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Subject: [DNA-R1B1C7] Linda ,your post
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:22:30 +0000

Hi Dan,

So far, no death threats for my post! This is encouraging.....between my ability to accidentally insult anyone and our Ulster paranoia, it's a rare day indeed!!

Most of your surnames (Gallaghers, McCools and Maquires) seem to be Irish in origin, but the Moor, as you noticed, is a problem because you got your English Moores -- could be locative (placename), Old French, or come from 'dark' -- ie a Moor, and your Gaelic Moores. In Scotland it can be locative (placename) or Muir or the Gaelic Mor. Besides the Gaelic by-name there were Irish sept names that were Englished to Moor, as well as a couple Scots septs. O'Mordha from mordha meaning stately or noble is given by Bell as one name. They were a leading sept of the Seven Septs of Leix, in Dunamase Co Laois. The O'Mores claimed descent from one of them, a descendent of
Conall Cearnach, hero of the Red Branch Knights. This is from Bell "Book of Ulster Surnames".
So you need DNA. There's just too many Moores in Ulster of too many varied origins to hazard much of a guess other than that one one time your Moores 'hung out' with people with Irish surnames. You find these surnames in Irish Presbyterian congregrations here in Western Pennsylvania. I have McCools who married in, but westward, to my Andersons. However there would be more Irish
Catholic Maquires and Gallaghers in general.. So maybe your ancestors didn't 'know' or care the surnames were Irish in origin (who studies surnames??).

You might want to try to study the area. If it has a lot of native Irish, probably your Moores
are also Irish, but I wouldn't bet more than a penny on it.

>Havn't done MT-DNA as yet .
Hopefully she isn't J1 like me. There is a fair amount of middle eastern MT DNA in Ireland, of
all places. This'll not help your

>I found it also to be true in my research of my wife's McAdam line of Monaghan
>and Derrynoose ,Armagh . They went to P.E.I. on a Father MacDonald ship 1841 .
>The McAdam DNA of Derrynoose does not match the Scot. Gregor / McAdam DNA as >previously thought . It is R1b1c7

Well of course. At least three Irish septs anglicized to McAdam or Adams . Roslea-Clones
area of Fermanagh/Monaghan you had y our O'Cadain (also O'Caddan and Cadden). In
Armagh you had your Mac Cadain sept and in Cavan Mac Adahaimh, though we are warned
of the Scottish Cavan family descending from Col James Adam who settled in Co Down
in the early 1600s and married into the Maggennises. He tacked on an s. In 1900 people
in Downpatrick used Adams interchangably with Aidy and around Dromore Eadie -- all in
Co. Down.

Bell says McAdam in Ireland, apart from ones in Dublin, is exclusively an Ulster surname,
most common in Monaghan and of Irish or Scot origin. Apparently there was a Scots
Gaelic MacAdam family. One was in Ayrshire, sept of Clan Gregor, who sought refuge
in Galloway when the clan was outlawed. May be hiding behind the surname Greer.

I'm not sure we know the DNA signature of the McGregor clan leaders (the ones with no
paper trail to the chiefly line might not be related at all).

However McAdam(s) is definitely an ambiguous surname -- Gaelic. You say yours is
R1b1c7, so you have narrowed it down to a few Irish septs <grin>. Unless you find matches
in Scotland. They could be matches on a variety of surnames like Greer and McGregor
or McAdams. But most likely yours remained in Ireland as they are located where known
septs are found.

A very detailed study of the 'locals' might id your sept of origin. Or do what we did on the
McCamish project since we couldn't find any one. We located families in Australia. Australia has
WONDERFUL records. If you can get a hit you can probably identify the village or parish (at least)
of origin. If enough time passes and enough people are tested, you can graph out the locations of matches and perhaps determine if they cluster or seem to radiate from a point of origin -- presumedly the location of the sept.

