About us
The Eads Family DNA project seeks to include data from the various Eads DNA projects and incorporate their data. Family Tree DNA’s (FTDNA)laboratory is recommended. It is affiliated with Dr. Michael Hammer and the University of Arizona and tests the Y-chromosome for genetic matches between males. Results are placed in FTDNA's Y-DNA database and when 2 people show matching results, the lab will inform both parties (provided both signed the FTDNA Release Form). Please visit the FTDNA website for more information and an explanation of Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA).
Other projects use other labs, but the results cannot be loaded into the FTDNA database. However, if you send us the results we will match them with the members data in this project and we will add the results to our display.
BigY700 tests are recommended.
By ordering the kit through our project you agreeing to have your results incorporated with other tests and displayed on this site.
Click here, to order a DNA Sample Kit,or email one of the administrators for assistance. Please note,that when you order your sample kit online you may string other email addresses in the email contact information. Separate them by a semicolon. For example: InterestedParty1@xxx.com;InterestedParty2@xxx.com.
You may include anyone you wish, such as anyone who took part in paying for your test.
When you receive the test, you will find a release form. Please complete it and return it with your sample. This will make your results (numbers only, no personal information) accessible in online searches of the FTDNA database and will enable FTDNA to notify you of future matches. Lastly,if you would email your family tree to us, minus living people, we would really appreciate it, so we can add it to this site. If you have your data on a website you may send the address for that.
For more information, contact the project co-administrators above.
John Blair has an excellent explanation of the DNA process on his Blair Surname Project. Basically there are DNA Markers which are passed from father to son and remain the same generation to generation with an occasional mutation. This is why only males can do this test. All Y-DNA tests allow you to identify your ethnic and geographic origins (Haplogroup), both recent and far distant on your direct male descending line. Among others, you will be able to check your Native-American or African Ancestry as well as for the Cohanim Ancestry. A description of Haplogroups follows this section.
A wonderful set of videos describing DNA testing and how it can help you in your genealogy research is provided on the Family Tree DNA website at http://www.familytreedna.com/videoaudio.html.
Dr. Tyrone Bowes, PHD best explains why so many tests don't match the surname expected or match many tests of differing surnames in his article "Using Y Chromosome DNA Testing to Pinpoint a Genetic Homeland in Ireland":
A son typically inherits two things from his father, his surname and his Y chromosome. The surname has changed considerably since his ancestor first adopted it, in Ireland it has been anglicized from its original Gaelic to English, often losing its Mac, or O’ in the process. Even its spelling in English has evolved over the centuries from, for example, O’Bouey, to Boe, and Bowe to its current form Bowes. The surname has often changed so much so that its original meaning in Gaelic can only be guessed at. However, in the estimated thousand years since an ancestor took his surname, the Y chromosome inherited from him remains virtually identical. This is assuming of course that he has inherited his Y chromosome, given that on average only 50% of individuals sharing a unique surname will have inherited the original Y chromosome of the founding ancestor. Where the Surname does not match the Y chromosome it is the result of what scientists refer to as a ‘non-paternal event,’ which encompasses such events as adoption, infidelity, and illegitimacy, often resulting in the maternal transmission of a surname.7 Only analysis of the Y chromosome will reveal whether maternal transmission has occurred.
Genetic genealogy for descendants of Irish ancestors is made easy for several reasons. Ireland was the first Country in Europe to adopt inherited paternal surnames. 478 These surnames were a genealogical record in themselves, denoted by Mac’ or O’ meaning son of, or grandson of respectively.
FTDNA Y-DNA tests allow you to identify your ethnic and geographic origins (Haplogroups), both recent and far distant. Among other features,this test will also be able to indicate your Native-American Ancestry and which of the 5 major groups that settled in the Americans you are most likely to be descended from. It can also describe African Ancestry as well as other ethnic origins.
Y-DNA Haplogroup Descriptions:
The following Haplogroup Descriptions are from the FamilyTreeDNA.com website which was the testing company used to determine the nearest Haplogroup assignment based on the individual's haplotype results from the Y-DNA test. These verbatim Haplogroup Descriptions and/or excerpts are copyrighted by FamilyTreeDNA.com and all rights to these descriptions are claimed by FamilyTreeDNA.com. These descriptions have been printed here with the permission of FamilyTreeDNA.com.These descriptions cannot be used elsewhere without the written permission of FamilyTreeDNA.com.
