The Kerr/Carr surnamed individuals who have tested are largely R1b, but for the most part, their genetic distance indicates the common paternal ancestor was a very long time, long before surnames came into vogue in the Northlands of Britannia. There has been some confirmation for folks whose family lore said they shared common paternal ancestry within a few generations and others whose Y haplotypes match but the paper trail connection is missing. Given that there are over 200,000 Kerr/Carr surnamed families in America today (US Census), and a similarly large number elsewhere on the globe, this result from a few samples is not surprising, as more people join in we should see more coalescence of YDNA lines within our surname projects. Kerr Clan is a different story, when I was in Scotland at one of the Kerr Castles the wide variation of surnames in the Kerr Clan was pointed out to me. Individuals who identify themselves as Kerr Clan descendants will not share a common YDNA profile anymore than they do a common surname. Most likely not everyone having a surname common to the Kerr Clan, such as Nixon, actually could be traced to an ancestor within the Kerr Clan either. I just say that to point out that Clan is actually an association of people living within a communal group, at least in many cases, not people who descend from a recent common ancestor or share a common surname. Cheers, John Carr On Sep 1, 2006, at 8:06 PM, Andrew and Inge wrote: > It's my impression that indeed most clans show a lot of diversity. In > other > words DNA is showing that they are really many male lines, not one. > Regards > Andrew >