A civil discourse on IrishOrigenes' methods

[jdean]

As I mentioned previously I am not sure it would work for English surnames as the Irish and Scottish adopted patrilieall surnames at an early stage

If the system works England would probably make as good a test bed as anywhere, surnames were adopted in England reasonably early and include a lot derived from places. A great number of English surnames were very localized right up into the 20th C. and of course the English weren't in the habit of anglicizing their names : )

BTW I thought this interesting

http://www.geocurrents.info/cultural...opean-surnames

[Dave-V]

I have tried out Dr Bowes methodology and it works perfectly well for my case.

Would you be willing to post a more detailed review of how it worked for you? As much as I may disagree with the methodology, I really would like to see more supporting arguments for it.

I don't question the value of analyzing surname matches and Dr. Bowes certainly starts out with the valid premise that surname matches yield clues to one's ancestry. But this metholodogy follows a very specific process, and if you're saying that you were able to follow the same process to reliably find your "genetic homeland" from 1000 years ago down to a 5-mile radius, or even close, then your experience would be a great example of conditions under which the Bowes case study conclusions could be supportable.

[Heber]

If I follow the simple five step process using the methodology and using the downloadable surname maps I get he following:
http://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorco...etic-homeland/
I use common sense filtering eg. I do not include my Italian surname match who subsequently turned out to be adopted.
This pinpoints my genetic homeland to Clonfert Parish in East Galway on the Shannon River.
Census and other land records quickly confirm this.
My paternal ancestors are buried in Clonfert Cathedral going back to at least the 17th century and beyond.
The Annals of Ireland show a Bishop Corcoran of Clonfert Cathedral in the 11th Century and another Annals entry shows a DF21 match with a surname ancestor as Bishop of Clonfert in the 9th Century.
The Corcorans were a family of Erenaghs, ie they farmed on monastic land and usually one son would become a cleric, teacher, medic, bard or poet attached to the monastery. A detailed analysis of census and archives shows them clustered around monastic settlements in Ireland going back 1,000 years and broader clan names back a further 500 years. This extends to the Irish Monastic movement on the continent.
http://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorco...stic-movement/
Clonfert was one of the larger monasteries and learning centers in Ireland.
One of my closest matches is McEgan Chief of Clan Egan of Shannonbridge a few kilometers away from Clonfert.
As an aside my highest match was a William Corcoran of Minnesota who was unknown to me.
I invited him and 20 of his extended family back to visit Clonfert in August and TG4 made a documentary on the Gathering.
http://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorco...athering-2013/
The segment starts at 12:30.
Edit:
http://www.tg4.ie/en/player/tg4-play...le=Tar+Abhaile
Enjoy..

Of course I know where my ancestors came from but Bill did not. Using the same methodology he would probably get the same result.
I am sure that if I commissioned a paid case study from Dr Bowes, I would get a lot more scientific detail and contextual information.
As a technologist I can immediately see about ten innovations which would improve the system and provide a more interesting result.
However as proof of concept this is good enough for me.

[Heber]

If the system works England would probably make as good a test bed as anywhere, surnames were adopted in England reasonably early and include a lot derived from places. A great number of English surnames were very localized right up into the 20th C. and of course the English weren't in the habit of anglicizing their names : )

BTW I thought this interesting

http://www.geocurrents.info/cultural...opean-surnames

Jean,
I am not going there.. I do not know enough about English surnames. I am happy enough to stick to Irish and Scottish.
Perhaps Debbie would have a crack at that. Thanks for the interesting link.

[Dave-V]

If I follow the simple five step process using the methodology and using the downloadable surname maps I get he following:
http://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorco...etic-homeland/
I use common sense filtering eg. I do not include my Italian surname match who subsequently turned out to be adopted.
This pinpoints my genetic homeland to Clonfert Parish in East Galway...

Gerard, thanks loads. This is actually very interesting. It's going to take me a little time to digest as I only have my IPad this weekend and it doesn't play well with Pinterest, but two quick questions:

- What kinds of genetic distance do you see on your matches of other surnames? I'm guessing that those splits happened at a variety of times over the past 1000 years, but in your case it doesn't really matter when the MRCAs lived if your paternal ancestors were in the one place over that whole time period. The IrishOrigenes case studies take all matches and assume they happened when surnames were first adopted, but a perfectly reasonable variation would take the likely MRCA timeframes into account.

- How did you get from the surname distribution maps which suggested Galway to pinpoint Clonfert Parish? The case studies look for concentrations of your surname and surname matches together in the surviving Ireland censuses to narrow down the genetic homeland; was that your process or did you use another? If that's on Pinterest already my apologies i missed it so far.

