Virginia- There are many Stone surname lines in the United States (and world wide) that we cannot connect to each other through the conventional paper trail of written birth, marriage and death records. It has been demonstrated that DNA tests of the male Y-chromosone can be used to trace the descendants of a particular man through many generations. Such testing is commercially available. The following are some of the many excellent websites providing background information (these links were current a year ago don't know if they are now) http://www.duerinck.com/genetic.html http://www.leicester.ac.uk/genetics/maj4/project.html http://www.savin.org/dna/introduction.html http://www.ucl.ac.uk/tcga/ScienceSpectra-pages/SciSpect-14-98.html http://www.le.ac.uk/genetics/maj4/SurnamesForWeb.pdf http://wsrv.clas.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/jeffhemm.html http://www.oxfordancestors.com/yline.html The purpose of a Stone Surname DNA Project would be to perform Y Chromosome DNA testing on a sampling of men with the Stone surname to calculate the most recent common ancestor for those names with a significant marker match and to create a report describing the results. The Procedure-- All that would be required to participate in the project is to be a male, to have the Stone surname and provide a small sample of DNA for analysis. Several commercial testing sites are available including FamilyTreeDNA.com (www.familytreedna.com) Check out their website for FAQs and background information. Their genetic test kit consists of a cheek scraper and a collection tube. In about five minutes you will be able to read the instructions and perform a painless cheek scraping. The effect of using the scraper is about the same as brushing your cheek with a soft bristle toothbrush. The cost of the test would be between $149-$209. With a family surname project FamilyTreeDNA works through a Family Coordinator (named by us) who handles all paperwork and collection of money. Each participant would send to a designated Stone DNA Testing Project Coordinator a pedigree chart. The Project Coordinator would send by US Mail a DNA Speciman Kit. Included in the specimen kit is a Privacy and Confidentiality Statement, Legal Issues and Release Form. The Release Form must be signed and dated and returned with the specimen sample to the Project Coordinator, along with a check made out to Family Tree DNA. The testing lab will compare our samples with other samples in their database for comparison to other 'long-lost' relatives. Completing and dating the Release Form is required. Otherwise, no one but you can obtain your results and you won't know if there is another Stone who might match your DNA. Each specimen will be given code numbers and tested for the Y-chromosome only, and will never be used for any other purpose than our Stone Surname DNA Project. Results are returned to the Family Coordinator. FamilyTreeDNA provides help with analysis. For families trying to do family reconstruction, it is prudent to test 2 different known male cousins from each different branch. The chance that a match does not exist due to infidelity or unreported adoptions occurs 2%-5% of the time per generation. Different lines would need to be identified before starting.