McCool Name Study - Toberhead or Townsend Line

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]
Surnames/tags: McCool McCoole

Several Toberhead McCool lines of descent have become called into question by new Y-DNA test results. This demonstrates the strong need for a Y-DNA test in as many extended McCool families as possible. Ideally, we'd like to have one Big Y-700 test from one descendant of every McCool male born about 1800 (although that's a big challenge).

Accurate pre-1850 McCool genealogy is very difficult for a number of reasons:

• Early records are often incomplete - where they exist at all.
• McCool families go even further than many other families in reusing given names (aka first names). We often find two or more McCools living in the same area with the same ages and same names.
• Early McCool families rarely named their children in their wills, but often named siblings. Children were provided separate settlements before their parent's death.
• Many Scot-Ulster lines followed the same early migration paths - so different McCool lines lived in the same places.

Over the years, and given these factors, researchers have drawn the best conclusions they could. We're now learning, though, that some corrections are needed in our understanding of several McCool lines. If matching Y-DNA tests don't support the paper trails, then (at least) one of the paper trails is wrong.

Two Toberhead Lines

First McCool Y-DNA Test Results

Until recently, we only had a handful of Y-DNA results.