Dave

[Heber]

Gerard, thanks loads. This is actually very interesting. It's going to take me a little time to digest as I only have my IPad this weekend and it doesn't play well with Pinterest, but two quick questions:

- What kinds of genetic distance do you see on your matches of other surnames? I'm guessing that those splits happened at a variety of times over the past 1000 years, but in your case it doesn't really matter when the MRCAs lived if your paternal ancestors were in the one place over that whole time period. The IrishOrigenes case studies take all matches and assume they happened when surnames were first adopted, but a perfectly reasonable variation would take the likely MRCA timeframes into account.

- How did you get from the surname distribution maps which suggested Galway to pinpoint Clonfert Parish? The case studies look for concentrations of your surname and surname matches together in the surviving Ireland censuses to narrow down the genetic homeland; was that your process or did you use another? If that's on Pinterest already my apologies i missed it so far.

Dave

Dave,

I am on the road and have limited access to my stuff.
I have put all the required maps on the Pinterest board so you can sort through them there.
http://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorco...etic-homeland/
I do not have my paper maps and pins with me so I have used a generic surname map.
The end result should be similar.
Everyone has a different way of doing research however you have to use a common sense approach throughout.
Many of my matches point to Galway so that draws my attention, although that is also clear in the county maps analysis.
Next I focus my match location in Galway for names such as McEgan, Mahon, O'Daly, Keane, etc and show their locations in separate maps.
It becomes obvious quickly that the center of my matches is Clonfert Diocese.
This corresponds roughly to territory of Ui Maine.
I would recommend additional research in the Tribes and Customs of HyMany by O'Donovan or the Great Book of Irish genealogies by McFirbis.
The analysis draws me in to the center of the Clonfert Diocese which is Clonfert Cathedral.
This is the epicenter of my ancestors location as most of my ancestors are buried there with gravestones going back to the 17th century and Annalistic records back to the 11th century and matches records back to the 9th century.
In fact if you look at 1714 maps it is the only location of note.
All my ancestors homesteads are within a radius fro 1 - 5 km of Clonfert Cathedral.
1901/1911 Census, 1845 Griffiths Valuation, Grave Markers, 1830 Tithe Allocations, Landed Records confirm this.
The land records and maps and census records are on the Pinterest links I provided.
For further technical reports I would recommend asking Dr Bowes politely.
I do not know what his response will be as some posts on this board and Facebook were rather unfair.

[Bowe(s) ONS]

I haven't looked up the expected mutation rates for the Ely Carroll DYS values, but DF21 itself was over a thousand years old before there was ever a Norman/Gael border in Ireland; nobody should be surprised if it was already among the Normans even if it was also dominant among the Gaels of south Offaly. Hopefully wider testing and deeper tests like Big Y, Chromo2, and Full Genomes will get us farther, but I'm not smart enough to know when the flashlight is considered big enough. Dave

Somehow I missed all these subsequent posts. Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm not at all surprised that DF21 would have many English and specifically Norman surnames, and that the Ely Carroll are a subset of this larger group. I hope I didn't imply that DF21 was Ely Carroll. I don't know anyone who thinks that. Rather, Ely Carroll has specific STR values noted and also happens to be DF21. The subset of DF21 that shares the unique Ely Carroll STR values, along with the estimated time those mutations occurred (setting aside back mutations etc. for now), may shift and change. Peter Biggins does that work. Thankfully we have four Big Y tests on order by four different Ely Carroll DNA group surnames, include Bowe(s). Hopefully more advanced SNP testing to come ...

[Bowe(s) ONS]

Even accepting that DF21 may be associated with Ely O'Carroll, for instance, it does not follow that a Clan Ó Cearbhaill ancestor was DF21.

More data will always potentially improve analyses. On the one hand it's a fair question: even *if* a Clan Ó Cearbhaill ancestor were DF21, did that SNP enter the ancestral patrilineal line as an NPE since, at least, the beginning of the Clan Ó Cearbhaill historical record such as it is? Maybe the clan's original members had no such SNP or STR marker values. But this is a group where I think we have a fair shot at the chance that Clan Ó Cearbhaill ancestors were DF21. It's just a question of how far back. The modern day Ó Cearbhaill descendent who has DNA tested, and still goes by Carroll, doesn't just have an alleged paper trail to the 18th or 19th century in Ely Carroll territory. In addition to his firm paper trail to the Carroll family which is the subject of the book Princes of Ireland, Plantars of Maryland, he continues to reside on the land in Maryland granted to the family by the King of England in the 17th century. His DNA matches additional surnames historically associated with the Ely Carroll territory. Hopefully this helps explain why the group up to now has been labeled Ely Carroll DNA. The Ely Carroll DNA project is quite limited in its membership, not to DF21, but to DF21 with specific STR markers. Maybe the boundaries of the STR markers will eventually clearly encompass tribal groups in addition to those of Ely Carroll and the group name will need to be broadened? Or advanced SNP studies will similarly cause a name revision? In either case I'd guess there probably were other haplotypes among the Ely Carroll. But for now, given that a Carroll tester clearly belongs to the pedigree of the chiefs of Ely Carroll, is there still reason not to refer to Ely Carroll DNA for this DF21 subgroup?

