Hi, The Davidson Surname DNA Project is now into its 5th year of operation. We cover the Davidson, Davison, and Davisson surnames and their variations. We have over 150 members who have been tested, and, so far, we have identified 18 different Davidson/etc families with two or more members. We still have many members for whom we have not yet found family matches. http://www.davidsongenes.org We have four VOLUNTEER administrators. I profoundly thank Dave Koester, Bill Davidson, and Sharon Morrison who give their time so generously to help everyone be successful in this project. The key principle that the project was founded on was that DNA results are meaningless without real "paper trail" genealogy. From the beginning we have insisted - sometimes with less success than we would like - that a member of the project needs to supply the project with, at least, their Davidson pedigree. We try to work with each of the members on their Davidson pedigree to assure that it can be confirmed both by reviewing available research data and by the DNA results. As the project is growing, the administrators are discovering that we cannot do this ourselves. We had two choices. Either add more administrators or add a "Project Lead" for handling the genealogy of a specific family. We may still try to recruit another administrator this year to accomplish some of our outreach goals. But we have decided to create a new role within the Davidson DNA project called Family Coordinator. A Family Coordinator will be responsible for working with the members of their family to review each member's Davidson family genealogy and to help research to find out how each member connects into the Family. One of the Admins will also be assigned to each family to help and train and backup the Family Coordinator on DNA science and techniques as it relates to genealogy and their specific Family. For Family Coordinators, we will be looking for special individuals who are interested in learning new techniques, who want to increase their genealogical research skills, and who are willing to increase their research focus beyond just their personal family. They also have to like working with others as they will need to work with the other members of their family and keep the admins apprised of what is going on in their family. It is not a JOB; there is no pay; and I do hope you will find it enjoyable. If you would like to volunteer, please contact the administrators at admin@davidsongenes.com, and we can start a conversation. In part to put this in place, I am in the process of a major re-write of the Davidson DNA web site software. As some of you may know, the pages are not simple HTML pages. The contents of the site are dynamic and are driven from what is becoming a fairly complex database. If you have not visited the site - www.davidsongenes.org - recently, you should look at it now as it is much different. And will be evolving on a weekly basis until all of the necessary changes are in place. If you find it misbehaving, it may just be that I am in the middle of an update! Here are some of the changes: 1/ The Home Page is a now a Results Chart Selector. You can select to look at the results for a specific Family or Group or all families or groups. Groups are members who are not yet assigned to any Family. These are grouped by the Haplogroup they have had predicted or measured. 2/ For Families, we have added a feature called a "Predicted Ancestral Haplotype" (PAH). In DNA jargon, the Haplotype is the collection of Y-DNA marker values for an individual. When we test a man's Y-DNA, the results are for the single individual. The science is that their male ancestors had the same Y-DNA with the exception of some mutations along through time. By seeing the results of several family members, we can PREDICT what the Haplotype COULD have been for their most recent common ancestor. And then we can highlight the differences between the prediction (PAH) and each of the members in hopes of looking for clues for family branches. Overtime, this should help us predict which family branch a new member, without a good paper trail, is part of. 3/ We have added a contact form in place of email links for sending email to the Admins and to the Members. This will reduce the risk of having email addresses harvested by spam bots. Further, to prevent spammers from using forms to inject spam, we have added Captcha technology when sending a message when the user is not signed in. 4/ To make life more convenient for members to be signed in when using the site, we have added an optional "Remember Me" cookie. Sign in once and for a year, you could be signed into the site from your personal computer. When you are signed in, your member page becomes your home page for our site. You will be easily able to update your Member Profile or Davidson Pedigree; send project messages without going through the Captcha step; and (if you have added your FTDNA password to your member profile...) be able to link directly to your FTDNA page. 5/ We will soon have a "Frequently Asked Questions" page on the site to help with how to use site, some DNA basics; etc. There is now a page of Resource links to help you with your research. And from any page on the site, you will be able to access the results page to check on any result. These are just the most visible changes to the site right now. More will be coming as I get them coded and tested. I still have to add more support for Family Coordinators but these changes were the beginning of the infrastructure needed to make that happen. We value your comments and suggestions. And any volunteers who wish to participate! Finally, if you are not a part of the DNA project, this is a perfect time to join. FTDNA has a big sale going on through the end of August 2008. We have already had several new members join as a result of the sale. The price of a 37 marker Y-DNA test is about 40% off the normal price. thanks, john.

