Descendants of Old Peter and Old Solomon have the same Y-Haplogroup

There has been an interesting development in the Skaggs Y-DNA project.  Descendants of Old Peter Skaggs and his legendary brother, Old Solomon, have been found to have the same Y-DNA haplogroup, R-BY99605.

Different branches of the Skaggs family have different Y-DNA haplogroups.  For example, the Long Hunters are closely related to Old Peter Skaggs but the two families have two distinctly different Y-haplogroups.  Even descendants of Old Peter's son, Peter Jr. who married Clarinda Prince, have a different haplogroup than the other descendants of Old Peter.  So when the Skaggs DNA Project found that the descendants of Old Solomon had the same haplogroup as Old Peter it was big news.  We now know that the R-BY99605 haplogroup was shared by Old Peter, Old Solomon, and if they were brothers it's likely they both inherited it from their father.

We are now waiting on the Y-haplogroup results for a descendant of Zachariah Skaggs who some believe was the father of Old Peter and who others believe was Old Peter's older half-brother.  If Zachariah comes back as something other than R-BY99605 we might need a third theory for where he fits in the Skaggs genealogy.  Or perhaps Zachariah had a mutation creating a new haplogroup similar to what happened to Peter Skaggs Jr.?  Would that prove Zachariah was a brother, not father, to Old Peter (Theory 2)?

Theory 1

1 John Skaggs

+ Ruth Elkins
     2 Zachariah Skaggs ?

     + Nancy
          3 Peter Skaggs  R-BY99605
          3 Solomon Skaggs  R-BY99605

          3 Rachel Skaggs

Theory 2

1 John Skaggs
+ unknown
     2 Zachariah Skaggs ?
+ Ruth Elkins
     2 Peter Skaggs  R-BY99605
     2 Solomon Skaggs  R-BY99605

     2 Rachel Skaggs

If you are a male Skaggs, Scaggs, Skeggs, etc. and are interested in joining the Y-DNA project you can contact the Group Administrator here.