Danish Demes Regional DNA Project- Background

Background

TO JOIN THIS PROJECT:  please email the project Administrator (address above).

In biology, a 'deme' is a group of related organisms living in a single locality; in this case, the organisms are human beings, the location is Denmark, and the purpose is genealogy!

The project is not limited to the surnames listed above. The list is simply that of males who have already joined the project. Some of the surnames may not appear typically Danish, but these are instances of Anglicized spellings or known, deliberate changes.

Danes were late to adopt surnames and many of the adopted surnames were patronymics, so for Danes, the surname is not necessarily a good indicator of biological relatedness (except for recent/close family members). In consequence, a 'surname project' is not the best way for a male Dane to connect with related kin, as well as being only indirectly available to females. This project was created to bring Danes together in a regional project where there is a better prospect of connecting with genetically related kin and to allow participation of both males and females. Because Danish Demes is a regional project, membership is limited to those with a proven (or virtually certain) origin in Denmark. Please do not request to join Danish Demes if you only suspect you have a Danish origin.

Surnames listed above (along with a few keywords for the FTDNA search engine) are those of actual project members; the project is definitely not limited to the surnames listed. These surnames are those of the Y-DNA tested male participants only. Female mtDNA is not associated with surnames because females have no surname of their own (they carry either their father's surname or patronymic or their husband's surname), so from the standpoint of mtDNA testing, surnames are totally irrelevant.

To participate meaningfully, testees will need to share their direct line ancestry back to the earliest known ancestor — preferably in the form of a GEDCOM of just the appropriate patrilineal and/or matrilineal line, not your entire database. This is a requirement, not an option, for participation in the project because DNA test results, without an accompanying pedigree, are meaningless.

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