Sperling/Spurling DNA surname project
FamilyTreeDNA hosts a volunteer-run Y-DNA surname project, 'Sperling Spurling', for Spurlin, Spurling, Sparlin, Sparling, Sperlin, Sperling, Spirlin and Spirling lines. Its largest group links descendants of Jeremiah Spurling of Virginia with descendants of 'Big John' Spurlin of Lincoln County, North Carolina.
Sourcing: mixed 5 genealogy · 1 book · 4 reference
About the project
FamilyTreeDNA, a genetic genealogy company, hosts volunteer-run surname projects. Members compare Y-chromosome DNA, which normally passes from father to son along with the surname. The Sperling Spurling project covers the spellings Spurlin/Spurling, Sparlin/Sparling, Sperlin/Sperling and Spirlin/Spirling. It had 43 members when checked in September 2026[1]. Twenty of them have Y-DNA results on the project's public pages[2][3].
Stated findings
The project overview says the surname is "believed to be of German or Dutch origin", originally a form of Sperling ("sparrow"). It adds that some lines may come from the British Isles[1]. Its headline result is that tests "confirm a Proto-Germanic origin" for "Big John" Spurling, born about 1740, who died in 1821 in Lincoln County, North Carolina. The overview says researchers call him "Big John" because he had 23 named descendants[1]. The 1982 family article on him says he had 23 children at the time of his 1822 will, and his WikiTree profile puts his death in June 1822 (see "Big John" Spurling and the Spurlin DNA Project)[4][5].
Lineages on the public results page
The project's public Y-DNA results page sorts members into groups[2]:
- Lineage 1, "Descendants of Jeremiah Spurling b. 1667 – d. 1725 (Virginia)", has six members with the surname Spurlin or Spurling. Two name Jeremiah Spurling as their earliest known ancestor. One names "John Spurlin, died. Lincoln Co., NC 1822", and one names Zachariah Spurlin (born 1747, died in Ashe County, North Carolina, in 1836). Three have Big Y tests confirming haplogroup R-BY141437. Two others are assigned to its upstream branch R-FGC13959, and one, with only a basic SNP test, to the broad R-M343[2][3]. The published results of the Big Y-tested Jeremiah descendant and the Lincoln County tester are identical over the first 67 markers[2].
- Lineage 2, "John Sparling / Sperling (New Jersey) & Spurlings of Hampshire, VA", has one member. He names John Sperling (Sparling), 1752–1807, as his ancestor and is in haplogroup R-BY16431[2]. His marker values are far from Lineage 1's, so the two groups do not share a recent paternal ancestor[2].
- "Unknown Spurling" holds one member who names Jeremiah Spurling (1704–1770) as his ancestor. His published results differ from those of each Lineage 1 tester at 12 to 14 of the first 37 markers, and his haplogroup is only predicted as R-M269[2][3].
- Ungrouped members include a Spurley tester with a Milton Spurling ancestor, predicted haplogroup E-M96. The rest carry other surnames: Switzer, Darnell, Ritter, Spracklen, Willey, Minnick, Coelho, Flood, Benningfield, Phillips and Davis[2].
So the surname testers fall into at least four separate paternal lines: Lineage 1, Lineage 2, the E-M96 Spurley/Spurling line, and the unmatched "Unknown Spurling" tester[2]. Not every Spurlin or Spurling descends from one founder.
Age and placement of Lineage 1
FamilyTreeDNA's Discover tool estimates that the common ancestor of the three R-BY141437 testers was born around 1700 CE (95 percent range 1448–1831). Of the three, one gives England as his earliest known origin and two give no country[6]. The branch sits under R-U106, by way of R-Z381, R-Z301 and R-FGC13959[7]. WikiTree's Spurlin surname page also gives R-U106 as the haplogroup of the one Spurlin member there who has taken a Y-DNA test[8].
Interpretation
The project's statement about a German or Dutch origin conflicts with standard dictionaries, which treat Spurlin and Spurling as English names in the Sparling group[9]. Both could be true for different families: the Dictionary of American Family Names notes that some American Sparlings are Americanized German Sperlings[9]. A haplogroup label cannot settle the question. R-U106 is one of the main west European branches of R1b. It is most frequent in Friesland, where it accounts for 44 percent of men, and is found in the largest numbers in central Europe[10]. It split off thousands of years before surnames existed. Surname projects are most useful for showing which present-day lines share a paternal ancestor within the last few centuries. On that question, the project's results link the Virginia Jeremiah Spurling line, the Ashe County Zachariah line and the Lincoln County "Big John" line[2].
