Moycullen Heritage DNA Project

 

Project Launch

Moycullen Heritage is formally launching the “Moycullen Heritage DNA Project”. This exciting new collaboration between Moycullen people and their relations around the world promises to not only add to the store of knowledge of Moycullen’s rich history but to re-link Moycullen with its diaspora using the families recorded in the Blake Census as a focal point and anchor for our project.

With more than 130 family surnames recorded between 1792-1813, the famous Moycullen census was collated by Fr Francis Xavier Blake, Parish Priest of Moycullen from 1783-1828. This invaluable local source of early genealogical and historical information puts us in a very fortunate and rare position not seen in other communities.

Who Do You Think You Are?

In recent years the popularity of at-home DNA testing has exploded around the world, allowing individuals to match and identify distant relations and uncover lost family histories. Moycullen Heritage is also fortunate to have an unusually intact written Parish record of births, marriages and deaths going back to the 1790s and, together with the Blake Census, we have the opportunity to draw definitive lines between past Moycullen residents and the families of today.

Reconnecting Lost Branches

To do this, and in a manner compliant with privacy and general data protection regulations (GDPR), the Moycullen Heritage DNA Project is offering a limited number of free DNA testing kits to local people who, referencing back to the Blake Census, represent long-established Moycullen families. Participants contributing a DNA sample will receive a well-documented family tree and family relationship charts showing their connections to relations here and abroad.

Moycullen Heritage hopes to become a conduit between our village and our diaspora, enabling descendants of Moycullen families in the United Kingdom, North America, Australia and around the world to find their connections to our village. We hope that project participants, with consent, will help in confirming connections with our diaspora via the internet.

Forums

By means of our Moycullen Heritage website and other social media platforms such as Twitter and the Moycullen Area Genealogy Facebook page, it is hoped these platforms will provide:

• information and content to locals and diaspora alike
• host conversations and connections that broaden, deepen and confirm participants’ connections to Moycullen, and
• broaden our historical knowledge through stories such as Judge William Madden of Killagoola and Kansas, and of the families who thrived in a virtual “Little Moycullen” in Washington, D.C.

Join Us

We would love to have you involved

By Contributing:

Each DNA testing kit is valued at approximately €90 euros. We have begun a fundraising campaign so that we can test 30 people in the first phase of the project. The project is dependent on generous benefactors and any contribution to our GoFundMe page is very welcome.

Make a Contribution to Moycullen Heritage DNA Project

By Participating:

If you are descended from one of Moycullen’s longstanding families you can be involved in two ways:

• become one of the participants by providing a DNA sample. To determine eligibility and receive additional information, please contact us at moycullenheritage@gmail.com
• registering on GEDmatch and consenting to become a project participant. If you have already tested through Ancestry, My Heritage, FTDNA, 23andMe or another DNA testing service, you can upload your results to GEDmatch so that links to other DNA results can be found. For doing this, you too would receive a well-documented family tree and relationship charts. Please contact us at moycullenheritage@gmail.com for further information.