New Big Y results recently came back from the lab for a member of Group 5 of the O'Malley DNA Project and this has spurred me to write an update on this particular group.
Group 5 now contains 4 members, two of whom have results from SNP testing - one man did the Big Y test, but the other man received a Y-DNA haplogroup designation as part of the new feature on FTDNA that gives very top-level Y-DNA results from the analysis of autosomal DNA results (i.e. via FTDNA's "Family Finder" test). Further haplogroup assignments for the other group members may follow in the coming months as FTDNA continues to roll out this new feature.
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| Group 5 on the public Results Page |
The new Big Y results indicate that Group 5 project members are associated with the SNP marker FT91246 which in turn is a descendant of YP564. The list of ancestral SNPs is as follows and age estimates for each ancestral SNP can be found here (note that the current estimates differ considerably from those postulated in the previous project update for Group 5):
- R-M198 > M417 > PF6162 > Z283 > Z282 > Z280 > S24902 > FT3245 > YP561 > YP564 > YP566 > YP4668 > YP4664 > YP4660 > YP6007 > FT91190 > YP6008 > FT91246
This is illustrated more fully on the Time Tree below to which I have been able to add (some) information on surnames and EKAs (Earliest Known Ancestors) associated with the branches in this portion of the Tree of Mankind (Y-Haplotree). This information was gathered by doing a simple google search for the SNP marker associated with each branch (e.g. "FTDNA FT91246") and finding projects that contained the information on their public Results Page or their Group Time Tree. In fact, all the available information below was gathered from the Joyce DNA Project.
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| Time Tree with Surnames for Group 5 click to enlarge |
The most striking aspect of this "genetic family tree" is that the single Group 5 O'Malley individual is surrounded on all sides by men called Joyce. There are 13 of them (in blue above) and they all fall under the overarching SNP marker YP6007, which is associated with an age estimate of somewhere between 760 & 1219 AD (with a central estimate of about 1013 AD). And this suggests that the Joyce surname (which was reportedly a Norman name of Welsh origin that was evident in Ireland by the end of the 1100s) was passed on "hand in hand" with the SNP marker YP6007.
The Group 5 O'Malley individual shares a common ancestor with the Joyce men on the FT91246 branch and this ancestor would have lived about 1434 AD (95% CI 1256-1576 AD).
So it seems that the Group 5 O'Malley's have probably been carrying the O'Malley surname for several hundred years, but prior to about 1450, the surname associated with their genetic signature was originally Joyce. Currently we do not know why there was a change in the surname from Joyce to O'Malley, but this could have been due to a variety of different factors, both modern and medieval.
Only one member in Group 5 has supplied a geographic origin for their EKA and that is Kilmilkin (Kilmeelickin), right in the heart of Joyce Country in Co. Galway (see previous post).
If some or all of the other O'Malley men in Group 5 did the Big Y test, this would give us a much better estimate of when the switch from Joyce to O'Malley occurred.
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