2021 Year in Review for the Kilcoyne YDNA Project

 Another year has come and gone. 2021 was a very productive year. Thanks to all  those who have contributed in any fashion to the study. 

Important milestones and discoveries have been made through the use of the BigY700 DNA test. This high resolution kit has allowed me to find genetic branches in our ancestors that were created in the time that we can trace our ancestors on paper. This has allowed the diaspora to trace their roots back to their ancestral parishes in Ireland. And has allowed me to genetically map our paternal migrations into Ireland with pretty accurate time estimates. 

There are now 11 families that are unrelated to each other on the male line. Some testers are left off of the map due to having the same parish pinned by their cousins. All of our groups are of Gaelic origins, and have been in Ireland for possibly several thousand years. We have nearly 50 testers now with about 50% of them being English or Irish based. This is quite the feat for an American Project administrator  on FTDNA ! Thanks to all for trusting me and assisting this study. 

The Gold family from  Tubbercurry

This family is the largest Kilcoyne group with 11 testers. This is probably because this is my branch and there is testing bias because of it. I have found 3 genetic branches that were formed at specific addresses in the area. This a tremendous success because Kilcoynes in the diaspora can simply test and find their exact roots in their native parishes, and in some cases can be tied back to a specific farm from the 19th century!

This group has definite links to the Coyle family from Donegal about 400 years ago. My theory is that the family were originally Coyles but the name changed to Kilcoyne upon their arrival in South Sligo in the last 3-400 years. Below is the migration out of Africa for this family. These Kilcoynes entered Ireland during the Iron age . You can type in FT308088 and look more closely at the genetic mutation and the ancient skeletons we are related to here http://scaledinnovation.com/gg/snpTracker.html 

The Light Blue family from Achill 

There are 7 testers now for this group. For several years I had noticed autosomal DNA links between the Gold family to this group. It had perplexed me until a family from Shanvallyhue, Mayo told me that it was passed down in their family that two Kilcoyne men left Tubbercury in the early 19th century for Achill. I strongly suspect that the Tubbercurry and Achill Kilcoynes are cousins, but their was a break in the Achill Y Chromosome sometime before 1800ad. Its possible a child took the name of his step father or took his mothers surname. This might explain all the DNA links but no match to the Y Chromosome . So this Achill family was likely in Sligo before their migration westward in the early 19th century. This group has matching to the Coyles as well, but more testing is needed to decipher when the common ancestor was. This family is R-FT18311, but is not yet added to the Tree of Mankind because of its recent discovery. I will share that map and info in our Facebook group when its added 

The Blue family of Louisburg, Mayo and Ballymote, Sligo

This is a real interesting group. It is my belief this is the founding Kilcoyne family. All the testers in this group were from the Louisburg area until a Kilcoyne man with Ballymote roots tested into them. I can see through genetic mutations that the common link could be 800 years back! Surnames started to be used in Ireland back 1000 years ago all the way up to the 1600s, so this is pretty incredible to have found this link. It is likely the Louisburg family moved westward towards the coast in the last several hundred years. The Blue family also has YDNA connections to the Coyle's back about 400 years ago. This family is R-FTA37584

These 3 groups are the primary ones that have the most testers. Some of the eight others are in fact Kilcoynes, but had a break in their Y Chromosome at some point. I have found that in at least two groups, a female passed her surname onto her son, resulting in the son carrying a Y chromosome from his non Kilcoyne father. More testing is needed to determine if the other groups are simply undertested, or they branch off one of the three primary families 

There are four Kilcoyne groups that have links to the Coyle's. As our testers began upgrading their kits to the BigY700, it became clear that these names were easily confused when surnames began being anglicized in the 1600s. I have never seen or read about any possible link, so this development  was surprising. I hope to recruit more Coyle's to gain more understanding between the links. 

