Every tested line in the Cisneros Surname Project is anchored by its earliest known ancestor: the furthest-back man in the direct paternal chain whom documents can name. This registry lists them all, grouped by Y-DNA haplogroup, the genetic signature that tells unrelated Cisneros lines apart. If one of these men appears in your family tree, your family may connect to a lineage already represented in the project, but that does not make another test redundant. Each additional tester, especially from a different branch of the family, can help confirm the relationship and show where that branch fits within the larger paternal lineage. One test identifies a line. Several tests help us understand it.
Only ancestors born more than a century ago are listed. Living testers are never named.
Where this haplogroup comes from. E-V22 belongs to the E-M78 group, which arose in Northeast Africa and spread around the Mediterranean in prehistory. It is uncommon in Spain, and that rarity is useful: it makes this paternal line distinctive and easy to recognise across centuries.
Traced from the town of Cisneros in Palencia to Seville, and from there across the Atlantic. The full documentary account is in Across the Spanish Atlantic.
| Ancestor | Born | Place | Y-DNA branch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Don Matheo de CisnerosEarliest known ancestor of the lineage | 1547 | Cisneros, Palencia, Spain | E-FTF57649 |
| Don Juan Ignacio de Cisneros y FloresEarliest documented ancestor in Seville | 1711 | Seville, Spain | E-FTF57649 |
| Don Luis G. CisnerosCarried the line to the Americas; died 1861 | 1834 | Seville, Spain | E-FTF57649 |
Where this haplogroup comes from. J-M172, often called J2, arose in the northern Fertile Crescent, the arc reaching from northern Mesopotamia through the Zagros foothills into eastern Anatolia, and expanded with the spread of farming during the Neolithic. It travelled west along the Mediterranean over following millennia and reached Iberia, where it is carried by roughly one man in ten in the south. Spanish settlers brought it to New Spain.
A confirmed lineage rooted in northeastern Mexico, genetically unrelated to the Castilian line above: direct evidence that the Cisneros surname was adopted independently by families who share no paternal ancestor. Published genealogical work identifies a Bartolomé Cisneros of this period as the progenitor of the Cisneros surname across Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and Texas. Whether that man and this lineage’s ancestor are one and the same has not yet been established, so the connection is noted here rather than claimed.
| Ancestor | Born | Place | Y-DNA branch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bartolomé CisnerosEarliest known ancestor of the lineage | late 1600s | Believed to be Nuevo León, Mexico | J-M172 |
Sources: Crispin Rendon, YDNA Descendants of Bartolome Cisneros, haplogroup J-M172 > J-Z631, with earliest-known-ancestor assistance from Nanis Guerra, 2025. Moisés Garza, Cisneros, Last Names of Nuevo León, Book 35, ISBN 979-8270140540.
Where this haplogroup comes from. I-M223 is one of the oldest paternal lineages in Europe, descended from the hunter-gatherers who lived there before farming arrived; it has been recovered from Mesolithic remains thousands of years old. Today it is most common in Germany, Britain, and northwest continental Europe, and it is rare in Iberia, at only one or two percent.
Documented in colonial New Mexico from the seventeenth century, and carried by Hispano families of New Mexico and southern Colorado, where the spelling Sisneros has been the norm for generations.
| Ancestor | Born | Place | Y-DNA branch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bartolomé de CisnerosEarliest known ancestor of the lineage | abt 1630 | El Pueblo de Zuni, Nuevo México | I-M223 |
Where this haplogroup comes from. These five lines have each been tested, but no second project member yet matches any of them. Their haplogroups point to five very different paternal origins.
A single new tester could turn any one of these into an established lineage. No earliest known ancestor is published here yet.
| Haplogroup | Origin and distribution | Status |
|---|---|---|
| R-FT78123 | A branch of R-DF27, the most characteristically Iberian lineage of R1b. R-DF27 arose about 4,200 years ago, probably in northeastern Iberia, and is carried today by roughly 40% of Spanish and Portuguese men, rising to about 70% among Basques. This line sits on its own branch far below that level, which points to one particular family rather than to Iberia in general. | Awaiting match |
| R-FGC20761 | Another branch of R-DF27, but on a different limb from R-FT78123 above. Their shared ancestor lived long before surnames came into use in Spain, so both lines can be Iberian, both can carry the Cisneros name, and still have no connection within any period a family tree could reach. A shared haplogroup is not the same as a shared family. | Awaiting match |
| R-L2 | A branch of R1b-U152 that arose in Western Europe roughly 4,400 years ago. It is most frequent today in northern Italy, Switzerland, France, and southwestern Germany. | Awaiting match |
| Q-M902 | A branch of Q-M3, the principal founding paternal lineage of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, which arose over 10,000 years ago among the first peoples to enter the continent. A Cisneros line in this haplogroup carries an Indigenous American paternal ancestry, with the surname adopted later. | Awaiting match |
| E-M81 | The characteristic paternal lineage of the Amazigh (Berber) peoples of Northwest Africa, where it reaches very high frequencies. It is present at modest levels in Spain and Portugal. | Awaiting match |
Don’t see your ancestor? Then your line is not yet represented, and it is exactly the one the study needs. A Y-DNA test will either add your line to this page or match you to one of the existing lines above.
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