Monday, September 28, 2009

The Right People

In any endeavor, it helps to know the right people. In this search for my line of McCowns, I am most fortunate to have Barry McCain, barramccain@gmail.com, administrator of the FTDNA Ulster Heritage Group, http://www.ulsterheritage.com, in my corner and hopefully Dr. William Roulston, Chief of Research, ULster Historical Foundation. The latter is dependent on Dr. Roulston's evaluation of my Y-DNA results and whether or not we have enough data to proceed. Dr. Roulston received the data by email today and I am on pins and needles awaiting his analysis.

Barry McCain has pinned down Enniskillen, Fermanagh, as the most likely loacaton of my McCowns no longer ago than 1600AD. He believes that we are paternally related to the Maguire Clan and that the MacEoin/McCowns are in fact part of the Clan. This is most encouraging.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

One Step at a Time

The genealogical package of Y-DNA is being put together by Barry McCain to be sent to Dr. William Roulston of the Ulster History Foundation. He will evaluate whether we have enough material to warrant moving ahead with a combined conventional geneaology and DNA genealogy to learn something of our McCown line history.

I prepared a list of 23 matches at 67 markers and a list of 5 matches at 37 markers with no duplications, making a total of 28 high quality matches. Hopefully, more matches will continue to be reported and these will be forwarded to Dr. Roulston as they come in. The highest Match other than cousin Sam at 66/67 markers is Dr. Thomas James McGuire at 63/67 markers. It would be nice to get an exact match at 67/67 plus others at 64 and 65/67 and it may happen yet. Sam would be an exact 67/67 marker except for a one step mutation at 37 markers. As far as I am concerned, he is an exact match since he is descended from a younger brother of my great grandfather.