Click here to see a video of one of the more recent additions to the Gorman clan. He’s the little guy who sings the first verse and chorus, and has won a national story competition in Australia with this song he wrote about his family tree. His father is a member of the Gorman DNA Project (Lineage II). Talent obviously runs in the Gorman genes!
Maps
Click on any of the below map descriptions to see an interactive Google map of places of interest relavant to the Gorman surname variants.
You can zoom in or out by using the slider bar, and you can click on any placemark symbol to show you a description (or click on a description in the left list to take you to a placemark).
Note that the placemark locations are not meant to show the exact locations of plots of land, only the general locations of townlands, and in some instances are just rough estimates based on the information available to me. Also note that the placemarks in these maps are generally set on the present townland locations, whose boundaries have changed in many cases from the original locations.
These maps contain a large amount of data and may not display properly on all browsers and computers. If they do not work on one browser (such as Internet Explorer) and you have an alternate browser installed on your computer (such as Firefox, on which they appear to work fine), please try the other one.
Locations of Gorman households on the Griffith's Valuation in Ireland, 1855 -- Co. Clare
Locations of Gorman households on the Griffith's Valuation in Ireland, 1851-52 -- Co. Limerick
Gorman Lineage I
Haplogroup: R1b1
Apparent Place of Origin: Ireland
The only marker which differs between members G-4 and G-14 is DYS389-2. This marker has an average mutation rate, being neither unusually fast nor slow. It tends to occur on average once every 413 generations, though there is some evidence that mutation rates can vary among families. However, it is just as likely to have occurred at generation #1 as at generation #413, so there is no way of knowing how long ago these two project members shared a common ancestor, and we can only estimate probabilities. Considering that all the other markers matched, including some notoriously fast-mutating markers, and that they share a surname, it is highly likely that they shared a recent common ancestor.
Within haplogroup R1b, DYS389-2 = 29 is the modal value, occurring in about 80% of the people in this haplogroup. DYS392-2 = 28 is far more uncommon, occurring in only about 9% of R1b. I believe it is likely that member G-14 is closest to the original (ancestral) haplotype, and member G-4 represents a more recent mutation, though this is only speculation, as mutations (and back mutations) can happen at any time.
I recommend that both of these project members upgrade their testing to 67 markers, to see if the tight relationship will hold up to closer scrutiny. While it is highly unlikely that such an upgrade will change the lineage grouping of these members or lead to more matches appearing in their list of Y-DNA matches, information on additional mutations within the lineage can be very valuable for refining the degree of relatedness.
Gorman Lineage II
Haplogroup: R1b1b2a1b
Apparent Place of Origin: Ireland
Lineages are not generally declared in this project until a 23/25 match is observed. However, in this instance, there is another important consideration. All members of Gorman Lineage II have the exceedingly rare DYS392=11 mutation. Although this mutation is quite common (in fact being the modal value) in some haplogroups, such as I, J2, and R1a, it is almost never found in R1b (click here to see its frequency distribution in R1b). Because it is common in haplogroups I and J2, Gorman project members such as G-8, G-10, and G-13 should not read any significance in their possessing this mutation. However, any R1b members who possess it may potentially be quite strongly related, provided they match on most of the remaining markers.
All of the project members who I have assigned to Gorman Lineage II are either confirmed or predicted R1b haplogroup members, and all share this rare DYS392=11 mutation.
Comparing G-19 with G-22, these two members are a 61/67 match. This is not an especially tight match at first glance. Using its rules of thumb, FTDNA does not technically consider these members to be a match at either the 12-marker or 37-marker level, though they do show up as a Genetic Distance=2 match at the 25-marker testing level, and they do show up as a GD=6 at the 67-marker level.
This is a perfect example of how 12-marker testing can lead to misleading results. Had these two members stopped testing at 12 markers, they would have appeared so distant that there would have seemed to be almost no possibility that they are related, and FTDNA would classify them as “Not Related.” At the 25-marker level, FTDNA considers them “Probably Related.” At the 37-marker level, FTDNA labels them “Not Related," but they are back to being classified as "Related" at the 67 marker level! This is a case where it is important to consider the nature of the individual mutational differences between them, and other factors.
Of the markers that differ between these two members, CDYb, DYS536, and DYS439 would all be considered “fast-mutating” markers. The first 2 of these are particularly volatile. It is therefore very possible that these mutations occurred relatively recently in time.
