Hance Hamilton McCain

This is Michael Axel McCain, who is a descendant of Hance Hamilton McCain (born Marsh Creek settlement 1763 and died in Mississippi in 1840).  Michael's line of descent is from John Milton McCain, a son of Hance Hamilton McCain.  John Milton McCain married Mary Turnbow and the family lived in Webster County, Mississippi.  This line goes back to Hugh McKean, born in Ireland circa 1690+/- and died in 1748 in the Marsh Creek settlement in the PA Colony.  Michael was born in Rome, Italy.

VOTE YES

McCain DNA, the Math of it.

For all McCain clan members, here is a link to a very useful TMRCA (time to most recent common ancestor) calculator. It is calibrated a .002, which should be adjusted for our family.  Using subgroups in our family the actual mutation rate is closer to .004, or even .005.  To be conservative I use the .004.  With this tool you can get an estimate of when your particular branch of the clan ties into the others. Generally, at the .004 setting the generation next to the 60% probability is correct, give or take a generation.  We know this using those subgroups that have very good paper records and go back some seven or eight generations.  We ran the calculation for them knowing the actual generation back, so it was how we arrived at the .004 mutation rate.

As you use the calculator, you will see we all seem to come from one McCain family circa mid 1600s.  It is very possible we all descend from James McKeen or his father.  James had two wives in his life (not at the same time fortunately) and the best estimate is 22 children.  Some of these are accounted for, but most are not. James McKeen (his and his brother's descendants) are a DNA match to the Port Hall and St Johnston McKeans.  We can follow them from 1630 onward.  This is the line that has the often mentioned in lore William McKean the soldier.

Anyroad, enjoy:   TMRCA Calculator

Comments and feedback welcomed.

Pre 1700 McCain Genealogy in Ireland

Below is a very incomplete genealogy of the McCains in Ulster, in Ireland. It is what we know from the DNA project.  As you can see, still much we do not know, but even finding this much is an accomplishment.  If anyone can add to this, plus email me.  If you have a DNA match to a line in Ireland that is pre 1700, just contact me.

Ilime McKaine
Mongavlin Castle
1630 (the famous William McKean the solider, born circa 1600)

James McKeane

John McKeane
Thomas McKeane
Robert Stewart’s Company; Lagan Army, August 1642

1665 Hearth Roll, Donegal, Taughboyne Parish
James McKean Altaskin township (on the west side of St Johnston)
James McKean Junior (listed as Taghboyne township, not a currently used township name)  This James a son of the 1642 James McKeane.

James McKean born 1665 died 9 Nov 1756
John McKean born 1667 died 1718
as adults lived in Ballymoney and Derry before immigration; probably born near Port Hall, Donegal.  James McKeen has 22 children by two wives, most of his first family is not accounted for, but given the DNA results, they look to be what became the Marsh Creek McCains.


Alexander McKean
Hugh McKean died 1748
Born in Ireland and lived in Donegal Township PA Colony moved to Marsh Creek Settlement.  (sons of James McKeen by first marriage or of a close kin, brother or 1^st cousin of James)


A summary:
William McKaine 1630
James McKeane, John McKeane, Thomas McKean 1642
James McKeen, John McKeen 1665
James McKean (probably the grandfather and the same man in the 1642 muster) 1665
James McKean Junior (son of above and probably father of James McKeen and John McKeen)
Alexander McKean, Hugh McKean 1720 (proven kin to the above, probably sons of James McKeen via his first wife, if not, then 1st cousins of his children)







 


 

Green Grow the Rushes O.... The McCains, 2004

The McCains in Ireland mid 1800s

Map is the location of McCain families in the mid 1800s.  The group down in County Laois/Offaly (in the south) area are not part of our family, they are Mac Canna surnamed families that used the same anglicised form as we did.  Our family's surname in Gaelic is Mac Eáin. The families in Donegal, Tyrone, Derry, and north Antrim, are our family. They can be connected to descendants that did DNA testing and match us.  The County Laois/Offaly McCains also tested, which is when we discovered their connection to the Mac Canna families from the Loch Neagh area.  The large blue cluster is in Tyrone right across the Folye River from Port Hall.  I visited many of these McCains during my 2008 trip over.  That is the area of highest concentration of our McCains in Ireland to this day.  You can sit on the porch of a McCain home in Port Hall and look across the river to the McCain farms in Tyrone.  The family migrated there from Port Hall in the early 1700s.

