More Testing is in Progress

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.