The Sir_William_Johnson yDNA Project has been established at Family Tree DNA. The purpose of this project is to identify descendants in the male line from Sir William and to prove or disprove the many family legends of descent from Sir William. Sir William Johnson claimed that during the thirty-six years, he lived in North America, he fathered between 600 and 700 children. Most of these children would have been born under conditions where births were not recorded. Most of the mothers would have been Native American women, some of the mothers were European women. If you have a family legend of descent from Sir William Johnson, by all means, please join the project. In addition to men from families with legends, we need men who have documented pedigrees of descent from Sir William Johnson, his son and heir, Sir John Johnson, or from Peter and Warren Johnson, Sir William’s brothers. Sir John Johnson had a number of sons with his wife, Mary Watts. The title, Johnson of New York passed through these sons, down to a Sir John Johnson who was living in the 1950s. When he died, if I am not mistaken, the title passed to the son of a sister, who took the Johnson surname, becoming Sir Peter Johnson. The man who holds the title Johnson of New York, today, would no longer have Sir William Johnson’s yDNA. Sir John Johnson, however, had two children, prior to his marriage, with Clarissa Putman. The oldest child, Margaret Johnson, married James Van Horne. They lived in Schenectady, New York, and are my ggg-grandparents. The second child, William Johnson, born about 1770, at Fort Johnson, New York, was taken, as a teenager, to Canada by his father to be educated. He married Margaret Clarke. According to Loyalist Lineages of Canada, they had five sons, Edward Simon Johnson, John Hazelton Johnson, William Henry Johnson, Thomas Gordon Johnson and Lowis William Johnson. Descendants of these men still live in Canada. Family Tree DNA has made available four gift certificates, to be applied to the cost of the yDNA test. For yDNA testing, you MUST be a male, directly descended in the male line from a man you believe to be the son of Sir William Johnson, or from one of the other three men mentioned above. If your line of descent has been interrupted by an adoption, or a female ancestor then your yDNA will not match Sir William Johnson. If you are interested in joining the Sir_William_Johnson yDNA Project, please look at the project pages at: www.familytreedna.com/public/Sir_William_Johnson, or write to me at msvnhrn@jps.net Marleen Van Horne Sir_William_Johnson yDNA Project Manager