Scots-Irish DNA Project Update 2 Jan 2016

'Young Frontiersman' by H. David Wright

The Scots-Irish DNA project has reached 1,000 participating families.  This list below shows families participating in the Scots-Irish DNA project.  It is NOT a comprehensive list of all Scots-Irish surnames; it is a list of those Scots-Irish families that are participating to date in the Scots-Irish DNA project.

 

The families participating show very typical Scots-Irish surnames.  The surnames originate from around Scotland, but the majority of the families are from the western Lowlands and the southwest Highlands. The majority of the haplogroups (circa 86%) show most Scots-Irish are the descendants of the Cumbric and Gaelic Celtic people of southern and western Scotland, with about 10% being of Norse or Norman ancestry. 

 

The majority of the Lowland surnames continue to be from Ayrshire, Wigtown, Kirkcubright, Dumfries, Lanark, and Renfrew (using pre 1975 nomenclature).   Many of the families participating in the project are descendants of the first wave of Scottish settlers in Ireland and the surnames of Cunningham, Hamilton, Stewart, Montgomery, Graham, etc., are well represented.   

 

The Highland families are from the southern Hebrides, Argyll, Lennox, and Dumbartonshire.  Two Highland clans that sent many families to Ireland in the mid to late 1500s are Clann Dhónaill and Clann Chaimbeul and both are well represented in the Scots-Irish DNA project participants. Those surnames associated with Clann Dhónaill tend to be from County Antrim and northeast Ulster in general and those associated with Clann Chaimbeul are usually from west Ulster, from Donegal, Tyrone, and Londonderry.

 

While most Scots-Irish families are of 'Ulster Scots'  ancestry and are from one of the nine counties of Ulster; Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, in  Northern Ireland and Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan, in the Republic of Ireland.  However, there are a number of Scots-Irish families from other parts of Ireland such as County Mayo, Sligo, from urban areas such as Cork, Galway, and Dublin.  Most of these families migrated to the New World in the 1700s and became what we now call the Scots-Irish and self identify themselves as being Scots-Irish.   

 

The Scots-Irish DNA project is run through Family Tree DNA.  The goals are to help Scots-Irish families in the Diaspora re-establish contact with their kinspeople in Ireland and Scotland, and to confirm genealogies and recover lost family history using DNA testing.

 

Surnames that have multiple listings indicate the number of families with that surname that have joined the project.   

To view, click on a page and this will bring that page up in a larger format. 

To view the DNA results, visit the Scots-Irish DNA project results page.

All families that identify themselves as Scots-Irish are welcomed participate in the project:  Join Scots-Irish DNA project.