We worked with the Ulster Heritage project, which seems to have a lot of Ulster DNA samples as well as a fairly knowledgable admin. My client was not one to wait for matches, so I did
genealogy to locate possible matches and he paid for the testing. Also he paid a consulting fee
to this project to get attention focused on us. When it turned out to be 'interesting' DNA, the
geneticists in Dublin got involved, free.

However with a copy of Bell "Surnames of Ulster" you can see for yourself the complexity
of Ulster surnames. He used various 'definitive' surname authors like Black "Surnames of
Scotland", "English Surnames" by Reany and Wilson, and of course MacLysaght's books,
but also used sources specific to Ulster.

Also "Surnames of Derry" by Brian Mitchell is interesting. He took every surname in
the 1989 Foyle Directory (1860 unique ones) and tried to trace them all. Some are Middle
Eastern or Chinese though generally, as he says, Derry surnames have three origins:
1. Gaelic (Irish or Scots)
2. English/lowland Scots
3. 20th century arrivals outside of the UK.

Unfortunately his identification of unique origins cuts across the current ethnic boundaries!
You often can't distinguish between Gaelic surnames as exclusively Irish or Scots -- unless they
are exclusively a local Irish surname. As English was spoken in Edinburgh centuries before it was spoken
in London -- you can't distinguish beween lowland Scots surnames and English either.
This alone should suggest to some people (not on this list) who claim to be experts that
attempts to peg people's ancestors as one or the other of today's ethnicities is rather impossible
and historically inaccurate as in the past the ethnic divide was different. See the list above <grin>.
He tends to give a briefer description of common names based on the same books used by
Bell, but he researched the rare surnames.

We've been trying to determine if two Comes who appear in various 17th century records
in the northern Bann Valley (largely Derry) are McCombs or a rare English surname (they
appear to be gentlemen) or McCamish'es. McComb is son of Tom, and McCamish is
son of Thomas -- they are the same name. If the McCamishes were the sons of a Thomas
who was briefly O'Cathain chief in the early 1500s and who assimilated into the English, they could
appear as Comes -- an attempt to make their surname look more English. Donno. They
disappear, either into another variant of the surname or who knows. These surname books
also identify Holmes as a surname taken by people who are named 'son of Thomas' or a
variant. Who would know that without reading the book! So we look for DNA matches
with Holmes. These surnames books in other words, can help you undestand DNA
matches with different surnames -- especially in a country where as late as 1900, many
people changed the form of the surname at will. To their Irish neighbors they were McGowans,
to the English speaking tax collector they were Smiths (or Smyths if Protestant). A
McGowan converts to Presbyterian (due to very cute neighbor girl) and attends the local
kirk where Ullans is spoken. His children appear in the baptismal records as McCowan.
Now that's a very Scots surname, ain't it? His great great grandchildren believe they
descend from the prominant McCowan family in Stirlingshire. One was a sheriff in Derry
at the time of the Siege! Right.......... All this because a c and a g are very similar to
one another. They do DNA research and are shocked to learn they are R1b1c7. Ho!!

There's a case in the late 1800s in Belfast of a girl who married a McComish. As they
had children and the births were recorded you can see that sometimes she was a
Kilpatrick (Irish) and sometimes Kirkpatrick (Scots). Do not of course know if she
did the shifting or a magistrate. What is clear is these two names were equivalent. Also
have a woman, born a McCamish in Artrea, Tyrone around 1815, who married and
emigrated to Scotland and then Australia, where she died. In recording her surname
in Scotland in children's births, she sometimes used McCamish and sometimes Thompson.
She died as a Thompson, though as the names of her two husbands, her children, and
her parish of origin and year of birth are recorded, there is no doubt it is her.

So we need to understand these surname shifts to even make sense of the DNA
matches.

It's fascinating. Probably Ulster surnames are the most complex in the UK, possibly in
all of Europe. It's because today's ethnicities 'cross' the ethnic/linguistic divides of the
past.

Linda Merle

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