McCain Lands in Scotland.

This map a bit blurry as I had to enlarge it, sorry about that, but... it shows well the lands of the McCains in Scotland.  The green areas on either side of Loch Fyne labeled MacLachlan belonged to  Clann Lachlainn.  The lands on the west side of the loch are in Glassary.  Above them you see the lands held by the Scrymgeour family.  There were many marriages between the McCains and Scrymgeours in the 1500s. Fortunately, the records are well preserved in mid Argyll so most of them are recorded. Now an interesting sidebar is the Scrymgeour family is know in Gaelic as the Mac Eáin family.  Our family also used that surname.  There is no paternal DNA link that has turned up so I really do not know the details.  Our McCains took their surname from Ailean Mac Eáin Riabhach and theirs took their surname from a 'John' Scymgeour of note.  In the many land records you can tell the two families were close and were often represented together in lands being handed down. 

Ulster Heritage Magazine: Ulster American Heritage Symposium, 26-28 June, At...

Note: the McCain family will be a featured presentation in the symposium





Ulster Heritage Magazine: Ulster American Heritage Symposium, 26-28 June, At...: 20th Biennial Ulster-American Heritage Symposium comes to Athens June 26-28 The 20th Biennial Ulster-American Heritage Symposium will ta...

Ulster Heritage Magazine: Family Finder Autosomal DNA Sale. Very good price...

For those with McCain ancestry through your maternal side, here is a very good offer on Family Tree's autosomal DNA test, call the Family Finder test, which both men and woman can take (it does not use the Y chromosome).  Keep in mind, it is only good for connections of the 4th Cousin degree or closer.



Ulster Heritage Magazine: Family Finder Autosomal DNA Sale. Very good price...: Dear Group Admins, Father's Day is almost here and that means a new Family Tree DNA sale!  Here's what the sale will en...

R-DF13 R-S1051 The McCains Halogroup

DNA news, the McCain family appears to have a unique SNP in the grand R-L21 haplogroup.  We are the R-DF13... and specifically the R-S1051 subclade.   These subclades are new discoveries, so new they did not make it into Family Tree's recent update of their haplogroup nomenclature.  I think as this subclade is researched it will provide important information about the McCains early history in Scotland.  Stay tuned.   

McCain's Corner: Scotland Anno Domini 570

McCain's Corner: Scotland Anno Domini 570: In the map above pay attention to Strathclyde, the upper part around Loch Lomond.... that is where the DNA suggests, our McCains originat...

McCain Family DNA Analysis April 2014

Link to latest McCain DNA analysis.  This work was done by Cara McCain and we very much appreciate her taking some time and effort of this work.

https://www.familytreedna.com/public/mccain/default.aspx?section=results

Comments and feedback very welcomed.

Our Jim McKane

Jim McKane of Ontario

Very pleased to receive this email from our Jim McKane recently.  Another feather in Jim's cap.

I am very proud and pleased to announce I have been appointed as Commissioner of The Great Lakes Fishery Commission whose mission is as quoted below -

Our Mission

The Great Lakes Fishery Commission was established by the Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries between Canada and the United States in 1955. The Commission has two major responsibilities:

• To develop coordinated programs of research on the Great Lakes, and, on the basis of the findings, to recommend measures which will permit the maximum sustained productivity of stocks of fish of common concern; and
• To formulate and implement a program to eradicate or minimize sea lamprey populations in the Great Lakes.

The Commission is made up of four commissioners from each of Canada and the U.S.A. It receives reports from both Canadian and USA Advisors to assist this extremely important mission.
More information on the Commission can be obtained from the website - http://glfc.org/
Respectfully,
Jim McKane

Chris McCain

Our Chris McCain of California looking particularly sharp at a Saint Patrick's Day event.

