In previous articles, I discussed how analysis of my autosomal DNA matches allowed me to connect with several Morgan cousins that ultimately led to the discovery that my Morgan line extends back into Limerick in the 1600s (see here). Subsequent DNA analysis confirmed the connection back to Edward Morgan 1774-1836 & his wife Jane Dwyer, and also established the Y-DNA signature of the Morgan's of Limerick (see here). Y-DNA analysis of a fifth male Morgan cousin (PM) confirmed that the Y-DNA of the Morgan's of Limerick had been passed down virtually unchanged since the 1650s and supported the validity of the genealogical research back to James Morgan (born about 1655) and his wife, Susan Allen (see here).
This current article discusses the results of Big Y testing on four of the five Morgan cousins, what it tells us about how they are related to each other, and if it helps confirm or refute family lore of a link to the Morgan's of Tredegar in Wales.
What do the Big Y results tell us about how the test-takers are related?
So far, five men are included in the Morgan's of Limerick group. They have all done an initial Y-DNA test (assessing between 37 & 111 STR markers) and 4 of them have now completed Big Y testing. The Big Y test assesses over 200,000 SNP markers and about 800 STR markers. The first 111 STR markers are reported on the public Results Page of the Spearin DNA Project along with the "terminal SNP" or "Haplogroup" identified from analysis of the Big Y SNP data (5th column in the Results table).
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| The five Morgan men in the project showing their Haplogroup assignment (in numerical order, the men are PM, FM, JM, GM & TM) |
The results of the Big Y tests place the Morgan's of Limerick firmly on the Tree of Mankind. Whereas previously, their earlier Y-STR results had shown that they belonged to group I-M223 (and they were further predicted to fall somewhere below the downstream SNP L623), the new Big Y data provides much greater fine-detail and places them more precisely on the Tree of Mankind, namely on the downstream branch characterised by the SNP marker FTD50467.
In addition, 3 of the men (GM, TM & FM) sit on a branch further downstream, characterised by the SNP marker FTD44505. This simply indicates that the latter three men share a common ancestor some time after (i.e. more recently than) the common ancestor they all share with PM. In other words, PM has the SNP marker FTD50467, but does not have the SNP marker FTD44505.
The following is their list of ancestral SNP's (from upstream to downstream i.e. oldest to most recent) showing just how much further downstream of the earlier SNPs they now sit, thanks to the Big Y data ...
- I-M223 > P222 > CTS616 > CTS10057 > Z161 > S21760 > L623 > S20076 > Y30838 > FTC63003 > FTD50467 > FTD44505
The approximate ages of each of these branches can be viewed here.
The placement of the Morgan men on the Tree of Mankind is illustrated graphically on the Group Time Tree below (click here to view it online). This shows that all 4 Big Y test-takers (from top to bottom: PM, GM, TM & FM) sit on the branch characterised by the SNP marker FTD50467. And again, 3 of the men (GM, TM & FM) sit on a branch further downstream, characterised by the SNP marker FTD44505.
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| Group Time Tree for the Morgan's of Limerick |
The Group Time Tree diagram also gives crude dates for the ages of each genetic branch (along with ranges around each estimate, indicated by the error bars on either side of the red and blue circles). The specific age estimates for each branch (and the ranges) are as follows:
These crude age estimates give us an idea of when the common ancestor for each branch was born, and are often referred to as TMRCA estimates (TMRCA = Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor). So this means (based entirely on their Big Y data) that GM, TM & FM share a common ancestor who lived roughly about 1749, and all 4 men share a common ancestor who lived roughly about 1638 ... give or take 150 years ... I did say they were crude!
Note that each of these branches consists of a “block” of several SNP markers, but each branch is named after the “lead SNP”. Thus, the FTD50467 branch is characterised by a 3-SNP block, and the FTD44505 branch is characterised by a 2-SNP block. The practical significance of this is that more branches may be formed as new people take the test and “split” an existing block into 2 parts (and thus form a new branch).
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| Big Y Block Tree diagram showing the number of SNPs associated with each branch |
Can we identify the common ancestor TM & FM share with the other Big Y test-takers?
We know from genealogical records that PM & GM share the overarching common ancestor James Morgan (born c.1655). This corresponds roughly with the age estimate for FTD50467, the overarching SNP marker for this group of 4 men. We also know that TM & FM must connect somewhere on GM's line because they share the additional SNP FTD44505 with GM, but PM does not.
