DNA: Blood of the Irish; Basque; Black Irish; Co. Clare bones genealogy IF#153

[Applause] welcome home it's Irish family history with curious news and notes celebrating our fourth year of this podcast at the Irish roots cafe where every day is a holiday and there's always room for one more one of six broadcast series from the head school at Irish roots calm I'm Micah Laughlin your host publisher of rare Irish books and information on every county in Ireland since 1978 be sure to read our blog complete with links to click on from this podcast and search our master index and books for free molly wet the tea Katie bar the door sweeney clear that floor and bring out the Irish dancers it's time we get this show on the road well here we are at the cafe today and like I promised you we've got another special guest interview that's going to take over our format today and I looked high and low for this one and it's all about Irish blood now you might think that could be a war movie or a mob movie but remember we're genealogists here so this is going to have a lot to do with DNA we've got a special guest today like I said and that's is lots lotta hellos a lot - how are you I'm very good thank you for having me well before we get into the details of Irish blood could you tell us a little bit about since well everybody here is a family researcher just about could you tell us a little bit about your family history and your Irish connection okay certainly I'm I'm originally from Bosnia I was born in Sarajevo in Bosnia Herzegovina and some almost 30 years ago and I've been living in Ireland because of the war and everything that's happened in my part of the world I've ended up leaving Bosnia moving to France moving to Island 15 years ago so I've been now here pretty much half of my life I studied in Oxford in the UK I did some studies in genetics and social anthropology and some time ago was taken on as a researcher and a production manager on the production blood of the Irish which we're talking about today well I tell you what that must be you've got to be a really a real expert to get that position and you know I'm looking at one thing and you know your great-grandchildren might end up changing their name to max Phillip because your name is Phillip ovitch well US researchers into genealogy have seen that happen a time or two where people would chop their name up and just shorten it and we have a heck of a time finding out who the real family is so if you if you might keep the word passed on it would be helpful for them to keep the original spelling yeah I hope so I mean it is it is incredibly interesting and particularly for certain places it's made me realize how certain parts of the world are much better in allowing their genealogists and and people interested in history some kind of access to information and in certain other places which is kind of where I come from are going would be much much harder for somebody like myself to trace my family background so it's got to make me realize how different places in the world really treats their ancestry treat their genealogies in different ways well and how lucky we are to have DNA which is really a like a wildcard savior for a lot of researchers indeed indeed again it goes way back beyond beyond those records as well so now if a person comes up to you and says well what is DNA anyway how do you give them a short answer oh that's that's an interesting because you could get started getting all kind of technical yes a lot of times I'll tell people trying to get it very simple and very symbolic I'll say well everybody has a series in numbers and say your great-grandfather was a 1 2 3 4 well his son might have something might have happened and his his number might have been changed to 1 2 4 4 and therefore you're gonna trace back to that little change and that's going to tell you where your family might have originated exactly yeah we sort yeah we use that we use the kind of phrase genetic marker it's kinda a little flag poster gets yet that that happens you know in involuntarily it happens you know for for no reason it happens because of chance and then gets just passed on down generation little kind of genetic marker a little signpost now what did you go to different countries or just research different countries records we were basically and we were looking we were relying heavily on the research that was done in Trinity College in Dublin and they have a fantastic genetics department it's headed by um professor Dan Bradley and they had actually looked into sort of the population genetics of Ireland and had already done an impressive amount of work which was really revealing into it and in some stages they were looking at surnames pretty looking into surnames of Northwest Island and they were looking at this hegemony hegemony effect which originally was observed with kangaskhan in Central Asia but then there was a sort of a similar effect that was taking place in in North West Island and explain what that means it means that it was discovered that a particular genetic signature was shared by an awful lot of men now one of the things that's you know I as a girl if I was always kind of slightly slightly angry that so much more information gets to be found out through the Y chromosome so that the the ancestor ancestral lines traced through men actually give us more information and so the particular effect that was happening in the North West of Ireland is that it was discovered that a lot of men in that region seemed to have a same genetic signature which would imply that sometime way back in the past they would have had the same the same