Much of the following is tentative and may be changed as new data become available.
In 2001 one of author of this document initiated a Y-chromosome testing project for males with surname Roper/Rooper. A large number of USA Ropers with colonial Virginia ancestry (see below) were shown to be related to the Massachusetts Ropers (3 Y testees)(see below) and to 3 Suffolk English Ropers. This large Roper family is called the RoperY1 or RY1 family.
One of the English testees (Peter James Roper) then collected voluminous data for the Suffolk branch, showing that the family had live in the beautiful small village of Hoxne, Suffolk for about 250 years.
Data are available for an armigerous Roper family of Kent, England (see below)
Another Roper genealogist (William Alexander Roper, Jr., WAR) has spent many hours collecting data for colonial Virginia and Maryland Ropers. As a result of his work, tenuous connections between some of the Roper families mentioned above have been made. This document explains the connections.
WAR has found data in the Maryland Archives that indicate strongly that his branch of Ropers descend from Capt. William Roper in early colonial Virginia. (He was a member of the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg VA.) He also has shown with high probability that William Roper is the second son of Christopher Roper, 2nd Baron Teynham. If this genealogy is correct, that the RY1 family is the same as the armigerous Roper family of Kent, England.
I have tried several times to get one of the armigerous Roper males to be Y-chromosome tested, but never succeeded. Testing one or more of them should show whether the connection is correct.
One of the three Y tested Suffolk, Peter James Roper, England Ropers spent many hours collecting data for the RY1 family in Suffolk. As a result we have been able to make many of the connections described in this document. See http://www.roperld.com/RoperHoxne.com .
The RY1 Suffolk data collected by Peter James Roper enabled a tenuous connection of this Hoxne Roper family to the armigerous Roper family.
In 1906 Ella E. Roper wrote a book The Ropers of Sterling and Rutland about how a Roper family came to Massachusetts from New Buckenham, Norfolk, England c1637. The RY1 Suffolk data collected by Peter James Roper enabled connecting this MA/Norfolk Roper family to the Hoxne Roper family
I became acquainted with a Nova Scotia Roper family while on vacation there a few years ago. Carl Stern Roper Y tested as an RY1 Roper. A tenuous connection to the Massachusetts Roper family has been made.
Most of the Y tested RY1 Ropers descend from colonial Virginia Ropers. The RY1 Suffolk data collected by Peter James Roper enabled a tenuous connection of this Virginia Roper family to the Hoxne Roper family.
Many descendants of early Viriginia colonalist Capt. William Roper moved into Maryland. WAR has traced how some of them later moved back to Virginia; he descends from this branch.
Many of the Virginia Ropers moved to North Carolina and South Carolina from 1760-1790. I descend from the NC branch.
As a result, I have six categories for the ancestry of the RY1 testees:
It turns out, according to the tenuous connections we have made, that WAR and I are 15th cousins 1 generation removed! This is consistent with the probabilities given by the FTDNATIP tool:
An FTDNATIP recalculation assuming that we know that there are 15 generations between us yields:
