Clan MacLeod Surname Project - consists of all 152 participants regardless of Haplogroup (May 29 2009)

R1b Clan MacLeod Project - consists of all 121 kits that are in the R1b Haplogroup - this group is made up of both those who are Clan members by blood and those who are Clan members by tradition. The Project Haplotype is determined by taking the most common allele at each marker across the total group (all levels of testing).

Sub Group A - R1b Clan Members by tradition - Those in this group do not match the R1b Clan MacLeod Project Haplotype within allowable distances set by FTDNA and other testing companies and are therefore said by those companies to not have shared an ancestor with the haplotype within the past 800 years. This group does not have much if any chance of a descent from the Founder or any of his many descending-paternal-lines.

At the higher levels of testing (37 and 67) these kits have distances (mutations) of 10 to 25 from the R1b Clan MacLeod Project Haplotype. These kits share few if any of the markers that are unique to the Related MacLeods found in Sub Group B (unique as it relates to the R1b Haplogroup Alleles at those markers and to the degree that they are found in each of the related kits - see above table). This sub group A consists of descendants of those who were associated by tradition with the Clan and took on the surname when that became the societal norm.

1) an ancestor was fostered by the MacLeods in ancient times and upon reaching majority, either he or his descendants assumed the name of the Clan which raised him

2) the husband of a MacLeod daughter from another Clan which belongs to another haplogroup assumed the name MacLeod for purposes of holding title to an estate - or some other form of a marriage event - the children took the name of their mother's second husband - etc.

3) the name was taken because of what is referred to as "a birth event" meaning that the child was not the child of the MacLeod to whom its mother was married but of another man. This was not as unusual an event as it may appear - there are documented cases where the liaison of two folk who were not married to each other were encouraged to "breed" for political purposes.

4) for those R1b's who don't match the Founding Group Haplotype within the allowable distances, their common ancestor could have been in a generation before Leod i.e. they may descend from a first, second or third cousin of Leod himself.

5) for those R1b's who don't match the Founding Group Haplotype, it is possible that their family experienced a higher than average rate of mutation - this can be determined by the testing of additional family members to determine the age of the mutation itself (in which generation the mutation occurred).

For an excellent explanation of various haplogroups within a clan structure see the
Clan Donald Project - this link is off site - use your back button to return to this page.

Sub Group B - Related MacLeods - Those in this group match the R1b Clan MacLeod Project Modal Haplotype (taken from ALL 121 kits in the R1b portion of the project) within allowable distances set by FTDNA and other testing companies AND/or match to each other within those allowable distances. Also within this group are those who fall just outside those allowable distances because of a) Unique Mutation Events (not shared by any other kit in the project or by anyone to whom they may be related to in the project b) they ARE within allowable distances to one or more members who are within allowable distances to the haplotype. FTDNA refers to the kit they match to in the center of the project as an "in - betweener". (These "outsiders" are typically 37 -5, 37 - 6 and 37 -7 - they also typically stay within the allowable distances at the 67 marker level).

The 75 kits (May 29 2009) in this group share alleles on certain markers that are unique to the R1b Clan MacLeod Project Modal Haplotype as it relates to the R1b Haplogroup Alleles at those markers. There are currently 12 markers (3 being copies of one marker - 464) that appear unique to the MacLeod project. Of those 12 markers, CDY a and b may eventually fall away - they are unstable markers in our project and Volatile in most other surname projects but to date the majority of related kits share this 37/37 combination of alleles.

Sub Group B has essentially its own haplotype when it is removed from the R1b Clan MacLeod Project (separated from Sub Group A) and looked at as the separate group that it is.....this haplotype is currently different by one marker - 459b = 11 instead of the R1b Project Allele of 459b = 10. A second marker, 389, is an even split among the kits in this group with 22 kits @ 13/29 at this marker and 23 @ 14/30 - four kits in this group have variances of those two combinations. These two markers (389 and 459b) will hopefully clarify as the current 26 related 12 marker only kits upgrade to higher levels of testing.

Within this Sub Group B - Related MacLeods are BRANCHES - These branches can be identified a) by the Ancestral Modal Haplotypes of those who have tested with their known cousins or b) by the sharing of certain markers that MISS the R1b Clan MacLeod Project Modal Haplotype but match to each other. The ability to identify possible branches without knowledge of the ancestral haplotype is something that is only now occurring with the increase of participation - it is to be hoped that this continues and gives us greater insight to both migration patterns of the related Clan Members and individual branches as they have been formed in the 18 - 22 generations since the founder of this Sub Group.

Included in the Sub Group B - Related MacLeods are a representative of the Talisker Branch of MacLeod of Harris, a representative of the Raasay Branch of MacLeod of Lewis and three representatives of the Arnisdale/Waternish Branch of MacLeod of Harris through Norman IV of Arnisdale, the lone survivor of the massacre of the family of John the Fair Hair. There may be more representatives of additional branches but their participation has not been made public.

To date, the five known documented descendants carry the 14/30 at DYS 389 and four out of five carry an "11" at DYS 459b - should there be more documented descendants in the project whose identities are not known, perhaps one or more of them will have the 13/29 at DYS 389 which would clarify whether we are looking at two significant branching's ocurring cr. 1649 -1705 or at a "meandering" allele combination. A CADET project was underway at one time but the results of that have not been made public - it is unknown if these Cadet kits were included in OUR current project.

TMRCA predictions by FTDNA and YUtility both state that the two haplotypes - *13/29 & 10 or 11* or *14/30 & 10 or 11* - have a 95% probability of sharing an ancestor cr. 1649 - 1705 - evidence now is that the 13/29 and 14/30 combination "meanders" its way through the related paternal lines.

As to the other related kits, their paternal lines of descent prior to the early 1700's and their relationship to the above named representatives has been lost throughout recent history but is now confirmed by their matching those representatives within allowable distances and because the TMRCA is well within the timeframe and generational structure of the family tree and branches of Leod.

As the project progresses, we are beginning to see more evidence of these branching's as new kits are matching within genetic distances of 0-1 at 37 markers and at 67 markers to other kits on significant misses from the R1b Clan MacLeod Project Modal Haplotype - they miss the project modal allele but match with each other. These branches could be further clarified by the testing of known cousins of each of the kits who appear to be a branch in order to determine the age of their mutations.

R1b Subclades

1) the testing reveals your Haplogroup and indicates where your earliest ancestor, thousands of years ago, came from.

2) MacLeod is an old surname dating from the 1200's at least; the test proves whether or not you share that surname from its earliest use or whether one of your ancestors took the name for one of many reasons (birth event, fostering or in later years an adoption event, assuming the head of the family through a marriage to a daughter of the surname etc).

3) it reveals to which of the men of your surname you are most closely related within a genealogical timeframe of approximately 600 - 800 years.

"These results taken together suggests that this high frequency haplotype shared by 32% of the MacLeod sample represents the clan MacLeod founding lineage - the lineage that was created by the original progenitor of the clan and which has subsequently been inherited by a fair proportion of future generations."

Clan MacLeod Magazine DNA Article -Julia Abernethy BA (Hons), University College London This link is off site - use your back button to return to this page.

The Haplotype of the Clan MacLeod Project can be determined by defining the "center" of the project; this is done by taking the most common allele/value at each marker tested - this allele/value becomes the Modal for that marker. Once the "center" is defined, in most Surname Project's each participant's results are compared to the haplotype and a distance from it is assigned. FTDNA has set "allowable" distances which indicate the degree of relatedness of each kit to each other kit.

Our family results are a 12/12 match at the 12 marker level of testing to the haplotype; a 25/25 match at the 25 marker level of testing to the haplotype and a 66/67 to the MacLeod Haplotype as it presently stands. (There is some "fuzziness" beginning to appear at 37 markers in which two multicopy markers appear equally likely to be the modal which will be discussed on the following pages). As more men participate in the project the haplotype will continue to be defined.