The purpose of the study is to use science to confirm or deny a common male ancestor among the various Piatt lines.
We invite any male with the surname of Piatt, Pyatt, Pyott, Pyeatt, Pyeatte, Peatt, etc, to consider joining the DNA study. It is necessary to limit the participants to males as it is the Y-DNA which will be studied. The Y-DNA is passed virtually unchanged from father to son to son to son, and so on. If the male descendant of a Piatt is not named Piatt this indicates a female in the line between his Piatt ancestor and him. The presence of a female in the lineage would break the passage of the Y-DNA and make the male descendant not named Piatt ineligible.
More information is available at Family Tree DNA's website at:
http://www.familytreedna.com
So far participants have elected to have the 25 marker test run on their samples.
Although females, even born Piatt, are not eligible to submit DNA samples they may still participate by encouraging their Piatt fathers, brothers, or male cousins to participate. It's even possible to "sponsor" a participant who is less interested in research but willing to submit a DNA sample.
Collecting a sample is easy. It requires two swabs from the inside of the cheeks taken 8 hours apart. No hair or blood is required for this sample. Payment can be made to the company by check when the sample is returned.
If you want to join our study you may notify Laverne to send you a "join code" which will enable you to order the sampling kit yourself. Or you may ask that Laverne, as project coordinator, have a kit sent to you. If you choose to have her direct a kit to you or another participant she would need the following information:
name of participant
mailing address of participant
phone number of participant
e-mail address of participant
The last two are for contact purposes only. If you are sponsoring someone else you may want to supply your own phone and e-mail for notification of results. If you don't want to do that, Laverne's phone and e-mail can be the ones of record.
Privacy should not be a concern. Results will be posted to the company website by a code number. Any sharing of results publicly can be identified as "the representative of the line of Jacob Piatt (III) and Elizabeth Dunham" for instance rather than by the participant's name.
Questions can be directed to Laverne at her preferred address:
lapiatt@att.net
Please consider helping us make this surname study representative of all the Piatt, etc lines. Thanks.
