1 Geoffrey Skull of Grittenham made his will in 1616 and died in 1619. Amongst other bequests were those to his daughter Agnes Vynes and her husband Thomas Vynes. In the Family Search (LDS) IGI index Geoffrey was shown as born about 1565, married Margery in 1588, and Agnes was born about 1600. The marriage of Agnes and Thomas was given as about 1623, 7 years after the will was written, though the will stated that Thomas was his "kinsman" and named his "daughter Agnes Vynes". This is typical of the inexactitudes of this resource, at least in the 1600s and 1700s. 

2 The wills of John and Christian Vines of Grittenham and their son Benjamin and wife Elizabeth provide solid evidence for the names of their children (see TREE) and the BDM data for them in the IGI index seems believable. Benjamin was born in 1689, so it is estimated that his father, John was born between 1660 and 1670. 

3 As the Vines and Skull wills all mention Grittenham, it is evident that John was at least from the same family as Thomas Vynes, though there may have been another generation between them. There is circumstantial evidence that Vines House at Grittenham was built in 1606. 
On 6th December 1733 a John Vines (son of John and Christian?) married Mary Skull of Tockenham and another wedding on 9 April 1746 was of John Vines and Margaret Skull: ? same John? Skull sisters? Tockenham is only 3 or 4 km, say 2 miles from Grittenham. 

4 I (Fred R Vines) am descended from John through Benjamin 1689, Edward 1725, David 1760, Joshua 1795 (who migrated to Australia in 1855), Caleb 1840, Fred L 1872 and Fred M 1900. My DNA has been determined and matches with that of Ron, who traces his line from William 1773 at Highworth close to Swindon, Michael 1816 (who migrated to Australia 1854), Thomas 1836, Alfred 1860, and Herbert 1901. 
The matching DNA indicates that we have a Most Recent Common Ancestor in either John (c1660's), or perhaps his father (say 1630's), grandfather (say about 1600), even further back in the 1500s. I will call this DNA line the Wilts1 haplotype. 

5 I had a further test to determine the haplogroup for the Wilts1 haplotype. This is Haplogroup N, which is commonest in Northern Asia and Europe: Mongolia, Northern Siberia, Northern Russia, and Finland. See the FTDNA Haplogroup . Most N matches seem to be with Native Siberians, with others in Northern Russia (eg. Komi near Archangel) and Finland. 

6 Arthur Vine and Frank Spencer Vine suspected they were descended from Charles Vine who was born at Trowbridge Wilts. in 1789 and joined the English Marines at 17 in 1806 as the Napoleonic Wars commenced.  Their DNA tests matched each other and confirmed their thoughts of having a common ancestor. Despite the difference of spelling to the Vines surname their DNA also matched exactly with Fred and Ron. The relationship link has not yet been established by BDM documentation. The IGI index shows that quite a lot of Vine families lived in the Trowbridge area, perhaps involved in the textile industry there, so further tests from that region should be interesting. 

7 The testing company FTDNA of Houston Texas, informed us that from their database Samuel Leland Mingia of North Carolina had matched exactly with Fred, Ron, Arthur and Frank, but that matches with persons of unlike surname could be coincidental. However a study of the US census for 1880 showed both Vines and Mingias/Mingas in several close counties of NC, and of both European and African origins. 
Considering the frontier environment of NC and other states during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries it now appears likely that a Vines derived from our North Wiltshire families has fathered a son who was accepted into the Mingia family without proper documentation. We don't as yet have DNA tests on other people of either name from that area for confirmation of a Vines migrant from Wiltshire, so future research in that area will be very interesting. 
This is our first factual indication of a Vines migration from Wiltshire in the pre-Revolution era. 

8 In regard to evidence of where Vines immigrants to America came from, the following is from the IGI indexes: 
   William Vines was born in Wiltshire about 1665 to Richard Vines and Elizabeth Pemberton.
   William Vines, born in Wiltshire about 1665, son of Richard Vines and Elizabeth Pemberton, married Elizabeth Bushnell about 1685. (Bushnell is a name associated with the Vines surname again in 1784 when David married Martha Patty Bushnell at Reading, Berkshire.)
   Samuel Vines was born in Beaufort County NC, 1684 to Richard Vines and Elizabeth Pemberton. This means that Richard Vines and family migrated to NC between 1665 when William was born and 1684 when Samuel appeared on the scene. How credible are these records?
9 Joe Vines of Arkansas and Ed Vines of California matched DNA, ( though not with the Wiltshire family) with one mutation. Their pedigrees stem from Thomas Vines born about 1778; there is a family legend that Thomas' father was really named Lipps, Lipsey, Lipzeig or similar, but on his early death his widow remarried to a Vines. See Lipps.  I will call this DNA line the Toadvine1 haplotype though we won't know which is the oldest version, Joe's or Ed's, until we find when the mutation occurred. 
FTDNA suggest that their haplotype falls into the R1b haplogroup. The R1b haplogroup (referred to earlier as Hg1) is the most common among European men and includes the so-called Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH) which is found throughout Europe but especially among Celtic and Basque populations. Ancestors of those in the R1b haplogroup are believed to have been the first humans to reach Europe about 40,000 years ago and then re-colonized it after the last glacial maximum 10-12 thousand years ago. 

10 Tim Vines of Louisiana had a 12 marker test but didn't match to any of our other tests. We can't declare his result as a distinct haplotype without the full 25 marker result, but he has proved to be from a different line. He may have come by the Vines name in a similar manner to Joe.