See the Overview or FAQ before clicking JOIN.

Prospective members who have any questions ABOUT THE PROJECT after reading the materials here should email Susan at driscolldna @ pobox.com. If you expect your email to be seen and you want a reply, copy and paste the exact phrase DRISCOLL PROJECT into the subject line of your email. Current project members need to add their FTDNA account number on the subject line. Emails must be BRIEF (300 words or less). Do NOT send attachments. Otherwise your email will be regarded as spam and you will not get a reply.

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Notes on Project History

Colin Ferguson launched the project around 2002/2003 and singlehandedly administered the project for several years. During that time, he built the original project website on Rootsweb and elicited the assistance of many volunteers who contributed extracted records and data to the website. In 2012, he brought on board Susan Barretta as a co-administrator. In 2015, Colin went into semi-retirement, asking Susan to take over as administrator and becoming the co-administrator. In 2018 Colin retired.

In its early days, the project utilized STR marker data from Y12, Y25 and Y37 tests. Now, the choices are Y37 and Y111. The project also combines SNP data from advanced Y testing (Big Y) with STR data into its analysis. When there is sufficient data in place to do so and members are participating at an EXPERT level (see the FAQ), the extra markers after 111 are also compared to identify possible shared mutations.

The project website was hosted on the free pages on Rootsweb for over 15 years, but was moved in the spring of 2016 to a more reliable hosting service funded by Susan.

The decision was made in May 2018 to take all results private so as to eliminate any then and future issues with privacy laws. Any detailed STR and SNP analysis on our external website is present there because of our EXPERT level members who have given their explicit written permission to utilize and publish their anonymized genetic data for analytical purposes.

The external mailing list was discontinued in May of 2021, and members have been referred to County Cork forums and Facebook groups. The project is relying instead on the internal Activity Feed for communications.

The project is registered with The Clans of Ireland Ltd.

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Background on the Driscoll Surname

The Driscolls were the rulers of the Corca Laidhe, a territory in South Munster. Our project is devoted to helping Driscoll men find their patriline link back to Cork or Ireland. By doing so, we incrementally discover who the Driscolls were genetically and their role in the Corca Laidhe, an ancient kingdom covering west Cork and part of Kerry. Genetic testing is indeed a form of archaeology, and we are a HISTORY project too.

Historically related names include: Cadogan, Coffey, Cronican, Finn, Kerukane, Minihane, Whooly, or spelling variants of these names, e.g. Cadigan, Cowhig, Driskell, and Minihane - around West Cork.

Driscolls are principally associated with Cork and Kerry. The vast majority of them are found in Cork in the 20th century censuses. Old records show a light sprinkling of Driscolls in other parts of Ireland. However, agnomen names might originate in other parts of Ireland. For example, someone named Finn near Skibbereen in County Cork could have been a Driscoll but a Finn in County Mayo is likely associated with a different sept. To not muddy the waters with polygenetic agnomens, eligibility of agnomen surnames is restricted to West Cork ancestry.

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Prospective members who have any questions ABOUT THE PROJECT after reading the materials here should email Susan at driscolldna @ pobox.com. If you expect your email to be seen and you want a reply, copy and paste the exact phrase DRISCOLL PROJECT into the subject line of your email. Current project members need to add their FTDNA account number on the subject line. Emails must be BRIEF (300 words or less). Do NOT send attachments. Otherwise your email will be regarded as spam and you will not get a reply.