Kennedy DNA Matches Keep Rolling In, But Still No Magic Bullet

Y-DNA matches continue to trickle in for our three male Kennedy testers but we still don't have the magic bullet that will crack the mystery of of where our David Kennedy came from, whether in Ireland or America.

Our line of Kennedys belong to Haplogroup DF21, a large haplogroup very common to Irish males. Even at 67 markers, we have numerous non-surname matches, so it is difficult at this point to focus in on any single match as a lead. At this point, we have no other high marker level matches with anyone named Kennedy.

We've had a couple of false alarms as other Kennedys (a surprisingly common surname) have reached out inquire whether we might be DNA matches to their male lines (so far we aren't), and our autosomal DNA testing has identified a potential lead among a group of Canadys from coastal NC, but that possible connection will need to be thoroughly researched before any conclusions can be drawn.

Although we have not yet done SNP testing on any of our male testers, I feel reasonably certain we will refine into the L1337 sublcade of DF21, and possibly even into one of the A93X subclades of L1337 (with X currently represented by 3, 4 and 5). So far, testers within this group trace their lineages back to western Ireland, which should come as no surprise to us.

Our next step may be an upgrade to define our terminal SNP and see if we do in fact fall into one of these predicted subclades. As more testers match us, and identify their families' points of origin in Ireland, we may be able to focus in on a single area that could provide clues to our own.

Pinpoints show known testers of subclade A935.

Ongoing DNA Testing of Kennedy Family Volunteers Reveals Millennia-old Irish Origins

As funding and opportunity present themselves, we are continuing to upgrade our Kennedy family volunteers' DNA tests in an effort to pin down the origins of our common ancestor, David Kennedy of Russell County, VA (b ? - d 1800).

Late last year, we ran an R1b-M343 Backbone test to begin narrowing down our line's haplogroup to see if our ancient origins might shed any light on our more recent ones.

The backbone test identifies a tester's haplogroup by analyzing the SNPs ("snips"), Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in our DNA. SNPs are  the unique mutations on the Y-chromosome that have happened over thousands of years. They are passed down from father to son, so the larger the percentage of the population who shares a mutation, the longer ago it happened. Conversely, the smaller the percentage of the population who who shares a mutation, the more recently it happened (and therefore the less time it's had to be passed down). By looking to see whether a group of testers has a specific mutation known to be older or newer, it is possible to group them more accurately within a historical or genealogical timeframe.

If you think of humanity as an inverted tree, it began to fork from a common trunk very far back in time. From those early forks came distinctly shaped smaller limbs, and from those limbs came still smaller unique branches and finally the twigs which are nearest the top of our human tree (or the bottom, in genealogical charting terms). Most western Europeans come from the very early R-M207 fork of the tree close to the trunk. R-M207 is estimated to have arisen during the Upper Paleolithic era sometime between 19,000-34,000 years ago. As time went by, mutations caused new branches to begin growing off of the main R-M207 fork, all the way up (or down) to the little twigs that have come into existence only a few thousand or even hundred years ago.

Our backbone test yielded a haplogroup designation for our Kennedy family of DF21. There is disagreement about precisely when the DF21 Haplogroup branched off the tree, although a recent archaeological discovery and subsequent testing indicates it probably originated close to 4,600-4,700 years ago.

At the present, there isn't a lot of information to share about our ancient DF21 ancestor. The overview on the  DF21 and Subclades Project on Family Tree DNA is heavy on genetic minutiae like individual marker values and specific mutations, and light on implications and conclusions about our origins or ethnicity. There are several websites dedicated to subclades (the smaller limbs and twigs that have grown from DF21), but I don't believe any would apply specifically to our line of Kennedys, since they focus on parallel branches and individual family groups.

One development of some interest is the aforementioned news in December from Dublin that a team of geneticists and archaeologists had recently completed sequencing the genomes of four ancient inhabitants of Ireland. One of those samples came from a skeleton called Rathlin Man 1 who shared our DF21 ancestor.

Rathlin Man 1 was discovered in a Bronze Age cist on Rathlin Island off the coast of County Antrim in present-day Northern Ireland. Rathlin Island is the northernmost point in Ireland and only 11 miles from Scotland's Mull of Kintyre. This man's bones were carbon-dated to 2025-1885 BC, and he carried a few unique mutations which would have taken 600-700 years to develop, so his discovery allows us to make an educated guess that our common DF21 ancestor likely lived 4,600-4,700 years ago.

