The Y-DNA Evidence
The Hamall Paternal Line: Big Y-700 Results and the Hamill Surname Project
What Y-DNA Measures — And What It Doesn't
Y-DNA testing answers a single, narrow, decisive question: along the strict father-to-father chain, where does this paternal line sit on the human Y-chromosome tree? It does not tell us about all our ancestors. It tells us about one line of them — the one that carries the surname.
The Y chromosome is passed from father to son largely unchanged across generations, with rare mutations (single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs) accumulating slowly over time. By identifying which mutations a man carries, FamilyTreeDNA's Big Y-700 test places him on a global phylogenetic tree extending back tens of thousands of years. The terminal branch — the most specific, recent SNP shared with at least one other tested man — represents the most recent common paternal ancestor of all men currently confirmed on that branch.
Y-DNA evidence and autosomal evidence are complementary, not redundant. They answer different questions about the same family, and the Donaghmoyne Network case study now uses both.
What Y-DNA Tells Us
The strict father-to-father lineage. Whether two men share a paternal ancestor and approximately how long ago. Surname-specific paternal origins. Confirmation or refutation of presumed paternal-line relationships, even across many generations. Permanent identification: a Y-DNA signature does not fade with distance.
What Y-DNA Does Not Tell Us
Anything about ancestors who are not in the strict paternal line. Mothers, grandmothers, female ancestors, paternal aunts, and all of their lines are invisible to Y-DNA. Autosomal evidence, including the chromosome 2 segment work, captures these wider relationships. The two evidence types together cover what neither alone can.
The Test
Big Y-700 testing of the Hamall paternal line, February 2024
Kenneth Hamall
- Test
- Big Y-700
- Markers
- 1 to 700
- Y Haplogroup
- E-FTD95657
- Paternal EKA
- Owen Hamall, b. 1847 d. 1898
- Origin
- Ireland
Alec Hamall
- Test
- Big Y-700
- Markers
- 1 to 700
- Y Haplogroup
- E-FTD95657
- Paternal EKA
- Owen Hamall, b. 1847 d. 1898
- Origin
- Ireland
Father–Son Inheritance Confirmed
Kenneth and Alec are an exact match across all five tested marker levels (Y-12, Y-25, Y-37, Y-67, Y-111), with only three STR differences out of 669 measured at Big Y-700 — well within the expected range for a single father-to-son transmission. This confirms unbroken paternal inheritance and validates Kenneth's Y-DNA signature as representative of the Hamall paternal line back through Owen Hamall and beyond.
The Haplogroup Tree
Where Owen Hamall's paternal line sits on the human Y-chromosome phylogeny
The terminal haplogroup E-FTD95657 formed approximately 1900 CE as a branch off its parent haplogroup E-FTT106, which formed around 150 BCE. The branch sits within the broader E-M35 lineage — a haplogroup with deep ancestral origins in the Mediterranean and North Africa, distributed today across populations from Morocco to the Levant to the British Isles.
Reading the tree: The deep root E-M35 is a major Y-haplogroup arising in northeastern Africa roughly 24,000 years ago. The parent branch E-FTT106 formed around 150 BCE, and its currently confirmed sibling branches reach into Morocco, the Dominican Republic, and other regions — consistent with the Mediterranean and North African origins of the broader E-M35 family.
Owen Hamall's terminal branch E-FTD95657 formed approximately 1900 CE — meaning Kenneth and Alec share a paternal ancestor with all confirmed E-FTD95657 testers within roughly the last 125 years. To date, the only confirmed testers on this branch are Kenneth and Alec themselves; no external genetic relatives have yet been identified at this resolution.
Match Analysis
Y-DNA matches across testing levels and what each does and doesn't tell us
| Marker Level | Total Matches | Closest External Match | Relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Y-700 | 1 | Alec Hamall (son, Exact Match, 3 STR diff/669) | Father–son inheritance confirmed; no external testers yet on E-FTD95657 |
| Y-111 | 1 | Alec Hamall (Exact Match) | No external 111-marker matches in FTDNA database |
| Y-67 | 2 | BF (GD=7), terminal haplogroup E-PF2546, paternal earliest known ancestor Michael Finegan ~b. 1790 (Ireland), with documented Finegan paternal line traced to Philip Finegan b. 1831 in Monaghan City, Co. Monaghan | Different terminal haplogroup; TMRCA estimate ~1100 CE — medieval, far older than the genealogical era |
| Y-37 | 1 | Alec Hamall only | No external 37-marker matches |
| Y-25 | 8 | Six matches at GD=2 with origins in Morocco, the Middle East, England, and Ireland (BF) | Deep prehistoric connections via the broader E-M35 lineage; not genealogical-era matches |
| Y-12 | 1 | Alec Hamall only | No external 12-marker matches |
The BF match deserves a careful note. At Y-67 with genetic distance 7, FTDNA's TMRCA estimator places the most recent common paternal ancestor at approximately 1100 CE, with a 95% confidence range of 400–1600 CE. This is medieval — many centuries before either the Hamall or Finegan documentary record begins. Combined with the different terminal haplogroup (E-PF2546 vs. E-FTD95657), this is not a working genealogical match. It documents a distant, shared paternal heritage somewhere in early Christian-era Ireland, but it cannot help connect Owen Hamall's family to specific 18th- or 19th-century lines.
