McCown, Scots or Irish

Recloh Events

2012-02-08T16:49:00.000-08:00

SNP P66+, which I had hoped to use to identify a specific Maguire ancestor is not
a reliable indicator according to Thomas Krahn, head of FTDNA's Houston lab.
A Maguire who was P66+ long ago can well have sons several generations later
who would be P66- and that is the problem with Recloh events. These act more like
STR's (Short Tandem Repeats) also called alleles or markers than like SNP's
(Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms). The practical difference to those like me
who don't understand this scientific stuff, is that STR's generally show family
history back to about 200 years before surnames came into common usage whereas
SNP's generally go back, way, way back thousands of years. For example, Niall
of the Nine Hostages has SNP M222+ but SNP M222- goes back four thousand
years ago while M222+ only goes back 3,000 years ago.

Meanwhile, cousin, Sam, is now upgrading to 111 markers, having his deep sub-
clades (SNP's) tested plus SNP's L513 and L69. If all goes as expected, he will
also be P66+, L513+ and L69+. Brad McGuire, adm. of the FTDNA Airghialla
Mag Uidhir (Maguire) group that is based both on surname and geographical
origin, can now predict who will have Maguire DNA and who will not based on
six markers and from those can predict which SNP's an individual will + or -.

This reminds me of why I enjoyed history classes that dealt with battles fought and
wars won or lost but totally lost interest when it came down to economic history.

I could still be of Scottish Descent

2012-01-26T11:22:00.000-08:00

Although my DNA says that I have Maguire DNA, it doesn't say how that came about. One speculation would be that a McCown ancestor married a Maguire widow with Maguire sons or
perhaps one on the way and then adopted her son(s). The McCown ancestor would
have had McCown DNA but the adopted sons would have Maguire DNA. It also
does not address whether they were living in Scotland or Ireland at he time of the
non-paternal event.

One reason I am pursuing this line of reasoning is that Family Tree DNA has a tool called Ancestral
Origins. That provides percentages of those tested in Scotland, Ireland or wherevere.
Percentages above 4% are said to be especially meaningful in determining where
ancestors live. The calculation is admittedly based on only 11/12 markers, but the results are of some
interest. They are Scotland, 6.4%, Ireland, 4.9% and Northern Ireland 4.9%.

Jim McKown is in contact with Bill McKown who has devoted a lot of time to
finding his ancestors and he says that Jim's earliest known ancestor is Scottish.
Jim and I are closely matched and had a Most Recent Common Ancestor about
1661 AD so it is entirely possible for us both to have Maguire DNA but have
Scottish roots.

This brings to the fore the critical need for taking FTDNA's Y-DNA tests because
documented genealogy can be fraudulent, but if it is supported by DNA, that is
considered by FTDNA as being the gold standard of genealogy. One Maguire and
one McCarthy both attempted to change their genealogy by falsifying their family
trees. This wasn't detected and rejected many years later after first having been
accepted.

Many people make the mistake of taking only the 12 marker test when they should
take a minimum of 37 markers to find their most meaningful matches.

Was William one of the six Brothers?

2012-01-15T21:57:00.000-08:00

I found three records of people searching for William McCown, b. 1708, in Antrim, died 1747 in
Knockmaokigan, Fermanagh on Ancestry.com. It says that his father was Alexander McCoun who
according to what I have read elsewhere, was a Presbyterian minister and immigrated from Antrim
about 1715 and setteled with his six sons in Pennsylvania. If this is the same Alexander, then I know by DNA results that they are not in my line. The searches were done by people trying to fill in family trees other than McCown trees.

I find a potential ancestor and then only two weeks later have my hopes dashed. Such is life!

Correction to William of Antrim and Fermanagh

2012-01-10T21:20:00.000-08:00

The Knockmaokigan, Fermanagh address is mispelled and doesn't give an exact location. For that
reason alone, I might not have had any comments to the previous posting. I hope to do better this
time. The correct detail address where William McCown died in Fermanagh is Knockmakegan,
Manor Hightower, Newtownbutler, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Ulster, Ireland. I don't have
the Irish equivalent to a zip code. The corrected information came from the Ordnance Survey
Memoirs of 1834/5, Vol. 4 of Enniskillen, Fermanagh.

So far, I have not succeeded in returning to the records for the original entry, but there were between
five and ten listing the birth of this William McCown in Antrim in 1708 and his death in "Knockmaogkigan, Fermanagh in 1747. We endeavor to maintain your trust with accurate information.

An Irish Laurence and an Irish William

2012-01-04T09:14:00.000-08:00

William Roulston of the Ulster Heritage Foundation has turned up a Laurence McCowen and a James McKowen in Co. Antrim in the 1700's. Meanwhile, I have found a William McCown, born 1708
in Co. Antrim who died in 1747 in Knockmaoktgan, Co. Fermanagh. This latter find was on
Ancestry.com. Perhaps one of these men is a member of my McCown line and that would be small
chip out of our genealogical stone wall connecting our line on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

That has been a wistful dream of mine with little chance of bearing fruit because so many of Irish
descent have been unable to make such a connection in their own research. Finding a Laurence McCowen is a terrific surprise because I have only found two in early Kentucky but with the McCown
spelling. I am very encouraged and hope that Jim McKown is as well.

Cast a Wider Net?

2011-12-29T16:13:00.000-08:00

Since William McCown of York Co., South Carolina is shown as McCown in the
1790 census, as McCoun in the 1800 census and as McQuown in the 1810 census,
it seems as though I will either have to look for his descendants as McCown, McCoun or McQuown.

Meanwhile census reports in my own line show the name as McCown, McCowen
and McKeown. I can either search all of the above spellings or simply look for McCown and it's spelling variants. So far, sentiment seems to be to simply look for McCown.

A Potential Break in our Stone Wall

2011-12-22T20:42:00.000-08:00

My brother, Dick, had a series of postings with Jackson Weller on a surname bulletin board. Jackson

says that he is descended from William McCown of York Co., South Carolina from the 1790 US

Census and that said William was the father of our great great grandfather, Lawrence McCown.

Jackson is descended from Leander McCown who in turn was a son of Lawrence McCown along

with my great grandfather, William McCown, Eli McCown and Granville McCown. If Jackson

has a male relative in the McCown line, I hope to persuade him to take the FTDNA Y-DNA test

because that would prove or disprove our relationship to William of York County and with Jackson.

These postings were in 2000 and 2001 so the room for uncertainty is great, but as previously noted,

hope springs eternal.

Amended Highest Match in the McGuire Surname

2011-12-09T22:32:00.001-08:00

Tom is indeed my closest and highest match within the McGuire surname at
67 markers, but Joseph D. McGuire is my highest match within the McGuire
surname at 101/111 markers. Not all of the McGuire, McManus, McMahon,
MacAuley surname have been tested at 111 markers, and I believe that when and if
Tom is also tested to 111 markers, that he will be about one step closer match than is
Joseph since that is how they are matched at 67 markers. There may be more 111 marker matches for me when more of the clan have been tested to 111 markers.

Updates and In Memorium to my brother, Dick

2011-12-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

My only brother, Dick McCown, died last Thursday morning. Dick was the instigator of our interest
in the genealogy of our McCown line. He did all of our documentary research and prepared our family tree including all of the branches through marriage. In addition, he suggested that we invest in the
FTDNA test and we split the cost. When the first 25 marker results rolled in, they were almost entirely
Irish. That was a huge surprise because then, we had thought of ourselves as being Scots. When the
37 marker results rolled in, it became apparent that we were not only Irish, but of the Ulster Sept of
Maguire, which is one of the few clans of the blood wherein all members from the chief to the lowliest laborer have the same blood.

My highest and closest match with the McGuire surname is Tom and Tom's deep subclade test results
have been received. We had hoped that his deep clade P66 would be positive, but alas, it was negative. Had it been positive, his line would probably have been closely related to ours.

There are many with Maguire blood yet to be tested and hope springs eternal and, hopefully, we look forward to that missing link.

SNP L69 Important McCown/Maguire Link?

2011-11-10T22:17:00.001-08:00

This just in from our news desk. A number of the members of the Airgialla Mag Uidhir group have been tested for SNP L69(Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) and have consistently turned up as SNP L69+. This is beginning to look like an SNP that may define Maguire roots going back to 950-1,000AD. Jim McKown and I are both L69+.In addition, two more members are awaiting their L69 test result and three are awaiting their deep subclade results.These latter three will have to test for L69 separately. The encouraging thing here is that I wasn't expecting my test result until Nov. 23 and it just came in today. My highest Maguire match is still awaiting his deep subclade results and perhaps they will be in soon since things at the FTDNA lab seem to be happening faster than expected. This match had to be retested but I am confident that the retest of his deep clades will be successful.

Some Miscellanous Musings

2011-10-24T22:04:00.000-07:00

First, I would like to welcome blog follower No. 17 to the blog and I believe his name is McEwen. McCown, McKown and McEwen are all derived fromEoghainn, pronounced as Owen. Until about 1600AD, Eoghainn and Eoin were both used for the Hebrew name, John. At about that time, Eoin was used exclusively and Eoghainn began to be used for Eugene or well born. I believe the change only involved new surnames and was not retroactive.I have been keeping up on release of Windows 8. So far,it appears that IE 10will be embedded in the Windows operating system so that changes to one affect the other. It is anticipated that Internet Explorer 10 will not accept plug-ins such as blogs or flash and thus it could not only change how we use FTDNA in viewing the Haplogroup Tree but also whether blogs will become a thing of the past as a result of all of the new "social" applications. Still, there is many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, so things may change considerably before the launch of Windows 8and IE 10.Previously, you have read that my best and closest match within the Maguiresurname is being tested for deep subclades and those results are not in as yet. My hope is that he will also be positive on deep clade P66 and thus be of the Maguire line which is also connected to the McCown/McKown line. Now a new Y-DNA test is underway and it is believed that the test subject is likely to be a match for both of us. Brad McGuire informs me that my best McGuire match also would match Donn Carrach Maguire, first Maguire Prince of Fermanagh at 66/67 markers.I will surely report to you if my best Maguire match to date turns out to beP66+---but, of course, it will have to wait until I stop celebrating that good news.

Fellow Traveler

2011-09-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

Scott McCown commented on the previous blog about the warrior connection of those
related to Francis McCown. As it happens, Scott is very active in the Church of Christ as was I until I moved out here in the wilderness and now attend a community church. We are not related to each other in the flesh but certainly are in the Spirit.

My grandmother made sure that her kids and their kids were members of the Church of Christ as well, to the best of her ability. I sing the song of prayer preparation each Sunday morning and frequently use Great Songs of the Church as a source of the hymns that I sing. I also use songs from that book but sometimes need them in a lower key signature and so then select that lower key from a Methodist, Presbyterian or Seventh Day Adventist Hymnal.

I didn't mean to get sidetracked from the Scots or Irish Theme but I am tickled pink
to have Scott following the blog. I know for a fact that some of the followers of this blog are Christians as well and they can probably relate to my celebrating in this fashion.

We are still waiting for the deep subclade test results for my closest match within
the McGuire surname and hope it may yield a source of the McGuire/McCown/McKown connecton. That would be shown if this match tests positive on SNP P66. So far, only Jim McKown and I have tested positive on P66 of those with Maguire DNA.

McCown Surname Group

2011-09-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

FTDNA's McCown Surname Group has more than thirty members. The Ulster Heritage Group has divided most of those members into Mac Eoghain, Mac EoghainI and Mac Eoghain II.

Leonard McCown is administrator and Chris McCown is co-administrator of the surname group. Still, not all McCown/McKown named people are in any of those groups. In
addition, at least one of the McCowns and a McKown all of the Ewings (in Mac Eoghain I) appear to be in the haplogroup commonly referred to as Northwest Irish or Niall of the Nine Hostages and therefor related to the O'Connors and the O'Neills. A couple of others of the surname are simply categorized by haplogroup and three of us are
in the Mag Uidhir II (Maguire II) Group on the Ulser Heritage Group website.

Most of those in the Mac Eoghain group are descended from Alexander McCown and his six sons who immigrated to Pensylvania from Antrim about 1715. The larger group is descended from Francis and John McCown, who by DNA are closely related to the six sons group.

Some of these lived some time in County Tyrone before moving to America and it isn't clear, but is believed that they were originally of Scottish descent.

Leonard McCown has been told by Barry McCain, administrator of the Ulster Heritage
Group that he is descended, through Francis, from an Argyll Galloglais family.
These Galloglais were specially trained and armed warriors who hired out to various
chiefs in both Scotland and Ireland and many of those who served in Ireland remained there as early as 1450.

All of this is to make it clear that McCown is both Scots and Irish.

Et tu, King Tut?

2011-09-04T15:55:00.000-07:00

I have enclosed the link as a follow-up to McCown, Maguire and King Tut. I still
recommend using a search engine and the search term Half of European men share King
Tut's DNA because there are several other sites offering different points of view.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-king-tut-european-men-dna.html

McCown, Maguire and King Tut

2011-09-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

Hey! The newspapers exagerate to get readership all the time. Actually, according to an article by Alice Baghdjian/ Reuters-Mon, Aug 1, 2011, half the men in Europe
and 70% of those in the British Isles have the same R1b1a2 haplogroup as does King Tut. If you can't wait, then use your favorite search engine and use the search
term Half of European men share King Tut's DNA.

A very high percentage of men in northern Ireland, not just that part in the UK called Northern Ireland have that DNA. This also true of western Scotland, Argyll and the islands off the west coast of Scotland, and the Isle of Man.

I needed to update the blog before it expired, besides, it gives us something to talk about.

Flash in the Pan or Much Ado about Nothing

2011-08-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

It seems my previous post was wildly optimistic. The lady mentioned and I are not
related in the McManus line even a little bit, and no relationship with her McCown
line can be proven because of a lack of any surviving males to take a DNA test in her
line.

McManus/McCown Connection in South Carolina, 1775

2011-08-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

This just in from our news room. An email has been received from a lady descended
from both McManus and McCown. She even had my FTDNA Kit no.. This could be a very
productive lead for her lines as well as mine, especially, mine since we have no known history before 1792 in South Carolina or anywhere else except for the vital
Y-DNA results.

Since McManus is one of the principle families in the Maguire clan this may give us a clue just where McKown/McCown fits in with the overall Maguire clan scheme of things.
It has the potential of being a genealogical break through for both of us.

I am waiting for more information from her such as if she has suitable Y-DNA male
test candidates for both McManus and McCown. She has already mentioned two specific counties in South Carolina in 1775 and my hope is that that will give a toe hold to my
brother Dick to exploit and share our research with hers.

This is the first potential breakthrough we have had to the parents and grandparents
of our great great grandfather, Lawrence McCown and better yet, it should be
supported by both conventional research and DNA. I hope to have more in the next
posting.

New Leads and More Results

2011-06-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

On the subject of results, I need to correct my 67 marker result with Jim McKown
from 101/111 to 105/111 and add Joseph D. McGuire at 101/111 markers. Also, I
am confirmed as L513 positive in keeping with the rest of the Maguire group who have been tested.

The fair Coane and her husband have turned up some interesting leads. The word
Edeganny comes up in two Maguires and one McOwen. The fair Coane's husband has found that the root word in Gaelic from which it derives is Deacon. I am not familiar with church practice in the 1600's but in these cases, it is not always placed at the front of the name.

For example we have a Maguire with Edganny at the beginning of the name and his son, Rory McEdeganny Maguire and Owen McOwen Edeganny.

All three of these appear on the same page in the records of Fermanagh and Tyrone.
Meanwhile, Patrick MacAuley, has found that a similar sounding root (at least to a
non-Gaelic speaker) sounds much like the root which is rendered as Deacon, but in this case, comes from an accolade to Hugh Maguire, a Maguire chief and refers to his
generosity as in Hugh the Generous.

Now the chore is to somehow connect McCown/McOwen to Maguire to either of those leads.

More Testing is in Progress

2011-06-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

Since the previous post, several more 111 marker level results have been reported.
In addition, both Jim McKown and I have been tested for SNP L513. Jim is L513+ and my results are "pending". On Mike Walsh's R-L21 1113 Combo DNA Results, Mike shows
Jim and I as P66+ as tested and L513+(by default). Since my 111 marker test result shows that I am a genetic distance of one more than is allowed by FTDNA
in their match criteria, my only current match at 111 markers is Jim at 101/111
markers.

This reminds me of a progress report written my an engineering manager who said "
the project is slightly off course but making good progress." But, hope and the blog
spring eternal so perhaps there will be something to report in the next posting.

Although Jim and I definitely have a Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) at about
the year 1661 AD, his line appears to be some generations older than mine. I have
no rational comment to make on that.

Maguire Land Grant in the Carolinas

2011-05-16T22:23:00.000-07:00

The fair Coane reports having seen a reference to the subject grant in the Clogher Record. She says that one of the more recent members of the Maguire chiefly line received a grant and that he, in turn, invited others from County Fermanagh and other
parts of Ulster to come and settle the land. This of course, could conceivably lead
to some clues as to the identity of my line's earliest ancestor in America. That,
boys and girls would be quite a success, because most Americans of Irish descent have
little or no chance of discovering their roots both in America and in Ulster, especally in South Carolina in these early times. I have felt that brother Dick and I have been trying to build a suspension bridge from information in the colonies to records in Ulster, with the help of DNA. The problem is that no matter how fine a bridge we build it will not support itself without firm foundations at both ends and we don't have foundations at either end as yet.

The fair Coane and husband are going to Ireland to attend a family wedding and will also visit the records in Dublin. Hopefully, they will turn up something on the Maguire land grant in the Carolinas. Both the fair Coane and her husband remember
having read the artilce, but at the time, were not researching the Maguires---never
mind helping the McCowns so it has been a difficult search. Good friends, such as
these, are truly a genealogical god send.

On the DNA front, Brad McGuire got his 68-111 marker results but they are now under review because of the result of 0 or null value on one marker that appears to be in
error. Also, the FTDNA lab is overloaded with new tests and debugging results from
some of the earliest results of the Y111 test. For that reason, Brad's Walking the
Y test in which his entire Y chromosome is tested for all of the SNP's that can be found, is delayed by the current lab overload. Both Jim McKown and I have received our Y111 test results with no apparent errors and hope all of our marker results
survive what ever debugging is required.

Wishful Thinking?

2011-05-06T16:31:00.000-07:00

Jim McKown and I are 65/67 and 105/111 matches. FTDNA now says that our most recent common ancestor lived 14 generations ago. Using FTDNA's standard calculation of 25 years per generation, that would mean that we had most recent common ancestor in 1661AD. Perhaps this will provide a clue as to which of the Maguires with John, Owen or MacOwen among their names could be our ancestor.

I recently was contacted by Elaine Keown whose family settled near Abbeville, South
Carolina in 1770. Brother Dick says that he has exhausted the record search for our
gggf Lawrence's parents. There were few written records among the Scotch-Irish and
Irish and everyone else who lived anywhere but in a major settlement having ever had
written records in South Carolina. Add disasters such as court house fires, the War of 1812 and the Civil War and it is a marvel that any records survive from before 1790 in the hinterlands.

Even in Virginia, the only written record of Lawrence's marriage in 1815 is that kept by the Sinking Spring Presbyterian Church, Abingdon, VA.

The Second ot Two Declared McCowns

2011-04-28T19:36:00.000-07:00

Our 14th follower is Alex McCown and I would particularly like to hear from him so
we can compare family histories or just see what I can do to interest other McCown/McKowns in the blog.

In a search of the newly released free public access site for genealogy searches in
Northern Ireland, I did a search to see if I could find a mention of someone who could
be an ancestor of my great great grandfather, Lawrence, somewhere in South Carolina.
That search turned up an Alexander McCown who owned 400 acres of land in South Carolina in about 1750. My brother, Dick, had located the same information in his own research, but so far, we have no other information with which we could relate
with him.

One interesting aspect to our ongoing DNA tests is that both Jim McKown and I are SNP P66+, and by extension, my cousin, Sam is as well. Why do I make such a claim without
Sam having his deep subclades tested? Because we match on 66/67 markers and can document our family histories as well and last but not least, the one marker on which we do not match cannot keep him from being P66+ as well.

Sequel to Cabbages and Kings

2011-04-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

All of my marker results from 68-111 have now been posted. I regret that I may
have sounded self satisfied in the previous posting. Actually, I had hoped that the
Italian sample and I were both exact matches on the five marker mentioned. That might have lent some hope that the sample came from a descendant of Cuchonnacht
Maguire who died in Genoa, Italy in 1608, and was a hero and a Maguire chief in his
own right. The total genetic distance between my results and the Italian sample is
a GD=12, with exact matches on only two of the five markers. Since the only other
Maguire tested for the five markers is an exact match with me, it looks as though,
pending the availability of the results of the rest of the Maguire DNA folks tested to 111 markers, that my results will be consistent with the other Maguire results.

T

Of Cabbages and Kings

2011-04-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

This just in from our news desk! The Italian DNA sample appears to be fading in the stretch. Of five markers for which he has been tested but I was not, he is a mismatch with the Maguires on DYS 462 by a GD=1 and on DYS 463 by a GD=11. So far,
the only other member with Maguire II DNA is Flouronelle Maguire who matches me exactly on the markers for which he has been tested to date above 67 markers including DYS 462 and 463. All of my results for markers 68 through 102 have been posted. The final nine may be posted sometime next week.

Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax

2011-04-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

Mike Walsh, of the 11-13 Combo Group, says that there is no chance of the donor of
the DNA sample in Italy being retested. My impression is, that the donor is not be able to be retested. When I referred to the donor as "the Italian", that in itself was not accurate in that what is known is that the sample was collected in Italy and that is that.

The good news is that Mike Walsh indicated that the five STR's that Jim McKown and I have not had tested, may likely be part of the new Y-111 marker level. That would offer the possibility of us matching the donor in Italy on those five markers and that in turn might give more credence to the donor having Maguire DNA.

To Speak of Many Things

2011-04-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

I don't yet have more information on SNP L513 and won't until I find out more from one of the FTDNA group administrators. I mentioned an Italian with the P66+ SNP and that there were differences in our test results. He was tested by Ethno-Ancestry and the group administrator needs his results on DYS 617,
406S1 and 640. Meanwhile, Jim McKown and I were not tested on markers that the Italian was: Dys461,462, 463, 434, and 435.

I have asked the administrator if this means that the Italian should be tested by FTDNA on threee markers or that Jim and I should be tested by Ethno-Ancestry on five markers. Neither approach sounds feasible to me. In fact, the Italian, if interested, should be retested to 67 markers by FTDNA because there is a good chance that he may be descended from Cuchonnaght Maguire who died in Genoa, Italy,
in 1608. I hope for all our sakes that he is as interested in his ancestral surname as he is in his ethnicity.

I mentioned two postings ago about three McCowns being classified as Ua Flaithbeartaigh although we don't match each other above 12 markers. It turns out that while the above name in Gaelic was applied to an historical O'Flaherty or O'Lafferty, that there was also a Maguire in the chiefly line with the given name of Flaithbeartaigh, so that name could conceivably apply to McCowns of Maguire descent.

The Time has Come the Walrus Said

2011-04-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

Many things are happening that look like a strengthening of the connection between my McCown line and the rest of the Maguires. The P66+ SNP that both Jim McKown and I have, has been found in our
Ulster results and in one Italian result. The Italian result may be related to Cuchonnacht Maguire who died in Genoa, Italy in August 1608 as well as to the Flight of the Earls which included O'Neills, O'Connors and Maguires among others. The Flight of the Earls took place on Sept. 14, 1607.

The problem with the Italian P66+ is that we don't match him on five markers and he has not been tested to 67 markers which Mike Walsh of the R-1 L21 11-13 Combo Group would like him to take.

This in turn, leads to the possible need for Jim and I to take the L513 test. I will address that in the next posting to this blog since I don't have more information on it. Meanwhile, I for one, am greatly encouraged. And this just in, 9 of 16 members of Brad McGuire's Airgialla Mag Uidhir Group have already signed up for the 67 toY-111 marker test introduction which is currently offered at a bargain price.

Ua Flaithbheartaigh

2011-04-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

There is an FTDNA Cenel Eoghain Group. Eoghain, pronounced Owen means John. In this case, the Eoghain was an O'Neill king and a county in Northern Ireland bears his name. It is Tir Owen or Tyrone, which means Land of Owen.

The group, at the moment has three members named McCown or McCone and notice no "an" or "en" is required because it is still O(w)ne. The DNA of these three McCowns is not the same above 11/12 markers and in the Cenel Eoghain Group all three are listed under Ua Flaithbheartaigh which could be rendered in English as the Sept of O'Flaherty or O'Lafferty. Their power was greatly reduced in the 12th century by battles with the MacBrians and the O'Connors.

The Ua Flaithbheartaigh lived in Connaught, roughly in Donegal. I don't know that this one label can cover all McCowns, but I am glad that Donegal was included in our tour of Northern Ireland last
September.

Jim McKown and I have signed up for the FTDNA 67-Y111 marker test introduction. This is new technology and is expected to greatly improve the accuracy of the Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor (TMRCA). Jim and I hope that it will pin point just how long ago our Most Recent Common
ancestor lived. Of course, we also hope it will also illuminate our link to the Maguire Clan and to that end, hope that many of our 67 marker matches also upgrade to that test.

Serendipity

2011-04-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

An internet genealogical contact is in the unfortunate situation of not having a male in the surname line
to take the Y-DNA test on her behalf---until a moment of serendipity occurred and such a male has already been tested and his test results are on display. Her family's coat of arms has an O'Neill crest above it and the person tested has the Niall of the Nine Hostages haplotype.

I had been trying to find some McCowns scattered about an FTDNA project and that surname was there.
This contact has done a lot of diligent research both here and in Ulster and has access to some records that most of the rest of us don't. Still, after giving up hope for help via DNA, it was found by chance.

She has been a great help to me providing information and advice that may ultimately unlock the Ulster
history of my McCown line. I will take serendipity over hard work any old time.

Quest for a Small Group

2011-03-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

The latest word from FTDNA regarding SNP P66+ and marker DYF399X is that although Jim McKown and I, both being P66+ could be tested for marker DYF399X. We have been encouraged to
put together a small group to also be tested because that will give the interpreters more sight angles at the results and could, perhaps, identify how long ago P66+ came into our family line. My hope is that it will not only do that but also show others with Maguire DNA who may be related to us.

Barry McCain, administrator of the FTDNA Ulster Heritage Group, believes that our McCown/McKown connection with the Maguire DNA came about sometime in the 1600's AD. Barry
also sent a list of five or six other men that he has identified at 67 markers to William Roulston to study and if possible, find if they, indeed, did live near to each other, were Protestant and had other relatedness among the families.

All of this may sound like we are trying to avoid FTDNA's recently developed test that has the capability to identify cousins going back five generations. That is not the case, because that test was not offered when Barry first contacted William Roulston, Jim McKown had not been tested at all, and few people other than John McEwan had even heard of P66+ or DYF399X. John had as far back as at least 2005 and has written about it.

The FTDNA test for cousins is more far reaching and costs much more than what we plan to do. What we are trying to do could be money down the drain or a spectaculor success---with a wee bit o' the luck of the Irish.

New Haplogroup Explained

2011-03-04T17:43:00.000-08:00

Brad McGuire and Pat Meguire both are group administrators and both replied to my emails regarding the change in haplogroup.

It is not a mistake and represents new sub branches to established trees. More to follow as the smoke clears.

