Friends: The Galway Bay area has been an historic melting pot for centuries. With Munster men driving up from the south, and Connaught men driving down from the north, Vikings, Mormans, Spaniards, English settlers, and Scottish linen traders one is hard pressed to find a more diverse and exciting place to study DNA. The importance of Galway being a port can never be understated in its history. Galway was dominated by fourteen merchant families known as the Treibheanna na Gaillimhe or the tribes of Galway. These families controlled political, social and commercial life in Galway. The family names today are Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, D'Arcy, Deane, Ffont, Ffrench, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martyn, Morris, and Skerritt. They were of Anglo Norman or Cambro-Norman origin except for D'Arcy/Darcy (O'Dorchaidhe) and Kirwan(O'Ciardhubhain) who were of Irish origin. In the nineteenth century Galway’s largest import was wine from France, and its main exports were hides and wool. With many inhabited small islands nearby this pre industrial port was a the center of commerce. The nineteenth century also brought hellish poverty and starvation to many, sending them off to foreign shores in North America. Two hundred years later the great grandchildren are coming back to visit, and discovering a past they never knew. The new Ireland is rich in it's past, but modern in it's thinking. The purpose of this project is to help those who have chosen DNA as a way to expand the search for loved ones now long gone into the history books. It is my desire to provide a repository for Galway area DNA, so we all can share what our genes can only tell us. ERIN GO BRAGH! Richard Feeney Pease-Grant Administrator