps to break down those brick walls that have plagued us for decades.  More testers would allow us to show how these seven Skaggs family groups are related to each other.

You can join the project by ordering a Y-DNA test from the following link: https://www.familytreedna.com/group-join.aspx?group=Keig&code=W46710.  The Big-Y test is the best and also the most expensive, but one strategy is to take a Y-DNA test that is at a price comfortable for you and then upgrade later to the Big-Y when the upgrade goes on sale.  You could also just wait for the Big-Y itself to go on sale.