FT130287. Finally moving in the right direction.

[Webmaster]

Chris,

Continued great work! And all we can do is hope the "right" men decide to WGS test in the near future.

[ChrisMcLain132906]

Thanks David!

This "man dear"/"companion dear" got my mind brewing the past hour or so and brought up one of my previous theories for Gorry: McGarry/Garry, or Mag Fhearadhaigh from Fearadhach: manly; Oldcastle-Athboy-Trim, a very popular given name.



Maybe Fraher, which I thought was an oddball outlier or NPE in FT130287 is possibly bridging two families.
Manly >Man-dear >Husband-dear., which begs the question:
Could "Fearchair" really be derived from Fearadhach? (Fearadhachair? in the same manner that Ceileach>Ceileachair? with the same "-ch" internal fricative loss as Ceileachain>Ceilea'n?)

[ChrisMcLain132906]

McLAIN 156031 BigY finished, waiting for new SNP to develop, as he is 2 generations closer to Thatcher than I am.

[Webmaster]

Chris,

It looks like The Big Tree is still active, although very sluggish, so if you can persuade McLain #FTD-156031 to upload his BigY 700 results to the YDNA Warehouse and/or YFull, that would be fantastic!
https://www.ydna-warehouse.org/

[ChrisMcLain132906]

Will do, I'll email him, hope he got the BAM file!

[ChrisMcLain132906]

A more in-depth analysis of "Gorry" & "Fraher" of FT130287. Although the sample size is too small to come to any conclusions, there are odd similarities of the variants and the root given-name. Can one be a mutation of the other? The TMRCA of FT130287 is approx 987 AD. The clade which spawned "Fraher" and "McLain" is approximately 1044 ad., both within the timeframe of early surnames. McLain is possibly a surname-change event c. 1575-1625 among a mercenary kindred, as avenues of research to prove otherwise are exhausted and might be able to be ruled out.

Although Mac Gafraigh/Mac Gothraidh (McGorry, Gorry; McCaffrey, Caffrey) is a known Breifne name associated with the O'Reillys, mostly numerous in Clankee b., Co. Cavan,but there is another large family concentrated in the area of FT130287 MDKAs, that also had a Gorry variant as well as many prefix-dependent mutations that could have possibly spawned Fraher, and that is Mac/O Fearadhaigh which may have in some way changed to or from Mac/O Fearchair.

-1. Feardaghaigh meant "manly" and was a very popular early personal name. With a Mac prefix, this surname is accepted to have been Mag Fhearadhaigh Magarry/Garahy/Garry with the aspirated f. With an O-prefix it created Farahy/Farry. However, either prefix could have created either name, as I've found several "mc Farrie" bynames in the area in fiants, and clearly the Irish did not abide by strict linguistic rules.

-2. I sometimes had the assumption that "Gorry" could have been an anglicization by way of attraction, as Mr. Gorry's MDKA came out of southern Westmeath where O'Guaire (Gwarry, Gorry; an E. Offaly surname) was numerous. However Woulfe writes that Mag Fhearadhaigh in the spoken language created the corruption O'Giorraidh (Gorry, but mostly Gurry) which sometimes was even corrupted further into O'Hair (as a girrfidh is a hare).

-3.Farraher/Fraher existed in extremely low numbers around Taghmon, Co. Westmeath, and was almost non-existent. Attributed to Fearchair ("very dear friend"/"man-dear") Extremely distant and isolated from large O'Fearchair families (Galway & Waterford), this is indicative to me of an odd mutation of another surname different than what it is attributed to, however it could just be a much smaller separate family descended from another "Fearchair". "Fearchair" coincidentally is also rooted in "Fear"(man) where a Mag-prefix would aspirate the feminine consonant. Other variants of Fearchair existed in slightly larger numbers around Athboy, Co. Meath (Farker, Farquahar, Forker, Frayker etc.; 9mi from "Farragher" in Taghmon) clearly with a harder emphasis on the internal-fricative of ch/gh where it may have dropped elsewhere (Forer?). The research by Mr. Fraher's family is really based on lore. He could have absolutely been "Farquhar/Farker/Forker" like the most numerous records suggest and migrated somewhere that this hard ch was softened.

Could Farahy become Faraher? or vice versa? As "Mag Fheardhaigh" is much more numerous over a larger geographic area, one can probably conclude that if there was a linguistic mutation it was Farahy>Faraher as all variants attributed to "Fearchair" are within the spread of "Fearadhaigh". However, as I mentioned "anglicizations by way of attraction", these types of things happened among small families anglicizing in the manner of the larger family of the area. It would also be very odd for a name to gain an internal-fricative (ch) in a period of time when names were shortening and syllables muting. It could be equally possible that Mr. Gorry is a Mag Fhearchair, & Mr. Fraher is an O'Fearchair just as likely of the names being Mag Fhearadhaigh & O'Fearadhaigh. The timeframes of FT130287 & BY9397 are approximately 3 generations of time, appropriate enough for an eponymous ancestor born in the mid 10th century to have sons spawn a "Mac" branch while grandsons spawn an "O" branch. Surnames could anglicize multiple times, especially in this area which was subjugated by the Anglo-Normans in the late 12th century, surnames had 5 centuries of anglicization before modern records where our ancestors's papertrails emerge. FT130287 could have a case of either Magarragher>Magarahy>Magarry>Garry>Gorry
or
O'Farraghy>Farrahy>Faraheer>Faraher>Fraher

This map is largely purely based on parish records & 1901 census, but also of note:
1659 Delvin b., Co. Westmeath: McGarr & Garre, 6 families of the name
1854 Griffiths for "Garry": 4 townlands in Delvin p., 1 in Collinstown, 1 in Killallon (Meath)


One thing I've noticed about the locations/tenancies of my McLains, the Garrys around Delvin, and Farquhar/Forkers of Athboy is that they were all in the vicnity of the road that ran through Collinstown, Drumcree, Castletown Delvin, and Athboy. Perhaps the surnames spawned by FT130287 are just the result of people traversing this route for the better part of a millennium