Greetings to all!

[tjfinan]

Hello,

I have recently joined this group and am looking forward to reading the past entries.

I am a professor of history and archaeology who works in north Roscommon, especially on the lordship of Moylurg around Lough Key. I was co-director of the excavations at Kilteasheen, where a few skeletons were used in that more notable analysis of british isles dna.

I am very happy to offer thoughts and guidance on questions related to history and archaeology as posted here.

Thanks very much.

Thomas Finan, PhD, FSA

[Webmaster]

Thomas,

Thank you so much for joining our forum. Any insights you may offer will be greatly appreciated! We have been trying to garner academic interest in our research for several years now, so it is a great delight and honor that you have joined us.

[BuckeyeMike]

Welcome Thomas!

I am excited you have offered your expertise to our project! My particular interest is the Mac Diarmait of Moylurg and the surrounding area, and I am absorbing as much of your published material as I possibly can. We surmise I am a distant YDNA match to Francis Mac Dermot, possibly Tomaltach gCear mac Diarmata, King of Moylurg 1331-1336. Personally, I am sure your input will help me identify various branches of the Mac Dermot and find a connection to my brick wall ancestor, William Henry Rowley 1775?-1850.

I am honored to be associated with the academics interested in our endeavor and I am delighted to include you in this list. Any assistance I may give to you, although my knowledge pales in comparison to David and Tim, I will be more than happy to share.

[ChrisMcLain132906]

Welcome to the group Dr. Finan! Thank you very much for partaking in the forum here. I've been unraveling my DNA mystery for years now and although I can't tell if my lineage goes back to these certain individuals, it looks as if I'm a Mac an Leagha, specifically the family descended of Iollan Mac an Leagha Ruaidh (d. 1473) whose sons were Ollamhs to Mac Diarmata and Mac Donnchadha, a branch of which came into Tir Maine by the late 16th c. (Taghboy p./Cam p.)

We're very excited to have you aboard

[tjfinan]

Thank you all for the welcome. Im afraid that you will find that I cant help but get into things...!!!

Again, this is very new to me, and what I and other historians and archaeologists struggle with is how DNA analysis can actually make some sort of difference in a research sense. Let me explain a little bit, and perhaps this might give you insight into why academics often push back on DNA analysis as it does or does not relate to history/archaeology.

Historians deal with ambiguity all the time, and are quite comfortable doing so. We make arguments that are "good bets" based upon both experience and intuition, so to speak. For instance...marriage. We would tend to look at the "official" marriage(s) of individuals as being the really important thing to consider. If, however, someone fathered a child out of a marriage (which most certainly happened), or even a cleric doing so, that child may or may not show on the historical record, but of course this will impact DNA analysis presumably.

And here is the big issue...identity. One of the most contentious issues in medieval Irish history has to do with identity, ie., what are what people say they are, and what are what other people say they are. Most scholars have moved to a very nuanced idea with this that is not the same as what DNA would tell you. For instance. We know that by the end of the thirteenth and well into the fourteenth century many Anglo-Norman lords were dressing, speaking, acting, and behaving like Gaelic lords. And we know that in the thirteenth century many Gaelic lords were acting "English." particularly as it related to things like law. Cathal Crobhderg O'Conor, for instance, tried to use Common Law for his son, Aodh, so that he could legally succeed him in English law (didnt work out). We also know from archaeology that Gaelic lords increasingly used English coinage and imported French wine, and even played English games. And, finally, it is very clear that English and Gaelic lords maintained fluid identities given situations...some were better at it than others, while some pushed back hard against encroaching identity.

And this is where things are very complicated, because how people perceived themselves and were perceived was far more important in the medieval period than their DNA, which, as a modern scientific concept, is obviously not in their mindset, but even lineage itself was pliable.

For this, consider the the MacDermots and the MacGreevys. We think the MacGreevys were lords of Moylurg until the 11th or 12th century, when the MacDermots supplanted them. In the later documents of the MacDermots, this fact was glossed over, and their lineage was morphed to make it more long-standing and their relationship with O'Conor changed...importantly, they became the ones who proclaimed the O'Conor in inauguration by the end of the 13th. In other words, the history is foggy, and intentionally so.

Another angle on all of this. The skeletons analyzed from the Kilteasheen excavations, which I co-directed back in the 2000s. Very cool data...but ultimately what does this data tell us? They were part of a genetic grouping, ok, but we have no idea who these folks actually were in the sense that they may have been clerics, or peasants, or lords. I suspect we cant really figure that out from DNA. Now, if the results came back and it turned out that the individual was from a group known to be from Arabia, yeah, that might be interesting. Anything else merely confirms basic presuppositions about the population that was likely there.

Now...with all of that said.

One thing that my colleague Elizabeth Fitzpatrick has noted (and some of you have picked up in using the fiants as source material) is that people in Gaelic Ireland were not as mobile as we would suppose. Yes, in some cases we can see that a family of learned people might migrate to another lordship that would pay better, but overall, families seem to be tied to specific locations, and often to particular townlands. So we have townlands, named families, and "sites" within the townlands in terms of where people lived...how does DNA somehow contribute to this? I dont know. Some possibilities would of course entail doing specific DNA analysis not of names, per se, but areas...in other words, take a medieval lordship like Moylurg. Go townland by townland (at least the more populated townlands in a contemporary sense) and do DNA analysis of families in the area. That might be interesting as a test case...would we expect to see a preponderance of certain DNA in certain townlands, given the historical info from annals, fiants, etc? AND, if so, maybe maybe, lets say we have a townland without much in the way of historical evidence...could one then make an argument somehow that the townland could have been populated by genetic forebears of a certain name? I dont know. but if you could, that would be interesting.

