Scotland: How Y-Chromosome DNA is Providing Our History

 

For many years, y-chromosome DNA has been used to shed information on a male's direct paternal ancestral history. This is because y-chromosomes are passed from father-to-son with little to no change over all generations and these genetic signatures are the best way to determine the time to most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) between two males who share the same surname. Y-DNA can also shed light on the approximate timeline with males who don't share the same surname. 

When two males don't share a common surname, the period at which they match may be before the use of surnames or it could be due to a non-paternal event (NPE). It is not uncommon to find that two males match one another at a period after surnames due to a NPE, when there is a misattributed paternity, or because children (and some adults) were embraced as a family member and therefore assumed that family surname as their own. At times, it may be difficult to know whether there was an NPE when documenting the family tree, but participating in y-chromosome DNA testing will begin to shed light on the true story.

We have collected the y-chromosome DNA from over sixteen (16) males who descend from four documented sons of William Gowin, b. ~1728 in unknown and d. ~1806 in Madison County, KY, many of whom have tested at the McGowan DNA Project at Family Tree DNA. These results confirm the relation of these four sons to one another and infer to William Gowin who was first recorded in 1752 in that portion of Lunenburg County, VA that became Bedford County two years later. 

The results of our Y-DNA strongly indicates that our ancestral home is within or very close to Argyll. This is based on the matches using results from the Big Y-700 test from several of William Gowin's male descendants. Our current single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) result is I-FTA52805 and at this time we have reasons to believe this is the Y-DNA signature of William Gowin. 

Using the "Block Tree" tool within Family Tree DNA under the Big Y results, SNP I-FTA52805 is currently considered a "brother" of I-FT343071 and both are currently considered "sons" of SNP I-FT343893. Mr. Macdonald's last known ancestor was born c.1781 in Lismore, Argyleshire, Scotland. What these matching results with Macdonald does confirm with little argument, is that the ancestors of William Gowin were also within Scotland, and more likely to have lived in the area of Argyll, Scotland. 

Also within I-FT343071 is a Smith. Mr. Smith's last known ancestor is believed to have been born c.1821 in Ireland or Scotland. He doesn't know much about his ancestor, so this isn't confirmed. Mr. Smith does know that his family immigrated to Nova Scotia Canada in the mid-1800s and have lived there since. Nova Scotia is considered "Scotland West" in many genealogical circles because of how many Scots over the last 300 years have migrated to this location. Mr. Smith joined YFull and we were able to obtain a timeframe to last known common ancestor. The results were ~550 years ago, or around 1472. This would seem to indicate a long history of the "son of the smith" occupational surname for both our family and his. 

A letter written in the early 1900s between two cousins who were 2nd great-granddaughters of William Gowin, stated that they were told the GOWIN line came to America from Glasgow. The city of Glasgow was a major shipping port for tobacco from America, and primarily Virginia, during the colonial period, and it served as a port for those departing Scotland for America. The distance from Argyleshire to Glasgow is as little as 10-15 miles away, and 118 miles away from Lismore Scotland. Glasgow was a major shipping port for tobacco to the colonies during this timeframe and it had slowed enough at times where tobacco was replaced with Scots who were banished or chose (sometimes forced into) indentured servitude.  

Because we match Smith and Macdonald at approximately 550 years ago, we know that our y-chromosome DNA is of a haplogroup believed to be indigenous to Scotland, having been there for 7,000+ years, and the history of Mr. Macdonald and his last known ancestor, I will make the following statements: The common ancestor we share with Mr. Smith and Mr. Macdonald was most likely within Scotland in the 15th Century, living on the western side, and possibly from a family who at times lived off the coast on the Hebrides. Macdonald would seem to connect our family to Clan Donald. It is very possible that our family remained within Scotland until our last known ancestor migrated to the colonies. Between 1696 and 1700 there was a famine in Scotland, followed by hard economic times, and then the war of 1745 which created the Act of Proscription and many clan chiefs decided to raise sheep instead of allowing people to live on their lands. The migration of single Scotsman to the colonies continued up until around 1770. 

Before this recent Y-DNA Big Y matching, there was always a strong connection to Scotland based on matches at all matching marker levels, and the Y-DNA results have shown that our family was on the British Isles as many as 7,000 years ago (I-M284/L1195).