Long ago I set up a sub-group in Ancestry.com for my surnames, figuring it was only a matter of time before there would be many Ancestry.com tests done for people with those surnames. It turned out that although there are now several, they didn't join the group on their own, I had to seek them out and invite each of them. Still, half of my Ancestry.com group members are active and interested enough to have now submitted 67-marker tests to FTDNA, in order to compare more markers than available at Ancestry.com. The group is also available for people who initially tested at FTDNA who have set up a free "registered guest" account at Ancestry.com, then entered their haplotype manually in order to look for matches in Ancestry.com's database. Being listed as group members within Ancestry's site may not help those people who are already in the FTDNA project much, however it makes the Ancestry.com sub-group look more prominent, and may attract more attention from others of these surnames who are Ancestry.com subscribers but not yet in the project. (I do state prominently in the group's description that testing at FTDNA is much preferred, so maybe I can head off some people who would otherwise just buy their test from Ancestry.com. I know that a few project admins disagree about which testing company is preferable, we'll just say that for this project, FTDNA is clearly preferable.) I have some questions for those of you with more experience in running a surname DNA project within Ancestry.com. I'm not an ancestry.com subscriber, so I don't see some aspects that might be apparent to a subscriber. The main question relates to the use of nicknames to protect privacy. How is that best handled? In FTDNA projects, each haplotype entry is labeled with both the kit number and (usually) the earliest known ancestor. In contrast, in the ancestry.com DNA group, when I view the "Compare DNA" table of haplotypes in the Ancestry.com group, the testee's username is displayed. I am not comfortable with this. As group administrator I have the option of changing the name displayed for a testee to that of the ancestor. However, when that testee subsequently posts in the group discussion board, they are identified as that ancestor, not by their ancestry.com username. This has both advantages and disadvantages. Is this the best procedure for this type of group? [Apparently these ancestry.com DNA groups are run by a separate division (myfamily.com, who actually owns ancestry.com), and because of this business separation, ancestry.com members can choose a different nickname specifically for use within this DNA group. This separation does make things more cumbersome. It was quite a while before I figured out that I now have TWO inboxes for messages for my "registered guest" ancestry.com profile, not just one! Who would've guessed? ...and messages in the inbox related to the group were NOT being forwarded to my outside email as I would have expected, had I known of its existence.] If several group members have the same ancestor, what's the best way to differentiate them (since there is no automatically assigned kit number to use for this purpose)? We don't use the group's discussion board much; I prefer general discussion to be carried out on the Rootsweb message boards or email lists, since these can be easily accessed and read by a wider audience, including people interested in these surnames who are not subscribers/guests in Ancestry.com. Our ancestry.com DNA group is set up as a public group for more visibility; given that, can our group's discussion board be read by non-subscribers/guests? Can it be read by subscribers/guests who are not group members? Are the nicknames (ancestor's name) shown to these non-group members, or is the poster's ancestry.com username displayed? In the "Compare DNA" window showing the haplotypes of all group members, it seems that no matter how many completely independent lineages there are, the comparison always highlights differences versus the very uppermost haplotype in the table. Is there a way to have differences highlighted versus the uppermost entry in a person's family, rather than the uppermost in the whole table? Is there a way to display the modal haplotype for each separate lineage? Is that something I should enter manually? (I THINK I can only have one y-DNA haplotype per registered guest account, is that correct? If so, entering many modals would be difficult.) How do other ancestry.com DNA group admins restrict group membership? The more I think about it, the more I realize these groups can reasonably be different from what we are used to in FTDNA projects. Clearly FTDNA "project members" must have purchased a DNA test, and they OUGHT to have the surname somewhere in their *paternal* ancestry, or be a very close match to another testee who does. However, I have several people vitally interested in the surname who have been active in providing me with family tree information, etc, who have for various reasons not done a DNA test (can't afford it, or are related on the distaff side); I still cc them on emails about project updates, and in my mind I do consider them group members. If such people are ancestry.com subscribers/guests, I see no reason to exclude them from membership in the project. I'm not a fan of social networking, but there may be good reasons to allow people who haven't actually done a DNA test (or sponsored o! ne for someone else) to be members. On the other hand, I don't appreciate having a bunch of members who haven't done or sponsored a test, AND who don't participate. One possibility is just to require the prospective member to submit a family tree containing the surname, if they don't do a test. (There is a mechanism to show ancestry.com trees within the group, but it WON'T show, for instance, rootsweb.ancestry.com family trees. Really, submitting a family tree would probably be more for the admin's use than for other members, most of whom won't be interested in trees from unrelated families.) As I see it, the main benefit from restricting membership to people who have actually bought or sponsored a test would be to direct all DNA discussion to forums visible outside of ancestry.com, where non-subscribers have better access. Perhaps it might provide a VERY slight incentive to get people to order a test if they haven't -but I don't expect it's much of an incentive. D! o other ancestry.com admins think differently? Are there any tips you can offer regarding ancestry.com DNA groups beyond what I've mentioned above? What other issues should I be aware of? Thanks Richard Thrift