Finbar O'Mahony - Speaker Profile

Name - Dr. Finbar O'Mahony

Qualifications - DBA, MBA, BA, Dip. Psych., FRPSL

Member - ISOGG

Day Job - very much retired. Worked as a lecturer (DIT), former HR Director (FIPM and FIITD), and qualified as a psychologist.

Project Administration - I am Administrator of several DNA projects - the O Mahony yDNA project, and the Moriarty and Hartnett yDNA projects; Co-administrator of the Munster Irish project.

So tell us about yourself, Finbar!

I am a Corkonian, I live in Dublin and am married to Fidelma (nee Campbell with an Eagleton maternal line). We have three married adults and six grandchildren. In my past I was the first Director of the Limerick branch of the Samaritans, Chairman of the Care of the Aged Committee, and founder member of the Castleconnell branch of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann, Past President of the Irish Philatelic Society, past Chairman of Stampa (Irish National Stamp Exhibition), former board member of Clans of Ireland and now I'm enjoying myself volunteering for the administration of DNA projects and recruiting participants for those projects.

Busy man! And how did you get into genealogy? Indeed, where did you find the time?!

I attended my first lecture on the O Mahony Family in the Dairy Science lecture theatre, UCC in the middle 1950s, attended some O Mahony Gatherings in the 1960s and 1970s and in 1976 I started our family tree. I wanted to capture the myths, stories and family tales and see how many facts still remained. Both my maternal grandparents were sole survivors into adulthood in their families, so reliance on documentary evidence was a necessity. Genetic genealogy became a passion from my retirement date more than five years ago. It has paid me back handsomely.

Tell us about your involvement with genetic genealogy? 

I tested with FamilyTreeDNA in 2008 and had some success with both their Y-DNA and FamilyFinder tests and so I tested for mitochondrial DNA. Next I went for the Walk The Y project. More recently I tested with 23andme and Geno 2.0. By now I had discovered I was not only R - L21 positive but also CTS4466 positive and by then I was hooked. So now I have tested for the Full Y-DNA Genome. The search goes on. Genetic genealogy is a journey, not a destination.

So what will you be talking about? 

I will be concentrating on the O Mahony Y-DNA project, the objectives, the recruitment over time, particularly in the past few years, and the major haplogroups within the project. I will also be looking at the results so far, the various genetic families within the project, how these tie in with traditional genealogy, what questions they answer, and (perhaps more importantly) what questions they raise.

And where can we get more information about the project? 

Just click on the link below:

• www.omahonysociety.org 

You can download a pdf version of Fibar's slides by clicking here ...

Watch Finbar's presentation here.

Finbar O'Mahony - The O'Mahony surname study

Published on 20 Oct 2013

Finbar runs the O'Mahony surname project and this summary of the current state of his research demonstrates how beautifully he has blended traditional genealogy with DNA testing to bring us closer to an understanding of the genetic signatures of the ancient Irish genealogies.

Presented at Genetic Genealogy Ireland 2013 on Sunday 20th Oct 2013. Please note that these GGI2013 videos are copyrighted to the presenter and should only be used for personal study. They are not to be used for any other purpose without the presenters express permission. Also, please note that because this is a rapidly advancing field, the content may quickly become outdated.

The lectures were sponsored by FamilyTreeDNA and organised by ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy).