Monday, March 15, 2010

Madness Monday - How many Duggans?



Tory Island




Close to St.Patrick's Day it makes sense that the number of Dugan families living in Falcarragh Donegal in 1850 is at least a sense of puzzlement, if not actual madness.
A clue came a year or so ago when my male cousin of this line matched no others in his Y line DNA not even the 'other' Paddy Dugan from that area.
A larger clue came last week when I got a "cousin match" at 23andMe's Relative Finder, another woman and I share a segment on a chromosome. She and I both descend from a Patrick Dugan from Falcarragh Donegal.

So why is this maddening in any way?Well remember the Y DNA? We don't match these Dugans.
New cousin has a Duggan/Doogan marriage, so surely that is where we come in?No, those names and locations do not identity our family either.They are called the 'Bartley' Duggans from the Rosses, still not us!!
Pictured above is Bernard 'Barney' Dugan, my Great Grandma's brother. We have lots of Bernards (aka Bryan) and Denises in our family.Ours are farmers and not the owners of 'The Rosses" a historical pub.
New cousin and I suspect a McFadden or a McClafferty is in fact our common ancestor who passed down our segment of chromosome #12. We are on it and each have another cousin testing.

How about those Dugans? Well my cousins and I are looking into the possibility that we are in fact, 'Tory Island Doohans'. This family was known to marry into the somewhat unrelated Duggan and Doogan families from Falcarragh also. Many records spell it Doohan I have found and we are surely working on it.

Éirinn go Brách