Brief Update for the R1a-YP4248 Project
The seed of the R1a-YP4248 Project was planted years ago by four Big Y testers: a Hackett, followed by Don Cooley, myself, and then a Cochran. With that, the YP4248 haplogroup emerged and its only known two subclades were defined: YP4253 (presently Cooley, Cross, Hackett, Hawley, Higdon, and Whitfield), and YP5007 consisting largely of Cochran, Rankin, Sempill (Semple, etc), and Storry, names that came out of medieval Renfrewshire, Scotland. The project includes a number of names associated with the latter, some of which undoubtedly arose from NPEs (Mann, Whittemore, Gitterle, and probably Peacock, for example). We have one Hazelet in YP5007 who doesn't fit into any of its established groups and appears to be the basis for yet another Renfrew subclade. A second tester is needed to secure the tester's place on the tree. And we have a Y-111 Stearett tester who has not yet upgraded to a Big Y. Does he represent yet another major YP5007 subclade? A Big Y will tell us. As of today, we have 56 Big Y test results with two more in the hopper. This is a good beginning to what could become a much larger project.
This is the project's present SNP tree as shown at R1a-YP4248 Subclade Project.
Click on image to enlarge
The project has multiple objectives. The first is to push everyone's Earliest Known Ancestor (EKA) back at last another generation. In most cases, the documentation simply doesn't exist for that. This fact leaves the Y chromosome as our only best hope; Y testing can often close the gap in records. For example, an American Wood ancestor died in Indiana by 1830. No clue to his origins are found in the record. But his Y-DNA matches with a well-documented Wood pilgrim family of two centuries earlier. We may be one generation away from closing the gap. It requires only the right tester to volunteer in order to make that determination.
Another of the project's objectives is to determine the deeper picture. The YP4248 haplogroup, the focus of these studies, dates back to roughly the beginning of the Viking Age. This project taps into that. I'll use the Cooleys as the first illustration. I've looked for the father of John Cooley (c1738-1811) since 1977 but, due to the lack of records and after a time, speculation was the only tool left at my disposal. But none of it, it turns out, was rooted in fact. Cooley researchers were finally put on the right path when Don Cooley tested in 2005 (I tested in 2006). The results dispelled the Bogus Dutch Cooley myth that had been invented by a twice-published amateur poet in the 1930s. It required only low-level STR testing to point the research toward Scotland and/or the North of England. It turns out we're a rare bunch of Cooleys and need to go back thousands of years to find a match to any other Cooley family. (Virtually all R1a British names are in the Y-genetic minority.) Additional genetic testing led to two closely-aligned branches, a collateral Cooley lineage that appears in Pennsylvania by the end of the 18th century, and the genetically identical lineage of Whitfield whose footsteps echo the Cooleys. Surprisingly, a somewhat more distantly-related Higdon family has recently been uncovered. All of us — Cooley, Whitfield, and Higdon — have the YP4491 marker (derived from YP4253 < YP4248) as our terminal haplogroup. Finding the actual genealogical linkage is unlikely due first to the paucity of documentation but also to its age. The Higdon lineage has taken the emergence of YP4491 back to the birth of John Higdon (1650s) and at least another century before John Cooley's birth, including all four of the the haplogroup's SNPs. However, John Higdon had his own two-SNP terminal group, FTA84863 fully emerged by the time of his birth. The Cooleys lack those markers and, therefore, were not descended from this John Higdon. Because of the number of markers involved, I now suspect that YP4491 was fully formed by the 1500s, if not earlier. In other words, the MRCA for YP4491 may have lived a very long time ago. Determining a solid timeframe will be a monumental challenge. We're certainly unlikely to find an accurate genealogy and we don't even know enough to properly target future testers. But just as our initial two subclades have parsed into thirty-one, each of the four SNPs of YP4491 are potential subclades. Each SNP was born in a specific man, at a specific time, and at a specific time.
This Cooley-Whitfield-Higdon haplogroup, YP4491, is a "sibling" of A12124 (Cross, Hackett, and Hawley). Both are "child" subclades of YP4253 (itself a subclade of great-grandpapa YP4248). At this point in the research it's reasonable to suggest that both groups are of English origin and that their ancestors were YP4253. The DNA trail takes us back to Norway. and we know that Viking boots landed stepped ashore onto the Wirral Peninsula, later settling there and and settled along the River Mersey opposite Liverpool. These were the Wirral Vikings of probable origins in the Hebrides. Of those who have tested (too few!), indications are that this clan stayed in the region and settled along the Mersey and expanded the population east, north, and south. Most of the six known YP4253 names appear to triangulate to the 1700s in the region of Derbyshire. Yet, despite this headway, I've yet to find John Cooley's father. I do have a candidate family, but appropriate Y-testing is needed to verify.
