About us
There are some British or Irish people with such rare names that they are unlikely to have sufficient numbers to form a surname project.
This project aims to:
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Give a focal point to those with rare surnames.
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Encourage men with rare surnames to get tested before their names become extinct or "daughter out". The Y-DNA record could prove valuable in future.
For the purposes of the project, rare is defined as having a frequency of less than 1000 as determined by the 2016 Oxford University Press publication "The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland" - Patrick Hanks, Richard Coates, and Peter McClure.
While this threshold may not be generally considered rare, as the participation levels in Y-DNA testing are very low, I do not want to preclude any surnames that may be on the threshold of never being tested.
It is inevitable that some rare surnames may prove to be corruptions of more widely known surnames.
Please note that this is a Y-DNA project and so only those with Y-chromosomes can contribute Y-DNA test results.
You can otherwise contribute information or encourage someone in your family to get tested.