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet, Wilder than the Evening News

2011-03-04T16:21:00.000-08:00

FTDNA has just changed the haplogroups of a whole passel of men without blinking an eye. The change involves all of the men whose haplogroups have been tested in the Ulster Heritage Group Mag Uidhir I and Mag Uidhir II. It generally changed many more men than that because R1b1b2a1b5 is one of the most common haplogroups on the west coast of Scotland, the western Isles and Northern Ireland.

It changed for all of those mentioned above from R1b1b2a1b5 to R1b1a2a1a1b4, which you will all agree is one heck of a change. Jim McKown and I have a letter c suffix following the 4. This haplogroup change may be another lab goof or a posting goof, because the underlying SNP results did not change a whit. It may be because their chief scientist at the Houston lab has left on vacation, that the people at the con have made a mistake. Whatever, I have contacted FTDNA and should receive an reply
next week. One other possibility is that FTDNA is initiating the change to the most recent NIST standards. When FTDNA replies, I will print the answer here.

Big Surprise of the Day!

2011-02-24T13:42:00.000-08:00

Thomas Kranh of FTDNA has just replied to my email from this morning. He has retested my
P66- SNP and, begorrah!, it is now P66+ and my haplogroup, which was R1b1b2a1b5 now has a
c suffix after the 5. I hope Jim McKown enjoyed being the sole proprietor of that haplogroup
because he now has to share it with me and probably cousin Sam as well.

Retest Status Revisited

2011-02-24T09:32:00.000-08:00

Since Feb. 21st has come and gone and I have had no update from FTDNA regarding the retesting
of my P66- SNP result. I just sent an email to Thomas Krahn asking if it was safe to assume
that my test samples had been retested and no change found. I hope to receive an answer to this next week.

My FTDNA Home Page where I view my matches has been partially obscured since either last Friday or Saturday. This happens periodically for no reason that FTDNA has ever bothered to
explain. Specifically, the last match at every level from 12 markers through 67 markers on every group of which I am a member is covered with a horizontal bar that blocks the view of just who those matches are. I complained about this via "Contact Us" and as usual, have received no response, and worse yet, the problem has not been corrected.

I mention this to see if any of you have encountered this as well or if it is personal between me and FTDNA.

Three to Five Weeks, Oh My!

2011-02-07T22:21:00.000-08:00

FTDNA replied to my email that the retesting for P66+ and the analysis of the result
should be completed in three to five weeks from Jan. 24th. and that should put it
about Feb. 21st. We should know by then, or shortly thereafter, whether or not
Jim McKown's result on that Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP)is simply unstable
or has reverted to some previous norm. I am expecting good things, but regardless,
I am confident that we are related, although it might be back as far as the 1600's
that our Most Recent Common Ancestor(MRCA)fathered two sons and that is probably
where our lines grew a bit farther apart.

Haplogroup Answers from the Experts

2011-01-24T19:46:00.000-08:00

If you have read my last two postings, you may be aware that Jim McKown came up with a whole new haplogroup of which he may be the sole member. It is based on him
being positive for SNP P66+. I could tell you what the letters SNP refer to, but
beyond that I haven't a clue. Meanwhile, FTDNA responded to my email by saying that
P66+ is a very unstable SNP and may revert to the ancestral line. I also got a reply
from one of the principle analysts in the FTDNA Lab. and he says that they reviewed
Jim's P66+ twice, from two DNA samples and it is still P66+.

He goes on to say that they will review my P66- as well. It will be interesting to
see the result. Also, I would think that they would have to review the P66- results
of the other seven men with strong Maguire DNA. That is because these SNP's go back thousands of years and I would think that all of the men in the Ulster Heritage Group
Mag Uidhir II classification would have very similar deep ancestry as well. As you can see, I am out of my depth here and so, unlike politicians, I will sit down and shut up.

More From FTDNA

2011-01-13T09:42:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have been tested by FTDNA, it appears to me that there will be
no substantial downside to the changes being made. They now say that you may copy
your existing matches if you want to, but then goes on to say BUT WE DON'T SEE WHY
YOU WOULD WANT TO.

Also, all of the matches at 33/37 and 60/67 and better will still be there so I see
no reason now to print out a copy of existing matches.

Meanwhile, there should be a substantial upside to the improvement in the FTDNA
Tip Tool which calculates the percentage probability of having a most common ancestor with any of your matches. They call this calculation the Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor (TMRCA). Two administrators, Barry McCain, of the Ulster Heritage Group and Joseph V. Dononhoe, of the Breifne Clans Project, have long regarded the FTDNA calculation to be unnecessarily conservative. They have been using probabilities of 55% to 85% as being all that is needed to determine
the number of generations to the Most Recent Common Ancestor(MRCA.

FTDNA's Changes to Improve TMRCA

2011-01-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

FTDNA has a warning of pending changes when you click on your personal results page
and then click on Matches. These changes have now been sent to the project or group
admiistrators. The only thing required of those tested by FTDNA to date is to print
and save their matches so they can be reconciled with the new changes.

Apparently all of the genealogical DNA companies are having to conform to a new standard so that they all compare the same short tandem repeats (STR's). Of more
interest and concern to us is that these changes will make for a much more accurate
standard for Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor calculations. It is expected to
to affect about 10% of the membership. They haven't let on to the members, at this
point which 10% will be affected. It is very important to stay attuned to measages
from the administrators so you will know if you are affected.

I am in sort of a fringe position since I have more matches with the families in or close to the Maguire Clan and thus could wind up more in or more out as a result.
The TMRCA change is long overdue and the road is longer and more tortuos than I expected.

I expect a better appreciation from all of this as to just what my ancestry is.
That is the reason for having taken the tests and no matter how the cookie crumbles
Iam what I am and that's all I am---whatever that may be.

Upon Further Review

2010-12-27T22:04:00.000-08:00

After due consideration and some words of wisdom from my brother and from Bonnie our
genealogist in Hawaii,I over reacted to some words from Dick in my previous blog post.
I no longer feel threatened by activities on his family tree by other researchers
and believe that it is quite normal. Bonnie does point out that where a connection is made between Dick's family tree and another researcher, the visiting researcher is
expected to give full credit to Dick for things that he has found and if the visiting
researcher then uses one of Dick's findings in his own research, he is then honor bound to prove the connection.

Cousin Jim has just been through an ordeal that was only made right when Jim was tested by Family Tree DNA. Jim's family tree had been connected to a Scottish family tree by another researcher. Jim was then very surprised to find that his DNA is very much Maguire and that we are indeed cousins and Irish rather than Scottish. There is a unrelated instance of a Scottish Buchanan who also has excellent Maguire DNA. In his case,however, he found a record of a Scottish MacCauley who had given an estate on the border of Counties Mohaghan and Fermanagh to one William Buchanan, of me ain
blood in 1595. The presesnt day Buchanan is a 61/67 match with me and is even a closer match to the Maguire clan.

Jim's earliest known ancestor was James McKown, born VA in 1785 whereas our earliest
known ancestor, Lawrence McCown, was born in South Carolina ca 1790-92. We now hope
to identify and connect the parents of those two ancestors so we know whether we are descended from brothers. Our other known cousin, also found as a result of his FTDNA
test result is a 66/67 marker match while Jim is a 65/67 match. Cousin Sam is known to be a second cousin descended from a younger brother of my great grandfather.

Jim also cautioned me about being unduly concerned with other researchers using the
family tree. So, here I stand, chastened on all sides and the better for it.

Genealogical Hazards

2010-12-23T12:18:00.000-08:00

My brother, Dick, maintains our family tree on Ancestry.com. He reports that some
researchers lift bits and pieces from our family tree to use in their own, and he has no problem with that ordinarily. We have recently come in contact with a researcher
that purports to be descended from the second son of our Lawrence, Eli, that seems
less than straight forward. In fact there are two, who use names that may or may not
be their own.

I don't know how much sculdudgery exists on subscription websites but in this case,
we begin to wonder if the end objective is identity theft or genuine research into
their own family history. If you have encountered questionable contacts dealing with
your family tree, please let me know about it.

NI: Minister Launches New Online Genealogy Resource

2010-12-03T22:33:00.000-08:00

Source: Northern Ireland Executive, Publ. 30 Nov., 2010

Approximately 100,000 images of probated wills have been made available online for the first time. The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) has reached the culmination of a project to index and digitize early wills from the three District Probate Registries of Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry between the years
1858 and 1900. Internet access to these records will be free of charge and will be of
special interest of the many people interested in their family histories from outside
the UK.

Future digitization plans include the additon of further pre-1858 will indexes to the Proni Name Search facility. These indexes from Northern Ireland dioceses, will list
the names of people who had wills probated as early as the 17th century - pushing the
possibility of family and local history further back in time. (Bill's remarks below)

I really hope that the Armagh diocese includes Clogher as well.

Possible McNeil/Maguire Connection?

2010-12-02T10:51:00.000-08:00

Robert McNeil matches me at 61/67 markers along with a number of other men who also have Maguire Modal results that are closer than mine. My closest Maguire DNA match to date is Dr. Thomas James McGuire at 63/67 markers with seven others at 62/67 markers. The seventh match is Joseph Marvin McManus (see McManus Surname Grp).

There is now at least one 67 marker match with a McMahon, one with a McManus as well as matches with MacAuley and McGuire and Maguire totalling over 31 to date.
I was only able to find the McManus match by joining that group, and at least the 63/67 match by joining the McGuire Surname Group. Another great advantage in finding matches is to make sure the preferences on your FTDNA personal results page are set to compare your test results against the entire world wide FTDNA data base.

Patrick MacAuley is going to look into a possible relationship between McNeil and
Maguire. Also, Debbie Wheeler, who is the listed contact for Robert McNeil's results,
mentioned in an email this morning that they have met William Roulston. I have asked if William is researching their family history and will report on that answer when I have it. She has also been encouraged to join the FTDNA Ulster Heritage Group.

There are plenty of McNeils in County Fermanagh which is no surprise since both the O'Neills and O'Connors held sway in County Fermanagh and freuently were held in delicate balance by the Maguires for the Maguires' best interest.

More Versions and Incidents of McOwen in Fermanagh and Donegal

2010-11-14T18:10:00.000-08:00

The fair Coane has furnished the following instances from the 1641 Depositions:

1643: Nature of Deposition: Multiple Killing, Robbery in Donegall
Manus Oge Magoan was one of 143 Rebel soldiers named by Thomas Poe in his deposition.

1642: Nature of Deposition: Captivity, Robbery, Words in County Fermanagh
Shane McOwen was named as one of those who threatened Elizebeth Moore and her husband
and held her husband prisoner that they would be taken away unless we departed the
land and alledging the land was theirs and theire fathers and with Skines, and Pitchforkes and threatened to take away our lives.

The actual depositions are quite graphic and show the great stress that both the native Ulstermen and the transplanted Scots lived under in those perilous times.
The form of Mag rather than Mac grows stronger as you move farther north in Ulster and so I believe that Magoan could also be rendered as MacOwan or MacCowan.

Thank You, for Your Encouragement and Comments

2010-11-03T04:49:00.000-07:00

I appreciate your prayers and good wishes very much. I also appreciate your suggestions for relieving stress. I look forward, in hope, to getting back to
the purpose of the blog.

As you might expect, my attention has been much closer to home and less on genealogy in the last week or two. Physically, the current main symptom is a side effect of being dizzy, much of which is caused by being on two blood pressure medications which each have the main side effect of causing dizziness. That seems to be part of the state of the art in treating heart and blood pressure problems.

Bonnie suggested buying a laptop computer to reduce trips up and down stairs and that is more practical now that there are several good security products available free. It was a very good thing that we took the trip to Northern Ireland this year rather than putting it off until next year. I got so worn out rushing to catch a plane at Heathrow Airport in London, I had to resort to a wheel chair to speed up the process and to keep up with Sandy. I attributed that to a severe cold we both caught on the trip, but perhaps it was early warning of the heart attack.

The newspaper reported a few days ago that passengers from Dublin to Belfast had to get off the train and onto busses because of IRA bomb threats and there was also a car bomb found on a surface street near the Belfast International Airport. We flew into and out of Belfast International Airport with no known difficulties from the
IRA.

The advice we received from John Cunningham, our tour guide, and from others as well was not to discuss religion or politics with someone you don't know well or where others you don't know could over hear.

Brought Up Short

2010-10-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

In the wee hours of the morning, last Monday morning, I got up because of heart burn and a jaw ache. I suspected that this was not desirable and that is the way it turned out. I live 25 miles from the closest hospital, and after a test, they confirmed that I had a heart attack and sent me by ambulance to Doctors Medical Center in Modesto where there is a a very skillful group of heart specialists. I received excellent medical treatment and returned home last night. The next few months will require the usual careful diet, excercise and even not climbing the stairs to my computer, bedroom and other facilities on the second story of the house more than about twice a day.

This is stated so you will know why I haven't yet replied to mail and emails received during the period. But enough about me and back to the blog.

For those who would like to view the results of the work of William Roulston and the Ulster Historical Society to date and as it is in progress, trying to find a connection between my surname and the Maguires. This is the way to cut through the morass of other forms of McCown in combination with Maguire as a most likely means of finding my family line. Since they also have been given five other families to locate who lived in the same general neighborhood and match me at 62/67 markers, and includes four McGuires and Patrick MacAuley, this appears to be a first step in findingthe patterns to follow. Even thow none of the findings to date may be in my ancestry, I find them interesting.
http://www.ancestryireland.com/dna/?page_id=7

Thanks to Peter Gurry for letting me know that he is viewing the pictures of our trip and thanks to the fair Coane for sending me a copy of her most recent update to her book on the history of the Coane family. It turns out that her family having an O'Neill connection in the male line doesn't necessarly mean that there isn't ulstimately a connection between our families. Barry McCain says that some of the royal O'Neills don't have the Niall of the Nine Hostages haplogroup,
R1b1b2a1b5g but rather the more common R1b1b2a1b5. Thanks also to Debbie Wheeler who writes that she will become a follower of the blog. Debbie is a McNeill and because of her 61/67 match we are interested in knowing if this represents a combination of both McNeill and Maguire. Thanks to all of you who follow the blog
and those who comment on the blog.

About the Pictures in Northern Ireland

2010-10-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

I found out the reason that I couldn't create a direct link so you could view the pictures without cutting and pasting. The reason is that the Google Blogspot
doesn't allow characters or symbols used in the URL by Google Picassa. It would be really nice if Google were compatible with Google.

Nevertheless and notwithstanding the above reader J Mac did view the pictures and commented that he enjoyed the pictures of Maguire Castle and wants to know how we can all fit inside. Since there are 12 followers of the blog and one of me, it shouldn't be a tight fit.

Emboldened by J Mac acutally viewing the first 138 pictures, I will go through the same routine with the final 108 pictures by copying URL on the blog so it can be cut and pasted into your browser. Truly, the two sets of pictures are of equal interest.

One of the highlights of the second group is DunLuce castle built by Sorley Boy
MacDonald, plus the Giant's causeway and Castle Monea and much more. I do want you
to realize that you are viewing the pictures online and not acutally downloadind them to your computer, so viewing the pictures will not use up all the unused space on your hard drive.

Also, in this second batch is a rope bridge blown by the wind with two people on it
above a raging surf. From the Giant's Causeway it is just a few miles east to view DunLuce Castle. I don't think that Sandy took a picture of Rathliff Island which is also nearby and is where Robert the Bruce viewed the persistence of the spider who in spite of repeated failures finally completed his web and inspired Bruce to renew the fight against the English oppressors in Scotland. The island is about 11 miles off the coast of Scotland and easily visible from the area of the Giant's Causeway.

You my wonder about my impression of Irish food. It is tough for me to be fair because I like spaghetti, burritos, American Hamburgers, etc.. I thought I would enjoy "bangers" but bangers pale into tastelessness along side Polish sausage and Jimmy Dean sausage links. Irish breakfast was just too much for me with eggs, toast, cereal, bangers, canadian bacon, coffee and fruit juice. So I cut that down to one banger, no canadian bacon and one piece of toast.

When you order fish and chips, the Irish really are expert at serving marvelous food. That dish is usually accompanied by mashed peas which I readily deleted from my order. Irish Hamburger patties that I had were tough, hard and dry. But the Irish are splendid with soups and we had soup at one meal at least every day.

Regardless of my comments on food, the people we met were hospitable, and welcomed us warmly and really made us feel at home. It is just a shame that it is a round trip of some 21 hours from San Francisco. I have flown to Heathrow from San Francisco twice and because of darkness, failed to see Hudson Bay, Greenland and either Scotland or Ireland. I don't plan to endure the long flights again but am very glad we took this trip.

Here is the link to the final 108 pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=100208342195053183377&target=ALBUM&id=5526195469373003745&authkey=Gv1sRgCOGuj72x4M6crQE&invite=CO--v5oB&feat=email

No Interest in Pictures of Ireland?

2010-10-15T22:28:00.000-07:00

Please a comment if you viewed the pictures in my previous post. Please leave a
comment if you tried and could not view them. Please leave a comment if you are not
interested in viewing the pictures. That will give me a clue as to what to say in the next posting.

If you do want to see the pictures and have been unable to, the only course known to me is to let me send the link by email and for that I need your email address. I don't need more addresses, I don't sell addresses and I have no other interest in your email address so don't worry about my intentions.

Brad McGuire said it all when he said "the pictures of Devenish Island made my soul sing!" I felt the same way. There are several castles of historic significance including the Maguire Castle in Enniskillen and Castle Monea and it's ponies, a holy well, the Folk Museum in Omagh and other treats. But don't let me influence your decision.

Photos of Trip to Ireland, Album 1

2010-10-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

I have added in this post a link you can use to view the photos of our recent trip.
There are two albums and the link for Album 2 will be sent in the next posting of this blog. I was unable to show the link as a link, so I recommend highlighting the next four lines of type, then copy, then paste to your browser address block.

If that doesn't work for you, please contact me at bill77mccown@gmail.com

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=100208342195053183377&target=ALBUM&id=5526189834288142225&authkey=Gv1sRgCJnp9ufZ2ouvswE&invite=CLqDjscB&feat=email

This Just in from our News Desk

2010-10-07T08:24:00.000-07:00

Tah Dah! This morning, Sandy found the missing camera memory chip with 400 pictures taken on our recent trip to Northern Ireland. Perhaps you can imagine spending way too much money on a once in a lifetime trip only to have lost all evidence that you had ever been there, although a sorely depleted checking account is evidence of a sort. For example it has more than the first five days worth of pictures out of a ten day trip.

Yes, we did have 108 pictures on the disk still in the camera, still most of the places we visited are on this first disk. It also has the people we met along the way along with pictures of John Cunningham, tour guide extraordinaire, and a picture of Sandy and me standing in front of the towers of Enniskillen Castle. All of our pictures Sandy took on Devenish Island are also on the first disk. I had become attached to some of the sites on this first disk and was sore distressed to have lost the pictures, including the Castle Monea and it's beautiful ponies.

Now the problem will be to learn how to add a few of them to this blog. Another news item, is that we now have 11 committed followers of this blog, in that James Charles McKown has also joined our ranks on a wonderful day like today.

Ponies at Castle Monea

2010-10-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

Several places in Northern Ireland we saw some beautiful ponies. They are a little shorter than standard bred horses and are close coupled from shoulers to hips. While
they are generally of a slim and trim configuration, their legs look to be very well muscled. They tend to be "paints" somewhat like ponies associated with American Indian plains tribes but slightly smaller. They are not only beautifully proportioned and long legged, their faces are very comely as well.

I described them to an acquaintance and she thought that they were most likely Connemara ponies who are native to Galway. It turns out, using a search engine, I found that there are at least three breeds native to Ireland: the Connemara pony, the Irish Kerry Bog pony and the Irish draught horse. John Cunningham, our tour guide, says he will ask the castle grounds caretaker the next time he is in that area the name of the breed of these ponies.

Castle Monea is in the Monea district of Fermanagh and was built by the Scottish Hamilton family as a "plantation" fortified dwelling. It has very substantial walls roughly 30" thick with the building stones well cut and fitted. Cattle were protected from theft by an extension of these same walls, called a bawn. The bawn walls were about 5' high.

Peter Gurry, a follower of this blog who also has excellent Maguire DNA matches, sent in a comment to this blog shortly before we left for Fermanagh recommending that I visit Boa Island near Belleek in Lough Erne that has some famous carvings.
We missed Boa Island but I have read of the carvings on the internet and in some booklets purchased in Ireland. We also missed the carvings on White Island closer to Enniskillen but did manage to visit Devenish Island. Devenish Island was one landmark that was particularly interesting and dramatic to me. It contains Christian abbey ruins, some dating to about 650 AD. They feature one of the best preserved watch towers in Ireland.

You may notice pictures of castles that seem to fall ruin beggining at the top of the structure. I found this explanation interesting. The Devenish tower has to be "shaved" to prevent ruin. It seems that birds hide seeds in the uneven gaps where stone meets stone. The seeds germainate and some will try to grow into trees
which grow forcing the stones apart until gravity forces the stone out of the structure thus starting the process of ruin. I had wondered because it would seem more expected from castles to ruin from the bottom up due to siege weapons and undermining of the walls by "sappers".

That is it for this post.

There is an interesting feature in Lough Erne that turn out to be ancient articial islands created by pre Gaelic civilization. The builders set pilings into the floor of the lough and then made log walls to connect the pilings. The resulting forms were then filled with rock, sand and earth thus completing the artifical islands. The islands ranged from about 100 to 200 ft. in diameter and served as easily defended housing for several families and their live stock

To Those That Comment on This Blog

2010-10-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

First let me say, that all of your comments are appreciated. I haven't yet learned how to handle comments through the blog site, so am resorting to this as a temporary measure.

I have corresponded with several of you by email as a result of our DNA matches being relatively close, and think that some of you read it primarily to see if anything will actually come of all of this.

In our meeting with William Roulston, he acknowledged the low probability of success but was a long way from stopping our detailed study. It seems that every discovery is an opportunity for overreacting in optomism and every disappointment is a cause of depression. He is right of course, but his success ratio is apparently fairly high in that he comes very highly recommended by those who have had good results from his efforts and from FTDNA administrators who know him and his work.

I have taken the position that the hunt has to be a major part of the enjoyment, in
fact, it may be the only enjoyment. My Dad used to take me bird and rabbit hunting and when we weren't successful, he said we were "skunked". I don't recall being "skunked" as a reason not to try again.

Your comments are a very important morale factor for me in fact, in the previous posting, there were three comments and I don't ever remember receiving more than that.
The surprising part to me is that I considered most of it (statistics of questionable merit)as being dry as dust and was almost shocked when all three comments were positive.

So, please continue to comment and I will try to work them in to some of the posts.
Please don't shy away from writing to me at gmail. I understand that some of you want to remain anonymous, and that is your right, but you can influence the blog and suggest ways to improve our search.

It was quite an encouragement when you started following the blog. I see that there
ten declared followers and would guess that there are at least as many more undeclared, but each one that comments is a participant, and I thank you for your participation.

Visit with William Roulston

2010-09-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

As mentioned before, William Roulston met with Sandy and with me along with John Cunningham in Ballymena, near Belfast, the night before we started home from Ireland.

One of the most important contributers to the meeting was Patrick MacAuley, no Patrick wasn't there in person, but the full weight of his words and research were there with us, because, among the papers I considered of particular interest I took with me was Pat's email regarding possible McCown family lines. In his own words:

1. "I first looked up the deposition by Alice Campion which mentions Redmond McOwen Maguire. I checked the Geinealaige Fearmanach and found Raimon mac Eoghan MacUihdir - see entry GF 225. I see that he was in the Sept descended from Donnach Ceallaigh Maguire, so "mac Owen" would probably only have been a one-generation patronymic. His lineage was Reamin mac Eoghan mac Eamon mac Gilla Duff mac Donnach Ceallaigh mac Tomas Oge, who was Maguire Chief d. 1480.

2. I also looked up the Robert fflack deposition. He mentions an atrocity that occurred in the Barony of Lurg and specifically names 30 Irish rebels, of whom 12 are surnamed Magwyre. Among the remainder are Patrick mc Choen and Cahal mc Choen, both of the Parish of Maheracoolmuney in the Barony of Lurg. In the context of Robert Flack's 1641 deposition, McChoen is being used as a hereditary surname.

My conclusion is that Redmond MacOwen Maguire is not a strong prospect. But the "mc Choen"s are a very good lead, especially since an Edward McCone was in Lurg in the 1660s. The reprisals to the 1641 massacres were very vicious and sweeping, and any McChoens who were suspected would have been killed if they did not flee. When did your ancestors arrive in America?"

Pat's account of the McChoens in the Barony of Lurg especially caught William Roulston's attention and I expect to hear more on this subject in the near future.
Unfortunately, we don't know when our line arrived in America. We may be getting closer to an answer in this regard, because James Charles McKown's line was in Virginia in 1785 and ours was in South Carolina in 1790/92. I ran the FTDNATip test
to find the percentage of probability of our having a Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) how many generations ago.

With Sam, the number of generations ago and the percentages are Gen 9 is 60.90%,
Gen 10 is 75.85% and Gen 11 is 85.19%. With Jim it is Gen 9 50.89%, Gen 10 it is
66.30% and at Gen 11 it is 77.18%. Using a factor from Barry McCain and Joseph Donohoe (55% to 85%)would indicate an MRCA for both of those men with me as recently as 10 generations ago and perhaps 11 generatations ago. That in turn would indicate that our MRCA'S would have been 250 to 275 years ago (1760-1735).

I further stipulated that the MRCA could not have been within 8 generations ago.

All of this lines up nicely with the years of birth of our earliest known ancestors.
So, I would expect that if our earliest known ancestors were the first born of their families in America that their fathers would have arrived in America around 1750. Admittedly this is just speculation but it could be useful in trying to answer Pat's question as to when our families left Ireland or arrived in America.

One of the fascinating aspects of genealogical speculation is knowing not only the most likely dates but also the names of our earliest ancestors in America.

Pat also mentioned Edward McCone in the Barony of Lurg, Fermanagh, in 1660. While in either Kinawley or Cavan, we viewed the grave of one John McCone in a cemetery largely populated with McCauleys and McManuses. That could be another clue that McCones of whatever spelling were living closely with those great Maguire related families. That and $2.50 might get you a cup of coffee.

The fair Coane had already mentioned the Barony of Lurg as having some McCone families. Pat has mentioned that he doubts that McCauley's were that far north, but they were certainly near Castle Monea which is pretty far north for the McCauley homeland.

First, the Good News

2010-09-22T23:54:00.000-07:00

Sandy and I are home again and then there is the other stuff. We haven't been able to pay the tour guide because I cannot fathom Paypal, practically all of our pictures of the trip have been lost, we are sick as dogs and thoroughly worn out and everything that we needed to do had we been home still needs to be done.

Now that we are all on the same page, the highlights of the trip included marvelous work by our esteemed tour guide, host and friend (at least if I can work it out with Paypal). It was some of the best money we ever spent to have John Cunningham as our tour guide. There is no doubt whatsoever that we saw many more things of interest due to John's deep and abiding love for ferMannah (Fermanagh) and his knowledge of what to see when time is short than had we chosen to rent and drive a car. Someone has to be aware of the meaning of what is being seen and interpreting it. In my opinion, had we survived renting a car and driving it in a way that would be understood by other drivers, out trip would not have been anywhere near as informative and productive had we not had John's interpretive explanations.

