Hello cousins After reading the DNA testing question I thought I would put my two cents in about the subject. I am currently beginning my 7th (and final, hopefully) year of study towards a doctorate in molecular genetics. I also read the snippit and advertisement in NEXUS about the company Life Science Inc., and how they will lyophilize (freeze-down) a blood sample so that you can have it tested at a later date. I have been thinking for some time about starting a company that will do "genealogical" DNA testing, unfortunately I don't have the start-up costs. At a recent NEHGS seminar I spoke with Tom Roderick about such a venture and he thought it would be a great idea. By the way, he has started a non-profit institute that will compare your mitochondrial (maternal) DNA with other people who have the same maternal line. Anyway, I'm not sure it would be profitable to gear a DNA testing company for genealogical purposes. The above mentioned company does not do testing as far as I know. I would be a waste of time to pay them to lyophilize your blood sample unless you wanted to pass your DNA down to your children and so on. If you wanted to have your DNA tested for a specific purpose then there are some companies that will do that (companies that specialize in paternity and forensic testing). W. David Samuelson brought up an interesting point in that it is much easier to compare a maternal line than a paternal line. Checking the DNA sequence to see if two people are descended from the same maternal relative (umbilical inheritance) is very easy. It is much more difficult to check paternal lines, but not impossible. Recently, some studies have shown that the Y-chromosome is much more varied than once thought. So it may be possible two compare the DNA pattern of on the Y-chromosomes of many CHASE descendents. This would allow us to test descendents of CHASE families in England to findout which one is related to Aquila for instance. The only problem with doing this is it would be expensive. If anyone has any DNA testing or genetics questions please feel free to email me. I have started setting up a web page that explains traditional and molecular genetics for genealogists, I'll let you know the URL when I'm done with it. Andrew Bond