Welcome to the Little Surname DNA Project

For all families with related spellings: Little, Liddle, Litle, Littel, Littell, Littles, Lytle, Lyttle, etc.

The Little DNA Project was initiated in 2001 using genealogies and quickly benefited from early DNA testing. It has grown to include over 700 members. Our project is open to any male Little (of any spelling) or any man believing he may be descended through his paternal line from a Little male and has tested at FTDNA. Because only men carry the Y-chromosome, women may participate primarily by funding or managing the kit for a male relative. However, we also accept FamilyFinder (autosomal DNA) or transfers of data from  AncestryDNA, 23&Me, or MyHeritage. Mitochondrial DNA testing is also included, whether by males or females, in our Little group.

The importance of having an associated family tree with your kit can’t be overstated. Currently FTDNA links to your tree in MyHeritage.com and/or WikiTree.org.

Due to ancient population movements over-running one another, particularly in central Europe, the people who made their way to the British Isles with Germanic backgrounds have a variety of genetic histories. As surnames were then adopted more recently, the name Little or its variations were taken up by a variety of people. The Little DNA project has family groups with British, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, African, and Mediterranean roots, illustrated by the following haplogroups:

R1b>M269 - the major group of several clusters:

R-L21>L193 – Scottish Borders Little lineage - Isles origin

R-L1 - Abraham Little line (aka "null") - Isles/Germanic origin

R-L2 - Klein/Daniel Little line - Germanic origin

R-L48 - Jacob Kline/Cline line - Germanic origin

R1a>M512 - defining category of Valentine Klein/Little line - Germanic origin.

I-M253 - Jacob/John Little lines - Viking/Scandinavian origin

J-M172 - Klein line - Jewish/Germanic origin

A & E-L117 - Little - African origins

G-M201 - Cline/Klein line - Germanic origin

A few other surnames have been explored in the project including Taylor, Irwin, Beatty, Car, Armstrong, Douglas and others that share genetic matches with our Little  family clusters. We also have previously tracked Klein, Cline, Beggans/Biggins, and similar names that translate to Little when anglicized.

As a surname project, we encourage all to test Y-Chromosome–Y-DNA—which is available only to males. Y-DNA defines the haplogroup structure of our project members to which all other tests provide supporting information. The results of these Y-DNA tests may be found under the DNA Results, both as a listing of the STRs, sorted by family subgrouping. The Y-DNA SNPs are also displayed as the Group Time Tree which shows the evolution of our haplogroups against a time line.

Little Surname DNA Project - DNA Results - FamilyTreeDNA

As project administrators, we are always here to help explain and interpret your results for you to get the most from your testing. We are also available to discuss your next-step in any added testing in which you may be interested.

We welcome all Littles to participate in our project!