People from Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire are being urged to volunteer to help scientists draw up a genetic map of the UK.
The University of Leicester is taking part in the People of the British Isles Project which aims to shed light on the history of Ancient Britons.
Researchers at the university want to collect blood samples from residents in the two counties.
The study is being led by scientists at Oxford University.
Dr Turi King of the University of Leicester said: "We want to recruit people to take part whose ancestry is in rural areas so as to avoid the recent mixing up of populations in urban areas and to reach back in time as far as possible.
"The East Midlands is a particularly important area as it formed the heartlands of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia... it will be very interesting to see what this project throws up about the genetic legacies of Ancient Britons in this area."
The university wants to collect samples from people whose parents and grandparents lived in the same area.