Well, I heard back from BYU much quicker than I anticipated! Their "special cases" coordinator now works for Relative Genetics and they handle the special cases for BYU's Molecular Genealogy Project. I am happy to say that they have accepted the PAYNE family to participate in their study! They have sent me a Word attachment that I have not yet been able to thoroughly read as I received this while at work. I'll have all of the details when I get home and will make it available at the Project's web site- http://home.earthlink.net/~ppayne1203/index.html The attachment contains the process of the testing procedure, how the tests are performed, what information we can expect from the results, and how they will assist in the interpretation of the results- among other things. I also plan to create a participants page where I will assign a reference number to each person as they respond (for privacy), giving details of their pedigree, such as the earliest known ancestor. That way we can track the branches of the family that intend to participate. Ideally, we'll want as many participants as possible from each branch that we can sign up. A minimum of three is suggested I believe, although one will do. It just helps to confirm the results if we have more than one per branch for comparison. So far, the response has been good. We have over a dozen signed up so far, including one participant from France and one from the Caribbean where his ancestors have lived for over 200 years. He is a likely descendant of Sir Ralph Payne, Lord Lavington, who had been Governor General of the Leeward Islands. It is hoped that we'll soon have participants from the New England and Virginia lines. At the moment, I believe we have one or two representatives of those lines. We'd certainly like to include as many as possible. One important thing that I need to include at this point is that unlike my earlier impression, the testing is not free of charge. They are not that well funded unfortunately. However, it is significantly cheaper than it would have been had we gone to another lab. The cost is $150.00 per participant. Fortunately, EVERYONE that has responded so far has indicated that they would be willing to pay a fee if needed. If it comes down to it in order to get the participation we need, I may dig into my own pocket to cover expenses of those wishing to participate that would not be able to do so otherwise. I'll have to wait to see how this goes first though. I don't want this wrinkle to prevent the project from continuing! As I see it, the benefits that we stand to gain from this project greatly exceed the cost involved. Considering the price of books, memberships, photocopying, and all else, I know I spend more than that for just a few books! Have to run back to work! Just wanted to keep everyone posted on the progress. Patrick