Walling Descendants from Plymouth Colony

A Walling cousin kindly shared the results of his Y-DNA test.

He is my father's eighth cousin, once removed. Sometimes you have to travel far in the family tree to find a candidate for the Y-DNA test. Even though he is a distant cousin, his Y chromosome is perfect for tracing our shared Walling ancestry.

The last person in my line named Walling was a great great great grandmother, Sophia T Walling (1835-1906).

The Y-DNA test, offered at Family Tree DNA, traces the direct paternal line. This is the path of the Y chromosome, passed intact from father to son.

The original immigrant of our shared Walling line was Ralph Wallen. He and his wife, Joyce, were passengers on the ship Anne. They arrived in Plymouth Colony in 1623. Scant written records remain. Ralph's family of origin and creation are debated. A scoundrel named Thomas Wallen appears in records slightly later than Ralph and is generally held to be Ralph's son.

We are interested in this test to explore:
-Are the plentiful Wallings alive today all descended from a common ancestor?
-Who were Ralph Wallen's ancestors in England?
-Was Thomas Wallen (1627-1674) the son of Ralph?


The results were pleasantly surprising because all ten matches used a variation of Walling either as their current surname or as their paternal line. (This was not the situation with my other Y-DNA tests. See my one match for Lutter.)

I identified four testers as descendants of Thomas Wallen, the purported son of the Pilgrim immigrant Ralph Wallen.

Plymouth Colony Wallen descendants

The surname project for Walling organizes these testers in three different groups:
-Long Hunter
-Unrelated R1b
-English Walling/Wallen to Walden.

I found that three are descended from Elisha Walling (1708-1783), the "Long Hunter." All five are descended from Thomas Wallen.

The Walling, Wallen, and Walden lines of the six other testers will trace back to a common ancestor, probably Thomas and Ralph of Plymouth Colony.

At this point, we have not genetically shown that Thomas was the son of Ralph. To do so, we need to go a generation or more beyond Ralph and show Y-DNA matches to descendants of Ralph's cousins and/or brothers. But we do not know the parents of Ralph. We need testers who can trace back, on paper, to Wallens in England in the late 1500s and who have matching Y chromosomes to descendants of the Plymouth Wallens.

Records are scarce or non-existent, but with Y-DNA testing, we can possibly uncover the origins of Ralph Wallen of Plymouth.

Patrilineal DNA of Five Duryea Cousins

New York County, New York, Wills and Probate Records, 1658-1880 (New York State Archives) for Joost Deriew (#787) at Ancestry.com.  J0038-92: Probated Wills, 1662-1827.  Wills, 0621-0820, (1662-1761).

Duryea is one of the most researched names in my family tree.  The patriarch Joost, whose surname was spelled in different ways, removed from Mannheim (Germany) and settled in New Utrecht, Kings County, New York, around 1675.  Today thousands of people can trace their descent from Joost.

Although Joost is long gone, his Y chromosome survives in his direct male descendants, passed from father to son through the generations, identical unless a mutation occurred.

My grandmother's first cousin, Bruce, supplied his Duryea Y chromosome for testing at Family Tree DNA to further research into the Duryea family history.  (Bruce passed away in 2015.)

In the database four other descendants of Joost are identified.

Below is family tree demonstrating the relationships of the five tested men among themselves and to their common ancestor, Joost.

Person 3 is Bruce (my first cousin, twice removed).  He was in the ninth generation, making him nearest Joost.  He tested 111 markers.  Person 1 tested 37 markers.  Persons 2, 4, and 5 tested 67 markers.

Persons 1 and 2 descend from Joost's son Joost.  Bruce and Persons 4 and 5 descend from Joost's son Charles.


The 67 markers of Persons 4 and 5 are identical.  They differ from Bruce by a genetic distance of two out of 67 markers and from Person 1 by a genetic distance of 1 out of 37 markers.

The outlier is Person 2.  His closest relation, Person 1, also a descendant of Joost's son Joost, more closely matches the descendants of Joost's other son, Charles.

We could say that the patriarch Joost's Y chromosome was likely the marker values seen in Persons 4 and 5.

This is my first opportunity to compare Y-DNA among testers who are related by a paper trail.  Any comments or suggestions are appreciated.

Thank you to Roberta Estes for her illustrations and explanations of Y-DNA and to Jim Owston for his case study.

An Exact Match for ODonnell Y-DNA

My ODonnell cousin has an exact match for his Y-DNA test at the 37 marker level at FamilyTreeDNA.

