PA Deutsch (aka PA Dutch) Ethnic Group DNA Project

Project Goals

Please note: Note: This is a very specialized and focused study of the PA Deutsch and it requires three types of DNA tests, two by FTDNA and one by another lab. To participate the person tested must have direct male line Y-DNA paternal line descendant AND direct female line mtDNA maternal line descendant of a German speaking immigrant who lived prior to 1800 in Pennsylvania. This project also requires extensive genealogical knowledge and documentation of your traditional genealogy of both your father's and mother's genealogy. Thus, I recommend that prior to applying to join this project, that you first join the Colonial-USA-Deutsch Project. Joining the Colonial-USA-Deutch Project is the first step to joining the PA Deutsch Project and is part of the qualifying process for joining the PA Deutsch Project.

Who Can Join This Project:
To participate the person tested must have direct male line Y-DNA paternal line descendant AND direct female line mtDNA maternal line descendant of a German speaking immigrant who lived prior to 1800 in Pennsylvania. Also, six out of eight of your great-grandparents must be of PA Deutsch roots and be descendants of pre-1800 german speaking settlers of Pennsylvania to join this project. You will be required to provide a copy of your Ancestry Chart to the project administrator to document your PA Deutsch ancestry. See this website for more details about who are the PA Deutsch:
http://www.kerchner.com/padutch.htm
See project's private website for more details and who is eligible to join:
http://www.kerchner.com/pa-gerdna.htm
Hypothesis: That some people, or sub-groups, within the Pennsylvania Deutsch/German (aka PA Dutch) ethnic group may have a detectable percentage, but not dominant percentage, of Asian genetic content in their genome, of non-recent origin in a genealogist's time frame, possibly harbored in their genome from the major invasions of southern Germany by tribes from Asia such as the Huns and Mongol hordes which invaded Europe at various times during the period of 1600-700 years ago, or of even older more ancient origin. Data collected by this project, and subsequent analysis, will attempt to prove or disprove this hypothesis and/or will be used to try and get an anthropologist or population geneticist to look at this possible "discovery" about the PA Deutsch in greater detail.

For those who don't have Pennsylvania Deutsch roots for 6 or more of their great-grandparents, consider joining the Colonial-USA-Deutsch Project. It is less restrictive and requires only Colonial USA Deutsch ancestry on one direct line, either paternal YDNA or maternal mtDNA, tracing back to any of the original 13 colonies. See that project for more details: http://www.familytreedna.com/public/colonial-usa-deutsch

HOW TO JOIN THIS PROJECT: At this time you must have been tested either directly via FTDNA or indirectly via FTDNA via the NGS Genographic Project to join this project. Genographic Project customers must first do the free transfer of their results from the NGS database to FTDNA's database. See the "Learn More" link at the bottom of your Genographic Project personal page for how to do the free transfer of your test data to FTDNA or call FTDNA for assistance in doing the transfer. Once you have a personal account page at FTDNA, to join this PA Deutsch project sign/log in to your FTDNA personal account page and click on the blue JOIN button in the upper part of your personal page screen. Find the "Dual Geographical" projects section. Click on the letter "P" category. Then click on the PA Deutsch project link. You will then see a description of this project. Scroll down to the bottom and click on the small white join button at the bottom of the PA Deutsch project join page. That is all there is to it. If you have not been tested before either by FTDNA or the Genographic Project and want to join this project you need to order a DNA test kit. Click on the Request to Join This Group link in the upper left hand corner of this screen to contact the Project Admin and arrange ordering your test kit.