Over 600 Men Now on Clan Donald DNA Project Tables
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Over 600 Men Now on Clan Donald DNA Project Tables
 ksaxe
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Posted: 13 Jun 2008 7:01PM GMT |
Classification: Query
Surnames: Donaldson, MacDonald
ess than seven months after becoming the first family-based genetic genealogy project to post results for 500 participants, the Clan Donald DNA Project is now the first family-based genetic genealogy project to post results for 600 participants. This Y chromosome DNA project is open to all men with surnames suggesting Clan Donald ancestry and all men who have reason to suspect that their line came from Clan Donald territory. Approximately 370 men in the project have surnames that are variants of the name MacDonald. Some of the most commonly used variant names within the project are:
McDonald, with 142 participants (+1 Mc Donald)
MacDonald, 105 participants (+8 Mac Donald and +4 MacDonald)
McDaniel, 42 (+2 McDaniels)
McConnell, 29 (+1 McConnel)
Donaldson, 15 (+1 Donelson)
Early in the clan's history, the clan chiefs took the surname MacDonald, and many men with MacDonald variant surnames today are their descendants, but there are also many such men who are not male line descendants of that first MacDonald chief. Some are descendants of men who joined the clan upon marriage and took MacDonald as their surname. Since MacDonald and Donaldson both mean “son of Donald”, there were many men who adopted these surnames in honor of their fathers. In some cases, MacDonald or another variant surname was later anglicized to Donaldson.
Because the Y chromosome is passed from father to son with little change from generation to generation, Y chromosome DNA testing allows us to sort out the Donaldson and other MacDonald variant surname lines within the project. Right now, there are 30 separate groups of men in the project, and 29 of those groups include men with MacDonald variant surnames. These groups were created by comparing DNA test results, and any man who joins the project will be placed in a group. Generally, the men most closely related to a man will be found in the same group, and there is a way to compare test results using the project tables that makes it easy to find the men most likely to be related to a given project member.
Some men find that they are members of relatively large groups of men that are rather closely related. Generally, these groups descend from kings and clan chiefs whose families have had great reproductive success. Other men find that they are members of smaller groups which may be very closely related. Still others find that their results make it difficult to classify them, and are placed in a catchall group of potential cousins which may be large or small. Some may be placed in a catchall group because they don't have close matches within the project. Others may have results that are ambiguous. For many of those, further testing would make it possible to classify them into smaller groups. Many men in these catchall groups do have matches, and from time to time, it will be possible to form new groups for these men and their matches.
Results for the Donaldson men in the project show a very interesting pattern. While none of them have been classified into the two largest family groups in the project, a third of them are classified as relatives of the famous Irish king Niall of the Nine Hostages. Niall probably lived about 1600 years ago, and his family has produced many descendants. Traditional Irish genealogies link a number of Irish surnames to male line descendants of Niall, and researchers at Trinity College in Dublin discovered that a very large number of Irish men with similar Y chromosomes revealing shared ancestry includes a large proportion of men with these surnames. Because DNA mutations accumulate gradually over time, researchers can estimate how long ago the group was formed by looking at the amount of variation in Y chromosome test results within the group. Estimates for the age of this group suggest that Niall or a relatively close ancestor of his was the founder. Taken together, all of this information convincingly links men whose DNA matches the group profile to Niall and the others in the group.
Most of the Donaldson men classified as members of the Niall group have very close matches with others in the group. Two of the Donaldson men and a Donelson match each other perfectly, suggesting a very recent common ancestor for the three men. Another man has results for 12 DNA markers, and these 12 marker results are not enough to conclusively say that he is closely related to anyone, but he has 14 perfect matches within the group. The estimated number of generations back to his common ancestor with each of those men is 15, but it's probable that some of those cousins are more closely related and some of those cousins are more distantly related than those statistics suggest. The remaining two Donaldson men within the group have borderline matches that probably share a more distant common ancestor.
