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Sullivan/O'Sullivan

  • 613 members
Administrators
  • Kathleen Kerwin
  • Shanna Jones
Co-Administrators
  • Gerald OConnell
  • James Kane
  • John Brazil
  • Judith Sullivan Hoffman
  • Ronald Howie
  • Russell Sullivan
  • Timothy Carmain

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J Sullivan J Sullivan
August 11 @ 3:48pm
Hello, I've been doing family history at the amateur-level for about a decade but I'm new to the DNA side of things and hoping someone can tell me where to start down this journey. My 'white whale' as you could call it is my father's direct male-line ancestor Timothy O'Sullivan who was married to Ellen O'Neil. Their son Daniel Thomas Sullivan is the first record I can find of this couple, who appears in 1889 Graceville, Minnesota marrying Mary Agnes McLean, but he was born March of about 1853 in Canada, according to family lore and census records. We only know the name of his parents from Daniel's death record and that they were from County Cork—no information about any siblings or where he lived prior to 1889, although the early census records state he lived in Minnesota since about 1865 and moved to America as an infant. I've scoured pretty much every single Sullivan record in America and Canada at this point and can't find anything else that matches, mostly because I have so little information that I can't confirm or deny most records out there. I've collected every clue I can image and I've been recording them on the Geni world family tree (https://www.geni.com/people/Timothy/6000000099600227822). So now I'm turning to DNA! The lucky thing is that he's the direct male-line ancestor to my father, who had his DNA tested at 23andme — his y-haplogroup is R-Z16521, which it would appear to link him with the Sullivan-Bere line. I'm not sure where to go next though - I looked at the Big Tree and it seems the clusters that Y-haplogroup forms includes Teagues, but I can confirm that there are none of those in my family tree (at least, they would have to be from a branch of Timothy like a brother in Ireland I don't know). Basically, where should I go next? Any advice would be heavily appreciated. Thank you! (my personal kit is B546570, haven't uploaded my father's yet)
D Sullivan
August 13 @ 12:42pm
And now I'm in my father's account - his kit number is B553590. Should I send a gedcom file to someone, or what should I do next? (J.Sullivan)
Ronan O'Sullivan
August 17 @ 10:51pm
Hi, I have that exact same haplogroup and so does my Dad. We both got it from testing on 23andme. The earliest ancestor we know of is a Thomas O'Sullivan in Ballyferriter Kerry born in the late 1700s. I have heard that the Sullivans came from West Cork but have not proved that yet. So our oldest are on the famous Dingle Penninsula. Have you imported your DNA into gedmatch? Do you have a kit number from there? I am not sure how kit numbers here work as I am not able to search to see if you are a match or not to me or my Dad.
Russell Sullivan
August 19 @ 9:51am
A good starting point has already happened right here. Ronan is saying his Y-haplogroup is an exact match to your father's. Start with Ronan, see what genealogical information he can pass to you (and vice versa). Remember that this process is a crawl pace at best. FamilyTreeDNA has a tool which allows you to compare yourself (your father) to another member. It is called TiP and is used to calculate your probability of sharing a comman ancestor and how far back in history that is estimated to have happened. You find this button under each match you have. You find your matches on your home page entitled: Y-DNA -Matches. The page that comes up gives matches from 12, 25, 37, 67 and 111 markers respectively. Select 111, then select Y-DNA-Matches, then select TiP under any profile you want to compare. Ronan should be a match for you (I've not looked yet).
Ronan O'Sullivan Ronan O'Sullivan
August 17 @ 10:05pm
Hi, So I am just after receiving my results fro the Y-111 DNA test which I just took. It came back and advised my haplogroup was R-M269. I had already done the 23andme DNA test and I had a haplogroup predicted on 23andme of R-Z16521. To me (and I am new at this) that is much more refined subgroup of R-M269. I was expecting the FTDNA Y-111 test to be more specific as it cost a lot more. Am I misinterpreting that? I had expected the FTDNA test to be way more specific.
Judith Sullivan-Hoffman Judith Sullivan-Hoffman
June 6 @ 11:59am
Upgrade update.....I was hoping that Dad's (Jim Sullivan) Big Y 700 - kit B71565 , would be processed by now. Something happened at the lab while processing the upgrade from Y 111 and we have been sent a new test. When Dad and I see each other next, we will do his new test, hopefully sooner than later. Dads haplotype before processing the Big Y was Z16519, now it is sitting at Z16518.
8 Comments
Kevin Sullivan
July 23 @ 9:23am
Mine was delayed to August 1st - but came in July 15th. I hope yours comes in early too.....
Jim Sullivan
July 28 @ 6:10pm
Looks like Dads Y 700 is also batch 954 and Y 700 backboneis batch 784, also due in 08/05/2019 too.
Terrence Sullivan
August 15 @ 9:51am
The site says my Y-700 Batch 954 completed on 14 Aug but I'm not seeing any change in my Big Y matches or the Block Tree, I guess that means that some analysis is going on.
