Mama Pepa was Josefa Ruiz (1875 Colotlan-1964 Chicago), wife of Ventura Salazar.

Her mitochondrial DNA Haplogroup is D1, one of the indigenous American mtDNA haplogroups. All of her direct female-line descendants and their children (but NOT the children of her male descendants) have this same mtDNA Haplogroup D1.

In this project, her DNA-tested descendants' autosomal DNA results and those of her siblings' and cousins' descendants are combined to:
- "paint" Mama Pepa's own DNA on her pairs of chromosomes
- identify from which of her parents and ancestors she inherited the specific regions of her DNA
- re-connect the far-flung branches of her descendants and relatives

This page is just for a central information source about the project. Joining the project on this page requires a Family Tree DNA account to join the project, but there is no real benefit at this point to joining the project other than to put you on the list with everyone else. The real way to join the project is to upload your DNA results to GEDmatch.

The deep analysis to best accomplish these goals can only be done on the free GEDmatch website. ALL PARTICIPANTS SHOULD UPLOAD THEIR DNA RESULTS TO GEDmatch.

See the latest snapshot of the master family tree at http://www.wwjohnston.net/famhist/josie/index.php

NOTE that the "DNA Results" section is not relevant to this project. This is an autosomal DNA project, and the "DNA Results" section shows only Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA results which are not relevant to this project.