Please note that people in different Haplogroups cannot be related within many thousands of years, and that each male test result provides a prediction of the Haplogroup currently about 90% of the time. If your Y-DNA matches suggest that you belong, for example, to HaplogroupR1b, you may confirm that by ordering a Y-DNA SNP test for the R1bclade.
In general the following rule of thumb may be used: R1b = Western Europe, R1a = Eastern Europe, I = Nordic, J2 = Semitic, E3b =Semitic, Q3 = Native American.
HaplogroupB is one of the oldest Y-chromosome lineages in humans.
HaplogroupB is found exclusively in Africa. This lineage was the first to disperse around Africa. There is current archaeological evidence supporting a major population expansion in Africa approximately 90-130 thousand years ago. It has been proposed that this event may have spread Haplogroup B throughout Africa. Haplogroup B appears at low frequency all around Africa, but is at its highest frequency in Pygmy populations.
HaplogroupC is found throughout mainland Asia, the south Pacific, and at low frequency in Native American populations. Haplogroup C originated in southern Asia and spread in all directions. This lineage colonized New Guinea, Australia, and north Asia, and currently is found with its highest diversity in populations of India.
HaplogroupC3 is believed to have originated in southeast or central Asia. This lineage then spread into northern Asia, and then into the Americas.
HaplogroupD2 most likely derived from the D lineage in Japan. It is completely restricted to Japan, and is a very diverse lineage within the aboriginal Japanese and in the Japanese population around Okinawa.
HaplogroupE3a is an Africa lineage. It is currently hypothesized that this haplogroup dispersed south from northern Africa within the last 3,000years, by the Bantu agricultural expansion. E3a is also the most common lineage among African Americans.
HaplogroupE3b is believed to have evolved in the Middle East. It expanded into the Mediterranean during the Pleistocene Neolithic expansion. It is currently distributed around the Mediterranean, southern Europe, and in north and east Africa.
HaplogroupG may have originated in India or Pakistan, and has dispersed into central Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The G2 branch of this lineage (containing the P15 mutation) is found most often in Europe and the Middle East.
HaplogroupH is nearly completely restricted to India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan.
Haplogroups I, I1, and I1a are nearly completely restricted to northwestern Europe. These would most likely have been common within Viking populations. One lineage of this group extends down into central Europe.
HaplogroupI1b was derived within Viking/Scandinavian populations in northwest Europe and has since spread down into southern Europe where it is present at low frequencies.
HaplogroupJ is found at highest frequencies in Middle Eastern and north African populations where it most likely evolved. This marker has been carried by Middle Eastern traders into Europe, central Asia, India,and Pakistan.
HaplogroupJ2 originated in the northern portion of the Fertile Crescent where it later spread throughout central Asia, the Mediterranean, and south into India. As with other populations with Mediterranean ancestry this lineage is found within Jewish populations. The Cohen modal lineage is found in Haplogroup J2.
HaplogroupQ is the lineage that links Asia and the Americas. This lineage is found in North and Central Asian populations as well as native Americans. This lineage is believed to have originated in Central Asia and migrated through the Altai/Baikal region of northern Eurasia into the Americas.
HaplogroupQ3 is the only lineage strictly associated with native American populations. This haplogroup is defined by the presence of the M3mutation (also known as SY103). This mutation occurred on the Q lineage 8-12 thousand years ago as the migration into the Americas was underway. There is some debate as to on which side of the Bering Strait this mutation occurred, but it definitely happened in the ancestors of the Native American peoples.
HaplogroupR1a is believed to have originated in the Eurasian Steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas. This lineage is believed to have originated in a population of the Kurgan culture, known for the domestication of the horse (approximately 3000 B.C.E.). These people were also believed to be the first speakers of the Indo-European language group. This lineage is currently found in central and western Asia, India, and in Slavic populations of Eastern Europe.
HaplogroupR1b is the most common Haplogroup in European populations. It is believed to have expanded throughout Europe as humans re-colonized after the last glacial maximum 10-12 thousand years ago. This lineage is also the haplogroup containing the Atlantic modal haplotype (HG1).