Long Single Segment DNA Matches

New close matches appeared at 23andMe for my father and one of his siblings.

The person who shares 1.02% over three segments could be a 2nd to 4th cousin, which is workable on my end.  The shared ancestors could be as close as great grandparents, or a little more distant if this is a half relation.

Most intriguing are the two people who share just one segment because the segment is extremely long.  They may be sisters:  they appeared at the same time, share a maternal haplogroup (J1c2) with each other, and both match in the same manner- one very long segment.

No other information is revealed about these people.  I initiated contact through 23andMe's messaging system.  Most matches never answer.  My paternal tree is pretty full with or without input from these individuals, though their DNA comparisons would certainly help me and others.  I can imagine the grief that an adopted person would feel, having these close matches dangling in front of them, ignoring requests to explore their familial ties.

Any thoughts on the rarity of sharing just one very long segment?

ODonnell of Ireland and Y-DNA: The Matches

My ODonnell cousin is matched with over 700 other men who share a very similar Y chromosome at FamilyTreeDNA.  Very few matches list an ODonnell paternal ancestor.  As we go back in time, it is important to remember that surnames were not consistent and may not have followed the pattern of father to son transmission.

The beauty in Y-DNA testing is that the common ancestor is going to emerge from only one ancestral line:  the direct paternal line, meaning father to son and his son and so forth.  Compare this type of DNA inheritance to autosomal DNA, where the common ancestor will be from any line.

The most distant ODonnell ancestor that I can find for my line is Peter ODonnell, probably born around 1820 in County Donegal, Ireland.  I do not know if he came to the United States.

At the top of the list is someone who can trace back about 200 years to an ODonnell ancestor, so I started with him.

This ODonnell line lived in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts.  Irish are plentiful in Boston.  There were (only) two men named Philip ODonnell in the targeted time frame; and both were born around 1820.

A lot of records are online for Boston, so I lucked out.  Boston city directories are on Fold3.com.  Images of original vital records are at FamilySearch.org.

After gathering records, I determined that the great great grandfather, Philip ODonnell, of the Y-DNA cousin was a son of Manassas ODonnell.  Manassas was born in Ireland in the 1790s.  He first appeared in the Boston city directory in the year 1840.

 Manassas ODonnell died in 1869 from a fractured skull and ribs.  His death ledger entry lists his parents as Philip ODonnell and Bridget.

Death caused by fractured skull and ribs.
Did he fall or was he attacked?
I did not find a corresponding article or death notice in the newspapers online.

The DNA results tell us that the direct paternal line of my ODonnell cousin will merge with the direct paternal line of this Y-DNA cousin.  I can trace back 6 generations for the Y-DNA cousin, but only 4 on my own ODonnell line.  If the ancestors of Manassas are more discoverable than my own, I might make the breakthrough on my own line by researching the Manassas line.

This ODonnell group in Boston did not produce many hits in the newspapers or at FindAGrave, which are usually great sources of information for me.  If anyone out there is experienced in locating newspapers, burial records, probate files, or other useful sites for Boston, please comment below.  Thank you.

Are probate records online for Suffolk County, Massachusetts for the 1800s?

ODonnell of Ireland and Y-DNA

ODonnell is a common Irish surname.

My maternal grandmother was Jeannette ODonnell (1920 - 1993).  Her mother, Anna Preston (1890 - 1921), died the year after Jeannette was born.  Jeannette was raised by her paternal grandparents, Patrick Francis ODonnell (1857 - 1931) and Delia Joyce (1862 - 1929).  Jeannette's stories about her grandparents and great grandparents were great leads when I set out to document the family history.

The oral story was that Patrick ODonnell immigrated to the United States from County Donegal in Ireland.  To uncover more, I visited cemeteries, court houses, archives, and libraries.  I viewed census records; birth, marriage, and death certificates; wills; newspapers- all the possibilities in a genealogist's treasure chest.

Patrick was single and living in Bayonne, New Jersey in the 1880 census.  I found a few siblings born in the 1840s and 1850s and uncovered their father's name: Peter ODonnell.  They were from Ardara in County Donegal.  And that is as far as I could stretch.  It's not that I can't find ODonnell; rather, the opposite is true:  there are so many people named ODonnell (or Ó Domhnaill in Gaelic), that I can't distinguish my ODonnell line from any other.

Enter Y-DNA testing.

The immigrant Patrick ODonnell passed his Y chromosome virtually unchanged onto his sons and they passed this same Y chromosome onto their sons.  An ODonnell cousin in this direct male line agreed to test at FamilyTreeDNA and the results are in.

Surname ODonnell
37 marker Y-DNA test

I was surprised to see a flag and "Niall of the Nine Hostages."  The results for two other Y-DNA tests, Lutter and Duryea, did not have any special designations.

I had to do some reading.  Niall was a man who may or may not have existed.  According to legend, he was a king of Ireland in the 4th and 5th centuries, which accorded him the right to have relations with many women, resulting in abundant offspring, and some of them also ruled and made lots of babies.

My ODonnell cousin has 772 matches on the Y chromosome.  For comparison, my father has zero matches.  My Duryea cousin has 38 matches.

Whether or not Niall actually existed, about 20% of men in northwestern Ireland (where County Donegal lies) and 1 out of 50 men in the New York area have an almost identical Y chromosome that originated from a prolific man.  To be allowed such behavior, the man would have to be a king or man of great power, hence the idea that he was Niall of the Nine Hostages, or a very close relation to Niall.

This reminds me of the idea that Charlemagne may be an ancestor to most people of European heritage.

A study from the journal Genome Research offers that our collective maternal heritage is much more diverse than our paternal ancestry.  In genetic bottlenecks throughout history, for every 17 women who passed their genes onto the next generation, only one man did so, reflecting the power of a few elite men who procreated abundantly.

This information about Niall is interesting, like looking into a crystal ball, but into the past, not the future- where one of my ancestral lines was located 1500 years ago.  In the meantime, I am stuck in the 1820s in County Donegal.

In a separate post, I will discuss the more recent ancestry that the matches provide.