The Phillips DNA Project News

In addition to the Phillips men in our family groups, we have 262 Phillips men in the project who do not match any other Phillips men in the project. We call these men Singletons and they represent approximately 25% of the membership with the surname Phillips. The percentage of unmatched Singletons has been remarkably stable right from the beginning of the project and may partially reflect the accumulated impact of non-paternal events over the course of time. Although population scientists believe non-paternal events such as illegitimacy, adultery and adoption only occur at a rate of approximately 2% to 3% per generation, the effect of that 2% - 3% snowballs over time so that at the end of 10 generations, as many as 18% to 26% of the men in any given family group may no longer carry the Y-DNA of that group even though they still carry the surname.