Meagher/Maher/Mahar Surname DNA Tests Page

The Family Tree DNA table for this surname project is automatically updated with the latest test results. For more discussion of our results, see the comparison section that is a bit farther down on this page.

Ancestral homeland

Our project results may eventually provide hints for Meaghers/Mahers/Mahars still searching for clues about their geographical roots. Some of us may feel confident only in stating that our ancestor came from Ireland. The next step might be to try to determine the county of origin. On the map of Ireland to the right, the red area in the northeast corner of County Tipperary is the barony of Ikerrin, the ancestral homeland of the O'Meagher clan. Eight counties share a border with Tipperary. The two counties adjacent to Ikerrin are Offaly (formerly Kings) on the north and Laois (formerly Queens) on the northeast. The other neighboring counties: Kilkenny on the east; Waterford on the southeast, bordering along the River Suir; Cork and Limerick on the southwest and west; and Clare and Galway on the northwest, across the River Shannon. According to Hayes¹, “The mass emigrations of the 19th and 20th centuries and modern mobility have greatly widened the diaspora of the Meaghers and Mahers. Despite that, the descendants of the Ikerrin clan are still most numerous in Tipperary, where some 50 per cent of the 8,000 who bear the name in Ireland live.” Hayes proposes that the older Meagher spelling was more often retained by “descendants of members of the clan who settled outside the O Meagher tuath of Ikerrin before the Cromwellian confiscations.”

Reference

1. Hayes, William J., “O Meagher, Meagher and Maher — and their dispersal in Tipperary,” Tipperary Historical Journal 1993, pp. 160-166. An extensive extract from the Hayes article appears at the rootsweb Maher surname site.

Comparison with various haplotypes

The table on this page lists our results in the same order as they appear in the Family Tree DNA table, but there will be some delay before the latest results appear below. Also, only the first 37 markers appear in this table. You can click on the ancestral name to see a separate page with details and a link to more information about origin, etc.

Our results sort into two haplogroups: the first ten results are in R1b and the last two are in I1. Family Tree DNA has tested and confirmed the haplogroup for only two of our results (#3 and #12). They confidently predict the haplogroup for the other ten. At ysearch.org there are modal haplotypes for various haplogroups. These modal values are reproduced here for our two haplogroups. A color box in our results indicates a match with the modal haplotype. Conversely, a white box indicates a mismatch with the modal value. In most cases the mismatch is only one step from the modal value. A two-step mismatch is signified by red-on-white. You can determine the genetic distance from the modal haplotype simply by counting the number of white boxes, counting red-on-white twice (but counting 389-1 and 389-2 only once). Very few results at ysearch.org come close to matching the haplotype on the first 25 markers, let alone on 37 markers.

Of the first ten results, the ones that are R1b, seven either match or are within one step (i.e., 25 vs. 24) of the Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH) as defined by Wilson et al.⁴ (only six markers were used in that paper). Being within one step, these seven results would fall under the Wilson et al. 1.15⁺ grouping, which is the same grouping labeled AMH+1 in Capelli et al.¹ Similarly, our last two results would fall under the 2.47⁺ grouping in those two papers.

Figure 1C of Rootsi et al.³ shows the geographic frequency distribution of I1 (formerly known as I1a), particularly the concentration around the Scandinavian Peninsula. It is often assumed that I1 arrived in the British Isles during the Viking invasions. There may be other explanations related to earlier migrations, conceivably before adoption of the O'Meagher surname. Nordtvedt suggests an Anglo-Saxon origin for haplotypes close to our #12. Rootsi et al. state that France could be the source region of the early spread of I1. More and up-to-date information can be found at the wiki site for the I haplogroup.

In our very limited sample, the proportion of R1b (10 out of 12) is about the same as what Hill et al.² found for Ireland as a whole, but slightly lower than the rate they found for Gaelic surnames in Munster, i.e., surnames like ours.

Finally, for comparison and contrast with our results, the last line in the table is the haplotype specified at ysearch.org for “Niall of the Nine Hostages,” which has been in the news recently. Our results appear to be far removed from the descendants of Niall.

References

The first three can be downloaded from the “Library” link on the main page for the Family Tree DNA web site.

1. Capelli, Cristian, N. Redhead, J. K. Abernethy, F. Gratrix, J. F. Wilson, T. Moen, T. Hervig, M. Richards, M. P. H. Stumpf, P. A. Underhill, P. Bradshaw, A. Shaha, M. G. Thomas, N. Bradman and D. B. Goldstein, “A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles,” Current Biology, 13 (27 May 2003), pp. 979-984
2. Hill, Emmeline W., M. A. Jobling and D. G. Bradley, “Y-chromosome variation and Irish origins,” Nature, 404 (23 March 2000), pp. 351-352. This paper predates the current, standardized nomenclature system. Their Hg 1 is mostly Hg R1b, and their Hg 2 is mostly Hg I.
3. Rootsi, Siiri, C. Magri, et al., “Phylogeography of Y-Chromosome Haplogroup I Reveals Distinct Domains of Prehistoric Gene Flow in Europe,” Am. J. Hum. Genet., 75 (2004), pp. 128-137.
4. Wilson, James F., D. A. Weiss, M. Richards, M. G. Thomas, N. Bradman, and D. B. Goldstein, “Genetic evidence for different male and female roles during cultural transitions in the British Isles,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98 (Issue 9, 24 April 2001), pp. 5078-5083.

Should you take the 12-marker or the 25-marker test?

If you start with the 12-marker test, you can of course always upgrade to 25, or more, markers at a later date. Odds are that your 12-marker results will come close to matching the R1b haplotype. You may come close to matching, or even match other R1b's in our project, and you will probably exactly match several R1b's outside of our project. Going to 25-markers would reduce the number of potential matches, and would help identify any common patterns in our results. If you are not R1b, the 12-marker test will likely be enough to establish that. In that case, your results will probably look something like the I1 haplotype, and unlike the R1b group, you will have a smaller number of potential matches. Yet an advantage in going to 25 markers would be inclusion of the DYS455 marker. According to Athey¹, a marker value of 8 for DYS455 is, “fairly convincingly diagnostic” for the I1 haplogroup.

Reference

1. Athey, T. Whit, “Haplogroup Prediction from Y-STR values Using an Allele-Frequency Approach,” Journal of Genetic Genealogy, first issue.

Contact Information

		(My mother's mother was Irene Meagher.)
	5700 N. Paseo Niquel Tucson, AZ 85718-3924

About my own YDNA test results.