Who Are We?

We are the issue of our mother and father. Whom in turn are the issue of their mothers and fathers, etc. Through family knowledge, documentation such as census, birth, death, marriage, church, census and military records we piece together a family tree. If we are fortunate this gets us back 10 generations or so. Along the way we assemble a profile for each and answer many questions. Was life hard? Where did they come from? What migration paths did they take to get us where we are now? How can we confirm our relations with others of the same lineage?

Genetically speaking, we are the sum of our ancestry. For those seeking confirmation of ancestry we employ various methods of DNA testing. Mitochondrial for maternal lineage, Y chromosome for paternal and autosomal for cousin matches to determine common ancestors. With more than two decades of study behind us, many answers have been rendered. We still have many more to determine.

Though documentation may no longer be extant, affinity clusters guide us in the right direction. This has been the practice since the earliest study into Forrest / Forrester. Grouping by short tandem repeats [STR] formed the various groups we now enjoy in the Forrest / Forrester surname project. Next generation testing such as Big Y, Big Y 500 and now Big Y 700 has given many of our affinity groups unique genetic identities. Many lineages of the original House of Forrester have been linked to a common ancestor through the efforts of participants.

A geographical picture concerning our origins also emerges as we link affinity to others in the past. More ancient DNA samples are added each year to solidify these origins. Though the science we employ is not perfect, it is very good. Age analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms [SNP] gives us a decent estimate of affinity to other surnames. As I've often said, "it's not a matter of if we are all related, it's a matter of when."

Since we are genetically the sum of our combined ancestry, to know who we are is forever coupled to who we were. Our knowledge has increased over the last decade and I'm certain this will continue. We have built upon the efforts of those who preceded us. Their knowledge, their sacrifice, their effort. We are simply the stewards of heritage passed down to us. Hopefully we can contribute to the generations to come.