The use of DNA in genealogy is a recent development. On its own it cannot pinpoint an individual ancestor, but used collectively by men who share a surname it reveals a great deal about kinship going back hundreds of years.
Y-DNA is passed from father to son almost unchanged, so it follows the direct paternal line, the same line as the surname. Two kinds of marker matter. STR markers change quickly and show how closely two men are related within the last few centuries. SNP markers are single, permanent mutations; each one marks the founder of a new branch, and together they place a family on the paternal tree of all mankind.
Several male McCorkells, McCorkles and MacCorkles have now tested, myself among them, through the McCorkle Surname DNA Study and the Little Scottish Cluster project at FamilyTreeDNA.
One family
The results show a close kinship between McCorkells in Donegal and Northern Ireland and McCorkles whose ancestors settled in colonial Pennsylvania, the Carolinas and Tennessee. Their STR results match closely enough to show a shared paternal ancestor within a genealogical timeframe, consistent with a single family that came to Ulster from Scotland and sent branches on to America.
Among them is a William McCorkle born about 1690 in Argyllshire, the earliest tester with a documented Scottish birthplace.
Our place on the tree
Several McCorkles have taken the Big Y test, which reads thousands of SNPs. Their results place the family precisely within the Little Scottish Cluster, a branch of haplogroup R-M269 whose members come overwhelmingly from Scotland. Each step down the tree below is a newer, more specific branch, and families that share more of the path share a more recent common ancestor.
What the tree shows
Our deep cousins are Lowland and Border Scots. The McKays, Barwises, Shaws and Stewarts split from our line at FGC3215, long before surnames. Barwise is a Cumberland name, from the English side of the Border.
The Mitchells are true kin. James Mitchel, born in Ireland in 1743, shares the BY71586 branch with the McCorkles. The two families descend from one man, probably around the time surnames were forming, and Mitchel's Irish origin suggests that man's descendants were already in Ulster or south-west Scotland. Curiously, the earliest McCorkell I have found in Scotland is a Mitchell Maccorkill of Kilmarnock, in 1528. That may be coincidence, but it is intriguing.
The family had already divided. Alexander McCorkle of Northern Ireland (1725–1780) sits on his own branch below BY71586, separate from the American Johns, who share BY72575 and BY156610. So there were at least two McCorkell lines by the early 1700s.
Same name, different families
The McCorquodales of Argyll and the Corkills of the Isle of Man take their names from the same Norse root, Thorketill, and I once believed McCorkell was simply a shortened McCorquodale. The DNA says otherwise. The tested McCorquodales carry haplogroup I-M253 and the Manx Corkills I-P37, entirely different branches from our R-M269. The names are related; the families are not. Several unrelated men called Torquil each gave their name to a family, and ours was one of them.
Some of my closest STR matches outside the surname are Halls from Redesdale and Alnwick in Northumberland, Border Reiver country. Their Big Y results place them on a different branch, so they are distant cousins rather than close kin. STR markers can coincide by chance; the SNP tree is the better guide.
What it means for our story
The DNA supports the documentary trail. A Norse personal name taken by a Gaelic family; a family settled in the Lowlands of Ayrshire and the Clyde by 1528; Lowland tenants brought to the Laggan by the Cunninghams of Glengarnock around 1630. It argues against the McCorkells being Highland Redshanks already living in the Laggan, and against a link to the McCorquodales or the Manx Corkills.
The Donegal line is placed by its STR markers only. A SNP test of a Donegal McCorkell would show whether we sit with Alexander McCorkle of Northern Ireland, with the American Johns, or on a branch of our own, and when we last shared an ancestor with them.
Male McCorkells, McCorkles and Mitchells are warmly invited to join the McCorkle surname study at FamilyTreeDNA.
Sources
- McCorkle Surname DNA Study, FamilyTreeDNA (familytreedna.com/public/mccorkle).
- Little Scottish Cluster Y-DNA project, FamilyTreeDNA.