A couple years ago, as a Christmas present to myself, I paid for DNA testing for my husband and my brother.  I naively hoped they’d both match with long-lost relatives in Europe and my genealogical research would be over.  When that didn’t happen, I filed away the results and mostly forgot about DNA. 

This week I went back and revisited the test results. I mentioned reading about Brian Boru in my last blog. I'd suggested my husband's family, the Hickeys, might be descendants of the Dalcassians.  (I guess I’m no different than masses of family history buffs in that I hoped to find we’re related to royalty...) Contemplating this possibility, I remembered the DNA test and wondered what it might tell.

My interest in DNA was also piqued by a recent announcement by the Genealogical Society of Ireland and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. They are cooperating in an all-Ireland project to create a collection of DNA samples for individuals of Irish extraction. Their project has both genealogic and genetic goals:

1) to further knowledge of the population history of Ireland and its relationship to other European populations, and

2) to increase understanding about how genes affect health in Ireland. 

To me, one of the most intriguing facets of DNA testing is Y-DNA, the various markers in the Y-chromosome.  Y-DNA follows the paternal line (i.e., your father, your father’s father, etc.) and therefore corresponds to the inheritance pattern of surnames.  (That’s why I had my brother tested.)  I don’t claim to understand the science of genetics; I’ll just share some of what I’ve read recently on the subject.

A Y-DNA haplogroup is defined by Family Tree DNA  as all male descendants of the single person who first showed a particular SNP (Single Nucleotide Permutation) mutation. A SNP mutation identifies a group who share a common ancestor far back in time, since SNPs rarely mutate. One way to think about haplogroups is as major branches on the family tree of Homo Sapiens. Haplogroups are named according to capitalized letters of the alphabet, A through T.

Each major haplogroup, or clade, can have subgroups (subclades), named with lower-case letters and numbers. My immediate interest was in R1b - the most common haplogroup in Western Europe, reaching over 80% of the population in Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, western Wales, the Atlantic fringe of France, and the Basque country.  Turns out Brian Ború's Y-DNA is R1b1b2, which is called Irish Type III, or R-L226.  A comprehensive website  (http://www.irishtype3dna.org) and a special research project exist for this Dalcassian haplogroup.

My husband’s haplogroup is R1b1a2 so he's not a descendant of the high king. Close but no cigars. R1b1a2 is believed to have originated about 9,500 years ago in the Black Sea region. King Tut, the boy pharaoh who ascended the Egyptian throne at the age of nine, had the genetic profile R1b1a2. According to Swiss geneticists quoted in an August article in Reuters, up to 70 percent of British men and half of all Western European men are related to the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. (Interestingly, less than 1% of modern-day Egyptians belong to this haplogroup.) The earliest migration of haplogroup R1b1a2 into Europe began with the spread of agriculture in 7,000 BC. King Tut wasn't the royalty I had in mind.

I’m told if we order additional testing – the “Deep Clade-R SNP” test at FTDNA – we might find out more about the cluster into which Bill fits. Maybe a future Christmas gift for myself?