Hi Richard, This doesn't quite make sense to me: >My FTDNA, (67 Y Markers Tested), shows overwhelming Scotch and Irish ancestry with Irish being slightly higher than Scotch. Thats not how Y DNA results are reported (in any useful fashion). Are you refering to the familytreedna page of Recent Ancestral Origins? That's not accurate at all. It just sees where people that match you (who have origins) come from. A lot don't list origins and some are wrong. Go with your haplogroup. The haplogroup is of course fuzzy too for a couple reasons: We don't know where they originated (though the scientists have theories -- which change every two years) and who cares -- we want to know where your immediate ancestors were living. If you turn up NW Irish, you can assume they were in Ulster or nearby areas of Scotland -- ie it gives you some clues. What's the haplogroup? And who do you match to? You may find matches with a different surname because surnames are fairly recent, but they're a clue. If you tell us a few of them, maybe we can tell from the surnames where they might have come from, unless it was Glasgow....same surnames in parts of Glasgow as in northern Ireland because so many went over. The point is though that these are statistical and your unique history is unique and not based on statistics. You use the statistics to figure out where the best places are to search. You don't have enough info to search in Scotland. You need to follow George back through the censuses as far as you can. You might find him living as a child in a household with his parents. Anyway the census work will give you an approximate date of birth. Then censuses also tell you where he was born -- what state. You should also try to find an obit for him and see if you can view the actual death record, not a death certificate. This is dependent on the state he died in. What state did he die in? You also need to gather all his siblings, their dates of birth and where they were born from the censuses. These are clues, esp. ones born in Scotland. There are plenty of James Mitchells there, but with the names of children and maybe spouse, you can narrow it down. Since he was born in the USA and his father in Scotland probably his father was in the USA at the time of his birth and you can trace him backwards in the censuses. Then you look for a naturalization record. If he was in the USA in 1812, if he was not naturalized he should be listed as an alien. the book is in Ancestry. You want to search for a naturalization record for the father and then first papers. The first papers are more likely to nail down his origins. However the people who stood for him are critical people. Like in the case of a client of mine whose ancstors claimed to be Scots, the men who stood for him when he naturalized were both first generation Irish. They didn't randomly go somewhere in the USA -- they went to where other people from the family and/or village went. It's called c! hain migration. So you always look up those guys in the censuses and see what you can learn about them. They are clues. Similarly, one of the sons of the Rev. John Black, who also became a minister, witnessed the will of a Kelly ancestor of mine. Why? He died north of the Allegheny and this man's church was in Wilkinsburg. Because of some previous tie, that's why. There were Kellys associated with the Reformed Presbyterian church in Wilkinsburg but so far I've not found the origins of mine -- but it is an important clue to where they were before they manifested in Indiana Twp (Allegheny Co). >I apologise to any of those who I may have offended on the list, Actually I did more offending than you today. You didn't offend anyone at all. Good luck! Linda Merle

Linda, You beat me to the punch :-) Yes, it is impossible to tell via Y-DNA testing how much scotch or irish one has in oneself unless it came in a bottle ;-) By the way, FWIW, my wife's family are Casey - staunch R.C.. Don't ask how I survived as a Presbyterian at their gatherings, but we love each other :-) ...lol... They all claim to have an unbroken line of Irish R.C.s going back to Saint Paddy himself... Last month I posted some of their family information on the Co. Cork site and had FTDNA send my brother-in-law a Y-DNA test kit. I also checked with FTDNAs Casey group. Much to my surprise guess what I found!!! The Casey lines there trace their ancestry back to Scotland and Protestants. Now that was a shocking suprise and a half. Needless to say my wife's Casey family has not commented on that...yet... ;-) Cliff. Johnston "May the best you've ever seen, Be the worst you'll ever see;" from A Scots Toast by Allan Ramsay ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 4:11 PM Subject: Re: [S-I] Mitchell, Scotch/Irish New York to Michigan > Hi Richard, > > This doesn't quite make sense to me: >>My FTDNA, (67 Y Markers Tested), shows overwhelming Scotch and Irish >>ancestry with Irish being slightly higher than Scotch. > > Thats not how Y DNA results are reported (in any useful fashion). Are you > refering to the familytreedna page of Recent Ancestral Origins? That's not > accurate at all. It just sees where people