Zieglers in PA versus Zieglers in WI Thursday, September 3, 2009

I read somewhere that men with German ancestry fall into one of the three majors Germanic groups/tribes labeled I1, R1, and R2 in the genealogical genetics world. (TBR) Which group do my ancestors fall into? One way to find out is to take a DNA test; which we did and have the results for now. I learned something interesting today while looking at our Ziegler surname page.....

My ancestors fall in the Haplogroup "I1" and they came to Wisconsin. We know there are also many Zieglers in Pennsylvania. From the limited number of samples to date, most of them fall in the Haplogroup "R1". From this, we can infer that there is no relationship between my ancestors and those who settled in Pennsylvania.

As more samples become available (aka more people take genealogical DNA tests)... this inference will have to be re-evaluated.

Get the scoop - read on!

Start of the DNA Journey Wednesday, July 15, 2009

One area of genealogy that is gaining popularity is that of incorporating DNA information with your family tree. There is a lot of mis-information out there; tons of testing companies, etc.

Where to start? We went with National Geographic's Genographic Project. Not only do you get a gentle introduction to DNA testing and what you can learn from your results, you are adding your results to an international research project.

With the receipt of the first results, we did learn something surprising!

Get the scoop - read on!