The ideal way to submit your lineage would be in the form of family group sheets or a GEDCOM*, but I will accept the information in whatever format is easiest for you because I don't want the format to become an obstacle to your getting your information to the project.  You may also wish to submit a minimal line initially (when you join), to be supplemented with family group sheets later (by the time your test results come back).

Please don't be embarrassed if you do not know your ancestry back more than a few generations.  While different members are currently at different stages in their research, we all started out newbies!

Minimally, the group needs to know your earliest known patrilineal (direct-male-line) ancestor and your connection to him.  Using actor Sam ROBARDS, son of actor Jason ROBARDS, as an example, such a line can be written as:

Sam⁶, Jason Nelson⁵, Jason Nelson⁴, Frank P.³, James Nelson², George¹

Or minimally, just

George > James > Frank > Jason > Jason > Sam

For purposes of our study and as presented on the project's web site, a living person in such an ancestral line would be designated "Pvt," in other words, Pvt⁶, Jason Nelson⁵, Jason Nelson⁴, etc.

Another (and better) way to minimally share your line is to list the couples, for example:
 

George ROBARDS (1795-1845) & Temperance MONROE (1794-1863) _James Nelson ROBARDS (1832-1912) & Catherine HARTMAN (1837/8- ) __Frank P. ROBARDS (1858-1940) & Elizabeth LOOMIS (1860-1938) ___Jason Nelson ROBARDS, Sr. (1892-1963) & Hope Maxine GLANVILLE (1895-1992) ____Jason Nelson ROBARDS, Jr. (1922-2000) & Lauren BACALL (1924- ) _____Sam Prideaux ROBARDS (1961- )

By including the names of the wives and the dates, you eliminate the ambiguity that might be present in a simple sequential list of the male given names, especially when the list is short, the given names are common, and middle names are unknown.  (Living persons will be displayed as "Pvt" on the web site.)

With regard to Y-chromosome DNA testing, not only should every male on the above list have the same Y-chromosome (barring rare mutations), any male-line ROBARDS descended from any of the males on this list should also have the same Y-chromosome.  That is, any ROBARDS male whose ancestral line intersects the one from Sam to George at any point should have the same Y-chromosome.  For this reason, it's helpful and considerate of others to include as many of the siblings in your line as you can in the information you supply, and supplying that kind of information is best done by providing family group sheets.

Minimally, the group needs to know your earliest known matrilineal (direct-female-line) ancestor and your connection to her.  Using actor Katharine HEPBURN as an example, such a line can be written as:

Katharine Houghton HEPBURN⁵, Katharine Martha HOUGHTON⁴, Caroline GARLINGHOUSE³, Martha Ann SPALDING², Jennet MACK¹

Or minimally, just

Jennet MACK > Martha SPALDING > Caroline GARLINHOUSE > Katharine HOUGHTON > Katharine HEPBURN

Another (and better) way to minimally share your line is to list the couples, for example:
 

Jennet MACK (1779-1836) & Erastus Lyman SPALDING (1775-1830) _Martha Ann SPALDING (1818-1882) & Leman Benton GARLINGHOUSE (1814-1872) ___Caroline GARLINGHOUSE (1856-1894) & Alfred Augustus HOUGHTON (1851-1892) ____Katharine Martha HOUGHTON (1878-1951)  & Thomas Norval HEPBURN (1879-1961) _____Katharine Houghton HEPBURN (1907-2003)

With regard to mtDNA testing, not only should every female on the above list have the same mitochondrial DNA (barring rare mutations), any sons and any direct-female-line descendants of any female on this list should have the same mitochondrial DNA.  For this reason, it's helpful and considerate of others to include as many of the siblings in your line as you can in the information you supply, and supplying that kind of information is best done by providing family group sheets.

The reason the use of family group sheets is so widespread in genealogy is that over a century of researcher experience has shown them to be the best way to organize, store, and exchange genealogical information — next to computer files, of course.  Please check this page for a sample of the standard information on a family group sheet.  On this page, I harp about documentation, but it is not necessary to include it with your initial submission to the project.  We can fill the documentation in later if it appears needed.

Please do not include your own personal family group sheet or your parents' family group sheet if they are still living.  Please only include family group sheets where everyone on them is deceased and indicate how the test subject connects to this family. 

If you are sending family group sheets via computer, you may send them as Word (.doc), Adobe (.pdf), Rich Text Format (.rtf), or plain vanilla ASCII (.txt) files, either as an attachment to an email or by uploading the file(s) to my ftp site:

While I no longer use genealogy software for my database (my web site is literally my database), I do have copies of FamilyTreeMaker and The Master Genealogist, so you can send a native FTW file or a GEDCOM, and I can import it.  But please do not send your entire database, just the line from you to your earliest known direct line ancestor.

Please do not send graphic images of pages, such as .tiff or .jpg or .gif files — I've got a storage problem as it is.

To send paper, please email a request for my snail mail address.