John not only knows his subjects in great depth, but he explains it so that it is easily understood. John doesn't lead safaris. All his work is done in a Renault turbo charged diesel passenger car which has a maximum capacity of 3 big fat fellers. Every where we went
there were people who knew and liked John. He is the only man I know who would send his wife along to chaperone his daughter and an 80 year old man. Now, I consider that an extreme measure to make your clients feel young again.

We visited every county in Northern Ireland, UK, plus Counties Cavan, Leitrim, and Donegal. We visited or drove through every parish in Fermanagh, visited and walked through two castles and saw more castles as well. We saw the island where Robert the Bruce watched the spider fail at finishing his web and finally succdeeding. We had our picture taken in front of Enniskillen Castle, visited Devenish Island with it's religious ruins dating back to 650 AD. Saw Connemara ponies at the Hamilton Castle ruin in Monea and saw Sorley Boy MacDonald's castle, the Giant's Causeway, visited several Catholic and Church of Ireland churches and cemeteries as well as Holy Wells. Then on the second day--
just kidding, but John works all day every day and makes sure that his clients get their moneys worth even if it kills them. I will continue this post when I am sufficiently recovered.

Five Nights Sleeping in an Irish Pub

2010-09-03T15:09:00.000-07:00

Never frequenting bars, saloons or pubs, I confess to you freely that we plan to sleep five nights at Mahoon's Fiddlestone Pub and Guesthouse in Belleek, Fermanagh. As business names go, we also plan to have dinner in Belfast at The Barking Dog. Fortunately for me, the good brethren at the local Methodist church never read my blog.

The closer we get to leaving home next Wednesday, there is more stuff that remains to be done before the trip than we realized. Yesterday, was very warm in California's Central Valley. We had stopped for lunch in Merced, named after El Rio de Nuestra Senora de Merced. On restarting the car there was a sound like a fully revved up Harley Davidson motorcycle with no muffler but with a giant megaphone tailpipe. It turned out that the noise came from the fan motor that sends warm or cold air to the passenger compartment of my car.

The Ford dealer retrieved some insulation material and the remains of a very dead mouse from the fan motor housing. This also involved a lot of driving time from Merced to Modesto, waiting for the repair and then making up time for things we needed to buy in preparation for the trip to Fermanagh.

The fair Coane has asked me to say hello to a mountain or her behalf in Donegal amd tour guide John Cunningham has to give two talks on the morning of the 11th so we will go along with him and visit parts of the Sperrin Mountains as well. The alternative was to spend an entire day at the museum in Enniskillen Castle. We do expect to spend some time there, but not a whole day.

You have all taken long trips before so you know the drill and the hassle and hopefully some good times as well.

Sorting McCowns and McKowns in Fermangh and America

2010-08-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

I have taken the liberty of reporting to you, in his own words, some very interesting thoughts in regard to the DNA matches between Jim McKown, and me, and research sources from William Roulston, Research Director,
Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

Dear William,

That is very interesting to have found such a close match. One wonders
whether your earliest ancestor in America and his were brothers,
uncle/nephew or cousins, and whether they emigrated together and then
went their separate ways in America.

With regard to the McKowns in Fermanagh in 1911, I carried out an
exercise comparing these names with the 1901 census. Interestingly, not
one of the McKowns in 1911 turns up with that spelling in 1901.

There were, as you have noted, 7 instances of McKown in Fermanagh 1901
(all in the townland of Crocknagrally, and interestingly Protestant
(Church of Ireland)) - again their surnames were spelled differently in
1911 (McKeown).

The difficulty you have is the fact that official records of emigration
from the British Isles do not begin until 1890. Before that you are
depending on the survival of a passenger lists or records in America of
people arriving there.

Have you had a look at Janie Revill, 'A Compilation of the Original
Lists of Protestant Immigrants to South Carolina, 1763-1773', Columbia
SC: The State Company, 1939, reprinted Baltimore: Genealogical
Publishing Company, 1968. It might be worth checking that out.

Another difficulty is that we still are not certain where your ancestors
left from. Certainly DNA has shown that your McCown ancestor was
originally a Maguire and therefore his origins lie in County Fermanagh.
However, the considerable disruption to Irish society in the 17th
century meant that people ended up in areas perhaps some distance from
where they came from. Our friend from the early 1600s, Edmond Maguire
McCown, turns up in Tyrone. There were even Maguires in Strabane in the
1660s.

As emigrants often maintained a degree of kinship, what could be useful
would be to assemble a list of the surnames that occur in the immediate
environs of the McCown homestead in South Carolina. Would that be
something difficult to do? Then by comparing the names with their
distribution here in Ulster it might be possible to see patterns that
could lead to where your ancestors lived in Ireland prior to their
departure.

An interesting discovery that I've just made is that of a Lawrence
McQuoan in The Five Towns, Creggan parish, County Louth, in 1766. He was
a Catholic. One can easily imagine McQuoan being pronounced in much the
same way as McCown.

A further interesting discovery, perhaps even more so, is that of a
Laurence McCowen in Lisburn, a town near Belfast, in 1766. He was a
Protestant. It was the combination of names in both instances that I
found so interesting. Law(u)rence is certainly not a common
'Scots-Irish' name. Lisburn and the Lagan Valley certainly was an area
associated with with large-scale migration to Colonial America.

Regards,
William

---------------------------------------
Dr William Roulston
Research Director
Ulster Historical Foundation
49 Malone Road
Belfast, BT9 6RY
028 9066 1988
http://www.ancestryireland.com

As the Buzzard, said, Patience Heck, I'm Gonna Kill Me Somehtin'

2010-08-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

Since last I mentioned Jim McKown, brother Dick suggested that the probable reason
that Jim's family tree doesn't match his DNA is that there is an error in the family
tree because DNA doesn't lie. Jim confirms that from about 1785 to present, his family tree reflects his own research and the part going back to 1685 in Perth, Scotland, was furnished by another researcher. That doesn't mean that the research was bad by either researcher but that the tree is grafted where it shouldn't oughta be.

FTDNA has a tool to predict the percent probability that two men who match had a Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) so many years ago, with the usual comparison by four generations apart. Cousin Sam, descended from the younger brother of my great grand father, and Jim McKown and I have MRCA's that differ by only hundredths of a percent at any generation going back 24 generations (600 years ago at 25 years per
generation).

The case is further strengthened in that only Sam and Jim match me exactly at 12 and 25 markers and at 36/37. Sam has his 67 marker result and it is a 66/67 match.
The next best matches from other men to date are 24/25, 34/37 and 63/67 and I consider those as very important as well.

As far as I am concerned, Jim, Sam and I are related based on our surname and 36/37 matches alone. The MRCA is icing on the cake and I fully expect when Jim's 67 marker results come in, that he will match me at 66/67 as well. Oh, by the way,
by calculating the MRCA by each generation, Sam and I have enough percentage of probability to be judged by two FTDNA Group administrators as close enough to show
a relationship 7 generations ago, which comes out as 175 years ago. Since it is only 140 years from my great great grandfather's birth to mine that MRCA could have been in only as far back as 1755.

Newly Found Cousin, Jim McKown

2010-08-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

Jim just received his FTDNA Y-DNA results. We match exactly at 12 and 25 markers and at 36/37. This is truly exciting to me because, although my brother, Dick, had read Jim's family tree on Ancestry.com, we didn't appear to be related---but that was then and this in now, Oh, Boy! That means he has all of the Maguire clan matches as well as other Ulster matches that I do.

Why did I write this? Because I just had to tell somebody!

William McCown, White Slave

2010-07-27T23:01:00.000-07:00

Everyone who gets into genealogical research of their family surname, dreads a
result such as this. In this case, we don't know when our earliest ancestor arrived in America or what his given name may have been or whether he was Protestant or Catholic or what his circumstances were.

I have said repeatedly that I have neither the right nor the knowledge to judge my ancestors, never mind apologizing for their circumstances, that is God's province and not mine. In this case, this particular William McCown, of County Donegal was captured by Oliver Cromwell's troops in 1650. He survived the the ocean trip to America but there was sold into slavery under the direction of Oliver Cromwell's government. White slaves were treated just like black slaves and if they ran away were beaten and if they did it again they were branded on their forheads with an R.

This William McCown ran away and was not caught. Praise God!

I doubt that he was either the first or last native of Ulster to suffer such a fate at the hands of Cromwell and his Ironsides, particulary since there were zero English Puritans among the native Irish. Since most of Ulster had been
through the great plantation of Ireland by 1635, and the native Irish were Roman Catholics, Cromwell used the expediency of killing a great many of them to get control of Ulster and remove the Roman Catholics. It was very effective.

If it should turn out that we find this William McCown in our family line, then we will celebrate his successful escape. But, feel shame on his behalf? Never in a thousand years! Each of us has enough to answer for without answering for our ancestors, and from what little I got from a Google search using the term, McCown, Donegal,this William did nothing wrong that I know of.

So, the genealogical research will go on as usual, remembering that most of the Irish in America were forced to leave Ireland by religious, economic conditions or outright warfare.

The Fair Coane Gets a Break

2010-07-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

The fair Coane had been reading this blog for awhile before contacting me about a possible connection between her family and mine. She has furnished some very valuable information used in the blog as well as being used by other researchers.

Things are tough when you are looking in the window, but can't participate, but now, a male in her paternal line has taken the 37 marker Y-DNA test. All I know to date about the result is that their Coane line has the Niall of the Nine Hostages
haplogroup and my line does not. It is a matter of her line being M222+ and mine being M222-.

This is not a major surprise since their Coane Coat of Arms includes an O'Neill crest. Now the crest is explained. There may be O'Connor's in the mix as well because many of them also share M222-. If you have been tested by FTDNA but have not had them test your sample for deep subclades, that is where you will find such things as M222+ or -.

In the Coane line, unless her male relative has had the deep subclade test, it must have been so strong that FTDNA predicted the haplogroup. FTDNA is very careful with their predictions and usually, you can take them to the bank.

I really get a kick out of it when someone has done so much good research but can find no one in the paternal line to take the test and gets a windfall like this.

Congratulations to the fair Coane and her male relative as well!

Our trip to Fermanagh is really shaping up. We had a siege of paper work that all had to be done right now, and now, we can relax for a bit. As planned, we will be met at the airport by one of John Cunningham's drivers and be driven directly to Belleek, County Fermanagh, a two hour trip during which we well see about 80 miles of beautiful scenery. The fair Coane recommended John Cunningham's tour service in glowing terms and already he has been very helpful. If you are interested, email him
at Adam4Eves@aol.com. (No, I will not comment on his choice of email address)

This is a Banner Day in This Blog

2010-07-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

Today was a day like all days until I received notice both from Jim McKown and FTDNA
that Jim is only the second McKown/McCown who is an exact 12 marker match with me.

The other match is a known cousin, Sam McCown.

Jim has signed up to be tested to 67 markers and those results should all be in by late in August. There are about 39 McCown/McKown members of the McCown Surname Group,
so this is great news at least by one of Irish descent and, hopefully two of Irish descent. I will keep you current on this as Jim's results are received.

The Adventure to Fermanagh is Taking Shape

2010-07-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

Airfare and trip insurance fees were charged to our credit card today and a huge fee for passport renewals was sent in for expedited service. I don't know if this is prejudice against Protestants of Irish descent or not.

I found that having a good travel agent is a great advantage in getting the best fares and seats for the money and most especially for giving great advice. We will be in Fermanagh for parts of 10 days with more than half of those days spent in Belleek. Belleek isn't easy to find even in a small county such as Fermangh and even with a good size fold out map from Michelin. It is relatively close to Donegal Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. It is just southeast of Ballyshannon and a little west of Lower Lough Erne.

Judging by said map, it looks as though we will travel from Belfast and up the west side of Lough Erne going from the lower end of upper Lough Erne to the top of Lower Lough Erne. I think I am lost already, but, thank goodness, the tour guide or one of his associates will pick us up at the Belfast Harbor Airport and deliver us to our bed and breakfast accomodation in Belleek. I will not have to learn to drive on the wrong side of the street or get lost in transit. Barry McCain says that getting lost in Ireland is fun, but he is much more into adventure than I.

So, between Belfast and Belleek, we will pass all along the west coast of the lough including things we will come back to see later in the tour. If you haven't looked at Lough Erne on a map, you may be surprised to learn that upper Lough Erne is south of lower Lough Erne. In this case, it is because the River Erne rises in the mountains at the south end of the county and runs to the north so the terms upper and lower refer to elevation rather than compass directions. More later.

The Grand Adventure to Fermanagh

2010-07-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

We almost have all the ducks in line for a trip to Fermanagh. It will be our first ever trip to Ireland and have received some great suggestions from the fair Coane and husband,John,
Barry McCain and Patrick MacAuley. All gave some discrete insights and advice.

The trip will involve an eleven hour flight from San Francisco to Heathrow and then a change of both planes (from Boeing 777 to Airbus 319)and airlines. The transportation from Belfast to Belleek, Fermanagh, will be provided by John Cunningham
(a tip of the hat to the fair Coane and her husband, John).

This will be our first ever trip out of the country without a complete, predetermined package, and at my age, traveling a la carte, is a bit more exciting than I would like.

No personal genealogical research is planned, but we hope to visit many scenic and historical sites. The trip, if all the ducks line up will happen in September.

I look forward to relating the highlights on our return.

A Few Words from William Roulston

2010-07-06T21:46:00.000-07:00

I spent some time late last week checking the Calendars of the State Papers relating to Ireland for any further references to Maguires and McCowns.

By way of background, state papers concerning Ireland are preserved in The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) in London under SP/63. The documents concern the administration of Ireland in this period of enormous change. There is much information of interest about the Ulster plantation. Calendars of the papers covering the period 1509–1670 were published in 24 volumes by the Public Record Office between 1860 and 1911, under the title Calendar of the State Papers relating to Ireland.

