About us
The primary goal of this project is to help its members achieve their goals. Whether you want to find close relatives, distant cousins, trace your surname, or find your line's ancient migrations we would like to assist in any way we can. You can find close relatives and reasonably distant cousins without the use of DNA testing. And, you can even get reasonably far back with tracing your surname without it too. But, DNA testing can greatly help in all of these goals and it is indispensable in finding your ancient migrations. DNA testing can prove or disprove the relationship with or without paper trails.
A large personal goal of mine is to find all the separate Harp yDNA lines in the world, to define them and document them. This would be almost impossible with many lines, but we are fortunate enough to not be an overly abundant surname group, yet we are numerous enough to still have a significant number of people to test. Current estimates place the number of people named Harp in the United States at between 15,000 - 16,000. In England the most recent estimate is placed at 231. Only 20 are still located in Scotland and even fewer still are left in Ireland if any are at all. There about 130 in Germany and 203 in Canada. Mexico has 393 and Turkey 279! Australia is at 188 and New Zealand is 40 strong. The Netherlands claims 35 still. A French explorer named Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe explored the state of Oklahoma in 1718, Texas in 1721, and Arkansas in 1722. This places the world total at somewhere around 18,000. If half of those people are males we are down to 9,000 people available to be tested. If you estimate about 500 males per line living today that's only about 18 lines. Obviously, we won't be able to talk all those Harps into testing. I know how stubborn Harp guys can be, because I am one. But, if I'm off a bit we can guess about 30 lines of Harps still exist. This gives us about 300 males per line. If over a long period of time we eventually get 3 males per line tested with a Next Generation yDNA test then we are only getting 90 people tested. Surely, we can find 90 people out of 18,000 to test.
There will always be doubt as to whether or not we found every single line, but I believe we can come very close to that just testing within the US and England just to start. Okay, we'll test in Scotland too, and if any show up then Ireland also. We already have 5 lines defined down to workable numbers where we have individual SNPs to test so the cost of eliminating others of the same line is relatively inexpensive. R-S588 and R-FGC51008 (a very recently discovered branch of R-DF98) can be individually tested or in a pair to prove or disprove relation to those lines at a cost of only around $40. These SNPs date back roughly around 3000 years for the most recent common ancestor time frame and as such will include other surnames in those branches, but they will allow us to design other tests if needed to bring the lines forward. We already have most of the SNPs needed for that within the R-FGC51008 line from 2 Big Y tests.
So, you see that it is an achievable goal. It won't be fast, but we as a whole can achieve it if we as a team explain it to other Harps in our areas. The synergy from putting all these lines together will make it possible for any and virtually every Harp to know their current day cousins and where they came from. I can't help it, but find that to be a little bit exciting.
Tell me your goals and we will list them right here.
Jeff Harp
I would like to encourage all of you to join your Y DNA Haplogroup projects as your testing reveals your haplogroup. The amount of help they can give you and the information they will have available to you can be very surprising.
The R-S588 members would do very well to join the R1b-M222 Project at https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/r-1b-1c-7/about
Any one who tests to be positive for R-U106 or has a Y67 test result at the 66th STR marker where 492=13, OR have the result at the 2nd STR marker where 390=23 AND the result at the 18th marker where 447=24 should join the R -U106 Project at https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/u106/about
A large personal goal of mine is to find all the separate Harp yDNA lines in the world, to define them and document them. This would be almost impossible with many lines, but we are fortunate enough to not be an overly abundant surname group, yet we are numerous enough to still have a significant number of people to test. Current estimates place the number of people named Harp in the United States at between 15,000 - 16,000. In England the most recent estimate is placed at 231. Only 20 are still located in Scotland and even fewer still are left in Ireland if any are at all. There about 130 in Germany and 203 in Canada. Mexico has 393 and Turkey 279! Australia is at 188 and New Zealand is 40 strong. The Netherlands claims 35 still. A French explorer named Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe explored the state of Oklahoma in 1718, Texas in 1721, and Arkansas in 1722. This places the world total at somewhere around 18,000. If half of those people are males we are down to 9,000 people available to be tested. If you estimate about 500 males per line living today that's only about 18 lines. Obviously, we won't be able to talk all those Harps into testing. I know how stubborn Harp guys can be, because I am one. But, if I'm off a bit we can guess about 30 lines of Harps still exist. This gives us about 300 males per line. If over a long period of time we eventually get 3 males per line tested with a Next Generation yDNA test then we are only getting 90 people tested. Surely, we can find 90 people out of 18,000 to test.
There will always be doubt as to whether or not we found every single line, but I believe we can come very close to that just testing within the US and England just to start. Okay, we'll test in Scotland too, and if any show up then Ireland also. We already have 5 lines defined down to workable numbers where we have individual SNPs to test so the cost of eliminating others of the same line is relatively inexpensive. R-S588 and R-FGC51008 (a very recently discovered branch of R-DF98) can be individually tested or in a pair to prove or disprove relation to those lines at a cost of only around $40. These SNPs date back roughly around 3000 years for the most recent common ancestor time frame and as such will include other surnames in those branches, but they will allow us to design other tests if needed to bring the lines forward. We already have most of the SNPs needed for that within the R-FGC51008 line from 2 Big Y tests.
So, you see that it is an achievable goal. It won't be fast, but we as a whole can achieve it if we as a team explain it to other Harps in our areas. The synergy from putting all these lines together will make it possible for any and virtually every Harp to know their current day cousins and where they came from. I can't help it, but find that to be a little bit exciting.
Tell me your goals and we will list them right here.
Jeff Harp
I would like to encourage all of you to join your Y DNA Haplogroup projects as your testing reveals your haplogroup. The amount of help they can give you and the information they will have available to you can be very surprising.
The R-S588 members would do very well to join the R1b-M222 Project at https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/r-1b-1c-7/about
Any one who tests to be positive for R-U106 or has a Y67 test result at the 66th STR marker where 492=13, OR have the result at the 2nd STR marker where 390=23 AND the result at the 18th marker where 447=24 should join the R -U106 Project at https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/u106/about