This surname of this Y-DNA cousin is not ODonnell or a variant.  FamilyTreeDNA provides a "Tip" report, estimating the chances that these two individuals share a common paternal line ancestor as we go back through the generations.  By the time we go back seven generations, there is a 95% chance that the lines will have merged.

This match can trace his direct paternal line back about two hundred years to the Isle of Bute in Scotland.  I can also trace back two hundred years, but land in Donegal, Ireland.  These two locations were near enough to be accessible around the year 1800.

If someone is knowledgeable about traveling in Ireland and Scotland in this time period, please weigh in.

Francis Patrick ODonnell was born about 1856 in Killybegs and came to New Jersey, United States, before 1880.  So the lines were separated by an ocean for three generations.  If they arise from the same ancestor, this merging will be found in the early 1800s or 1700s.

If this 37 marker Y-DNA match is related within seven generations, he may share autosomal DNA with any of my ODonnell relatives.  He has not done this type of DNA test, though.

My ODonnell cousin has thousands of matches in his Y-DNA results.  Even an exact match may not be a match at all because of convergence.  Markers change over time.  These two people may not be recently related, but rather their marker values could have mutated towards the same values and are now identical.

So far, there is only one ODonnell match at the 111 marker level.  This is the same person who was the initial top match at the 37 marker level.  Both testers upgraded to 111 markers and still match very closely, 106 out of 111 markers.  Two hundred years ago his ODonnell ancestors were in Boston, Massachusettes. 

Without other ODonnell cousins with similar Y-DNA markers, we cannot be secure in our placement as an ODonnell line based on markers alone.  In an upcoming article, I will demonstrate the necessity of using the markers of multiple distant cousins with my Duryea line.

German Y-DNA Match

My father finally has a Y-DNA match at Family Tree DNA.

Both my father and the person who is a match tested 37 markers.  His surname is not Lutter.

(Another person tested 111 markers, but there are too many differences to qualify as a reportable match beyond 12 markers.)

FamilyTreeDNA did not report this new person as a match at the 37 marker level.  When I compared the actual numbers, they have five differences out of 37.  The values are off by only one for each difference.  Without testing additional cousins from these lines, we have nobody else to compare to determine if this man and my father might share a common direct paternal ancestor.

This other person has roots in Germany.  He can trace his direct paternal line to about 1830, which is how many years back I can get on my Lutter line.  His line originated in Treppeln, Brandenburg.  Mine was from Scheibe, Thueringen.  Treppeln is a few miles west of the current border with Poland and is about 180 miles northeast of Scheibe.  If I have the correct Treppeln.

Family Tree Repair: O'Donnell

More markers were tested for an O'Donnell cousin's Y-DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA.  We originally started with only 37 markers, but the results were too numerous to work with.  Now 111 markers are tested.

(Y-DNA is passed almost identically from father to son through the generations.  A match on the Y chromosome means that somewhere back in time, two men share an ancestor on their direct paternal lines.  The fewer the differences between their Y chromosomes, the more recent the common ancestor.)

At this point, there are over 800 matches at 37 markers, but over 1400 matches at the higher level of 67 markers.  Jumping to 111 markers eliminates all but three genetic cousins.  If someone did not test at the 67 or 111 marker level, then they would not appear in those subsets.  A lot of the 67 marker matches are viable.  They just have not tested more markers.

The top match at the 111 marker level is the same O'Donnell cousin of my initial focus.

This O'Donnell line came to Boston, Massachusetts from Ireland.  When I originally encountered this line, the most distant ancestor was listed as Philip O'Donnell.  After some research into two men both with this name living in Boston in the 1800s, Cornelius O'Donnell (1828 - 1899) seemed like a better match for the tail in this tree.  Cornelius' death record listed his parents as James O'Donnell and Mary Kerr of Ireland.

Adjustments have been made in my O'Donnell line as well.  To research in Ireland, you need an exact location.  I had a hometown courtesy of a more prominent branch containing Father Charles Leo O'Donnell (1884 - 1934).  The obituary of Patrick O'Donnell (1856 - 1931), my great great grandfather, stated that Father Charles, president of Notre Dame University, was his nephew.

Online trees and articles provide the parents of Father Charles as Cornelius "Neil" O'Donnell (1837 - 1909) and Mary Gallagher (1852 - 1924).  I thought that Neil O'Donnell was a brother of Patrick O'Donnell, my great great grandfather, and so my line was from Ardara as per the poem.  But- keep in mind that none of this online information is a primary or even secondary source.

