PROVO, Utah (AP) - Genealogical research has always meant days in dusty archives and searches through miles (kilometers) of microfiche and stacks of faded photographs.

But soon, history hunters might be able to find out where they're from with a quick cheek swab and a few hours of gene testing.

Scott Woodward, a microbiology professor at Brigham Young University, is directing a project that combines old-fashioned genealogy with the latest technology in the hope of making it easier to fill out family trees.

``Each of us carries a history of who we are and how we're related to the whole world,'' Woodward said as he pored over blood samples in his busy campus laboratory. ``We're trying to decode that history.''

The process begins with the prick of a needle. Volunteers from all over the United States, each with a written genealogy that extends back at least to their great-great-grandparents, have given Woodward a few teaspoons of blood during the first year of the project.

DNA from the blood is analyzed to create a map of about 250 simple genetic markers.

In the future, a supercomputer will create a matrix of all those genes and the historical data from the donated family trees. Woodward says he'll then be able to focus on any spot in space and time - say, Denmark in 1886 - to identify the genes residents carried.

That means future genealogists, perhaps just five or 10 years from now, will be able to submit their own DNA and a query. Because all names are stripped off the blood samples and charts to protect privacy, it is impossible to track specific individuals. But a researcher could ask where his or her great-grandmother was from, and Woodward could answer: she was born in Denmark around 1886.

That's an exciting proposition, said Ed Gaulin, president of the Manasota Genealogical Society in Bradenton, Florida, which helped organize a recent sampling trip by the BYU researchers to western Florida.

``I've been at this genealogy thing since I was a kid and I've seen three major advances in genealogy,'' said Gaulin, who donated blood himself. ``The photocopier was the first, the next was the computer, and the third one is DNA. That's where I put this. It's that important.''

Molecular genealogy has had its high-profile cases - most notably the 1998 tests that proved that at least some offspring of the slave Sally Hemings were related to Thomas Jefferson.

Those tests, which tracked the easily identifiable Y chromosomes passed from fathers to sons, and their counterparts, which track certain material that follows the maternal line, have also been used to trace the offspring of famous people or certain genetically distinct populations such as Finns, Sardinians or Basques.

Some scientists have claimed to have gone back as far as Eve, and a handful of companies promise to prove family relationships for about dlrs 200 to dlrs 300 a test. The BYU tests are less specific but also cover father-daughter and mother-son lines.

``There have been people out there suggesting that DNA will be the guideline for pedigrees in the future,'' said Russ Henderson, spokesman for the National Genealogical Society. But he warned that genealogy buffs should remember that genetic material is just another clue in the search for their ancestors.

That's what Henry and Diana Johnson, who recently dropped by Woodward's lab at BYU to give blood, are looking for. Although some of their family tree goes back to Ireland, the rest dead-ends in New England.

``I've followed back six generations and I can't get across the ocean,'' Johnson said. ``They could be English, they could be Swedish.''

At least 11,000 people have donated blood so far, a bit more than the initial one-year goal of 10,000, and Woodward hopes to collect another 30,000 samples this year. He figures he needs 100,000 for a solid database, which he could have in three years.

But first he needs to broaden his collection base.

To that end, a stack of suitcases and coolers for sampling trips competes for space in the lab with churning computers and vials of DNA. Blood has already been collected from New York to Hawaii and in the coming months samples will be taken in Alaska, New Zealand and Australia.

``The power of genetics is showing just how similar we really are,'' Woodward said. ``What this project is doing is showing that we're essentially one big family.''

On the Net:

BYU Molecular Genealogy: http://molecular-genealogy.byu.edu

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