Tuesday 1 March 2016

New Members - 449744 & B12101, Farrell, MDKA Ireland? - R1b-GF2

Basic information

Kit Numbers ending: -9744  &  -2101

Name: Farrell

Current Group: R1b-GF2

MDKA:
  • Francis Farrell b1753 Philadelphia d1825 NC (-9744)
  • Patrick Farrell b c1722 ?Philadelphia d c1783 PA (-2101) - the presumed father of the above

Background: The Most Distant Known Ancestors (MDKA) are believed to have been of Irish descent. The pedigree for kit -9744 has been posted as a Comment (23 Jan 2016) at the bottom of our Post Your Pedigree page here, and is reproduced again below. After comparing trees, these members discovered that they shared a common ancestor in John Wesley Farrell 1801-1873. He is great grandfather to -2101 and 2x great grandfather to -9744, making them second cousins once removed. This is a fine example of how Y-DNA testing can connect people who were not previously aware that they are cousins.

The direct male line of kit ending with -9744 is as follows:
1. Francis Farrell - b.1753 Philadelphia PA, d.1825 Chatham Co. NC, m.Edith Fields, Chatham Co. North Carolina, US
2. John Wesley Ferrel - b.1798 Chatham Co. NC, d.1870 m. Mary Polly Neal, Chatham Co., North Carolina US
3. George W. Ferrel - b.1845 Chatham Co. NC, d.1899 Chatham Co. NC, m. Martha G. Thomas, Chatham Co., North Carolina
4. George Monroe Farrell, Sr. - b.1883 Chatham Co. NC, d. Orange Co. NC, m. Vennie Elizabeth Honeycutt
5. George Monroe Farrell, Jr. - b.1917 Halifax Co. NC, d. Roanoke Rapids NC, m.Ruth Lee Haley
6. -9744

Here is an additional account from the family of member -2101:
Briefly, Dr. Francis Farrell was our first ancestor in Chatham County, North Carolina. He was born in Philadelphia in 1753, educated at the English Jesuit Academy in Bruges, Belgium, and evacuated Philadelphia in 1776 for Natchez, Mississippi (then British West Florida) at the start of the American Revolution, where he served as attorney for the district under the Spanish administration that followed the British loss of the territory. His father was Patrick Farrell, a well to do cooper in Philadelphia. Patrick's father was Andrew Farrell, a tanner and merchant with connections to Maryland and the West Indies who helped establish the first Catholic Church (Old St. Joseph's) in Philadelphia. His father seems to be Edmund Farrell, also a tanner, who is in Philadelphia in 1726. Here the trail runs out (at least for now) but based on the historical patterns some likely conjectures are that (a) Edmund was a tradesman who immigrated directly to Philadelphia from Ireland, (b) Edmund was a Catholic refugee whose family moved to Philadelphia as Maryland and before that Virginia became more intolerant (there is a noticeable progression of the Farrell surname from Virginia to Maryland to Pennsylvania that corresponds with religious tolerance in those provinces), (c) he was a Catholic merchant from the West Indies who moved to Philadelphia as economic opportunities arose (see the many Farrells in Barbados and the Leeward Islands, and the network of Irish merchants in the Atlantic), or (d) someone else.

Other projects: in accordance with our recommendations (see Getting the Most out of your DNA Test), both members have joined several appropriate haplogroup & geographic projects including the following: 

STR marker profile

Member -9744 has tested to 111 markers but has no matches at this level. He has 19 matches at 67 markers, 4 at 37, and 131 at 25 markers. His closest matches are in fact already members of the Farrell Project groups R1b-GF2a (Genetic Distance ranging from 4 to 5 out of 37) and R1b-GF2b (GD range 7-10/37 and 7-10/67).

Member -2101 was a Y-DNA-46 transfer (from Ancestry) and does not have a match list for this reason. Sadly this member has passed away and obtaining a further sample is not possible. Because of the limited functionality associated with this member's results, it is also not possible to compare his Genetic Distance to other project members using the usual tools available to Administrators. So we resort to a visual comparison of his results on the DNA Results page. And from this it appears he is a very close match to -9744, differing only at DYS442 (14>15), giving them a Genetic Distance of 1/43. Similarly, this additional mutation makes his GD 5 to 6 out of 37 when compared to other members of R1b-GF2a and 8-11 out of 37 for R1b-GF2b.

This places both members within the group R1b-GF2a (with a reasonable degree of confidence).

For -9744, Ireland comes up as a strong contender for ancestral homeland on both his Ancestral Origins page and his Haplogroup Origins page.