I noted that Mary Gallagher had the same surname as her husband's mother (working with the idea that his parents were Patrick's parents), but both names are plentiful in Donegal and not indicative of recent familial ties.

Then greetings came from Ireland.  (Thanks EO!)  A cousin of Father Charles wrote to me.  Neil O'Donnell was not the brother of Patrick O'Donnell, but rather a brother-in-law.  Mary was not named Gallagher; she was an O'Donnell herself.  So my O'Donnells were from Killybegs (see the poem), not Ardara.  Patrick and Mary were siblings; their parents were Peter O'Donnell and Margaret Gallagher.

I had no marriage record for Neil O'Donnell and Mary "Gallagher."  Their first child, Rose, was born in Indiana around 1870.  The Indiana marriage index (online at Ancestry.com) has an entry for Neil O'Donnell and Mary O'Donnell, married 4 November 1869 in Hancock County.  I ordered the certificate by mail to try to confirm if this is the right couple.  They may have met "on the road, in Donegal," but they married in Indiana.

Second Y-DNA Match for Duryea

Another bonafide Y-DNA match appeared in my Duryea cousin's matches at FamilyTreeDNA.  (You can read about the first match here.)  To find the ancestor in common for someone who shares an identical Y chromosome, we trace the direct paternal line.

At FamilyTreeDNA, the Y chromosome can be tested on 12 to 111 markers.  This new cousin tested at the 25 marker level.  When compared to my close Duryea cousin, only one marker out of 25 is different.  When compared to the first Y-DNA cousin, the match is 25 out of 25.  The variation on one marker possibly arose in my line.

This new cousin traces his Duryea line back to the immigrant Joost Duryea, as do the first Y-DNA cousin and I.  But we do not have to go back to Joost in the 1600s for the most recent common ancestor.  This newest cousin is related more closely.  He is my sixth cousin.  He is a fourth cousin, twice removed of the person who donated the DNA for my Duryea line.  He is descended from Joshua Duryea, a brother of Garrett Duryea (1777-1834), the former stray and link of my family to the larger Duryea family.

This DNA link does not prove that Garrett and Joshua were brothers, only that we share a common ancestor along our Duryea lines.  But it is great that the match is someone whose paper trail splits at the point previously in question for my line.

Y-DNA Results for Winterton

A cousin has kindly tested his Y chromosome at FamilyTreeDNA for the family's Y-DNA study of the surname Winterton.  (Duryea, Lutter, and ODonnell have already tested.)

The last person named Winterton in my line was Laura Winterton (1891-1962), my great grandmother.  A direct male descendant of Laura's brother was the donor of this DNA.  To test the Y chromosome of ancestors in your tree, you need to find a living direct male descendant of the male ancestor of interest.  This living cousin has a Y chromosome identical or almost identical to Laura's father, William Winterton (1862-1932).

The most distant Winterton ancestor I have traced to date was William Winterton, whose will was probated in New York City in 1785.  Y-DNA testing can boost research back in time, beyond this William.

235 other people "match" my cousin at the 25 marker level.  None trace their ancestry back to someone named Winterton.  One person matches at the next and highest level we tested, 37 markers.  His ancestry traces back to Little Thurlow in Suffolk, England.  I suspect English roots for William Winterton, so this is a good place to start looking for him.

When working with DNA cousins, look for the same geographical location.  Surnames will vary and change.  You have an ancestor in common with a DNA match because your ancestral lines crossed at the same time in the same place, regardless of the surname subsequent generations were called.

Only match at the 37 marker level

Most similar matches at the 25 marker level.

Map of places of origin for the most distant paternal ancestor.
Heaviest concentrations in United Kingdom and northeastern United States.

Closest matches in Europe.  Heaviest concentration in United Kingdom and Ireland.

Which DNA test to buy for genealogy?

People ask me often:  Which kind of DNA test to buy?

I tell people they should do an autosomal DNA test.  This is the only test sold by AncestryDNA and 23andMe.  Family Tree DNA also offers this test, called Family Finder.  The price has dropped to around $100 at all three companies.

An autosomal DNA test matches you with other people whose DNA is identical to yours in a few spots, as most will be distant cousins.  These identical areas were passed down from an ancestor common to you and your match.