The Hamill Surname Project
What ~30 tested Hamill, Hammill, Hamel, and Hamall men reveal about paternal-line origins
The Hamall paternal line is the only E-haplogroup lineage in the entire Hamill Surname Project.
Of approximately 30 tested men carrying surname variants of Hamill, Hammill, Hamel, Hammel, or Hamall in the FTDNA Hamill Surname Project, Kenneth and Alec are the only members on an E-haplogroup branch. Every other tested Hamill paternal line carries an R-haplogroup (predominantly R-M222, R-M269, R-S673, or R-S588) or one of several I-haplogroup branches.
This means the Hamall paternal line is not paternally related to any other tested Hamill man within the genealogical era — or, indeed, anywhere remotely close to it. Their common paternal ancestors lie tens of thousands of years in the past.
Haplogroup Distribution Across the Hamill Surname Project
The Hamill Surname Project is currently classified as "Ungrouped" by its administrator — meaning no formal subgroups have been confirmed. The haplogroup distribution shows why: tested men with these surnames descend from genetically diverse paternal origins reflecting Ireland, Britain, and continental Europe.
Specific Irish-Origin Hamill Testers
The following testers in the Hamill Surname Project list Ireland or Northern Ireland as their paternal country of origin and carry documented earliest known ancestors. None of them shares a paternal line with the Hamall family. The Hamall row is highlighted for contrast.
| Tester / Surname | Earliest Known Ancestor | Origin | Haplogroup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hamall | Owen Hamall, b. 1847 d. 1898 | Ireland (Donaghmoyne) | E-FTD95657 |
| Hamill | Isaac Hamill, b. 1778 d. 1875 | Ireland | R-M222 |
| Hamill | Alexander Hamill, b. 1826 d. 1901 | Northern Ireland | R-M222 |
| Hamill | Michael Hamill, b. ~1800 d. ~1855 | Ireland | R-M222 |
| Hammill | Patrick Hammill, b. ~1774 | Ireland | R-M222 |
| Hamill | Patrick Hamill, b. 1781 d. 1818 (MD) | Ireland | R-BY18197 |
| Hammill | James Hammill, b. ~1831 d. USA | Ireland | R-S673 |
| hamill | Hercules Hamill, b. 1795 d. 1861 | Northern Ireland | R-S673 |
| Hamill | William Hamill, b. 1792, Armagh | Ireland | R-S588 |
| Hamill | Thomas Hamill | Ireland | R-M269 |
| Hamill | (unspecified) | Northern Ireland | I-Y6228 |
STR Signature Comparison
How the Hamall paternal-line marker values differ from the typical Irish Hamill profile
Beneath the haplogroup designation, individual short tandem repeat (STR) marker values reveal the paternal-line distinction at the molecular level. The Hamall E-FTD95657 marker signature is structurally different from the modal R-M222 Irish Hamill profile across multiple positions. Notable differences are highlighted in gold.
| Lineage | DYS 393 |
DYS 390 |
DYS 19 |
DYS 391 |
DYS 385 |
DYS 426 |
DYS 388 |
DYS 439 |
DYS 389I |
DYS 392 |
DYS 389II |
DYS 458 |
DYS 459 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hamall (E-FTD95657) Owen Hamall line |
13 | 23 | 14 | 9 | 13-14 | 11 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 28 | 16 | 8-9 |
| Typical R-M222 Irish Hamill Isaac Hamill 1778, et al. |
13 | 25 | 14 | 11 | 11-13 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 14 | 14 | 30 | 17 | 9-9 |
What stands out: The Hamall line shows DYS391=9 (rare and low), DYS385=13-14, and DYS389II=28 — values that are characteristic of E-haplogroup lineages. The R-M222 Irish Hamill cluster shows DYS390=25, DYS391=11, DYS385=11-13, and DYS389II=30 — the hallmark Northwest Irish modal signature. The two profiles do not partially overlap. They are different signatures from different paternal trees.
