There is further information at http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Thrift-Frith-Firth/ but the basics are:

* You order a Y-chromosome DNA test kit for 37, 67, or 111 markers (67 markers is a recommended compromise between resolution & expense) from the testing company, Family Tree DNA. (These tests are for intergenic "STR" regions of the male Y chromosome, and are specifically NOT intended to report on genes, health, or any observable traits. These tests are for males only.)

* FTDNA mails you a test kit, then you (the testee) gently swab your inside cheek with something like a mini-toothbrush, which gathers some cheek cells. You seal this in a vial provided with preservative, and mail it back to FTDNA.

* You provide me, the project administrator, with your family tree information, focusing on your all-male-line ancestors. This information is vital in correlating the DNA results of all project members with the known family history of the surname.

* In about 2 months your Y-chromosome DNA results are available as a series of numbers. The numbers represent how many STR repeats you or your testee has, for each marker tested.

* Your results are compared to others who have tested. You may not be an exact match to anyone in the database (because of random mutations), but if others with your surname have tested 37 markers or more, it will generally be clear whether you are closely related to them or not. If several people from different branches of a family have tested 67 or 111 markers (and if you do, too), you can often see which branch of the family you are closest to. As project administrator, I help interpret results if they are not clear.

There is already at least one descendant of Walter Bosley of Baltimore, MD in the project for comparison (his results will be available in March).

In England, in addition to the (claimed, disputed) origin of Bosleys in Cheshire, there are three regions with particularly high frequencies of Bosleys, which COULD each represent a point of origin for a different Bosley lineage. These are Herefordshire, Somerset, & Berkshire (see http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.bosley/279/mb.ashx for specific PLUs with the highest frequencies of Bosleys). WE NEED Bosleys who trace to each of these four regions to participate in the project, in order to see whether there is just one or several origins for the Bosley surname in Britain.

We also want to compare people with the possibly related surnames: Basleigh, Basley, Basli, Bazley, Beausoleil, Boasley, Boseley, Bosely, Bosle, Boslee, Bosler, Boslet, Boslett, Bosslet, Bossley, Bozely, Bozley

As an example of the kind of Y-DNA results that can be obtained (for the Thrift surname), you can scroll down to the table here
http://bit.ly/TFFDNA-fam_grp
and see that 10 testees with the surname Thrift can clearly be placed into one of 4 different families. (Other Friths and Firths fall into their own family groups.) This table is presented in such a way that you don't even have to look at the numbers for each STR result, you can just look at the different patterns of color that become apparent, given enough testees, for each extended family. Eventually we will have enough participants in the Bosley Surname DNA Project to present a similar analysis for Bosleys (and related surnames).

Richard Thrift
rtx at cox dot net