The YP5007 story is quite different. I wrote quite a bit about it in the 2022 article, More Headway Made on the R1a-YP4248 Y-DNA Project. The present data for YP4253 provides no evidence that these west coast future-Englanders were anything more than dirt farmers. But the Renfrewshire studies suggest that subclade YP5007 might be extant descendants of 13th and 14th century aristocrats of the same names — or of collateral lineages. The reason for this being that the same names and Y-DNA triangulate to that area and that many Scots, even in the 13th century, had paternal Viking origins. Yes, any one of these surnames could have resulted in a maternal inheritance, as is the case with the present aristocratic Cochrans (they were Blairs), but we have at least four such names. But whatever the case may by, our co-admin, Richard Cochran (who, by the way, disagrees with my aristocrat theory), has stepped up to the plate and has been responsible for greatly expanding that side of the tree over the last couple of years. So far, four major YP5007 subclades, aligned with these surnames, have been ferreted out with a fifth likely. For example, all the Cochrans, and not many more, are of haplogroup YP5244 (< YP5007 < YP4248). That's further broken down into a host of different families. The MRCA for one of them, FTA22447, probably lived about 1665, give or take an unknown number of years. This family migrated to Ireland where records are tough to come by for that period. Of the eight lineages now under the subclade, only one EKA lived then, John Cochran of the Curragh Cochrans, born about 1665. Might he have been the progenitor of all FTA22447 testers? The Y does show he was certainly related. Of course, the Cochrans are by no means the end and be all of YP5007. The Semple (BY27664) and Story (BY30796) subclades have greatly opened up, and new testing by a man named Peacock may prove valuable to the Rankins. (See the above link regarding the origin of these surnames.)
If YP4253 originated with the Wirral Vikings, what about the Renfrewshire YP5007? In the former article I speculated that the subclade might have originated with the Yorkshire Vikings and that the families migrated into Scotland. This idea comes from the early presence of Storry on the north coast of England. Indeed, anything is possible (I often say that we won't know until we know), but the historic evidence is informing us that the Storrys were present in Renfrew. My cursory studies on the Vikings in Scotland demonstrate that that the whole of YP5007 largely came from the Hebrides. There were Viking settlements along the Firth of Clyde. In 870, they won a major victory at Dumbarton Rock, down river from Renfrewshire.1 This dovetails nicely with the aforementioned settling of the Wirral and suggests that the whole of YP4248 (one person? brothers? an extended family?) had crossed the North Sea to the Orkneys, the Shetlands and along the west coast of Scotland and into the Hebrides. There were any number of major haplogroups of I, R1a, R1b, and others among the Vikings, but a family of YP5007 went into western Scotland and some YP4253 members ended up further south into the Wirral and possibly elsewhere. Indeed, the these and other haplogroups likely helped found the Viking Kingdom of Dublin.2
One more thought about YP5007. It's long been suspected that the Cochrans were Norman. However, it took a while before the Norman influence extended beyond England's borders. Much of the Saxon nobility fled to Scotland after the Norman Conquest and Malcolm III married the Saxon princess, Margaret, later known as St Margaret.3 And it's unlikely that any Norman arrived in Scotland early enough to have founded what is now a large family, especially considering the coastal West England branch. The name Cochran is considered Celtic-Briton, as is true for Rankin. And, to date at least, we've found no Norman descendants of YP4248. Further, there are "sibling" subclades to YP4248 that include testers from Scandinavia. Can it be that the lineage had already been in the area for generations? Might we find YP4248 on the Isle of Mann, the Hebrides, the Shetlands, the Orkneys? Certainly, a single man might have taken an circuitous route far different from the norm. But the historic and genetic trend favors their settlement in the Western Isles.
Knowing this much about the project's origins has emerged because of the collective efforts of all our lineages. A well-rounded historical study might provide a larger view but only the Y (in conjunction with the historical, archaeological, and genealogical record) can provide a degree of precision like none other. And although single surname-studies can take us a long way, we must remember that surnames are an artifact only of our human imagination. Genetics better grounds the research and conveys a much truer story.
So, it's from the "collective" that the branches evolve. Traveling downward from the origin, YP4248 in this case, can enhance the story. Eventually, and with enough data, the top-down and bottom-up approaches can (perhaps will) meld and provide a reasonably complete YP4248 picture that grew from out the deep mists of the Viking Age and to the present day. We will not, of course, take the genealogy back that far, but we already have a semblance of it with our SNP tree. And, whether we have the names or not, considerably more data be fleshed out. For YP5007, Renfrewshire is the most likely place for some of the gelling to occur. Serious historical studies might lead us there eventually, but the Y has proven to be a fabulous short cut.
To be clear, although our common ancestor had Norwegian makers, he might and his descendants might have reached their medieval destinations from any number of routes. Perhaps he joined the Danes or the Swedes and traveled north from London or any other place. All we have right now is to follow the genetic trend and try to place it in context to this and, possible in time. to present7t and future archaeological data. In the meantime, the best we can do is to expand on the genetics by signing and testing as many YP4248 descendants as possible. To that end, test, test, test my fellow Vikings!
1. The Great Heathen Army arrived at the shores of East Anglia in 865. The army, consisting mainly of Danes, marched up the east coast to York in 866, and it's believed that Ivar the Boneless and his army traveled from Northumberland to assist the Norse at Dumbarton in 870.
2. The Vikings were driven out of Dublin in 902. Warlord Ingimundr led a number of the exiles to settle on the island of Anglesey off the northwest coast of Wales. After being expelled from there, he received consent from Aethelflead, Lady of the Mercians, to settle near Chester in exchange for preventing Norse settlers moving further into her territory. They settled the Wirral Peninsula, then empty, and built what amounted to as a small Viking state. Aditional settlers likely arrived from throughout the Norse realm. Ingimundr then proceeded to attack Chester, prompting Aethelflead to restore old Roman defenses. The first question is, assuming that YP4253 did come from this group, did our guy arrive with Ingimundr or was he a later settler from elsewhere, or did he arrive via another and perhaps undecipherable route?
3. "The Conqueror and the Scots," The History Jar, 16 January 2020, web https://thehistoryjar.com/2020/01/16/the-conqueror-and-the-scots/
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