Genetic Genealogy

Hi all Has anyone looked into having their DNA looked at to help trace family relationships? I found this source on the web which helped me trace my family back to the 1600's in Virginia! www.ftdna.com If you want to have your DNA analyzed, it's 100 bucks or more, but the site itself is free. There are a lot of projects there so if your surname matches one of those on the list, you may find out a lot you didn't know about your family. I sure did! Deja Cheek

Deja, Remember FTDNA is based on Y-Chromosome only at the present time, so the only way to prove relationships is through the males who still have the surname. Good luck setting it up, you may also wish to post info to the rootsweb lists or any other name lists you belong to. This way you will get greater participation. Hope you get great results! Chris Z.

Yep, I just sent in my DNA sample to be analyzed. I am pretty sure there are some folks on the Cheek/Chick surname project that are related, by the traditional methods. I was able to make a link through my great-grandfather to one of the other participants, so it really opened up a lot of family history upstream. One of the folks I got in touch with had just written a family history with about 15000 names in it--he even had my kids listed!

Hmmm, I had a friend who was an African-American Cheek (her father was Al Jarreau's favorite teacher), and an attorney who is a Chick. But they're both originally from the midwest. I think Carolyn's dad was from Tennessee.