The remaining two markers, DYS389-1 and DYS389-2 are a special type of marker whose results are linked. The value for DYS389-2 actually includes the value for 389-1, so if there is a mutation shown for DYS389-1, then DYS389-2 will include the same mutation (but not necessarily vice versa, so this does not affect the results of this marker discussed above for Gorman Lineage I). This situation is described in detail on SMGF’s website. Therefore, in this lineage, although these appear to be two separate mutations in the results table, they are in fact duplicate notations for the same mutation. For that reason, and to avoid confusion, I have not notated the DYS389-2 mutation as a separate color in this lineage. The mutation rate for this marker has a slow mutation rate, and is more likely to have occurred long ago than the faster markers. Mutation rate, however, is simply a statistical tool, and again, a mutation can happen at any time.
These project members share three other uncommon mutations. DYS447=26 occurs in about 11% of R1b haplogroup members. GATA H4 = 12 occurs in about 9% of R1b. DYS607=16 occurs in 14% of R1b. Although these are not sufficiently rare, exampined separately, to conclude common ancestry, they do, when taken into consideration along with the extremely rare DYS392=11 value, confer strong support to the idea that these members are related.
Putting aside DNA evidence for a moment, there is another layer of evidence to support the common ancestry of these two members. Member G-22’s earliest known ancestors lived at about the same time as member G-19’s earliest known ancestors, and both ancestral families lived in a small area of County Tipperary, Ireland, near the towns of Clogheen and Kilbeheny. They lived within less than 10 miles of each other! They belong to a local concentration of Gormans who likely migrated to Co. Tipperary from western Co. Clare, possibly in the 1700’s, and who probably originated as the surname MacGorman (Mac Gormáin) (barring the possibility of any “non-paternal events”--see the introduction on the project’s home page) in the barony of Slievemargy, Co. Laois, sometime around the 8th century A.D. These historical migrations, as they apply to Gorman Lineage II, are largely speculation though (based on the known origins of the Gorman surname), and are at present not supported by any DNA evidence.
Member G-24 was tested by SMGF, and does not presently have any results at FTDNA, so you will not see him listed as a match on your FTDNA results pages. However, many of SMGF's markers tested overlap with FTDNA's 67-marker panel, so he can still be directly manually compared with other project members. Because he shares the rare DYS392=11 mutation with some R1b haplogroup project members, he is a strong candidate for inclusion in Gorman Lineage II. The marker values that he shares with the other members of this lineage appear to confirm this placement, and so I have assigned him to this lineage. It is informative to note that markers 439 and 389-1, which differed between members G-19 and G-22, are identical between G-19 and G-24. This observation adds a degree of cohesion to this family lineage (to loosely borrow an analogy common in mathematical theorems, if A is related to B, and B is related to C, then A must be related to C).
Considering G-24's individual marker value differences from other lineage members, DYS458, 459a, 464, and 439 are all fast-mutating markers, so none of those markers is overly likely to separate this member from this lineage. DYS441 and 389-1 are the only two slow-mutating markers of his that differ from other Lineage II members. Of those two markers, his DYS389-1 = 13 value is shared with members G-19 and G-25. That leaves only DYS441 as the only relatively-significant difference from other project members. Because only one other member has tested that marker yet though, it is impossible to say what that mutation's place is within the lineage as a whole.
Note added 2 October 2008:
I just completed a careful analyses of all DYS392=11 mutation bearers in every major geographical DNA project that I’ve examined. I’ve identified a total of 79 people, worldwide, within the R1b haplogroup (and subclades), who bear this mutation. Considering that tens of thousands of R1b people have been tested, it is clear that this represents an extremely rare mutation for R1b, occurring in less than one-half of one percent of that major haplogroup.
Among the non-Gorman-Lineage-II people who possess this mutation, I have not been able to identify any noteworthy grouping of markers that link them with the Gormans, other than the common modal markers that tend to occur in most R1b’s. In other words, the non-Gormans within R1b who possess this mutation appear to have developed this mutation independently (convergently), and are of no close relation to any Gormans. Therefore, I conclude that within this Gorman lineage, this mutation is a “private mutation” that possibly originated relatively recently (within several centuries).