I checked the following volumes:

1600

1600-01

1601-03

1603-06

1606-08

1608-10

1611-14

1615-25

1625-32

1633-47

Only one reference was found to a McCown who also bore the name Maguire and this was to our old friend Edmond Maguire McOwen who had been noted in the patent rolls in 1611. The reference found now amplifies what we know about him.

The document in question appears in the Calendar covering the years 1611-14 (page 70). It takes the form of a letter from Sir Arthur Chichester, the lord deputy of Ireland, to the Attorney General, dated at Dublin Castle on 6 June 1611:

“Warrant to draw out a fiant of letters patent granting a pardon, with the usual limitations, to the under named, being natives of the province of Ulster, who are to be removed from their ancient dwellings upon this plantation, and who fear to be prosecuted by their landlords for leaving them. Edmond Maguyre McOwyne of Tyrone gent[leman] with 13 yeomen, 11 labourers, 15 husbandmen, 1 victualler, 4 serving men, 1 smith.”

This is all very interesting for it gives us an insight into the position of the Irish just as the Plantation of Ulster was getting underway.

Although the ‘undertakers’, as the English and Scottish grantees were known (for they agreed to undertake the planting of their lands with British settlers) were expressly forbidden from having Irish tenants, in reality nearly all of them disobeyed this ruling and were quite happy to retain the Irish on their lands.

At the same time, there was considerable dislocation of Irish society during this period. As this document reveals, Edmond Maguire McOwen et al were concerned that they were to be forced to leave their homes and farms and so took precautions to protect themselves from being prosecuted by their landlords for doing so.

While we cannot as yet be certain this Edmond is the progenitor of your line, we have delved a little deeper into the world in which your ancestors lived in the early seventeenth century.

I’ll add this to the website in due course.

DNA Updates

2010-06-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

It looks as though Bill McCown, who is descended from William McCown, Rebel Scottish prisoner, deported from England to Port Oxford, Maryland in 1747/48, is about to sign up for the Y-DNA 67 marker test. This should be very interesting for Scottish McCowns or even Irish McCowns.

Also, a test kit for the 37 marker test is on it's way to Bob McKown. Bob believes that his family
immigrated from Antrim. In my opinion, that may indicate that he has DNA in common with Francis and John McCown and also with Alexander McCown and his six sons of Pennsylvania.

Also, Robert Maguire has just upgraded his order to 67 markers as well. His family is from Tempo, Fermanagh where one of his ancestor's was a tailor.

All of these men will be encouraged to join the FTDNA Ulster Heritage Group of some 1,500 members.
If you, the reader, expect to take either the 37 or 67 marker Y-DNA test, do it now while prices are at an all time low, but be sure to do it through a surname group to get the best price.

A New Cousin in the Lawrence McCown Line

2010-06-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

My brother, Dick, found him as a result of a search using Bing under the search term "Lawrence McCown". This cousin is named Clark McCown and is descended from Lawrence McCown's third son,
Leander. We now have descendants of three of the four sons of Lawrence McCown and the fourth and last son died without issue as far as we know.

His family moved from Kentucky to Louisiana many years ago. He is being urged to take the Y-DNA
test to confirm that he matches cousin Sam (descended from 2nd son Eli) and me. A tip of the hat is due to Leonard McCown, administrator of the McCown Surname Group because he thought that we would be his most likely match.

Even though we likely all descend from the same common ancestor, born somewhere in South Carolina ca 1790-92, sometimes distant cousins can shed new light on the family via DNA mutations. That
was true of Sam's results because he has a mutation that is common to only one of two lines of MacAuley Maguires out of the entire Maguire Clan. Perhaps Clark's results will also turn up an interesting mutation that is of genealogical value as well. As you can see, I have recovered from
my last post in good order.

No Takers

2010-06-01T20:43:00.000-07:00

Having wasted several posts to this blog on the Family Finder Test and finding no evidence of
interest, I assume that everyone who reads this blog already knows everything they want to know about their own families. If so, they are much more fortunate than I, because I know full well who my great great grandfather was based on his answers to census reports and a record of his marriage in January 1815 and records as to the birth of his first two sons, one in December 1815 and one in 1818 and the birth and death dates of his other sons.

Still, we do not have a clue as to the identity of his father or mother. To get that information is the reason I took the FTDNA Y-DNA test to 67 markers, and the deep subclade test to R1b1b2a1b5 and continue to flog this blog. I am as completely in the dark as to my earliest known ancestor's father's name as I was before loading all that treasure on DNA labs. I belong to way too many FTDNA Surname Groups just to be able to find all of my matches since only one is in the McCown Surname Group and he is a known cousin.

I think it might be just as productive to fill my mouth with rocks and shout at the ocean or just wait until one of you readers enlighten me as to the identity of my earliest known ancestor's father. Please start now.

Family Finder Update

2010-05-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

A representative of FTDNA says that the price of the combined 37 marker Y-DNA test and the Family
Finder Test is $438 regardless of whether done via a Surname Group or not. It is the price to all comers. Still, it is strange that they show two different prices on their website without explanation, one at $458 and one at $438 for the exact same combination of tests.

They may have lowered the price to stimulate growth of the genetic data base. The data base needs to grow quickly to encourage more people to sign up for the test.

New Information on Family Finder Test

2010-05-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

The FTDNA Family Finder Test now includes the ability, and the cost, to combine a 37 marker Y-DNA
test and the Family Finder Test in a single purchase and a new DNA kit. See the site:
http://www.familytreedna.com/, at the site see Family Tree DNA News in the upper right side of the page and read about the new features of the
brand new technology that should expand the world wide data base much more quickly.

I have requested that FTDNA clarify if the combined 37 marker Y-DNA test already includes the Surname discount in the price of the test but will not have an answer from them until next week.

See this the website at http://www.ancestryireland.com/dna/?page_id=7 to view the latest findings regarding the combination surnames of Maguire McOwen or McOwen Maguire. For whatever reason, which I fail to grasp, Blogspot will not allow me to show more than one enclosed link.

2010-05-17T22:13:00.000-07:00

More Testing?

2010-05-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

In an effort to find unknown cousins, I am considering using FTDNA Family Finder. This could be useful if our earliest known ancestor had brothers or uncles of which we are unaware or if he had been adopted, we might find his adoptive parents and his true bloodline as well. This is intended to help us get around our earliest known ancestor because we know his descendants very well but we don't have a clue as to the name of his father whether natural or adoptive. That name could well be some variation of one of the Maguire Clan family names or it could be our McCown surname.

I have invited those with various Maguire clan surnames who are close matches with me to also take the Family Finder test. That could possibly give us more specific detail on where our McCowns lived before moving to South Carolina. I am torn between knowing whether this is in the best interest of those that I have invited or even in my best interest because in the Family Finder test, it seems as though only surnames that have actually been in the direct bloodline will do.

You may recall that I have mentioned that some of the Irish use two surnames, one is the surname of the man's father and one he adds which includes his father's given name. For example, Edmond McOwen Magwire is clearly a Maguire but to distinguish himself from other Maguires he takes his father's given name Owen and adds the Mc prefix so that it reads Edmond McOwen Magwire or Edmond son of Owen Magwire. Shane O'Neill's son also chose this course and chose to call himself MacShane although he was born O'Neill.

The History of Enniskillen

2010-05-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

This blog has mentioned Fermanagh's troubles in 1640-42. Now you can read or even download much of the history of Enniskillen by doing a Google search for "The History of Enniskillen and Manors in County Fermanagh" by W. Copeland Trimble.

This tells in dreadful detail the story of the Maguire and O'Neill uprisings that resulted the slaughter of many and the executions of some. That is only a few pages of the book, thank goodness. On the grounds that I have no more right to be ashamed of my ancestors' than they have to be ashamed of me (we each have ample cause for shame) and for the same reason I cannot apologize for them for that would be shear presumption on my part. 1640 was the time of the overthrow of Charles I of England and by 1635 most of the Great Plantation of Ireland by Protestant English and Scots had been completed except in Fermanagh.

The native Irish had their lands taken from them by force so that the English could also deprive them of their Roman Catholic faith and their Gaelic language and surnames. You may recall a book by Robert Ruark called "Something of Value". It tells in detail what happens when you take away a people's religion and social structure if it is not replaced with Something of Value.

The English came not to convert the Irish to a better faith or to improve their lot but to eliminate them as a political threat. The horrors of religious warfare was a great calamity for both the Irish and Scots Irish. It is easy after reading this to understand why both were such formidable Indian fighters in America. They had honed their skills on each other in Ulster.

More on HIgh Crimes and Misdemeanors

2010-05-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

I intended this to include the entire "rest of the story" about the murder of Arthur Champion "by Redmomd McOwin Maguire and others". It turns out that there were about 99 others involved, thus proving that either Arthur was one very tough nut or that
he was very unpopular. The story can be found by using a Google search for mcowen maguire which should yield a result called the "History of the Two Ulster manors of
Finagh, in the county of Tyrone and Fermanagh".

It is in a Google Book and so cannot be copied here. It is very worth while reading because it shows just how strong the animosity was between the Catholic Magures and the Protestants of whatever name at this point in history. Believe it or not, it also shows some restraint in the behavior of the Maguires, unlike some other incidents where men, women and children were murdered. (as we all know, murders and other attrocities were committed by both Catholics and Protestants.)

William Roulston of the Ulster Historical Foundation found the basis of the story in original documents, and Dick McCown completes the story by giving us the lead to the Google Book. It is a very powerful story of a very troubled time in the history of Ulster.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

2010-04-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

One of the best quotes I have ever read is this: "The Irish are a fair minded people, they never speak well of one another." I would love to give credit to the source of that quotation, but I read it so long ago, I just don't remember the source.

Now to the point. The 1641 depositions provide eye-witness accounts of what was happening in Ireland in the aftermath of the 1641 risings. The deposition of Alice
Campion (Champyn) of Shannock, County Fermanagh, of 14 April 1642 states that one of those involved in the killing of her husband, Arthur, was Redmond mc Owin Maguyre of Annaharde. On the evidence, in light of the opening quotation, I take it that Alice herself was Irish to say such a terrible thing. (Still, she is just as likely to have been English).

An investigation held in Fermanagh in 1641, during the reign of Charles I, provided information on the leasing policy on the estate in the county that was originally granted to John Sedborough in 1610. It was recorded that the tenants in possession of Tateconnell, Gallan and Dromsur were Redmond McOwen McGwire and Rosse McGuire.

Without more information, which may yet be forthcoming, it sounds as if the property might have been under the over sight of an agent of an absentee landlord. And, it may turn out that Mr. Campion (Champyn) was that agent. It may also have been, in the eyes of the perpetrators a justifiable homicide. I await the rest of the story from William Roulston of the Ulster Historical Foundation.

At this point, there is no proof that I am descended from said Redmond, and on his behalf it must also said that this statement is true of me as well. This is just one example of the unexpected things that are found when poking around genealogical resources.

Upon Further Review, there will be a slight delay.

2010-04-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

The good news first. The Ulster Historical Foundation (UHF) has just received a major new project with new funding. The selfish downside, is that things will slow down on the McCown project for about a month. That does not mean no progress, however, because Dick McCown continues his document searches online through the UHF Guild and other sources as well. Also, the UHF is considering adding another source
asset that would give close up scrutiny of the Clogher Diocese which includes information on Fermanagh, Monaghan, Southern Tyrone and Southern Donegal counties.

If that venture is succesful, membership in the UHF Guild will become even more important to the study of areas important to Maguire researchers. A tip o' the hat
to the fair Coane for this lead. Speaking of the fair Coane, Dick found a record of a will for one of her ancestor's before 1835. This ancestor is one of two named Thady
Coane, which she refers to as Thady I and Thady II. She also continues to turn up instances of McOwen and Maguire in combination, mostly in south Tyrone. I reported in the previous blog that the UHF has turned up the same combination in Fermanagh as well.

Dick, the Research Dynamo, McCown

2010-04-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

Brother Dick is coming up with some big time McCown results using Google Genealogy.
We have a record of the following marriages and births and please note that missing info is truly missing, not just left out.

Births:

McCown, John, 1806, Father's name McCown John. Co. Antrim
McCown James, 1809, Father's name McCown William. Co. Antrim
McCown Mary Ann, 1836, Father's name James. Co. Armagh
McCown, John, 1839, Father's name John. Co. Armagh

Marriages:

McCown, John, 1823, Co. Down
McCown, Eleanor, 1827. Co. Down
McCown, Ann, 1830. Co. Down
McCown, Robert 1849, Father, Alexander, Co. Antrim
McCown, Sally Ann, 1852, Father Thomas. Co. Antrim

I believe that is reason enough to use Google Genealogy, don't you?

I believe that people listed above are of Scots descent, but don't know that for sure.

Just to wet your whistle a bit, there is more coming from places not considered
Maguire areas such as Louth, Offaly and even Galway. Dick is finding results from the mid 1500's and much more from about 1742 to 1839 from various other sources. I put that in to echo reader Brad McGuire's dictum "I don't care who lived in which Ice
Cave, I want to know about my ancestors from 1600 to 1800". Amen to that.

I can't wait for the Galway information myself because it has records of changes in religious affiliation and related marriages and I expect some variations of Maguire and McCown to be among them.

Linen by McOwen

2010-04-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

My younger brother, Dick, hit something of interest in his first day as a researcher of the Ulster Historical Society Guild.

He gleaned this from the Index of Flaxgrowers Bounty List of 1796.

Surname First Name Parish County No. of Looms

McOwen Hugh Ballysakeery Mayo 4

McOwen Michael Lemanaghan Offaly 4

McOwen William Port Louth 1

Now, I will admit that I would like to see my namesake, William, doing better,
perhaps he was young at the time. It will be interesting to see if any of these could be related to our line. I believe that England tried very hard to undermine
Irish flax and linen industries to favor English growers and linen producers in about 1790. That by the way is the year that our earliaest known ancestor, Lawrence, was born in South Carolina and his first born son was also named William.

