From Middle East to the rugged west – tracing the roots of Connemara’s DNA!

A team of American geneticists and genealogists are on their way to Connemara – to find out where the natives really come from!

Research has already traced the DNA of some Connemara people to the Middle East and Asia – but now a project based in the US State of Maine wants to dig deeper to get back to their very roots. 

A group of thirteen arrive here in the west this Friday morning armed with twenty DNA kits in the hope of furthering their work in unlocking the genealogical pathway of communities far west of the Corrib. 

The group includes four genetic genealogists, including Maureen Coyne-Norris who has spearheaded the study of Connemara families and their genealogy at the Maine Irish Heritage Centre in the City of Portland.

Maureen and her group have already carried out a number of DNA tests and studies on native Connemara people and on the Connemara Diaspora – mainly in the State of Maine. 

While the results of these tests show a strong genetic and long standing relationship between Connemara families, they have also thrown up percentages of a Middle Eastern or Asian connection.  One reporter, not unconnected with this piece, ventured to give a sample in Maine to find that they have some vestige of Middle Eastern DNA in their Connemara bodies!

Maureen Coyne-Norris, who is descended from the Coynes of Oileán Iarthach of the west Connemara coast, says it is too early to come to any clear conclusion about the Middle Eastern/Asian link. 

There was heavy Connemara emigration to the city of Portland between 1860 and the 1930’s and many of the tests have been done on some descendants of these people. 

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.