ancestor did they would they would all be could be traced back to one man now combini' surname records some historical research the fact that surnames were introduced relatively early in Ireland compared to a lot of other places and we it was postulated by by as a combination between the genetics department and the history department of Trinity College Dublin that there's one man who lived around fifth century AD ad was extremely powerful man usually powerful men would have been the ones who would have had more wives no is that it was that an O'Neill that that was yeah that was a Niall of the Nine Hostages so if an O'Neill clan which then leads us to many different surnames which still today live in that part of part of Island now do you remember that they were saying it in a particular area there was a mean it was astounding like six out of ten or or more were descended from this one man exactly it's a particularly strong signature in in that part of the world and now the other thing I remember you'll have to double-check me on this now I'm talking to an expert that's always helpful everybody talks about r1b if you have that in your DNA then you're like at the oldest part of the Irish traceable line from around the Ice Age yeah that was I mean that has then you know one of the things about genetics and genetics research is that it's ever evolving so our 1b was a sort of that the prime name used for for this kind of Y chromosome group a genetic group in in that was extremely strong in Ireland but then it has also then further been developed I mean if you want to keep updating yourself you could keep adding more other groups that were discovered one another one was called m22 to do all these various different signatures so there is there is definitely a kind of an Irish specific thing and as far as the research can tell now and it was also found out that that particular signature which is Irish seems to align itself most closely and with the genetic signature coming from the Basque region so that was an interesting thing as well that emerged from the research and it was a kind of a cross European research that that led to that obviously pretty college again were heavily involved so it's a it's been it's it's you know it's an ever evolving sort of story so the latest we had was that there was potentially a kind of an alignment with the Basque region that probably is because the survivors those who were during the last ice age does the human population of Europe was very small and managing only to survive in one strip of Europe which was in northern Spain and southern France which is where we today find these amazing caves with prehistoric art which was where these ancestor survives or hiding essentially from and surviving and when the ice melted they took off started populating Europe moving further up north eventually making their way to island but because island was remained quite isolated as an island that early imprints that early genetic imprint that came in that initial wave remained relatively strong and which is why those still living in that part of the world which today corresponds to the modern day in Basques is similar to the one that we have in Ireland which were those original Irish some 8,000 years ago well yes and you know that's interesting because some people had theorized that I think it was based on language that the Basques were related to the Irish but it had never really been proven and so the DNA really helps reinforce that theory yeah I mean I think the language all those things it's always very hard to talk about this and one always has to be quite careful and how these different strands because also one of the things that you know us as social beings today we always kind of tend to jump towards you know links that we feel today and and and it's very much being related to culture or sometimes in politics so it's it's an always a tricky one to try and navigate and try and sort of say okay well this is what the genetic research is saying we need to be looking at a completely different set of tools to be looking into languages or into um you know tools or you know pottery or whatever all kind of its it's a it's an easy one to get excited and start making quickly links between all these different things because it's so much nicer to be able to explain something in one of one fell swoop yo they're doing that with stone tools in Europe and then stone tools in America too they're trying to make links based on the flint knapping and things like that what do you think how about did you do any have any connections with the Vikings and what role they might have played in Ireland Irish settlement yeah we were we we kind of one of the things that because there's so many so many different stories and you could make a kind of a 10-hour series on trying to look at everything so the Viking connection we sort of touched very very lightly upon because it appears that it really didn't leave a very strong effect or as sort of the strongest imprint is that one of these early settlers and the ones that would have been the the sort of arisen from the from the guys hiding him they in the caves in South of France in northern Spain so the the Viking link see it seems to have some effect in central island and but it it really isn't a very strong percentage the strongest one is that early early Irish one yes and that surprised a lot of people - did you do any recent Ruiz like say in northern Africa no we didn't and we were kind of relying again on some of these and the Trinity College studies and they were looking you know that there is sort of this gradient um across the whole