New feature (Group Time Tree) reveals early success of the Ryan Clan of Tipperary

FTDNA recently introduced a new feature that Project Administrators have been asking for for quite some time. It is called the Group Time Tree and (like Alex Williamson's Big Tree), this one has surnames of all Big-Y-tested individuals, together with their surname, their MDKA (Most Distant Known Ancestor), and the specific downstream branch of the Tree of Mankind on which they sit. But in addition, it includes the most advanced TMRCA estimates (Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor) for each branch in the Tree. In other words, it has a user-friendly Timeline. And this is something that has been missing from other versions of the Tree of Mankind.

This new feature incorporates the vastly improved age estimates for each of the various branches within the "genetic family tree" and this allows us to see (with a lot greater precision) how closely any two groups within the project are related to each other. And indeed it can even show how all the groups in the project are related to each other - see the diagram here, which shows (not surprisingly) that everyone within the project shares a common ancestor who passed down the SNP marker M168 and lived about 63,000 years ago (around the time when the ancestors of present-day non-Africans first emerged from the African continent).

But it really begins to provide potentially-useful genealogical data when we start looking at the branching structure WITHIN a particular group, and seeing how individual group members are related to each other within the last 1000 years (i.e roughly since the advent of surnames).

Group 2 - the Ryan's of Tipperary

This is the largest group within the project, currently boasting 132 members. Of these, over 40 of them have done the Big Y test. Previous analyses (here) suggest that this group are the descendants of the the Ryan clan of Tipperary. 

The overarching SNP marker for Group 2 appears to be M756 because most of the men in Group 2 named Ryan fall under this branch. In addition, TMRCA estimates indicate that the common ancestor who passed on this SNP marker to all the people in Group 2 would have lived about 949 AD (95%CI 695-1158) - see here. This date of 949 AD is consistent with the approximate timescale for the emergence of surnames in Ireland (roughly 900-1250 AD) and suggests that the Ryan surname was one of the earlier ones to emerge.

Figure 1: Group 2 - the Ryan's of Tipperary ... see the full diagram here
(click to enlarge)

However, one of the most striking features of this "genetic family tree" is that several distinct branches of the Ryan clan emerged relatively shortly after the surname became established and these thrived to the extent that there are living descendants today (many surname lines go extinct over the course of time so it is fairly unusual to see several prominent surviving groups within the clan).

The clan initially split into two major branches:

1. BY80957 ... the estimated TMRCA (Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor) is 1163 AD 
• the 95% Confidence Interval around this central estimate is 893-1375 ... see https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/R-BY80957/scientific
• a descendant of this branch subsequently underwent a surname switch to Cannady / Kennedy 
• this switch happened some time prior to about 1700 (which is when the common ancestor for the current Cannady test-takers lived ... see here)
2. FTT85 ... TMRCA = 1015 AD (95% CI 761-1222) ... see here

Below FTT85, several surviving branches formed within a relatively short space of time:

• FTB92093 ... TMRCA 1053 AD (95% CI 616-1377) see here here
• this has 7 descendants who have tested
• the Mulryan surname is present in this group
• FTT86 ... TMRCA 1046 AD (95% CI 781-1260) see here
• there are 19 test-takers on this branch
• of the 4 main sub-branches the largest is the PH3275 branch below 
• PH3275 ... TMRCA 1094 AD (95% CI 770-1345) see here
• this has 7 members, including a sub-branch BY93729 on which sits a descendant of the Ryan's of Scarteen
• FTT87 ... TMRCA 1077 AD (95% CI 601-1422) see here

This new Group Time Tree is a great visual representation of how the various branches of the Ryan Clan of Tipperary are related to each other. It also shows how several major branches were formed in the 11th century and survived to the present day.

It will be interesting to see if additional extensive lineages can be identified and tested in order to fill out further detail on the "genetic family tree".

Maurice Gleeson

Jan 2023