MacGregor

Sometimes, the names get adjusted to comport with local spelling. On the L1335 site there a Dutch guy with a surname spelled something like Mikkene (I forget precisely what it is). There is also a Scandinavian with a similarly screwy spelling. If you say them both out loud, the root is more obvious.

Danny, his line split off before the MacGregor surname was established

Danny, You will need to establish your terminal SNP to sort this out. Save up for the Big Y700 and meanwhile take a look at the R-L1335 section of Alex Williamson's Big Tree where you will find that of the sons of R- S691 R-S695 leads to R-S690 the MacGregors and R-BY3146 leads to R-Y139903 McDaniel and Bain.

Thank you Alexander. My father's closest matches are four Bains as stated above. There are also MacGregor matches. However, the surname with the most matches is MacRae on all levels through Y111. My father also did the Big Y 700. So far his terminal SNP is R-BY43402 which is downstream of A850.. I do not know the time period we would have possibly been MacRae instead of MacDonald. Since my father's MacRae matches are genetic distances of 8-10 on Y111 does that mean that his line was part of MacRae prior to the use of surnames? His Big Y results are on Alex Williamson's Big Tree. He has five private variants on Big Y. I am trying to understand some sort of time periods his line may have been part of the different clans / groups of people. He is also entered into the Clan Donald DNA project and they told me my father's line would have been adopted into Clan Donald, but I have no idea what time period that may have been. We can only get back to 1730 County Clare Ireland for sure with sources. My father's kit number is 683392 and he is also in the MacRae DNA project.

Danny the problem is that we are all children of R-S744. Myself through R-S764 while you and the Ian Cam MacGregors share R-S691 but split with R-S695 for MacGregor and R-A850 for yourself and the Bains. As this period is well before the use of surnames it is most unlikely that you would ever have been Macraes as such. Bain by the way is basically the highland version of White as the ancestor of many Scottish Bains, Banes & Baynes were fair haired.

At least a Y67 if you are wanting to match from long ago! Get the Y67 or Y111!

Robert and Thomas, the Y67 test is only available now as an upgrade, 37, 111 or Big Y are your current options for first time Y testers. You could take the 37, wait on the results and upgrade to 67. From what I've seen over the years, and if you are serious about getting to the the bottom of your Y testing as cheaply and efficiently as possible, I would suggest doing the Big Y and be done with all the testing you can currently do. If you wait until Father's Day, there should be a sale going on to go with the already lowest prices for Big Y that have ever been seen. Y testing will get you back as far as you wish to look in you patrilineal line as far as haplogroups go. Of course surnames only go back to about 1000 AD and very few are lucky enough to have documentation for their line back to around 500 AD. Note: I am not an Admin

Yes it is an accepted sept of the clan - I don’t think we have encountered the name actually used as an alias

Thomas- would you be able to share more about descendants of Alexander Lackey b.~1688 Maryland, USA? I am a Lake whose earliest known ancestor is a James Lake, who lived and died in Maryland, born about 1770. It's probably a long shot but just in case there's a connection...... thanks! You can email TAYLORSUZL-at-verizon.net

Hi peter and Richard. I have completed the y-DNA 111 and Big-y and have have 13 confirmed cousin matches from 0 to 9 Genetic distances. They are 3 x Anderson, 8 x Cooper, 1 x Mckenzie and 1 x Robertson. It proves that DNA is more important than surnames. This site below explains it very well. https://dnaandfamilytreeresearch.blogspot.com/2018/07/goodbye-npe-hello-sds-some-causes-of.html I am not sure what surname is really mine. It appears to be Cooper ?????

Well along with my Scots-Irish, I'm a little bit of German and a little bit of Dutch, a little bit of French, but not very much.

That is funny; makes me smile. I can't begin to imagine how many people around the globe this applies to.

Hi Peter:: This is Tina. My husband's Peddie (Scottish) surname was , we believe, orig. McGregor from Scotland. His Ydna shows MANY matches with many McGregor men, and NO matches with any Peddie men. We know his line goes back to "John Peddie" in Scotland (a male 4th cousin's Ydna matches the same) born in 1790... but we believe , as Richard mentioned above, that during the Proscription in 1746 after the battle of Culloden, they were forced to change their McGregor name to something else...in our case "Peddie." We also believe it's highly probable that "Peddie" was a surname of one of the other family members, perhaps a wife or mother's surname, we are working on figuring that all out now. I have just ordered a SNP test be done on hubby's sample, S967, which I understand will show if he does indeed have the SNP that all McGregor males seem to have ($39). I think it'll be well worth it. I'd recommend you look at who your EARLIEST KNOWN NEELY male was, and how far back (it appropriate) he was, how near to 1746, the Proscription, and see IF he couldve been in the same situation. Many many were. Good luck!

