MARK ARSLAN (Volunteer Administrator). Mark, age 66, is an amateur genealogist who has been pursuing this hobby for over 40 years. He is one-fourth Armenian, through his paternal grandfather, Dikran Arslanian, who came to the USA from Keghi, Erzeroum in 1906. Mark hosts 19 family genealogy sites on the Internet and administers 11 surname or geographical DNA projects. He compiled a database of 2,690 immigration entries for Armenians from Keghi entering the USA through Ellis Island (New York): link. Mark has a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry from Oregon State University (Corvallis, Oregon, USA) and has been employed by IBM Corporation for over 30 years, where he is currently in technical sales. Mark and his wife, two sons, and a daughter live in North Carolina, USA.

PETER HRECHDAKIAN (Volunteer Administrator). Peter, age 65, wants to uncover the deep ancestry of the Armenian people through archaeogenetics. Born in Aleppo to a father from Urfa and a mother from Aintab, he grew up in Lebanon before emigrating to the USA in 1975. Peter wants to piece together information from genetics, history, anthropology, linguistics, archeology and genealogy to uncover the make-up of the ancestral populations of Anatolia, the Armenian plateau and the Caucasus from which the Armenian people arose. Using the latest genetic tools, he wants to understand how the diverse Armenian genetic pool was affected by broad historical processes such as invasions, migrations, wars, forced population transfers, natural catastrophes, etc. and also subtle historical processes such as admixture, conversion, micro-migration... Peter has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Philosophy from Cornell University (Ithaca, New York) and a Masters in Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School (Boston, Massachusetts). He is the CEO of the Unifert group, a privately held international fertiliser trading & agricultural products distribution company established in 1968. Peter lives in Beirut, Lebanon.

HOVANN SIMONIAN (Volunteer Administrator). Hovann Simonian, age 56, is our expert in Armenian history, historical geography and culture. He believes DNA research can be a useful tool for confirming or subverting key historical narratives and for elucidating some of the mysteries and unresolved questions of Armenian history. Hovann is particularly interested in deep genealogy, the survival of Armenian nobility and the origins of various special Armenian communities (such as Hamshen Armenians or Hemshin, Dersim tribes, Hay-Horoms, Levantinized Armenian Catholics of Smyrna, Arabicized Armenians of Syria and Lebanon, Turkified and Kurdified Armenians, etc.). Hovann was born in Beirut to Armenian parents of Sasuntsi and Aintabtsi heritage. He was raised in Switzerland where his family moved at the beginning of the Civil War in Lebanon in 1975. He holds a Licence en Sciences Economiques et Sociales from the school of Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) of the University of Lausanne (1988), an MA in International Relations from the Department of Political Science at the University of Southern California (1996), and another MA in Central Asian Studies from the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London (1997). In addition to various articles and book chapters, he is the co-author of "Troubled Waters: The Geopolitics of the Caspian Region" (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001/2003) and the editor of "The Hemshin: History, Society and Identity in the Highlands of Northeast Turkey" (London: Routledge, 2007).

JANET ACHOUKIAN ANDREOPOULOS (Volunteer Co-Administrator). Janet, age 51, is an amateur genealogist who was born and raised in the Detroit area with grandparents from the ancestral villages of Evereg and Aintab. She has a B.S. in Accounting from Michigan State University, however her true passion is genealogy which was sparked while attending the AGBU School. Her family tree of 30k plus continues to expand as she connects with people around the globe. She is particularly interested in the use of autosomal DNA to help reunite people with their long lost relatives.  In 2016 she attended the I4GG Genetic Genealogy Conference to deepen her understanding of DNA techniques used to advance traditional genealogy. She has a solid understanding of how the other DNA testing companies work and how those results can be used to enhance test results at FTDNA. Janet is happily married and resides in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband and 2 sons. 

MHER ISHKHANYAN (Volunteer Co-Administrator). Mher, age 47, was born in Armenia in the historical village of Khndzoresk. When he was 5 years old, he moved with his family to Yerevan. In 1999 he graduated from the Bachelor's degree of the Yerevan Academy of Economics. In 2013, he became interested in genealogical genetics. Mher first began conducting DNA tests for his relatives in FTDNA. Over time, he delved into this field and was one of the first Armenians to take up the practical aspects of DNA genealogy. In 2016, Mher created the Syunik DNA project and the Khndzoresk DNA project and was engaged in the genetic study of Khndzoresk families.By the end of 2023, the Khndzoresk project has already tested 42 paternal lineages. In 2015, Mher and Aram Palyan created the "Ethnogenetics" community on Facebook. The purpose of this community is to popularize DNA tests and increase knowledge in this field among Armenians and others. 

Click on this link to view a lecture by Peter Hrechdakian entitled "DNA and the Origins of People: The Armenians" The lecture took place on 15 November 2023 at the AUB Archaeological Museum in Beirut, Lebanon. It is an update of the 2014 Library of Congress lecture that takes into consideration all of the ancient DNA data of the past 10 years as well as the latest research on the origins of the Indo-European languages including Armenian.