of Europe which is looking at anywhere from Turkey over to island and it's that r1b that we were mentioning earlier so that was looking at a kind of more European wide but we we personally as a series in the research that we put into it and didn't didn't look further beyond that we were kind of we were looking at some of more kind of individual stories as well I mean the story of people in the West and in the sort of Connemara region and particularly you know this this sort of connection that people feel to words and because of the fact that the people in the West of Ireland tend to have this more kind of darker skin darker hair dark curly hair and it was always thought that this was some kind of an armada connection from Spanish sailors and so we actually went around the west of Ireland and spoke to individuals just on the street just to get kind of a feel from from people and they were mostly saying yes yes indeed we do have here my phobia looks and yes I think it's from the Armada and then what we look at is is it's actually would be something much much older than their mother and mother wouldn't have had that kind of strong and effect from yes from my research that you might have had three or four people survived and a couple of places from the Armada but most of when they were found if they lived they were executed on the spot by the British authorities because they were at war yeah or even if they had sometimes somehow survived and got married and had some children it wouldn't have led to the whole region today you know having Evie come from from from those few men so that's just kind of quite hard to postulate yeah it's just another theory of the black Irish and people are ready to fight to the death over the the meaning of the word word I found over the years now were you personally surprised by any specific thing that you found out or that you experienced during this research when we were quite excited by one thing which was really the first time this had been done in Ireland was that we we managed to get an extraction of ancient DNA so this is a kind of a very hard it's a very hard thing to achieve because we basically there were bones of a child from the Bronze Age period that were found in caves and County Clare and the child was the very in a very ceremonial way so it must have been some kind of an important child or must have been a very sort of a ritualistic burial and we were quite sort of excited to have been a part of working with the archaeologist was working in that area and to extract to managed first of all to achieve to extract ancient DNA most of the time ancient DNA after you know you know thousands of years does actually deteriorate it was just from a tooth or a bone it was from yeah it was from the tooth and to be quite quite quite good it was what like was tooth and and there was a fibula as well child's fibula so we managed to get some DNA and then the child was we only managed to get a sort of mitochondrial DNA so that's a different kind of group that that's allowing greater groups it's not as specific as getting a nuclear DNA but the mitochondrial DNA was revealing that the child was belonging to a particular mitochondrial DNA group grouping and then we were actually looking at working with kid I had to try and make a connection so there were kids there who were you know um suddenly discovered to have had a link with the child you know partially from 3,000 years ago so it was it was it was a it was a sort of a nice little thing but it was very nice for us to be kind of part of research and actually getting the first ancient DNA out in from from an Irish bone now is it true that there there's a lot there's a lot more evidence of humans in Great Britain Britain than there is in Ireland in Engler is it yeah there's definitely an older I mean that there have been bones found in the caves in Wales and I mean literally we were also filming in Wales I mean there's poor Wales where you can almost they say that on a clear day you can actually see the coast of Ireland so it's incredibly close yet the bones they're the sort of earliest bones and earliest sort of remnants of human settlement in Ireland only take us back as far as 8,000 years ago where it's in the you UK in Wales there are seven hundred thousand year olds so we have this discrepancy this is the kind of the great mystery of the Irish where where did six hundred thousand six hundred and ninety thousand years go how did they never cross over have not come across any evidence yet has as the evidence been there but somehow been destroyed you know so it's a it's a kind of a great mystery of of the Irish yeah that's really interesting out any other notes on any other countries in the Irish that strike you um well one of the things we did and unfortunately never made it into the program but it was it was an interesting part was also that the fact that we went to Montserrat in the Caribbean where there's sort of several these islands in the Caribbean where or have you know when you land in Montserrat your stamp is a shamrock and welcomed into this country with which immediately welcomes you with some sort of an Irish Ness so it was an interesting thing to look into that although not much research had be done so that that's an interesting element um still worth exploring you know a lot of surnames is it by these people sort of descendants of Irish slaves whom is mixed with you know West African slaves and did the surnames come from you know there's a slave owners and what's the sort of historian and why do people still dare feel and why there are certain surnames O'Gara daily etc there are that