This web page emerged from the discussions of many of us who are Y-DNA matches or their kit administrators with Johnston of Annandale families. Almost all of our ancestors were Scots-Irish, so that they either stayed there or emigrated to Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere from what is now Northern Ireland. For Y-DNA, our core high-level group is Haplogroup I-M223, but since other Johnston families lived in the same area who received the name through adoption or natural birth, other Haplogroups are included. The I-M223 kits are more precisely all I-Y8830 kits. The R-M269 kits are falling into several different groups.

The primary home for all the I-M223 and R-269 North Ireland Johnstons is the North Ireland Johnstons Project on Family Tree DNA, administered by Wesley Johnston.

For the I-M223/I-Y8830 kits, the Johnstons of Annandale DNA project, administered by Cliff Johnston, focuses on those kits.

The purpose of this page is to connect as many of these families as possible. Since the Dublin (Ireland) Public Record Office was destroyed in 1922, DNA is the only way that most of us can definitively connect. So please do Y-DNA testing (direct male line Johnston descendants, done by Family Tree DNA only) and autosomal DNA testing. If you do autosomal testing (the most common DNA test), unless you upload your results to the free GEDmatch website you will only receive a small fraction of the benefit of your DNA test -- pennies in value for the dollars you paid. I began my Pre-Confederation Canada Johnstons web page in 2018 as the first effort to bring those Canadian families together in one place for comparison and hopefully connection. In 2020, Elizabeth Passela created the first global list of online trees and web pages of Johnston families. This is an extension of that effort: a one-stop shop for links to all Johnston online web pages. On my Canada page, I organized them by earlist known place of origin in Ireland and Scotland. So I will begin with that sort order here: the entries are sorted by origin. -- Wesley Johnston

NOTE: For the "Emigrant", I use the oldest Johnston who was born in Ireland or Scotland and died overseas. This is also the person who is at the link. If the family remained in Ireland or Scotland, the "Emigrant" is actually the earliest known ancestor. Similarly, if the original country is not known the earliest person in the destination country is the "Emigrant".

NOTE: I am using Ancestry USA links. If you are only on Ancestry in another country, edit the link to replace Ancestry.com with your country. For example, in Canada, replace it with Ancestry.ca.

NOTE: Some of these trees may be private and not visible to those who have not been granted access to the tree. Clicking on these links will take you to a notice that the tree is private if you are not authorized to view it. And living people will be privatized in almost all trees.

NOTE: If a tree belongs to the Y-DNA tester or a family member of the tester, I use their tree if I can find it. In all other cases, I include the best-documented versions of trees that I can find on Ancestry. Thus, the name of the person who owns the tree is NOT necessarily a member of that Johnston family shown.