My journey began in 2006 when I participated in National Geographic's "Genographic Project", by simply scraping the inside of my mouth with a swap, and returning it to them. At first I only had the 12 marker test done. (I've now done the more definitive 37 marker test) Their website, then prompted me to cross reference my DNA results with other Pierces, one of which was the Pierce Northern DNA website. (How easy is that!)
| As soon as I did, a whole new world of interesting stories, and relatives, past and present was opened up to me. I knew very little about my Father's family history...all I knew was my Grandfather Pierces name, and not much more. As soon as I had a DNA match, with the last name Pierce, I was on my way.
Through the Northern Pierce DNA website, I found an exact match who had descended from a Pierce, that my Grandfather had descended from. It connected me to a relative whose ancestors had kept meticulous records of names, locations, births, deaths, and marriages. My sister had remembered that one of the family names associated with my Grandfather was Rice....when that name showed up in the records, we knew we were on the right track.
I could make this a really long story, but let's just say that I went from knowing about one ancestor who lived in the late 19th century, to an intricately detailed story that dates back to Somerset, England in 1607!
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J. Mark Pierce's grandfather |
