Page 13 - O Mahony Society Newsletter December 2024_Neat

Tree DNA. In fact much of this analysis would not be possible if it weren’t for those members of the project
who’ve already done this testing. A common refrain throughout this paper is that we need better data and
I’d encourage all participants to upgrade their DNA testing if they haven’t already done so.

In the previous paper, I was able to use the geographic location of participants’ earliest known paternal
ancestor to associate each haplogroup with a region to better understand how each branch of the family
might fit into Mahony history. When examining the data for the participants who have joined the project
since 2017, only 8 of the 104 provided a location for their paternal ancestor that was precise enough to map
to the civil parish level, so there wasn’t much new data to add to the previous analysis. I know many of our
members don’t have that information (that’s probably why many of them joined the project!), but for those
that do, adding that information would help in future research.
I look forward to the day when we can say with confidence that, if your family has a certain SNP, then you
will know without a doubt that you descend from one ancient Mahony or another. I don’t think we are too
far off from that.
Special thanks to John Mahoney, late administrator of the O Mahoney DNA Project, and his wife Mary Ann
who made this paper possible.

SOURCES
Bennet, Gwynneth O’Mahony (2023) “O’Mahony by Name: Dalcassian by Descent”, The O Mahony Journal. No. 46.
McCarthy, Nigel (2021) Phylogenetic Alignments with Genealogies of Descent from Ailill Ólom, https://mccarthydna.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/ailill-olom-progeny-
alignment-2021-04-14.pdf, accessed 07 Mar 2024.
O’Mahony, J (1913) History of the O'Mahony septs of Kinelmeky and Ivagha. Guy & Co. Ltd., Cork.
O’Mahony Surname Project, https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/omahonysurnameproject,accessed 13 Feb 2024.
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