Diagram of Autosomal DNA inheritance

The goal is to figure out which of your ancestors you have in common.  This is not easy.  The DNA test will not produce a family tree for you.  You still must research your ancestors in records to find the leaves of your family tree.  You may find a close cousin who has done a lot of research and this cousin may provide you with his/her research.  You may find others who help you work past a tail end in your tree suspected of holding the ancestor in common.  If you were adopted, you may find close relatives who can help you identify your biological parents.

If you are serious about finding relatives, you need to test your DNA at all three companies.  You may have a close relative at one site who is not going to test multiple times to find other relatives.  You have to find them by testing at all three sites.

Confusion arises with the Y-DNA and mtDNA tests.  These tests are offered by FamilyTreeDNA and vary in price based on number of tested markers.

One ancestral line only:  Y-DNA testing and mtDNA testing

The Y-DNA test is for males.  Testers are matched to other men who share an almost identical Y chromosome.  The value of this test is that you don't have to figure out which ancestral line holds the common ancestor.  The common ancestor will always be on the direct paternal line, father to son, because this is how the Y chromosome is inherited.  Fewer differences with a match indicate that the common ancestor is within fewer generations.  This test is useful in surname studies, if your direct paternal line comes from a community that perpetuates last names from father to children.

The mtDNA test (mitochondrial, not maternal) is similar to the Y-DNA test in that the common ancestor will be in one ancestral line, mother to daughter.  MtDNA is passed on from mother to children, both sons and daughters.  Men and women may take this test.  A man will not pass his mtDNA on to his children, so that is why the test-taker can be male, but the common ancestor will be found in his mother's direct maternal line.  Unlike the Y-DNA test, the most recent common ancestor could be thousands of years ago, as mtDNA does not vary generation to generation as much as Y-DNA.

These Y-DNA and mtDNA tests provide your haplogroups, which is useful in tracing ancient migratory paths of humans across the globe.  23andMe provides predicted haplogroups with their autosomal test.  This is not the same as taking a Y-DNA or mtDNA test.

Anyone who has been researching their family tree should try the autosomal DNA test.  Your tree will grow.

ODonnell of Ireland and Y-DNA: The Matches

My ODonnell cousin is matched with over 700 other men who share a very similar Y chromosome at FamilyTreeDNA.  Very few matches list an ODonnell paternal ancestor.  As we go back in time, it is important to remember that surnames were not consistent and may not have followed the pattern of father to son transmission.

The beauty in Y-DNA testing is that the common ancestor is going to emerge from only one ancestral line:  the direct paternal line, meaning father to son and his son and so forth.  Compare this type of DNA inheritance to autosomal DNA, where the common ancestor will be from any line.

The most distant ODonnell ancestor that I can find for my line is Peter ODonnell, probably born around 1820 in County Donegal, Ireland.  I do not know if he came to the United States.

At the top of the list is someone who can trace back about 200 years to an ODonnell ancestor, so I started with him.

This ODonnell line lived in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts.  Irish are plentiful in Boston.  There were (only) two men named Philip ODonnell in the targeted time frame; and both were born around 1820.

A lot of records are online for Boston, so I lucked out.  Boston city directories are on Fold3.com.  Images of original vital records are at FamilySearch.org.

After gathering records, I determined that the great great grandfather, Philip ODonnell, of the Y-DNA cousin was a son of Manassas ODonnell.  Manassas was born in Ireland in the 1790s.  He first appeared in the Boston city directory in the year 1840.

 Manassas ODonnell died in 1869 from a fractured skull and ribs.  His death ledger entry lists his parents as Philip ODonnell and Bridget.

Death caused by fractured skull and ribs.
Did he fall or was he attacked?
I did not find a corresponding article or death notice in the newspapers online.

The DNA results tell us that the direct paternal line of my ODonnell cousin will merge with the direct paternal line of this Y-DNA cousin.  I can trace back 6 generations for the Y-DNA cousin, but only 4 on my own ODonnell line.  If the ancestors of Manassas are more discoverable than my own, I might make the breakthrough on my own line by researching the Manassas line.

This ODonnell group in Boston did not produce many hits in the newspapers or at FindAGrave, which are usually great sources of information for me.  If anyone out there is experienced in locating newspapers, burial records, probate files, or other useful sites for Boston, please comment below.  Thank you.

Are probate records online for Suffolk County, Massachusetts for the 1800s?

ODonnell of Ireland and Y-DNA

ODonnell is a common Irish surname.

My maternal grandmother was Jeannette ODonnell (1920 - 1993).  Her mother, Anna Preston (1890 - 1921), died the year after Jeannette was born.  Jeannette was raised by her paternal grandparents, Patrick Francis ODonnell (1857 - 1931) and Delia Joyce (1862 - 1929).  Jeannette's stories about her grandparents and great grandparents were great leads when I set out to document the family history.