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| Known genealogical relationships between the 5 Morgan men (click to enlarge) |
We also know that TM has an MDKA (Most Distant Known Ancestor) called John Joseph Morgan (born 1837), and FM has an MDKA called James Morgan (born 1827). The question is: where does TM's ancestral line and FM's ancestral line connect to the ancestral line of GM?
We can logically deduce that the downstream SNP marker FTD44505 arose some time at or after Lieutenant Edward Morgan 1680. If it had arisen in his father (James Morgan 1655), then it would have also been passed down to PM along his ancestral line. But because PM tests negative for this particular SNP marker, it has to have arisen some time after James Morgan 1655. We don't know the precise person in which it arose but it could have been his son, grandson, great grandson, etc. Hence, we can safely deduce that TM & FM have to sit somewhere at or after Lieutenant Edward Morgan 1680. This is the upper limit of where TM & FM might connect to GM's line. And it also indicates that Lieutenant Edward Morgan 1680 was their common ancestor, but not necessarily their Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA).
We can also put a lower limit on where they might connect (with a reasonable amount of confidence). The Morgan ancestors of TM & FM have been well-researched and we can be reasonably confident that they are accurate as far back as their respective MDKAs (1837 & 1827). Similarly, there is good genealogical evidence for the Morgan ancestors of PM & GM back to at least 1774, and reasonable evidence back to 1655. This places a lower limit for the connection to GM's line at the sons of Edward Morgan 1774. In other words, it is likely that TM & FM connect to GM's line of ancestors somewhere in the 4 generations between Lt Edward Morgan 1680 and the sons of Edward Morgan 1774, inclusive.
The family tree for the Morgan's of Limerick can be found on Ancestry here. Let’s look at each of the four candidates for the MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) …
Patrick Morgan 1812
It seems unlikely that Patrick Morgan 1812 is a common ancestor of TM & GM for the following reasons:
- TM's MDKA, John Joseph Morgan, was born in 1837 and so could have been fathered by Patrick Morgan 1812, who would have been 25 years old at the time. However, Patrick had a son called John Darius Morgan (born Nov 1847) so it is unlikely that there were two children called John in the same family
- there is no evidence that Patrick 1812 had a son called John Joseph Morgan 1837
- Patrick 1812 had children with documented births in Mar 1836, Aug 1837, Feb 1839, Feb 1841, Aug 1843, Sep 1845, etc … so it is difficult to see where the birth of John Joseph 1837 could have occurred among these known births.
Similarly, it is unlikely that Patrick 1812 is a common ancestor of FM and GM. Patrick 1812 would only have been 15 years old when James 1827 was born, he appears to have been married about 1834 (at the age of 22), and did not have any known son called James. So this makes him an unlikely candidate for a common ancestor between FM & GM.
Based on the above assessment, we can effectively rule out Patrick 1812 as a potential candidate for a common ancestor, thus reducing the field of possibilities to the three candidates discussed below.
Edward Morgan 1774
It is possible that TM's MDKA (John Joseph 1837) and FM's MDKA (James 1827) were grandsons of Edward Morgan 1774. Edward had 6 sons and if John Joseph 1837 or James 1827 was a son of any of these, TM or FM might also have matches related to the spouses side of the family. Spouses included Enraght, O’Gorman, Gillespie … and there may be others (as yet undiscovered). It could be worthwhile checking TM's & FM's autosomal DNA matches to see if any of these ancestral surnames occur among their respective matches.
John Morgan 1732
John had 4 documented sons (born roughly between 1770-1790). Spousal surnames include Sullivan, Rose & Dwyer. If this is the connection for TM or FM, it may be beyond the reach of autosomal DNA and thus there may be no autosomal DNA matches to any of these spouses.
Lieutenant Edward Morgan 1680
Edward is reported to have had 5 sons (born roughly between 1702-1732). Spousal surnames include Ware, Daly, Hodges … and there may be others. If this is the connection, it may be beyond the reach of autosomal DNA. Nevertheless, it could be worthwhile exploring TM's & FM's autosomal DNA matches.
Lastly, based on the TMRCA estimates discussed previously, the age estimate of 1749 for FTD44505 falls roughly half-way between John Morgan 1732 & Edward Morgan 1774, making one of these individuals the most likely candidate for the MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) of GM, TM & FM.
In summary, TM & FM definitely share Lieutenant Edward Morgan 1680 as a common ancestor, but not necessarily as a Most Recent Common Ancestor. The most likely candidates for this MRCA are Edward 1680, John 1732 & Edward 1774. Further research in the records may unearth additional clues.
Would additional Big Y testing help?
