Kilcoyne Family History : Kilcoyne Blue Group Update

Progress in the Blue Group in the Y-DNA Project has come along nicely in the past year. In the beginning this group was only defined by the Louisburgh, County Mayo Kilcoyne's. We have since added several testers with some interesting results. We are seeing the names Coyle and Coen appear in the match lists of the Kilcoyne's. The Coen kit has tested at an entry level DNA kit, so I am unable to decipher time to the most recent common ancestor between him and the others. His earliest known ancestor was from County Sligo. So if this man upgraded to the BigY700 DNA kit, we could see exactly when the match was. I have talked about the match to the Coyle's extensively in my Facebook group. I believe the Coyle and Kilcoyne surnames in this instance are one in the same. As explained to me by an Irish speaker, Kilcoyne translates to Mac Giolla Chaione, Coyle translates to Mac Giolla Chomgaill. Giolla means Kil, if the pronunciation is stretched it sounds like Coyle. I believe the names at one point were the same and was used by a man who was the common ancestor for all the testers in this group. It is likely that due to the Anglicization of surnames in Ireland beginning in the 16th century, that the surname evolved into the variations we are seeing in the match list. This was quite common during this period with many clan names all over the island. With the information we have this point, we can ascertain that the common ancestor for this group was sometime between 600-800 years ago. So the surname Coyle/Kilcoyne has likely been fixed to this specific family for that amount of time. Surnames became custom around 1000 years ago in Ireland, so its possible that this family has carried the same surname throughout the course of the surname era in Ireland. I haven't come across any information on a historical connection between the families. So with our Y-DNA study, we are rewriting was is known about this clan.

In this image below is the "Block Tree" on the results page of Family Tree Dna. This shows where the testers sit on the Haplotree, or the Tree of Mankind. I-FT418455 is downstream or a twig on Haplogroup, I-M223. I-M223 is prehistoric Irish Gael, and was formed about 14k years ago in Europe. You can read about that here . https://www.irishorigenes.com/content/dna-irish-gael

The Block Tree shows an average of 7 Private Variants for these testers. We can estimate the time to the most recent common ancestor by multiplying about 100 years per variant, or mutation.

Below is a map of Kilcoyne/Coyle and Coen matches. Based on the location of the earliest known ancestors of the testers. All being in the 19th century. With new testers and existing testers upgrading to the BigY700, we can learn much more. In the image below, I have entered the surname alongside the blue pin.

This family tested positive for genetic mutation I-FT418455. Formed around the year 1200AD in the common male ancestor in Ireland. Here is the paternal migration for this family out of Africa. Which began a few hundred thousand years ago. This family likely entered Ireland around 800BC.

http://scaledinnovation.com/gg/snpTracker.html

The latest BigY700 tester for this group will be adding a new branch to the Haplotree. This branch will be downstream of I-FT418455. This high level Y chromosome testing is now building a family subclade in modern times. Building the genetic branches down in the genealogical era has enormous value, as more testers come in to the mix, we can more accurately determine genetic distance between the testers. And see where families branched off. This is the ultimate goal of Y testing. And an achievement for this group. The new branch is not yet added to the haplotree but will be within the month.

Blue Group in the Y-DNA Project. Visit the Kilcoyne Project at https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/kilcoyne/activity-feed