HISTORY

The Clare Roots project was established to coincide with Maurice Gleeson's talk at the monthly Clare Roots Society meeting on 19 November 2015, after which 20 FamilyTreeDNA kits were sold.
This project is modelled on that of the Ballymena branch of the North of Ireland Family History Society.

HOW TO JOIN

Membership is open to anyone with proven or suspected ancestry in County Clare.
If you have sent a DNA sample to FamilyTreeDNA, but are not already a member of the project, just click the JOIN button towards the right of the banner photograph above and log in with your FTDNA kit number if you have not already done so.
If you sent your DNA to one of the other big autosomal DNA companies when they were using compatible technology, then you can use the free autosomal transfer to join this project.

OBJECTIVES

The overall objective of the project is to encourage and support the use of DNA testing to further genealogical research among those with roots in County Clare.
Members will also be encouraged to join other relevant projects, including their specific surname project, their relevant haplogroup projects, and any other relevant geographic projects.

ADMINISTRATORS

The administrators are Paddy Waldron, who lives in Ireland, and Terry Fitzgerald, who lives in the USA.

BENEFITS OF MEMBERSHIP

As the project grows, the members will probably identify additional benefits of membership. These include:

The Activity Feed

Members of the project should feel free to use the Activity Feed to direct any questions that you may have to the project administrators, and for discussion with other project members.

Advanced Matches

If you want to see how many of your Family Finder matches are in this project (or any project that you have joined), then just go to the Advanced Matches page and tick the Family Finder checkbox and select the project in the "Show Matches For" dropdown.
As of 9 December 2016, One project member matched 52 of the other 416 project members, exactly 1-in-8.  As we are told to expect to match only 10% of our fifth cousins, this person appears to be on average more closely related than 5th cousin to everyone else in the project.

Y-DNA subgrouping

The administrators assign male project members who have bought Y-DNA STR products into subgroups from the same male line, based on STR results, SNP results and surnames. This is still more an art form than a science and we are still learning as we go along.

Surname lists

The administrators also maintain lists of County Clare surnames so that members can see how many of their fellow project members share their ancestral surnames.

Sponsored DNA kits

If any of the diaspora members would like to sponsor a DNA kit for a known or suspected relative in County Clare, then our Clare-based administrator (who keeps a stock of FTDNA kits) may be able to collect the sample.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF MEMBERSHIP

To benefit from project membership, it is imperative that you fill in the names of both your Direct Maternal (i.e. matrilineal) and Direct Paternal (i.e. patrilineal) Most Distant (i.e. most distant known) Ancestors here in order to help those looking for mitochondrial DNA matches and Y-DNA matches respectively; and that you also upload a GEDCOM file here showing your direct ancestors (which will automatically populate your surname list). It is recommended that you squeeze in names, places and dates to the limited string length of 50 characters available for the names of the most distant ancestors.

As of May 2018, in order to allow administrators to view your matches, you must take action to give them Limited or Advanced Access to your kit. This must be done here.
For each project that you have joined, click the orange Edit button and select "Limited" or "Advanced" from the relevant dropdowns, which may currently say "Minimum", then click Accept and then click Confirm and then click OK.
If you belong to more than 10 projects, then they will be split across multiple pages.

One of the principal reasons that male FTDNA customers participate in projects is for guidance on their place on the Y-DNA Haplotree.
If you allow project administrators to view your Y-DNA match lists, then they will often be able to predict with considerable confidence a more recent place for you on the haplotree than the automated predicted haplogroup given by FTDNA.
You will then be assigned by the administrator to the relevant subgroup on the Y-DNA Colorized Chart in the DNA Results area of the project website.

One of the project administrators has written further advice on how to get the most out of your DNA results (especially Family Finder results) which members should also read.

CLARE ROOTS SOCIETY

This project is not affiliated with the Clare Roots Society, although it was inspired by a meeting of that society.
To learn more about the Clare Roots Society, check out the Society's website and Facebook page.
DNA results can also be discussed in IGP's County Clare Ireland Genealogy Group on Facebook.