This surname project is for the Porteous surname and any known variants, including Porteus, Portieous, Porteious, Portoues, Portice, Portous, Portes, Portus, Portas, Portass, Portuse, Portis, Pertis, Pertus and Porthouse.

The power of Y-DNA testing is that the Y chromosome can only be passed from father to son, which tends to match the manner the Porteous surname has been passed from father to son through the generations. Of course there are many ways that the chain going back in time may have been broken genetically without a break in the passing of the Porteous surname, be it through adoption, indiscretion, etc.

The Y-DNA test is meant to be taken by any male with the Porteous (or variant) surname, but will be of interest to any Porteous interested in learning more about their Porteous ancestry. It may turn out that a person's results do not appear to connect to the rest of the group or possibly even several groups of similar Y-DNA results. Regardless however, everyone will be able to compare their results to a database of thousands of other people who have submitted samples and possibly make a connection to other surname projects.

For those without an appropriate y-dna test, but who have taken an autosomal dna test such as that offered through the Family Finder test, you may also join the Porteous surname group. Although your results will not be publicly displayed, the project administrators will be able to use some tools not offered to individuals and can provide common match data to you for others in the project, even those who are not listed in your match information. This is a powerful tool when for instance you have a known 4th or 5th cousin who is absolutely a genetic cousin but who doesn't share sufficient common atDNA to qualify as a genetic cousin based on FTDNA's standard for matches.  The common matches between non-FTDNA matches who are project participants can be provided by the project administrators and might lead to being able to focus and reach out to likely common matches to find further details on their trees that might connect you to unknown parts of your own tree.  I encourage anyone with known Porteous ancestry who have taken the Family Finder test to join our group.

I hope that there is lots of interest out in the Porteous genealogy community to get a healthy sampling across the many branches of our Porteous family. We encourage anyone who has been thinking about doing a Y-DNA test and now even a Family Finder test, to take the next step and go for it.

Sincerely,

The Porteous Surname Project Administrators

for an easy to read and understand explanation on y-DNA testing as well as the other tests of mtDNA and autosomal DNA, refer to the links below.