Although I've been interested in the contributions DNA testing has made to history and genealogy ever since DNA testing proved that Sally Hemmings' descendents were related to Thomas Jefferson, I didn't think it was something I'd ever do myself until last fall when I was contacted through Ancestry.com by someone else researching the Monheit family. That is because my family's relationship to the Monheits bears some similarity to the relationship between the Hemmings and the J

Let me start by saying I'm not an expert on DNA testing for genealogy. In fact, I've only recently started to get into this new world. This blog post represents my first attempt to really formalize my thoughts and communicate what I've learned from my test results. I used Ancestry.com's autosomal DNA test. Autosomal chromosomes are those we inherit from both parents as opposed to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) which is passed down from mothers only and Y chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) wh