My father James Vance Withey has just received notice that his haplogroup is I-Y17395. This is very interesting to our family for two reasons:
(1) My paternal 8th great grandfather is James McRorie/Mackerwithey/McWithee, of Dedham, Massachusetts (b. circa 1630, d. circa 1709). We believe he is a POW from the Battle of Dunbar (1650) because he is listed as #71 on George S. Stewart’s Captured at Dunbar list. He is included in the Scottish Prisoners of War Website. If he was a Dunbar POW he was likely transported to America on the either the ship Unity or John and Sara. Upon arrival, he probably served as an indentured servant for 6 to 8 years. He had two wives. We are descended from David, his last child by his second wife Patience (nee Cubby) who appears to have died in childbirth. We have identified several other descendants of James and David. HOWEVER, we have been unable to trace any roots in Scotland. Note: there are rumors of James' father being either "Robert" from Outer Hebrides, or "John" from Petty, Inverness, but have been unable to find concrete evidence to support either of these leads.
(2) So we decided to try DNA. First my father did Y-111 STR test. Next he did M-253 pack (which starts to drill down into more ancient history) and (importantly, in a money-saving move) based on another near relative, we cut to the chase and had him do the Y-17395 SNP test (which is a terminal grouping). This is very interesting because I-Y17395 is a subclade of a Swedish/Norwegian group that is found in SCOTLAND and dates to 1250 ybp, Viking ancestry. So even though we do not know who this ancestor was, we have a good idea what he might have been doing sometime around the Viking incursions into Scotland around 800 ce.
Sorry for the long post, but I am interested in finding information on my McRorie/Mackerwithey/McWithee ancestry in Scotland and/or information from others who have identified their haplogroup to be I-Y17395.
Thank you,
Alison Withey