Terrence Sullivan
August 16 @ 8:21am
Got my Results email this morning, and I'm not sure anything changed. Still R-FGC42465.
Bill Sullivan Bill Sullivan
July 23 @ 2:28pm
I am kind of stuck. I am simply trying here to see if there is a possibility that I haven't thought of. I was given the Sullivan name by my father William Russel Sullivan born 1912 in Alton, Lafayette County, Florida. His father was Wyman Buford Sullivan born 1882 in Georgia. The trail goes cold (Some have his father as J. Buford Sullivan, but I can find no documentation for this person) ... My Y-DNA does not seem to match any tested Sullivans ... A name change? Or is there a Sullivan family that is not yet represented? I match at Y-37 with no mutations to two McGaha men. Does any of this ring any bells? Make it an AWESOME Day ...
Russell Sullivan
July 29 @ 4:16pm
Bill, send me an email with your kit number and I will look a little deeper for you.
Evelyn Trujillo Evelyn Trujillo
April 14 @ 10:58am
Hi Everyone - Just joined the group. I have a block wall I have never been able to get past, my 7th great grandfather, Darby Sullivan. I'm not sure where he was born, but he lived in Hyde Precinct
1 Comment
Evelyn Trujillo
April 14 @ 11:07am
Dang it, anyhow some people think Darby was born in Barbados but I don't know about that, I'm hoping to find some DNA matches. My German is A547802 and my brother's is T582474. Anybody have info on this line? Thanks!
Evelyn Trujillo
April 14 @ 11:25am
There must be serious autocorrect happening on my tablet! Darby was in Bath, North Carolina and my "German" was meant to be Gedmatch.....
James Sullivan
April 29 @ 2:35pm
There was a Darby Sullivan on Eastern Shore of MD at that same timeline. Could they be the same?
Ronan O'Sullivan
July 22 @ 3:12pm
Hi Evelyn, I have an ancestry tree here: https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/64557763/family. I go back to the 1780s ish in Ireland. I dont have before that because the records are not available in Ireland for my family anyway. I have also exported it so its on MyHeritage and a few other sites as well. I dont know who Darby Sullivan is unfortunately and I dont have any of my O'Sullivans out in America at that time but thats not to say they arent. I am however matching on gedmatch. For some of them I had to turn down to match lower centimorgans but I matched the first one with default settings of 7cM. My father is kit KT5401675. My kit is DK9123174 Comparing Kit DK9123174 (*ronanos) [23andMe] and T582474 (Steve Lee) [Migration - F2 - T] Largest segment = 9.4 cM Total Half-Match segments (HIR) = 9.4 cM (0.262 Pct) Estimated number of generations to MRCA = 5.9 Comparing Kit DK9123174 (*ronanos) [23andMe] and A547802 (Evelyn Trujillo) [Migration - F2 - A] Largest segment = 3.9 cM Total Half-Match segments (HIR) = 10.2 cM (0.285 Pct) Comparing Kit A547802 (Evelyn Trujillo) [Migration - F2 - A] and KT5401675 (Patrick O\'Sullivan) [23andMe] Largest segment = 5.7 cM Total Half-Match segments (HIR) = 16.9 cM (0.472 Pct) Comparing Kit KT5401675 (Patrick O\'Sullivan) [23andMe] and T582474 (Steve Lee) [Migration - F2 - T] Largest segment = 3.8 cM Total Half-Match segments (HIR) = 7.0 cM (0.196 Pct) Regards, Ronan
Jim Sullivan Jim Sullivan
July 21 @ 10:25pm
Judith here, Dad and I sent in the replacement kit a few daysago, just looked, so far so good, looks like they have recieved test and it looks like the big Y 700 will be in aprox the 5th of August
Joe Sullivan Joe Sullivan has a question!
