Page 49 - The Ancestry of Francis Bryan (1770-1863)

CHAPTER FOUR: FRANCIS' FATHER
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT FRANCIS’ ANCESTRY
As I mentioned in the Introduction to this book, another Francis Bryan descendant, Larry Bryan, had already discovered the name of Francis' father. It is Thomas Bryan.
THE BRYANS COME FROM IRELAND
First it should be stated that Francis’ YDNA ancestry comes from Ireland, from the counties just north and west of Dublin. Our cousin Larry Bryan and my brother Richard Bryan both show a close YDNA match with a Paul O’Brien from County Meath and a Luke O'Brien from County Cavan on Family Tree DNA (FTDNA), one of the few sites that tests YDNA. Big Y testing on FTDNA is proving that this region of Ireland contains our closest Bryan ancestors.
The maps on the next two pages trace the origin of my brother Richard's haplogroup, R-FGC78017, to the regions west and north of Dublin. These include County Cavan and County Meath. The ancestral name was likely O'Brien. We also show a strong connection to men who descend from Rileys, Reillys and O'Reilleys.
According to FTDNA, our Bryans are descendants of King Niall of the Nine Hostages. There is controversy about that lineage. From Wikipedia:
Early in 2006, geneticists at Trinity College, Dublin suggested that Niall may have been the most fecund male in Irish history. Of their Irish sample, the geneticists found that 21 percent of men from north-western Ireland,
8 percent from all of Ireland, a substantial percentage of men from western and central Scotland, and about 2 percent of men from New York bore the same Y- chromosome haplotype.
The geneticists estimated that about 2–3 million men bear this haplotype. Moore et al. concluded that these men descend from "a single early-medieval progenitor" and proposed that this could be Niall.
However, geneticists today do not believe that the haplotype presented in the Moore paper represents descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages as Niall, being possibly mythical, does not have verifiable remains that can be tested.
Furthermore, the paper examined only 17 STR loci, which are not a reliable means of verifying descent, as SNPs, which define haplogroups and subclades, would be.
37