The oral story was that Patrick ODonnell immigrated to the United States from County Donegal in Ireland.  To uncover more, I visited cemeteries, court houses, archives, and libraries.  I viewed census records; birth, marriage, and death certificates; wills; newspapers- all the possibilities in a genealogist's treasure chest.

Patrick was single and living in Bayonne, New Jersey in the 1880 census.  I found a few siblings born in the 1840s and 1850s and uncovered their father's name: Peter ODonnell.  They were from Ardara in County Donegal.  And that is as far as I could stretch.  It's not that I can't find ODonnell; rather, the opposite is true:  there are so many people named ODonnell (or Ó Domhnaill in Gaelic), that I can't distinguish my ODonnell line from any other.

Enter Y-DNA testing.

The immigrant Patrick ODonnell passed his Y chromosome virtually unchanged onto his sons and they passed this same Y chromosome onto their sons.  An ODonnell cousin in this direct male line agreed to test at FamilyTreeDNA and the results are in.

Surname ODonnell
37 marker Y-DNA test

I was surprised to see a flag and "Niall of the Nine Hostages."  The results for two other Y-DNA tests, Lutter and Duryea, did not have any special designations.

I had to do some reading.  Niall was a man who may or may not have existed.  According to legend, he was a king of Ireland in the 4th and 5th centuries, which accorded him the right to have relations with many women, resulting in abundant offspring, and some of them also ruled and made lots of babies.

My ODonnell cousin has 772 matches on the Y chromosome.  For comparison, my father has zero matches.  My Duryea cousin has 38 matches.

Whether or not Niall actually existed, about 20% of men in northwestern Ireland (where County Donegal lies) and 1 out of 50 men in the New York area have an almost identical Y chromosome that originated from a prolific man.  To be allowed such behavior, the man would have to be a king or man of great power, hence the idea that he was Niall of the Nine Hostages, or a very close relation to Niall.

This reminds me of the idea that Charlemagne may be an ancestor to most people of European heritage.

A study from the journal Genome Research offers that our collective maternal heritage is much more diverse than our paternal ancestry.  In genetic bottlenecks throughout history, for every 17 women who passed their genes onto the next generation, only one man did so, reflecting the power of a few elite men who procreated abundantly.

This information about Niall is interesting, like looking into a crystal ball, but into the past, not the future- where one of my ancestral lines was located 1500 years ago.  In the meantime, I am stuck in the 1820s in County Donegal.

In a separate post, I will discuss the more recent ancestry that the matches provide.

Genographic Project: Deep Ancestry

This is part two of my exploration of the Genographic Project's Geno 2.0 kit submitted by my paternal uncle.  (Prior post:  Regional Ancestry.)

In this post, I discuss Deep Ancestry, the term used by the Genographic Project to describe the information gleaned from haplogroups, which are determined by the Y chromosome ("Y-DNA") and the mitochondrial DNA ("mtDNA").

These types of DNA are useful for both anthropology and genealogy because they pass from generation to generation almost unchanged along prescribed paths of inheritance (father to son for Y-DNA and mother to children for mtDNA).  From an anthropological viewpoint, haplogroups based on Y-DNA and mtDNA reveal the migratory paths of humans across the globe from the beginning of civilization, hence the squiggly arrows on the world map below.  For us genealogists, Y-DNA and mtDNA testing can prove or disprove a genetic relation on a particular ancestral line.

My uncle's haplogroup designations through Geno 2.0 were R-Z36 for his paternal line (Y-DNA) and K1 for his maternal line (mtDNA).  These are common European haplogroups.

These haplogroup designations were interesting because they were already measured in some manner by prior DNA testing of the family.  We'll look at the paternal haplogroup first.

Paternal haplogroup of uncles (and maternal cousins) at 23andMe

Paternal haplogroup of Jody's father at 23andMe

23andMe offers autosomal DNA ("atDNA") testing, not Y-DNA; however, you will receive predictions about your haplogroups.  (Women do not have a Y chromosome, so they will not receive a paternal haplogroup prediction.  A woman's DNA matches at 23andMe are based on autosomal DNA, which comes from both of her parents.)  My father tested at 23andMe four years ago.  His siblings tested two years ago.  My father's predicted paternal haplogroup is R1b1b2a1a2d*.  His brothers tested as R1b1b2a1a2d.  The difference is with the *asterisk*.  All three brothers should have had the same exact result.  According to a customer care page at 23andMe, the *asterisk* indicates that the haplogroup does not fit into any further subgroups.  It is possible that a brother has a mutation and the other does not.  Another factor may be that the testing process slightly differed two years later, when the brothers submitted their samples.  (This is one of the reasons why I caution people to disregard haplogroups when analyzing their matches at 23andMe.)

