Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 09:26:19 -0230 (NDT)
From: dapike@math.mun.ca (David Pike)
To: PIKE-DNA-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: Genographic Project

Some people may have seen news of this week's launch
of National Geographic's Genographic Project
(at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic )
which will involve the public in DNA testing to help map out
human migration patterns over that past several millenia.
Mentioned in the FAQ for this project is that the DNA samples
from the general public will be processed by FamilyTreeDNA,
which is the same company that is being used to analyse the
genetic samples for the Pike Surname DNA Project
(http://www.math.mun.ca/~dapike/family_history/pike/DNA ).

FamilyTreeDNA will soon be making some announcements about their
involvement in the Genographic Project. In the interim though,
they have already indicated that their regular customers (such as
those of us in the Pike DNA project) will be able to upload our
test results into the Genographic Project's database for a
nominal fee.  So Pike project participants who want to participate
in the Genographic Project should wait a little bit for this upload
feature to be made available, rather than signing up directly with
the Genographic Project.

I anticipate that people whose first contact with FamilyTreeDNA is
via the Genographic Project will at some suitable point be informed
of surname projects that they might be able to join. So not only
will National Geographic's project greatly raise the public profile
of genetic testing, it should also help us to broaden our own Pike
genetic census.  I have been struggling with trying to find ways to
reach out to Pike's overseas, so I'm hopeful that the Genographic
Project will provide some help in overcoming this apparent hurdle.

- David.