[skauwt]

Originally Posted by Paul.

Most of the people I know from Coatbridge claim to be 100% Irish!

lol
well i do have a fair bit of Irish on both sides of my family tree ,mainly from the famine onwards
I'm one of the lucky ones in coatbridge that has the paperwork to actually prove it though.... you`d be surprised at the amount of folk who just claim to be Irish just because there from the south of coatbridge

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Originally Posted by CoreyMacLeod

Ok, question then. Never met my father. I am Corey MacLeod, taking my mother's maiden name. My grandparents were both MacLeods when they met. Haven't found a common ancestor for the two yet. Anyway, what does that mean for me?

It means that biologically, legally, and heraldicly, you are a MacLeod.

You are in the same legal position as the Earl of Erroll, who took his mother's family name at birth (Hay) to be able to inherit both the Chiefship of Clan Hay and the Earldom of Erroll, while his younger brother took his father's name (Moncrieff) and inherited the Chiefship of Clan Moncrieff.

Does that answer your question, Mr. MacLeod?

[CoreyMacLeod]

Originally Posted by MacMillan of Rathdown

It means that biologically, legally, and heraldicly, you are a MacLeod.

You are in the same legal position as the Earl of Erroll, who took his mother's family name at birth (Hay) to be able to inherit both the Chiefship of Clan Hay and the Earldom of Erroll, while his younger brother took his father's name (Moncrieff) and inherited the Chiefship of Clan Moncrieff.

Does that answer your question, Mr. MacLeod?

It answers enough for sure. Thank you.

[Paul]

Originally Posted by skauwt

lol
well i do have a fair bit of Irish on both sides of my family tree ,mainly from the famine onwards
I'm one of the lucky ones in coatbridge that has the paperwork to actually prove it though.... you`d be surprised at the amount of folk who just claim to be Irish just because there from the south of coatbridge

haha. I also have this paperwork. 2 grandparents had 2 Irish parents and one grandparent had 1 Irish parent. I'd say that makes me 3/5... the rest of my great grandparents were highland Scots.
My great auntie was a nun in Ireland too ;)

It's ashame so many Coatbridgers (hmm? lol) are big on Irish nationalism or even patriotism but when it comes to Scotland it's a different story. Really disappoints me!

[Ozark Ridge Rider]

[QUOTE=gilmore;756673]We are all cousins. It's a question of degree. The most recent common ancestor of all humans lived sometime between the 6th millemium BCE and the 1st millenium CE. The most recent common ancestor of all Western Europeans may have lived as recently as 1000 CE. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_re...ommon_ancestor

Put another way, I have read that with a 99+% certainly, any human alive in western Europe in Charlemagne's time either died sine prole (or their descendants died sine prole,thus ending the line), or is the ancestor of every last one of us.

As the number of our ancestors doubles every generation we go back, it doesn't take very many generations to get to a greater number of ancestors than all the humans who have ever lived.

[gilmore]

[QUOTE=Ozark Ridge Rider;758896]

Originally Posted by gilmore

We are all cousins. It's a question of degree. The most recent common ancestor of all humans lived sometime between the 6th millemium BCE and the 1st millenium CE. The most recent common ancestor of all Western Europeans may have lived as recently as 1000 CE. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_re...ommon_ancestor

Put another way, I have read that with a 99+% certainly, any human alive in western Europe in Charlemagne's time either died sine prole (or their descendants died sine prole,thus ending the line), or is the ancestor of every last one of us.

As the number of our ancestors doubles every generation we go back, it doesn't take very many generations to get to a greater number of ancestors than all the humans who have ever lived.

Right, Charlemagne lived in the 8th and 9th Centuries, and the estimates are that the most recent common ancestor was some 200 years after that.

I have never come across an estimated date of the most recent common ancestor of those of British descent, but I would guess it would be even more recent, since the British Isles are separated from the continent, and the gene pool more isolated.

