As a follow-up to my previous note, I should mention that all those who have responded either to the list or to me privately are female. The ultimate issue in deciding whether to organize a Sweet DNA study is whether or not there is enough interest among potential testees to make a meaningful study. As I said before, the potential testees are males whose surname is Sweet (or would be Sweet, except for an adoption or other break in the usual inheritance). If you are a potential testee and could be convinced to join if and when the study gets going, it would be nice to have a show of hands. If you are interested, but not a potential testee, here's what you can do. Basically, there is a list of prospects, and you just have to work your way down the list until you find one that works... 1. Yourself - if you are female, that's out; if you are male, but not a Sweet, that's out, and you can also skip #2 and #3; if you are male and married to a Sweet, then just take your wife's point of view for the rest of the list... 2. Brothers - can often be persuaded to participate for your sake... 3. Father - also very persuadable... 4. Uncles or 1st cousins - you just have to ask nicely and/or appeal to their interest (if any) in family history... 5. 2nd cousins or 1st cousins once removed... 6. and so on... I know that lots of researchers focus on their own ancestors, so that the "and so on" may require research you haven't done yet, but it's still something that should be within reach if you start working on it. The goal in all this is to come up with (collectively) at least two descendants of each identifiable Sweet "founder", preferably via at least two different sons of the founder. Assuming that the DNA test results agree for the documented descendants of the progenitor, we can "reconstruct" the DNA pattern for that progenitor and then compare against the DNA patterns of other progenitors to see if they were related. It's really that simple. Consider, for example, the two John Sweets who came to Massachusetts in the early days and both started out in what became Essex County. As we all know, one soon relocated to Rhode Island (or, at least, his family did -- the founder's death is not recorded, so it's not clear whether he actually moved or not). At any rate, many people assume these two were cousins, but nobody has any proof. A DNA study might prove that the two were indeed related, or it might prove they were not. This would move the whole question from the realm of speculation to the realm of fact. John Chandler PS In my own case, the nearest Sweet is my wife's mother's mother's mother, who had a sister, but no brother. Her father had two sisters, but no brother. HIS father had a sister, but no brother. This gets us back to 1760 before the possibility of a connection opens up. I didn't promise it would be easy!