Mike, you might want to ask over at the Rose Hybridizers Association forum (not on GardenWeb, do a Google search).

Mike, you'll probably want to first determine which minis are more suited to your climate and disease situation. There are many which are good seed or pollen producers but which aren't cold hardy enough or disease resistant enough for your situation. Pennsylvania has a totally different set of problems than I do here in SoCal. What is good for me to use isn't necessarily suited for what you desire.

Check out what minis are healthy and happy where you are. Once that list is created, join Help Me Find-Roses (only $25 a year) so you can research their parentages and what offspring they have produced. That will lead you to another list of roses bred from your initial list and enable you to research how good they are in your climate. Often, what you think may be a good choice intially, turns out to be less ideal than something it created.

You also need to determine what your breeding goals are. If you're after more of the same HT flowers on a small plant, you need to research which produce that form of flower more often, instead of the "decorative" type. If you're hoping to cross them with more cold hardy plants to produce smaller, cold hardy landscape type shrubs, you may want to forget the HT flowers and focus more on the decorative types which are far more impressive in flower power and lasting capabilities in mass plantings.

Minis run the gamut in disease resistance, hardiness, bloom production, etc., just like larger types do. You need to specify what you're after before any GOOD advice can be given concerning what you should use. Being able to access the "lineage" portion of the Help Me Find-Roses site can give you all of that information. You will then be able to make much better informed choices and ask much more clearly focused questions.

One of my mentors, Frank Benardella, passed away a couple of weeks ago. Frank hybridized many, many exhibition-quality miniatures. David Clemons interviewed him in 1999, and Frank mentioned that he liked to use his own crosses, but also used Party Girl, Sherri Ann, Radiance and Kristin.