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Our Y-DNA project has made remarkable progress in just a few years. What began as a personal quest to explore my Cryan family tree quickly grew into something much bigger. I initially set out to test Cryan men, but soon learned that the Crean and Crehan families might share a genetic connection. As we dug deeper, we uncovered surname variations like Crane, Creen, and Kneen, hinting at even more branches waiting to be explored. Today, our project includes 13 distinct family groups, with several showing surname use for over 400 years. Two Crean and Cryan families can even trace their genetic lineage back 600 years. Y-DNA testing, pioneered by FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA) about 25 years ago, has been the cornerstone of our work. FTDNA stands out as a trusted company that prioritizes customer privacy and is the only one offering surname projects for collaborative research. This testing focuses solely on the Y chromosome, passed down through the male line, revealing centuries of paternal history t...
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Our FamilyTreeDNA surname project initially focused on tracing connections within the Cryan clan. Over time, I realized surnames evolve, especially as families migrate from their ancestral homeland. The project now includes surnames like Crean, Crane, Crehan, and Kneen, with more expected as additional men take the Y-chromosome test through FamilyTreeDNA. Surnames were often anglicized—for instance, Crean became Crane in some cases. One notable example is a Cryan family from Roscommon whose name was changed to Crean at Ellis Island in the early 1900s, a shift confirmed by Y-DNA testing. While 20th-century researchers suggested Cryans were a Roscommon variant of Crean (from Sligo) and Crehans a Galway variant, Y-DNA results from 60 men across these surnames show no shared paternal ancestor within the last 1,000 years, challenging the idea of a common origin. The project now includes 60 men across 14 lineages, all sharing a common ancestor in ancient times, as all men are distantly relat...
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DNA Tools/ Objectives and Findings in our Study

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 DNA Tools and the Haplotree:  The two kinds of DNA test that are used for our study is the male only Y-DNA test and the Autosomal DNA test. The Autosomal test can be found on sites like ancestry, My Heritage, 23 and Me , and several others. It is recommended you test with Ancestry, because they have the largest database, and you can transfer your DNA file from ancestry to several other testing sites for free if you wish to. This will generate many more cousins trees to research. The Autosomal  test is wonderful for family matching within 200 years, but is often times not very useful outside that time period.  The male only Y-DNA test looks only at the male inherited Y-Chromosome. The Y is passed from father to son relatively unchanged from generation to generation. Going back all the way to "Genetic Adam", who lived a few hundred thousand years ago in central Africa. Any man in the world who takes a Y-DNA test can see how they connect to any other man in time. There...
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The Cryan- Crean Surname Project

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 My first surname project was for the Kilcoyne family. I am several years into this research and have nearly 100 men tested to include the variant Coyne. 57 of these men are Kilcoynes. Like the Kilcoynes. the Cryans is a relatively rare surname. I have discovered some incredible things like how each connect to each other and their ancient migrations into Ireland. My goal is duplicate the success of the Kilcoyne project for the Cryans that will overlap with other surnames like Crehan and Crean. I am at the stage with the Kilcoynes that if a man tests from anywhere in the world, I can easily place his family in the west of Ireland often times into a specific parish. This is done with a male only Y-DNA test that only looks at the male inherited Y chromosome.  Below is a map of Kilcoyne families, the pins represent paternally unrelated branches based on the earliest known locations of descendants who have tested. There are ten groups here but four of these make of the bulk of the ...
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Developing a SNP Path to Discover our Ancestors

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The Haplotree, or Tree of Mankind now consists over 65,000 branches, thanks in large part to commercial Y-DNA testing. The Tree has exploded with growth in just the last five years. This has given the average genetic genealogist like myself  the opportunity to develop surname projects using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). When new SNPS are discovered along the Y chromosome they are placed on the Haplotree, allowing us to see when exactly each man branches off from one another. The male only Y-DNA test looks at the Y chromosome which passes from  father to son relatively unchanged. There are only occasional mutations that occur, resulting in the formation of haplogroups. A haplogroup is a genetic population of people who descend from the same man.  The first Cryan BigY700 tester tested positive for SNP R-A6925. This man was born around 750CE, somewhere in the west of Ireland. My second Cryan tester was sure to add new SNPs, FTDNA requires at least two testers to co...
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Cryan/Crehan/Crean YDNA Study by Caoimhghin O Croidheain

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    YDNA Testing     Y-DNA passes from father to son relatively unchanged, with only small, intermittent mutations over the centuries. Because Y-DNA is so stable, it can provide solid, genealogically relevant information about a person’s paternal line. For Y-DNA testing, there must be an unbroken father-to-son line to the ancestor about whom one wants information. Since women do not have a Y chromosome and receive no Y-DNA to pass on, a Y-DNA line can “daughter out” when a father only has daughters, or may disappear entirely when an only son dies without children. YDNA testing, as seen in the image, only reads the male line going back thousands of years. Unlike the autosomal DNA tests provided by commercial DNA companies like Ancestry or My Heritage that read each family branch, the DNA often times only being good for a few hundred years.  We are trying to learn more about the early history of the Cryan/Crehan/Crean surnames. The best way to do this is thro...
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