Richard III of England - DNA Contribution...

JPM: https://www.familytreedna.com/public/stuart/default.aspx?section=yc...

This is the royal Stewart line, clearly you fit in. My point is that the R1b haplogroup though separated by thousands of years carries the same values on Y which means the ANCIENT line of Kings preceded both I-1 and R1b so likely a G or I ancestor in the first 40,000 years of Europe's recent history of the last 100,000 years.

Who that first person was? I certainly don't know, but we see evidence of the man in the Stewarts, and Romanov's Mt. Batten- Windsors. Possibly the Scandanavian Tutors, & Suttons who arrived from France after the Viking Incursion of 800 AD.

You have the distinct advantage as Justin says above of knowing that very specific bloodline over time. Congratulations, you are a rare person in the world as few of us know much about our Historical links to the past.

Justin: http://www.geni.com/path/Edward-IV-of-England+is+related+to+Ernest-...

My Uncle Ernest Stevens, is the 11th GGrandson of Edward IV King and Brother of Richard III. But the male descent is perhaps different than Richards. There is reason to believe the descent through the Hilton line is still living but in a Branch of Rice Family which I do not have access.

Nice Justin :) that means you might match Richard?

Hi Justin and Dale,
I went to the royal Stewart DNA site that Dale posted and found several matches. Because the file is large, I will email my yDNA report to you to see the close STR values with Stewart/Stuwart lineage. Which came first, the Stewarts or the Oriels? Should I join the Stewart Project? I look forward to reading your insights.

Hi Maven, If you would like a copy of my yDNA report also, please send me an email at jpmintl@gmail.com.

Sorry, off subject again and back to the Collas. I think I have a Colla Conundrum. According to this paper, they say there were several lines from the Collas besides the MacDonalds. While I have a DNA FTDNA match to Angus Og MacDonald I also have a Geni line from my Father to Somerled, from my Grandmother to Olaf I think it is who's Daughter marries into the line and this new information says that MacSween is also part of the Collas. My mystery Grandfather who I am trying to trace may be contributing to the conundrum because while all roads are leading to the Montana via Angus Og, now I have to wonder if Mystery Grandpa is throwing a curve ball into the equation. Having the same Grandparents over and over makes it very confusing and difficult to untangle the webs.
New info: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/staff/alexwoolf/originsandance...
Opinions please from Colla experts?

From my Father to Somerled
http://www.geni.com/path/Carol-Pierce+is+related+to+Somerled-King-o...
(There are no MacDonald's in this path)
My Father's Mother leads to Olaf I whose Daughter Ragnald marries Somerled. Ragnald is an Aunt and Olaf I is a
22nd Grandfather.
http://www.geni.com/path/Thelma-Pierce+is+related+to+Olaf-I-Morsel-...
There are no MacDonalds in that line.
My DNA match for Angus Og MacDonald line who end up in Montana
Somerled, “King of the Isles”
So am I only matching that MacDonald line because they all share Somerled as an Ancestor?

No one really put's Somerled down as an Ancestor so it's kind of hard to triangulate.

I also have a DNA match for a Plante who ends up in the same area. Coincidence?

Gedmatch shows I have ancient origins in Dal Riata, Argyll and Bute which matches for the area. I also have a mystery Icelandic ancestor.

Sorry, I'm drifting off subject and thinking of several things at once.

Dear laura,

I don't think that Richard III can be a direct ancestor of yours, poor man. As far as I can remember he had no attested children. If he had done, they and their heirs would have got promptly knocked on the head when Henry VII took over.

The mystery of his nephews remains just that. Personally I believe that they were probably murdered by the Duke of Buckingham just before he launched his bid for the throne. But it's anyone's guess.

There was a Richard Plantagenet who is historicaly attested in Sussex (I think) in Tudor times, and no-one knows where he comes from. There is a truly awful book which suggests that he may be one of the children of Edward IV who was hidden for his own safety, asa peasant working for the local lord of the manor. Most unlikely. Anyway, he does not seem to have had children.

Mark

Wanda, my connections to Olof, Somerled and Angus.

Somerled, King of the Hebrides is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's third cousin 21 times removed!
http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Somerled-King...

Olaf I "Morsel", King of Man & the Isles is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's second cousin 22 times removed!
http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Olaf-I-Morsel...

Angus Og MacDonald of the Isles is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's 7th cousin 17 times removed!

http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Angus-Og-MacD...

