A few years ago when 23andMe confirmed my haplogroup was R-M222 of Irish descent, I decided to try to find:

confirmation or otherwise that our ancestors were related to the O'Hagans of Tullyhogue and hence descended from the Cineal nEogain;

where our ancestors were and their involvment during the destruction of Tullyhogue Fort by Mountjoy in 1602;

when our O'Hagan clan name became Hagan;

when the Hagan family converted from being Catholics to Prostestants.

Since then there has been some progress but no definitive answers to most. See the bottom of this page.

My haplogroup has has changed and is in some flux. The updates are from the initial R-P312 >M222 > BY20515 > BY11733 now.
At the moment I am the only person tested at FTDNA with this terminal group - 2 other have gone further down the branch.. The map below from http://www.scaledinnovation.com/gg/snpTracker.html shows the migrration from our "Adam" in Africa about 100 to 200 thousand years ago to present day Ireland. According to an article ´Origins of the Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English R1b-M222 population´ by Klyosov & Conroy M222 arose in Devon, England then > Leinster, Ireland > Central Scotland > North Midlands, Ireland > Northern Ireland > Wales and then > South West Scotland. In Leinster the Dummoni, aka Fir Domnann or Laigin conquered Western Ireland created the dynasty Connachta that gave rise to Uí Néill dynasty of Northern Ireland.

Genetic Homeland and Irish Origenes allows users to determine where their family name was located centuries ago. The web site Genetic Homeland at https://www.genetichomeland.com is very good at giving a wealth of information to anyone studying a male (Irish, Scottish or English) ancestral locations. The index page gives menu items: Finder where a given surname produces a map showing family locations, named castles and relevant place names. Enter a haplogroup name on the home page to generate a full structured list of haplogroups from homus erectus (hg38 21292569 mutation from T to G) through to the user´s given haplogroup. Free membership is needed to use the site.

The O'Hagan and Hagan clans are related and are ancestral/native to Ireland and are all at least R-M222+ haplogroup (mutation y chromosome hg38 #12790481 G>A). This mutation is very common amongst men in SW Scotland and N and NE Ireland. The men tested in the (partial) table below at R-M269 (and probably will be R-M269+ with further testing by FTDNA or other). This data has been retrieved from my home page at FTDNA and has been compiled from their Advanced Matches set to 67 STR. There are only 37 males in the group with a GD 0 to 7. There are 11 with surname Hagan and one O'Hagan leaving 5 useful names and 3 possibly useful. I have not used 9 others because they do not have Irish ancestry, all are R-M269.

I also sent my Y-DNA results to Genetic Homeland for analysis to try to find where in Ireland the first Hagans landed. These are the map results for the STR37 and STR 67 .csv files I sent to Irish Origenes for their automatic pinpointed location of my Irish origin. Both gave Killahurler Upper, County Wicklow, Ireland. These are their results:-

I was expecting the results to show the origin to be in the north of Ireland rather than the south east. Perhaps my ancestors came with the original R-M222 men from Devon, England? These assessments may be downloaded: here and here

Both 25 and 67 STRs give the same location at Killahhurlor Upper in county Wicklow, but the STR67 uses fewer comparison surnames and has fewer smaller locations i.e. it is more precise, below.

 

My FTDNA Analysis

My latest analysis, July 2020 is here projects.html

In 2009 the Journal of Genetic Genealogy had an article about mutation rates in the y-chromosome. I copied all relevant haplogroup marker values and put them in a text file and entered the data with my own 37 and 67 marker results from FTDNA. The images give both the raw data and the estimated TMRCA (time to the most recent common ancestor). Assuming my results are correct there seem to be some anomalies.

My FTDNA customer number is 646978 and my current haplogroup is R-BY11733.



My group has been updated a number of times during the past few years.



Above, I have added markers from 38 to 67 and this gives a less granular result - more markers the better!

Below is a copy of a text file that can be easily analysed by an excellent utility at www.mymcgee.com/tools/yutility.html
A word of caution; unless the data is totally correct errors will be shown and it doesn't run. Below is an example text file that is suitable.

Below are the results comparing FTDNA kit number 646978 (myself - whose earliest know ancestor is Benjamin Hagan born 1848) with (some) other Hagans who have submitted their data to the Ireland y-dna Project. I copied the data into MS Excel, removed a number of columns, calculated the Date ce (common era/A.D.), sorted to the TMRCA column, added the heading and exported it as a jpg file.

The screenshot above gives the TMRCA for my closest Hagan relatives - up to 1070 ce/(AD) from my FTDNA STR67 (May 2020) results. I will try to contact as many as possible descendants of the above. I use the web site www.mymcgee.com/tools/yutility.html?mode=ftdna_mode to create the GD's and TMRCA

 

Unfortunately there is insufficient data here for me to form valid conclusions so I decided to download all of FTDNA´s myProject Hagan and All Ireland. I began with the smaller FTDNA myProject file Hagan.
Details are here at projects.html

Conclusions

• Data from both STRs and SNPs indicate that our Hagan surname is not adopted, not an NPE (non paternal event) but descendants of an ancient north west Ireland clan, possibly from Niall of the Nine Hostages who lived around the end of the 4th century AD/CE. From that time to being members of cenel Eoghan through Fergus, Coelbad and Ogain we have the name O'Hagan about 900 AD.
• From about 900 AD until the destruction of Tullyhogue Fort by Mountjoy in 1602 actual family/clan is unknown.
and regrant of land an unknown of individual families.
• Possibly the O'Hagan clan families dropped the O' to became Hagan so that they were more anglicised hence more accepted by the Englsh and could have better working conditions. Interestingly, many Irish reintroduced their O' during the 19th century.
• Again, during the 17th and 18th centuries my Hagan family may have lived amongst the Protestant families and converted from having a Catholic Christian religion.
• I have learnt a great deal about the Irish celtic culture whilst trying to find my and my great grandfather's roots. I was interested to learn that he would have done (relatively) well during the great famine of the 1840's being a master baker and publican. Of course this work/ investigation is never complete.

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