Hello,
My name is Raymond Coon and I have been working on my brick wall, George Washington Coon,
(1786, PA) for a number of years. George has been recorded as Koontz in the 1820 census,
Cone in the marriage record, and Koons on the licence. Recently, I have come across some
new technology that may be able to help sort out the various Coon, Kuhn, Koon, Koontz,
etc., families. Please see the explanation on the Coon DNA Research Page located at:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~coondnapage/
What the testing does is get values for certain genetic markers in the Y DNA of a male
descendant of the earliest known ancestor. The link has to be father to son from the
earliest known to the most recent generations since the Y-DNA is passed down only from
father to son. The Y-DNA may change by one marker only very, very rarely. It is possible
to find a relationship between two seperate families with reasonable certainty. Another
worthwhile aspect is that the testing can also prove that two families are not related.
This can help prevent wasted resources on lines that are not connected. The specific
markers are considered "junk" DNA and don't reveal anything about the person
who takes part. All results are confidential.
This is fairly new stuff for genealogy and it doesn't offer solutions to all questions
but I think it can be a valuable tool when used along with conventional genealogy
research. Examples of some successes can be seen at
http://www.familytreedna.com/
You'll have to go to the Surname Projects page, click on a surname and then go to the
Surname Project webpage and read about what that particular group has been doing.
I am not an affiliate of this research program and I don't make any money from it. I
don't even want to be the Project Administrator.
One other thing I am trying to do is interest some people in Germany with similar names in
doing the testing. A positive match could help answer a lot of questions about names and
origins.
The testing is expensive - $170 per test for the 25 marker test - even with the group
discount that we can get. But if one line can go together and sponsor one member and
divide the cost it wouldn't be so bad.
Thanks,
Raymond Coon
Project Administrator
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~coondnapage/