Below is a bit more information about about what Greg had done.  He wrote the following a year or so ago, so prices may have changed.

“The type of DNA testing that I did is called Y Chromosome testing.  It might lso be called a Surname study.  The Y chromosome is passed from male to male, mostly unchanged.  The only changes would be any mutations that happen to take place.  Therefore, if you get males with the same surname to get tested, this can determine if they might share a common ancestor with the same surname.  In the case of the Jonas surname, there were 2 groups with the surname of Jonas that settled in Manitowoc County, maybe 10 miles apart.
So far, we have no solid proof that these groups were related.  But now that I have been tested, if we can get someone from that other group to get tested, we can determine if it is even worth pursuing.

The part of the test above will determine ancestry within the last 100 to 200 years.  There is also more distant testing being done via the National Geographic where they are mapping groups at a very high level to determine migration paths over the last 15,000 to 25,000 years.  That’s the part of the last email that talked about Haplotypes.  There is not much genealogical value in this, but more of a gee-whiz type of information.

There are several companies doing this testing currently.  I went with one called Family Tree DNA (www.familytreedna.com).  I can get you some other company names if you’re interested in comparing.  If you do this, you will either join an existing surname study or start your own.  In my case, there was already a Jonas study going on, so I joined that group.  This group’s ancestors happened to settle in Sheboygan County, which is immediately south of Manitowoc County.  Turns out we were not related, but this was a quick way to find out.  There are also locality groups you can join (i.e. Germany).

Pricing varies by the level of testing you pick.  The basic level is the 12 chromosome test, which I think is about $99.  I believe this company also has a  25 chromosome test.  I opted for the 37 chromosome test, which I think was around $160.  I think in an effort to confuse people, the different companies don’t necessarily offer the same tests.  I think they all offer the 12 test, but I know of another that offers something like a 43
chromosome test instead of the 37.  The the Jonas group, the initial 3 people in the project all did the 12.  I just did the 37 so I had a greater chance of matching against the rest of the database or possibly with future people.

For Ellen, they are also doing some mitochondrial DNA testing.  I don’t fully understand it, but I think this is more complicated.  Whereas the Y chrom is passed just from male to male, both the father and mother have the X chromosome.  If I understand it correctly, the X chromosome in the daughter can be made up of a combination of X chromosomes from the parents.

And those strands could be made up of a mixture of parts from the parents x chromosomes.  But I think there is something unique about the X chromosome that is passed from mother to daughter.  The other issue is that the surname most likely changes with each generation, so I think creating “study groups” is probably a problem.

My next step is to send a note out to some of my other Jonas ancestors to see if they’d be interested.  They do recommend that you do get multiples if possible, just to verify results and to maybe point out some mutations.”

If you have the jonas name and would like to help with our study, please let us know.