The project began in 2006 when practically no one knew from whom and from where the Rurikid princes came from. It was also unclear whether the Rurikid princes were descended from a single male. The Russian Newsweek Magazine tested the first prince (Professor Dmitri Shahovskoy of France) who was found to belong to the N1c1 genetic haplogroup. The Russian Newsweek had later confirmed his result by testing two other princes, namely Prince Andrei Gagarin of Russia and Prince Nikita Lobanov-Rostovsky of Great Britain. Many new tests have been performed in this project. Although some of the princes do not share the N1c1 hapologroup, by all means we can now say that the N1c1 haplogroup was shared at least by Prince Svatoslav Igorevich (father of St. Vladimir the Great of Kiev, and the grandson of Rurik). All of the N1c1 Rurikid princes’ haploptypes begin with (the FTDNA’s standard) 14 23 14 11 11 13 11 12 10 x 14 x 18 9 9 … . People who have such haplotypes, as well as those who have documents proving their Rurikid descent, or if their descent from Rurik is well confirmed by family tradition, are welcome to join this project.

It has also been discovered that Gedimin(as), the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and Rurik were very distant cousins. They shared a common male ancestor ab. 2200 years back. The haplotypes of the Gediminid princes, which begin with 14 23 15 11 11 13 11 12 10 x 15x 17 9 9 …, are also within the scope of this project.

The potential participants of this project are welcome to become acquainted with another website of the project: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mozhayski/teksty/ydna.html to see the remaining haplotypes and results in the Rurikid and Gediminid dynasties,as well as in other clans, the participants of which seem to be their very distant cousins.