What This Evidence Means
For the Hamall Surname
The Hamall paternal line carries a Mediterranean / North African deep-ancestry signature (the E-M35 lineage) into Ireland by some route, at some point, and acquired the Hamall surname independently of the broader Hamill genetic family. The mechanism cannot be distinguished by Y-DNA alone — surname adoption from a landholder, an unrecorded paternal event in the deeper line, or arrival as a distinct family that took the Hamill name are all possibilities consistent with the data.
For Future Hamall Testers
The E-FTD95657 signature is now a permanent paternal-line reference. Any male-line male descendant of Owen Hamall — Kenneth's grandsons, Alec's sons, or any future tester from the same paternal line — can be confirmed against this signature. Because Y-DNA does not fade with distance, this reference is stable for as long as the lineage continues to test.
For the Donaghmoyne Network
The autosomal Donaghmoyne network finding (chromosome 2 segment triangulation across 13+ matches) is independent of the Y-DNA result and remains fully intact. Autosomal evidence captures kinship through all ancestral lines — including Mary McMahon's family, the Gartlan line, and the broader endogamous parish population. The Hamall line connects autosomally to the Donaghmoyne community even where it does not connect paternally to other Hamill men.
For the Three Thomas Hamalls Case Study
The R-M269 Thomas Hamill from Ireland (kit N64111) cannot share a paternal line with Owen Hamall. If any of the Three Thomas figures shares paternal ancestry with that Thomas, that figure is necessarily not a paternal-line relative of Owen. This narrows the analytical possibility space without identifying which Thomas is which.
What Y-DNA Cannot Resolve
The Y-DNA evidence creates a permanent reference and rules out paternal-line connections to other tested Hamill men, but it does not, by itself, answer the open documentary questions in the case study. Autosomal kinship is unaffected by Y-DNA results. Owen Hamall's documented autosomal connections to other Donaghmoyne Hamill descendants — including the four DNA-proven Donaghmoyne couple relationships — exist through women in the pedigree, through Owen's own paternal line at points beyond what his Y-DNA reveals, and through the broader endogamous parish population. None of these connections is challenged by the haplogroup distinction.
Y-DNA also cannot, on its own, identify which documentary mechanism produced the Hamall paternal line's haplogroup distinction from other Irish Hamill families. Surname adoption, an unrecorded paternal event in the deeper line, or arrival in the Donaghmoyne area as a separately-named family that took or was given the Hamill name are all possibilities that fit the genetic data equally well. Resolving this question, if it can be resolved, will require pre-Famine documentary research — Catholic Qualification Rolls 1778–1790, Tithe Applotment Books 1823–1838, surviving estate records, and parish-level genealogical reconstruction.
Finally, the Y-DNA result does not, on its own, place Owen Hamall in any specific Donaghmoyne townland. The 1824 Tithe entry for "Henry Hamil Edengilrew" and the 1861 Griffith's Valuation entry for "James Hamill Dian" remain documentary leads that cannot be tested against Kenneth's haplogroup until male-line descendants of those families themselves test. Until then, those identifications rest on documentary evidence alone.
The Single Most Decisive Test Available
With Owen Hamall's paternal Y-DNA signature now established as E-FTD95657, the brother hypothesis at the center of the Donaghmoyne Network case study becomes a sharp, testable prediction. If Owen Hammel of Wisconsin, James Hamill Sr. of Dian, and Susan Hamill McCanna's father were paternal-line brothers of Henry Hamall, then any direct paternal-line male descendant of those men would also test E-FTD95657.
If a result instead falls into an R-haplogroup or I-haplogroup, paternal brother kinship for that line is refuted — although autosomal kinship through women in the pedigree, including the documented Donaghmoyne network connections, would remain fully intact.
I would welcome the opportunity to coordinate Y-DNA testing with paternal-line male descendants from any of the following lines:
Owen Hammel & Ann King
Donaghmoyne → Wisconsin → Nebraska. Direct paternal-line male descendants of sons James Hammel (b. ~1849 NY) or Henry Hammel (1856–1926).
James Hamill Sr. & Ann Gartlan
Dian → Montana, Missouri, Ireland. Direct paternal-line male descendants of sons James Jr. (Anaconda), Patrick J. (St. Louis), Henry (Missouri), or Peter Hamill.
Susan Hamill's Hamill Father
Donaghmoyne → Joliet. Direct paternal-line male descendants of Susan Hamill McCanna's Hamill father, through any male-line Hamill brother of Susan if identified.
A single Y-67 or Big Y-700 test from a paternal-line male descendant of any of these lines would, in one result, confirm or refute the paternal brother hypothesis for that family. Documentary research in pre-Famine Irish records remains the parallel path forward, but Y-DNA testing offers the cleanest, fastest decisive evidence currently available.