O'Malley Group 6 - update June 2025

 In the previous post, we outlined the standard questions one can ask when analysing the results for a specific genetic group within any Surname DNA Project:

1. Is there a dominant surname (or surname variant) within the group?
2. Have the members been accurately grouped? Are there any Chance Matches? Any DNA or Surname Switches (also known as NPEs, Non-Paternal Events)
3. Are there any clues as to where the group is from?
4. How old is the group? How far back is the Most Recent Common Ancestor? Is the DNA signature likely to have been passed down from the surname’s originator (1000 years ago or thereabouts)?
5. Is the group likely to be associated with an Irish “Clan”? And to answer this question, we need to assess: a) where does it sit on the Tree of Mankind (a.k.a. Y-Haplotree)? b) who are the nearest genetic neighbours? and c) does this tie in with the Irish medieval genealogies?

So let's see to what extent we can address these questions in relation to Group 6.

Group 6 consists of two members and both of them have done the Big Y-700 test. They differ by a Genetic Distance (GD) of 2 / 111 (i.e. 2 out of 111 markers) indicating that they are likely to be quite closely related, probably sometime within the last several hundred years. 

Group 6 members showing 2 differences (coloured cells) on the first 37 markers

FTDNA's Time Predictor (TiP tool) translates this Genetic Distance into a very crude age estimate of sometime between 1650 and 1900, with a best guess of 1800.

Time Predictor estimates for a GD of 2 / 111

But because both men have done the Big Y test, we can get a more precise estimate of when their common ancestor lived (i.e. TMRCA estimate). Both men share the DNA marker FTD10909. FTDNA's Discover tool allows us to see where this DNA marker sits on the Tree of Mankind as well as an age estimate for when the common ancestor (who passed on this marker) lived. The central estimate is 1460 AD (with a 95% Confidence Interval of 1092 to 1711 AD). This age estimate is quite different from the much cruder age estimate above based solely on Genetic Distance, but it still has quite a wide range (roughly +/-300 years). Even with much more data, these ranges will never get more narrow than about +/- 50 years ... the current technology will simply not allow it.

FTDNA's Time Tree showing location for FTD10909 (red icon at the bottom)

So the common ancestor for these two Group 6 members probably lived some time in the 1400s. Furthermore, we can surmise that the O'Malley name has been associated with this particular DNA signature for the past 600 years, possibly longer. The question remains: has the O'Malley name been associated with this particular DNA signature for the past 1000 years (i.e. since the time surnames first emerged) and therefore are we looking at the DNA signature of the progenitor of the surname of the Group 6 O'Malley's? Only further matches and further Big Y results will tell us the answer to that question.

Can we tell where this ancestor came from? Well, both Group 6 members have entered information about their Earliest Known Ancestors (EKA) on the direct-male-line, but only one of them has given information about the birth location of their EKA, namely Muiceneach, in county Galway, Ireland. However, there appear to be several townlands with this name in county Galway so we cannot be certain which one it is.

The nearest genetic neighbours (13 on the Time Tree above) share a common ancestor with the two Group 6 members, who passed on the DNA marker BY16772 to all his 15 descendants above. The current age estimate (TMRCA) for this common ancestor is about 900 AD (more precisely 868 AD, with a 95% Confidence Interval of 510 to 1151 AD). The 900 AD timepoint is a little bit before the start of when surnames emerged in Ireland, so these people on the neighbouring branches will be related to the Group 6 members during the time of the early medieval clans and thus may connect with some of the medieval genealogies. The question  is: who are the 13 people on the neighbouring branches?

Well, we can see from the flag icons that most of them have ancestry from Ireland. One goes back to Scotland, another goes back to Spain, and the remaining 6 are of unknown ancestral origin (probably because they have not filled in that particular information on their FTDNA accounts). But can we find out their names?

To do so, there are several routes we can explore. Firstly, I searched the Y-DNA matches of the two Group 6 members for all the DNA markers in the Time Tree diagram above. This identified 7 of the 13 individuals. I then looked at the Suggested Projects for BY16772 on the Discover tool. This identified 14 different projects, 11 of which had members who sat on or below the branch characterised by BY16772. I then checked the individual projects and found another 2 people. Lastly, I tried a simple google search for "FTDNA" and the name of each DNA marker, but no further information was found. So, this search found 9 of the 13 people sitting on or below the BY16772 branch, and these are illustrated in the diagram below.

FTDNA's Time Tree with surnames of participants included

Interestingly, there are a variety of different names in this portion of the tree and this suggests that one or more Surname or DNA Switches (NPEs, Non-Paternal Events) have occurred among the members of this group over the past 1000 years. This is not surprising as we would expect the likelihood of such events on any direct-male-line to be in the region of 33-55% over a 1000-year period. Furthermore, at this stage there is not enough information to determine: which came first? Corcoran or Ward? Leyden or Campbell? etc.

I searched for these various names in the Surname Distribution Maps on John Grenham's website and three of these surnames (Duffy, Corcoran, & Ward) are fairly widespread throughout Ireland, but the surname Leydon is more concentrated in the area around Sligo and Leitrim in northwest Ireland. So this may be close to where the O'Malley's of Group 6 originated.

So, to what extent have we answered the questions posed at the start of this article?

1. Is there a dominant surname (or surname variant) within the group?   Yes ... O'Malley
2. Have the members been accurately grouped?   Yes, they both share the same DNA marker, namely FTD10909.
3. Are there any clues as to where the group is from?   Possibly from northwest Ireland, close to the area around Sligo & Leitrim. One of the two group members has ancestry that goes back to Galway in the early 1800s.
4. How old is the group?   This is quite an old group. The two test-takers probably share a common ancestor some time in the 1400s.
5. Is the group likely to be associated with an Irish “Clan”?   It is difficult to say at this stage because of the limited amount of information available, but their nearest genetic neighbours include men called Duffy, Corcoran, Ward, Campbell, Jones & Leydon. No single name is the dominant surname, and more data will be needed to figure out which surname came first and which surnames followed. So, for now, the origins of the Group 6 O'Malley's remain obscure.

And that is the current status of Group 6. Group members could try to recruit more male O'Malley's to test by looking through their Y-DNA matches (and autosomal DNA matches) to see if there are any potential candidates there. This was described in the previous blog post.

Hopefully as more people join this group, and as we accumulate more Big Y data, we will be better able to address the standard questions above and build a clearer picture of the Group 6 O'Malley's.

Maurice Gleeson

June 2025