Swiss American Historical Society Review Volume 50 Number 1 Article 5 2-2014 Exploring Swiss-American Deep Ancestry: A Personal Venture into Genetic Genealogy J. Edward de Steiguer Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review Part of the European History Commons, and the European Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation de Steiguer, J. Edward (2014) "Exploring Swiss-American Deep Ancestry: A Personal Venture into Genetic Genealogy," Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 50 : No. 1 , Article 5. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol50/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Swiss American Historical Society Review by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact
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[email protected]. de Steiguer: Exploring Swiss-American Deep Ancestry: A Personal Venture into G Exploring Swiss-American Deep Ancestry: A Personal Venture into Genetic Genealogy by J. Edward de Steiguer1 Introduction This article presents my personal experience with genetic geneal ogy, that is, the use of DNA analysis-in this case Y-DNA analysis-to trace the deep ancestry of my Swiss-American male line. DNA analy sis is used today for countless applications, from the exoneration of inmates on death row to determination of paternity, as well as genetic genealogy (Fitzpatrick and Yeiser 2005). Such DNA "fingerprinting" is relatively new having begun in 1984 with the pioneering work of Sir Alec Jefferys and his group at Leicester University. One of the first important genetic genealogical applications of DNA analysis was that by Dr.