While this is interesting, without significant additional contextual history for this man and his surrounding Bronze Age neighbors, it is hard for us to draw any useful cultural conclusions other than confirmation that our DF21 relatives can be found in northeastern Ireland as early as 2025 BC (which isn't to say they were confined to that area, or even confined to Ireland). An article in The Guardian provides fascinating details about what was learned from the genomic sequencing performed on the Rathlin men and a 5,000 year old farmer woman found near Belfast.

Although we have not yet attempted to narrow down our Kennedy lines's haplogroup any further, I strongly suspect that should we do so, we would get a downstream result of L1337. We share unique mutations in our STR (Short Tandem Repeat) values with other Y-67 testers who have been identified as L1336 and L1337. These two designations are smaller "family branches" off of the limb S5488, which grows straight off of DF21. The website PetersPioneers.com does a nice job of providing understandable information and diagrams about all of this if you'd like to learn more.

Based on our assumption that our Kennedys will be L1337's, I had a look at the current public results chart for the DF21 Haplogroup project to see where other L1336 and L1337 testers come from. If you look at the chart you will see the L1336/1337 testers about halfway down in Groups J1a, J1b J1c and J1d. I predict we will fall within J1c, but can't confirm that without testing. Bear in mind that we don't know when we shared a common ancestor with the other testers represented in Groups J1a-J1d, but it was probably much more recently than 4,700 years ago. Realistically, it may have been as recently as a few hundred to a thousand years ago. I wish I could be more precise, and as more testing is done, we may become so, but for now, it's an unknown.

Many testers do not provide information regarding their most distant known ancestor, but some do. Using what was available, I began mapping the known points of origin of genetically similar L1336 and L1337 testers on a Google Map. A number of the men who provided data can only trace their ancestors into Ireland as far back as the 18th or 19th centuries, so while the places they identify are typically reliable, there is plenty of opportunity for their ancestors to have spread out across Ireland from any ancient single point of origin over the intervening millennia. Ireland is small, and ancient people were surprisingly mobile.

My hope, is that as time goes by and we acquire more close genetic matches from our STR and SNP testing efforts, we will see a distinct cluster of matches emerging on the map. That may give us some sense of where we should be looking for our David Kennedy's roots in Ireland. One thing that I can say with a degree of certainty is that many of the names that share distinctive SNP values with our Kennedys are considered Irish in origin. I think it's safe to say that our Kennedys are likely of recent Irish origin (vs Scots, English or Scandinavian). And speaking as a genealogist, "recent" is a relative term (Ha-haha! I crack myself up -- a "relative" term? "Genealogy?")

Although we do have L1336/37's as far away as Wales on our map, the highest frequency of matches so far comes from County Clare, between Galway Bay and Limerick. This sample, however, is far too small to allow us to draw any conclusions. While this area is the historical seat of the O'Kennedy family, if we had been part of that family group, I would have expected at least a few Y-DNA matches with others of the Kennedy surname (of which we currently have none).

So that's the current state of things.

To summarize, SNP testing has confirmed that we fall into the DF21 Haplogroup, which probably originated 4,600-4,700 years ago and has recently been proven to have been in northeastern Ireland by at least 1885BC. Further testing would likely result in a designation of L1337 for our Kennedys, and based on a very small sample of known origins of other L1336 & L1337 testers, there appear to be several whose recent origins are in County Clare between Galway and Limerick.

To view the full-sized, interactive map and key, click here.

A "Swindled" Inheritance, and Other Kennedy Family Legends Examined

Through a happy coincidence, my last blog article on the Conway-Kennedy murder has brought me into contact with descendants of Forrest T. Kennedy (s/o John & Mary Horne Kennedy), who have long been involved with researching our extended Kennedy family.

