The precise origins of most surnames in the western world arelost to history.  However it’s possibleto make certain assumptions about how a specific surname was adopted and madeits way through time to us today.  This project is for the surname Lentz and for its various forms including the likely original form of Lenz.  The two main potential origins forLenz are either as a form of the personal name Lorenz or a poetic word for theseason of spring which might have been applied to a person whose nature reminded people of spring or things associated with spring.  Either way the numberof men who are the progenitors of a Lentz family must be quite large.  In addition to the process of men inheriting the surname of her father there are always ways, based in law or not, for a man topass the name to a grandson through a daughter or even pass it to an unrelated male. Therefore the group goals for this project follow.

1. To identify and group each Lentz family origin based on STR pattern and SNP testing. 

2. To attempt to determine an origin location for each group and track immigration if it occurred.

As of Aug 2018 we have 7 different groups containingmultiple men and dozens of individual men with no matches since the onset ofsurnames in Germany which is said to be about 5 to 8 centuries ago.