I have been compiling various Casey families that started arriving in western South Carolina in the early 1750s. Poorly documented tradition originally stated that these lines moved south from Virginia where earlier Casey families resided. However, genetic testing has all but eliminated these lines as being related to the South Carolina lines.
I am the administrator for the Casey FTDNA YDNA project which has around 175 testers (around half list their oldest proven ancestor as Casey). To date, we do not have a single Casey tester who currently resides in Ireland today. There are two very large Casey clusters that account for almost 50 % of all Caseys that have tested to date. These two clusters have tested positive for R-L226 which is the second largest Irish haplogroup with Irish origins. This haplogroup is dominated by Dal gCais surnames and for all L226 testers who list their origins by county, 80 % are listed in only five Irish counties (Tipperrary, Clare, Limerick, Cork and Kerry).
In order to encourage testing of our Irish Casey cousins that still reside in Ireland today, I willing to sponsor a 37 marker test (pay for - value $139). You only have to have your all male Casey line traced back to at least 1860 to one of the five counties listed above. With the 37 marker test, we can quickly determine if your results are part of the L226 haplogroup. If you do turn out to be L226 positive, you also have to allow additional testing as required (upgrades to 67 markers, taking of the L226 SNP pack and Big Y testing). If interested, please send me an email for more details:
http://www.rcasey.net/DNA/Casey/Contact.html
