MacGregor Project DNA Blog 2020 (number 20)

Welcome to the MacGregor Project DNA blog for 2020. This year I am concentrating on two particular subjects: 1) the search for the genetic signature of Rob Roy MacGregor and 2) Grier DNA  (including Grierson, Greer, McGreer and various other spellings).

 Note to enlarge images simply click on them, and to dismiss and return to text click the X in the top right-hand corner - back arrow works on a phone). In the analyses that follow you will need to have your kit number to hand as I am not labelling the charts with surnames.

When the DNA project for MacGregors began back in 2001 one of the key objectives was to find out how many individuals still carried surnames that were adopted because of the proscription [outlawing] of the clan name which took place from 1603-60 and again from 1693 to 1774. About six years later we started to look for evidence of particular family groupings which were known as far back as the later Medieval period, based on some characteristic of that particular family – whether it was where they came from, or, based on a family connection, or a description. So the grouping defined as Roro or Glengyle were based on places (as was later Glencarnock). There was also those MacGregors who were connected to an individual known as Gregor McIan  and this family were sometimes later referred to as ‘of Brackley’. Gregor McIan was a patronymic (for definition see later), whereas Brackley was a place in Glenorchy. All these families were understood to have originated in Glenorchy/Glenstrae in Argyllshire even if by the mid-16th century they had spread out into Dunbartonshire, Stirlingshire and Perthshire.

     The MacGregors of Glengyle were not originally designated by their place of origin but by their connection to an earlier ancestor known as Dougal Ciar. To quote from Peter Lawrie’s ‘glendiscovery’ website http://www.glendiscovery.com/amelia-vol2-chap18.html): ‘this Dougal was distinguished as Dougal Ciar from some peculiarity, probably grey or mouse-coloured hair and eyes. It was universally believed by the rest of the Clan that the House ranked fourth or fifth in point of seniority… They were a very turbulent race and seem generally to have acted independently’.

     It was natural that the search for MacGregor identities should at some point focus on one of our most famous characters, the well-known Rob Roy MacGregor who was born in 1671 and died in 1734.

     Rob Roy became particularly well-known after Sir Walter Scott wrote his novel of that name in 1817 and, a bit like spin-offs of the present day, there was quite a lot of hype round the novel, as well as derivatives such as the stage play created in 1818 (not to mention Berlioz’s Overture Rob Roy of 1831). It was not long before every MacGregor in Scotland it seemed (and beyond) assumed that they were descended from Rob Roy, through one of his male children – especially those of James More who reportedly had 14. It didn’t seem to matter that all these families came into existence in about three generations.

     In more recent times Dr John Ward, who died not long ago, made a mammoth collection of individuals’ family trees which purported to have their origins in Rob Roy. Many of these he was able to speculatively relate together in one large tree, but there were an equally large number that he simply listed in another file as Rob Roy connected. Rob Roy is buried in Balquhidder church graveyard (despite what may be claimed on the information board) but there is, or has been, no real progress in identifying positively a male individual who is definitely a descendent of Rob Roy himself. This is partly to do with the fact that parish registers are often deficient, and entries were not recorded, particularly if the birth took place at some distance from the parish church.

     Some of the claims for descent from Rob Roy are through the female line which can’t really be tested effectively, and some claims which have come through Y-chromosome DNA, but unfortunately haven’t held up genetically – assuming of course that Rob Roy was indeed descended from the Argyllshire MacGregors.

During the last year however a more credible descent has been tested.  First using a 37 marker test to ensure that the signature was what was expected from an Argyll MacGregor descendant, and then, when this proved positive, the Clan Gregor Society paid for an upgrade to Y700, formerly known as Big Y.

     The family tree begins:

What is interesting about this tree is that there are just two links for which the evidence is not completely certain and the first is verifying that the James born 1755, is the same one who married Mary Ferguson and subsequently had Donald who married Elizabeth Stewart. Such proofs are not straightforward in Scottish records when there were several McGregor children in the Balquhidder/Strathyre area with the same name. A list of those who signed the Chief’s ‘recognition’ in 1787 has three males called James any one of whom might be  married to Mary Ferguson.  However, there is also a list of children in the parish of Balquhidder. The archive handlist dates this to 1830 but it cannot be that date and comparison with the list of 1787 shows that it is from that date (and demonstrates that the list of those who recognised the Chief in 1787 were all males from a family regardless of age).

