. . . But the DNA Says So

 

Looking at all the baptismal records for the children of Gobnait "Debora" Falvey and her husband, Daniel Cullinane, in County Kerry, I now have a pretty good idea of who those children were. In order, I first have Mary, whose godmother was my father-in-law's great-grandmother, Johanna Falvey. Following that, the list continues with Timothy, John, Hanoria, Ann, Michael, and Daniel.

Having the documentation to verify that lineup may be all well and good, but when I look to those few DNA matches descended from that Falvey ancestor, their path to the past doesn't agree with those hard-earned results from baptisms and civil registrations. The DNA may say that they are connected to my father-in-law's ancestor, but the paper trail simply hasn't yet gotten the message.

One sticking point is Daniel and Debora Cullinane's second-born son. According to the baptismal record, that son was named John. According to the DNA matches who descend from that second-born son, his 1860 baptismal record should have read Patrick, not John.

And can you blame them? If the traditional Irish naming pattern still held sway—and after the famine, it didn't always do so—the second-born son should have been named after the maternal grandfather. In the case of Daniel and Debora Cullinane, her father's name was certainly not John; it was Patrick.

Fast-forward to our modern age, complete with Internet access to digitized church and governmental verifications of our ancestors' life history, and add DNA into the mix. While I am still in the process of confirming the line of descent offered in DNA matches' family trees, one thing is obvious: these are DNA cousins who descend from a son of Daniel and Debora named—wait for it—Patrick.

Now what? Looks like it's time to start from scratch and build the family tree for some of these DNA matches, to check every step of the way from the match to the specific ancestor. At best, we'll figure out what the exact connection might be between DNA cousins. At the least, perhaps we'll learn something new in the process.