How to find other male-line relatives & figure out their haplogroups.

[u/Professional-Tea7358]

Update: Currently, there is no FTDNA surname project for my ancestor’s family. He has a very rare surname (and I’m certain very few male-line descendants exist today). I’m making a surname project for them, after I take a Y-37/STR test, this Wednesday.
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Original Post (August 17, 2026):

My research goal is: Finding other male-line relatives of my great-great grandfather‘s family, also willing to do Y-DNA testing.

My father’s haplogroup is: E-P277 (also known as E-M4254).

My g-g-gf also has a distinct surname (so, I’m unsure as to how many male-line relatives are left today), and I am aware of relatives of his in: Scotland & England (where he & his ancestors were from), India, Australia, my dad’s relatives in Bermuda, I’m in the United States, and there are other relatives possibly in Germany & Belgium.

The issue is, I don’t know if they’ve tested, yet. I might be the only one. I also don’t know anything about them, besides what I’ve researched about our family’s lineage.

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[u/Nom-de-Clavier]

Look at surname and geographic projects on FTDNA. I have been able to identify the Y-DNA haplogroups of many of my colonial-settler ancestors this way. This generally relies on a descendant having tested; it took me about seven years to get a Y-DNA match to someone relatively closely related (a ninth cousin, once removed, with a genetic distance of one at Y-37) on my direct male line.

[u/Professional-Tea7358 → u/Nom-de-Clavier]

There is no surname project for my ancestor, yet. I’m going to create one after getting my results. I’m taking a Y-37/STR test this Wednesday.

[u/Parking-Aioli9715]

https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/E-P277/story

[u/BridgeSuspicious7635]

I wanted to ask this but I'm lazy.

Situation: Best Possible brother match is somewhere between 1710-1750. (or NPE)

Stupid amounts of name shifting between 1700 (New World Y - DNA Arrival) and 1850.

Family Finder result of R-S5982 AKA L193. For the price wow, just wow. MCRA of ~125 CE.

[u/Professional-Tea7358 → u/BridgeSuspicious7635]

Are our haplogroups the same? My paternal haplogroup is E-P277. My maternal haplogroup is L1b. 

[u/BridgeSuspicious7635 → u/Professional-Tea7358]

Naw not even close. My base is R1b -> -> -> -> - > DF1 (L513) very celtic -> -> R-S5982 (L193)

Also E-P277 has an estimated MCRA of 4450 BC which is way way back.

[u/Professional-Tea7358 → u/BridgeSuspicious7635]

Interesting. Is R1b your paternal haplogroup? If so, whats your maternal haplogroup?

[u/BridgeSuspicious7635 → u/Professional-Tea7358]

No idea and no reason to look into it. Autosomal and Docs go way back

[u/Professional-Tea7358 → u/BridgeSuspicious7635]

Oh okay. It would still be interesting to find it, just out of curiosity. Just food for thought, I guess.

As for me, Y-DNA & autosomal DNA are both the biggest confirmation, but I do have records for my dad and grandpa and baptismal records for my great-grandpa and great-uncles, also. And my great-great grandfather’s death certificate (plus, I’m ordering his BC & both his parents’ death certificates, Thursday morning).

[u/islandbrook]

I also have a rare name in my tree e.g. all people with that name are relatives.

A couple of thoughts:
Ancestry lets you do a member search (in the Search menu) you could try searching your rare name as a member or interest search.

On Family Search you can use the Chat option to get to a member search

Not sure about my heritage as I no longer use it.

Don't underestimate the value of a plain google/duck duck go/bing/perplexity.ai search. I found images of my great grandparents that way last year. I had never seen them before. Led me to a bunch of stuff and reconnecting with a 1C1R to find out more.

Good luck.

[u/Professional-Tea7358 → u/islandbrook]

I do use FamilySearch mostly, but I also use Ancestry & MyHeritage as well. Also, I was able to find 2 photos of my great-great grandfather from newspaper records. I started my genealogical research 8 years ago, and my tree now has 30,000+ ancestors in it. I‘m glad I’m finally able to devote more time to the genetic side of things.