I have hit a brick wall in the search for my ancestral Dunn surname here in the United States. Twenty-five years of searching has left me frustrated due to the lack of a record trail prior to 1810 when my gr-gr-gr-gr-gr-grandfather William Thomas Dunn first showed up in the Pennsylvania, Washington County Census.  I have started a Dunn Family DNA Project to try and connect to other Dunn families through DNA testing in hopes of filling the void of information prior to 1810. 

I have already had my DNA tested and have several exact matches; however none of them match the Dunn surname. I find it extremely interesting that most of the exact DNA matches I have, have the last name of Minary or some version of Minary who are mostly Scotch-Irish. After a bit of research I found that almost twenty percent of the population of the US at the time of the Revolution 1776 came from Northern Ireland. They were called the Scotch-Irish (http://members.aol.com/ntgen/hrtg/scirish.html for more info).  Almost all the Scotch-Irish or everyone that came from Ireland, including the Dunn's during the 1700 must have come from the Northern Ireland, the Ulster plantation as mentioned at the above website.

As far as I can figure, our forefathers, or at least my line of ancestors, must have migrated to, or as history states, been transplanted to Ireland as early as the 1600's, and then immigrated to the US during the 1700's. That’s my theory. Now I just have to get the proof. DNA testing is the only way, as records are almost non-existent prior to the 1800’s.

The more Dunn’s that I can get to take the DNA test the greater chance of connecting families together. I am sending out Emails, and posting as many queries to as many Dunn forums that I can find on the internet. Only one DNA test from a known male Dunn family member is necessary to check for exact matches to connect families together, thus opening the doors to years more of family research to fill in the gaps. Hopes this strikes an interest.

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/DunnFamilyDNAProject