SNP marker profile

On examination of -9744's matches, at 67 markers the following "downstream" SNPs occur:
  • L21 ... x3
  • Z253 ... x1
  • FGC20561 ... x1

There are no new revelations at the 37 marker level, but at the 25 marker level, the following SNPs occur:
  • L21 ... x4
  • Z253 ... x8
  • FGC20561 ... x1
  • S845 ... x1
  • S846 ... x3
  • DF103 ... x1
So where do these SNPs sit in relation to each other on the human evolutionary tree and can we predict a SNP progression for these two members? There are three Haplotrees that we can examine, each with subtle differences in terms of where some SNPs have been placed on the tree by the authors - the ISOGG Haplotree, the FTDNA Haplotree, and the YFull Haplotree. For people in Haplogroup R, Alex Williamson's Big Tree is also very useful (for SNPs at the level of P312 or further downstream). Currently, the FTDNA Haplotree and the YFull Haplotree are the most useful, although the latter is more experimental (and hence perhaps more up-to-date).

All of the downstream SNPs among -9744's matches can be placed in a single continuous progression, except for the last one, DF103 (this is on a completely different branch). The progression of "consistent" SNPs is as follows (SNPs found among matches are in red):
  • R- ... M269 ... > L21 > DF13 > ZZ10 > Z253 > S847 > S844 > S856 > S845 > S846 > Z17685 > FGC20561

The above SNP progression is based on FTDNA's Haplotree but the other versions are broadly similar. 

Thus one would predict based on the SNP results of -9744's matches, that the terminal SNP of -9744 would be at or close to FGC20561. And if we see where this is located on Alex Williamson's Big Tree, we find that this particular branch is shared by several people with Irish ancestry sporting the names Yorke, Christie, Murta, & Deignan (see diagram below). This further supports Ireland as the country of origin of these project members (and in fact, all of their matches in R1b-GF2).

We could take this a step further by looking at Surname Distribution Maps and see where the adjacent surnames occur most frequently. This may give us some indication of where in Ireland (which county) this particular Farrell variant originates. But that is the topic of a subsequent post.

Z17685 (the penultimate SNP) is on the far left in Alex Williamson's Big Tree

Next Steps

  1. As these two members are quite closely related (2nd cousins once removed), they should show up as strong matches to each other on their autosomal DNA. -2101 has already done this test so if -9744 did it, he should find that he shares about 1.6% of his DNA with -2101. In addition, any of their joint matches (i.e. the same people showing up as a match in both of their matches lists) are likely to be related to them via their common ancestor, John Wesley Farrell 1801-1873. This would help focus their Farrell research and provide new avenues of enquiry and collaboration.
  2. It would be useful to confirm if the predicted SNP progression (and the terminal SNP) is correct. This would help our endeavours to isolate the country (and even county) of origin for these members. This could be achieved in several ways:
    • by testing individual SNPs ... but at $39 each at FTDNA and $17.50 each at YSEQ, this could turn out to be quite an expensive option in the long run.
    • by doing a SNP Pack. There are several available, the most "top-level" being the R-M343 Backbone SNP Panel, but this only drills down as far as Z253 on our predicted SNP Progression. There is a Z253 SNP Pack* (see the SNPs covered below) and this includes all of the SNPs in our predicted progression, so maybe the cheaper option would be to order this one instead ($119) ... and perhaps first confirming that -9744 tests positive for Z253 by ordering a single SNP test ($39).
    • via the Big Y test ... this is a "discovery test" and it will confirm most or all of the SNPs in the predicted SNP Progression and will probably identify new ones, including some that are unique to the individual doing the test. But at $575 it is expensive and it may not be necessary to answer all our questions, the chief ones being: does this DNA go back to Ireland? and if so, where in Ireland?
In the end, member 449744 decided to go straight ahead with the Z253 SNP Pack and we will update this post with the results in about 8 weeks time.

Maurice Gleeson
Feb 2016

R1b - Z253 SNP Pack
Includes the following SNPs on the haplotree:
Z253, Z2201, F1969, L226, CTS9881, FGC8244, A14, CTS3849, Z2186, CTS4314, A287, FGC17551, Z2185, Z2534, FGC17449, S15280, BY157, Z18132, S7898, FGC3251, FGC3221, PF825.2, FGC3222, L554, FGC3268, BY312, FGC20561, Z17685, S846, S845, FGC20563, L1308, S856, S844, S847, BY279, DF73, CTS10108, S23267, YFS231286, DC1, FGC5628, DC8, FGC12290, FGC5660, CTS4296, CTS9251, CTS12232, BY325, FGC20566, FGC3249, FGC3236, S7897, BY414, BY411, BY412, Z18123, BY410, DC25, FGC5659

Includes the following SNPs that are NOT on the haplotree:
BY127, DC29, DC30, DC36, DC39, DC41, Z18126, S8388, ZP155, ZP156






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