Hingerty YDNA Match List Revelations

Using YDNA Hingerty Match List Surnames to Explore Hingerty Surname Origins

Introduction

A male usually inherits his surname from his father. 

He also inherits his father's YDNA which has been handed down from father to son for centuries, only rarely mutating across the ages. 

Theoretically every male's surname should stretch back in an unbroken line back to when the surname was first established about 1000 years ago. However, life doesn't always reflect the theory. A male YDNA tester has a 50% chance that he has inherited the YDNA of the initial bearer of his surname. 

In the other 50% of cases the linkage over those 1000 years, back to the initial surname bearer, has been interrupted by adoption, illegitimacy, intentional name change, taking of a maternal surname due to inheritance or marriage conditions etc 

Ireland was the first country in Europe to adopt inherited paternal surnames about 1,000 years ago. Native Irish surnames are closely aligned to the ancient clans.  

There has been a great deal of work undertaken recently in Ireland bringing together YDNA results, clan histories, ancient genealogies and the geographic distribution of surnames.

(See Maurice Gleeson 's youtube video as an introduction to this area of study).

By looking at an individual male's surname and his matches in his YDNA test results, it is possible to determine the 'genetic homeland' for those with native Irish ancestry (always allowing for the 50% rule....).

Analysing Hingerty YDNA Match Lists

With the assistance of Dr Tyrone Bowes of Irish Origenes, including his wonderful maps of Irish surnames, an analysis of the YDNA match list of a Hingerty male tester (LH) was undertaken to further explore the origins of the Hingerty surname.

YDNA testing in 2017 had confirmed that the Hingertys of Australia shared a common male ancestor with the Hingertys of Stafford. 

The Australian Hingerty tester (LH)  had a good match to a Stafford Hingerty tester (DH), proving that both testers shared a common Hingerty ancestor. 

Thus we knew that LH was in the 50% of testers who's surname and YDNA 'matched'.

So, what about the other (non Hingerty) surnames evident in LH's match list?  While they do not share a surname, these other matches ARE related- LH and these matches share a common male ancestor - they would share this ancestor from a time when the Hingerty surname was being established or in a period prior to the Hingerty surname.

In other words, the matches' surnames provide a snapshot of the surnames that arose among related males at the time that surnames were being established and they should reveal an origin of the original surname or its variants.

Findings

A tally of the other surnames in LH's YDNA match lists was undertaken. 

The surname HARRINGTON was very prevalent in the match lists. 

Also prominent was the name O'SHEA. 

These two surnames were common on the Beara Peninsula during medieval times and are both native Irish names, which would suggest a Southern Irish Brythonic Celtic heritage and a surname origin on the Beara Peninsular in the Southwest of Ireland. 

This aligns with the known evolution of the Hingerty surname from the original Gaelic O'hIongardail which was anglicised most often to Harrington, but also to Hingerty. We know from documentary research that some individuals moved back and forth between the names Hingerty and Harrington even up to the 20th century.

Likewise, the geography aligns with early references to the surname in south west Ireland (Cork) and to the discovery of a location called Kippaghingerhill in the same area. 

The known history of the O'Hingerdillls being supporters of the O'Sullivans of the Beara Peninsula and their great March north in December 1602 and subsequent settlement in the Tipperary area also fits with the YDNA match list analysis.

The YDNA, the geography, the history of the surname, and the known history of the early surname bearers all align and support each other, allowing us to be fairly confident of the origins of our rare Hingerty surname!

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hingerty@one-name.org