A few weeks ago we got the ball rolling for a BigY test for one of our root I1-M253*'s. We have a volunteer in the form of SHEFFIELD #123861 (1st row in the table): http://dgmweb.net/DNA/matrices/HgI1/HgI1_matrix_M253.html#M253* The SHEFFIELD, himself, pledged $200 and so did someone else. I pledged $50 and someone else pledged $25, so we are up to $475 pledged. That leaves us just $220 to raise and we'll have enough! I've been questioned how to accomplish the donations and purchase. Normally, it would be easy: We would all make our donations to the Hg I1 project General Fund, then the SHEFFIELD would purchase the test using the Invoice payment method, then the Hg I1 project admin would pay the Invoice from the project General Fund. Unfortunately, as I have discovered, the BigY must be paid for by credit card. Payment by Invoice is greyed out when you go to purchase the test. It *may* be possible to get FTDNA to make an exception, taking the order over the phone and extracting the money from the project General Fund to pay for it manually on their end. Frankly, it's rather dense of them to make it so difficult for their customers to pay for an expensive test! If anyone has an idea for getting the purchase accomplished, please suggest it. But first things first, we need the rest of the pledges! Diana