Including the above mutation, there are three unusual mutations that appear to define this Gorman lineage, when these mutations are all taken as a group. In increasing frequency of occurrence within R1b, these are:
(1) DYS392=11 (<0.5% of R1b) (as discussed above)
(2) GATA-H4=12 (9% of R1b) (mentioned earlier in this discussion page)
(3) DYS447=26 (11% of R1b) (mentioned earlier in this discussion page)
(4) DYS607=16 (14% of R1b)
I have not yet identified any individual within R1b who possesses any more than two of these mutations simultaneously, and even two of them occurring simultaneously is exceedingly rare. All four of them, occurring simultaneously, appear to never occur outside of Gorman Lineage II, and so in my opinion this grouping may be considered the “signature” of Gorman Lineage II, provided that the majority of the remaining markers are a match. Statistically speaking, it is possible that this grouping of four mutations could occur by chance in an individual outside of this Gorman lineage, but the probability would be exceedingly remote (perhaps something on the order of less than one chance in 250,000).
Note added 17 October 2007:
I spoke to Darren Marin at Family Tree DNA today regarding some of the markers in this lineage, and he is of the opinion that the various differences shown in markers CDYa and CDYb among project members G-19, G-22, and G-9 represent a single-step mutation that falls under the Infinite Allele model. Due to the way this multi-copy marker is displayed in the results table (the values for these two markers are always simply displayed in ascending numerical order), it may make it seem that there are more mutations at this locus than there are in this lineage. The "37" values, even though they are in different columns in the results table, actually should be considered to match up with each other, and the only difference is likely the "39" value for member G-19, compared with the "36" value for the remianing project members. Due to the highly volatile nature of this marker, Darren believes that this jump from 36 to 39 occurred in a single mutation, and it is therefore only counted as a GD=1. I have re-colorized the mutations for this marker in this lineage to better illustrate this conclusion.
Darren also concurs with me that the members of this lineage are likely related within a genealogical time frame (perhaps 300-600 years), despite the fact that they do not all show up on each others' Y-DNA match lists at FTDNA.
Gorman Lineage III
Haplogroup: R1b1b2
Apparent Place of Origin: Ireland
As of the time of this writing, there are two members who belong to this lineage (G-1 and G-2), and they are a 34/37 match. Following FTDNA's relatedness criteria, these members are "related." Of the three markers that differ between them, DYS456 and CDYb are known to be fast-mutating markers, actually among the fastest-known Y-STR markers.
CDYb is a particularly volatile marker, and both of the values for this marker shown by these two project members (17 or 18) are common results for a member of haplogroup R1b and its subclades.
Therefore, either of these two mutations could potentially have happened relatively recently, and the observation that these two members differ at those two loci does not necessarily imply that there is a lot of relational distance between them.
Despite it fast mutation rate, the DYS456=18 value shown for member #G-2 is very uncommon, occurring in only about 2% of R1b haplogroup members.
The remaining marker, DYS460, is considered a slow-mutating marker. It suggests that there may be some distance between these two project members. However, a mutation can happen at any time, even for a slow-mutating marker, and the fact that this is the only slow-moving marker that differs between these members suggests the possibility that they could share a relatively recent common ancestor.
The DYS460=12 result shown by member #G-2 is also fairly uncommon, occurring in about 6% of R1b members.
The relative rarity of member G-2's marker values for DYS456 and DYS460 makes those markers a useful diagnostic for comparison against other people in this Gorman lineage, should any more join the project or be "promoted" to this lineage. Any members of this leneage who share those markers (provided that almost all of the remaining markers match as well) will be likely to be particularly closely related to member G-2.
The only way to refine the estimated degree of relationship for this lineage's members would be for them to upgrade to 67 markers, which I highly recommend.
Project members G-5 and G-6, who were previously tentatively color-grouped with G-1 and G-2 in the unassigned section of the results chart, have now been removed from that grouping, as they have not tested enough markers to be certain that they are part of this lineage. I recommend that both of those members upgrade to at least 37 markers, or preferably 67, so that their placement in the results chart can be determined more accurately.
Not Yet Assigned to a Lineage
The project members in this section either currently have no matches, or have only tentative matches due to the fact that they are grouped with people who have only done an inconclusive 12-marker test.