The Laggan Redshanks in Paperback on Amazon



In the sixteenth century Scottish Highlanders settled in the Laggan district of east Donegal. They were called Redshanks.  The history of the Laggan Redshanks has many fascinating elements which include Clann Chaimbeul and their dynamic leader the fifth Earl of Argyll, Gaelic sexual intrigues, English Machiavellian manoeuvres, and the Redshanks themselves.  This book not only tells the fascinating story of how a Highland Scottish community became established in the Laggan, but also includes the surnames of the Redshanks and notes of their origins in Scotland, which will be of interest to family historians and genealogists.

 

The paperback is a much expanded version of the Ebook that came out a couple years ago.  We had a lot of request for the Ebook in hard copy book format, so here it is.  The cover photo is Mongavlin castle where literally the McCains first appear in written records in Ireland.  William McKean the Soldier was there for a muster roll of soldiers in 1630.  His name is in the book in the muster at Mongavlin under John Stewart, the son of Ludovic Stewart, the Duke of Lennox.  The book has a map of the Laggan showing where Portlough precinct was and some of the areas the early McCains lived (and they still live there to this day). 

 

To purchase on Amazon:   The Laggan Redshanks

 

The next project up is a hard copy of Finding the McCains. 

McCain Clan DNA Update

A lot of progress is being made with our McCain DNA Project.   If you take a look at the Family Tree public page with the results you will see that we are beginning to classify the 'clan' into sub groups linked to geography.  We have sorted out a lot of the Colonial McCain lines and the Irish lines, we are now focusing on the McCains in Scotland.

To do this we need is more McCain men in the project to upgrade their kits.  One of the DNA loci that is of interest to us is the 485.  All the McCain men that have tested the full 111 loci carry the value of 13 at the marker.  This is unusual, the norm with the R-L21 haplogroup is 15. 

Additionally, the other surnames in our match group, that is the non McCains that are of the same paternal line as we are, carry the value of 16.  This means there was a mutation event, probably at the generation of the 'first' McCains, or the Mac Eáin man living in Kilmichael Glassary parish that is our progenitor.  This man probably was Ailein Mac Eáin Riabhach or his father Eáin Riabhach.  Anyroad, that is where we are in the research.

Again, we need more McCain men to upgrade their Family Tree kit to the 111 level.  What we are attempting to do is reconstruct our history, prior to AD 1500 using DNA and primary sources. A lot of work, many hours of work, is going into this research.  The records I go through are written in a combination of Lallans influenced English, Lallans, Gaelic and bizarre phonetic Gaelic. But, I am having success at following the family from circa 1434. 

There is even some clues as to the origin of the family prior to their lordship of Glassary, but more on that later. Right now we those McCain men who have not done so to upgrade their kits.  There are a few men that have only done the 12 locus level.  Those are not much good to us.

 

Argyll Lord 1000 AD

Argyll Lord Circa 1000 AD  (c) Ulster Heritage

Above is clan member Donovan McCain in the dress of a Gaelic lord in mid Argyll circa 1000 AD.  The clothes and arms are period authentic and made from materials used in Argyll at that time.  Basic dress is the Léine, the linen shirt which came down to the knee and a Brat, the woolen cloak in the shape of a rectangle.  The helm is a one piece construction which was state of the art in that time and is a facsimile of a surviving helm in a museum; the chain mail shirt typical of that day for the well funded warrior.  The sword, which is fully functional, is a Norse style, reflecting the unique Gall Ghaeil culture that existed in mid Argyll at that time. The Gaels in mid Argyll borrowed both shipbuilding and arms technology from the Vikings and became in essence Gaelic Vikings.

Sword On a Burial Stone

I received several inquiries into the sword that is carved on the burial slab of Donnchadh Rua Mac Eáin.  In Scotland, a sword on a burial slab symbolized a man of high rank.  Pretty much that simple.  The practice was in place very early in Scotland, certainly by the 1200 AD.  Donnchadh Mór we know was a bailiff for the third Earl of Argyll, Coilin Caimbeul.  Bailiff in late medieval Scotland was a very important position. A bailiff was the sheriff of a district and also was responsible for judicial proceedings.  We know that Donnchadh Rua even travelled to Edinburgh on the Earl's business.  His position as Bailiff alone elevated Donnchadh Rua to high status, but he was also a landed lord, head of the House of Dunemuck, which is in southern Kilmichael Glassary parish, very close to the village of Kilmichael Glassary, where is burial slab is located. While he served the Earl of Argyll, his clan affiliation was with Clann Mhic Lachlainn and he actually held his lands by grant of their Taoiseach (chief). 

