The Common Norman Ancestor to the Verdun, Haviland and Battaglia Families

by Dominic Gagnon,^{^[1]} Philip Beddows, Bertram de Verdun, Steve Gilbert, Christopher Haviland, Iain McDonald

Abstract

This study began in 2018 when a French descendant of the Verdun family sought to prove genetically his direct link to Bertram de Verdun, born around 1040 and a contemporary of William the Conqueror. In addition to achieving this, the analysis of the phylogenetic tree and the study of historical documents preserved in England and Normandy revealed a common and unsuspected kinship with the Haviland family of Guernsey, two American Battaglia families whose ancestry originated from Sicily, and the Fauchon from Quebec, who trace their ancestry from Avranchin in Normandy. The same markers on the Y chromosome shared by the descendants of these families allow us to confirm a thousand-year-old common origin and trace their multiple migratory routes.

This article was originally published in French in the Revue de l’Avranchin, Normandie, and in L’Ancêtre, a quarterly of the Société de généalogie de Québec, both in June 2022.