www.clanlivingstone.info

Over the years the DNA project has found many suspected links to surnames which might have mutated from the mainstream of evolution of Mac Dunsleibhe -> MacLea. Classic suspects are MacLean, MacInlay, MacCauley, MacAuliffe etc. But this week we found the strongest one yet: a perfect 37/37 match between two McKinneys and one MacLeay. That is a very close match, and virtually guarantees that their common ancestor was in the past few centuries. The most obvious theory we always had with this match (when it was 12/12 and 25/25) is that the evolution was something like McOnLeay->McKinley->McKinney. However we also recently learned of a less strong but still pretty close match to a McKinzey, where McKinzey and McKinney would be surnames where it would be quite orthodox to say they might have the same origin. For example they might come the personal names Kenneth or Kinnoch. Perhaps by coincidence Rob found an old reference to a person with one of the right personal names to become a McKinney, a MacLeay type surname, and in contact with the familiy Rose - where Rose is the fourth family name we have found reasonable close. But the closest DNA match in this family so far is, to repeat, between MacLeay and McKinney. Best Regards Andrew

This is fascinating. Two questions.

I just was reading my sister's version of our family tree and updating mine and didn't realize she does have a McKinney listed who was born in Stratsdill (?), Isle of Skye is what is listed His name is Daniel McKinney, Sr born 1709 and died 11/4/1751 Albemarle Parish, VA.

Just been re-reading my gr uncle's correspondence to see if I've missed anything (coming to Scotland in October so want to get placenames clear in my head). He writes about the origin of the name Livingstone and in one of these he says: "The name has been spelled in Gaelic as MacDhunnsleibhe, MacInleigh, McElle and has been variously rendered in Latin Charters and in English as McOnlea, McInlea, MacLea, MacLey, MacKinlay, McConly, Conley, Cunliffe, Dunlop and Livingstone. There is a branch of the family that English their name as MacKenzie...". So he seemed to think that MacKenzie was another family name - McKinzey, not a great leap. Don't know if this helps. You probably know all this already. Jane

Hi Niall No the match is with one of our MacLeays in the so called x cluster. Look under I haplotypes on our webpage. I think that they are from the US though. Marcelle who represents the McKinney family in question in the project is a member of the project discussion group and would be very interested to hear about such ideas. Regards Andrew