My own connection to the family is at once distant and immediate. As a child, my grandmother would tell me endless stories of her childhood visits with "Grandma Brooks," a character who still looms large in Brooks family lore. Grandma Brooks was Ibbie Kennedy, daughter of Wiley F. Kennedy and Mary Elizabeth Talbert Kennedy of Russell and Wise Counties in southwest Virginia. Ibbie married my great-great-grandfather, Warren D. Brooks Jr. of Del Rio, TN, when he came to Wise County working on the railroads in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Sadly, Grandma Ibbie's father, Wiley F. Kennedy, died of epilepsy seven months before Grandma was born, and Mary Elizabeth Talbert Kennedy took Wiley's three small daughters to live with her parents, Thomas and Rebecca Gobble Talbert.

Mary Elizabeth later remarried to Squire Osborn, the girls' hated step-father (who Grandma referred to contemptuously as "Ol' Sqwar Ozburn"). I cannot tell how much contact the children had with their Kennedy relatives, but they must have had some. Grandma Brooks talked about her Kennedy cousins and I can remember my own grandmother speaking of an "Ackey Bud" (Ichabod) Kennedy, so there must have been some contact with her father's family, but no particular stories specific to the Kennedy family were among those passed down to my own grandmother. With one exception. And was it ever a doozie.

For a reason I could never quite understand, Grandma Brooks was under the impression that one of her cousins had traveled to Ireland and "swindled her out of her inheritance." (She didn't hesitate to name the cousin, but I do, as her accusations seem to be completely without foundation.) As a child, I accepted this story without question, obligingly imagining pots of gold covertly stashed, and castles sold away from the family by a scheming (and very distant) relation. In my teens when I started researching the Kennedy family, I quickly realized that while our ancestors of that name were not precisely poor, they were unlikely to have come from a family in Ireland of any particular prestige or wealth. I pressed my grandmother for more details, but she knew no more than she'd been told.

Years would pass, and life would happen, and I would lay my work aside. In the mean time, the internet went from a novel concept to the most powerful communication tool in the history of mankind. So here we all are, able to view thousands of obscure records and writings at the stroke of a few keys, which is how I happened across Wade Powers Kennedy's 1941 book, The Name and Family of Kennedy and Powers, which is viewable online and downloadable as a PDF.

The book is "Dedicated to Future Generations who, it is hoped, will expand and extend this record and beautify it by good deeds that shine like diamond dewdrops in a meadow of the finest kind of living."

I could tell right away that our author was an optimist. He did nothing to disabuse me of this impression as he launched immediately into a florid passage about the "worthy deeds of the marching generations giving [the surname] dignity and splendor." (Oh dear, such high expectations of us all.) After a short discussion of the history of surnames, Mr. Kennedy (my 1st cousin 4x removed) gets right to the point, asserting that Kennedy "is one of the very ancient names," possibly meaning "head or chief of the clan." Perhaps so, but our line? Optimist, optimist, optimist.

After a brief mention of  a "Kenneth" associated with King Duncan of Scotland, he states that "It is probable however that the greater part of the family traces its descent from the EARLS of CARRICK" (his emphasis), a southern district of Ayrshire, Scotland, which lies south of the river, Deen. He goes on to mention Sir James Kennedy who married Mary Stewart, daughter of King Robert III of Scotland. Ohhhh, boy. Now I'm beginning to understand. Did someone show Grandma Brooks a copy of this book?

Mr. Kennedy is on a roll now. He posits a connection between this noble line of Kennedys and the ancestor of what I call the "adore" Kennedys: Theodore, Elmadore, Macadore, Shenadore, etc. In Section III (pg. 13) he moves to our own ancestor's line, David Kennedy "father of the Kennedy family scattered throughout the western part of Virginia and into other states."

He states that there are substantial reasons for believing that our ancestor, the David Kennedy who settled in Russell County, VA in the 1790's, "belonged to the Scotch line" of Kennedys coming down from Sir David Kennedy, the first Earl of Cassilis. In support of this he gives evidence such as "family resemblance, personal characteristics, accent in speech" (although how he became familiar enough to compare our family's qualities of speech with those of the long-dead Sir David, he does not explain).

Now, I'm not going to sport with your intelligence by entertaining a connection between the Kennedys of Russell County, VA and the purported ancient nobles of southwest of Scotland. I believe W.P. Kennedy did indeed have reason to believe there was a connection between our ancestor and a Scottish Kennedy line, and I will examine that later on in another blog entry. I do not believe he intentionally misled us about the origins of our family, but ever the optimist, he may have seen what he wanted to see, and made the connections that seemed most agreeable to someone of his obviously idealistic disposition. Time will tell, as research progresses. The old fellow might surprise me and turn out to be right. But don't hold your breath. If he is, I will write a blog entry titled "An Ode to Optimism," in which I give him his full due for very lucky guesses.