Hi again... Based on a question that I got, I need to amplify one of my comments about the Family Coordinator role. 1/ The Family Coordinator does not need to be a Member. It could be the Contact Person for a kit. A Member is the Davidson man whose DNA sample was tested. For each kit there is also a Contact (who could be the Member) who is the genealogist interested in this DNA and is the "contact" point for other genealogists interested in that family line. 2/ The Family Coordinator could also be a Secondary Contact whose family line connects to a Member's line, but is not the contact for a kit. You will see a few of them in the results as XD prefixed kits. In fact, my own kit is an XD kit. We do not have many of these now. These XD kits do not have a separate DNA sample associated with them but the DNA kit number that they are associated with is embedded in the XD number. 3/ A Family Coordinator might be someone who has a paper trail that connects to a particular family, but there is no reasonable DNA kit yet for this Secondary Contact. We will need to figure out how this will be setup if the need comes up. 3/ I am investigating Guest accounts. This may become useful later. As of now, a Guest account would not be eligible to be an FC. I hope this clarifies this issue. Questions??? john. At 07:01 PM 8/23/2008, John Lisle wrote: >Hi, > >The Davidson Surname DNA Project is now into its 5th year of >operation. We cover the Davidson, Davison, and Davisson surnames and >their variations. We have over 150 members who have been tested, and, >so far, we have identified 18 different Davidson/etc families with >two or more members. We still have many members for whom we have not >yet found family matches. > >http://www.davidsongenes.org > >We have four VOLUNTEER administrators. I profoundly thank Dave >Koester, Bill Davidson, and Sharon Morrison who give their time so >generously to help everyone be successful in this project. > >The key principle that the project was founded on was that DNA >results are meaningless without real "paper trail" genealogy. From >the beginning we have insisted - sometimes with less success than we >would like - that a member of the project needs to supply the project >with, at least, their Davidson pedigree. > >We try to work with each of the members on their Davidson pedigree to >assure that it can be confirmed both by reviewing available research >data and by the DNA results. As the project is growing, the >administrators are discovering that we cannot do this ourselves. > >We had two choices. Either add more administrators or add a "Project >Lead" for handling the genealogy of a specific family. We may still >try to recruit another administrator this year to accomplish some of >our outreach goals. But we have decided to create a new role within >the Davidson DNA project called Family Coordinator. > >A Family Coordinator will be responsible for working with the members >of their family to review each member's Davidson family genealogy and >to help research to find out how each member connects into the >Family. One of the Admins will also be assigned to each family to >help and train and backup the Family Coordinator on DNA science and >techniques as it relates to genealogy and their specific Family. > >For Family Coordinators, we will be looking for special individuals >who are interested in learning new techniques, who want to increase >their genealogical research skills, and who are willing to increase >their research focus beyond just their personal family. They also >have to like working with others as they will need to work with the >other members of their family and keep the admins apprised of what is >going on in their family. It is not a JOB; there is no pay; and I do >hope you will find it enjoyable. > >If you would like to volunteer, please contact the administrators at >admin@davidsongenes.com, and we can start a conversation. > >In part to put this in place, I am in the process of a major re-write >of the Davidson DNA web site software. As some of you may know, the >pages are not simple HTML pages. The contents of the site are dynamic >and are driven from what is becoming a fairly complex database. > >If you have not visited the site - www.davidsongenes.org - recently, >you should look at it now as it is much different. And will be >evolving on a weekly basis until all of the necessary changes are in >place. If you find it misbehaving, it may just be that I am in the >middle of an update! > >Here are some of the changes: > >1/ The Home Page is a now a Results Chart Selector. You can select to >look at the results for a specific Family or Group or all families or >groups. Groups are members who are not yet assigned to any Family. >These are grouped by the Haplogroup they have had predicted or measured. > >2/ For Families, we have added a feature called a "Predicted >Ancestral Haplotype" (PAH). In DNA jargon, the Haplotype is the >collection of Y-DNA marker values for an individual. When we test a >man's Y-DNA, the results are for the single individual. The science >is that their male ancestors had the same Y-DNA with the exception of >some mutations along through time. > >By seeing the results of several family members, we can PREDICT what >the Haplotype COULD have been for their most recent common ancestor. >And then we can highlight the differences between the prediction >(PAH) and each of the members in hopes of looking for clues for >family branches. Overtime, this should help us predict which family >branch a new member, without a good paper trail, is part of. > >3/ We have added a contact form in place of email links for sending >email to the Admins and to the Members. This will reduce the risk of >having email addresses harvested by spam bots. Further, to prevent >spammers from using forms to inject spam, we have added Captcha >technology when sending a message when the user is not signed in. > >4/ To make life more convenient for members to be signed in when >using the site, we have added an optional "Remember Me" cookie. Sign >in once and for a year, you could be signed into the site from your >personal computer. When you are signed in, your member page becomes >your home page for our site. You will be easily able to update your >Member Profile or Davidson Pedigree; send project messages without >going through the Captcha step; and (if you have added your FTDNA >password to your member profile...) be able to link directly to your >FTDNA page. > >5/ We will soon have a "Frequently Asked Questions" page on the site >to help with how to use site, some DNA basics; etc. There is now a >page of Resource links to help you with your research. And from any >page on the site, you will be able to access the results page to >check on any result. > >These are just the most visible changes to the site right now. More >will be coming as I get them coded and tested. I still have to add >more support for Family Coordinators but these changes were the >beginning of the infrastructure needed to make that happen. > >We value your comments and suggestions. And any volunteers who wish >to participate! > >Finally, if you are not a part of the DNA project, this is a perfect >time to join. FTDNA has a big sale going on through the end of August >2008. We have already had several new members join as a result of the >sale. The price of a 37 marker Y-DNA test is about 40% off the normal price. > >thanks, > >john. > > >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >DAVIDSON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >the quotes in the subject and the body of the message