experimenting with alternate tunings

I plan on purchasing a baritone uke and wanted to tune it to an alternate tuning that would allow me to barre chords with exactly one finger across all the strings. I think this means that the top and bottom strings(4 and 1) would have to be duplicated. I would like to keep the same strings and I can work out the chords for my self as they would follow the key I tuned it to. If I could find an existing tuning that would give me that it would be even better.
Thanks,
Paul

I keep one instrument tuned to DFAD, an open D minor tuning, for playing slide and D minor pentatonic fingerpicking.

Right. Is that a modified open D? it looks like it . DADF#AD I think I could achieve that with the DGBE strings! But could I use an F# instead of F to get a D major tuning? how do you play minor chords without tuning it back to DFAD?

You're correct. I went from DGBE to DFAD, and of course you could choose DF#AD, if you wanted to. If you are in an open major tuning, to play a minor chord, you would lower the third one fret. If you google it, maybe there's a chart somewhere where this is all mapped out. I don't know; I've never searched for it. When I do an alternative tuning, I usually just map out the fretboard myself and figure it out.

yeah that's what i did then i discovered a lap steel open d chart i had and looked at strinsg 1234. they were DF#AD and lo and behold the major chords at the top checked out to! If I didn't have to barre the strings, I could get the minor by dropping back one fret on string 2 and pick up the minor. I was thinking also of taking my 1/2 sized guitar and changing it to open D major and just play those bottom 4 strings. Three of the strings are solid nylon and the 4th is the standard steel wound nylon. I might do that and wait till I can afford a good baritone uke.
Does the ukulele use any strings that are steel wound? Would it sound like a uke or just a guitar?

Open G is probably the most common finger-across-barre alternate tuning: DGBD. This is pretty well established and doesn't have any unreasonable fingerings. Kudos for figuring out the chords for yourself.

Thanks Brad and I will try that tuning!

The open G tuning (DGBD) is a common 5-string banjo tuning minus the thumb string. You can use a standard string set for this.
To avoid long jumps there are some common chord shapes:
G - 0000 (root on 3rd string), 5435 (r on 4th and 1st string), 9789 (r on 2nd string) , barre 12 (root on 3rd string)
G7 - 0003 (r3), 5433 (r4), 9769 (no root)
Em - 2002 (r4&1)
Am - 2212 (r3)
D7 - 0210 (r4&1)
C - 2012 (r2), 5555 (r2)
Any closed chord can be transposed by counting chromatically up or down.

I like to use two open tunings for baritone ukuleles. Open G (D-g-b-d) and Open C (C-g-c-e).
Here is my playlist. Be careful, there are also open tunes for soprano ukuleles.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDcJRi8rTK0HSarHMSCIpMcGpWMAjKLWY[/video]