John Pat, when you read Dale's theories you should keep in mind that these are his own ideas. Every expert in the field rejects them. It just doesn't work like that. This might be a case, like the age of the haplogroups, where Dale is misunderstanding a key point, but if so neither Dale nor I have figured out what it could be.

Your yDNA approximately matches the Stewart line because both of them have a common origin in the ancient Celts of western Europe. The Stewarts are (apparently) descended from the 11th century stewards of Dol in Brittany, a family that seems to trace back to a line of ancient British chiefs.

It's no surprise that the yDNA would be related and both be R1b, but the two lines are very different. In fact, if you take the legends and fanciful old genealogies at face value, your common ancestor would probably be Noah ;)

Wanda, Somerled is my 20th, 23rd, 23rd & 26th ggf -- all thru Jean MacRory of Bute. He's, also, my 3rd cousin 15X & 16X on two lines.
If you want the paths, let me know.

Wanda, you are running into something that is a real problem with the old Irish genealogies -- the DNA doesn't always match the recorded history.

Sometimes it matches for clusters of descendants, as for John Pat and his line, but other times it all goes down in flames. Somewhere I saw an article recently that the MacNeils of Barra turned out, from DNA, not to be descendants of the O'Neills as tradition had it, but instead a Scandinavian family.

The same thing happened to the MacDonalds. The old genealogies say they are descended from Somerled, who was supposed to be a descendant of Colla Uais, but DNA testing on Somerled's descendants show that he has to have belonged to a Scandinavian family -- which actually makes more sense, given his name and career.

If you do a lot of work with ancient Irish and Scottish genealogies one thing that will become obvious is that they are often artificial in a certain, predictable way. If a family lived in a particular area, dependent on another powerful family, the genealogies are eventually going to sweep them up into being a branch of that family. Maybe the line went through an heiress at some point, or maybe it was just a convenient fiction to incorporate a smaller band within the larger community.

One place you can see a disconnect like this is the difference between the O'Neills and other Colla descendants. The O'Neills don't have the genetic marker John Pat has, even though the O'Neills are supposed to be descended from the same Colla.

Another example -- a branch of the Norman de Mandeville family settled in northern Ireland, where they eventually became McWilliams (McQuillan) and "assigned" a male-line descent from Colla. It's clear the McQuillans were really Mandevilles, no matter what the later paper genealogies say, but it gets confusing because John Pat belongs to the McQuillan subgroup of the "Colla Clan", so some people with the surname McQuillan really are "descendants of Colla", even though the main McQuillan family wasn't -- according to written records, which could be wrong ;)

Another example -- the MacSweens or MacSwans of Roag. I was reading about them recently because one of my research buddies thinks the Swanströms are a branch of the MacSwans (I know, I know, don't go there). They held their land from the MacLeods but were allied with the MacDonalds, but claimed a common ancestry with the MacLeods, but have DNA that looks like they were really MacDonalds.

Thank you for explaining that Justin, I appreciate the input of a person like yourself who is more knowledgeable in these old line's then a novice like myself. That is interesting about Swanstrom being related to the MacSween's. Are you on FTDNA by chance? If the Swanstrom are related to MacSween and if my Grandfather is a MacSween descendant then we would have matching centimorgans, perhaps even more recent? Sorry... I had to go there. lol, curiosity just kills me...lol

Lol!

Wanda, we don't match at FTDNA. Our connection is too distant for that. Earlier, we noticed that Gedmatch shows three bits of shared DNA, 2.3 cM, 2.8 cM, and and 4.2 cM. A significant match would be 5 cM, and 3 cM would be maybe something worth checking.

Anything less than 3 and it's likely to be just general background noise with the two of us coming from the same general population. I"ve noticed that I get 1 cM and 2 cM matches with "almost everyone" who has some kind of colonial American or southern Swedish ancestry. Probably a sign that we have unknown common ancestors somewhere in the 1600s or 1700s.

BTW, do you know if your MacSweens are the ones from the Hebrides, or Kircudbright, or Ireland?

I should be putting any idea of a Swanström / MacSwan connection firmly out of mind. From what I know, it can't possibly be true, but it's my research style to listen to all my cousins and never reject their ideas, no matter how outlandish, until I have real proof. And in the meantime, I get to read about all kinds of interesting things ;)

Here's a great resource for Clan Colla. Everything you'd ever want to know.

http://www.peterspioneers.com/colla.htm

This site discusses the problem created by not matching Niall of the Nine Hostages (ancestor of the O'Neills) and not matching Somerled (ancestor of the MacDonalds).