You can find out more about the family of Niall of the Nine Hostages using your webbrowser and here are two links to get you started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_of_the_Nine_Hostages
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=13...
What can these new DNA research techniques do for these researchers and other genealogists in general? One thing they can do is reveal relationships with cousins when a paper trail is lacking. One on one comparisons with such cousins don't reveal precisely how two men are related, but finding these connections is very rewarding and can help genealogists focus their paper trail research on true relatives. In some cases where paper trail research is unsuccessful in establishing exactly how two matching men are related, it is possible to deduce their relationship by testing other men from the same family with paper trails and analyzing their results. As more advanced testing techniques become available, it will be possible to say more and more about a man's line based on his DNA test results alone, and combining these techniques with paper trail research will lead to even more breakthroughs.
One way that DNA testing can help researchers narrow their search is by providing clues to where their families lived years ago. If multiple DNA matches for their line lived close together, there is a good chance that their family came from the same location. Men in the Niall group are heavily concentrated in northwestern Ireland, but by looking at their closest DNA matches, researchers might be able to narrow down their search to a more specific location there or in one of the other areas where Niall's descendants have lived.
Using DNA matches to narrow one's search geographically can also help researchers outside the larger family groups. Earlier this week I was able to develop a pretty promising lead for a Whitmore researcher who had posted a query on the DNA-Newbie list at yahoogroups about the seeming lack of matches for her Whitmore cousin. Her case was a little tricky because her line probably experienced an unusual mutation event that changed the DNA profile for their line substantially. Once I realized this, we were able to identify two men as her cousin's most promising DNA matches. Neither of them shared the Whitmore surname, but one's line traces to Langholm in the county of Dumfriesshire in Scotland, and the other's line traces to the neighboring county of Roxburghshire. The county line between the two lies about 5 miles from Langholm, so we now have reason to suspect that her Whitmore family was close to there before the adoption of surnames in that area.
What about the other Donaldson men in the project? Another third of them have been placed in the catchall group for a genetic grouping called Haplogroup R1b. The men in any given haplogroup all descend from a common ancestor. The most recent common ancestor of the men in Haplogroup R1b lived thousands of years ago. Some of his descendants within the project have been classified into smaller groups, which include the family of Niall of the Nine Hostages. Others are in the catchall group. One of these men has results for 12 markers, and his closest matches are within the Niall group, but the 12 marker results are ambiguous as to whether he really is a member of that group. Another Donaldson has a similar match with a Donald. Because the Donald only has results for 12 markers, it is not clear whether they belong together in a smaller subgroup. Two of the others have borderline matches with men whose surnames are not variants of MacDonald, and these men may or may not share a common ancestor who lived since the adoption of surnames. Another man has a near match with a Donaldson in a smaller group, but the test results are far enough apart that it's possible their most recent common ancestor lived a very long time ago.
The remaining Donaldson men within the project are found in three groups. One of these is the small group mentioned above. This group is known within the project as the Light Brown group, but it is also called the Frisian group. This name refers to the prevalence of this group in areas of the European Atlantic coast near the Netherlands. The two Donaldson men in this group are each other's closest matches with an estimated number of generations to their most recent common ancestor of thirteen.
One of the Donaldson men is a member of a haplogroup called R1a. This group is distantly related to the R1b group, and the R1a group includes the descendants of the clan chiefs, but this man is not closely related to the clan chiefs at all. Some R1a men in the British Isles descend from the Vikings. R1a is still found in Scandanavia, but it is more prevalent in eastern Europe and parts of Asia. It's possible that this man's ancestors took the surname Donaldson after immigrating from one of these locations to an English-speaking area. He does not have close matches within the project at this time.
The two remaining men belong to a haplogroup known as Haplogroup I1, which is known within the project by its old name, I1a. This haplogroup is associated with Viking and Anglo-Saxon invaders of the British Isles. One of these men has matches with a MacDonald and a Connell, while the other has no matches within the project.