Your broader point is well taken about how we are looking into a vast, dark past with a flashlight at best and caution is warranted in using labels and drawing firm conclusions. I just wish I had another 150 years of life to live to see what the data looks like then :-)

[Dave-V]

Dave,

I am on the road and have limited access to my stuff.
I have put all the required maps on the Pinterest board so you can sort through them there.
http://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorco...etic-homeland/
I do not have my paper maps and pins with me so I have used a generic surname map.
The end result should be similar.
Everyone has a different way of doing research however you have to use a common sense approach throughout.
Many of my matches point to Galway so that draws my attention, although that is also clear in the county maps analysis.
Next I focus my match location in Galway for names such as McEgan, Mahon, O'Daly, Keane, etc and show their locations in separate maps.
It becomes obvious quickly that the center of my matches is Clonfert Diocese.
This corresponds roughly to territory of Ui Maine.
I would recommend additional research in the Tribes and Customs of HyMany by O'Donovan or the Great Book of Irish genealogies by McFirbis.
The analysis draws me in to the center of the Clonfert Diocese which is Clonfert Cathedral.
This is the epicenter of my ancestors location as most of my ancestors are buried there with gravestones going back to the 17th century and Annalistic records back to the 11th century and matches records back to the 9th century.
In fact if you look at 1714 maps it is the only location of note.
All my ancestors homesteads are within a radius fro 1 - 5 km of Clonfert Cathedral.
1901/1911 Census, 1845 Griffiths Valuation, Grave Markers, 1830 Tithe Allocations, Landed Records confirm this.
The land records and maps and census records are on the Pinterest links I provided.
For further technical reports I would recommend asking Dr Bowes politely.
I do not know what his response will be as some posts on this board and Facebook were rather unfair.

Thanks Gerard.

I started this thread in reaction to the marketing of the case studies as rock-solid science and I've certainly challenged Dr. Bowes for his enthusiastic faith in his own methodology. How he chooses to market his business is a different issue, however. I appreciate yours and everyone's views here because it is the only academic debate that I've seen about this approach, and I think that's more important.

I think it's clear that parts of the approach used in the case studies could be improved, like looking more at SNPs and distinguishing more among STR matches and taking TMRCAs into account. Parts could be endlessly debated like how much and for what groups the various censuses really reflect 1000-year old patterns. And underlying it all the basic idea of looking at surname matches for ancestral migrations is perfectly sound.

I probably haven't given Dr. Bowes enough credit because his surname distribution database produces helpful maps and his other maps etc can be helpful - your case is a great example of that. His enthusiastic marketing of his case studies is really only a concern for those who want to buy them, so I'm done challenging him there.

I don't know if Dr. Bowes will continue to refine his methods; if he does, I hope he gets in touch with you, since what you're calling common-sense approaches could be useful refinements and cases where the documentary evidence supports the process could be very useful.

Dave

[DebbieK]

If a system works then it should work consistently. It's quite possible that purely by chance the "correct" location is found in some cases, but this would ignore all the other cases where it doesn't work. One of the inherent assumptions made in the methodology that is of particular concern to me is that the surnames in your match list are supposed to represent the neighbours of your ancestors one thousand years ago. In reality NPEs have happened throughout history and many of the names in the match list will represent NPEs that have occurred in more recent generations. As far as I can gather there does not seem to be any attempt to correspond with the people in the match lists so that recent NPEs can be filtered out, as Gerard has done with his adoptee with an Italian surname. As the FTDNA database is very US-biased it seems to me that many of the matches with other surnames will in fact not reflect a genetic homeland in the British Isles but NPEs which have occurred in Colonial America in the last few hundred years. In the Irish Origenes case study of the Kiely surname, Tyrone Bowes somewhat implausibly finds that the genetic homeland of this Irish surname is near Leamington Spa in England. This critique of the Kiely case study by Howard Mathieson suggests that a more plausible explanation for the appearance of these surnames in the match list is that they are all found in Colonial South Carolina:

http://surnameorigins.ca/maps/kiely2/index.htm