In a message dated 10/17/2005 6:27:35 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, steveandkay@adelphia.net writes:

Bill,

I think I have a success story for you. My cousin and I were trying to tie our line back to John Nelson Long born about 176O and residing in Allegany County, Maryland around 1800. We could not find a single record of John Nelson and in fact were not sure the line was not broken with his son and grandson. There was a possibility of adoption and a small chance I might not really be a Long. My cousin, not a Long, asked me if I would participate in the Long DNA project with the hopes of finding a connection.

We were operating under the assumption our Longs were English but we had a 12 for 12 match with a descendant of Philip Lung (Long) a Palatinate German. There were some close matches with others of German heritage. Given the time and place for our John Nelson Long we started to think more about a German connection.

But since I have the Atlantic Modal haplotype and we had some questions about a broken line and we just weren’t sure. We were very excited when participant Charles Thomas Long #29695 turned up claiming a connection to our elusive John Nelson Long. He is connected through Conrad Long son of John Nelson and the brother of our ancestor Phillip. We waited anxiously for his results to be published. I remember my cousin saying, what do we do if there is no match?” Fortunately the match was 12 for 12. While we still can’t locate John Nelson Long we feel certain we are not wasting our time searching.

We have exchanged some information with the researcher working with Charles Thomas Long. Like us his trail stops at John Nelson Long. Frankly I believe our best hopes to move back beyond 1790 rests with an increased DNA testing data base. I hope every male with the last name Long signs up for testing.

Thanks for all your hard work,

Steve Long #13641