There is also a section with three theories about the origin of Clan Colla:
http://www.peterspioneers.com/colla.htm#origin

Hi Justin, our MRCA is probably Captain Aemes. We are 11th Cousins once removed which is under the 5cm mark but it's spot on for Geni so I'm sure it's valid. Capt. Anthony Eames
The other two matches are pretty distant, could be MacSween in the very distant past, one never knows. I'm still working on that line so it's not genified yet. lol There are very few Sweeney, Sweney, Swaney's on FTDNA. I don't know why, there just aren't. A mere three matches. Do you know when Swanstroms branched from MacSween or MacSwan? My Grandfather's line is very obscure so it will take a while. Not sure who Kircudbright is. My History Link has 60 pages or something so my eyes start to glaze over after a while.

Wanda, I think the Eames family is a good guess for our shared DNA. The trick now would be find some other Eames descendants who match both of us at exactly the same location. As if either of us has time for a project like that ;)

But that's what Ancestry.com is starting to do. Identify these share segments and match to a shared ancestor, so they can suggest to other users that they might also be descendants. Will be pretty exciting if they pull it off.

If the Swanströms were MacSwans, the connection would be through a man who went to Sweden in the 17th century, as soldier in one of the Scottish regiments hired by King Gustaf Adolf. That's the theory of one of my cousins, anyway.

If the Swanström ancestor really was a Scot (which I doubt), I think the DNA points to Sinclair rather than MacSwan, although, as you say, not many Sweeneys (etc.) have been tested.

From what I can see, there are some very different Sweeney families. There is one in Ireland. One in the Hebrides. And maybe a separate one in Kirkcudbright (a county in Scotland).

I haven't read much about the Irish Sweeneys, but they are from Donegal. They have three chiefs who are supposedly descendants of the O'Neills.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~seanjmurphy/chiefs/macsweeneydoe.html

The Hebrides McSweens and McSwans are apparently a branch of the McLeods or MacDonalds (as above). They are apparently the ancestors of the Macqueen clan, although I haven't found many details.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Macqueen

I only find bits and pieces about the McSweens in Kirkcudbright and Argyll. It seems they claim descent from the Irish family rather than the Hebrides family.

This page combines all of them into big family, which doesn't seem right considering the old histories:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Sweeney

Justin, maybe this is the solution?

Justin Swanström is Jon Petersson (Bååt)'s 16th great grandson!
http://www.geni.com/path/Jon-Petersson-B%C3%A5%C3%A5t+is+related+to...

Jon Petersson (Bååt) is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's 16th great grandfather!
http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Jon-Petersson...

Guri is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's 33rd great grandfather!

http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Guri?from=600...

Justin Swanström is Guri's 32nd great grandson!
http://www.geni.com/path/Guri+is+related+to+Justin-Swanstr%C3%B6m?f...

I would like to tell y'all about a Colla Clan project that is available at FTDNA. It has been established primarily for Irishmen to find out how many belong to the Colla Clan by having STR Marker 425 as a null or zero in their yDNA as well as three other significant markers. If you would like to see some of the results of guys with Marker 425 null go to https://www.familytreedna.com/public/clancolla425null/default.aspx?... (Thanks go to Justin for leading me to this link.)

My yDNA is listed if you are interested in seeing it. I'm the only McCaffrey listed, Actually, the name of my great great grandfather McCaffrey is listed. The project requested the oldest known ancestor's name, birth date, and location in Ireland. The birth date recorded isn't mine. :-)

I invite other McCaffrey's and other Irishmen to get on board. Check it out.

Justin,From the very few matches I got on FTDNA one line went to Donald MacSweyn 1630 of Isle of Skye, another went to Sweeney's coming from Antrim starting with Moses Sweeney, then some McSwains who also called themselves McQueens or thought they were. Do you think they all come from one source or they just married into each other's lines over and over? If they all go to Niall then it doesn't really matter because my cousin matches nearly every single marker for Niall in one of the big YDNA tests with only one mutation in all the hundreds of years since. That would be through a McDaniel line though and not my separate Sweeny line. Maybe it doesn't matter because of Niall? Thank you for your help. :)

Ulf, did you give Just a Swedish Grandparent? :) Nice...:)

John Patrick that is a very nice group, that is awesome, how many markers did your Grandfather match?

