Hi cousins: Most of you have seen some of my earlier postings about our Y-DNA project for the WEST surname. Our web page for the project is at: http://web.utk.edu/~corn/westdna/ In addition to the Y-DNA test which is used to track the paternal line, two other DNA test are offered by Family Tree DNA: http://www.familytreedna.com 1) mtDNA tests a) maternal match $179 (group rate) b) mtDNAPlus, high resolution maternal match $239 mtDNA is passed from a mother to all of her children. Children get no mtDNA from their fathers. It is not as good for genealogy as the Y-DNA test because we have lost the surnames of many of our female ancestors. mtDNA also mutates very slowly, so there is less variation, and matches will occur that pre-date the adoption of surnames. If you have a hypothesis that two women were related, and if you can find an unbroken female descent from those two women, the mtDNA test can be used to determine whether they have the same mtDNA. Finding an unbroken female line from each ancestor is the key, and of course the major difficulty. This test can also determine your maternal haplogroup. Haplogroup is a broad grouping of maternal ancestors. It is 'deep ancestry' going back thousands of year. You will not determine who you maternal ancestor was 10,000 years ago, but you will learn where she lived (in a broad sense), and from that you can read archaelogical sources that try to reveal how those people lived. Many of you have read or heard of the "Seven Daughters of Eve" book. The "seven" are really haplogroups as determined by the mtDNA. All that said, this test can determine whether your mtDNA is derived from native american ancestry. Remember you have to have an unbroken female line from your mother to the female ancestor who is thought to be native american. 2) DNA print test. This test analyses DNA found on all of the chromosomes. The claim is that they can determine percentages of your ancestry. They report percentage of Indo-European, East Asian, African, and Native American. The test is very controversial in its accuracy at determining minor ancestry, and I do not recommend it unless you have the money and your curiosity is overwhelming. The test is good at determining your majority ancestry. But most of us know that by looking in the mirror each morning. The problem is one of genetic mixing (recombination) that occurs every generation. If you are the offspring of an European male and an NA female, you have 50% NA genes. If you marry a person of European ancestry, your child has 25% NA genes. If your child marries a person of European ancestry, their child has 12.5% NA genes. You can see that there is a dilution of the NA ancestry each generation. Once you drop below 25%, the confidence of the test is very low. Sooooo - if your known or suspected NA ancestor is more that about 4 generations back, the DNA print result for percentage NA becomes questionable in its determination of minor ancestry. Both the mtDNA and DNA print test can be taken by males or femalies. If you are interested in either of the above tests, you can get the discount price for our WEST surname project. Email me if you have questions. Dennis West coordinator for WEST surname DNA project