Each project member brings a rich family history and the opportunity to connect with new cousins. We hope the project will facilitate new discoveries of kinship and shared heritage, that it will help members understand their family lines and hopefully make it possible for some members to move past ‘brick walls’ that have stood in their way, perhaps for generations.

We hope that many Klehn / Kleen descendants located throughout the US and the rest of the world will be willing to join the project and share information

While Y-DNA research iss a principal objective of this project, autosomal DNA testing, such as FTDNA’s Family Finder, has become more popular. It is appropriate that our project includes and welcomes members who have taken other DNA tests.  Anyone with a Klehn / Kleen heritage and an interest in family history can join! Autosomal DNA / auDNA Family Finder test subjects should have an identified Klehn / Kleen surnamed direct ancestor on their ancestor chart within the past five generations, or have strong matches to other Family Finder test subjects who have Klehn / Kleen surnamed ancestors.

If you or a family member have previously tested your autosomal DNA at 23andMe© or AncestryDNA™, you may transfer your results to Family Tree DNA by uploading your raw data file. For more information, check this link.

There are several goals for this project:

1. To provide a forum for Klehn / Kleen descendants and researchers to establish a DNA "signature", or haplotype, for their known line of descent, then attempt, by comparison with other participants, to discover or confirm a connection with others.

2. To find the MRCA (MostRecent Common Ancestor) of the various lines surnamed Klehn, Kleen, Klehen, etc., using Y-DNA testing in conjunction with standard paper-trail genealogy.

3. To determine the origins of the various Klehn / Kleen lines and whether the surname is original or due to a name change in the past