This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: ksaxe Surnames: McConnell, MacConnell, McDonald, MacDonald, Mack, McDonnieal, McBride, Kilmer, McQuesten, Macgregor Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.mcconnell/2501/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Results for 25 McConnells now on the Clan Donald project tables Five more McConnells have been added to the project tables since late October, bringing the total number of McConnell men in the project to twenty-five. Based on kit counts for the project and for McConnell men on the FTDNA website, I think that about four additional kits for McConnell men are in the early stages of testing now. The Clan Donald DNA Project as a whole has also experienced good growth recently going from 500 men on the project tables as of November 2 to 565 men on the tables as of Friday. The McConnell men in the project are members of many different lines, and they have been classified into a number of different family groups. Three of those groups are quite large and well-known, and nearly a third of the McConnell men in the project are members of one of these well-known families. One of those large groups is the group of male line relatives of Somerled, the founder of Clan Donald. One of the recently added McConnell men is a member of this group, bringing the number of McConnell men in this group to three, or 12% of the McConnell men in the project. The most recently added man is a close match with Robert C. McConnell, whose case I profiled on this board last year. Both men trace their lines to Pennsylvania, and they are exploring the possibility that their earliest known McConnell ancestors were closely related. Another group is known as the Dalriadic Scots group, and contains descendants and male line relatives of the kings of the old kingdom of Dalriada. Two McConnells are in this group, and they match each other and the two MacConnells in that group quite closely. Another McConnell in the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation database would also be classified in this group if he were in the project. The two men in the project comprise 8% of the McConnells in the project. The third of these large groups is the group of male line relatives of the famed Irish king Niall of the Nine Hostages. Last year, I profiled the case of the lone McConnell in the group at that time, Keith McConnell, referring to the case as Belinda's Brick Wall, because Keith's cousin Belinda is an avid genealogist and has found their ancestor James McConnell to be one of her most difficult brick walls. Keith and Belinda have many DNA matches because Niall and his family were so prolific, but many of those bear different surnames since Niall lived long before the adoption of surnames. Recently a 12 for 12 matching McConnell appeared on the R1b Green table, giving Belinda and Keith a new possibility to explore, and bringing the percentage of McConnell men in this group to 8%, exactly matching the percentage of Clan Donald men in the project as a whole in this group. Other men in the project are members of smaller or less well-known groups. Ray McConnell, another man profiled last year, is a member of a group known as Haplogroup I1b2a or its older name of I1c. His results from National Geographic's Genographic Project suggest that he is a member of a subgroup of this group that is found almost exclusively in Britain, and is believed to have been among the earlier male lines to colonize Britain after the last Ice Age. Ray comprises 4% of the McConnells in the project, and members of his subgroup comprise about 1.4% of the project's members. Members of the larger Haplogroup I which contains Ray's subgroup comprise about 7.8% of the members of the project as a whole. Most of the McConnell men in the project are currently classified in a catch-all group called the R1b Unclassified subgroup. R1b is another haplogroup like Haplogroup I. Most men in the British Isles are members of Haplogroup R1b, which is the most common haplogroup in Europe. Most of the earliest male line settlers in Britain to leave male line descendants living today were members of the R1b subgroup, and many later settlers of Britain were also members of this group, which expanded in numbers dramatically after the last Ice Age. Three McConnell men in the R1b Yellow (Unclassified) subgroup match each other very closely. Two are known cousins, one is a long-suspected cousin, and these three all trace their lines to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They also match a McDonald who traces his line to Wilmington, Delaware and knows that one of his earliest known McDonald ancestors used the name McConnell when he was in the military. They match another McDonald with 12 marker results and a Mack whose name may be a shortened form of MacDonald, along with some other men in the project whose names are not MacDonald variants. These include a McBride, a Kilmer, a McQuesten, and a Macgregor. They have large numbers of matches outside the project as well, suggesting that their family expanded very successfully over a long period of time starting before the adoption of surnames. Researchers of this McConnell family have long suspected a connection to immigrant McConnells from Dumfries, Scotland, and some of thei! r DNA matches trace to that area. Members of this family happen to be very close to the ancestral values of the very large group of men matching the Western Modal Haplotype, and this probably helps explain the high number of matches, but I wonder if some of the numbers are the result of a high social status and resulting higher rate of reproduction for their family at some point in the past. It will be very interesting to follow this group as more men are tested, and a new subgroup including these men will probably be created sometime this year. There are other men in the R1b Yellow subgroup with close matches, and some without close matches. There is even one who has no close matches in the project, but does closely match a participant in the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation study. Some of the closest matches for these McConnells are with known cousins, but there are some other interesting examples. There are two McConnell men who both match a Donald man with 12 marker results perfectly, but the two McConnell men don't match each other well on more markers. It's possible that one of these men is closely related to the Donald man, but the 12 marker results aren't enough to determine whether this is true. One of those McConnell men has a distant match with a McDonald who may share a common line. One McConnell in the R1b Yellow subgroup matches a McDonnieal and a McDonald and they may be members of the same family. There are a few McConnell men in the group who have no close matches. They are J. L., D. E., P. J., and D. B. McConnell. As more men are tested, I expect matches to start showing up for these men along with more matches for others in the project. Kirsten Saxe, McConnell researcher Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.