Dear Fellow Kremenetsers,
Sheree and I are pleased to announce our exciting new DNA Project.
Kremenets Shtetl CO-OP member Richard Spector (multicats@yahoo.com has agreed to be
Project Leader for this very important work. Richard is researching family from
Vishnevets and Shumsk, and he is much more knowledgeable about DNA testing than
I am. He will try to answer your questions about participation in this project.
So please don't hesitate to contact him. And, of course, if you have any other
questions, be sure to contact me or Sheree Roth (ssroth@pacbell.net).
Best wishes,
Ron Doctor
Co-Coordinator, Kremenets Shtetl CO-OP/Jewish Records Indexing-Poland
an activity of the Kremenets District Research Group
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ANNOUNCING THE KREMENETS-DISTRICT DNA PROJECT
The Kremenets Shtetl CO-OP in co-operation with Family Tree DNA has begun a
new DNA testing project. This project will provide the opportunity for everyone
with ancestors who came from Kremenets or one of the 476 surrounding towns to
take advantage of the latest DNA genealogical technology to advance their
genealogical inquiries. DNA testing may help you break through that brick wall
that has stalled your family history research.
If enough of us participate in this Project, we hope to be able to identify
how all of us group into various family trees. Each tree will connect together
many people who currently are unaware of their other relatives whose ancestors
also came from the greater Kremenets area. Every individual participating in
this DNA project has the hope of finding new relatives or confirming suspected,
but unproven, relationships to other people. This, in turn, can lead to finding
heretofore unknown ancestors from the Kremenets area.
It is easy to participate in this project by submitting a sample of your
DNA to Family Tree DNA, the leading genealogical DNA testing company with whom
we have teamed up. (You provide the sample simply by swabbing the inside of
your cheek—no blood needed!) Once you place your order, Family Tree
DNA will send you a kit for taking the sample and a mailer for returning it.
They will process the sample, send you the results, and provide the results to
us so that we may post it on our page on their website. The results come in the
form of exact or close DNA matches to others participating in the project.
Depending on the nature of the test you took and how close your match is, the
results can tell you with a certain probability how many generations ago you
and your matching person had a common ancestor. On our page you will be able to
see your DNA matches and watch the progress of our project as it unfolds. We will
provide explanations and comments for our participants as the project
progresses.
Several different levels of DNA testing are available (discussed below).
The different tests cost between $100 and $270. Family Tree DNA has given us a
group discount on certain of the tests and they will give the Kremenets Shtetl
CO-OP a “commission” of 5% to 10% on test ordered through our group. The money
we receive will be used in our on-going projects to acquire and translate
documents. Most of you already are familiar with this work.
It is important that you order your DNA kit from the
Kremenets page on FamilyTreeDNA’s website (see the link
below). That way we will be sure to include your results in our Project for
analysis. And our CO-OP will earn the funds to further our document acquisition
and translation work.
Participation is open to anyone with an ancestor known or thought to be
from the Kremenets area. It is especially important for you to participate if
your ancestors came from the surrounding towns (currently about 150 towns are
named in the Kremenets vital records). Our ancestors moved around quite a bit,
so to discover relationships that encompass more than one town, we must include
as many as possible of the towns around Kremenets.
However, there is one very important criterion about which you must be
aware before you participate:
*PLEASE NOTE:* DNA testing allows you to trace your father’s /paternal/
line (Y-DNA testing) and your mother’s /maternal/ line (mtDNA testing). It does
/not /allow you to trace back to your father’s mother, or to your mother’s
father and /their /lines (or to other mixed male/female ancestral lines) …
unless you get a correctly situated cousin, aunt or uncle involved in the DNA
testing project. If you think this is something you want to do but aren’t
certain how to proceed, please contact us for help.
If you are a male, you should take what is called the Y-DNA test if you
want to track your male ancestral line and what is called the mtDNA test if you
want to track your female ancestral line. If you are a male, you can take both
tests if both your male and female ancestral lines originate in the Kremenets
area. Females can take only the mtDNA test. If you need help figuring out who
should be tested, and what test they should take, please contact us.
There are four levels of Y-DNA testing: 12, 25, 37, and 59 markers. We
strongly recommend you take at least the 25 marker Y-DNA test for the male
line, or preferably, the 37 marker test. For the female line, you have three
choices: “mtDNA”, “mtDNAPlus”, or “mtDNA Full Sequence”. For now, we recommend
the mtDNAPlus test. The more detailed tests cost a bit more but they are well
worth the extra money. The more detailed the test the more the results will
exclude random matches with unrelated people. And, the more detailed tests will
provide matches that have a higher chance of identifying a possible relative
whom you can subsequently confirm in a paper trail.
You can link directly to our page on the Family Tree DNA website:
<http://www.familytreedna.com/surname_join.asp?code=E43423&special=True&projecttype=DG>.
At this website you will find further information about our project as well
as an on-line order form. For further information about DNA genealogy with
explanations of many of the aspects of this emerging new way to do genealogy,
you can browse
<http://www.familytreedna.com/>
You also can reach our page by clicking
on this link, which takes you to Family Tree DNA’s home page, and entering
“Kremenets” in the search box in the upper right corner. Then click on the
search result that comes up.
Of course, if you want more information about our project or about DNA testing, feel free to contact our DNA Project Director, Richard Spector, at multicats@yahoo.com.