This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/nNABAIB/7591 Message Board Post: DNA testing for genealogical purposes has become very popular in the last five years, and about half a dozen companies have sprung up offering DNA testing at relatively affordable prices to the general public. The main emphasis has been on surname projects. Men who share the same last name or some variant of it are recruited to take a DNA test, and then results are compared to discover which of them are related within a genealogical time frame, which generally means within the past 600 years. In Europe, permanent surnames only came into general use by 1400 AD. By joining a surname DNA project, people interested in family history with matching DNA can compare notes and make connections, perhaps enabling them to trace back several generations further than they could without DNA comparisons. Also, DNA analysis can reveal the general region where the ancestor of the participant originated; ie, Scandinavia, central Europe, the Mediterranean, the British Isles and Western Eur! opean seaboard, etc. The DNA tests are not cheap, but participants get a break on the cost if they participate in a surname project. For example, at familytreedna.com, the 12 marker test costs $99, the 25 marker test costs $148, the 37 marker test costs $189 and the 59 marker test costs $269. I think the 25 marker test is the least expensive test with the best results. The 12 marker test results in too many random matches with men who have different last names, indicating relatedness before 1400 AD when surnames became firmly established in most parts of Europe. The DNA test is painless and only requires swabbing the inside of the cheek with a special scraper. The lab mails a kit to the participant and then the participant mails the kit back to the lab. The kit is assigned a number and the name of the participant is never published, thereby assuring privacy and confidentiality. Only men can be tested effectively in surname DNA projects for two reasons: 1) the DNA markers studied are located o! n the Y chromosome which is only found in men and 2) traditionally, women do not retain the same surname from generation to generation. However, women who are interested in family history can still participate by recruiting fathers, brothers, uncles or male cousins to take the DNA test. I am a woman and an active volunteer in a Phillips DNA project called Phillips Worldwide located at this site on the internet: http://www.familytreedna.com/public/PhillipsWorldwide. If you click on "Y Results" at the top of the page, it will take you to a DNA chart that shows the test results of all the participants. Participants are requested to post their earliest known Phillips ancestor on the DNA chart. The project has attracted over 95 participants so far and 13 unrelated families of Phillips have been identified. In addition, there are over 30 participants who do not match any other Phillips in the project. Over 80% of the participants belong to Haplogroup R1b, which is the most common haplogroup of the British Isles and the western seaboard of Europe. If you have any questions about DNA testing for genealogical purposes (or questions about Phillips families in general, especially in the South), please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or the administrator of the Phillips Worldwide DNA project, Harry Shannon Phillips, at [email protected] (Shannon goes by his middle name.) We are both very excited about the possibilities of this new tool in genealogical research. By the way, all of us at Phillips Worldwide are volunteers and none of us are getting paid to help with this project. Thank you for taking the time to read this message. Sincerely, Nancy Kiser