Redmond McOwen McGwire

2010-04-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

This just in from William Roulston of the Ulster Historical Foundation:

"I have just returned from the Linen Hall Library in Belfast where I checked a volume
entitled "Inquisitionium in officio rotulorum cancellariae Hiberniae asservatarum
repertorium" which was published in the 1820's. Basically, it contains abstracts of government inquisitions held in the 17th century."

"Under County Fermanagh I noted that a Redmond McOwen McGwire was a tenant on the estate granted to John Sedborough by King James I in 1610. The entry is in abbreviated Latin and so I was only able to get the gist of it." (editorial comment:
That is why William is doing this sort of thing and I am not) "But now we have a combination of the names of McOwen and Maguire in Co. Fermanagh in the 17th century.
I'll add this information to the website in due course with some explanatory material."

William Roulston also sent my brother, Dick's, credentials and instructions for getting access to the UHF Guild resources. I hope Dick turns up some good stuff there and doesn't have to intuit his way through Latin, Middle English and Gaelish. I can hope that, but still think there will be a lot of intuiting going on.

2010-04-03T11:23:00.000-07:00

Eoghan Dubh MacAmhlaimh

2010-04-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

From Patrick MacAuley (except for the first sentence)

You must admit that the title is an attention grabber. "It means Owen MacAwley the Black. His sons could have used a McOwen surname. His death is mentioned in the Annals of Ulster for 1505. Unfortunately, he is not included in the Geinealach Fermanach, and not much more is known about him. He was probably the son of Brian MacAwley Maguire (d. 1466)or Philip Reagh MacAwley (d. 1480). It's remotely possible that this man's descendants would have used the name McOwen as a "local
patronymic" which could have eventually become a legal surname."

I had written to "Walter McCauley" because we have a spectacularly high percentage of a probability of a Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) within the last 12 generations. Again quoting Pat MacAuley "Father Walter is a retired Jesuit priest, who is living in a seminary and is a fourth cousin of my father, and can trace his ancestry to Glangevlin in County Cavan circa 1800. (About one mile from Maguire's Chair.)."

"Father Walt is a 36/37 match with the Donn Carrach Maguire profile. His only mutation is one that the three of us share--at CDY-b we have 38 instead of 37. I'm still not sure whether this means you are from the ClanAwley line, or whether you are from another Maguire line which independently acquired the mutation. Since Daniel Warrington McCauley has the "correct DCM" 37 at CDYb, the mutation was probably acquired after the McAuley sept had formed."

"I read with great interest your latest discovery in southern Tyrone. There are a lot of Maguires in southern Tyrone and my Uncle Paddy's mother was a Maguire from Tyrone. Parts of present day Tyrone, especially Kilskerry Parish, were probably part
of Maguire Fermanagh until about the 1560's when they were seized by O'Neills. Although the Tyrone lead should be examined, my feeling is that Edmond McGuire McOwen
of Tyrone will probably not be the man we are looking for."

My thanks to Patrick MacAuley for his guidance and encouragement during my McCown line research. Every body needs friends, and I am very grateful to Pat, a good friend indeed. Good friends such as Pat, Barry McCain, the fair Coane and many others are a benefit I didn't expect from genealogy. Also, the efforts of William Roulston and the Ulster Historical Foundation are greatly adding both their research talents and discipline to the process. See their website at www.ancestryireland.org.

Big News from the Fair Coane

2010-03-27T20:05:00.001-07:00

The news from the Fair Coane is really big because it ties together McOwen, McCown, Maguire and O'Neal all in a small area of south Tyrone, so without further comment

In Her Own Words: The news about a possible Maguire/McOwen relationship is quite exciting. If I understand it correctly, Edmond Magwire and Bryan Maguire appear to be sons of an Owen Maguire who adopted Owen's Christian name as their surname, I.E. McOwen. This name change is similar to the surname thansformation of the sons of
Sean an Diomais O'Neal, who took their father's Christian name as their surname -
MacShane.

Interestingly, the Maguire/McOwens, whom you reference, are included in the South
Tyrone area.

This poses the question: Why were these Maguire men among this O'Neal group? One reason mightg be that the O'Neals had been the overlords of Fermanagh for centuries, Another reason might be that there is the documented evidence of repeated intermarriage between the O'Neals and the Maguires. At the time of the plantation, Con MacShane O'Neal (died 1630)a son of Shane O'Neal noted above, was granted lands in Clabby, Fermanagh (near Tempo)close to the Tyrone Border.

One additional thought which may be completely unrelated, but might be relevant, is
the bookplate I described to you in previous emails. As I told you, I have in my possession a book, P.Terentii Carthaginiensis Afri Comoedae which belonged to my relative, Conolly Coane. This book dates to 1806/7, is signed by CC, and has as his bookplate, his coat-of- arms of the O'Neals, surmounted by a crown and harp. Underneath this coat-of-arms is the name "Coane". I'm repeating this information because there may be an ancestry connection among the Maguires, the O'Neals and the Coanes/McCowns. I am including the McCowns since there is a Robert McCown buried in Assaroe Abbey, Ballyshannon - the same graveyard where my ancestors, Thady Coan I, in 1681 and Thady Coane II -1723, are buried. Father Gallagher, writing in the 1957 issue of the Donegal Annual, lists the tombstones in Assaroe Abbey Cemetery, outside of Ballyshannon. In footnote #6, referring to the tombstone of Robert McCown, Father Gallegher states: MCCOWN. This roughly-carved stone, inscribed only with the deceased's name, and three rude crosses, most possibly dates to the early 18th century. The Robert McCown interred here may have been a member of the Catholic branch of the Coans of Higginstown. See tombstones 100, 101 (Higginstown, Donegal is approximately two miles southeast of Ballyshannon, and is very close to the river Erne and the Fermanagh border.)

Once again, a lengthy email! I am so delighted that your genealogical quest continues and appears to be gaining momentum. I so appreciate your including me in updates of your journey. Gratefully, G.

How Can McGuire and McOwen be in the same Surname

2010-03-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

My better half asked this question because she thought you would like to know. The answer was provided by Barry McCain. In the example, John (Owen) Maguire has a son named James. When James reaches maturity he can choose to honor his father either by using Maguire as a surname, or, he can honor him even more by including both his given name and and his surname. Thus, if he calls himself James Maguire McOwen, he is calling himself James Maguire son of Owen. That really does distinguish him by name from the scads of other Maguires.

It is no accident that more than a few men have two surnames in their names.

How can McOwen be considered the same as McCown? Again, Barry McCain provided the answer. There are two Irish Gaelic names that have been used for John and that are pronounced as Owen. The two names in Gaelic are Eoghain and Eoin. So, if a man is named either MacEoghain or MacEoin he is literally the son of John but the modern surname can be something that has a modified form of Owen such as McOwen, McKeon, McKeown, McCown or McKown among many others. They are all sons of John or Johnson.

Edmond McGwire McOwen

2010-03-24T17:37:00.000-07:00

The subject name plus Brian Magwyre McOwen were pardoned in 1611 in southern Tyrone.
This news was received with rejoicing today from William Roulston. I am indeed glad they weren't hanged and glad that William has found the names McGwire and McOwen within the names of two men thus possibly connecting Maguire, McOwen/McCown with my DNA. This remains to be proven, but until being disproven, I choose to enjoy the moment.

William Roulston also says that the Ulster Hisorical Foundation has radically changed
from the conventional way in which they present the results of their research and has allowed me to pass the website URL on to "the others".

http://www.ancestryireland.com/dna/?page_id=7, I tried to use the instructions for
allowing you to just click on the link, but it didn't work. Will try again later.

This is the Big Day!

2010-03-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

I have received confirmation of my order from the Ulster Historical Foundation (UHF) for researching the McCown family in detail. I am in process of filling in a form they need for their files. Since there are many benefits provided by membership in the Ulster Historical Foundation Guild (economic and otherwise), that will also be obtained when my brother, Dick, is well enough to do some online research offered through the Guild.

The UHF has estimated that their research results should be available in about six months and any progress will be reported here as well.

I also have reason to believe that Pat MacAuley may join the Guild as well. Pat has much, much more information on his family history than the McCowns do and so he most likely will be able to find everything else he wants through sources provided through the Guild. Pat gave me much needed encouragement and help to get this far in our journey, and for this I thank him and wish him (and all of us) Blessings on the upcoming St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick is venerated by both Catholics and Protestants, especially in Ireland.

Pat and several family members visited Fermanagh and probably Cavan counties last year. One of his more telling comments after that trip is just how tiring a full day of research in a geneaological library can be. One of the objectives of that trip was also to visit known cousins. What a grand privilege to be able to find them and to visit them as well.

Status Update on Roulston Project and Misc.

2010-03-10T22:54:00.000-08:00

William Roulston is working on a bid for important funding for a Scottish project for the Ulster History Foundation which he expects to complete within a few weeks. I wish him great success in this endeavor, knowing full well that it will delay the start up of the Maguire/MacAuley/McCown Study.

In the meantime, progress is being made toward having our ducks in a row for him. Several potential members of the study group are sending information about their earliest known ancestors, their places of origin, period of time there, etc.. More new members already have joined the FTDNA Ulster Heritage Group (UHG) so that their information and test results can be categorized and compared against over 1,000 other members.

The Mag Uidhir II (Maguire II) group has grown by three members in the last month and three more have indicated that they are in the process of joining. The importance of that is this is the work sheet that Barry McCain uses in selecting which of these are candidates for the study. This is not elitism, because the members of the study group are there, not because they are superior in any way to the other members in Mag Uidhir II, but because the pattern of their test results clearly indicate a close group of co-located families in Fermanagh.

Some members of the Mag Uidhir II group match each other closely and some don't match closely enough for FTDNA to call them matches but all have the Maguire Y-DNA. For example, I have a mismatch of one genetic distance greater than is allowed as being a match, still he matches others that match me very well.

That means, in my view he is close enough and Barry has recognized this. My highest non-McCown match is a McGuire who matches me at 63/67 markers. The best news here is that he is expected to join the UHG
and may be added to the study group as well. Barry McCain is the final word on that, however.

Brad McGuire has taken an intiative to move things along by getting his best matches to submit their information and join the UHG as well. One of these has the grand old Scottish name of Buchanan and he has excellent Maguire DNA. Major Thomas Buchanan McGuire, one of America's top two aces in fighter planes in WWII is not known to be a relative of our William Buchanan match, but it looks as though his mother's family lived on the same block in Scotland as did William Buchanan's family in the mid 1800's.

McKown Y-DNA Test in Progress

2010-02-26T07:44:00.000-08:00

Word has been received from John McKown that he has ordered a kit from FTDNA and will test for 67
markers. I am looking forward to his test results and what, if any, implications it will have on the Roulston
Maguire/MacAuley/McCown study. John said that a taxi driver in Belfast told him that if he were a Protestant, he would pronounce McKown as McEwen and if he were Catholic, he would pronounce it as
McCone. My line of McCowns pronounces it to rhyme with town. That might make travel in Ulster safer since our pronunciation is neither Catholic or Protestant.

Barry McCain of the Ulster Heritage Group tells me that although all seven McKowns in the 1901 census of Parish Aghalurcher, County Fermanagh were Catholic that many families, including his, which include both Highland Scots and Ulster Irish, have a history of being Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican depending on where individual family members lived.

Meanwhile, I have asked for more answers from FTDNA regarding my matches with Donald James Maguire. In the previous posting, I was hopeful that we would be a match. So far, FTDNA reports that
with a genetic distance of 6 at 37 markers and 8 at 67 markers we fall outside of their criteria to be considered matches. Still, he does match well with other Maguires of whatever spelling and where there is life there is hope.

More McGuire Candidates for the Roulston Study?

2010-02-20T22:39:00.000-08:00

In the last week, Harlyn McGuire has shown up as a 62/67 marker match and Donald Maguire should be close to being a match because Harlyn and Donald are close matches with Joseph D. McGuire and with Brad McGuire who are in the study. Hopefully Donald will be a match or close to it with me as well.

All of the men in the study group match me at 62/67 markers and since Brad and I match at 62/67, hopefully,
Donald will match me as well. I have written to FTDNA to see what they can, or will, tell me about Donald's results. Brad tells me not to worry about it, so putting it in the blog is my form of worry beads.

More Names Like McCown in Fermanagh

2010-02-17T12:53:00.000-08:00

On a website called Fermanagh-Gold, There were a number of listings for McKeown, McKeon and two for McKeone. Yesterday, I found seven McKown households in Agulurcher Parish, Fermanagh. They were in a 1901 census and now I wouder where they lived before 1901.

Barry McCain believes that there is no difference in the surnames McCown/McKown except spelling because they have the same Gaelic root and mean the same thing ie son of John or Johnson. There was even a Johnston McKown. If there is any significance in this regarding my family, it will be up to William Roulston to sort it out.

Since McKown is a spelling also used by the Scottish Clan MacEwen, these McKowns could be native Irish, Scots or Scotch-Irish. Now, I will have to see if some McKowns will be willing to take the FTDNA Y-DNA test. If they do and they match me at 37 and 67 markers, they are my family.

Just When I Had All the Answers---

2010-02-14T19:31:00.000-08:00

It seems that the previous post had some errors and this is written to correct them. The outright errors are mine and there is a clarification from the fair Coane regarding the baronies of interest. I, in a fit of misreading maps put, baronies that are north and east of Lower Lough Erne, to the southwest of Upper Lough Erne.

The baronies are actually between Donegal and Tyrone, but mostly within Fermanagh. Looking at a map of Fermanagh, it looks as though Enniskillen is midway between the northern and southern boundaries of Fermanagh. The fair Coane states that "Cuchonnagh o Koen was in the Parish of Carn and Edmund McCone was in the Parish of Culmaine (Magheraculmoney). Both parishes are in the Barony of Lurg."

