Searching for Morgan cousins in Connacht
This is a bit of a long shot, but here goes:
My name is Art Morgan, and I live in San Mateo, California (the northern part of what we call Silicon Valley, near San Francisco). I was not very interested in genealogy until recently, but I'm a technologist by trade, and when National Geographic came out with a personal DNA test several years ago I couldn't resist trying it.
The early tests did not tell you much - they could verify relationships within 3 or 4 generations, and give you an idea of what continents your ancestors where from. However, over time the tests have gotten much better, and I've now taken about 10 different tests, focusing mainly on Y-DNA tests. Y-DNA tests analyze DNA along your paternal line, which make them particularly useful if you are trying to trace your surname back to your country and region of origin.
My father has been working on genealogy of our Morgan family for a couple decades now, and has documented our Morgan line to a James Morgan, born 1755 in Virgina, died 1823 in Wayne County, Ohio. Before that we have a brick wall, though there is fairly good evidence that James' father's name was John Morgan. William is also a likely given name for his ancestors, as James had a brother named William.
We had always assumed that our Morgan ancestors had come from Wales, due mainly to the fact that the name is so common there. But as I did more detailed DNA tests and the matches started comming back I noticed that most of my close matches were with Irish names. Names like Kelley, Dial, Butler, Carroll, and Manning are among my closest matches. And even the matches that sound more like English names are found in Ireland, like Mitchell and Payne. With the help of several DNA researchers I eventually realized that my ancestors were most likely from Western Ireland, and must have lived there for at least 500 years, and perhaps much longer, before emigrating to the American colonies in the late 1600s or early 1700s.
Earlier this year I had an Irish researcher Dr. Tyrone Bowes do an analysis of our DNA results (attached). Based on name frequency of our matches in census data, he estimates the most likely area for our "genetic homeland" to be northern County Galway, near Glenamaddy. Using Griffith's Valuation data I have found some likely areas for relatives, such as Croaghill near Williamstown. Of course, all of this is quite speculative, but I think it's fairly safe to conclude that my Morgan ancestors lived in Connacht, as opposed to Ulster or Leinster where the name Morgan is much more common.
Combining what we know about James Morgan in the 1700s and our new knowledge that our ancestor came from Connacht, we think now that our first Morgan ancestor in the colonies likely came from Ireland to Maryland, Virginia, or Philadelphia, perhaps as an indentured servant. Digging up records on indentured servants is challenging, but we have a few leads from court records about a few boys with the surname Morgan who were forced to be servants without indenture in Maryland and Virginia in the late 1600s and early 1700s. We still have more research to do to see if we can tie any of them to James.
So what am I looking for from the good members of IrelandXO? Basically I am looking for men with the surname Morgan who can trace their family history back to at least the 1700s, living in Connacht. If anyone like this is willing to take a DNA test, I am willing to pay for the test. The test is simple and painless - you just swab your inner cheek for some saliva and skin cells, and mail the sample in a small vial to the test lab. FamilyTreeDNA has test on sale now through the end of the year, so I'm hoping to find someone who would do this in the next month.
As I said at the outset this is a long shot, but if you know any Morgan men who might be interested in solving a 300 year old mystery and finding their long-lost cousins in America, please let me know!