Whether a family has matches for their line within the project or not, family members may want to ask known or suspected male line cousins to test. Having results for more than one known cousin can tell a family more about the markers of their most recent common ancestor. Knowing more about the most recent common ancestor's marker values can be very helpful when making comparisons with other DNA matches who don't share a known common ancestor.
You can find out more about this project by going to the welcome page of the project website at http://dna-project.clan-donald-usa.org/.
Kirsten Saxe, McConnell researcher
McDonald, with 142 participants (+1 Mc Donald)
MacDonald, 105 participants (+8 Mac Donald and +4 MacDonald)
McDaniel, 42 (+2 McDaniels)
McConnell, 29 (+1 McConnel)
Donaldson, 15 (+1 Donelson)
Early in the clan's history, the clan chiefs took the surname MacDonald, and many men with MacDonald variant surnames today are their descendants, but there are also many such men who are not male line descendants of that first MacDonald chief. Some are descendants of men who joined the clan upon marriage and took MacDonald as their surname. Since MacDonald and Donaldson both mean “son of Donald”, there were many men who adopted these surnames in honor of their fathers. In some cases, MacDonald or another variant surname was later anglicized to Donaldson.
Because the Y chromosome is passed from father to son with little change from generation to generation, Y chromosome DNA testing allows us to sort out the Donaldson and other MacDonald variant surname lines within the project. Right now, there are 30 separate groups of men in the project, and 29 of those groups include men with MacDonald variant surnames. These groups were created by comparing DNA test results, and any man who joins the project will be placed in a group. Generally, the men most closely related to a man will be found in the same group, and there is a way to compare test results using the project tables that makes it easy to find the men most likely to be related to a given project member.
Some men find that they are members of relatively large groups of men that are rather closely related. Generally, these groups descend from kings and clan chiefs whose families have had great reproductive success. Other men find that they are members of smaller groups which may be very closely related. Still others find that their results make it difficult to classify them, and are placed in a catchall group of potential cousins which may be large or small. Some may be placed in a catchall group because they don't have close matches within the project. Others may have results that are ambiguous. For many of those, further testing would make it possible to classify them into smaller groups. Many men in these catchall groups do have matches, and from time to time, it will be possible to form new groups for these men and their matches.
Results for the Donaldson men in the project show a very interesting pattern. While none of them have been classified into the two largest family groups in the project, a third of them are classified as relatives of the famous Irish king Niall of the Nine Hostages. Niall probably lived about 1600 years ago, and his family has produced many descendants. Traditional Irish genealogies link a number of Irish surnames to male line descendants of Niall, and researchers at Trinity College in Dublin discovered that a very large number of Irish men with similar Y chromosomes revealing shared ancestry includes a large proportion of men with these surnames. Because DNA mutations accumulate gradually over time, researchers can estimate how long ago the group was formed by looking at the amount of variation in Y chromosome test results within the group. Estimates for the age of this group suggest that Niall or a relatively close ancestor of his was the founder. Taken together, all of this information convincingly links men whose DNA matches the group profile to Niall and the others in the group.
Most of the Donaldson men classified as members of the Niall group have very close matches with others in the group. Two of the Donaldson men and a Donelson match each other perfectly, suggesting a very recent common ancestor for the three men. Another man has results for 12 DNA markers, and these 12 marker results are not enough to conclusively say that he is closely related to anyone, but he has 14 perfect matches within the group. The estimated number of generations back to his common ancestor with each of those men is 15, but it's probable that some of those cousins are more closely related and some of those cousins are more distantly related than those statistics suggest. The remaining two Donaldson men within the group have borderline matches that probably share a more distant common ancestor.
You can find out more about the family of Niall of the Nine Hostages using your webbrowser and here are two links to get you started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_of_the_Nine_Hostages
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=13...