Donnchadh Rua Mac Eáin, to our knowledge, is the first of our family that used the surname Mac Eáin.  We know this because he is recorded with that surname in multiple primary sources from the late 1400s into the early 1500s.  His father was Ailean Mac Eáin Riabhach.  Normally, in traditional Gaelic patronymics he would have been surname Donnchadh Rua Mac Ailean Mhic Eáin Riabhach, but in every case, even his burial slab, he was known by Mac Eáin, anglicised as McCain.

Mid Argyll Group Research

Kilmichael Glassary parish in Mid Argyll

 

The Mid Argyll DNA Project is now up and running.  It's goal is to research the McCains circa 1300 to late 1500s, or when they were still living in Scotland.   Many of you have noticed matches to other Scottish surnames.  Most of these are from mid Argyll, specifically, the parish of Kilmichael Glassary and nearby areas, such a the island of Bute. 
 
We share paternal ancestry with these non surname matches.  The reason we have so many surnames showing up in our match group is because surnames were not fixed in Argyll in the 1500s.  Gaelic families often followed traditional patronymic customs of mid Argyll.  This generated several surnames within the same family during that century.  This is why we have McAlpin, Henry, Duncan, McDonald, etc., showing up in our match lists.
 
There was a historical McCain family native to Kilmichael Glassary, the precise area where we are turning up so many DNA matches.  For this reason believe that this historical McCain family is in fact our McCain family.  In addition to the DNA matches there are primary sources from Argyll in the 1500s that also support that we are 'the'  Kilmichael Glassary McCains in origin.  Even the move to Ulster in the late 1500s of families from Kilmichael Glassary is well documented.
 
Those are the facts, now for the speculation;  the historical McCain family in Kilmichael Glassary is also known as the Mac Lachlainn 'clan'  of Dunadd.  Branches of that clan did use the surname McCain.  Some of the other surnames on our match list were surnames used by other branches of the Mac Lachlainn of Dunadd clan.  We speculate we have located this Scottish clan in other words. 

So, I need every McCain in the 01McCain group to go to your 'Join Projects' part of your Family Tree page, click on it.  You will see the Mid Argyll Group in the list of DNA project, tick it, then when that opens the page, tick 'Join.'  You can be in several projects at once so this will not effect your participation in the McCain project.
 
This is the end game of the McCain research, it will take us back to the very origins of our family.  The first man to use McCain as a surname was Donnchadh Mór Mac Eáin, aka Donnchadh Rua Mac Eáin.  He lived circa 1445 to 1515. It is his burial slab that you see on the McCain family blog.  Many of McCains have already travelled to Scotland to see it.  Our Scottish branch in Glasgow, i.e. Joe McKane, has also visited the burial slab.
 
This project will have Dr Kyle MacLea as an administrator, he is a geneticist by profession and teaches at a university.   I will be a co-administrator helping out with the primary source research and Gaelic language elements. 
Please Join as soon as possible.


Summer DNA Test Sale

Family Tree labs, the company that does our DNA testing is running an excellent summer sale.  We recommend the 111 level test, though the 67 will give you enough data to confirm you are paternally related to our family.  Prices and link to purchase below.

Beginning on Thursday, June 27, 2013 and running until Friday, July 26, 2013, we will offer the following: 
 
Family Finder was $289 Now $99
mtDNA Full Sequence was $289 Now $189
Y-DNA37 was $169 Now $129
Y-DNA67 was $268 Now $208
Y-DNA111 was $359 Now $308
Family Finder + Y-DNA37 was $368 Now $228
Family Finder + Y-DNA67 was $467 Now $307
Family Finder + mtDNAFullSequence was $398 Now $288
Comprehensive Genome (Y-DNA67, FMS & FF) was $666 Now $496

Link to join:  McCain DNA Project