You request a FF project by contacting the Helpdesk. There's some helpful information on this FAQ and the several following it: http://www.familytreedna.com/faq/answers.aspx?id=7#599 However, and frankly, because FF results are not displayed, I don't necessarily see a compelling reason to open one. I opened one because, so far, 13 of the 14 family members who have been or are being FF tested were funded by me. I simply got tired of logging in and out of each one's account. This way, as project admin, I need only log in to my GAP once - the same GAP I log into to admin my other projects, so it's largely a convenience for me. My FF project has only been open a few days, and this is what it looks like, so far: http://www.familytreedna.com/public/IDavis-TThompson/ The FF projects do not come up when you search on a surname at the FTDNA home page, nor do they show up on the projects list someone sees when they click "Join Projects" from their member page. It's intended that membership will be by invitation only. Eventually, the project's web page should come up on a Google search, so I made certain key names, places, and events were on the project's Background page. My hope would be that FTDNA would give us some tools to make FF projects more useful. For example, a single table that would show mutual matches between all family members, at once, rather like I've already done: http://dgmweb.net/DNA/aDNA/FF-Descendants_Isaac_DAVIS.html The problems with my "mutual match" table are 1) it was a lot of trouble to create, 2) it constantly becomes out-of-date, and 3) it only displays the surnames of matching individuals, not matching segments. I still consider myself a novice when it comes to autosomal testing, so I'm certain there are others who can think of better tools and better ways to display results and progress. IMO, we need to press FTDNA to give us a useful display for our FF project web sites. They clearly have the data available and are currently making it available to us individually. It's a matter of programming some new reports with the features a FF project (i.e., multiple members) could use. Diana P.S. I actually joined some other family members to the project, ones who don't descend from the project's founding couples. Both their Y-DNA and/or mtDNA results are suppressed, so again, this is for my convenience - an unintended perk for being an admin. You could do this with any of your projects (i.e., bring your relatives under one umbrella) as long as you suppress display of any results that are irrelevant to the particular project. > From: Kathleen Cooper > Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 7:05 PM > > Hi Diana, > > I am new to the group and I did not know FF projects could be opened > at > FTDNA. > > How do we find out what projects are available? How and why would we > start one? > > I administer a surname project (McElrea) and I've been wondering how > to > organize the FF tests along with the y- and mt-DNA. Is it better to > have > a separate project, or perhaps I'm just missing something? Ours is a > small project and I admit I am still finding my way around the admin > job! > > Thanks, > Kathleen