However, back to Grandma Ibbie's puzzling accusations. As of 1941, the story of the Kennedy family's glorious origins had just gone to print. I'm not sure how long prior to this, W.P. Kennedy's research into the family origins and resultant theories had been in circulation amongst the relatives. His family appeared prosperous by comparison to that of my Grandma Brooks (whose husband died when they were in early middle age, leaving my young great-grandfather to support her and his younger siblings). Wade P. Kennedy was obviously a scholarly author. His brother was a self-taught and successful local lawyer. Another brother started a franchise of Piggly-Wiggly stores in Wise County. I can just imagine Grandma's speculation about the source of their means and success. (Surely it could not simply have been the result of hard work? Much easier to believe it was the result of a stolen pot of gold...) 

I cannot be sure -- truly I cannot -- but I believe that Grandma Brooks made some sort of connection in her own mind between the grandiose origin tales and the success of her Kennedy relatives and posited a covert trip to Ireland on the part of one of them, wherein the cousin in question had somehow located the exact origin of wealthy Kennedy relatives in the old country and had managed to secure and dispose of family property without the knowledge of a multitude of other state-side cousins. What alternative explanation could there be for her own circumstances to be so reduced when her ancestors had been Kings and landed gentry, and her own cousins so comparatively wealthy?

Not being one to stand on ceremony, I instantly questioned my new Kennedy relatives about whether or not any Kennedys had been to Ireland or had located our family's origins there. They were utterly bewildered to hear of such a trip and replied that as far as they knew, no one ever had.

My feeling is that had that trip actually been undertaken (probably in the early 20th century), it would have been much discussed within the family, especially within the line of the family that went to great pains to collect the family's history, and such a trip would have been nearly impossible to hide from the other cousins and their descendants. I can think of no other plausible explanation for Grandma's tale, other than she having leaped to conclusions based on Wade P. Kennedy's (very likely incorrect) assertions of connections to Irish and/or Scottish nobility. But what a bizarre conclusion to leap to! 

If you are a descendant of John & Mary Horne Kennedy of Russell County VA and you can shed any light on my great-great-grandmother's fanciful tales of "swindled" (her word) Irish inheritances, or what might have given her such an idea, I hope you will add your comments below. I'm open to anything, but at the moment, this seems like the most plausible explanation I can contrive. I have long wondered what caused her to "tell such a tale" (to use the words of Prissy in Gone With the Wind), so any enlightenment would be welcome.

In the coming months I am going to examine other family stories from the W.P. Kennedy book and see how they hold up against new information that becomes available online and through the wonderful magic of DNA testing) The purpose of these examinations is not to detract from Wade Kennedy's priceless, wonderful preservation of our family's history, but to clarify and --to use his own words-- "to expand and extend [his] record" -- and if need be, to correct it based on new information that comes to light.

A Note on the Frequency of the Henderson R-M269 Subclade in Ireland and Scotland

In my ongoing quest to connect my Henderson line back to Scotland, even DNA testing has been able to offer little in the way of meaningful progress.

While we have had several solid matches with lines previously not known to be connected with
 us, none can trace their lineage back to the old country. In fact, few can trace themselves back even so far as the two oldest identified groups (the family of James Henderson of the Delmarva Peninsula and the family of James "Isaac" Henderson of Onslow County NC, arrived mid-1660's and prior to 1720 respectively). Record-keeping in Scotland and Ireland during the 17th and early 18th century was incomplete, at best, and I have nearly despaired of finding a definitive paper trail since these two related-but-we-don't-know-how ancestors arrived in the colonies so long ago.

I have begun to toy with the idea that we might have come to Virginia and North Carolina via Ulster rather than directly from Scotland. A mid-19th century Baltimore City census record that is believed to be connected to one of our Henderson DNA matches hints that their line of the family came from Ireland. However, another record in the same census leads us to believe that the family came from Scotland. This is the newest DNA matching line of immigration we can identify, and I had hoped they would lead us back to the right spot in the UK, but so far, only more confusion.

