P1F4: “COUNTY MEATH” DNA GROUP:

A number of Coffey men have ancestry that traces to the Midlands of Ireland, to the counties Meath, Westmeath, and Roscommon. While they are all related, the relationships between some of them may be relatively distant. However they are all flagged by the FTDNA testing service as “Matching Niall Nóigiallach - Niall of the Nine Hostages”. The group might be called O’Cobhthaigh Ui Neill – the Coffey Descendants of Niall:

You can read FTDNA’s view of Niall at https://www.familytreedna.com/landing/matching-niall.aspx

There are three sub-groups. I will talk about each group, then discuss how they may connect. Note that everybody has the surname “Coffey”, so I show only given names:

NEW MEMBER:

We have just had a new member join our DNA Project, Mr. Russell Coffey who traces his ancestry to County Roscommon, to the area of Strokestown in County Roscommon. He has not yet done y-DNA testing, but it is under consideration. I think there is a high probability that his test will confirm his membership in one of the above groups.

GROUP A:

Of the 5 men in this group, the first four are known to descend from one Ambrose Coffey. If you read about Fort Boonesboro in Kentucky, founded by Daniel Boone, you will find Ambrose listed as a fighter in the 1778 Indian siege. This Ambrose came to America as an indentured servant. The fifth member of this group, James Joseph Coffey, is the descendant of a much more recent immigrant from Ireland. But, subject to the constraint that the group’s MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) has to date back to the time before Ambrose left Ireland for America, the DNA says James is absolutely related to the other 4 men. 

The second column shows the genetic distance of each from the first, John Willard (who has the most extensive test of all). For example the second, David Lynn Coffey, matches John on 34 out of 37 markers. Given that the two are known not to have a MRCA until we get back to Ambrose, that is a reasonable distance. Note also, per the first column, that two of the men in this group were tested on Ancestry, which used a different series of tested STR’s. Only 30 markers can be compared, but they match on 28 or 29 of those markers.

We don’t really know where in Ireland Ambrose came from – some say “Dublin”, but that may just reflect the major seaport he sailed from. More relevant is that the recent immigrant, James Joseph, came from County Roscommon. Could that better reflect where Ambrose came from?

GROUP B:

These 4 men descended separately from different Irish immigrants. One line traced his ancestry back to County Meath, and another to Westmeath. They are all quite solidly related to each other, with a group MRCA back in Ireland. Their relationship to Group A is significantly more distant.

GROUP C:

So far this “group” has only one tested member, James M Coffey. However James can trace his grandfather to a very precise location in Ireland: His grandfather came from the Townland of Ardnaglug in Moore Parish, County Roscommon. Ardnaglug comprises only about 1000 acres, and his Coffey family still farms there. It is in the far south of Roscommon, and about 12 miles from Athlone, the largest nearby city.  Athlone lies on the River Shannon, and has a population about 20,000. This river is the border between Counties Roscommon and Westmeath, and most of Athlone is actually on the Westmeath side of the river.

Take note that the James Joseph from Group A ALSO came from Roscommon. In fact he traces his grandfather to the Townland of Newtown in Creagh Parish, which is only about 30 miles from Townland of Ardnaglug, Moore Parish. They are GEOGRAPHICALLY extremely close, but James Joseph is GENETICALLY much closer to Group A. Perhaps this just reflects that the Coffeys have been in the same general area for hundreds of years, and there has been time for even close neighbors to have evolved to appear more distant than you might expect?

And the “New Member” referenced above also can trace his ancestry to a very specific location. Will show a map momentarily.

(Note that more Coffey families are known live in NORTHWEST Roscommon, and they MAY be quite unrelated. To date we have no DNA tests from that area.)

GEOGRAPHY:

Here is a map showing the exact locations of the homeland of three of the subject men. All are within County Roscommon, and the driving distance between the three is only 67 kilometers. They are geographically close, even though the 37-marker y-DNA tests suggest they are genetically diverse.

TESTING CONSIDERATIONS AND PROPOSALS:

The people above all have only 37-marker y-DNA tests. That is enough to show they are connected in some way. But our testing service FTDNA (Family Tree DNA) has developed much a much more powerful test, known as “Big-Y700”. It includes the old STR testing like the 37-marker test, and also covers other STR up to a 111-marker tests. But it goes beyond even “111”, and includes SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) testing.

The SNP matches are given names, and everybody who matches a given SNP is absolutely a cousin at some point back in time.

And given the complex genetic diversity of the Coffey men in this DNA Project, I strongly recommend that one (or more!) members of this group should upgrade their test. Today’s price for this test is $379.

FTDNA already has an old test kit received from most of you. You can likely ask them to upgrade your test to Big-Y700 without submitting a new sample.

As I said, so far, no “Coffey” from this group has done Big-Y. But if you look at your 37-marker matches, most of you will see matches to names other than Coffey. These are in some way also related to you, and Big-Y can explore those connections at the same time as it looks at relationships between Coffey. I looked at several of your 37-marker match details looking for any that had done SNP testing. Such matches are flagged with the SNP name, and there are a lot of them.

Here are the names of a few of the SNP’s that I think will likely be proven to be “cousins” to the above Coffey men. There are actually many more:

R-FTB63556 R-BY186561 R-BY46245 R-BY20527 R-FT371901

You can begin to explore these if you go to FTDNA’s new “Discover” application at the following link:

https://discover.familytreedna.com

You can enter any of these SNP names in the box and then explore what can be learned.

I have personally made heavy use of “Big-Y” to explore my own Coffey line (I am quite unrelated to any of you). If you’re interested, there’s a lot of background discussion at the following link:

http://www.coffey.ws/FamilyTree/DNA/Origins-CoffeyKeoghFamilies.pdf

This analysis gets complicated, but you may find it informative to read at least the first 5 pages to see background information.

RELATIONSHIPS:

You may recall that in an earlier version of this paper, I tried to use FTDNATiP (Family Tree DNA Time Predictor) to explore timing of relationship connections. That was a confusing approach and not very informative. I would not do that again. The above “Big-y700” test opens up a MUCH better way to work out timing.

CAN I HELP?

If we can get at least one “Big-Y700” test on this group, I can make a start to analyze the significance. However in the long-term it might be better if one of you undertook to manage the future analysis.

Comments or questions are welcome. Fred