Family Tree DNA

So true! I have familytreedna, 23andme, Sorensen, etc and would love to hook up my results.

My focus has been on Irish dna and its relation to surnames, clans, geography and history. I've never been interested on if I carry a gene for blue eyes, red hair, or have a disposition to some disease, but some do, that's why 23 and Me exists. Their main focus is medical research which can be used for family research, too.

Ireland has over 3,500 years of history. DNA research is helping unravel these mysteries on a global scale.

I belong to several dna groups working everyday trying to find answers to these puzzles. My focus is Ireland. 

Dr Bowes of IrishOriGENES.com is doing exactly that.

He is using personal research into family names and locations and combining that with information from FTDNA to help people find a 'genetic' location.

The limitation here is that Ireland DNA project is relatively new and so he doesn't have Irish DNA-cum-location samples to match the expat DNA that is being sent to him.

He was very helpful with me and honest in saying that there wasn't enough information to pin down a location in Ireland for me.
That said, I'm waiting for some kind person in my area of interest (Killybegs, Donegal, hint-hint) to submit a sample so I know whether or not my father's rather rare genetic signature (haplogroup) is found there.

He's a nice guy - give him a try. He'll do the research and let you know whether he thinks it's worth moving forward to deep research.

It's coming folks - just not here yet.

Collen

Dr Bowes of IrishOriGENES.com is doing exactly that.

He is using personal research into family names and locations and combining that with information from FTDNA to help people find a 'genetic' location.

The limitation here is that Ireland DNA project is relatively new and so he doesn't have Irish DNA-cum-location samples to match the expat DNA that is being sent to him.

He was very helpful with me and honest in saying that there wasn't enough information to pin down a location in Ireland for me.
That said, I'm waiting for some kind person in my area of interest (Killybegs, Donegal, hint-hint) to submit a sample so I know whether or not my father's rather rare genetic signature (haplogroup) is found there.

He's a nice guy - give him a try. He'll do the research and let you know whether he thinks it's worth moving forward to deep research.

It's coming folks - just not here yet.

Collen

I still don't get how a DNA test will pinpoint your ancestors to a parish. In order for it to work you need extensive samples from Irish people and in order to confirm any link with anyone it's best to back it up with a paper trail (and those aren't common in ireland) as you can have links to people along various lines. I done a test with 23andme (from Donegal) and according to them I have over 1,000 reltives in their data base but I can only confirm one.

Also is he looking at Y DNA only or autosomnal DNA?

It won't help at all, drat the luck. We're all waiting for the Irish DNA project to get off the ground. That's the project where they take the yDNA of someone who has lived in an area forever (several generations), so you can match on yDNA and surname to find locations to research. As far as I know this project was still in the sample-collection phase. Check back in five years or so.

Hold in there, Colleen.

National Geographic was in Co Mayo yesterday June 22, 2013, gathering samples for their Geno 2.0 project. Those results will be in in 3-4 months.

I've matched 4 Hopkins so far and I'm in the NW Irish group. 

Patrick

Y DNA cannot tell you what parish "you are from", trying to link Y DNA with surnames also won't work all the time. If Family Tree DNA is the company that is being used all you can find out is possibly what parish the common ancestor of you and your match was from.

Y DNA only looks at a male line, at 10 generations you can have anythign up to 2,000 ancestors. The Y DNA test only picks up 10 of those ancestors (the direct male line), what about all the other people in the family tree? What if the male line died or daughtered out? What if you are part of a rare Y haplogroup?

23andme offers a much better test that the Y DNA one (Family tree DNA's Family Finder is also better than the Y one), but you still need a good paper trail to make sense of it.

Patrick, if NatGeo was in Mayo on Saturday, we won't see results any time soon.

I was referring to the Ireland DNA Atlas project

http://www.thejournal.ie/irish-dna-atlas-project-launched-261919-Oct201…

This project is soliciting DNA samples from people all over Ireland who more or less represent their area.
This article is from 2011 so I would guess they are in the data-gathering mode at present.
This project appears to link DNA with a location. I'm interested in seeing where they go with this.
Again, it will be a while before we can reap the fruits of their research.

Colleen