Members of the HURST Surname DNA Testing project have organized this mailing list to promote and discuss the project and its results.

This DNA Test is a Y-DNA Study, which uses the Y-chromosome DNA which is passed from grandfather to father to son, etc. This DNA rarely changes except for occasional mutations every 500 generations or so. If two people match, that means they have a common male ancestor somewhere in the line.

The test involves a painless cheek scraping with a kit provided by the company. Since it is a Y-DNA test, only males with the surname HURST can participate. If you are a female, you can participate by finding any male relative (father, brother, uncle, or distant cousin) with the HURST surname to represent your line.

We use Familytree DNA as our laboratory and more information can be found at www.familytreedna.com. If you have hit a "brick wall" this test can determine a direction for your future research. Many from this group have also taken the female line - mtDNA test and the Family Finder test which can tell where your earliest ancestors were from.