Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Meguire Surname Group

The subject group classifies various Maguires into categories and displays their respective matches. On that site, cousin Sam McCown and I are shown under McCown McAuley Maguire, indicating that our matches are with the MacAuley family which is one of the four major families of Clan Maguire. The others are Maguire (of whatever spelling), McManus and McMahon.

Just this last week, we got our first Y-DNA match with Robert McMahon at 61/67 markers. We also gained a 61/67 match with Robert McNeill. All of these families lived historically in County Fermanagh, a portion of which is named Clanawley in honor of the MacAuley family. Others lived in that portion of County Tyrone which borders County Fermanagh and also in County Cavan.

Another recent match is Bill Buchanan at 33/37 markers who has found an interesting story about how the Maguire DNA happened, in at least one case, to occur in a Buchanan. I hope that we find such a missing link in the McCown line as well so that we can tie our South Carolina ancestor with ancestors in Ulster and perhaps in Scotland as well.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

A Cluster of Maguire DNA Families

One McGuire in particular has a great many DNA matches that show promise of shedding light not only on his family but perhaps illuminating new information on the rest of us with Maguire DNA. He has the highest matches
with the reconstructed DNA of Donn Carrach Maguire, first Maguire prince of Fermangh of any of the Maguires tested to date. This reconstruction of the DNA of Donn Carrach Maguiire was the result of a DNA study by
Trinity College, Dublin using hundreds of American test subjects from all of the major families of Clan Maguire.

My personal results to date indicate a genetic distance of 4 with Donn Carrach at 37 markers. Since he died in 1301, a little more than 800 years ago, there has been ample time for accidental mutations to occur in the DNA of his descendants. Brad McGuire's line has the fewest mutations in that time, in fact, appears to have no mutations. Since all of the principal families of the Maguire Clan are related to the ruling line by blood, this Clan is the basis for an excellent DNA study and supporting documentation.. Again in the case of my McCown line, we now have high quality matches with all of the major families of the Clan Maguire. They are Maguire, McManus, MacAuley and McMahon.