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Austin/Augustine Bearse arrived in Plymouth in 1638 and settled in Barnstable, Mass. For many decades his descendants have debated whether he (a) was full-blooded Romany (gypsy), and (b) married an “Indian princess” (Mary Hyanno) on Cape Cod, OR - an English girl (Mary Wilder) he met on the ship.

We're looking for two groups of testers:

(1) to confirm/disprove the Mary Hyanno theory, we need males or females whose mother's unbroken female lines go back to one of Austin's daughters. In these cases we're looking for mtDNA tests to determine native American ancestry.

(2) We seek male Bearses to help determine the Romany ancestry via yDNA tests. Nearly half of Roma males come from a single haplogroup. There are two additional women among Bearse descendants who may be Native American (Wampanoag) but documentation doesn't yet prove: Margaret Oguina m. Wheldon, and Mary Tuspuquion m. Sissell. So mtDNA tests in those lines can help determine these as well.

Help us solve these decades-old mysteries!