Some one famously said, "We (Europeans) are all descendants of Charlemange, but we are also all descendants of his stable boy." I don't remember how many reliable descents I have from Charlemagne---that is, how many times over he was an ancestor of mine--- but it's in the dozens, or scores. That may seem like a lot, and that my blood is excessively blue, but I have read that Prince William of Wales' traceable descents from Charlemagne are in the millions.

I am not particularly proud of my ancestry, since being born into it was done with no effort on my part, and was something that I had no control over (well, certainly not in this life, though who knows how karma generated in previous lives comes to fruition?) I am, however, a bit proud of the work that my family and I have done in genealogical research over the years. It can be fun, rewarding, and a project that a family can work on together.


It's much easier to trace ancestry through the royal, noble and famous, since the evidence---wills, evidence of marriage, inheritance, etc---are essentially documenation of the transfer of wealth. The poor---that is, the vast majority of our ancestors--- left no, or very little, of such evidence. It's also more challenging to research the more humble folk, since it's usually in virgin areas that few have worked before.

BTW an interesting and informative resource for medieval genealogy is http://groups.google.com/group/soc.g...edieval/topics

[St. Amish]

Originally Posted by gilmore

Family Tree DNA. It has the largest database. I then entered the Y DNA results at www.ysearch.org and the mt DNA results at www.mitosearch.org

The reason I ask is because my family members have tested with different companies at different times, to match profiles. Two companies, FamilyTreeDNA, and EthnoAncestry, were testing for different profiles, but used some of the same markers, each coming up with different values for the markers that they both happened to be testing with.

With something like DNA, there's no possible way that I could check the work myself, so I wonder if one or both of the services got it wrong.

[BoldHighlander]

Originally Posted by gilmore

I am, however, a bit proud of the work that my family and I have done in genealogical research over the years. It can be fun, rewarding, and a project that a family can work on together.

Indeed! I've been assisted by a number of cousins from around the globe that I've found in my search/research & who have aided me greatly.

Some of my finds, the Scottish, Irish, Ulster-Scots & English, were of no great surprise; but recently the discovery of more Dutch than I ever suspected (early founders of New Amsterdam), along with traces of Norwegian, Belgium, & French (a noble family that escaped the Spanish Inquisition into the Netherlands) was a great surprise, as was discovering distant cousins in both presidents Roosevelt's (FDR & Teddy), & to the Duke of Wellington (incidentally that line by the way also spawned a cousin who was an infamous pirate captain ).

I can't wait to see what discoveries I make next!

[gilmore]

Originally Posted by St. Amish

The reason I ask is because my family members have tested with different companies at different times, to match profiles. Two companies, FamilyTreeDNA, and EthnoAncestry, were testing for different profiles, but used some of the same markers, each coming up with different values for the markers that they both happened to be testing with.

With something like DNA, there's no possible way that I could check the work myself, so I wonder if one or both of the services got it wrong.

I haven't heard of that before. That's an interesting issue.

There are some genetic genealogical groups at Yahoo Groups. You might post a query there about this. They are:

DNA-ANTHROGENEALOGY at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DNA-AN...guid=270596405

DNA-NEWBIE at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DNA-NE...guid=270596405

DNA-Testing · DNA Testng, Ancestry, And Archeology at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/D...guid=270596405

Good luck!

[lethearen]

Originally Posted by gilmore

Both men and women inherit mtDNA from our mothers. It's not used much in genetic genealogy, for two reasons. We are more interested in tracing surnames, which are inherited patrilineally, usually, so Y DNA, which men get from our fathers, is more useful in that project. Also, mtDNA mutates slowly, relative to YDNA, so those whose test results match yours are much more distantly related. In other words, it doesn't tell us so much.

So from what I understand, if I want to check up on my mother's father's line, I would actually need to get my uncle (mum's bro) to donate a DNA sample and send it off for yDNA testing?

Of course, I really should do my own yDNA, too... my dad was adopted. His biodad was a Laing, which I think is a Scottish name, too. But who knows?