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Subject: [DNA-R1B1C7] sectarian division in Ulster of r1b1c7?
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:07:56 +0000
Dear Yair,
Paranoia is our usual mental state here. As you were born in Jerusalem you understand that! Except that in Jerusalem it was probably not hard to tell the difference between an Israeli Jew and an Arab based on cultural clues. It's a lot more difficult in Northern Ireland. Much more complex. So more paranoia. More concern about 'who' it is 'we' are. Many polemics and much bad "science", down to today, has been spent digging barriers around the much diminished ethnic identities in Ulster.
In the past it was much more complicated. In the early 1600s you had many Highland Scots who came to Antrim with the McDonalds. They were Catholic and spoke Gaelic. Gaelic survived into the 1850s in Galloway, so presumedly many Scots coming into Down from south western Scotland also spoke Gaelic. In a book on Presbyterians and the Irish language, you can read about how the Scots preached in Gaelic to the Irish and how the first Protestant minister at Bushmills was a Gaelic speaking Irishman. In the past Scot and Irishman had much in common including both language and culture. Hence it was very easy to shift 'ethnicity' and to intermarry. One man I know, a professional genealogist, determined his ancestors had changed from Catholic to Protestant and back four times, each time changing ethnic identity, shifting their use of first names and language to conform with the ethnicity du jour. You had German immigrants, Dutch, French, English, Welsh -- all assimilated
into Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum, but their DNA is quite possibly neither.
There is plenty of evidence of constant intermarriage in Ulster. For one thing, one is accepted if one changes one's religion. You don't even need to change your last name. For example David Hume, a Catholic politician with a Scots surname. These 'cases' go on and on. Check a list of IRA prisoners.
In the early 1600s you had Scots Catholic lords (the Hamiltons, the McDonalds) establishing estates in Ireland and bringing over Catholic tenants and their DNA. But you also had plenty of intermarriage. The surnames are very ambiguous because the origins of everyone are identical -- Gaelic culture and language. So a McKane in Coleraine, if Protestant and not a thinking man, assumes his ancestors were Scots, while his neighbor, a Catholic, suspects he's descended from the local sept O'Cathain, just like himself. Odds are they both are. The Protestant McCains who left in 1718 for Boston were r1b1c7 as is the American Presidential candidate. Even a study of surnames
of Orangemen will disclose plenty of assimilation of Irish. You don't even need to go to DNA to
build the case. A similiar study of north coast Covenantors who moved to Western PA in the late
1700s shows a similar mix of Irish surnames.
Kirby Miller, author of the definitive work on Irish emigration, indicates that the bulk of Donegal's
population left in the 1700s, not the 1800s, due to her poor soil. If you check the DNA in
projects like the Cumberland Gap project, the uplands of Virginia and TN, you will see huge
amounts of R1b1c7 -- evidence that Kirby is right. In a standard book on the history of the
"Scotch Irish" (An American ethnic group comprised of people from Ulster and those who
assimilated into them -- who settled an area the size of Europe) the story is retold of a priest
exploring the up country of Virginia (etc) in the early 1800s. There he found many Irish surnames
and many people who, if asked, said they were Irish, but all were Protestant because there were
no Catholic churches. So what else could they be after three generations in America?
I have worked on a McAmis/McCamish/McComish family who manifested in Virginia in
the 1770s -- typical folk of that era. Married girls named Galbreath and other Scots surnames.
Good yeoman stock -- builders of mills and buyers of land. They populated the hills of Tennessee.
They are not only R1b1c7 but matches for the supposed main line of the O'Cathain clan.
This is the McCamish sept of southern Tyrone. They are matches (67 markers tested) for a man
in Australia with an excellent paper trail back to a village in Tyrone. The McComishes of
the Banbridge, Co Down area, though R1b1c7, are not O'Cathains. However the books are
full of statements claiming McComish is Scots, largely because the supposed leaders of Clann
Gunn use the surname McComish (son of Thomas). However there was more than one
man named Thomas who left sons and in this case, the man was Irish. Possibly at some point
they went to Scotland and then migrated back. Probably not. They fit the pattern of being local
Irish, some of whom converted to every possible flavor of Protestantism and many who remained
sons of the mother church. But all R1b1c7.
Changing religion or politics doesn't cause DNA to morph into a foreign type. Our ancestors
changed both and were consequently accepted in to the community of choice unless they betrayed them -- something that happened a lot.
It's not a pleasant topic to most. We're all tired of the word 'sectarian' I suspect. We're
tired of being painted as violent bigots -- even those families haven't been there for 200 years.
We need to come up with some less offensive language so that we can discuss these topics
without our blood pressures leaping sky high. Most feel their ethnicity is under attack.
One place to check is www.ulsterheritage.com. The DNA project includes Ulster DNA. The admin is quite knowledgable (he's a Catholic descendent of Protestants who settled in America in 1718 --
R1b1c7). He'll be the first to tell you (calmly too!) the surname and religion of choice is no indication of the type of Y chromo.
In the end we're really one big family. I suspect (we've not done enough testing to know) there is more native DNA in Ulster than non. That just makes sense. When the plantation began there was
always a shortage of "British", so the Irish were always having to be employed to bring in the harvest, etc. The situation got worse in the 1630s when the English began religious persecution of Scots and
many returned to Scotland. Then you had the 1640s and 50s, not times when people came over.
