Ancestry.com DNA tests have identified that two-thirds of all their test takers are at least five percent Irish.
Ancestry, the genealogy company, says that they have 15 million members, which, according to their findings, means that 10 million of them have some Irish heritage, ranging from 100 percent to 5 percent.
These numbers were confirmed by a senior Ancestry.com executive who stated that the much higher number of Irish in their test-takers has been a major surprise to them.
I believe as a result of Ancestry.com’s work there is every possibility that there are potentially millions more Irish Americans out there who are just discovering some Irish roots.
Read more: New genetic mapping research reveals common ancestry between Ireland and Scotland
It is an important revelation, right up there perhaps, with the United States census of 1980, which first asked the ethnicity question and 40 million Americans replied they had at least some percentage Irish, with ten million claiming Irish ancestry exclusively. Prior to those actual numbers, the best bet had been about 20 million Irish Americans.
Irish among original Americans
The huge numbers with Irish roots point firmly to the Irish being one of the original groups in America.
African Americans, Indians, and Caucasians were the three foundation groups. Caucasians were German, French, British, and Irish.
The first US census, in 1790, counted 4 million Americans. The Irish numbers were approximately 400,000 people, of Irish birth or ancestry, who lived in the United States at the time. Only about 10,000 of whom were Irish Catholics.
Famous photo taken by Jacob Riis, of Five Points, in New York city.
By 1800, the Irish Catholic numbers had doubled to 20,000 and from 1814 to 1845, 500,000 more immigrants came, mostly from Ulster, to the United States. The Irish role in the melting pot was well underway.
So one million or so Irish had emigrated. Many had intermarried and the Irish gene was well and truly established in America by 1845.
Read more: I took a DNA test and was shocked at what I discovered
Ireland’s Great Hunger
Then came the Irish Famine. In terms of DNA movement, Ireland’s Famine was huge, according to Barry Star, a scientist at Ancestry.com. So large that a DNA expert without any knowledge of the Famine would immediately surmise some huge catastrophe had happened just from the DNA movement.
Victims of the Irish Famine.
“Even if we’d somehow never heard about the Irish Potato Famine, we would still be able to piece together that something huge happened in Ireland at that time—just by using insights from customers’ family trees and DNA. That connection between your DNA and pivotal events in human history is something very unique,” Star said.
More than 1.5 million people on the move, another million dead – Ireland’s Famine was a catastrophic event to match any of the 19th century.
Its impact in America was huge. The population of the US was just 17 million in 1840. Ten years later, with massive Irish immigration leading the way, it was 23 million.
The Famine Memorial, in Battery City, Manhattan.
For generations after, the Irish would continue to come until the ill-fated 1965 Immigration Act which essentially ended immigration from Europe.
But the massive DNA trail from the Scots Irish to the indentured Catholics to the Famine to the Irish radical revolutionaries such as the Fenians and the 1916 men and beyond has left its mark as Ancestry DNA has noted.
Put simply, everyday DNA seekers are finding they have unexpected Irish roots.
The question must be is how can we reach out to them and introduce them to that heritage which could prove invaluable for Ireland and Irish America.
Have you tested your DNA? Do you have Irish roots? Were you surprised by the results. Let us know in the comments section below.
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