Apologies for long windedness. You can tell I had a few espressos this morning.

[Webmaster]

Tom,

Thanks again for joining!

One thing I would like to clarify is the different DNA being utilized in genealogy.

Autosomal DNA, or AT-DNA, is what companies like Ancestry, 23andMe, etc. test. This DNA is the combination of both paternal and maternal DNA; that is, it is an admixture. As such, the contribution from each preceding generation gets rapidly diluted until by the 6th generation back or so it becomes effectively impossible to determine which ancestor provided which portion of an individual's AT-DNA.

Mitochrondrial DNA, or MT-DNA, is found in the cell mitochondria and comes exclusively from the mother in both males and females. However, it is very limited because it is so small that sometimes there are millennia estimated between mutations.

Y-DNA, that is, the DNA in the male only Y chromosome, is similar to MT-DNA in that it comes exclusively from the father. And since only males have a Y chromosome, it is passed in an unbroken chain from father to son all the way back to genetic Adam. There is no admixture or any other dilution. There are mutations in the structure of the Y chromosome that occur in some generations; but these mutations are PERMANENT. They are passed down to all patrilineal male descendants of the man who had the mutation. There is NO ambiguity in that chain of mutations.

So with Y-DNA, which is what we deal with exclusively here, we are looking at a completely unambiguous genetic tree, the Y-Haplotree, where every man who has ever lived can be placed on a specific branch of the Y-Haplotree. So when we say we are all descended from a common male ancestor who had the DF104 mutation, that is not speculation, that is cold hard scientific fact. This is what makes Y-DNA research so utterly fascinating.

What we have done and are doing is taking the Y-Haplotree established by the Y-DNA testing in combination with modern surnames, and we are correlating that with the Dál Cuinn genealogies. And by correlation, I mean that in the mathematical sense - taking the Y-Haplotree and surnames and sliding that data across the Dál Cuinn genealogies and finding the point of maximum congruence.

We think we have found that point of maximum congruence with R1b-DF104 being formed within a generation or two of Conn Cétchathach and its dominant R1b-DF105 subclade being formed no later than Eóchád Muigmedón. The current Y-DNA data indicates that no more than one mutation occurs in a single generation or individual man. Thus, each mutation represents a single individual man.

The R1b-DF105 node has 3 mutations, which indicates there were at least 3 generations encapsulated in it. But we also know that mutations do not occur in every generation (at least, so far), so the 3 mutations in the R1b-DF105 node probably indicate at least 6 generations. Those 6 generations can easily span the genealogy from Conn Cétchathach to Eóchád Muigmedón.

Conn Cétchathach > Art Óenfer > Cormac Ulfada > Cairbre Lifechar > Fiachu Sraibtine > Muiredach Tírech > Eóchád Muigmedón

Mutations do NOT occur like clockwork. They happen randomly, as far we currently know. But on average they seem to occur every other generation or so. That being the case, then the branches after the R1b-DF105 subclade can be likely attributed to the Connachta under the assumption that Eóchád Muigmedón was the last generation encapsulated in the R1b-DF105 node. This is our current working hypothesis.

We are also working under the hypothesis that Eóchád Muigmedón's sons Brión, Fiachróe Foltsnáthach, Ailill, Fergus Cáechán(???), and Niall Noígíallach were a skipped generation. That is, none of the sons except possibly Niall had any Y chromsome mutations. As indicated, Niall may be the exception because as far as we can see, ALL of Niall's known descendant families are falling under the R1b-ZZ87 subclade. This may indicate that the ZZ87 mutation occurred in Niall himself; but we are NOT making that claim. We do not want a repeat of the previous fiasco with M222.

The descendants of two of Brión's putative sons are well represented in the R1b-A18726 subclade (Dau Galach) and the R1b-BY35731 subclade (Conall Oirisen/Oirbsen).

The descendants of two of Fiachróe Foltsnáthach's sons are well represented in the R1b-FGC23742 subclade (Feradach Daithe AKA Nath Í) and the R1b-BY35727 subclade (Amalgaid).

Since there are no later genealogies for the Uí Ailella or the Uí Fergusa Cáecháin(???) that we are aware of, we can make no identification of any descendants.

As far as the yet unidentified subclades of R1b-DF105, there are more than enough putative sons of Brión and Fiachróe Foltsnáthach to account for them, as well as possible Uí Ailella or Uí Fergusa Cáecháin(???) descendants.

So identity is not an issue with Y-DNA. Societal conventions and customs are irrelevant. Every man who has the DF104 mutation is descended from the same common ancestor who is someone in the Dál Cuinn lineage, either in or before or after Conn Cétchathach. There are NO other peoples involved with this branch of the Y-Haplotree; no "peasant" lineages, no other Irish "noble" lineages. We ARE the Dál Cuinn exclusively. Some branches obviously fell into obscurity and poverty; but we all share the same patrilineal heritage, unambiguously.

Now its my turn to apologize for getting so long winded. But this is such a fascinating subject; and thanks to the mechanics of biology, it is so unambiguous. This is why it should be a critical component of all modern historical, archaeological, and genealogical research.