Exploring the Brown’s Irish DNA

AUTOSOMAL DNA AND TREES

Late in January 2023, I decided to research the Irish matches for our Brown family on MyHeritage (MH).  I like that MH allows filtering by location.  I started searching for my mom’s paternal ancestors by using the DNA of her half brother David.  If she or her full brother Charles match David’s match, the match is on their paternal side since they all share the same father. Their grandmother was Cornelia Brown, granddaughter of James S. Brown.  If a match for a known Brown descendant triangulates with David and other Brown descendants, the match is on his paternal side. Our family has well-documented DNA matches and records for many of our Brown family.

On MyHeritage (MH), I was very lucky and found some good matches for David that matched each other and also some previously known Brown matches, including some proven descendants of Thomas Smith Brown, Sr.  Work had been done recently to enable us to conclude that Thomas Smith Brown, Sr. was our James S. Brown’s father.  Another document, discusses that research.

I painted the matches on DNA Painter to get a good view of the matches on the chromosomes.  DNAPainter is a great program developed by Jonny Perl (dnapainter.com) that helps people track known matches and compare them to other matches. While I investigated each possible Irish match, I noted some names that kept appearing on various trees.  These included Wilson, O’Mahoney, Cahalane, Callahan, O’Neill, and O’Keeffe.  Where indicated, I noted the county as well.  County Cork, Ireland was well represented.

Chromosome 2 was popular for shared DNA that includes Irish matches from MH on the Brown line. This is a map from DNA Painter for my uncle David. I have removed surnames for privacy reasons. I realize this makes it a little more difficult to follow.

DNA Paint Map for Brown Connections with Irish Matches

The triangulated matches for Brown included:

-Matthew - DNA from Ancestry transferred to GedMatch (GM) - On Thomas Smith Brown, Jr. line (31.9 and 22.9 cM segments). Thomas Smith Brown, Jr. was James S. Brown’s brother per research. - Red

-Lisa - DNA from Ancestry and MH  - Thomas Smith Brown, Jr. line (74.7 cM). - Red

-Mae - 1/2 sister to David on their paternal line - James S. Brown line through his son William Erby Brown. Bluegreen

-Charles-1 - 1/2 brother to David on their paternal line - James S. Brown line through William Erby Brown. Bluegreen

-Debbie - DNA from MH - James S. Brown line through his daughter Anna Keziah Brown (21.1 cM). Green

-Carson - DNA from MH - He may be an Anderson match but not enough info yet (23.1 cM). If he is an Anderson match, the segments matching his would also be Anderson. He has a MH tree that has a McNeil in US.  Research shows perhaps a McNeil m. a Sorenson (born Anderson).  His match is interesting when compared to the other Browns. - Golden. More information is necessary to know where he fits in the family lines.

-Marilyn - DNA from MH - James S. Brown line through his daughter Albina Brown with his first wife Elizabeth Carpenter.  This DNA would be Brown DNA since the segment(s) match David (44.5 cM) and our family descends from James and his second wife, Anna Kelley. - Lavender.

-Denise - Irish Match - DNA from MH (19.5 cM). - Blue

-Simon - Irish Match - DNA from MH, no tree (24.3 cM). - Blue

-John - Irish Match - DNA from MH - It is John’s maternal side that is from Ireland (20.6 cM). Blue

There are a few other Browns painted on the diagram, but they do not match the Irish matches. They do match other descendants of James Brown so they are related.  We just don’t know how these segments tie into the family yet.

Some of the MH Irish matches were not painted on the diagram because they are related to those painted and do not add any additional segment data. These are:

-Patricia-1 - John’s sister and same segment

-Caitlin - John’s daughter and same segment

-Patricia-2 - probably John’s 1st cousin once removed and same segment

-Denis - unknown relationship but has similar names on tree

Connections Between Trees:

Jeremiah Cahalane (1870-1960) and Mary O’Mahoney (1867-?) both born County of Cork, Ireland had daughter Mary Elizabeth Cahalane, (1895 CA,USA) direct ancestor of John and his sister Patricia-1. Jeremiah and Mary’s son John Cahalane (1900, NYC, USA) is Patricia-2’s direct ancestor. (This Patricia is a cousin of John and his sister Patricia-1)  Another noteworthy connection on this tree is that Mary Elizabeth Cahalane married John Joseph Carroll. His mother is an unknown O’Neill.   

Denise (Irish) has what appears would be the same Mary O’Mahoney on her tree but doesn’t seem to know who she married. She has her on her maternal and paternal sides married to different men and not Cahalane. She has a death date of 1977.  Her O’Mahoney may be a different one than on the other trees. I suspect she just doesn’t know enough about her O’Mahoney and she is the one on the other trees because she is DNA related to the others on the same segment.

Denis (Irish) has Denis born in Cork (1904-1950). He has O’Neill, Holland, and Callanan. His Catherine Callahan from Cork married a Dullea. I hypothesize that this Catherine Callahan is on the same line as the above matches since he shares 38.9 cM with Patricia-1.

Simon does not have a tree.  He was the first Irish match I examined.  His last name shows up in other trees.  For example, John’s Tree has an unknown female with Simon’s last name whose son marries Mary Elizabeth Cahalane.  It could be that an unknown male from Simon’s family married into the Cahalane family as well.  This would account for the shared DNA on the same segment as the other Cahalane family members.  More research is necessary to prove or disprove this hypothesis.

After examining these and many other trees, the most likely shared ancestor name appears to be Cahalane, Callahan, or a version of that name. The area of Ireland is the County of Cork.

Y-DNA

One of the cousins on the William Erby Brown line (Roxanne Brown) had her father, Joe Baxter Brown, tested at FamilyTree to determine his Y-DNA origins.  Many years ago, she shared the results with our Brown family genealogists.  She had said that she was surprised by the results, which did not show him related to any other testers with the surname Brown.  He was Irish though!  Hence, my research in Ireland.

I decided to look at what she included in a family history book she wrote for her father.  On page 32, she lists surnames of O’Keefe, Casey, and Lannigan as the men having the closest DNA matches.  Only O’Keefe was close to anything I had found.  I remembered that she had sent me a link to the listing.  I found that link and went to the most recent information on FamilyTree DNA.

The excerpt below shows the FamilyTreeDNA Group for Roxanne’s father.  Look at the first group (191) in green in the chart below.  I am sure you can imagine my response when I saw the names! It appears that the groupings were updated since she wrote her book.

FamilyTree DNA Group for Joe Baxter Brown

Not only is the name Callahan/O’Callaghan but also County Cork is listed for one! If you look at close groups, you will see some other names mentioned in the research, such as Carroll and O’Mahoney.

CONCLUSION

I believe this is extremely strong support for our family being part of the Thomas Smith Brown line because of the DNA matches between my family, other known Brown family members both on the James S. Brown line and the Thomas Smith Brown, Jr. line, and the Irish matches on the Callalan/Cahalane lines.  It also proves that our family changed their name to Brown somewhere along the line.

FURTHER RESEARCH

-When did our family change their name to Brown?  That may be a harder question to answer.

-Where are the Anderson matches for Thomas Smith Brown, Sr.’s wife Margaret Anderson?  As I noted in the research above, Carson might be an Anderson descendant rather than a Brown Descendant.  The matching segments might be Anderson instead of Brown (or should I say Callahan?).

Much more research lies ahead.

Solved by Research/DNA February 1, 2023

Brown Descendant through maternal line.