Irish Diasporas has been for many of us a major factor in losing our roots with Ireland. Since the 17th Century Ireland has lost many of her family for various reasons. Over a million emigrated from Ireland between 1748 and 1852. There are estimates of over 80 million Irish live outside Ireland, representing over thirteen times the population of Ireland (6.11 million in 2007).
Many of us are trying to find our roots in the mother country, but have no where to look specifically.
DNA testing has helped many either find family or find a location in Ireland where they know there is a common ancestor with another tester.
Currently, those with Irish heritage are the largest DNA testing group. I run the Ireland Y-DNA project through Family Tree DNA along with Austin who lives in Dublin and Margaret who lives in Cork. That project is the largest to date with over 3,300 testers and that is only from Family Tree DNA.
You can see the project at these locations:
FTDNA site:
http://www.familytreedna.com/public/IrelandHeritage/
Ireland site:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~ihdp/ihdp/index.htm
SO...join me in posting your Irish success stories!
If you have any questions regarding DNA testing, just email. Check my URLs below as well.
Best wishes,
Emily
http://writingyourmemories.blogspot.com/
http://www.rootsweb.com/~orgco2/speaker/EmilyAulicino.html
http://genealem-geneticgenealogy.blogspot.com/
Northwest Regional Coordinator and Speaker for ISOGG (
www.isogg.org)
Administrator for twelve FTDNA DNA Projects