The breakthrough for Irish Genetic Genealogy was a paper by Brian McEvoy of Trinity College, Dublin published in 2006. In it he discovered an STR signature that was very prominent from the northwest section of Ireland over to the southwest of Scotland. There were about 65 Irish surnames studied in the paper, and the Haugheys and Dunleavys were included. Haughey is the spelling of Hoy found primarily in Donegal where some Ó hEochaidh migrated to after 1200 under the protection of the Cenél Chonaill. The MacDunveavy were a father and five brothers who were the last kings of Uladh (Ulster) from around 1150 to 1200 when the Normans conquered and dispersed them. The MacDunveavy are recorded as being hereditary physicians to the Cenél Chonaill and were a part of the Hoy family, so they are of interest to us. Both the Haugheys and Dunleavys are almost entirely found in the far southwest of Donegal on the Glencolmcille peninsula. The Cenél Chonaill were based near the present location of Donegal town which is at the other end of the peninsula. See the maps below.
Later Dr. David Wilson discovered the SNP associated with McEvoy's STR signature which was called M222. Two Easton Hoys have been tested and we are M222. Dr. David Wilson and Iain Kennedy of Scotland lead work which lead to the discovery that we are 7 levels below M222 and are FGC30623 which was discovered in our sample.
In 2014 Jim Wilson released data for SNPs below M222 for the first time. Before that there was a huge group of kits lumped together with a strong Donegal tilt which led to the "Niall of the Nine Hostages" idea. Jim's data was a huge breakthrough, but only for the majority Donegal group. Even now, the tree under S659 (DF105) is huge as this is the main Donegal branch. There was still a large group left to be assigned to a new SNP. It is here that Iain and David did their work. They organized the unassigned people and with the help of Thomas and Astrid Krahn of Y-SEQ they found that the SNP of this group was in fact FGC4077 which then led to branches off that including A725 and S676 and S679 below that. Y-SEQ identified A725 and Jim Wilson S676 and S679 (the S is for Scotland, his home).
Eventually other branches were found on the FGC4077 tree, and the SAPP process has identified twelve of which A725 is the largest. A725 itself has many sub-trees of which there are 15 at present.
People from the McHarge Project have been present since the time of Iain and David's work and 26 of them are in A725, making them the largest surname group that we have until we found the Burns Project which is now the largest surname project.
These are some parts of the tree from the SAPP process of David Vance which builds upon statistical STR work with SNP data and supplements that with genealogical records.
- FGC4077 Tree - FGC4077 Tree (Show STR data)
- A725 Tree -
A725 Tree (Show STR data)
- S676 Tree -
S676 Tree (Show STR data)
- S679 Tree - S679 Tree (Show STR data)
- FGC37618 Tree - FGC37618 Tree (Show STR data)
- FGC37613 Tree - FGC37613 Tree (Show STR data)
- FT23510 Tree - FT23510 Tree (Show STR data)
- FT168987 Tree - FT168987 Tree (Show STR data)
- BY189805 Tree - BY189805 Tree (Show STR data)
- BY18039 - Donegal Burns Tree - BY18039 Tree (Show STR data)
- BY18039 - Donegal Burns Tree on The Big Tree with the same results and 2 new kits.
- S676 Tree -
S676 Tree (Show STR data)
Tests for the SNPs listed above can be obtained from YSEQ.net with these links
The price is $19 (US) with $6 for the first sample kit
- FGC4077
- A725
- S676
- S679
- FGC37618
- FT23510 - Common name: O'Gara
- FT168987 - Common name: McGough
- BY189805 - Common name: Lindsay
- BY18039 - Common name: Burns in Donegal
- All SNPs below S679 found in The 2014 Hoy sample at the FullGenome Corp except FGC30718
There are over 600 total kits in the project which has been whittled down from over 1000. There are 350 FGC4077 Kits of which 200 are A725. The rest are 'outliers' needed in this type of analysis to give the algorithm a wide range of data from which to choose and prevent false positives. Eighty of them are from the M222 project which are mostly from the Donegal branches and the rest from the M269, U152, and DF27 projects.
We have tested kits from these FTDNA projects:
- Byrne, Francis John (2001), Irish Kings and High-Kings, Dublin: Four Courts Press, ISBN 978-1-85182-196-9
- Brian Patrick McEvoy, First published 2005, Genetic investigation of Irish ancestry and surname history
- James McNish, First published 22 February 2018, "The Beaker people: a new population for ancient Britain", The beaker-people a new population for ancient Britain
- Lara M. Cassidy et al, First published December 28, 2015, "Neolithic and Bronze Age migration to Ireland and establishment of the insular Atlantic genome", Cassidy et al
- Davidski - Eurogenes Blog, Wednesday, January 16, 2019, "Single Grave > Bell Beakers", Single Grave Bell-beakers