Welcome to the McDuffie surname project. The project is open to all males with the McDuff, McDuffie, McFie, McPhee, McAfee or Duffy surnames, in any of the variant spellings. The purpose of the project is to connect clan members from around the world who have an interest in their shared paternal genetic heritage. Due to the similarity of surnames this project is essentially three surname projects in one. Historically, there are three separate clans (or families) whose surname contained the Gaelic root word Dubh (meaning black). This has led to confusion over the years about which surnames belonged to which particular clan and whether or not they were really separate clans at all. Modern day genetic testing has proven that the three main groups (McDuff, McDuffie and Duffy) are indeed not related. Due to the natural evolution of surnames over time, however, some folks dropped the Mc or Mac prefix, or in some cases changed their names entirely (from McDuffie to McPhee for example). Because of this the project is arranged by subclade, which is a more accurate representation of relatedness than sorting by surnames alone. The main goal of the project is to help members with their genealogical research by identifying shared ancestors and family groups. Individuals with different surnames but who believe their ancestors share a McDuffie connection either through Autosomal, MtDNA or Y-DNA are also welcome to join the project.