The following new message has been added to the Williams DNA Project board under the new topic of New Years Resolutions for the DNA Project... -------------------------------- Y'all, I have been pondering a lot lately and have thought quite a bit about our project and where some things need to be done. I figured I'd lay these thoughts out here and solicit assistance from project members to help these dreams become reality!! In order to do this, I need to delegate some of this stuff off to folks and, I'd really like to create some "permanent" positions out there for the future needs. First, something I have been trying for a long time to do, with mixed success, is to get every lineage in the project defined and loaded to the website, either in a simple html format or in the TNG module. A few months ago, I did a call for lineages and received a dozen or so...some of which I still need to get loaded (dangit...where'd I put that third arm?!?!)...But, there are still a large number of lineages missing in our project and without them, the dna testing is practically useless. This brings up the first position I'd like to see filled....Lineage Coordinator. This position would be responsible for collecting/managing all of the project participant lineages, both the Word format as well as the TNG uploads. This person would have 4 primary responsibilities: 1.) Contact participants and obtain the lineages that are currently missing from the project and 2.) Work with matched groups to put together the lineages for the groups and 3.) Work with folks to upload their GEDCOM's to the Pedigree module of the website and 4.) Generate a high-level "report" of sorts of the ancestries represented by testers in the project. This will require, above all, a good amount of spare time and dedication as it is one of the most critical pieces of the project and there is a lot of work to do. You will need a good working knowledge of MS Word and a comfort with navigating the pedigree module (TNG). And, this may need to be split into two positions...Lineage Coordinator and TNG Pedigree Coordinator with the latter being the tasks needed to get folks to upload their GEDCOMs. My thinking on the TNG Coord is that person will need to ACTIVELY pursue existing participants to get them to upload their GEDCOMs to the system. The next position would be Groups Coordinator. This person would be responsible for two primary aspects. First, he/she will be responsible for working with the matched groups and putting descriptions together for the groups. These same descriptions will be put by the Groups Coordinator into the Forums group boards descriptions. Additionally, this person will be charged with working with the groups to identify Group Leaders for each group to act as the liaison person for that group. This position will need someone who is comfortable working with people and comfortable with working in the Forums.i I would also like to see someone step up to become the Y-Search Coordinator. This person very specifically has the challenge of getting all of our participants to upload their results to the Y-Search database so that they are available worldwide and easily comparable to other testers lineages. We have found a couple of surprise matches out there using this database. Additionally, this person would need to track the Y-Search IDs and provide me with that information so I can keep our database up to date. There are a couple of areas that I'd like to see us pursue are 1.) Williams Surname History/Origins: There are a number of sources for our surnames origin including William the Conquerer, the helmet maker skillset (Guilliams) and patronymic naming conventions. There are a number of coats of arms out there as well as notable Williams families. I think this will probably take a couple of folks to work on but I'd really like to see this level of information out there since much of it relates directly to what do. 2.) Something else that I think is VERY important to us is to get all of the 12-marker kits that are currently in matched groups, upgraded to 25 markers or more. There are a large number of these and 12-markers is simply not very effective for our surname. I am not sure what the best approach to this is, whether it is a person who works on it or simply and overall effort of all groups. I am open to ideas. 3.) I have been talking with one of our UK participants to try to figure out what we need to do to encourage more participants from across the pond. That, coupled with a large discussion recently between GAPs, I have a "holy cow" understanding of why this has been such a difficult challenge. I'll make a separate posting later on to go over that, but I think that we may need some type of UK/Wales Coordinator be the point person to work on getting overseas participation. Thoughts?!?! Obviously these are all volunteer positions but I'd like to ask that if you are thinking of stepping into one of these roles, please be sure that you will have the time to give the position as most of them will need it. I appreciate everyone considering these and if you have something that I have left off that our project should address, please let me know!! As always, Adrian