About us
The BELL surname is said to have originated from the *Bels* of Flanders dating to before ca. 960 AD. A century later during the 1066 Norman conquest of England, our forebears were part of that invasion resulting in their receiving ownership of conquered land. From the Flanders Bells (of different spellings), their descendants became the mid-lower English Bells - the north-east English Bells - the lowland and Border Scot Bells ... and later the Ulster Scot Bells - and the Highland Scot Bells. The Y-test results of some participants in THE BELL Y-DNA PROJECT suggests that blood relatives who associated with Clan Bell were not a majority of the clan. With about 40% of the Bell participants having no discernible matches to anyone else in our study. We can be certain that the Bell surname was adopted by numerous families, each having very different origins. Please click *Links* found in the upper left-hand side of our Bell Project "Activity Feed" page.
The Haplotype is the sequential listing of the recorded STR's (Short Tandem Repeats) in your alleles (markers) that were measured during the analysis of your swab sample. The likelihood that a person shares a recent common ancestor with another person diminishes rapidly as fewer marker-by-marker matches occur. Accepted DNA protocol interpreting test results has determined that males with the same or similar surname, who match each other exactly on the 25 marker test likely share a common ancestor. If their Haplotype differs by only a single +/- one-step mutation on a single loci, they will still likely share a common ancestor. Y-37 marker testing offers only a marginally better confidence level of matching within a genealogical time-frame. STR testing ONLY has the ability to *Predict* your Haplogroup assignment. The only way to irrefutably *Confirm* your terminal Haplogroup assignment is by SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) --- by either incrementally testing 'SNP Packs' or doing the 'all inclusive' Big Y-700 SNP test.