The O'Rourke y-DNA - latest updates
First update, November 2015
Second update, August 2016
Third update, January 2018
The first time I wrote about the O'Rourke y-DNA matches, The O'Rourke y-DNA Results, I ended the article on a despondent note, saying that we might not even be related to anyone else in Ireland. Our DNA only matched descendants of an Abdulla bin Abbas who lived in the 1700's.
Since then we have had a few more matches, all on Irishmen, and even one with an O'Rourke. First, let's look back at:
The Middle East Connection
Just to illustrate how it could be possible to be connected to the family of Abdulla bin Abbas, this comes from an O'Rourke history site on the freepages of rootsweb.com. I especially like the part about Austria. It is the farthest East and although I am not very familiar with Austrian history, you have to assume they had a lot of contact with the Levant:
After Cromwell, like all great Gaelic families, many O'Rourkes left the country. Some became military leaders in European countries; their descendants are still (or were until the Russian Revolution) among the important families in Russia and Poland. Joseph O'Rourke, Prince O'Rourke in the Russian aristocracy, was General-in-Chief of the Russian Empire in 1700 while two Owen O'Rourkes, both counts, served Maria Teresa of Austria from 1750-1780. Of those who went to France, a notable bearer of the name was Father Manus O'Rourke (1660-1741), who, during a lifetime as an exile, wrote voluminously in the Irish language.1
The O'Rourke Matches
On the 1901 Census of Ballintur, there are three households of Rourkes. Houses 2 and 3 were the same family, an uncle John in house 2 and his nephew Edward in house 3. I'm going to call this O'Rourke family #1, since I came into contact with it first. John is my great-grandfather. John's great-grandson's y-DNA and autosomal DNA was submitted for testing.
Family #2 was living in house 18. A female descendant of this family submitted her brother's y-DNA for testing. She emailed us when the results came back, which is how I came into contact with them.
Family #3 was living in house 16. (and still is, in 2018.) The descendant of family #2 contacted them, obtained and submitted y-DNA and autosomal DNA, and now manages the results. I haven't contacted family #3 directly.
The y-DNA from families #1 and #2 matched on 24 of 25 markers, and on 34 of 37. FamilytreeDNA.com says that this puts it 'within the range of available written records.' Obviously they haven't worked with the available peasant Irish Catholic records, which don't go back nearly as far as the other records in England and the British Colonies. But they are probably referring to about 1600 or so.
When the DNA test results from family #3 came back, they matched both of the other O'Rourke families. So all three of the families on the 1901 census are now genetically proven to be related. I have forgotten the exact number of markers on the third family's matchups, but I do remember that families #2 and #3 were a bit more closely matched than either were to family #1.
So who is the common ancestor of the three O'Rourke families on the 1901 census? There is no way to know right now, based on the records that are available on line in January 2018. I tried to trace the families back through the few land records and registrations that are available and the results are in the article Rourkes of Ballintur - 1793 to 1901.
The More Remote Irish Matches
Our y-DNA (family #1) matches that from a descendant of Timothy Moran, born in 1825, presumably in Ireland. We match them on 11 of 12 and 33 of 37 markers, which is less than our match with the other O'Rourkes. Timothy Moran lived in County Mayo. He and his wife Mary McNichols had three sons who emigrated to the United States in the 1860's and settled in the Wisconsin/Illinois region. Their names were Anthony G, James, and Michael.
We also match on 11 of 12 markers with a descendant of Michael Duffy, who was born in 1809 and died in 1882 in Killoe, Co. Longford. County Longford is near County Leitrim, the ancestral home of the O'Rourke clan, and that might be the tie-in there.
Oddly enough, both of these are even a more remote match than with Abdulla bin Abbas, mentioned at the beginning of this article.
In May 2016, we heard from Paul Duffy, the coordinator of the Ireland yDNA Project at familytreeDNA. He said
I was looking at your results in the project there. From looking at matches I think there's a good chance that [your family's yDNA] belongs to a branch of R-M222 called R-A260. This is quite prevalant in Connacht surnames of which O'Rourke is one.
Our O'Rourke DNA cousin from family #2 also heard from Mr Duffy regarding the sample she submitted from her brother. He told her:
What this means is he falls into a branch of wider M222 (A259/A260) which is associated with Uí Briúin surnames. BY3338+ so far seems to include a number of Bréifne surnames.
How did the O'Rourkes Become Duffys or Morans?
How the surnames changed is anyone's guess. The Irish were using surnames and clan names for longer than most people, so the DNA connection between O'Rourkes, Duffys, and Morans probably doesn't predate that use.
So either: 1) an unmarried woman became pregnant and raised her child with her father's surname or 2) a married woman became pregnant by a man not her husband and raised the son with her husband's surname.
A variation of option 1 could be that an older daughter of a family bore a son before marriage and her parents raised him as their own and he received her father's surname.
For a number of ways that option 2 above could happen, some of them specific to Ireland, see Maurice Gleeson's article Goodbye NPE, Hello SDS - some causes of Surname or DNA Switches.
In any case, the child would have to be a son to receive and pass on the y-DNA information. Which of the parties involved was the O'Rourke, Moran, and/or Duffy is impossible to tell.
A Hypothetical Timeline
Let's imagine the following timeline. We'll assume that the original male line was O'Rourke, but as just mentioned, it is impossible to say.
1500 or before: The O'Rourke and the Duffy line split. Did the Duffys move from Ballintur or did the O'Rourkes move from Longford?
1500 or before: The O'Rourke and the Moran line split. Did the Morans move from Ballintur to Mayo, or from Leitrim to Mayo? Or did the O'Rourkes move from Leitrim to Ballintur?
after 1500: an O'Rourke leaves for Europe, and at least one of his descendants ends up in the Middle East.
after 1500 and before 1800: The O'Rourke line in Ballintur splits into two, then three families.
Continued in Our y-DNA Mutation Rates.