I really can't put much credence in either claim, even if it turns out that both census records in question are indeed connected to our DNA tester. How many times have I spoken to various branches of various families and been told of their "Irish," "Cherokee" or "Dutch" blood, only to verify through records and research that they were actually English, had not a single drop of Cherokee (or other native) blood, or were actually German (Deutsch)? Too many times to be fooled again.

I was having a look tonight at the latest Henderson DNA results and I see that Jim has re-categorized our family line (previously the G1 group) into a new family group of C4 with a subclade of R-M269. I looked up the Wikipedia article on R-M269 and I see that the highest frequency of that DNA signature is found in Wales (92%), Ireland (82% with some pockets as high as 95%), and Scotland (70%). While this isn't particularly useful in helping me narrow things down, the high concentration of this subclade in Ireland cannot allow me to eliminate the possibility that our family may have originated there, or at least have lived there, possibly as settlers of Ulster.

A Correction on the Talbert Family Line

Originally Published October 8, 2010

The Year of the Great Finishing (in which I attempted to finish all of those little niggling 'round-tuits) was hijacked by The Year of the Never-Ending Condo Move, so I have done very little with my genealogy in quite some time. As a result of this neglect, a new connection on the Kennedy and Talbert lines has languished in my Genealogy Inbox. 

This past week after going to see my favorite Irish band, I was suddenly seized with a powerful curiosity about the Irish lines of my ancestry, and I decided to poke around a little tonight on Ancestry.com in an attempt to see if I could confirm existing information or learn anything new. I was immediately sidetracked (as so often happens) from the Kennedys and ended up tinkering with the Talberts, where I realized that most researchers had a different set of parents for my Thomas S. Talbert who married Rebecca Gobble (or more correctly, Gabel). After some review of my notes, I decided to leave my info as it was, since our Thomas had two cousins of an age who were also named Thomas, which potentially could have created confusion. I didn't want to go to the effort of making corrections if it were all for naught. Then I remembered those Talbert emails still waiting in my Inbox and had another look.

After reviewing the information of researcher Charles E. Talbert of California, PA, I am convinced enough now to go ahead and change my data. I agree with him that it is indeed more likely that Thomas S. Talbert (not "L" as sometimes stated) was the son of Thomas Athey Talbert and his wife Agatha. I have asked Charles if I can post his message to help other researchers confirm or correct their information if they have listed Basil Talbert Jr. (brother of Thomas Athey Talbert) and Polly Logan as the parents of the Thomas S. Talbert who married Rebecca Gobble. If he agrees, I will amend this post.

New Information on the Baltimore Hendersons lends credence to theory that they may have come to America by way of Ireland

Originally published December 12, 2009 

We've made some significant progress on the Baltimore Hendersons since first learning of their relationship to the G1 Family Group. Credit goes to Carol B. for inviting cousin Joyce E. to share her excellent research with the group. Joyce has been working on the G1-K096 (Baltimore) family for many years and has traced the line back to John W. Henderson, born in Scotland (or possibly Ireland)...OR...Alexandria VA...OR...Baltimore MD. The trick now is to find out which place!

A cursory examination of the book Passenger Arrivals at the Port of Baltimore 1820-1834 (transcribed by Elizabeth P. Bentley, edited by Michael Tepper) shows sixty Henderson immigrants. All but seven of these Henderson immigrants are listed as having come from Ireland, but there is no way to be sure which of the John Hendersons (if any) on this list might be our John W. Henderson. (Three of the seven non-Irish Hendersons are Johns). I will blog more about this resource in my next entry.

According to Joyce's work, John W. Henderson married Kiturah/Keturah Bowen on 31 July 1827 in Baltimore, Maryland. Their large family appears regularly throughout mid-to-late 19th century Baltimore census records, but those records appear to indicate that John W. died prior to 1850.

I am currently working on inputting Joyce's notes into my database and will add a summary of information on this line as soon as I have had a chance to absorb and summarize the implications of what I learn there.

Note: Our family group has since been re-categorized on the Henderson DNA results page and no longer falls under the G1 designation. Our line is now part of Group C4, R-M269. Our family group runs from test number 82161 through 69522 as of 1/25/15.