However there were poorly understood waves of migration to Ulster later on, esp. at the very start of the 1700s due to a famine in Scotland. Largely though, Ireland was not a good place to go. It
was a place to leave which is why through the 1700s people did leave. However in going to America they went to a place where Catholicism was not only illegal but impossible to practice except in a few places such as Maryland and some counties in PA (Adams) where many German Catholics settled. However Irish were not welcome in these communities. They wre not particularly welcome in Maryland, settled by rich English gentlefolk. They 'looked down' on Irish -- Protestant or Catholic.
The Germans were not sympatico. Nor do Irish like to live with Germans. Too different.
I have done professional research into the early Catholic settlements in PA, looking for Irish,
and they are not there. The Irish who left Ireland as Catholics tended to hide their religion in
America, where they were surrounded by Protestants. They had no access to priest or Mass.
Their children had no religious education. They assimilated. I suspect the amount of R1b1c7
in the 'Scotch Irish' is higher than that in Ulster due to the assimilation of Irish 'on the boat'.
Especially with the advent of the United Irish in the late 1700s, many people were not bigots
but ardent supporters of religious liberty -- on both sides of the Atlantic. The first Catholic
diocese west of the Allegheny Mountains was started by a group of United Irish era imigrants
of mixed religions who left from southern Donegal about 1790 and settled in what is now
Butler Co, PA. Both Protestants and Catholics signed petitions to get a priest. Members
of this group intermarried with the 'Scotch Irish' population as well. I have Hagarties marrying
Protestants in the early 1800s. A search for Hagarties revealed them -- but they were
Methodists in 1803, so they had 'assimilated,' probably in Ireland. The Methodist I found in
1803 was converting to Catholicism, probably to marry. We got the case of an
Archibald Black who was Catholic. It's a rather Scottish name. You can't sort these
people out by religion. If you asked them who they were, I suspect they'd all say "Irish"
and dare you to challenge them. They were quite aggressively United Irish and many
descendents remain so to this day. They came on the ship Eliza. They chose to live together
in harmony in western Pennsylvania.
My mother is the product of a mixed Ulster marriage -- though both sides were Protestant,
one was ethnically Ulster Scot and one Irish. My grandparents conducted ethnic wars
for 70 years, making the war in Northern Ireland seem quite short. However research into
their families reveals many Irish surnames on my grandfather's side and Scots on my
grandmother's. They were mixes. If you talk genealogy to any Orangeman, you'll get
Irish surnames in his past. He will not recognise that these are Irish surnames because
they are common in his community and he is not educated to look for 'bonds' with the
other side any more than they are with his. Though I was raised Protestant, my
granddaughter's father is an O'Rourke and she was baptized Catholic (he's now married
to a southern Baptist so I'll make no bets on the religion of the next generation....).
In the research I've done in western Scotland, it's unusual to get back a generation or two
and NOT find a very Irish surname. I have studied Irish surnames so I
recognise them, but most wouldn't. There's little in western Scotland that isn't Irish.
In Black "Surnames of Scotland" he recounts several stories of how Irish surnames are
assimilated into Scots -- quite rapidly.
I'd go as far as to speculate that most DNA in Ulster is native Irish. Just never were enough
Scots coming in for a long enough time to account for the numbers of Protestants there now,
most of whom have recognizable Irish su rnames in their past, assuming they do not bear
one now. Many of those whose surnames appear Scots or English, are Irish with surnames
shifted to conform. Of course some of thsoe who believe they are Irish are Scots.
We are early into the Healing Times, so sometimes it's difficult for us to hear this. I
spent a lot of time in my life reconciling my ancestry but most have not had the benefit
of the time that I have had. So many will not want to hear this. But you can examine the
DNA yourself in various DNA projects and come to your own conclusions.
Linda Merle
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>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: sectarian division in Ulster of r1b1c7? (yair)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:47:10 +0300
> From: yair
> Subject: Re: [DNA-R1B1C7] sectarian division in Ulster of r1b1c7?
> To:
> Message-ID: <>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>
> At 10:14 PM 6/27/2008, you wrote:
> >What is your question? Sounds like your trying to stir up a bit of
> >something. And why didn't you see fit to sign your name.
> >
> >Billy Dunbar
>
> My name is Yair Davidiy
> I live in Jerusalem, Israel
> I was born in Australia.
> I am r1b1c7.
> Do you want to know anything else?
>
> I have posted on this list several times before as a glance at the
> archives will show.
>
> I was not trying to stir up anything.
> Nor did I intend to hide anything.
>
> Concerning my question,
> I think it might be interesting to see if the distribution of r1b1c7
> exactly reflects sectarian lines or not.
>
> I do not however want to offend people and did not intend to offend.
>
> I assume that most people on this list are r1b1c7.
> Judging from the postings many are primarily interested in clarifying
> their own genealogies
> or other specific genealogy matters.
> Fair enough.
> I am also interested in seeing what if any secondary characteristics
> of an historical or other nature
> may be involved.
> I think this also legitimate field of interest.
>
>
>
>
> >In a message dated 6/27/2008 2:59:06 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
> > writes:
> >
> >Is there a sectarian division in Ulster of r1b11c7?
> >It is obvious that r1b1c7 pertains to the native Irish
> >but many of them joined the Plantation in Ulster and others may have
> >been r1b1c7
> >in Scotland.
> >Is there a great difference along sectarian lines of r1b1c7 lines?
> >What about the Scots-Irish and Irish-Catholics in America.
> >How do they compare?
> >
> >I have seen it assumed (probably by mistake) that the Scots-Irish
> >have an even higher rate
> >than others and find this hard to believe but if true deserving of
> >further inquiry.
> >
> >
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> End of DNA-R1B1C7 Digest, Vol 2, Issue 93
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