Justin, thank you for the links and the info, I think you just answered one of my questions by providing the MacQueen link. After reading it briefly I found that MacQueens' also claim Sweyn so that makes sens there. Haven't a clue about the Sweeney's from Antrim except they may have gotten disconnected or something.

You guys are awesome, its been fun and a great learning experience. :) Thank you so much!

Ulf, I have so much Swedish and Scottish in my ancestry that it could be anywhere.

Geni finds our link through the Bååt family, but I would guess you and I have much closer links, if only we knew where to look. We should tell people we're related through the Jonssons and Anderssons, then wait to see how long it takes for them to get the joke ;)

Talking about Jonssons and Anderssons jokes, it reminds me about this DNA project that was in my understanding stopped/changed after growing rapidly fast because people seriously thought that Olsen/Olsson was a family name they could trace with DNA tests.
https://www.familytreedna.com/public/olson/

John Pat, these Null 425 groups are interesting. There are other groups of them. No one is sure how many. Some people think there is a weakness in the y chromosome at this point that sometimes causes all the STRs to get deleted at this location. Once they're gone, there are no more mutations there. Potentially, it can happen in any line at any time.

My Swanströms belong to a little Null 425 group in R-L48. Four different families in southern Sweden and one family in Poland. That's not enough figure out how old the group is or where it originated. There are five other Null 425 groups in R-L48. It might be part of one of them. Still trying to figure it out.

Just so I don't create confusion, I should say that Swanström is my mother's maiden name. I'm not Null 425 myself. It's my cousins who are Null 425. As I mentioned above, I'm personally G2a (not R1b), with all my STRs intact ;)

Bjørn, that's a great story. I hadn't heard that.

It's one of the annoying things about FTDNA that they haven't quite got the hang of Nordic patronymics yet. They won't let me have a Svanström project because they think it's covered by the Swanson project. Not that a surname project makes much sense for Scandinavians anyway, but I object on principle.

Wanda, do you have a documented line to Donald MacSweyn 1630 of Isle of Skye?

I have this link to his descendants in North Carolina (just in case I ever need it). Is this your line?

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/c/a/m/Richard-A-Camp-CA/...

I also have this link that mentions their common origin with the MacLeods:

The Ancestry of the MacLeods Reconsidered
http://www.macleodgenealogy.org/Research/Sellar.html

Okay Woodman Mark Lowes Dickinson, you are correct. Richard III of England is my 3rd cousin 20 times removed. So, can you tell me in laymen's terms how I am related to him? Perhaps through a sister or brother. Thank you so much. Laura Kelson

Hi Justin, No, I am still researching that line. All I have to work on so far is my Grandfather's name and 16+ DNA matches to Swain, Sweyn, McSwain and Sweeney. His surname is Swayne but I have not a single Swayne match. They are very hard to find in any DNA companies. I just realized that Swayne is derived from Swain and not Sweeney as I had thought.

I also have a connection to Sweyn Forkbeard which might be throwing a monkey wrench in my search. Sweyn is yet another Ancestor of my Grandmother who seems to be the Holy Grail of every Monarchy on the planet.
http://www.geni.com/path/Wanda+is+related+to+Svend-I-Haraldsen-Fork...

I looked for McLeods and MacLeods but no bold matches so they don' appear to be related. However Grandma Thelma is a descendant of Olaf I, this one starts from his Father Godfred.

It appears the MacLeods are collateral matches? They do come up when I search on FTDNA but they are not in bold.

It's interesting that Olaf is a name associated with Sweyn Forkbeards family as well as in the Isles. Maybe that is the connection?

Sorry, forgot to add Godfred ii Father of Olaf I

http://www.geni.com/path/Wanda+is+related+to+Godfred-II-Crovan-King...

Laura, a simpler way to understand it is that you have an 18th great grandfather Henry Southill who was a 3rd cousin of Richard III.

They were 3rd cousins because they were both 2nd great grandchildren of Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.

Richard III's great grandfather Roger Mortimer and Henry Southill's great grandmother Elizabeth Mortimer were brother and sister.

Jusitn it says that the Swan's were indeed related to the Sweyn's/Swains and that Vikings often came over and are related to Viking settlers.
http://www.selectsurnames.com/swan.html
http://objgenealogy.com/indii7670.html

I bet you already knew this :)