Further clarification could be obtained if JM did the Big Y test. JM connects to GM's line at Edward Morgan 1774. GM currently has 3 unique SNPs (called Private Variants) that no one else in the database shares with him (i.e. TM, FM & PM do not have these 3 unique SNPs that GM has). If JM's Big Y results indicate that he shares one (or more) of GM's currently unique SNPs, then this would form a new branch to which TM & FM do not belong. And because we know that the MRCA for GM & JM is Edward 1774, this would mean that the new shared SNP would have been passed down by him to both GM & JM. And because TM & FM do not share this new SNP, it means that Edward 1774 cannot be their ancestor. And this would narrow down the potential candidates for their respective MRCAs to just two - Edward 1680, and John 1732.
Because GM has 3 Private Variants, the chances of a new downstream branch being detected for GM & JM are reasonably good. The Private Variants for each Big Y test-taker can be found via their FTDNA Home Page by clicking on Results & Tools > Big Y > Results > Private Variants tab. The number of Private Variants for the 4 test-takers are as follows: GM (3), TM (1), FM (3), & PM (1).
Are there any additional clues?
I looked for additional clues among the new STR marker results. The tabular display below of the STR results is taken from the public Results Page. It shows where mutations have occurred (in purple & pink). Most of the limited number of mutations occurred in single individuals, but there are a number of places where shared mutations could indicate either a new branch or could simply be parallel mutations (i.e. mutations that occurred independently of each other on separate lines of descent).
Look at the shared purple mutations between PM & FM (rows 1 and 2) on STR markers 10 & 12 (namely dys389i & dys389ii). This could indicate that a shared ancestor passed this mutation on to both of them. However, if this was the case, then it would have arisen quite high up, in one of the more distant ancestors and would have been passed down to all 5 men. This is not the case so it is more likely to be a parallel mutation that arose independently in the 2 descendant lines, and therefore it is not branch-defining and therefore of no help in the current situation.
Similarly, there is a potential shared mutation on rows 3 & 4 (JM & GM) at marker 34 (CDYa). It is possible that this STR mutation occurred in one of GM & JM's ancestors and was only passed down to them and not to the others. If this were the case, this would mean that it must have arisen at or above their known MRCA (Edward 1774), thus ruling him out as an MRCA between them and both TM and FM. However, this particular marker (CDYa) is known to be a very rapidly-mutating marker, frequently flipping back and forth from generation to generation, so this could simply be another parallel mutation, and therefore only limited credibility can be put in the possibility that this mutation is branch-defining. In short, this is very slim evidence.
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| The STR results of the 5 Morgan men (for the first 111 STR markers) (in numerical order, the men are PM, FM, JM, GM & TM) (click to enlarge) |
The remaining 700 STR markers were not assessed as they are mainly slow mutating markers and the chances of a branch-defining mutation are small. There is also no easy way to compare these 4 sets of 700 STR markers with each other.
What are the deeper origins of the Morgan's of Limerick?
The nearest genetic neighbour to all 4 of the Big Y test-takers is a man called Murray and he sits on the branch characterised by FTC63003. The common ancestor they share with him lived about 1100 AD. But which came first - the Murray surname or the Morgan surname? or did both surnames arise independently? At this stage we do not know the answer to this question, but it is possible that Mr Murray’s direct male line ancestor’s were called Morgan prior to a surname switch to Murray … or vice versa: there may have been a surname switch from Murray to Morgan. Hopefully we will be able to resolve this question in time as more people test and join the database, but at this stage we do not know which came first - the Murray chicken, or the Morgan egg? or neither? |
| Group Time Tree showing adjacent branches - see online here |
The next nearest SNP-tested neighbours sit on the Y30838 branch and the common ancestor would have lived about 1300 BC. This suggests that our Morgan branch is a relatively isolated branch of the Tree of Mankind with relatively few living descendants (or at least, very few who have undertaken Big Y testing). It is likely that many descendant lines from the Y30838 branch have died out over time, a phenomenon that is not unusual given that the ancient peoples of Haplogroup I, to which the test-takers all belong, were probably the original hunter-gatherers that moved from mainland Europe into Britain & Ireland at the end of the last ice age (about 12,000 years ago). Survival among this group was less successful than among other Haplogroups (e.g. Haplogroup R1b, which probably represents “the Celts"). Further information on these ancient origins is available on this Eupedia website page.
Group 7
The overarching SNP marker for Group 7 appears to be BY159. The list of ancestral SNPs for this group is as follows (that of the Morgan's of Limerick is also included for comparison):
Thus, the common ancestor between you three and the people in Group 7 would have carried the SNP marker CTS10057 and he would have lived about 8500 BC. So there is no close relationship (i.e. within the last 1000 years) with the Morgan’s of Group 7.
