Hello, I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. While I spent the week in Maryland with my in laws, I managed to contact Relative Genetics to pose some questions to them that I have received from those interested in participating in the DNA study. I have included the questions and responses for you here. Our participant count stands around 20, representing almost as many separate families. This is good in that we have a lot of different lines seeking to discover if they connect with some of our early Payne lines. It is those early lines that are so important to this study. We currently have a few participants representing Virginia lines from Goochland, Culpeper and Stafford Counties. As well as a couple representing Maryland lines. However, we have only one participant representing the New England lines, and that is a descendant of Thomas Paine and Mary Snow of Eastham, Massachusetts. I hope we will get more representation from these New England lines as I believe their participation is crucial. I'd like to make one more appeal to descendants of the New England families to consider being a part of this project. Having said all that, I am happy to say that we have located two individuals whose participation should prove interesting. One is a Payen from the Caribbean Islands whose family has lived there since at least the early 1700s. The other is a Payne whose ancestors hailed from Newton Solney, Derbyshire. Their ancestors are thought to have been the Paynes of Suffolk, England, and therefore related to the Paynes of Boston and Ipswich represented by William Payne and his wife Hannah North. Ron Payne of New Zealand, who has been conducting research in the Channel Islands, is attempting to contact members of the Payn family of Jersey in the hopes they will participate as well. Now to the questions posed to Relative Genetics. If there are others, please don't hesitate to contact me with them. 1. Several people have expressed privacy and security concerns regarding their profiles. How will they be used and what will become of them after the results are made available to us? Who will have access to them and for what (if any) purpose? A: Your individual genetic profiles will only be released to those to whom it is given consent to release them to. So, in your case, the participants will be releasing their information to you, the group leader. They will also have the option of having their data released to other Paynes who might inquire later, but it is not required that they do this. Their information will help to build what the Payne Ycs looks like, in a sense, but their personal information will be kept separately. 2. If members of one line have similar Y-chromosomes, why do we need to sample more than one person from that line? A: Basically, it is to ensure that we are correctly genetically documenting one line. It is just like having two witnesses for anything is better than having just one. It really helps to determine who is of the "true" line and who is not. Also, if you use men from the same line who are separated by three or four generations, it also helps us to pinpoint where in time mutations occurred. 3. How many "markers" are used to create our DNA fingerprints? A: 14 [this is 2 more markers than any of the other labs I checked] 4. How long will it take before we can expect results once all samples have been submitted? A: About three weeks. 5. Is the cost static at $150, or is it based on the number of participants? Some labs have reduced the price if a certain number of participants are obtained. A: I shouldn't have quoted a price before ours were set, but since I did...well, let's just say you are getting a substantial discount. 6. What are the qualifications and reputations of the staff at Relative Genetics? What projects are you associated with? A: Our lab director is Dr. Scott Woodward who is also the head of the Molecular Genealogy Research project at Brigham Young University. We are also doing all the lab work for that project. 7. What can we expect to learn from the results? I've described to you that we have several branches of the family that came to America by 1650. The genealogies are fairly well developed on some of these, but there is no documentary evidence of a relationship between them. However, there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence. Would it be possible, should DNA marker's for one or more of these lines match, to use our genealogical records to determine with any degree who our common ancestor was? If two participants find that they shared a common ancestor removed by say 7 generations, would it be possible to look at the pedigree's of these participants in order to draw any conclusion? A: The results will show, first of all, if the lines do share a common ancestor within a reasonable number of generations, in your case, back to 1650ish. It will be very obvious if the lines do not connect at all. So from the statistical estimation of the number of generations separating any two lines, you should be able to find the common ancestor genealogically. 8. I also mentioned to you the claim of the Lumbee Indians that the descend from surviving members of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Although some have reported they descend from Henry Payne, I have not yet located them. Would it be useful to include any other members of the tribe or would it necessarily be limited only to those claiming descent from Henry? Also, Henry's ancestry has not been determined with certainty. We suspect he was a member of the Suffolk, England family, members of which settled later in Massachusetts. This family has descendants. So the idea was to find Lumbee's claiming descent from Henry to see if they match the profile of the Massachusetts line (or any other line), who were perhaps descendants of a brother of Henry. Would that be a way to determine which line Henry was associated with as well as establishing the Lumbee claim? A: To determine the Lumbee possibility, you would definitely need to find one who believes he is a direct male descendent of Henry. So, what you proposed is a great idea, if you can be sure you have found [a suspected] direct male descendents of both Henry's line and the Suffolk, England line. 9. To what degree will Relative Genetics provide an interpretation of our test results? What can each participant expect to get? A: I hope I answered that already, if you still aren't clear, please let me know. The group leader will receive a hard copy of the report, as well as a computerized copy if so desired. The group leader is then in charge of the information and can release it to the participants. 10. Do you have recommendations on how to best approach potential test participants? Many of the people I am contacting live in the area where our American branches formerly resided, yet they may view my effort as a scam of some kind. How can I ease their concerns? I have set up a web site at http://home.earthlink.net/~ppayne1203 and would like to ensure that I am representing the test correctly. A: I think your web site is very clear and well done. If individuals do have concerns, please have them contact me via email.