that match you (who have > origins) come from. A lot don't list origins and some are wrong. > > Go with your haplogroup. The haplogroup is of course fuzzy too for a > couple reasons: We don't know where they originated (though the scientists > have theories -- which change every two years) and who cares -- we want to > know where your immediate ancestors were living. If you turn up NW Irish, > you can assume they were in Ulster or nearby areas of Scotland -- ie it > gives you some clues. > > What's the haplogroup? And who do you match to? You may find matches with > a different > surname because surnames are fairly recent, but they're a clue. If you > tell us a few of > them, maybe we can tell from the surnames where they might have come from, > unless it was > Glasgow....same surnames in parts of Glasgow as in northern Ireland > because so many > went over. > > The point is though that these are statistical and your unique history is > unique and not based on statistics. You use the statistics to figure out > where the best places are to search. > > You don't have enough info to search in Scotland. You need to follow > George back through the censuses as far as you can. You might find him > living as a child in a household with his parents. Anyway the census work > will give you an approximate date of birth. Then censuses also tell you > where he was born -- what state. You should also try to find an obit for > him and see if you can view the actual death record, not a death > certificate. This is dependent on the state he died in. What state did he > die in? > > You also need to gather all his siblings, their dates of birth and where > they were born > from the censuses. These are clues, esp. ones born in Scotland. There are > plenty of James Mitchells there, but with the names of children and maybe > spouse, you can narrow it down. Since he was born in the USA and his > father in Scotland probably his father was in the USA at the time of his > birth and you can trace him backwards in the censuses. Then you look for a > naturalization record. If he was in the USA in 1812, if he was not > naturalized he should be listed as an alien. the book is in Ancestry. You > want to search for a naturalization record for the father and then first > papers. The first papers are more likely to nail down his origins. However > the people who stood for him are critical people. Like in the case of a > client of mine whose ancstors claimed to be Scots, the men who stood for > him when he naturalized were both first generation Irish. They didn't > randomly go somewhere in the USA -- they went to where other people from > the family and/or village went. It's called c! > hain migration. So you always look up those guys in the censuses and see > what you can learn about them. They are clues. > > Similarly, one of the sons of the Rev. John Black, who also became a > minister, witnessed the > will of a Kelly ancestor of mine. Why? He died north of the Allegheny and > this man's church > was in Wilkinsburg. Because of some previous tie, that's why. There were > Kellys associated > with the Reformed Presbyterian church in Wilkinsburg but so far I've not > found the origins > of mine -- but it is an important clue to where they were before they > manifested in Indiana > Twp (Allegheny Co). > >>I apologise to any of those who I may have offended on the list, > > Actually I did more offending than you today. You didn't offend anyone at > all. > > Good luck! > > Linda Merle > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi Cliff, this, I have been told, is why Irish people don't like to do genealogy: They fear finding out they are we (and vise versa). The Irish employed many many Scots galloglass (in Irisn means foreign soldier) in the late middle ages, including down through Cork. They were housed, according to Irish custom, in the one room houses of the unfortunate tenants of the chief, where they no doubt preyed on the poor fellow's wife and daughters. I researched a Mulvihill from Limerick who turned out to match the ones from Kerry, who, he was told, were Scots in origin. All very Catholic...but probably their ancestors was also Catholic as well. Out of the three regions of Scotland, Presbyterianism was only associated with one -- the middle. The border people and the highlanders were often Catholic -- because the guys in the middle were Presbyterian <grin>! So Scottish genes may not be anything as embarrassing as ourselves but something more respectable-- from their perspective <grin>. We're not bugs and other lower life forms whose genes seem to determine everything -- we can be different from our ancestors as culture and ethnicity are learned behaviors. We all prefer to have ancestors who 'match' our current identity but it makes no difference if we don't have them. We can still drink our preferred brand of whiskey (or continue to make our own). Now we need a new line of Hallmark cards to send to friends who have received DNA results with comforting words for those who find unpleasant surprises. Linda Merle ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cliff. Johnston" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, March 