Y-DNA of Early New England Baker Families

Introduction
This article represents a survey of DNA evidence for various Baker families who settled New England. The timeframe includes Bakers born from roughly 1600 and 1700. Let me start with this disclaimer: this article focuses solely on American male ancestors. Not trying to be sexist here, but Y-DNA passes from male to male through the Y chromosome. It is by definition “patrilineal”. In addition, our surname historically passes from our father. Given America’s relatively short European history, we all have one unique patrilineal progenitor who first set foot in the US (with the obvious exception of Native Americans). Let me refer to this first male immigrant as a “founder”. My founding ancestor is Max Schwartz who arrived from Poland/Russia around 1875. My mother’s founding ancestor is William Baker who arrived in Concord MA around 1660.

Genealogists have spent a huge amount of effort researching our founders. Now we can add DNA to the mix. While autosomal DNA does not work here because we are looking back too many generation, Y-DNA proves to be incredibly useful. The Bakerdna.net website has large number of people with the Baker surname who have tested. Basically, they seem to fall into three categories. First, there are the southern Bakers where the written records are thin. I do not envy their difficult research task. Y-DNA has proven critical to sort the various families. Second, there are the mid Atlantic Bakers of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland. Many of these Bakers arrived later, and one sees much more German influence where a surname like “Becker” gets changed after arrival. This article focuses on the the third group:  the New England Bakers who began arriving as Puritans to Massachusetts in the “Great Migration” of 1620-1640. They left behind a rich collection of written records which have been summarized into some important sources:

• “The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620–1633”, 1996 and “The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England 1634–1635″ both by Robert Charles Anderson. These volumes represent the gold standard of Puritan immigration. They are flagship works of the New England Historical Genealogy Society (americanancestors.com) 
• “A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer’s Register” by James Savage, 1862. : Less accurate, but has a wider scope than “The Great Migration” volumes. Savage writes brief accounts like he is texting someone. The biographies can be hard to decipher, but they get to the point. 
• FamilySearch and Wikitree – both provide grand unified trees. Sourcing information can be hit-and-miss. Some discussions are excellent. It depends on the manager.
• Old Family Histories – these are the collection of books that were largely self-published starting in the latter part of the 1800’s. Most lack sources, but the authors clearly spent a lot of effort publishing an accurate account. Many are available on-line for viewing

The submitters of Y-DNA usually provide a branch to show their relationship to their Baker founder. I have a lot of confidence in these branches because these individuals invested a lot of time/money to submit Y-DNA samples. These branches have been combined to form the Y-DNA trees below. There is little attempt to resolve any inconsistences in any research. 

Finally, you must be very careful how you interpret the DNA results. For example, my cousin’s Y-DNA matches another tester with common ancestor Peter Baker. The DNA shows that this Baker line is not related to other New England lines. The DNA does nothing to show that Peter is a descendant of William Baker.