Hi Abby, an Admin here will prob reply to you also, but I happened to be here looking into my hubby's McGregor Ydna matches and saw your post. You, being a female of course, can only do atDNA, not Ydna. So you wont be added to the male Ydna matches, and unfortunately we women's atDNA doesnt do much here in the Projects (I'm in many of them also, and I am an Admin of many projects as well); so your best bet would be to go thru your own FF acct & put in the name Mc/MacGregor in the blank Search box on the top right of your match list page, and see who all shows up as FF matches with you with that surname. IF you happen to have a male relative thru your male McGregor line (down the male line only) who could/would do a Ydna test for you, that would be how you could 'connect' to a Subgroup of male McGregors in the Ydna Proj. Also, you may want to also upload (if you havent already) your Ancestry 'raw data' dna file to Gedmatch as well. And then you'd want to look at the "New" ANCESTOR PROJECTS Gedmatch now has (I also admin many of those, as well as many Facebook surname groups), and Join any of the Ancestor Projs at Gedmatch that pertain to you and your ancestors. I dont know if they have yet a McGregor Proj, but they now hve ALOT. You can look down the Proj List alphabetically and then Req Membership in any of them that might pertain to you. Good luck!

My family's history is similar. My great grandfather was Daniel who also came via Canada. The family was in Pictou, His father was Alex and had a brother named Duncan. I live in Washington State. Maybe we need to compare notes.

Hi both. - family finder results (or whatever they are called in the particular company you use) are based on autosomal - x chromosome - comparisons and therefore don't relate directly to a surname. Only the male Y chromosome does that - in most cases the Y chromosome goes with the surname of the living male who tested (a few exceptions include adoptions and illegitimacy - but of course that works both ways so a MacGregor might actually be a 'Smith' for example or a 'Smith' a MacGregor - though because MacGregors had to use aliases that adds another possible layer!). For Family Finder matches you have to compare your genealogies with the other person to discover where your ancestral lines coincide - that can be your MacGregor line but it might equally be some other ancestor with another surname. In general if the predicted relationship is closer then you might be related at the great grandparent level for example but if t is more distant (fifth cousin to distant you could be looking at any one of up to 64 different ancestral lines to find a connection. Many people do not know all 64 of their ancestors back 6 generations.

Richard Nicolet, I sort of wondered if your Greatgrandfather, Duncan, might (long-shot I guess) could possibly be the brother, Duncan, of my Greatgrandfather, Daniel, if their father was Alexander. Phew, that was a fun sentence. Ha! It gets crazy but fun even considering it.

Hello Jason, with you being S764+, my uncle shares a common ancestor with you some 1660+/- ybp or so.

Hi Lonnie, it would be interesting to learn more. I am really curious at what point the George surname came into being? I belong to the the George Surname group, but they had to create a whole new lineage/branch for my grandfather and I because we didn’t match any of the main George branches. I was told that we were “truly our own line of men” whatever that means : )

Hi Lonnie, it would be interesting to learn more. I am really curious at what point the George surname came into being? I belong to the the George Surname group, but they had to create a whole new lineage/branch for my grandfather and I because we didn’t match any of the main George branches.

Jason, with S764+ You are not a MacGregor but you could be McPherson, McDonald, Campbell, Griffin, McCoy or even McRae. Have you done Y 700 yet?

Thank you, I only did the Y-DNA-12 page and it came back no results. I suspect I will have no results on the other pages as well? My Kit is # 930763 I was hoping to find a connection,the search is real.

My results do not seem to show. My DNA came from Ancestry to FTDNA. Suggestions?

It depends on what test you did. Y chromosome male results are on the surname page, Mitochondrial MtDNA results are grouped by result but if you could only do Family Finder or did the Ancestry upload (usually this will be the case for female testees looking for a more distant ancestor) then the results don't show in a single page because your results are autosomal (X chromosome ) and therefore represent some DNA from up to maybe 64 different ancestors. This is an aspect of DNA testing that is not well understood - if you are looking at 64 possible ancestors then what you have to do to find matches is check the Family Finder matches for individuals with whom you share a larger amount of DNA - at that point you then have to compare genealogies to see what names and ultimately what individual(s) you have in common. I'm afraid there isn't any way to show all the matches on one page because let's say there are 200 people trying to find connections you would be looking at maybe 12800 different ancestral individuals (it would be less than that of course because not everyone can trace back all their genetic lines 6 generations). In short if you have done Family Finder or and Ancestry upload (or similar) the you can only look for matches there are no grids (in any project)

Thank you, I am looking at your suggestion thinking about doing the mtDNA and joined GEDMATCH as well. I will keep searching!

Just want to throw my two cents in Paul, since I have done some layman research on the subject. I surmise that VIking dna among the Scots is generally low, autosomaly speaking. However, there are exceptions where it can run higher, including in Orkney and Shetland, where it can run 40% on average, or if linked to a clan of Norse origin and/or heavy influence. 30% is on the high side for Scotland. Although, I am sure theMcGregor’s had some here and there, I don’t think they are known for having much, being much more known for there Gael origins and influences. There can always be an exceptional line within any clan of course and/or other events that could’ve occurred to yield such a rate.

David, I was surprised by the result. My earliest New world ancestor is in the database as falling under an Irish connected group. The Y12 and Y25 so far match up in a significant way, to my eyes at least. I will get the next sequence tested when its affordable for me. I do know MacGregors are strong Gaels. Appreciate the two cents,which is expensive, LOL!

I think you may be forgetting that the Normans were vikings. I ran into the same situation and upon searching my families lines I found quite a few Normans.

Good point Michael. Thanks!