One of the principal goals of the Mumford DNA Project is to help researchers establish the possibility of a common link between their ancestors. A positive result will encourage further research whereas a negative result will allow the researchers to redirect further research into other areas. What participants in this project must remember is that there are factors involved in family research that will affect results. While surnames may have been existed within a well-researched family line for many years there can be mutations that will result in slight differences between the descendant lines of siblings. There are also a number of other possibilities that will result in differing DYS results. A woman may have a child out of wedlock but give the child her surname. A tenant of a feudal lord might have taken the name of his estate or an individual might simply have changed his name for a number of reasons. Such an instance occurs within the de Montfort descendants of Hugh of Warwickshire. His father’s name was de Gand but he took his mother’s surname as she was a wealthy woman. Surnames also mutate over time. In the course of my research I have recorded about 100 variations of Mumford. Since the introduction of computers I am now seeing even more.