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Eyre DNA Research

I have recently been asked by an Eyre researcher in the USA if anyone would be interested in taking part in a DNA research project to determine if there is a link between Eyre/Ayre surnames in the USA and UK. What follows is the contents of a recent email from the researcher

One way to connect paternal lines regardless of official parentage is to analyze the male Y-chromosome for numbers of chromosomal repeats base pairs of the genetic message. This type of analysis is available from a number of laboratories in the UK and US. (DNA Heritage) These laboratories offer special pricing for family name projects. The results are of geographical and historical interest since the Y-chromosome should be passed from father to son to son, etc from the beginning of humans. Mutations do occur but at long intervals of up to thousands of years. Our Ayers possibly Eyre y-chromosome is different from the common European and English male pattern...the SNP is an E3b and STRs...appear to be Saxon and are similar to patterns found in small part of population around the area where Eyre family names are located in UK. There is also a likely link to a Thomas Eyre, surgeon and planter, who immigrated to the colonies about the time of Cromwell events in England, 1650s. We have not found good matches among English people who currently have had Y-chromosome analysis performed and are part of a large Y-chromosome data bank available on-line, listed by family name. There are very few Eyre family members included. Most of the Ayers including in this data bank are of the scottish northern European pattern.

My question is whether interest in an Eyre family Y-chromosome project could be promoted to see if members of this family are of the E3b haplotype...a phenotype carried by the Plantagenates, William the Conquerer, the D'Arcys, etc. Y-chromosome patterns including repeats and haplotypes are the wave of current geneology...a confirmation of historical linking of families related to actual genetics...not marriage.

Please could anyone either interested in this research or willing to become coordinator for this project please get on touch with me.