Hello everyone, I research the Campbell families of Amherst Co VA and Nelson Co VA. Of the 7 different Campbell lines there, I am related to George Campbell and his wife Caty, who left a very large group of descendants. Some of these early Campbell decendants stayed in the area, but some moved away. My own ancestor moved from Amherst Co VA in 1882, for Texas, then to Oklahoma, and later his descendants were in California (my home State). It is known that the George and Caty Campbell group of descendants could be living everywhere in the world by now, and some might be able to do the genealogy going backwards to connect to george and Caty, but many others might be stuck in Missouri, or Oregon, or other places, and have no way to make that connection thru records to find their earliest Campbell ancestor. So this is where DNA testing comes in handy. http://www.familytreedna.com DNA testing for genealogy purpose is done by a MALE who was born of a Campbell father. By taking the test, that male can see if he matches the test done by other males named Campbell, and if there is a match, he can be assured that his line of ancestry goes with the other line man's line of ancestry. A FEMALE (like me) can NOT do this test, because my DNA will reveal my MOTHER, not my father. But a female can benefit from the test, because she could find a Father, Brother, paternal male cousin, to take the test, and she will be able to see the results, and which ancestral line her families matches. A male taking the test, will reveal his father's DNA, and his father's DNA, and his father's DNA, and so on, in an unending straight line backwards to the EARLIEST MALE ANCESTOR. Let's say you have 100 different Campbell names in California, and the earliest known ancestor you can find is when a Campbell man came out in 1849 for the Gold Rush, and had kids in 1850 there. By doing the test, you might be able to match to a well researched and documented line, which stretches back all the way to Argyl, Scotland and the earliest Campbell men in history. Wouldn't that be great to know? Not a "guess' but to know that your Campbell ancestry must be the same as the person you matched to. Now, as far as the Descendants of George Campbell and Caty, we have a descendant named Steven Campbell, who is on this list. If he were to be tested, that would establish the DNA line of George and Caty. And later, if there were matches to him, that would mean they also belong to George and Caty. (The paper documentation still needs to be good, and true, to be able to have confidence in the results) So to re-cap: the test must be done by a MALE who is named Campbell. Is there already a Campbell DNA test project going on? Who is participating? What are their lines? In this way, there could be the Tennessee Campbell line, the NC Campbell lines, the NY, NJ, PA, OH, IL, IN, you get the picture, we could be indentifying many lines. What if we found a New Jersey line which matched to the Virginia line? That would prove that or ancestor arrived in VA from colonial NJ, for example. This would bring our line back several, to many generations. (these are just examples I am giving out). What if our Virginia line matched to a Northern Ireland line of Campbell families documented and tested. That could at least allow us to find our Campbell ancestor coming from Ulster. This give a LOCATION to search on. Last point: the National Georgraphic (Wash. DC) is in the process of doing a HUGE DNA-genealogy testing program. They are going to use familytreedna, the same company I previously mentioned, but the COST $$$$ will be less, because of the huge quantity of tests. So many folks will want to check that out to find out how they could take the test and save $$$. Best regards, Lilly Martin