While upgrading to additional markers will not likely increase the number of matches that any 12-marker testees have (a possible exception is people who have a mutation within their first 12 markers, as noted above in the example for Gorman Lineage II), it will help them to evaluate their place in the project, and will help them greatly in evaluating any future matches that join the project. The field of genetic genealogy is growing very rapidly, and new Gormans are certain to join the project in the near future.
I highly recommend that all 12-marker testees upgrade to either 37 or 67 markers. If you are still unclear about what benefits this will confer to you, I can personally evaluate your existing test results and give you my advice. Please feel free to e-mail me, using my e-mail link in the gray box below.
Note added 27 August 2008:
I carefully examined the mutation frequency distributions for the first 12 markers for all project members who are in the "Not Yet Assigned to a Lineage" section. Although some of you have some rather uncommon mutations in those markers (which would account for the small number of 12-marker matches that some of you have on your results page at FTDNA), none of them are what I would consider to be sufficiently rare that they would justify declaring a new lineage the way I did with Gorman Lineage II. We'll need to wait until more project members upgrade their testing before we can confidently define any new Gorman lineages. In the meantime, any of those groups of two or three project members who are grouped together as the same color in this section need to be careful to consider those subgroupings to be tentative, and they could change when upgrade results come in.
Those of you who have tons of matches on your 12-marker results section at FTDNA... This may simply mean that you have many of the most common (modal) marker values in your haplogroup, so you just happen to match a lot of people who are unrelated to you. This underscores the importance of upgrading your testing, so you can weed out the true relatives!
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I welcome any discussion of these topics, including any debate that anybody might have with these findings, in the Gorman forum for this project. I will periodically revise the information presented here with any new information that I obtain from discussions with project members, or through my own analyses of new member results.
Historical Discussion on the Origins of the Gorman Surname, and Early Migrations
An understanding of the distribution of Gorman DNA haplotypes would be well-served by an understanding of the historical settlement and migration patterns of the Gormans and their progenitors. I am beginning this discussion with the Irish origins of the Gorman surname, simply because that is the branch with which I am familiar, and because it appears to be the ancestry of the majority of the current project members. I would however welcome any discussion on Gorman (or any other surname variant) lineages from other countries, and would be happy to add such discussion to this page.
I make no claims whatsoever to be an expert on Irish history, and I am simply presenting the following discussion based on various sources that I have consulted (cited at the end of this section), most notably the excellent work “Uí Bairrche (Leinster): Origins and History.” I invite any and all comments, corrections, or discussions, in the forum topic that I have set up for this purpose. See the topic titled “Gorman surname origins and early migrations”…
…or else feel free to contact me personally via the e-mail link in the gray box at the bottom of this page. I will periodically make revisions to the following discussion based on input from project members and forum participants.
The earliest historically-traceable roots of the Gorman surname in Ireland appear to have originated sometime during the earliest centuries of the first millennium A.D. At that time, there was not yet a Gorman surname, but rather a tribe of associated families called the Uí Bairrche. The tribe is descended from Cathair (Cahir) Mór, King of Leinster in the early 2nd century, and his son Dáire Barraig, for whom the Uí Bairrche were named. They appear to have originated in what is now South Wexford, in the baronies of Forth and Bargy. These original Uí Bairrche are said to have been related to the Brigantes tribe of northern Britain. By 854 A.D. (and possibly beginning around 500 A.D.), they appear to have been distributed into two major groups, the Uí Bairrche Maighe (in Co. Laois, Carlow, and Kildare), and Uí Bairrche Tíre (Co. Wexford).
By the 10th century A.D., the Uí Bairrche had predominantly settled in the barony of Slievemargy, in southeastern Co. Laois (formerly Queens Co.) and immediately adjacent areas in Co. Carlow and Kilkenny. I have indicated the location of Slievemargy with a green house icon on the Gorman DNA Project map, along with an icon for the earlier Uí Bairrche settlement in South Wexford.
