Dear Norwood List, good news, there is already a NORWOOD project at Family Tree DNA. I will contact the administrator and get back to you. see another message for prices etc. With the caveat that I am new to DNA work, let me give you an overview. First for medical concerns, these test have nothing to do with genes that have to do with physical inheritance, that is for diseases or disabilities. Y-DNA testing for genealogy purposes (that is high degree of certainty) for DISTANT ancestry (more than say 3-4 generations) is ONLY good for males to males. Said another way, it is only useful for your ancestral MALE line. Therefore confirming or denying that one Norwood is related (in the last 1000 years or so!) to another Norwood. Females do not have Y-DNA so their DNA will not help them on their father's line. Sorry, your brother(s) or father would need to be tested. If you are interested in one generation work, that is paternity testing or how close your DNA is to a brother or sister or perhaps first cousin, that is a whole different situation which we are not concerned with here. Bottom line, what I, and many Norwood families are interested in is, are Francis Norwood of Gloucester and John Norwood of Annapolis and William Norwood of Surry co. Virginia closely related ( in the 1600's) ? Or if you have a 'brickwall' say in the 17 or 1800's, are you related to the widely known emigrant Norwoods or to another one ? Also, with the many lines from William, those descents of his several sons want to feel confident that they are truly descendants of William. Although we all are not 100% sure that William is from the Leckhampton court family, for all practical purposes, I think we can assume so. Therefore a number of us are interested in how Francis of Gloucester and John of Annapolis (and of course other Norwood families, I use those 2 for example) are related to them (or not). Current living Norwoods are about 10-15 generations distant from those 1600's ancestors. DNA has millions of chemical bonds of only 4 unique molecules. But a son has ALMOST exactly the same arrangement of these 4 unique molecules. By looking for places that for some reason not yet known that are SLIGHTLY different, DNA labs can give you what amounts to a DNA fingerprint. These differences seem to occur in places where a short length of DNA repeats itself. (short term repeat). The differences occur as a different number of 'repeats'. Y-DNA can change over time which is refered to as a mutation. Geneticists have looked for changes in male (Y-DNA) that have only occurred over long time periods. So say your father, at 66 out of 67 places on his DNA compared to you, has exactly the arrangement and number of 'repeats' that you do but at one place, he has 15 and you have 14. Current conclusions say that 66 out of 67 would say you two would be related as father-son or grandfather-grandchild or gt-grandfather and great-grandson. That is, one repeat off shows 1-4 generation connection. In fact this difference of one may only occur after 6 or 7 generations. You, your father, gf, ggf, gggf, ggggf etc. may be EXACTLY the same. This is the basis for the Y-DNA testing and genealogy. Everyone is still learning. Over the last 10 years, testing has gone from 12 locations to 25 to 37 and now 67 locations as the labs get more statistical experience on how often a change occurs. Today (see their website) Family Tree DNA says that for 12 locations matching exactly (say say markers), there is only a 95% confidence that 2 men have a common ancestor 29 generations ago - too far back for us. Today, in general, a 12 generation exact match just says your ancestry was north and/or western European which as genealogists, we know already. However, if there is an unknown adoption or different father than recorded, you might find that 12 marker matches will 'break' an ancestral line you thought was true. for 25 locations matching exactly, there is a 95% confidence at 13 generations which is about right for matching in the 1600's for 37 locations matching exactly, there is 95% confidence at 7 generations for 67 locations matching exactly, there is 95% confidence at 6 generations. My experience is with descendants of Francis Norwood of Gloucester Mass. Richard Norwood (who is the Norwood site web master) descent is 99.9999% certain (Nothing is absolute!) That is, we have documented evidence for all 12 generations or so back to Francis. There are no gaps or probables. Gloucester records exist back to 1642 with no gaps or losses. However because of the Civil war and loses of court houses and the climate, records on William Norwood of Surry co. descendants are less complete and there are some generations that have record gaps so we need substantiate work done by many people that the various Norwoods of VA, NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, TX, LA are connected. Therefore I would think those male Norwoods would want to get a 37 marker test to be more certain. That’s the story. Fire away with questions I will try to answer them. There is a lot more info at www.familytreedna.com Jim Dempsey