This Project has been set up to explore the Arms/Armes lineages in North America as well as migration paths that brought them here. The project is open to all Arms/Armes participants as well as possible variant surnames associated as described by other Genealogical organizations. Per Family Search the Arms/Armes surname is English: possibly a variant of Harm , with excrescent -s and loss of initial H-. German: from an ancient Germanic personal name with Irm- ‘huge, mighty’. Additional variants listed by these organizations are Alms, Arns, Harms, Arts, Orms, Ris, Amy, Ary, Wares. The Arms/Armes surname is not a common surname and is usually ranked between 8,000- 10,000 most common surname in the US. In 2010 there were less than 10,000 people in the US with the Arms/Armes surname. This project also seeks to examine connections between the early settled Massachusetts population of Arms that is well documented and the Armes/Arms populations that migrated out of Virginia/North Carolina. The interchangeability of Armes/Arms seems to vary between separate family groups and even shows usage of both surnames within some family groups. One autosomal testing group breaks down the distribution of the surnames on their site as follows: The most commonly-observed ancestry found in people with the surname Arms is British & Irish, which comprises 57.0% of all ancestry found in people with the surname. The next two most common ancestries are French & German (24.8%) and Eastern European (5.0%). Additional ancestries include Scandinavian, Spanish & Portuguese, Italian, Indigenous American, and Southern Indian Subgroup. The most commonly-observed ancestry found in people with the surname Armes is British & Irish, which comprises 59.5% of all ancestry found in people with the surname. The next two most common ancestries are French & German (24.3%) and Eastern European (3.7%). Additional ancestries include Scandinavian, Spanish & Portuguese, Indigenous American, Italian, and Ashkenazi Jewish.