One of the primary families that represented the Uí Bairrche in Slievemargy was the Mac Gormáin (MacGorman) clan, whose surname the Uí Bairrche adopted when that the practice of using surnames came into use (around the time of Brien Boru, 1st King of Ireland). These Mac Gormáins have been stated to be kings of the Uí Bairrche, or alternately, Lords of Slievemargy. There was an early reference, in 590 A.D., of a “Burchardus Gurmundi” (a.k.a. “O Gormagheyn, duke of Slieve Margi and Leinster”), who may be the same person as a King Gormundus who invaded England around 593 A.D. There is also a reference to a “Macraith, son of Gorman, son of Treasach, lord of Ui-Bairrche” in 1042 A.D. Shortly thereafter, there are references of death dates in 1103 A.D. for a “Muirchertach Mac Gormán,” and 1124 A.D. for a “Muireadhach Mac Gormáin, lord of Uí Bairrche, and the chief old hero of Leinster.” These early-12th century Mac Gormáins were the first documented people to use a recognized Gorman surname variant as a surname. Elsewhere there is an a similar reference to the Uí Bairrche king Gormáin, son of Echach, and later a king Gormáin, son of Muircherdaig, both supposedly of the same patrilineal lineage.
When the Normans invaded Ireland in 1169 A.D., the Mac Gormáins were driven out of Slievemargy. They migrated to Owney (Uaithné), in Co. Limerick, and then on to Co. Clare,. There, their chief was granted residence, by the ruling O’Briens of Thomond, at the barony of Ibrickan, where they became marshals of the O’Briens’ army. There is a castle called Cahermurphy, in ruins today, located in Castlepark townland, Kilmihil Parish, where the Mac Gormáins lived. This castle, and the migration there from Slievemargy, are indicated on the project map with another line and green house icon.
Other branches of these Mac Gormáins migrated at that time to Co. Monaghan and Co. Meath (also indicated with green house icons on the project map).
During the era of the Penal Laws in Ireland, the use of the Irish surname prefixes was outlawed, and all the Mac Gormáins (MacGormans) in Ireland all became known as Gormans. In 17th-century Co. Clare, many of the Gormans refused to convert to Protestantism, and rather than lose their Catholic religion, they abandoned their collectively-held lands and migrated east, primarily to Co. Tipperary, where there are today concentrations of Gormans and O’Gormans.
When these restrictions were later relaxed in the late 17th - early 18th century, leading up to the Catholic Emancipation in 1829, many Gormans began to revert their surnames to the ancestral form, but the MacGorman spelling had been out of use for so long that is was largely forgotten, and the name was mistakenly recreated as “O’Gorman,” except in a small area of Co. Monaghan, where the anglicized MacGorman (McGorman) spelling is still used today. Presently, the Gorman and O’Gorman spellings are both common in Ireland, though one spelling or the other often tends to be more concentrated in different regions. Despite the spelling variants, Gorman and O’Gorman represent the same name, and are often used interchangeably from one record to another, even within the same family, and should not be looked upon as different branches of the surname, except perhaps where it is suspected to have independently originated in other countries (e.g., Scotland or England). Determining whether these branches in other countries do indeed have independent origins is one the main focal points of the Gorman DNA Project.
The historical distributions of the Gormans can be readily seen in the many Irish place names that are variations of the name Gorman. I’ve mapped 35 such places on the project map (indicated with blue flag markers). Most of these locations are geographical subdivisions known in Ireland as “townlands.” The townlands in Ireland were first referenced in Ireland the 11th century, but were mainly named in the 16th and 17th century, with refinement of their boundaries continuing into the mid-19th century, perhaps giving a clue as to when many of these townlands may have been settled by Gormans. I mapped them here for two purposes: (1) To provide clues as to the historical distribution of the Gormans in Ireland, and (2) so that people who have known ancestors in a locality can see if there is a nearby Gorman townland in that locality, perhaps hinting at a possible residence place for their ancestors.
Seán MacGorman Powell
Administrator, The Gorman DNA Project
References:
Uí Bairrche (Leinster): Origins and History
The Genealogy of the Gorman Family of Saginaw and Ingham Counties, Michigan
The Bowles of Ballickmoyler, Co. Laois [maps of Slievemargy]
The O’Gorman Family of County Clare, Ireland
The O’Gormans of Canada and County Clare, Ireland
Griffiths Valuation of Ireland: Barony of Ibrickan [map]
The History and Topography of the County of Clare: Family of MacGorman
Antiquities Near Miltown Malbay: Cahermurphy, Kiltumper, and the O’Gormans
Thanks also to Stephen P. Gorman for some info presented here from my discussions with him on the Co. Clare Gormans.
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