RUSSELL, RUSSEL, ROUSSEL, ROSSELL, ROZELLE and any other reasonable spelling variations are welcome to join the project. Only males have Y-chromosomes, so only men with the surname of RUSSELL, or men who match at y-DNA-25 or above men in the RUSSELL Project with the surname of Russell, can be a member of the RUSSELL Project. If you are female, you can have a male RUSSELL relative submit a sample for your line. To participate meaningfully, testees will need to share their direct male-line ancestry back to the earliest known patrilineal ancestor on FTDNA's "Family Tree" (excluding living persons). The Russell Project is a voluntary collaborative effort based on the principle that genetic genealogy requires comparing your results and your trees with your matches. Our goal is to identify the various Russell lineages, promote better understanding of Russell genetic genealogy by comparing results and trees of members with their matches, and enable members to benefit from the insights and guidance provided by our volunteer administrators. To ensure the integrity of the Project, all members must have signed the FTDNA release permitting matching. We ask that all members respect our mutually synergistic approach and also share your Russell-line trees with your genetic matches. While sharing your results and tree with your matches is important, all members must also honor the privacy of other Project members. Genetic and personal information about other members or their results, including information posted on the Project's member-only webpages, may never be shared with another group or publicized outside the Project without prior written permission from Project Administrators and the member. By sharing what we discover with other Russell Project members, we can all learn more about our Russell genetic heritage.