Groups 21, 46 & Ungrouped (6)
There are only 3 people in Group 21, and 2 in Group 46, and none of them has done the Big Y test. The same holds true for the 6 members in the Ungrouped section, so all we can do is compare their STR results with ours (Group 60). Below are the STR values for each group / individual with yellow highlights indicating any differences from our STR values. From this we can see that the other I-M223 Morgan’s are not closely related to our group. In fact, the minimal Genetic Distance (i.e. number of mutations) between our group and the others varies from 12/37 to 21/37 (i.e. there are 12 to 21 mutations among the first 37 markers). This indicates quite distant relationships between them and us.
Is there a connection to any Morgan families in Wales?
There are 3 genetic groups in the Morgan DNA Project that also belong to the I-M223 subgroup of Haplogroup I. These are Group 7, Group 21, & Group 46. There are also six I-M223 project members in the Ungrouped section. Our Morgan group is Group 60. You can see these various groups on the public Results Page of the Morgan DNA Project.Group 7
The overarching SNP marker for Group 7 appears to be BY159. The list of ancestral SNPs for this group is as follows (that of the Morgan's of Limerick is also included for comparison):
- I-M223 >> CTS10057 > L702 >> Y5670 > Y5671 > Y5672 > Y6998 > BY159
- I-M223 >> CTS10057 > Z161 >> Y30838 > FTC63003 > FTD50467
Thus, the common ancestor between you three and the people in Group 7 would have carried the SNP marker CTS10057 and he would have lived about 8500 BC. So there is no close relationship (i.e. within the last 1000 years) with the Morgan’s of Group 7.
Groups 21, 46 & Ungrouped (6)
There are only 3 people in Group 21, and 2 in Group 46, and none of them has done the Big Y test. The same holds true for the 6 members in the Ungrouped section, so all we can do is compare their STR results with ours (Group 60). Below are the STR values for each group / individual with yellow highlights indicating any differences from our STR values. From this we can see that the other I-M223 Morgan’s are not closely related to our group. In fact, the minimal Genetic Distance (i.e. number of mutations) between our group and the others varies from 12/37 to 21/37 (i.e. there are 12 to 21 mutations among the first 37 markers). This indicates quite distant relationships between them and us.
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| Comparison of STR values between the Morgan's of Limerick (Group 60) and other Morgan families |
What about the story that the Morgan's of Limerick descend from a junior branch of the Morgan's of Tredegar? Here we run into problems, because, as far as I can ascertain, there is no descendant of the Morgan's of Tredegar in the Morgan DNA Project, or the entire FTDNA database for that matter. And the reason for this is that many of the descendant lines of this particular family are reported to have gone extinct. This story is covered in this short YouTube video here.
So even if the Morgan's of Limerick do descend from a "junior branch" of the Morgan's of Tredegar (according to Burkes' Peerage 1925 & 1937), this may be impossible to prove as there are no known descendants of the Morgan's of Tredegar. And even if there were, none of them appear to be in the FTDNA database, and even if they are, none of them have done Big Y testing.
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| The entry for the Morgan's of Old Abbey in Burkes Landed Gentry from 1925 with annotations by Prof Wardell (who probably submitted this family history to Burkes in the first place). Note the comment in the 2nd line under the heading "Lineage": The family now dealt with claims descent from the Llangattog branch of the Welsh House of Tredegar. |
Summary & Conclusions
Big Y testing of 4 of the 5 Morgan's of Limerick has revealed the following:
- they sit on an isolated branch of the Tree of Mankind with nearest genetic neighbours (Murray) related by a common ancestor who lived about 1100 AD.
- the deeper origins of the Morgan's of Limerick remains obscure and there is no DNA evidence (as yet) to support a connection to Wales or to the Morgan's of Tredegar.
- the SNP marker FTD50467 arose in James Morgan c.1655 or one of his immediate male forbears.
- the SNP marker FTD44505 arose somewhere between Lieutenant Edward Morgan 1680 and one of the sons of Edward Morgan 1744.
- TM & FM definitely share Lieutenant Edward Morgan 1680 as a common ancestor with GM and with each other.
- the Most Recent Common Ancestors (MRCA) that TM & FM respectively share with GM are either Edward 1680, John 1732 or Edward 1774.
Next Steps could include identifying additional Morgan men to do the Big Y test so that the fine-scale branching pattern of this particular family can be further elucidated.
Maurice Gleeson
April 2023
