The name Bracey occurs in several counties of England and there are other branches of the family in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In 2002 2163 people had the name in England, Wales and the Isle of Man. An early variant spelling, Braci, was used in Worcestershire, England in the latter half of the twelfth century and subsequently other Bracey variants were recorded during the medieval and early modern period in the counties of Gloucestershire, Cheshire, Norfolk and London. Although the genealogy of families bearing the name in each of these localities has been well characterised by document based research the name is still awaiting a genetic study. Because the surname is less common it might be expected to have reduced haplogroup diversity and contain descent clusters. The purpose of the Bracey Y-DNA surname project is to use Y-DNA STR analysis to investigate the supposed relationships between the several English Bracey lineages and the colonial lines. If your last name is Bracey then this project is for you because it aims to help you discover where you fit in the Bracey international family tree. Unlike traditional genealogy which uses documents to link you to the lives of your ancestors this project uses your DNA to find links with your close and not-so-close living genetic cousins who, like you, are all descendants of our Bracey ancestors. If you have any questions about the project or about some other aspect of genetic genealogy please get in touch with the Group Administator. If you want to join the project you can do so once you have ordered a test kit from FTDNA. It is probably a good idea to start with either a Y-DNA 25, Y-DNA 37 or a Y-DNA 67 marker test. Whichever kit you choose remember that all the tests, from 12 to 67 markers, can be upgraded if you wish once your initial results have been received.