In recent years, the new science of Genetic Genealogy has been developed which applies DNA analysis to Genealogy. This measures the changes between parts of the Y-chromosome and how it affects people's descendants. The Y-chromosome is unique to the male line, as are surnames and its DNA type is denoted yDNA. The female line is also studied, but from a different area of the cell called the mitochondria but is not as useful for Genetic Genealogy since there are fewer changes to track and its DNA type id denoted mDNA. The full set of DNA, called the genome is also available and is called aDNA where the 'a' is for autosomal, i.e. not sex specific DNA. All are useful, but aDNA is most often used to find related people from the last 200 years.
There are two kinds of analysis called STR and SNP.
STR was the first developed and the less accurate. The changes occur very often which leads to a lot of uncertainty. It is often used to locate distant relatives within a couple of hundred years.
SNP was developed later and is much more definite. The changes occur seldom and are very rarely repeated. This is not useful for finding cousins (as of now) but is very useful in tracking the movements of peoples and tribes going back hundreds or thousands of years.
When STR and SNP testing is combined with statistical models, the result is better than either part. We will use the SAPP process by David Vance later with very good results.
STR analysis uses PCR testing, which is older, cheaper, and faster. This is often used by police. SNP used Next Generation Sequencing, which is newer, more expensive, and slower. The result of SNP testing is a symbol denoting the lab who first discovered the SNP and a unique number. For example, The Easton Hoys are S679 along with four other men in the various datasets. The 'S' is for Scotland because Jim Wilson discovered it in his Chromo2 work in 2014 and he is Scottish. STR testing gives a long set of numbers recording a value on a specific area of DNA. Originally it was twelve numbers, but modern test can be up to 111 (or more). These results are called Haplotypes and are grouped into Haplogroups of samples which form a tree from a sequence of letters and numbers. These two concepts are united, and an SNP can be assigned to a haplogroup to place it on the tree. S679 by itself is meaningless, so You may also see a sequence of SNPs: M269>L23>L51>L11>P312>S461>L21>DF13>DF49>DF23>M222>FGC4077>A725>S676>S679. This denotes the descent of S679 from one man denoted R1 who may have lived in Siberia 20,000 years ago. (Note the R sample was found in Siberia around 22,000 years ago.) The haplogroup for S679 is not yet determined nor is that of our parent S676 (10 men), so we use A725 below. The full tree for A725 is here:
SNP Haplogroup - Notes
M173 R1
M343 R1b
L754 R1b1 - Southeastern European - found in Serbia
L388 R1b1a - Villabruna - found in northern Italy
P297 R1b1a1 - 13k years before present
M269 R1b1a1b - R-M269 is most common in western Europe.
L23 R1b1a1b1
L51 R1b1a1b1a - Arrived in West Europe from steppe and its main expansion was from the Rhine delta.
P310 R1b1a1b1a1
L151 R1b1a1b1a1a - Corded Ware Culture. Early Corded Ware and Don Yamnaya are basically identical.
P312 R1b1a1b1a1a2 - Match Single Grave Culture from around the Lower Rhine. Lots of Bell Beaker DNA and 90% is R1b-P312
S461 R1b1a1b1a1a2c
L21 R1b1a1b1a1a2c1 - Insular Celtic (Bell-Beaker)
DF13 R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a - Rathlin Island
Z39589 R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a1
DF49 R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a1a
S6154 R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a1a1
S476 R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a1a1a
DF23 R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a1a1a1
Z2961 R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a1a1a1a
M222 R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a1a1a1a1 - The Féini and Ulaidh and Gáilióin, i.e., the Laighin.
FGC4077 R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a1a1a1a1b
A725 R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a1a1a1a1b1 - Sloinne Ó hEochaidh
The Hoy family has an SNP called R1b-M222 which as later refined to R-A725
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 five brothers who were the last five 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. 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 4 levels below M222 and are S679.
In 2013 Jim Wilson released data about SNPs below M222 for the first time. Before that was were 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 ten of which A725 is the largest. At present, these are ten sub-branches of FGC4077 with eight identified by SNPs and two by STRs as their DYS number.
A725 itself has many sub-trees of which there are 14 at present. Twelve are identified by SNPs and two by STRs as their DYS number. They 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 (SNP data Only)
- A725 Tree - A725 Tree (SNP data Only)
- S676 Tree
- Donegal Tree
There are 325 total unique FGC4077 Kits of which 200 are A725
- 574 M222 Kits from the Scotland Y-DNA Project
- 151 M222 Kits from the Irish Mapping Project
- 125 FGC4077 Kits from the R-M222 Haplogroup Project
- 71 FGC4077 Kits from the Ireland Y-DNA Project
- 29 Kits from the McHarg Project
- 12 Kits from the Hoy, Louth, Livingston, and McClellan Projects
- 21 Kits from the Huey, Reiley, Boyle, O'Donnell, McLaine, and Coyne Projects
- 10 Kits from the Ulster, and North of Ireland Projects
- 6 Misc kits from other projects
