There are now 5 people in Group 1. An additional member joined the first four members in about August 2024. His name is Teague but he has also done the Big Y test and his results have proved very informative for dating the age of the group.
Common Genealogy
The first four members are all closely related and share a known common ancestor, namely their great grandfather on their direct male lines, Michael O'Maley born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1845. His father was John O'Maley, born about 1795 in Galway, and died in Boston (see above).
The EKA (Earliest Known Ancestor) for the Teague participant was born in 1893 in Boston, Massachusetts. This is the same place where the ancestors of the O'Malley members ended up. So it could be that a Surname / DNA Switch occurred in Boston, some time after the immigration of the O'Malley ancestors for this group. In other words, the direct-male-line ancestors for the Teague member could have originally been O'Malley. But at the moment, we cannot be certain in which direction the potential switch occurred.
How old is the group?
Analysis of the initial results of the project members revealed that they belonged to Haplogroup I2a1b, which is associated with the gradual influx of "Hunter-Gatherers" to Ireland from about 12,000 years ago onwards and into the Bronze Age.
 |
| Early branches of Haplogroup I (from Eupedia) |
The "terminal SNP" for Group 1 at that stage (2017 update) was A8611, which is now equivalent to the DNA marker Y24829. However, the Big Y results from the new project member mean that there are now two people within the group who have Big Y results. These show that the third and fifth project members above sit on a branch of the Tree of Mankind characterised by the DNA marker FT111700. In addition, the first two project members sit on a branch characterised by the DNA marker Y24829. This latter information was extracted from their Family Finder test results and such information is a lot less detailed than the Big Y data. In fact, if we look at the list of ancestral SNPs for FT111700, we see that Y24829 (a.k.a. A8611) is actually 2 steps "upstream" (i.e. more distant / older) than FT111700.
- I-FGC7113 > S2639 > L1498 > FGC7094 > Y13518 > A1150 > Y24829 > BY37245 > FT111700
Previous age estimates (in 2017, 2019, & 2021) were pretty crude and calculated A8611 / Y24829 and it's sub-branch BY37245 to be about 3000-4300 years old. However, since the last update, FTDNA have introduced the Discover feature, which has a suite of tools including the Time Tree, which provides more precise age estimates for each branching point, and is very useful for visualising the various branches on the Tree of Mankind. Here is the portion of the Time Tree for FT111700 (red icon) showing the two Group 1 Big Y test-takers ...
 |
| Time Tree for FT111700 (red icon) & neighbouring branches |
- the common ancestor for branch FT111700 lived about 1769 AD (range 1555-1905)
- the common ancestor for branch BY37245 lived about 964 AD (range 275-1435)
- the common ancestor for branch Y24829 lived about 1773 BC (range 2841-918 BC)
So from this we can surmise that the two Big Y test-takers in Group 1 (namely Maley & Teague) shared a common ancestor about 1769 AD (+/- c.200 years). The question remains: which came first? Were the Malley's originally Teague? or were the Teague's originally Malley's? We need data from more testers to answer this question.
We will get more information about this portion of the Tree of Mankind when we look at the Group Time Tree below.
Where did the group come from?
It is worth noting that Surname Distribution Maps for the surname Teague indicate that it is particularly concentrated in county Tyrone, and variants of the surname (e.g. Tighe, McTeague, McTigue, etc) are concentrated in northwest Ireland, including Mayo. So it may be that if there was a Surname / DNA Switch that it occurred in Ireland, prior to emigration of the O'Malley line to the US, and possibly a generation or two prior to their EKA (Earliest Known Ancestor), namely John O'Maley, born about 1795 in Galway. But, as we said above, this is only conjecture at this stage and we need data from more test-takers to address this question.
Another recent feature from FTDNA is the Group Time Tree (which includes surnames and EKAs of group members) and one of the Suggested Projects for Y24829 is the Y-Haplogroup I2a Project, which has 12 members who sit on the Y24829 branch.
 |
| Suggested Projects for Y24829 |
The Y24829 portion of the Group Time Tree associated with this project is below. This shows the nearest genetic neighbours to the Group 1 O'Malley's but does not really give us any definite clue as to their deeper origins ...
 |
| Y24829 branch of the Group Time Tree for the Y-Haplogroup I2a Project |
Firstly, the nearest genetic neighbour (Pietz) to Group 1 had an Irish ancestor (EKA O Bryan) and shared a common ancestor with Group 1 who passed on the DNA marker BY37245 to them all, and this common ancestor lived about 964 AD (+/- c.500 years), which is around the time surnames started emerging in Ireland.
The 3 people on the BY37245 branch (Teague, Maley, & Pietz, whose EKA was an O Bryan) all seem to have Irish origins, but their nearest genetic neighbours (with whom they share a common ancestor almost 3000 years beforehand) could be from England, Scotland or elsewhere. Elucidating the deeper origins of these branches requires data from a lot more test-takers and hopefully that will happen over time.
Also of note, there is a Teague DNA Project on FTDNA, but none of the 110 members appear to have the same Y-DNA signature as our Group 1 Teague member. There is also a Tighe DNA Project with 45 members, but again, none of the members appear to be close matches to our Group 1 Teague participant. And in addition, among the Y-DNA matches of this participant, there are no matches with the surname Teague (or variant), which again suggests that the surname switch occurred in the Teague member of Group 1 rather than the O'Malley members. But it is still early days.
Conclusions so far
According to the most current age estimate, the 5 people in Group 1 are related via a common ancestor who lived about 1769 (+/- c.200 years). This is very close in time to the EKA for the Group 1 O'Malley's, namely John O'Maley, born about 1795 in Galway, and died in Boston. It seems that there was a Surname / DNA Switch within a few generations of this particular ancestor but currently we do not have enough data to determine which came first - O'Malley or Teague.
The nearest genetic neighbour to Group 1 is a man called Pietz whose EKA was an O Bryan, suggesting an Irish origin. The common ancestor between Pietz and Group 1 lived about 964 AD (+/- c.200 years), which is just about when surnames started to emerge in Ireland. This date suggests that Group 1 ancestors lived in Ireland for at least the last 1000 years, and possibly well before that.
Prior to that, the nearest genetic neighbours are from Scotland and England (and perhaps elsewhere) and share a common ancestor with Group 1 about 3800 years ago (+/- c.1000 years). So, Group 1 sits on a relatively isolated branch of the Tree of Mankind, but this is not unusual for Haplogroup I (Hunter-Gatherers) which is a more ancient branch than Haplogroup R (Metal Age Invaders), and many branches of Haplogroup I have gone extinct over the millennia.
One theory is that the Group 1 O'Malley's originally came from Mayo (an O'Malley stronghold), moved south to county Galway (maybe sometime in the 1600s or 1700s), a Surname / DNA Switch occurred sometime in the late 1700s, and the O'Malley's ended up with Teague DNA ... or the Teague's ended up with the O'Malley surname. It could have gone either way.
No comments:
Post a Comment