It’s official, We Are Cousins has started its own DNA Project! Here are more details about it, how you can join the project, and how you can help out.
Project’s Main Page: http://www.wearecousins.info/dna/
The Seed for The Project
Over a year ago Crispin Rendon told me that no one was doing DNA reports for paternal DNA better known as Y-DNA.
After talking with him I set a goal to myself, learn all you can in one year. Since then I have read book after book and article after article about DNA for genealogy. I even started blogging about DNA on my personal website moisesgarza.com.
A few months ago I realized that all the blog posts at moisesgarza.com were about DNA and I decided to make a real home for them so I created DNA Testing for Genealogy HQ a place to answer DNA questions for anyone new and interested in DNA testing for genealogy.
What does this have to do with the We Are Cousins DNA project? Keep on reading I’ll explain.
As I was mentioning, I created a website just dedicated to DNA for Genealogy. This website was my motivation to test with FamilyTreeDNA and 23andME. When I got my results back from FamilyTreeDNA I was so excited.
Am I really a Garza?
I wanted to know if I was really a Garza or not since I have run into a brick wall or should I say a solid rock wall on my direct paternal line. I joined the Garza Project at FTDNA and found that I do match other Garza’s but guess what there are other Garza’s in that page with totally different DNA than mine. I do match the biggest group out of the four DNA lineages listed.
I remembered Crispin and asked him if anyone had started to do Y-DNA reports to solve this problem and he said no.
Now, this is the thing. There is no report out there available to the public showing any of my matches, with proven documentation, that they descend from Marcos Alonso de La Garza, so the question remains unanswered which DNA is the real DNA. Don’t get me wrong, it is OK for there to be different Garza’s with different DNA but we need to identify the real Garza DNA and also the different DNA that the other Garza’s carry and find out how they came to carry the Garza last name. I use Garza as an example but the same is true for every other last name out there.
My hope is that The We Are Cousins DNA Project may help solve that problem and establish Last Name DNA lineages for every last name found in our area which is Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and South Texas. So far, here is a list of Surnames that I have found Surname List for We Are Cousins DNA Project we need reports for all of them.
This is what I am trying to achieve with this project.
For everyone whose paternal and maternal ancestors have roots in Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and South Texas to join the project.
Then if you can prove, with documentation, a ten or more generation paternal or maternal lineage email me.
As I mentioned above the ultimate goal is to make public reports identifying DNA for every possible last name whose deep roots are in Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and South Texas.
The Project’s Main Webpage
You can and will always find the project’s main page at the following address:
http://www.wearecousins.info/dna/
How You Can Help
Join the project, that is the main way that you can help out.
Another way is by sending me your ten generation, either maternal or paternal lineages. The maternal ones will be forwarded to Crispin Rendon to see if he is interested in doing a report on your maternal lineage. Your paternal lineage will be utilized to make a report for your paternal last name, of course only after we discuss privacy issues with you.
Finally, you can volunteer by emailing me or sending me a message. I need volunteers to help verify the documentation so that we can have solid proof for any given last name and also volunteers to help put the reports together. Don’t worry I will have a tutorial video on how to put a report together, so that it can be standardized.
I know that together we can make this project work and I am sure that everyone will benefit from it. This is a huge undertaking and I am aware of it but I know that we can do this.