"Lurg, on the barony map, at the top right (orange), is quite extensive, and appears to contain both the parishes of Carn and Culmaine, which I think translates into the present day parish of Magheraculmoney.
If you click on the barony map (see link below) you can enlarge it. I think if you Google search for Carn and Magheraculmoney, you can probably get relevant info. http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:K9QpL2uMEB0J:www.claires-rosleaancestry.co.uk/maps.htm+Fermanagh+barony+map&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

The website link should work now for the maps.

Variations of Eoin/Eoghain in Fermanagh

2010-02-13T22:11:00.000-08:00

The fair Coane has found some more items of interest in regard to the above names which are pronounced as Owen. Rev. P. O. Gallachair, Hearth Money Rolls: Co. Fermanagh, pp. 208, 210 lists the following:

Hearth Money Rolls: Co. Fermanagh (1665-66)
Barony of Lurg: Letter
Cuchonnagh o Kohen (1666)
Robert Johnston

Barony of Culmaine: Cluncagh (Cullnigan)
Edmond McCone (1665)

As near as I can tell from what resources I have at hand, Lurg (Lorg) and Cul Maine may both be in the parish of Aghalurcher in County Fermanagh. A Google search for List of Baronies in Fermanagh turned up information on other counties as well. These names, with the County name first, are names that may be of further interest: Galway-Clon Macnowen (Mhac nEoghainn), Mayo-Kilmaine, Offaly-Ballycowen (Baile Mhic Chomhainn).

Whether o Kohen, Johnston or McCone are actually part of my family history or not, it shows that surnames based on (Owen) were certainly present in Fermanagh during the period of time that Barry McCain has mentioned to William Roulston as being of particular interest. That period runs from about 1585-1720 AD.

Both Barry McCain of the FTDNA Ulster Heritage Group and Joseph Donohoe of the FTDNA Breifne Clans Project accept percentages of probability of having a Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) of 55% to 85% as being adequate for this prediction. Interestingly, all of my best matches are solidly in those brackets about 16 generations (or 400 years) ago, which fits the period of interest very well.

An interesting point about Parish Aghalurcher is that it also borders Tyrone and Monaghan and the Parish of Enniskillen in Fermanagh as well. In Tyrone, some of the baronies overlap the county line with Fermanagh.

Obviously, I cannot predict how any of this information will affect the research on my McCown line or those of the other four men in the Roulston Project on Maguire/McCown.

Happy Event

2010-02-11T08:58:00.000-08:00

Word was received from William Roulston yesterday that he and his wife are the proud parents of their first born, Harry William Martin Roulston was born on Jan. 26th. Because surgery was involved, his wife's recovery will require more time for healing and learning all about being a first time mother. Both mother and son are doing well and father is on a steep learning curve. My prayers continue to be with them.

Of course, William will be learning all about being a first time father, and will be fully occupied with his new duties for the foreseeable future. My memories of being a first, second and third time father where no surgery was involved were trying and so both my congratulations and concern go out to them during this joyful, yet trying time.

On the ancestor search project, the longest journey begins with the first step, and that first step is necessarily delayed. That is fine because that first step will require William Roulston's full attention and we will benefit from that much more than if he is greatly preoccupied with family duties.

Recently, news was received from Joseph D. McGuire and his friend, Debbie. This means that four of the five men in the Roulston, Maguire/McCown Project have responded with information that will be used in the project. Of special interest is that Debbie's maiden name was Maguire as well and her father is submitting his DNA sample to FTDNA. Debbie hopes to find a Most Recent Common Ancestor between Joseph and her father as part of the incentive for taking his the test. I am also pleased to report that Joseph D. McGuire has now joined the FTDNA Ulster Heritage Group. On that group, there are now 16 men listed under the Mag Uidhir II (Maguire II) category.

If any of the men listed in that group don't already have their preferences set on their FTDNA personal page
to compare their test results across the entire data base, it would help the Project if they made that change.
Otherwise, why pay for the test and not give yourself the advantage of finding others who may well help you find your own family history? Genealogy only works by fully cooperating with other researchers.

Attention, All Five Who Follow This Blog

2010-02-09T22:36:00.000-08:00

The good news is than there are now five declared followers of this blog and this message is addressed to those of you who do not regularly communicate with me.

Follower Bob from Carson, CA left a message for me which I was able to read by clicking on his follower icon. My problem in answering him is that I am not smart enough to follow Google's instructions in order to contact him. So for Bob and any others who want to contact me directly just send an email to William McCown bill77mccown@gmail.com. I am very pleased to hear from those reading the blog so please don't hesitate to write to me directly. That way, I can reply directly without first getting an education in Google 101.

Also, the original intent of this blog was to encourage inputs from readers who want to share their knowledge about anything that pertains to McCown, Scots or Irish or the FTDNA Y-DNA results that are sometimes alluded to in my various postings. If you have input regarding the Maguire Clan, Fermanagh, Cavan or other subjects which I have brought up, I encourage you to let me know.

Since I have to log into the blogspot.com website to post, I really don't know how you can input directly to the blog, but send me what you cannot post directly and I will include it in future postings.

Update on the Roulston Maguire/McCown Project

2010-01-29T23:47:00.000-08:00

There are only four men from whom information is required by William Roulston, not including me. They were chosen by Barry McCain and I, not fully understanding why he limited the list to four, added two other men in error because they match me as well, or in one case even one gentetic distance closer than the four he chose.

In Barry's words "As mentioned, I am sending to you some Mag Uidhir men. The surnames are all forms of Mag Uidhir and Mac Eoin that match Mag Uidhir on the DNA results. These DNA matches confirm that they are all the same family and the fact that these are all known Mag Uidhir surnames tell us that something profound has been discovered. The head of the Mag Uidhir Project informs me that these men are all of the ruling Mag Uidhir family, so this has historical significance. In Fermanagh, one Gaelige spelling of McCown was Ceothuinn, a non standard form of Mac Eoin."

The explanation and the quotation is presented as much to correct my own misunderstanding as to set the tone for future postings. This will be updated when I receive more news about the expected birth of the Roulstons' first child and William's signal that he is ready to proceed. This could well turn into Fibber McGee's closet (for the young among you, every time Fibber opened the closet door, the entire contents fell on him).

And We Have Lift Off, almost

2010-01-23T19:09:00.000-08:00

Dr. William Roulston expects to begin work on my line of McCowns in several weeks. He and his wife are expecting the birth of their first child and that blessed event and it's attendant roller coaster ride will slightly delay work on this project.

That doesn't mean that I have nothing to do, however, because I will be contacting and trying to extract such information as William Roulston and Barry McCain deem desireable as well as necessary. It is perhaps ironic that one such extraction will involve a dentist. He is my best McGuire match to date. The list includes (they all have strong agents): Thomas James McGuire, Joseph D. McGuire, Patrick H. MacAuley,
Bradley H. McGuire, Raymond G. McGuire and Joseph M. McManus.

The specified information needed to date includes: name of earliest known ancestor, his place and years of residence. This information will be used to locate a specific family whose roots are closest to those listed.

We are now progressing from the general to the specific and hope to narrow down the search to particular towns, villages and parishes in County Fermanagh and perhaps County Cavan, southern County Tyrone and part of County Monaghan as well. In this case, while the term parish is used and some ecclesiastical parishes will doubtless yield some information, the term parish is a political subdivision of a county, such as Clanawley, the home of the MacAuleys of Clan Maguire. Barry hints that Enniskillin might well be the center of focus.

This is where the rubber meets the road, time to put up or shut up and get on with it. I can hardly wait and am a bit terrified as well. I hope this is not rememiscent of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

Getting this far has been due to the considerable effort and encouragement of readers of this blog some of whom have made valuable suggestions and inputs. While some inputs may not lead directly to history of this family line, they have all been a source of great interest and encouragement to me.

I see that the "official" number of people following this blog is only 3, I have found to my astonishment that there may be upwards of five or six readers and each one of you is either a present or potential help to this endeavor. Thank you!

North Connaught/O'Ceatthain Connecton?

2010-01-16T10:37:00.000-08:00

A guest on my blog this morning is Patrick H. MacAuley. Using the Fermanagh Genealogies link furnished by the fair Coane. Patrick believes that we may be on to something here and quotes from the Fermanagh Story by Fr. Peadar Livingstone: "KEOWN (O'Ceathain): also McKeown. McKeown ws a North Connacht sept which may be represented in modern Fermanagh. On the other hand this "Mc" may have been assumed in modern times so that some of these may really be Keowns or O'Keowns".

Patrick mentions that the O'Ceathain were a native Fermanagh family which is found in the Fermanagh Genealogies on page 430. He goes on to say that "I'm taking some leaps here, but perhaps your ancestors
were of this O'Ceathain sept, which may have had a common male lineage with the Maguires. This would be an explanation for your Y-DNA which is so similar to the Maguire pattern. I'm pretty sure that the Maguire pedigree ws doctored after they became leading family, and that prior to Donn Carrach Maguire the Maguires were a minor Fermanagh sept similar to the O'Ceathains. If this therory is true, then we need to check the DNA of some Fermanagh (Mc) Keowns."

I am deeply indebted to both the fair Coane for supplying the research and furnishing the link to the Fermanagh Genealogies and also to Patrick H. MacAuley for his "leaps" because they more than justify pursuing this research. Patrick has been a source of a great deal of information and encouragement to me and I say Thank you Patrick! And Thank you fair Coane!

On Further Review

2010-01-14T09:41:00.000-08:00

The fair Coane has sent a link to Barry McCain which shows the Fermanagh Genealogies. Barry is considering, from the information contained therein, that there may indeed be a connection between the ruling line of Maguire and Keon (John) of Muintir Ceothuinn and this would be of great interest. He is appealing to friends in Ulster who have even more expertise than he for their opinions to help clarify things. Ever the optimist, I hope for great things from this research in my lifetime. The reason that I am not including the link to the Fermanagh Geneaologies is that most of the four readers of this blog don't read Ulster Gaelic and the link is all Ulster Gaelic. I do, however, occasionally enjoy boggling my mind trying to guess meanings of the Gaelic words.

There is now hope for finding a Coane candidate for submitting a DNA sample for testing. DNA is the gold standard in genealogy because documents have been known to contain errors both intentional and unintentional. The fair Coane does have some Coane male relatives and hopefully one of them will consent to take the easy and painless test. If the test happens and the results show a match between my DNA and his, that would mean that we would have a most recent common ancestor more recent than one of Noah's sons. If a frog had wings---

Coane/McCown Controversy

2010-01-12T23:24:00.000-08:00

It never occurred to me that this blog and all four of it's occasional readers would ever encounter controversy. This one is serious because Reader Coane has done her own research while I have relied on
the talents of founder and administrator, Barry McCain of the FTDNA Ulster Heritage Group, http://www.ulsterheritage.com/. The debate, in which I took a solid stand, is a work in progress.

In earlier searches, it seemed that Cowan was derived from O'Cadhain, and that my McCown surname was absolutely not, but rather from Eoghain or Eoin. That turned out to be wretched excess, because said Barry, has now pointed out that there are few absolutes in Irish surnames and the fair Coane has some ground on which to stand after all. If you, for want of anything worthwhile to do, delve in old installments of this blog you will find mention of the name O'hEoghain.

Barry had suggested that this family were connected to the Maguires as ereneghs, a religious occupation. It had been found that at least one of these was surnamed MachEoghain. The O'hEoghains have some anglicized surnames such as O'Howens and Owens. The thought was this was the connection of, not only my Y-DNA but also connected my surname to the Maguires.

The fair Coane felt that I had gone too far in taking such a firm stand on something that I have fewer qualifications than she does. After all, she can actually read obscure, ancient Gaelic documents and Barry has backed off of his stand that there was absolutely no chance that there could be a connection between the surnames O'Cadhain and McCown. Rather than settle the issue with swords or pistols, the genteel means of settling such a dispute is to find an O'Cadhain with Maguire DNA. Alas and alack, the fair Coane has no known male Coane champion to enter the lists and take the FTDNA Y-DNA tests. So, I appeal to all four of you readers to try to come of with such a champion surnamed Cowan, Coane, Coen or Koen to take the test.

My interest in this is that in my line, we have been called McQuown, when gggf Lawrence McCown married Sally McCrae in the Sinking Spring Presbyterian Church in Abingdon, Washington County, VA in January 1815, and McCown when their sons were born and later when a census taker listed gggf Lawrence as McCowen, his son, William as McCown, and his second son, Eli as McKeown in the metropolis of Berrylick, Butler County, KY in 1850. All other records are generally (no absolutes here) consistent with the McCown spelling, although in my working career, coworkers found it easier just to call me Megowan.

Meguire Surname Group

2009-12-23T23:02:00.000-08:00

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.

A Cluster of Maguire DNA Families

2009-12-19T17:33:00.000-08:00

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.

Still Searching

2009-11-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

No new progress to report but we are continuing both conventional and DNA genealogical research. I am expecting new input in the next couple of weeks and will report any new developments here.

MacQueen, MacGuire and MacEwen

2009-10-28T16:48:00.000-07:00

Barry McCain of the Ulster Heritage Group, http://ulsterheritage.com, found mention of MacEoghain in Argyll who were bards and had some connection with the Maguires. Using the Google search term "MacQueen and MacGuire" I found that the names in the title block above are associated with each other. And also with McKown and McQuown, which latter is itself a spelling variant of McCown.
The MacEwens (MacEoghain) were bards to the Campbells of Argyll and Breadalbane and to the MacDougalls of Dunollie.

This does not prove anything about my family history, but is an avenue which must be investigated because it ties together my Irish and Scottish matches and surname with my Maguire DNA. That in itself offers some encouragement.

Barry says that he will look into this more closely when he returns from Ulster in the next couple of weeks. It also give a bit of credibility to our word of mouth family tales of being of highland Scots descent. In this case the Scots most likely having come from Ireland.