The intent of the Algeo DNA project is to help research our Algeo lineage all the way back to its origin. Not all variant spellings of Algeo, but rather actual connected family. - Therefore, in order to join the group we are requesting that you (or a closely related male family member) do your DNA tests with Family Tree DNA (especially the Y test and preferably the Y-111). If you match on the autosomal or even the MT, we will consider allowing the join request, but if there is no DNA match, then joining this group will only confuse the research intent and not actually help either one of us discover our origins. At this point what we know is that the first documented Algeo was Jacobo Algeo born in Italy in 1420. He then moved in or about 1451 with the papal to Paisley, Scotland. There he was the secretary and notary of the church for many years. He had several generations of descendants and in the 1630s Robert and Claude Algeo were being persecuted, so they skipped over to Ireland, but years later returned to Scotland and were arrested, tried, and either hung or beheaded. The Algeos of Ireland were there until the late 1700s (some clans stayed and are still in Ireland). There was a William Algeo clan that had a large farm in Flatbush, NY - now Brooklyn) in the 1680s. We don't have much more on them at this point. William and Rebecca Algeo came to America in 1787 with a few of their children, and had more children thereafter, for a total of eight (the admin of this project descends from the youngest of their children, Samuel Alexander Algeo). Rebecca was an Algeo 2nd cousin to William. Her father was also William Algeo and her mother was Margaret (Levins) Algeo. They came to America 10 years after Wm and Rebecca and brought several, but not all, of their children - Rebecca's siblings. They had farms next to each other in Pittsburgh, PA. (The Chartier Valley on Robinson's Run) -- Other Algeo lines came over in the decades to follow. Some of the Algeos that remained in Scotland changed their spelling to Algie, - we assume to evade persecution by being relatives of Robert and Claude. That clan eventually moved to New Zealand and elsewhere. An Algie male (from New Zealand) has documented proof of his line going back to Jacobo and because of him doing his Y-111 test, which is a perfect match to others that have done their test here in the U.S., such has verified that we DO descend from the same Algeo origins... We assume Jacobo. Also, I have now seen many autosomal DNA matches where the people that match Algeos have the Alger clan in their ancestry trees. That American Alger clan came here from Northern England, in the early 1600s (four Alger brothers to the Massachusetts area as I have been told). That English clan was very near Paisley, Scotland, so it's very likely that the Alger clan broke off the Algeo clan of Scotland. We have yet to have an Alger do their Y-DNA test, so if you know an Alger male, we'd love for you to convince him to do it. The Irish documentation was almost entirely destroyed by the English in the late 1800s, so DNA is the next logical step to proving those connections through Ireland and back to Scotland, Italy, and wherever else. Also, the DNA project should also help us reconnect Wm and Rebecca descendants that have yet to be connected to their (our) known descendants. -- But this is a world wide Algeo project, so all Algeo matches are welcome, and newbies are encouraged to take their Y-dna tests of at least 32 markers, but we'd rather see you take the full 111 markers test. -- With the full 111 markers test, we've now verified two lines of Algeo that do not meet up in the USA. This other line didn't come to America until 1845, therefore we assume our lines meet up in Ireland in the 1700s. Also note, stolen identities are a huge problem these days. The internet only helps that problem grow. Some of these uploaded family trees I've seen have living persons information in them - even my own immediate family members information that others have entered in their tree software have been made public by those that failed to make them private in their settings, they then simply uploaded everything... And there's often no way to contact those people that posted that info... So PLEASE make sure living persons in your trees are set to private. You may not care about your information being public, but other family members do. If you already have a tree posted, please remove it, and only upload new trees once you've figured out how to make living person's information private or don't include them at all in the tree you upload. Generally speaking if there is no birth date entered for a person in your family tree software and you haven't marked that individual's information to be private, then you export that tree, - even though you may choose "make living person's private" or 'exclude' such people from the export, if there are no birth or death dates for that individual then the software may include them as it may see them as more than 100 years old by default.