     We know from parish registers that the James who married Mary Ferguson had a male child Duncan in 1785 and that at the time he was living in Ruskachan.  The list of children  [Stirling Archive PD60/651] has the following entries:

Dougal Keers Family

Duncan in Minachallwaroo

         John           1

         Robert                 2

Patrick in Blarerioch

         Malcom     1

Dougal in woodend Stronslany

         John           1

         Gregor                 2

         Donald                3

         Malcom     4

Gregor in Gartnafuaran

         Dougal                 1

         Gregor                 2

Duncan in Stronair

         Malcom     1

         Alexr          2

         Robert                 3

         Allan          4

John in Criganmore

         Gregor                 1

         Duncan      2

         James                  3

Twins         John and Donald          2

Donld         Coock in Ruskachan

         Dougal                 1

James in Ruskachan

         Duncan      1

The last named James must be the same individual. The significance of this part of the list is that James is identified as being of the Dougal Ciar family which is the family to which Rob Roy MacGregor belonged.

     So, we know that this James had a second son Donald in 1787 and therefore the last link to be proved is whether Donald who married Elizabeth Stewart is the same Donald who married Elizabeth Stewart [or Stuart] as the death certificate of one of the family shows. There is only one existing parish register marriage entry for a Donald and Elizabeth Stewart – and that is in Port of Mentieth. However, in 1804 Donald would have been just 17, which is young for a marriage in Scotland but not impossible although the parish register does not suggest that either party was a minor. He could have misrepresented his age and said he was 21 – the marriage took place in Port of Mentieth which is a parish  some 20 miles or more from Balquhidder. If Donald did then in fact move to Ayrshire immediately after his marriage and the children were born there, then he is the Donald who appears in the 1841 census aged 60 [1841 census rounded ages down] with daughter Janet [age 30] and son Donald [age 15].  Donald declares he was not born in Ayrshire but, since he was deceased by the 1851 census, confirmation of a Perthshire birthplace is not possible. If Donald is the son of James his age should be 54 [rounded down to 50] but it is possible that he continued to falsify his actual age. However, just to add to the confusion the death certificate of Donald’s daughter Catherine [Wilkes] says that her mother’s name was Janet Stewart, but the Muirkirk parish register suggests that this death informant was wrong.

     This long genealogical diversion was a necessary preamble to considering the results of the Y700 DNA test which has been done for this line. The chart below, prepared by Prof. Neil McGregor in Australia shows the result in relation to other individuals who have tested to Y700 [result are anonymised to conform to European data protection regulations and FtDNA requirements].

Fig. 1: Argyllshire MacGregors Y700 results analysed by Prof. Neil McGregor

There are other claimants for Glengyle family heritage but as with kit IN61406 there are gaps in the parish record and more or less at the same time – the end of the 18^th and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. For many years the Vice Chairman of the Clan Gregor Society, Peter Lawrie, has been trying to prove that his mother’s ancestor, Duncan, who died in 1826, having been a sailor, is the same Duncan as is stated in this extract from a genealogy of part of the Glengyle family:

Gregor McGregor  of Glengyle died  21 Aug 1777 age 88

sons     John

             Donald /Daniel  shipmaster Glasgow dsp 24 Sep 1791

              Robert of  Corarklet born 1743 m. Isobell daughter of John Graham of Drunkie

Son Donald  alive 1775

              Duncan (McGregor or Graham), sailor,  Glasgow,  served  heir 1793 to uncle     
                 Donald

              

In the chart above this line is represented by kit IN13885. The problem is that the nearest matching kit 133637 has a genealogical tree which is generally believed to go back to the MacGregors of Roro.

     So, in both cases there is one piece of genealogical information missing that is crucial to prove a definitive connection to Glengyle and would allow us to state absolutely that this was the Rob Roy’s genetic signature. Given how many families believed from Victorian times onward that they were related to Rob Roy it is ironic that just a hundred and thirty years later it is proving so difficult to assert with the same confidence as was shown in 1890 when the railings were placed round Rob Roy’s grave and the report stated that in attendance was  “Mr Norman Macgregor, Lloyds, London direct descendant of Rob Roy”.

The chart above links individuals together with shared DNA characteristics and the same relationships can be expressed as a box tree as it is on the FamilyTreeDNA website which they have based on the original work by Alex Williamson for “The Big Tree”.

