Initially, the Zachariah FERRISS line was being compared to the Stephen FERRISS line both of New Milford, Connecticut, in the mid 1700s. However, a Jeffery FERRIS descendant also joined so ... we should have representation from the major early American FERRIS(S) lines. This site was originally set up by Stephen FERRISS who was the Administrator until 12 November 2013. We appreciate his hard work. This is why the Project Name sometimes comes up as FERRISS. FTDNA is unable to change it !!! However, others whose names belonged to the larger FARRIS Surname Group started to join this site which introduced many spelling variations. 82 different spellings within the FARRIS Surname Group have now been identified & there could be more. They are all listed below in SURNAMES. Some of these spelling variations have already been connected by Y-DNA matches. As more men join this project, we can expect even more Y-DNA matches between the various spellings. These surname spelling variations have been seen in the historical & genealogical records of England, Ireland, Scotland, Ulster, the American Colonies & the USA. Since many (if not most) of our ancestors were illiterate, the scribe writing the name in a document wrote down what he heard. Almost every document that I have found for my illiterate ancestor William FARRIS in the 1700s in South Carolina has a different spelling for his name. FARRIS Surname Possible Spelling Variations (83) as of 24 August 2014 are listed below. They are based on Ancient Records of Britain, Ireland & the USA. Note that the Published Surname Books of Britain (England & Scotland) & Ireland all say that the FARRIS/FERRIS Surname is a corruption of FERGUS. However, the Y-DNA results do not yet support that conclusion. The work for our project dated December 2014 by Dr. Tyrone BOWES also doesn't support this conclusion. These surname variations listed below over time could all have morphed into the surnames that we now see more commonly in our current records: FARIS, FARRIS,FERRIS, FERRISS & PHARRIS. FARRIS & FERRIS are about evenly split in the USA, FERRIS(S) is the most common in Britain & Ireland and in Sardinia & Western Italy FARRIS is the most common. I have been told that in Arab speaking countries the most common spellings are FARIS & FARRIS. This needs to be verified.