Also of note:  two of my father's maternal cousins tested at 23andMe.  They received the same paternal group prediction as my father's brothers.  This is a coincidence, as they do not share the same paternal line.

The best way to determine a Y-DNA match for genealogy is through testing at FamilyTreeDNA.  On the webpage of the Genographic Project was a link to upload results from Geno 2.0 to FamilyTreeDNA- for free!  So I did.  My father and his maternal cousin have already tested their Y-DNA at FamilyTreeDNA.

Y-DNA haplogroup for my paternal uncle at FamilyTreeDNA based on results transferred from Geno 2.0

(Haplogroup designations at FamilyTreeDNA and the Genographic Project are abbreviated.)

Y-DNA haplogroup (R-M269) for my father at FamilyTreeDNA.  37 marker test.

FamilyTreeDNA shows a deeper subgroup for my father's brother than for my father.  I do not know the scope of the Y-DNA test of Geno 2.0.  The website reads, "The genetic technology we use for our testing is a custom-designed genotyping chip optimized for the study of ancestry, with far more Y-chromosome and mtDNA markers than are available with any other test."  I don't know, at this point, if the difference in haplogroups is because of testing variation or if one brother has a mutation that the other does not.

Y-DNA haplogroup (R-P312) for my father's maternal cousin at FamilyTreeDNA.  37 marker test.

To illustrate the contrast of the 23andMe haplogroup designation with FamilyTreeDNA, note that 23andMe placed my father's maternal cousins in the same haplogroup as my father's brothers.  Y-DNA testing of one of these cousins places him into a different subgroup from both my father and his brother.

Uploading to FamilyTreeDNA from Geno 2.0 did not allow for matching with others.  (My father's test allows for matching to others, but there are none.  To see men with a common ancestor on their direct paternal line, go to my post about my cousin's matches.)

Next is the mtDNA haplogroup.  Geno 2.0 assigned haplogroup K1 to my uncle.  23andMe assigned my uncle and all of his siblings to a subgroup, K1c2.

Reflecting back on earlier testing, in the year 2010, my paternal aunt tested simply as haplogroup K at Ancestry.com.  Ancestry no longer offers mtDNA and Y-DNA testing.

I have not tested anyone's mtDNA at FamilyTreeDNA because the results are likely not genealogically relevant.  Mitochondrial DNA mutates at a much slower rate than Y-DNA.  A "match" in mtDNA may go back thousands of years, before written records.

Y-DNA Results for Duryea

The results of my cousin's Y-DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA have arrived.  He is a first cousin of my paternal grandmother and is a direct male descendant of Joost Duryea, born about 1650.  Around 1675, Joost immigrated to the English Province of New York, formerly the Dutch Nieuw Nederland.  In 1727 Joost died in Bushwick.

The Y Chromosome is passed from father to son mostly unchanged.  Slight changes, or mutations, occur every few generations.  Joost's sons, their sons, and so on received a Y chromosome identical or almost identical to Joost, right down to today's living descendants.

No man is an exact match to my cousin.  The closest match is also a descendant of Joost Duryea.  The genetic distance of 3 tells us that mutations have occurred, but this is expected when the relation is so far back.

This match and my immediate cousin are 6th cousins, once removed.  We all descend from Joost Duryea's son, Charles (1690-1753).  Charles is seven generations removed from my immediate cousin and eight generations removed from this distant cousin.

None of the other matches list a Duryea as the origin of their patrilineal line.  This can be because the relation is further back than Joost Duryea, when surnames were not used or not handed down father to son.  Other reasons include a non-parental event, name change, or an error tracing family lines.

Y-DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA
Most distant direct male ancestor provided by the other matches

I'm happy to finally have a Y-DNA test with results I can work with.  My father tested earlier this year for the surname Lutter.  He has no matches at any level at any distance.  His direct patrilineal line is the shortest line in his family tree.  I have been able to trace back only three generations to his great grandfather, Hermann Lutter (1860-1924).

P.S.:  FamilyTreeDNA has a sale this month.  Plus, coupon codes abound.