About us
The Bruce Surname Y-DNA Project
All Y-DNA tests with the surname of Bruce and variants are invited to join this project.
Use the Join button and follow the prompts to purchase a test kit or a third-party test transfer from FTDNA.
If you have a Y-DNA test and your surname is not Bruce; AND you believe you have
direct male line Bruce heritage (i.e, Adoptees and NPE cases) then email us to discuss.
If you have an Autosomal test such as Family Finder or tests from other vendors such as Ancestry, 23AndMe, etc; then membership will be considered if your autosomal matches show close affinity with Bruce men. Please email us to discuss.
New Members:
Please first read this page, and also read our FAQ.If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to email the administrators.
Please include your kit number in any emails, so that we can properly identify you.
This is essential if we've had no previous contact with you.
These are set from your FTDNA home page.
Your Most Distant Ancestor and Country of Origin should be set as best you know them.
Ensure your Privacy Settings allow our project members to see your dna results.
Members are strongly encouraged to set up their Beneficiary Details.
Paternal Lineages:
The collection and presentation of our members' paternal lineages is an ongoing task.
Members are strongly encouraged to email theirs to us for incorporation.
Because the lineages are public, we do not publish any names or dates of living persons.
The FamilyOfBruce website also presents an extensive collection of Bruce lineages and biographies.
More testing of SNPs could provide a better understanding of the relationships within and between groups.
Just for example, about three quarters of our membership are under the R-M269 branch,
but less than half of those have any SNPs resolved below that R-M269 point.
In many cases, upgrading to more SNPs and STRs will improve grouping and matching.
But there are cases where further testing is unwarranted.
For example, where a group contains two members who already know (by paper trail) they are closely related;
then it's only useful for one of them to extend their testing, as their dna will be almost identical.
FTDNA recommends a 37 STR marker test as the minimum entry level.
Tests with less than 37 markers are still useful, as they usually provide enough information to position the test within an existing group.
The more markers you have tested, the more resolution is possible.
The bigger Y-700 and Big-Y tests provide great detail, but are fairly expensive.
FTDNA has an a la carte menu for purchasing individual SNP tests. This can be a cost-effective way to explore matching with specific members.
Old Member Forum:
Our Activity Feed now provides a good forum for member communications,
but our old member forum at Family Tree DNA Forums is still useful for...
Member to member communications when FTDNA matching does not provide you with an email icon;
and general public communications.
You need to register with Family Tree DNA Forums before you can access it at Bruce Project Member Forum.
Project history:
In its earliest form, our project started in May 2002, when Dean Bruce and Thomas B. Bruce first got their DNA tested. They were participating in a Scottish/Melungeon project run by a university graduate student, to determine the relationships between Scottish families and their origins.
At that time there were very few companies doing DNA tests for the public and FamilyTreeDNA had only recently started doing business. FTDNA seemed to be the most credited and scientific company pioneering this new approach in genealogical research.
The founders recruited their cousins and other acquaintances, and foot the bill for quite a few of those first tests as many were skeptical on the new technology.
The Bruce Y-DNA Surname Project made its first appearance on the internet around 2004 and was hosted and maintained on another website.
Thomas took over the project administration reins around 2005, and he hosted the website at brucefamily.com.
Rod Bruce was added as a co-admin in 2013 to provide some assistance with the workload. He first tested in 2008.
Around 2014 FTDNA enforced the rule that all project pages be 'hosted' by them on the FTDNA servers.
Our project was then migrated from brucefamily.com to the FTDNA domain where it now resides.
Links:
Family of Bruce International, Inc
Bruce Surname forum at Ancestry.com
Bruce Family Genealogy - was our old Bruce Y-DNA website
Bruce members forum at Family Tree DNA