Fig. 2: the Argyllshire MacGregor family groups from Y700 – FtDNA chart

The darker outline is the group within which kit IN61406 currently fits. At the moment this is our best candidate for Rob Roy’s Y chromosome signature, but as can be seen the evidence is still incomplete and whether or not we have two separate Glengyle tree claimants of which one is correct and one not, or in fact neither is correct, is still an open question!

         Clan surnames Grier (Greer, McGreer, Grierson): DNA results

Before discussing this specific surname, I thought it would be helpful to repeat the section on clan names and septs from my 2018 blog as this is an area of Scottish clan history which is not really understood well.

     What is a clan? Six hundred years ago this question was quite simple to answer. You were associated with a clan if you had been born with the name – in the MacGregors’ case that might be expressed as Gregor, Grigor, MacGregor, McGrigor, McGregor and a whole range of alternative spellings such as, for example, McGreagor (an attempt to render the Gaelic phonetically into English?). At that time too spelling had not been standardised - so one might find Mckgregor, M’gregor and so on. You were also a member of the clan if your name was an accepted variant, such as Grierson, or Grier, Greig/Grieg/Grig etc. These were considered to be shortened or anglicised versions of the main clan name. So, Grier-son equals Gregor-son and Grier is the same name without the ‘son’ on the end.

Whether or not these accepted names were genetically related to the main line was not the point, since a clan was a collection of related surnames. Members of the clan recognised as Chief the head of the main line (the Chief of the MacGregors for example), and often, especially in the early days relied on him for protection, or rather, on his ability to pull a ‘federation’ of individuals together to ensure, usually armed, protection, or, as a means of seeking retribution on another group for some offence.

     There were others associated with the clan whose names were accepted as belonging to septs of the clan. Sometimes the same name would appear several lists of accepted septs for different clans – such is the case for the surname King, for example. As well, some descriptive words used as surnames were understood to have been borne by people associated with the clan, and such descriptive surnames are found in many clan lists: Bain (or Ban) or its anglicised equivalent White; Roy meaning Red; Dhu or Dow meaning dark or black, are some examples.

     Finally, there were people who answered none of these ‘qualifications’ but who lived as ‘part-takers’ on the land which was under the Chief’s influence. Grant and Menzies rental documents of the 18th century reveal instances where individuals adopted the name of the local chief where formerly they were called only by their patronymics. A patronymic shows the genealogy of an individual back two generations – so my patronymic would be Richard McEwan VicPeter: here McEwan is not a surname but shows that my father was Ewan (not THAT Ewan). On a rental document you might find John McGregor VicPatrick which means that John’s father was Gregor and his grandfather Patrick: if John were a very poor inhabitant – a cottar – it might be that his family had lost the knowledge that they were genetic MacGregors and so they ended up taking the surname Grant. It’s unusual to find this situation among MacGregors because of their turbulent history but it happens in other clans. Paradoxically, even though the MacGregor name was proscribed [forbidden] for so long [1603-60 and 1693 to 1774] many families held on to the knowledge that they were MacGregors despite having been forced to take other surnames. Some families never changed back to MacGregor when it was finally possible to do so – which is why in the DNA project we see individuals called Drummond, Stirling, Campbell etc who are genetically MacGregors - their ancestors never readopted the name when it was safe to do so.

   Taking the Grier family as an example this year (and including all variant spellings, such as Grierson and McGreer etc.) we will first look at the 37 marker results. The number of individuals who have tested at that level  [37 markers] is over 60, but the number of results will decrease as we look at the results for 67, and then further decrease for 111 markers.

Fig 3: Grier (Greer, Grierson etc) 37 marker results

What is immediately clear from this is that there are at least 4, if not 6 or 7  different origins for the surname. A recent Facebook post which derived its information from an e-book ‘The Tribe Within’, states:

     “The Greer name is found in the British Isles, but its origin according to DNA is from the north-west coast of the Emerald Island. The Greer story [dominated by DNA tribal marker (haplogroup) R1b-L513, Subgroup A1] can trace their origins to the Finn Valley in Donegal, Ireland from 50 BCE. Perhaps the journey begins with the Clanna Dedad; Deda, son of Sen or Deda Mac Sin. The Greer surname origin is from a Northern Ui Neill [R1b-L513] tribe.”  Undoubtedly this will be true for some individuals with the surname Greer but it cannot be true for all since some have a genetic origin which is clearly Norwegian Viking as well as at least one other group’s genetic origin being potentially different (for the moment we will not consider single isolated results).

