Welcome to the Bowers DNA Project

This is a Y-DNA Project for the Bowers, Bower, Bauer surnames.  Other spelling variants are also welcome.  Y-DNA testing is particularly useful for genealogy purposes, because Y-DNA is passed from father to son down the direct paternal line with very few changes, particularly during the last 800 years or so that surnames have been in common use.   Thus, the odds are overwhelming that living males, who share the same surname or a spelling variant and whose Y-DNA signatures (“haplotypes”) match, share a common ancestor.

The identity of the common ancestor still must be proven by traditional genealogical research, although the test results will provide probabilities as to how many generations removed he might be, based upon how close the match is.  Matches thus give focus to your research and can strengthen otherwise weak paper trails.  You may even find you match a line that has already been extensively researched.

Non-matches can also be helpful in that they may disprove a hypothesized relationship, thus saving you the time and expense of researching that lineage.   Occasionally, non-matches where there otherwise seems to be a solid paper trail may indicate an unknown adoption in the family, or some other so-called non-paternity event.

Participants in the project will also learn about their deep or prehistoric ancestry (“haplogroup”).  Although such predates the adoption of surnames by thousands of years and thus is of little use from the standpoint of traditional genealogy, your haplogroup will give you a different perspective of your roots.

Please visit our "Patriarchs" Page and see if your earliest known ancestor is listed.  If not, you may provide your pedigree information at the provided link or, if you prefer, e-mail it to the Administrator.  Even non-participants in the project are encouraged to provide their pedigrees.

The test results are displayed on the "Y-DNA Results" page, where matches have been grouped into lineages.  Additional discussion of the results can be found on the "Discussion of Results" and "Lineage" pages.

Those interested in joining our project should review the "Join the Project" page, which has more detailed information about the tests.