are still strong in in Montserrat and people feel you know this is the only other place in the world that celebrates in Patrick's Day as a national holiday so we went over there and and and had this sort of we're very fortunate to kind of be a part of this experience but it is an interesting one as well so it's just fascinating how many people are around the world are interested in their Irishness and being a foreigner living in Ireland them I'm delighted to be here because I think everybody always welcomes the Irish I don't think anyone it's probably one of the sort of favorite nations in the world everybody everybody loves the Irish I've never met anybody a dozen so it's overall the whole experience of looking into this and working on this has been really really fantastic well say back back to your personal life there I wonder do you feel any generic differences between the different countries that you've lived in as far as the feel of the people at type of thing yeah this is this is kind of questions of cultures and you know humors and and sprees and by the way people relate to each other friendships family relations and and so I always for some reason have felt that there is sort of a you know I felt like there is definite sort of parallels in the way in which people live in Ireland and paws meow - strange way of living you know people here live and everybody has a little house in a garden and you know and most of people involve the elimin apartments and um or my kind of experience has been it's been a different one but I think there is a sort of vanilla um warmth and friendliness which seems to kind of exist in both places which is really nice uh what can our listeners do to support this project that you just talked about well I mean I like I said it's a sort of an ever-evolving story we have a DVD we were very fortunate because recent at the recent Irish Film and Television Awards we won an award for a series what about other projects are you going to be moving on to any specific projects in the future well the company that I work for called crossing the line films we were sort of doing a lot of the entries and which often often largely with a kind of some sort of an Irish slant so whether it's a goodly historical or you know adventure related and but there's kind of always a little bit of an Irish slant to it so we have I mean people can also get the DVD and you can everyone's welcome to come and visit our website which is CTL films com so WWC tl4 crossing the line CTL films comm and so we're selling the DVDs through the website and also yeah so kind of stay tuned for other projects there there's there's a lot of interesting stuff we've had another film out recently which is actually also out in the and on DVD but Liam Clancy and the Clancy Brothers so it's kind of it's a it's a it's a documentary about music done by a fantastic director Oh yeah that's boy that's a real timely yeah it is exactly they literally just finished it and we all went together to the the premiere in September and then Liam passed away in December so it was very you know he was very happy to have lived to the day that he actually saw exited a theatrical premiere yes that's great today all too often nothing happens in tell it's after the time of the man you are you're honoring really yeah he was he was you know in a tired and and not a well state but he was very happy to see it and I think everybody in the company was worked on that project was so proud of the work and he was he was very happy with the film as well so that's gone on a bunch of film festivals also around around the states and it's also available on you on a DVD here and also for international customers again website check our website CTL films comm is there anything else you wanted to add before we sign off no I just wanted to thank you very much for your interest I'm delighted that you that you found out about this documentary and thank you for spreading the word I hope people and people will enjoy it and and yeah thank you very much I think it will and thank you very much we've been crossing the line with a lotta philipovich perfect okay that's all for today folks Joseph warm up those pipes remember we have a broadcast series on Irish song and recitation on local history of the Irish in America and on 2,000 years of Irish history as well as on the counties and something special coming up on Irish language I hope we've got all that and more in our head school at Irish roots calm and you know we've been known to appear exhibit teach and even sing for your special events be sure to book in advance if it's important and write me at my American address at Irish roots cafe box 7-5 7-5 Kansas City Missouri six four one one six leave a message by phone at eight one six two five six three three six so reach me on my web page at Irish roots calm skype me at the Roots café get me on myspace Facebook Twitter and Irish central members the bill so they get first priority but we're open to all and by the way big thank you to all of our members and away [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Mike OLaughlin

Views: 104,410

Rating: 4.7339745 out of 5

Keywords: Mike OLaughlin, Irish, Ireland, traditional, genealogy, family history, books, research, celtic, Kansas City, Irish Roots Cafe, Michael C. O'Laughlin, podcast, geneology, Basque genealogy, Basque and Irish, Black Irish, Co. Clare genealogy, Zlata Filipovic, DVD, Crossing the line films, Irish DNA, YDNA, O'Neill DNA connection, DNA television series, Co. Clare bones

Id: xL5GonlYW1c

Length: 25min 51sec (1551 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 10 2016