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Latter Day Saint Churches - Early Members

Early Members of Latter Day Saint and Restorationist Churches (1830-1870)
  • 7 members
Administrators
  • Brian Irwin
  • Paul Woodbury
General Fund
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About us

The main goal of this project is to establish the Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA signatures and haplogroups of as many early members of Latter Day Saint Movement churches as possible in order to: 

  1. Preserve this genetic information for the future (particularly as some of the descent lines from these families are dying out).
  2. Establish the signatures that were present in the early populations of Latter Day Saint movement churches 
  3. Facilitate deeper genealogical research efforts for the ancestors of early members of Latter Day Saint movement churches 
  4. Support historical research associated with genealogical relationships between early members of Latter Day Saint movement churches
In order to do this, the Latter Day Saint Churches – Early Members project invites individuals who descend in a direct patriline from early male members of these churches to perform Y-DNA testing, share information regarding their direct patriline lineage, and join our project. While any level of Y-DNA testing is welcome, we encourage testing at the Big-Y level wherever possible and certainly for as yet unrepresented (or underrepresented) lineages. We also invite all individuals who descend in a direct matriline from early female members of these churches to perform mitochondrial DNA testing, share information regarding their direct matriline, and join our project. As individuals join the project, Y-DNA signatures, mtDNA signatures and haplogroups will be established as follows: 

Proposed: when a single descendant of an early member of a Latter Day Saint movement church performs Y-DNA or mtDNA testing and joins the project. 
Inferred: when one or more descendants of a collateral relative of an early member of a Latter Day Saint movement church performs Y-DNA or mtDNA testing and joins the project.
Proven: When two independent descendants of an early member of a Latter Day Saint movement church perform Y-DNA testing to the Big-Y level or perform mitochondrial DNA testing and are grouped into a haplogroup together, are DNA matches to each other, and at least one of them joins the project. (There may be other situations in which genetic profiles can be proven, but the above is the most common scenario).