Prior to 1650, several families bearing the surname PAYNE settled in the English colonies. It has long been assumed that these families had no genealogical relationship, or if they did, it was not a close one. However, DNA analysis of their descendants is now beginning to show a common ancestry. The goal of our Project is to conduct a simple and painless DNA test on as many male Paynes as possible, particularly those known to descend from one of our early American 17th-century lines and those currently living in England. However, any male Payne (in a direct male line of descent) is encouraged to participate.

Our DNA test results to date make it clear that the English Payne families of Suffolk, Huntingdonshire and Jersey in the Channel Islands, were members of one family- these Payne  were not unrelated as previous claims would have us believe.

Members of the Suffolk branch settled in Mass-achusetts, represented by William & Hannah Paine. William became proprietor of the Hammersmith Ironworks at Lynn in 1658, and was succeeded by his son, John Payne. William is known to have had dealings on Virginia's Eastern Shore with friends and kinsmen of the Payne family of Westmoreland County, Virginia, who descended from the Huntingdonshire branch below.

To the Paynes of Huntingdonshire, cousins of the Suffolk branch above, belonged Sir Robert Payne, MP for Huntingdonshire 1614, 1621, 1626 & 1628. Sir Robert had been a protégé of the Montagu family of Kimbolton and the Cromwell family of Hinchingbrooke. Sir Robert is believed to have been the father of John Payne (ca. 1615-1689/90), the immigrant, of Westmoreland County, Virginia.

From the Jersey branch descended Ralph Payne, Baron Lavington, and his brother (of the half-blood), Admiral John Willett Payne, both close friends of Henry Frederick Hanover, the Duke of Cumberland, and his nephew, King George IV, whom John Willett Payne served as personal secretary. Members of this Jersey Payn family settled at St. Kitt's circa 1654. During the course of the next century, the family purchased manors in the county
of Bedfordshire, bordering St. Neots, Hunts., home of the Payne family above. Other members of this Jersey family settled in Virginia and Maryland. In Virginia, the brothers Ralph and Thomas Payne settled on the Northern Neck between the Potomack and Rappahannock Rivers, where they were associated with the family of John Payne, also of the Huntingdonshire family above. Still another branch descending from the Jersey family, represented by Thomas Payne (d. 1673), settled by 1664 at "St. Jeromes Thickett," St. Mary's, Maryland.

These three Payne branches (as well as others) can be closely associated in extant records over extended periods of time in both England and America. DNA now supports this record evidence in the conclusion that they shared a common ancestry.

DNA analysis of the Y-chromosome, which is passed father-to-son (which is why only male's can participate), remains essentially the same over time. Therefore, by studying the DNA of the MALE descendants, we can discover if we shared a common ancestor. I invite you to explore this web site. There are links to our DNA results as well as some of the research I have conducted. To view my on-line family file, click here.