See also
- "Big John" Spurling and the Spurlin DNA Project · Genealogy mixed
John Spurlin (or Spurling) Sr., known to researchers as "Big John", lived in Orange, Chatham, Richmond and Lincoln counties, North Carolina, and left a will in 1822 naming 23 children. Y-DNA testing places a descendant in the same paternal line as the Jeremiah Spurling family of Virginia, but no document yet found names his parents. - Jeremiah Spurling of Colonial Virginia · Genealogy weak
Three generations of men named Jeremiah Spurling lived in colonial Virginia: a Westmoreland County shoemaker and planter who died in 1725 or 1726, his son (c. 1704–c. 1770), a tenant tobacco planter in Truro Parish, Fairfax County, and a grandson (c. 1745 – c. 1810) of Fairfax County. Many southern Spurlin and Spurling lines trace their descent to this family. - Early Spurlin and Spurling families in America · Genealogy mixed
Spurlin and Spurling families appear in colonial Virginia and North Carolina in the 18th century and moved west and south into Indiana, Alabama and Texas during the 19th century. Their European origins are still debated. - Sperling: a different surname · The Surname strong
Sperling is a German and Jewish surname meaning 'sparrow'. It is often given as the origin of Spurlin, but English surname dictionaries derive Spurlin from a different source. - Etymology of the Spurlin surname · The Surname strong
Scholarly surname dictionaries derive Spurlin, through Spurling and Sparling, from either an Old English personal name (Spyrling) or a Middle English word for a small fish such as the smelt; the popular 'sparrow' explanation belongs to German Sperling. - Spurlin research resources · Genealogy mixed
A roundup of free online tools for researching Spurlin families: collaborative trees, the Spurlin Y-DNA project, surname forums, digitized county histories and newspapers, federal land patents, cemetery and historical-marker databases, and military and African American records. - John Spurlin (1780–1851) · Genealogy weak
John Spurlin was a North Carolina-born pioneer who married Mary Willey in Ashe County in 1810. WikiTree dates him 1780–1851, places his death in Christian County, Illinois, and makes him a son of Zachariah Spurling of Surry and Ashe counties and a grandson of Jeremiah Spurling Jr. of Fairfax County, Virginia. Other records do not fit those dates, and a different John Spurlin (1780–1851) died in Christian County, Kentucky. - Published Spurlin and Spurling family histories · Genealogy mixed
The main published genealogies are Quincy Haggard Spurlin's 'SPURLIN: A Spurlin Family in America' (1987) and Norman Kent Spurling's two-volume 'Spurling family history in Virginia & North Carolina' (1998). Shorter family articles appear in county heritage books, and the largest online trees are on WikiTree and FamilySearch. - Spurlin (surname) · The Surname strong
Spurlin is an English-origin surname, treated by modern surname dictionaries as a variant of Spurling/Sparling; today it is found almost entirely in the United States, where about 2,600 people bore it in the 2020 Census. - Spurlin family groups and reunions online · Genealogy weak
Online places where Spurlin relatives and researchers gather: a family reunion blog and newsletters, surname DNA and genealogy projects, surname message boards and Facebook. - Spurlin family lines by state · Genealogy weak
A state-by-state guide to the main Spurlin and Spurling family lines in the United States, from colonial Virginia and North Carolina to Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Texas and Indiana, with the sources behind each link. - Spurlin on Reddit and online forums · Culture weak
Where the Spurlin name comes up in online discussion: Reddit threads about Spurlin athletes, a band director and a dog breeder, long-running genealogy message boards, and a few other platforms that were checked. - Spurling (surname) · The Surname strong
Spurling is the fuller spelling from which Spurlin derives. Unlike Spurlin, it is well established in England, Australia and especially Bermuda as well as the United States.
References
- ↑ ↑ ↑ Sperling Spurling — Overview — FamilyTreeDNA group project Genealogy
- ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ Spurlin Spurling Sparlin Sparling — Y-DNA Results Overview — FamilyTreeDNA — Public STR table; marker comparisons are from the published values Genealogy
- ↑ ↑ ↑ Spurlin Spurling Sparlin Sparling — Y-DNA SNP — FamilyTreeDNA — Confirmed and predicted haplogroups Genealogy
- ↑ "The John Spurlin Family" (article 1011, by Norman Kent Spurling), in The Heritage of Cleveland County (1982) — Internet Archive Book
- ↑ John Spurling (1740–1822) (Spurling-231) — WikiTree Genealogy
- ↑ Haplogroup R-BY141437 — Haplogroup Story — FamilyTreeDNA Discover Reference
- ↑ Haplogroup R-BY141437 — Ancestral Path — FamilyTreeDNA Discover Reference
- ↑ Spurlin Genealogy — WikiTree — "Spurlin DNA" panel, September 2026 Genealogy
- ↑ ↑ Sparling Surname Meaning & Sparling Family History — Ancestry.com — Quotes the full etymology of Sparling from DAFN, 2nd ed. Reference
- ↑ Haplogroup R-M269 — Wikipedia — Section on R-U106 Reference
Last reviewed 2026-09-24.