About the Mennonite DNA Project

Introduction

The information provided on this page is dedicated to a group of Mennonites known as the Low-German Mennonites. This is part of a larger Mennonite DNA Project with includes all Anabaptist groups of Dutch, German or Swiss descent. These include Amish, Hutterites, Old Order Mennonites and others. Anyone who belongs to the other groups and is interested in the DNA project should visit the Family Tree DNA Mennonite/Amish Project page.

For more about the Mennonite DNA project, see http://mennonitedna.com/

Purposes of the Mennonite DNA project

  1. To verify that the genealogical connections as recorded in the Grandma database are correct.
  2. To use DNA results to aid in making genealogical connections within families.
  3. To establish how many progenitors (common ancestors) there were for the present day Mennonite population.
  4. To determine the number of progenitors there were for each present day Mennonite family name.
  5. To understand the "deep ancestry" of the Low-German Mennonites.

How you can participate

In order to participate, you will first need to have your DNA tested by a commercial testing lab. We currently accept autosomal tests from the following labs:

  1. Family Tree DNA (Family Finder)
  2. 23andMe (Ancestry Service)
  3. Ancestry DNA
  4. Living DNA
  5. MyHeritage DNA

For a detailed comparison of these services, please see Tim Janzen's Autosomal DNA testing comparison chart on ISOGG Wiki.

Testing currently costs between $69 and $99 for one kit. The testing process may take several weeks. Once you have received your test results, please contact Tim Janzen.

How it works

The Autosomal Matching page has details about the matching process.

For a preview of what you'll see on the MennoniteDNA.org site once you've contributed your data, check out these screen shots.

Privacy and security

For details, see the Privacy and Security page.