At the end of August we are hosting a Clan Leask Gathering at the Virginia Scottish Games in The Planes, Vigrinia. We are creating a few handouts and mailings. Eventually we will put the full content on our websites, but one step at a time. I just sent the Y-DNA Surname Study – August 2014 Update brochure to my editor (a.k.a. my wife who is an English teacher) and am very excited about what we pulled together. Here is the introduction/summary from the brochure to give you a taste of what has been going on:
There are many known spellings of the name Leask: Leisk, Liesk, Lisk, Lesk, Lesh, Laesk, Lask, Leysk, Laysk, and Lusk (underlined names have participated in the Leask Surname Y-DNA Study to date). The testing thus far has proven Leask, Lisk, Leisk and some of those whose name is spelled Lusk are related and therefore are all members of the Clan Leask.
Through the Leask Y-DNA Surname Study, three distinct lines have been discovered for Clan Leask. Groups #1 and #2, though different are closely related; they are likely to have a similar geographic origin and a common ancestor within 1200 years. Group #3 has a greatly different genetic code and appears to have a much different geographic origin.
Three distinct lines of Leasks have been discovered through Y-DNA testing for the Clan – two related and one unique.
The Y-DNA study indicates the answer for most of the Leasks tested so far is that their origin is either Norwegian, Frisian, Anglo-Saxon or Danish; the tested Leasks are likely to have originated in either Ancient Friesland or Jutland. Ancient Friesland was located in what is today Northern Holland, Northern Germany and Western Denmark. Group #3 suggests a potential linage from Iberia.
More about this study, including instructions to join it and references for this article, can be found at our genealogy research site, http://research.leask.com/.