     There is a possible explanation for this genetic diversity which relates to the acquisition of surnames. Surnames did not come into usage in Ireland until well after the end of the Viking invasions and it is possible that different individuals adopted the name at the same time but did not know, or it did not matter, that they were not genetically related.

That genetic diversity has a considerable time depth can readily be seen when we examine the slightly smaller group of individuals who have tested to 67 marker level.

     The diagram is very similar to the 37 marker one but with greater discrimination between individual results representing the more specific branches.

Fig 4: Grier (Greer, Grierson etc) 67 marker results

What we see from this diagram quite clearly is how close in genetic time many of the individuals are. The Viking group for example are all descended from a single individual probably branching at kit 552222. The Irish branch are very strongly related from one individual (leading for example to 97279) and then a second branch slightly later on (leading to 333215 for example).  The branching is clearer in this expanded view below:

Fig 5: Grier ‘Irish-related’ group expanded chart

In the Viking group the known ancestries (5 out of 19) are Irish: County Antrim, County Down, County Cavan, County Tyrone. Other place of origin labels say Scotland but give no detail, but of those that did 67 markers, ALL match genetically with the group who have specific Irish locations for their ancestry. In the Scots/Irish group kit 57019 has ancestry going back to County Fermanagh but all the others have no specific location declared except kit 42120 who simply locates his ancestry to Ireland. However, where the origins become particularly interesting is in the group which contains kit 7874 because a number of these participants have clear genealogical origins going back to Scotland, often to the south-west corner. There is a printed genealogy for this area for the Griersons of Lag which suggests a movement from Scotland to Ireland in the 17th century, but not the other way around, and yet this group has a Y chromosome signature which is generally associated with Ireland suggesting movement across the Irish Sea on more than one occasion. Kit 2342 locates to County Meath in Ireland.

     The next grid shows the Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor [TMRCA] for the 67 testers – the figures give estimated years between any two individuals at the intersection of across and down. From this it is obvious both how close some individuals are and how far apart others. The rates of mutation are FtDNA’s based on 50% probability with generations set to an average of 30 years:

Fig 6: Time to Most Recent Ancestor grid for Grier 67 marker testers.

Finally, here is the chart for those who have tested to 111 markers.

Fig 7: Grier 111 markers with added SNP labels

In this diagram the boxed labels are the SNPs which have been tested. I-M223 and I-M253, and R1b-M269 are SNPs from many thousands of years ago whereas  those in smaller boxes are usually the currently-known terminal SNPs and may date from just a few, to several hundred, years before the present. It is likely that any others close to the individual who has tested these SNPs will themselves have this SNP (as well, perhaps, as others).
[a couple of days after this blog was posted new Y700 results in the I group split I-FGC73841 down further to I-FT32636 and I-BY1888842 as named variants - the different letters denote the naming testing company].

     I repeat the information given at the end of my 2018 blog:

Professor Neil McGregor who analyses the Clan Gregor data remarked that “the best recommendation is that people get Y700 as everybody seems to have between 3 and 8 separate SNPs which will allow them to be separated from everybody [else], other than from their own immediate family or first cousins. Some of them [those who have tested under Y700] appear to have a cluster of SNPs which appear to have mutated together and may represent one mutation. A mutation seems to be as low as once per generation through to once every 4-5 generations – seems related to the number of STR [the marker scores that participants start with] mutations as well.

      The clan seems to be divided into two major clusters and this would appear to be early on. The section I am in has at least 3-5 sub-branches as does the other major group. The dividing SNP appears to be BY28714”.

     Just to repeat that I can do comparisons of STR results for individuals – comparing the participant with up to 10 to 12 others. I would repeat Neil’s encouragement to do Y700 if you can – please ask me for further information if needed [richardmcgregor1ATyahoo.co.uk substituting @ for AT].

Charts were constructed using Dee McGee’s Utility at http://www.mymcgee.com/tools/yutility.html?mode=ftdna_mode, using a 50% level of confidence, on Doug MacDonald’s mutation rate, an average of 30 years per generation and with no modal results assigned. The graphic representations of phylogenetic trees are made by Splitstree:

D. H. Huson and D. Bryant, Application of Phylogenetic Networks in Evolutionary Studies, Mol. Biol. Evol., 23(2):254-267, 2006

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