June 6 @ 6:29pm
“ I will try to make this succinct: I am hoping someone can give me an idea of which direction to steer in my genetic genealogical search. I have been trying for almost 25 years to find the town land of origin in Ireland of my husband's 2-g-grandfather, James Sullivan. James seems to have materialized a full-grown man in New York City in the 1860's, where he resided between censuses but married and had two sons and an unknown child. The family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where they resided through both the 1870 census and the 1880 census and where James stayed put long enough to get his name in the City Directory a number of times. More children were born, two died and were buried, and James POOF! vanished into thin air before 1887, when his widow and most of the children moved back to New York City. James's widow, some of his children, some of his children-in-law, and many of his grandchildren are buried in two mass graves in Calvary Cemetery, Queens, along with two women who were born Sullivans, their husbands, and their progeny, and the baby of yet another lady born a Sullivan who lost only one child before leaving the area. These women may have been James' sisters, or they may have been his cousins. I have tracked all the families and proved genetic matches with the descendants of James' children and with the children of at least one of the nee-Sullivan ladies buried in the mass graves. Having bashed my head against the brick wall for decades and still come no closer to jumping the pond, I thought that I could turn to DNA for a little guidance. My husband took the Y-DNA test at 111 markers. I knew that we would be lucky if we got 20 or 30 matches, and that there was always the possibility of mis-attributed parentage. But hey, if we got 30 matches, and 25 of them were, say, O'Rileys from County Clare, that would still help in trying to find our James Sullivan's town land of origin, right? So here is my problem: so far, my husband has a total, (counting the five that have come in so far today), of 7,565 matches on the Y-DNA. He averages three to seven new matches every day. So far as proving a help in determining Irish county of origin or surname – at 111 markers, he has 237 matches, 1 at genetic distance of 4 (not a Sullivan), 3 at genetic distance of 5 (with three different surnames), and 18 at genetic distance of 6, with 17 different surnames. I know that if you shoot the Y-DNA back too far you go past the common use of surnames, so okay, the progenitors of the lines were prolific in multiple directions. But – at 67 markers he has 1,320 matches, 1 of which is a genetic distance of 0, (another brick wall who materialized in the United States fully grown and who had a totally different surname), 6 at genetic distance of 1, represented by no less than 6 different surnames, and 57 at genetic distance of 2, with 40 different surnames (but also the first one named Sullivan – origin unknown). At 37 markers, he has 1,528 matches, 4 with a genetic distance of 0, each with a totally different surname. He has 87 matches at genetic distance of 1, represented by about 70 different surnames; four Sullivans, which would be something, except two have no trees at all, one of the remaining Sullivans sprouted in Detroit, and the other in North Carolina. I won't even bother you with the 25 and 12 marker results. So far as trying to sift the origins of the possessors all these multiple surnames in hopes of at least localizing the part of Ireland our James Sullivan may have come from, after weeding out all the matches who have no trees at all or “trees” consisting of “Private” and his parents, “Private” and “Private”, I am left with results of origins from New York to Carmarthen, Wales, “Ireland”, Bantry, Kerry, “Most Likely Cork”, Belfast, Australia, Iowa, Texas ,and back to “probably Ireland”. What I am saying is that, far from helping me close in on a likely area of origin in Ireland for our James Sullivan, so far the Y-DNA has been of absolutely no help at all. We aren't even sure any more if our Sullivan is “Sullivan”, although we have a few hundred other possible surnames to pick from if he wasn't. Does anyone have any idea as to whether or not I can use the Y-DNA to any sort of advantage in finding the town land “our” Sullivans came from, or should I just ignore all the Y-DNA entirely unless I decide to pay attention to where the forebears were about 500 B.C.? ”
2 Comments
Russell Sullivan
June 9 @ 6:47pm
I was in Ardea in March (family trip). Well worth the drive. Keep plugging along. You might be the one who answers all our questions.
Terrence Sullivan
June 10 @ 12:08pm
The wife and I drove close to there a couple of weeks ago.
Joe Sullivan
June 13 @ 8:58am
Just upgraded to the Big Y...
Russell Sullivan
June 13 @ 12:14pm
Great, I hope it provides clarity. I look forward to seeing the results.
L Brent Sullivan L Brent Sullivan
June 7 @ 5:54pm
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Gary Sullivan Gary Sullivan
April 6 @ 10:30pm
Some of my matches seem to reflect the surnames of my female ancestors: O’Sullivan MacCauley Culver Reehill (O’Reilly) Daly Cronin Shanahan
Andrew Sullivan
April 14 @ 3:35pm
Gary, There are some who say that my Timothy Sullivan Ireland 1823, Rossnacaheragh townland was born a Twohig (or Touhig) and took his wife's Cath Sullivan's surname. I visited the area about two years ago and only found disbelief. Also I did not find any Twohig's in the area according to Griffiths. I know anything is possible. If I can just get one of the claimed Twohig's to take a Y test, I think things would be clearer.
John Sullivan
April 20 @ 10:10pm
Gary, where is your line from? I also have Cronin and Shanahan in my line. Bridget Cronin was my GG Gram, and Annie Marie Shanahan was my G Gram. They were both from West Durrus, around the Sheepshead Peninsula. My kit is B291072, sully7133 on ancestry, and A116075 on gedmatch.
Gary Sullivan
April 27 @ 11:09am
Hi John, My family is from Glengarriff.
William Sullivan William Sullivan
April 14 @ 10:49am
The male Sullivans that have been tested all trace back to County Cavan. The spelling of the name in the 1800s was Sorahan/Sorohan/Soraghan/Soroghan. Anyone else have the spelling? The Townland most lived in is called Denbawn/Dennbane.
Russell Sullivan
April 23 @ 8:19am
Soroghan (and its various spellings) is an Anglicized version of Ó Soracháin -- an Ulster name (of which County Cavan is a part). Some English speakers mistook (it is believed) the name for Ó Súilleabháin, thereby incorrectly translating it to O'Sullivan/Sullivan. You might want to explore that history and see if you are part of that line.
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