8, 2010 5:32:23 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [S-I] Mitchell, Scotch/Irish New York to Michigan Linda, You beat me to the punch :-) Yes, it is impossible to tell via Y-DNA testing how much scotch or irish one has in oneself unless it came in a bottle ;-) By the way, FWIW, my wife's family are Casey - staunch R.C.. Don't ask how I survived as a Presbyterian at their gatherings, but we love each other :-) ...lol... They all claim to have an unbroken line of Irish R.C.s going back to Saint Paddy himself... Last month I posted some of their family information on the Co. Cork site and had FTDNA send my brother-in-law a Y-DNA test kit. I also checked with FTDNAs Casey group. Much to my surprise guess what I found!!! The Casey lines there trace their ancestry back to Scotland and Protestants. Now that was a shocking suprise and a half. Needless to say my wife's Casey family has not commented on that...yet... ;-) Cliff. Johnston "May the best you've ever seen, Be the worst you'll ever see;" from A Scots Toast by Allan Ramsay ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 4:11 PM Subject: Re: [S-I] Mitchell, Scotch/Irish New York to Michigan > Hi Richard, > > This doesn't quite make sense to me: >>My FTDNA, (67 Y Markers Tested), shows overwhelming Scotch and Irish >>ancestry with Irish being slightly higher than Scotch. > > Thats not how Y DNA results are reported (in any useful fashion). Are you > refering to the familytreedna page of Recent Ancestral Origins? That's not > accurate at all. It just sees where people that match you (who have > origins) come from. A lot don't list origins and some are wrong. > > Go with your haplogroup. The haplogroup is of course fuzzy too for a > couple reasons: We don't know where they originated (though the scientists > have theories -- which change every two years) and who cares -- we want to > know where your immediate ancestors were living. If you turn up NW Irish, > you can assume they were in Ulster or nearby areas of Scotland -- ie it > gives you some clues. > > What's the haplogroup? And who do you match to? You may find matches with > a different > surname because surnames are fairly recent, but they're a clue. If you > tell us a few of > them, maybe we can tell from the surnames where they might have come from, > unless it was > Glasgow....same surnames in parts of Glasgow as in northern Ireland > because so many > went over. > > The point is though that these are statistical and your unique history is > unique and not based on statistics. You use the statistics to figure out > where the best places are to search. > > You don't have enough info to search in Scotland. You need to follow > George back through the censuses as far as you can. You might find him > living as a child in a household with his parents. Anyway the census work > will give you an approximate date of birth. Then censuses also tell you > where he was born -- what state. You should also try to find an obit for > him and see if you can view the actual death record, not a death > certificate. This is dependent on the state he died in. What state did he > die in? > > You also need to gather all his siblings, their dates of birth and where > they were born > from the censuses. These are clues, esp. ones born in Scotland. There are > plenty of James Mitchells there, but with the names of children and maybe > spouse, you can narrow it down. Since he was born in the USA and his > father in Scotland probably his father was in the USA at the time of his > birth and you can trace him backwards in the censuses. Then you look for a > naturalization record. If he was in the USA in 1812, if he was not > naturalized he should be listed as an alien. the book is in Ancestry. You > want to search for a naturalization record for the father and then first > papers. The first papers are more likely to nail down his origins. However > the people who stood for him are critical people. Like in the case of a > client of mine whose ancstors claimed to be Scots, the men who stood for > him when he naturalized were both first generation Irish. They didn't > randomly go somewhere in the USA -- they went to where other people from > the family and/or village went. It's called c! > hain migration. So you always look up those guys in the censuses and see > what you can learn about them. They are clues. > > Similarly, one of the sons of the Rev. John Black, who also became a > minister, witnessed the > will of a Kelly ancestor of mine. Why? He died north of the Allegheny and > this man's church > was in Wilkinsburg. Because of some previous tie, that's why. There were > Kellys associated > with the Reformed Presbyterian church in Wilkinsburg but so far I've not > found the origins > of mine -- but it is an important clue to where they were before they > manifested in Indiana > Twp (Allegheny Co). > >>I apologise to any of those who I may have offended on the list, > > Actually I did more offending than you today. You didn't offend anyone at > all. > > Good luck! > > Linda Merle > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message