What can these new DNA research techniques do for these researchers and other genealogists in general? One thing they can do is reveal relationships with cousins when a paper trail is lacking. One on one comparisons with such cousins don't reveal precisely how two men are related, but finding these connections is very rewarding and can help genealogists focus their paper trail research on true relatives. In some cases where paper trail research is unsuccessful in establishing exactly how two matching men are related, it is possible to deduce their relationship by testing other men from the same family with paper trails and analyzing their results. As more advanced testing techniques become available, it will be possible to say more and more about a man's line based on his DNA test results alone, and combining these techniques with paper trail research will lead to even more breakthroughs.
One way that DNA testing can help researchers narrow their search is by providing clues to where their families lived years ago. If multiple DNA matches for their line lived close together, there is a good chance that their family came from the same location. Men in the Niall group are heavily concentrated in northwestern Ireland, but by looking at their closest DNA matches, researchers might be able to narrow down their search to a more specific location there or in one of the other areas where Niall's descendants have lived.
Using DNA matches to narrow one's search geographically can also help researchers outside the larger family groups. Earlier this week I was able to develop a pretty promising lead for a Whitmore researcher who had posted a query on the DNA-Newbie list at yahoogroups about the seeming lack of matches for her Whitmore cousin. Her case was a little tricky because her line probably experienced an unusual mutation event that changed the DNA profile for their line substantially. Once I realized this, we were able to identify two men as her cousin's most promising DNA matches. Neither of them shared the Whitmore surname, but one's line traces to Langholm in the county of Dumfriesshire in Scotland, and the other's line traces to the neighboring county of Roxburghshire. The county line between the two lies about 5 miles from Langholm, so we now have reason to suspect that her Whitmore family was close to there before the adoption of surnames in that area.
What about the other Donaldson men in the project? Another third of them have been placed in the catchall group for a genetic grouping called Haplogroup R1b. The men in any given haplogroup all descend from a common ancestor. The most recent common ancestor of the men in Haplogroup R1b lived thousands of years ago. Some of his descendants within the project have been classified into smaller groups, which include the family of Niall of the Nine Hostages. Others are in the catchall group. One of these men has results for 12 markers, and his closest matches are within the Niall group, but the 12 marker results are ambiguous as to whether he really is a member of that group. Another Donaldson has a similar match with a Donald. Because the Donald only has results for 12 markers, it is not clear whether they belong together in a smaller subgroup. Two of the others have borderline matches with men whose surnames are not variants of MacDonald, and these men may or may not share a common ancestor who lived since the adoption of surnames. Another man has a near match with a Donaldson in a smaller group, but the test results are far enough apart that it's possible their most recent common ancestor lived a very long time ago.
The remaining Donaldson men within the project are found in three groups. One of these is the small group mentioned above. This group is known within the project as the Light Brown group, but it is also called the Frisian group. This name refers to the prevalence of this group in areas of the European Atlantic coast near the Netherlands. The two Donaldson men in this group are each other's closest matches with an estimated number of generations to their most recent common ancestor of thirteen.
One of the Donaldson men is a member of a haplogroup called R1a. This group is distantly related to the R1b group, and the R1a group includes the descendants of the clan chiefs, but this man is not closely related to the clan chiefs at all. Some R1a men in the British Isles descend from the Vikings. R1a is still found in Scandanavia, but it is more prevalent in eastern Europe and parts of Asia. It's possible that this man's ancestors took the surname Donaldson after immigrating from one of these locations to an English-speaking area. He does not have close matches within the project at this time.
The two remaining men belong to a haplogroup known as Haplogroup I1, which is known within the project by its old name, I1a. This haplogroup is associated with Viking and Anglo-Saxon invaders of the British Isles. One of these men has matches with a MacDonald and a Connell, while the other has no matches within the project.
Whether a family has matches for their line within the project or not, family members may want to ask known or suspected male line cousins to test. Having results for more than one known cousin can tell a family more about the markers of their most recent common ancestor. Knowing more about the most recent common ancestor's marker values can be very helpful when making comparisons with other DNA matches who don't share a known common ancestor.
You can find out more about this project by going to the welcome page of the project website at http://dna-project.clan-donald-usa.org/.
Kirsten Saxe, McConnell researcher