- DNA has let the genie out of the bottle as regards secret
adoptions and fosterings.
- This is the story of how several Down(e)s descendants found
each other.
- 2014: Marrinan inheritance search - the deceased's maternal
uncle
married a Downes and their son gave me a copy of a Downes pedigree
which included some of my own distant cousins.
- 10 June 2015: Downes descendant from New York approaches Clare Roots Society in
advance of a 50th birthday first-ever visit to his ancestral homeland
and wrote about his visit.
- 19 June 2015: Dana Downs shows up with by far my biggest
half-identical region with a stranger thrown up in almost two years of
genetic genealogy:
12 93,176,484 125,287,936 44.6 8319 Paddy/Dana
- 8 July 2015: William Brown e-mails me about a GEDmatch
match to my maternal first cousin:
4 102,789,472 114,229,035 10.3 2079 Bill/Mary
- But I noticed that he also matched Dana:
12 24,432,115 60,468,339 30.1 7961 Bill/Dana
15 22,377,651 30,755,131 19.3 1868 Bill/Dana
- All three people descend from Downes emigrants who left
from the
same
house in County Clare.
- Two of the three emigrants had children born out of wedlock
who were brick walls for their descendants, prompting them to
submit DNA samples.
- Bill and Dana are double third cousins once removed.
- My Clancy ancestors and the Downes ancestors were near
neighbours in County Clare.
- Three quarters of Dana's family tree was very complete, but
her
grandfather Raymond came to foster parents in Texas on an orphan train
in 1904 or 1905.
- Raymond's birth parents were known to be called Henry
Clancy and Catherine
Down(e)s and he used his mother's maiden surname.
- Cath Downes sailed on the Teutonic from
Queenstown on 21
September 1899 (line 22).
- Hewry [sic in transcript] Clancy sailed on
the Lucania from Queenstown on 31 December
1899 (also line 22).
- Raymond was born in Manhattan on 24 January 1900.
- In the census of June 1900:
- Raymond
Downs (white, male, b. Jan 1900) was an Inmate in
the New York Foundling Asylum at 175 East 68 St. in New York (line 72).
- Kate
Downs (white, female, b. May 1880 in New York [sic]
to New
York [sic] born parents) was an Inmate and nurse also in the New York
Foundling Asylum (line 91).
- Harry
Clancy (b. Apr 1874 in Ireland to Irish parents,
single,
migrated 1899, 6/12 year in United States, alien, Car blacksmith) was a
boarder with the Haley family at 512 Spruce Street in the 9th Ward of
Terre Haute City in Harrison Township in Indiana (line 68).
- Henry Clancy travelled to New York especially to finally marry Catherine Downes on 2
October 1904.
- Their daughter Margaret Clancy (18 July 1905-26 December
1994) never married.
- Did she know that she had a full brother in Texas?
- Dana is my fourth cousin with most recent common ancestral
couple Hugh Clancy and Marcella Blackall.
- There is a triangulation between myself, Dana and Bob
(whose mother was a Marrinan):
12 93,176,484 125,287,936 44.6 8318 Paddy/Dana
12 116,665,672 125,064,434 11.7 2010 Dana/Bob
12 116,665,672 126,483,038 15.9 2470 Bob/Paddy
- So Bob must be related to Hugh Clancy or Marcella Blackall.
- Bob is half-identical to my paternal first cousin Antoin
just before he is identical to Dana-myself:
12 112,242,549 116,643,188 9.4 1529 Bob/Antoin
- Geography suggests that this is a West Clare connection
between Bob's maternal chromosome 12 and Antoin's maternal chromosome
12.
- If so, then:
- I must have inherited the segment I share with Dana from
my West Clare grandmother's Clancy mother; and
- Antoin must have inherited the segment that he shares
with Bob from our West Clare grandmother's McNamara father; and
- Bob must be related to both of our West Clare
greatgrandparents, with a crossover around location 116,650,000.
- I wrote this story up initially for my friends on Facebook.
- My greatgrandfather was one of the supposed heirs to the Talty
Millions in the late 1920s.
- In the mid-1860s, Timothy Talty and his wife Margaret (née
McNamara) and several children emigrated from Knockanalban in County
Clare to Lowell, Massachusetts.
- When their youngest child T. J. Talty died in Florida on 1
April 1926, it was believed that his next of kin were his surviving
first cousins and children of pre-deceaesd first cousins.
- The lawyers got most of the money, and the cousins
got the rest.
- In August 2007, Christiane in Australia began posting
queries about her Irish-born ancestor Mary Talty, whose parents are
named on her marriage certificate as Timothy
Talty and Margaret McNamara.
- Did Mary go to Australia on her own before the rest of the
family went to Lowell? Or were there two parallel families?
- My first cousin Antoin and myself are in Christiane's top
four FTDNA matches by longest block, confirming that she is our fourth
cousin twice removed, through our McNamara greatgrandfather:
9 78,642,927 114,907,097 44.6 9497 Paddy/Antoin
9 85,380,931 103,021,449 21.2 4193 Antoin/Christiane
9 85,856,264 103,021,449 20.9 4120 Christiane/Paddy
- Christiane's ethnicity is 47% Eastern Europe; 43% Western
and Central Europe; 7% Finland and Northern Siberia; 3% Asia Minor; 0%
British Isles.
- My ethnicity and Antoin's are both 100% British Isles.
- Ger (whose greatgrandmother was another Marrinan) is my
(and Antoin's) third cousin once removed through our Clancy
greatgrandmother, but also belongs in this triangulation group:
9 91,667,924 99,876,710 7.2 1,783 Ger/Antoin
9 91,667,924 99,883,238 7.3 1,780 Ger/Christiane
9 91,667,924 99,968,803 7.4 1,820 Ger/Paddy
- So Ger, like Bob in Example II, must be related to both of
our West Clare
greatgrandparents,
- Could this be a Marrinan connection, as Bob and Ger both
have Marrinan ancestry?
- Clare Heritage Centre's best guess was that Bob's emigrant
ancestor came from the same house in Cloghaunbeg East as Ger's
greatgrandmother.
- Their longest half-identical region does not support this
theory:
3 10,443,280 13,092,999 3.8 971 Ger/Bob
- Comparisons between other descendants of these two Marrinan
families also fail to find evidence of a close relationship.
- My paterrnal grandfather's maternal grandmother was a Kett.
- Joe's mother was a Kett.
- Joe showed up as a match to me.
-
18 10,042,421 14,911,927 10.5 1222 Joe/Paddy
- Kett is our only common surname.
- Joe's grandfather Joseph Kelly Kett of West Clare, chairman
of Clare County Council, voted for my first cousin three times removed
Georgina Frost, daughter of Margaret Kett of East Clare, in a famous
election for Clerk of Petty Sessions.
- Was this a political statement or motivated by family
connections?
- 11 January 2016: results for J.J., Joe's fourth cousin
with most recent common
ancestral couple John Kett and Mary O'Connell.
-
18 10,089,488 12,783,948 6.4 809 Joe/J.J.
18 8,592,839 13,398,960 12.6 1565 Paddy/J.J.
- Case proved?
- 2 September 2016: results for Mary, my half first cousin
once removed through my paternal grandmother.
-
18 8,206,997 12,783,948 13.0 1596 J.J./Mary
18 8,452,678 22,744,757 22.7 3184 Paddy/Mary
18 10,089,488 13,874,009 8.5 1089 Joe/Mary
- The DNA segment that I thought came to me through my
paternal grandfather from his Kett grandmother must have come to me
through my paternal grandmother who was Mary's half-aunt.
