Mayflower DNA Project

The Mayflower DNA Project is a genetic-genealogy research project that uses DNA testing of living descendants to document the paternal and maternal lines of the passengers of the Mayflower’s 1620 voyage. Its website, mayflowerdna.org, is a wiki launched on 11 November 2015 — the 395th anniversary of the signing of the Mayflower Compact — and it publishes Y-DNA and mtDNA profiles for the surviving lineages of the passengers, their spouses, and the spouses of their children and grandchildren. This page summarizes the project for Society members; our person pages that cite “MayflowerDNA” in their Sources point here, and the project’s own site is linked at the bottom of this page.

What the Project Does

The project uses advanced Y-DNA and mtDNA tests to build, for each surviving lineage, the most comprehensive Y-DNA and mtDNA profile possible with current commercial testing technology. Its first goal for a line is results from two different sons of the immigrant (for Y-DNA) or two different daughters of the immigrant (for mtDNA). Once that is in hand, the next goal is multiple next-generation / whole-genome Y-DNA results to define branches within the family. Those branches are the key for descendants who cannot document their “paper trail” back to the immigrant but whose Y-DNA results indicate they must descend from a Mayflower passenger. Where earlier genetic-genealogy research exists for a lineage — Y-STR test results, for example — the project uses it as supporting evidence and to guide recruitment.

Project Goals

• Help resolve unanswered questions about the ancestry and genealogy of the passengers of the Mayflower.
• Create a resource repository to help modern individuals better understand their connections to Mayflower passengers and crew through genetic genealogy tests.
• Place the Mayflower passengers into the broader human Y-chromosome tree by determining high-resolution haplogroups for individual paternal lineages — work that can also give a demographic-level picture of the ancestral origins of the groups that made up the 1620 voyage.
• Identify unique, stable genetic markers for individual paternal lineages — in many cases, one or two markers that confirm patrilineal descent from a single Mayflower passenger, as well as markers unique to branches of a family since its arrival.
• Use the results to aid genealogical research on the passengers and crew, including tracing ancestry further back in England, Holland, and elsewhere.
• Be a catalyst for the General Society of Mayflower Descendants to accept Y-DNA SNP evidence as proof of lineage for individuals who cannot document their line back to a Mayflower ancestor but whose results prove they must be a patrilineal descendant of a passenger.

Y-DNA and mtDNA — Not Autosomal

The project works only with Y-DNA and mtDNA. It does not use autosomal DNA — the kind of test sold by AncestryDNA and 23andMe — because autosomal DNA is inherited from both parents and the amount from any one ancestor shrinks with every generation: after about five or six generations, we inherit no autosomal DNA at all from some ancestors, and almost all living Mayflower descendants are at least ten generations removed. Y-DNA and mtDNA pass from parent to child essentially unchanged. Y-DNA is inherited only by males, from their fathers, so it traces the patrilineal (all-male) line; mtDNA is inherited from our mothers, so it traces the matrilineal (all-female) line. Only a small fraction of descendants inherited either one from a Mayflower passenger — but for those who did, the occasional mutations along the line act as a trail of breadcrumbs that can be followed back through the centuries. The project’s primer, by Raymond T. Wing, explains all of this in depth on its site.

On the testing side: a full mtDNA test reveals every base pair of the mitochondrial genome (about 16,569 base pairs), while Y-DNA discovery testing uses next-generation and whole-genome sequencing — tests such as Family Tree DNA’s Big Y-700 and Full Genomes Corporation’s Y-Elite — to find new markers; a marker already discovered can often be tested on its own for far less. The project’s wiki publishes results pages for the Y-DNA and mtDNA lineages of the Mayflower passengers and for allied families, the other Leiden sojourners, the passengers of the Fortune (1621) and of the Anne and Little James (1623), and other pre-1634 settlers.

Why the Society Cites It

MayflowerDNA appears in the Sources of a number of the Society’s person pages, where the project’s lineage summaries bear on a question those pages weigh — its Holmes summary, for example, is a source on Israel Holmes’s page, and its summary is cited on John Rouse III’s page for the conclusion that he never married. Where our pages rely on the project, the citation points to this page; the underlying results live on the project’s own wiki.

Project Administrators and Contributors

The project’s administrators are members of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG). They are:

• Greg Magoon — creator of the project’s wiki: he created the templates and general format used, administers the site, and handles tasks such as paying the bills associated with it. Greg has been active in bioinformatics related to next-generation Y-chromosome sequencing; he has worked as a consultant for Full Genomes Corporation and currently assists them as a volunteer. He is exploring his own potential links to several Mayflower ancestors, including Alden, Cooke, Hopkins, Howland, Mullins, Priest, Soule, Warren, and White.
• Stephen Parrish — also the administrator for the Early New England Colonists DNA Project at Family Tree DNA.
• Raymond Wing — administrator of the J mtDNA Haplogroup Project and co-administrator of the R-U106 Haplogroup Project at Family Tree DNA, and an admin or co-admin for several Mayflower-related surname projects there. Ray has crafted almost all of the pages on the project’s site and wrote its Y-DNA and mtDNA primer; he is the contact person for individuals with questions or comments. He has been able to document that at least seven of his eight great-grandparents descend from at least one Mayflower passenger (though none of them through the Y-DNA or mtDNA lines).

How You Can Help

• As a participant: if you are a Y-DNA (all-male-line) or mtDNA (all-female-line) descendant of a Mayflower passenger, of a passenger’s spouse, or of the spouse of a child or grandchild of a passenger, you may be able to help the research by providing a DNA sample (from saliva).
• By contributing funds: the cost of the DNA tests is a significant obstacle that keeps some individuals from testing. Family Tree DNA provides a way to donate to the GSMD/FTDNA Mayflower DNA Project or to the appropriate surname project to help offset testing costs.
• As a researcher: the project is very interested in working with genetic-genealogy researchers, surname project administrators, and Mayflower organizations, genealogists, and researchers to help guide its goals and research.

Visit the Project

The project’s wiki — its results, primer, and contact information — is at mayflowerdna.org. It is a separate effort from the Society’s own Doty–Doughty DNA Project, which studies the Doty surname lines.

About this page: compiled from the Mayflower DNA Project’s own wiki at mayflowerdna.org — its project summary, methodology, administrator, primer, and “How you can help” pages — accessed November 2026.