We hope that you will agree to help us in our project - the more people involved, the more successful our results will be.  There are a number of different ways in which you can contribute to the project:

If you are male and your surname is Appleby (or if you have a different surname but believe you are descended from a male Appleby through the male line), we would like to encourage you to join our Project as a yDNA test volunteer.  Before you do so, however, please read the background information which addresses some common fears and misunderstandings.  Hopefully, this will encourage you to volunteer to take a DNA test to represent your Appleby line.  The test kit would be posted directly to your home and involves using a simple mouth swab, which you return by post to the testing company.  FamilyTreeDNA offer reduced rates for members of a surname project, and in addition, we may be able to offer a contribution towards the cost of the test from the Appleby General Fund.  The results of your test would be used solely for genealogical purposes and you will not be identified by name in any analysis published on this or any other website. If you wish to go ahead with yDNA testing, please contact the DNA Project Administrator to clarify which line of Applebys you will be representing and to find out if you are eligible to receive a contribution from our General Fund.

If you do not meet the criteria to take the test yourself (but you know a man who could!) - perhaps you could act as an Ambassador for the Appleby DNA Project and tell them about our study and ask them if they would agree to take the test?  

You may be able to contribute valuable research findings about your Appleby ancestors – a well researched family tree, details of census findings, extracts from parish records and information from certificates or GRO indexes, which could be added to the relevant regional database in order to help us to reconstruct family lines and identify where there are any living male Applebys, who may agree to participate in our project.  Contributions such as these will be invaluable!

If you would like to make a financial contribution: If you are not in a position to either take the test yourself, or persuade anyone else to do so - you can still help us by making a small financial contribution to our Appleby General Fund which is used solely to cover all or part of the cost of testing within our project), so that we can offer subsidised DNA tests to potential candidates.  The greater the amount of sponsorship we can offer, the more likely we are to recruit volunteers to join the testing programme.