Hello everyone, Not so long ago, you may recall the hoopla surrounding the use of DNA analysis to help establish that Thomas Jefferson had fathered a child by his slave, Sallie Hemings. The use of DNA testing has become firmly established in our courts for the purpose of identifying everything from felons to fathers. Now it has found it's way into genealogy with growing acceptance too. In fact, it's now something that universities all over the world are applying to many different problems, such as determining population migrations. Many families have already made use of the technology in order to assist them with their genealogical problems and it has made it's way into the pages of academic journals, and mainstream magazines. Now we have the chance of participating too. For details, please visit the page at http://home.earthlink.net/~ppayne1203/index.html In short, I am trying to enlist volunteers for a study being conducted by researchers at BYU. I have contacted them in response to their search for families that would be interested in participating with their research. If we have any hope of being accepted, we're going to need to be prepared. I think this is a great opportunity and I hope you will too. I can assure you that everything will be treated confidentially and the process is easy and painless. Collection requires nothing more than a swab of the gums. All participants are assigned a code so that their identities are protected. We have a good start already. I've heard from several people interested in participating, and they have gone so far as to say that if BYU doesn't use us in their study, they would be willing to contract with another lab to do the testing. Of course, that would involve a fee, but as a contingency we're trying to prepare for that too- just in case. Regards, Patrick