Our haplogroup signature is I-Y4751. Those within our family who currently only show I-M223 on the McGowan Project site are derived for the I-Y4751 because a few of us spent the money to have further SNP testing to aid analysis that is ongoing and were provided that further signature. After you pay a few extra dollars and test for SNP I-Y4751 and return positive results for that SNP, you are shown on Family Tree DNA as I-Y4751 and it is shown in green font, indicating you are confirmed for that SNP and not derived.
To confuse matters worse, the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) has recently changed the name of our haplogroup from I2b1a1 to I2a2a1a1a1a1. Either way, I2b1a1 and I2a2a1a1a1a1 is another way of saying that person is positive for SNP I-Y4751! That’s why today, researchers are more likely to forget about describing haplogroups in favor of describing SNPs in more detail. To see the full tree for the larger haplogroup “I” and how our SNP (L369) defines us within, you can go to this site: http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpI.html
For us, we are known as “I-Y4751+” or “Isles-Irish” to the research community. SNP I-Y4751 is a SNP further downstream of SNP L369. If you are negative for the SNP L369, you will likely fall into the “Isles-Eng” category or one of the others. Those who are L369+ have predominately Gaelic surnames or surnames that originated in Scotland and Ireland, as well as confirmed history in Ireland and Scotland. This promotes the theory that all of L369+ are indigenous to Scotland. They already know that the progenitor of this group (unknown at this time) was on the island approximately 4,200 years ago while his brother’s Y-DNA L369(-) SNP was different and he formed people who were predominately in the lower portion of the island we know now as England. By coupling the SNP history and the surname history, it becomes the genesis for how they separate our group into indigenous Scots. Our positive SNP I-Y4751 is believed to have originated around 1600-1900 years ago. The progenitor of I-Y4751 is unknown at this time, yet the I-M223 Project at Family Tree DNA currently (May 2020) uses the title "Isles-Irish" to describe this group.
This is why our Y-DNA SNP is considered somewhat rare. There are not a lot of us who are SNP I-Y4751+. We remain a small group even in Scotland and Ireland. The primary group in Scotland and Ireland are the Viking invaders for nearly all of the British Isles. Obviously the Vikings populated at a faster rate than our own group on the islands. The SNP I-Y4751 is believed to have been on the island prior to the viking and roman invaders and not long after the ice melted from the Ice Age.
I thought I would provide you further details on the Bryan Sykes analysis he performed and how our GOWAN Y-DNA fits within. First, it may be helpful to understand the difficulty in sorting through the names of ancient inhabitants of Scotland and Ireland. Primarily, the Picts, Gaels and the Scots/Scotti come to mind.
When the Romans occupied Britain a couple of thousand years ago, they used the label "Picti" to refer to all the people north of their new walls (Hadrian's Wall, followed by the Antonine Wall), in the same way that any occupation army refers to all of their enemies as "-------" (whatever label). The name stuck and now people refer to the Picts as the ancient inhabitants of what is now Scotland. They also called this area Caledonia. So anyone and everyone who is a descendant of the people who were living in Scotland when those "Picts" acquired their label, and before their culture and language of the Picts was assimilated into the modern nation of Scotland, is likewise a descendant of Picts, by simple definition. All that the name implies is the ancient inhabitants of Scotland. That would undoubtedly include many, many haplogroups and haplogroup subclades. Remember, our ancestors were on these islands for thousands of years before any other invaders (Roman, Viking, etc.).
We can reasonably suggest that haplogroup clusters that comprise a fairly large portion of the present population are more likely than not descendants of that Pict nation, *especially when those haplogroup clusters are not found in substantial numbers anywhere else*. The question of Irish versus Pictish is confounded by the many migrations back and forth between Ireland and Argyll, and I'm sure that question is nowhere near resolution, but it is largely a moot question. The Gaels and the Picts were people who shared much of their cultural and ethnic heritage. I'm sure that in ancient times they recognized that shared culture, but I doubt that it ever dissuaded them from crossing swords when it seemed appropriate for whatever reason.
The Caledonians, a Pictish tribe that was defeated by Agricola at the battle of Mons Graupius, were described as Germanic in appearance. Other tribes were described as dark and Iberian. This anecdotal evidence of an ethnic difference among the aborigines of Britain does suggest a mixture of haplogroups in their ancestry. I have been able to contact others who share our positive L369 SNP and many are like our family where there is a mixture of descendants of fair complexion along with those who tan easily and with blue eyes. Although we have had influence from our other ancestors through time until today, it does seem to suggest the possibility of admixture of Iberian influence that carried into our genes before the arrival in the British Isles, or more than 8,500 years ago since it is not isolated to one particular family.
In his book, “Saxons, Vikings, and Celts…”, Bryan DNA describes the results of the 10,000 people he tested. A few years ago, I was able to find his analysis. For those who wanted to know how our own GOWAN Y-DNA markers compared to that of Sykes research, here are the findings:
The “CODE” is the donor identifier he assigned to the donor from that region. Out of all of the areas tested on the islands, and there were many, you can see how our Y-DNA compares. It's not surprising that we matched people from Argyll, Borders, Hebrides, Strathclyde, and Tayside & Fife. Strathclyde was inhabited by the Celtic Britons. The areas of what is now Argyll was a Celtic race from Northern Ireland, who were eventually to give their name to all Scotland, and who created the Kingdom of Dalriada. In the North (Tayside & Fife) were the Celtic Picts, who were supreme from Caithness in the north to the Forth in the South. When reading Bryan Sykes book, he nicknames the mtDNA and YDNA groups by assigning them Clan Names. The "I" haplogroup within Sykes book is recorded as "Wodan". In germanic mythology, ODIN is also known as WODAN and is the god of war.
From the book "A Concise History Scotland" by Fitzroy Maclean and published by Thames & Hudson LTD in 1983, it states that "In the course of three centuries that followed the departure of the Romans, the Picts, the Scots, the Britons and finally even the Angles were all, nominally at any rate, converted to Christianity." Some of these races also began to live together in harmony, or at least when compared to earlier centuries.
Bryan is the scientist who studied and drilled into the Cheddar Man’s tooth for DNA extraction.