I still have not found any link from the Kilcoynes to the Coyne's. Just recently we had a Coyne man test with roots in Kilmactigue, Sligo. His ancestor farmed the same lands as the Kilcoynes in the 19th century, but he did not match to any of our group's. I know there must be some Coyne's out there carrying a Kilcoyne Y chromosome, but as this stage I think its an exception and not the rule 

We have nearly 400 Facebook followers in 6 countries. Continue to share with family to generate more interest.  We are always looking for more YDNA and Autosomal DNA testers! In the early days of this Project, I had several people donate to the Kilcoyne fund to return a favor to me.  We do accept donations if you are able to help advance the study. I can think of several men in every group that want to upgrade their kits, but cannot due to the cost. If you have a specific interest in a certain family, just let me know and I can direct that money to the right kit. 

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/kilcoyne/about

If there is anyone looking to buy a BigY700 DNA kit for another family line, I'd be glad to help decipher that  info . Feel free to reach to out 

Happy Christmas to all 

Michael 

mikec1120@comcast.net 

CONNECTING THE ACHILL AND SLIGO FAMILY

    A remarkable discovery has been made that may have connected the Kilcoyne's from Sligo to the Kilcoyne's from the Achill area. We know through our YDNA study that these two families do not have a shared founding male Kilcoyne ancestor, but through other DNA evidence and family word of mouth, we can put the original founding Achill Kilcoyne man in Tubbercurry, Sligo. It had long perplexed me that many of the Sligo family DNA matched on the autosomes to the Achill family. Many DNA testers from both of these families  have given me access to their kits. Time and time again I saw distant matching between these two families. Particularly to those from Rosturk. Each time I YDNA tested a new Achill Kilcoyne, I expected a possible link to Sligo on the male line, but it just never happened. 

The two groups YDNA testers mapped here . Light Blue and Gold

I spoke to a family from Sanvallyhugh, Burrishoole, Mayo, who provided me evidence that  their ancestor and his brother were born in Tubbercurry, and had made it to Shanvallyhugh by 1823. When I YDNA tested this family, I was disappointed that this family was not matched to my branch from Tubbercurry, but in fact matched to the other Achill testers. To me, there is clear evidence from the autosomal YDNA kits that there must be a connection somehow. In my view. it is likely  that their was a break in the line from these two families. This likely occurred pre 1800. These "breaks" are very common in every one of our family lines. Experts estimate it happens 50% of the time in each of our family branches. The most common breaks occur when a female with young children is widowed, remarries and the children assume the surname of their step-father. Another possibility is that a young female passed her surname onto her child. This is seen with some frequency in 19th century records. Often times we want to avoid family stories like this. The  stigma is stuck in our heads. But the fact of the matter is our ancestors had difficult lives and often times just needed to survive. Their complicated family life is much the same as we have in our own families today.

In the Light Blue group from Achill, nearly all the testers have John or Martin who were born around 1800. 

These are the Achill  testers in our Project, showing John and Martin, the others earliest known ancestors of these testers were born post 1840, so they are likely children and grandchildren of these two men

It is my belief that all descendants of the Achill family are descendants of Martin and John, both born in Tubbercury, Sligo in the early 1800s. We have 5 paternally unrelated Kilcoyne groups from the Sligo area, but I believe the Gold from Tubercurry are the Achill families cousins, based on the autosomal DNA tests. 

Here is the family tree provided by the Shanvallyhugh family that tested into the Achill group. It was passed down through the generations to this family that the founding ancestor was from Tubercurry, as seen on the top left. 

Moving forward we have the opportunity to further cement this finding in our study. The Achill family has provided enormous help in YDNA testing thus far , but this family is still undertested. If I can at least get two men from the existing group to upgrade their kits to the BigY700, I can potentially prove that all the Achill family do indeed descend from these two men. I can do this by dating the surname by seeing the mutations on the Y chromosome through the Bigy700 test. 

The existing testers could use some help. If interested in helping move this  along, please donate to this link and label your contribution to the Achill family  

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/kilcoyne/about

Michael Crow

mikec1120@comcast.net

Project administrator