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Manus, do you know if any male SYNANs have done YDNA testing yet?   Or if there are any who would be interested?   I run the Sennett/Sinnott/Synnott YDNA study at familytreedna.  Because the Sinnott genealogy claims exactly the same earliest origins as the SYNAN families do (Adam Fitz Synan or Adam Fits Synad, with an arrival in Ireland in the late 12th century) I'd be extremely keen to find genetic evidence of the link.   If you are on facebook, there is a "Synan genealogy" group where the admin has posted a lot of information, or feel free to PM me or contact me through the Sennett surname study (contact link by searching for Sennett or Sinnott on the Guild of One Name Studies website).

I've just been searching Irish Civil Registration records, and discovered on an 1871 page, four deaths from this asylum from 1864 and 1865  that were not officially registered until 7 feb 1871

Honora HEWSON, widow, died 18 dec 1864 at Magdalen Asylum, Limerick, aged 56
Mary Anne GODFREY, spinster, died 7 dec 1864 at Magdalen Asylum, Limerick, aged 44
Mary ROBINSON, spinster, died 10 apr 1865 at Magdalen Asylum, Limerick, aged 26
Anne SYNNOT, spinster, died 28 jun 1865 at Magdalen Asylum, Limerick, aged 28

As these were the last four records on a page, there may be other late recorded deaths from the same asylum on the following page or pages.   That means that it may be worth looking for names of interest well beyond the date you know the person to have died.

Hi Phil, I'm also trying to sort out genetic matches - I am a descendant of Mary Elizabeth DODD who married Charles STEVENS in 1766 at Chenies.  I have one ancestrydna match (picked up by thrulines) to another descendant of Charles and Mary E, a 4th cousin with 7 cM shared DNA, but I also have two more matches to descendants of Frances DODD at 7 and 10cM, both of whom are estimated to be 6th cousins.  I understood from my mother's research that my Mary Elizabeth was the daughter of George DODD, but I've seen Frances with different parents, so although the ancestry thrulines put them as siblings, that doesn't really work and  I'm a bit confused now what the relationship might be.  I have also done Familyfinder at familytreedna, but I haven't managed to identify any DODD matches there yet. 

The SENNETT (SINNOTT, SYNNOTT, SINNETT etc) surname DNA study at familytreedna.com has recently had 6 project members upgrade to BigY, and the results are looking very exciting.  We are finally able to go beyond just knowing that people match and share a common ancestor (but not having any idea who), to being able to see how the genetic tree is branching.  With every new test that gets upgraded to BigY, we are seeing more branches named and placed on the haplotree, and that means it gets easier to put timeframes on branching and therefore start figuring out how some of the currently separate S-NN-T families with Irish origin are actually related.

I've written a blog post here https://sennettfamilytree.wordpress.com/2020/03/14/crowdfunding-sinnott-sennett-dna-studies/,
but really what I am looking for is to get in contact with a whole lot more people (families that include men with direct line S-NN-T ancestry) who are interested in using DNA to help build a genetic tree for our surname that can give us information to fill in some of the many gaps in documentary evidence.

I repeat, this is a Y-DNA project (at familytreedna.com), looking at the surname line.   This type of testing will take us many more generations further back than the autosomal tests (like Ancestry), so while I would still be interested in hearing from women who have done autosomal testing, it really is the men I would like to get involved.

You can start small with a YDNA-37 test (at familytreedna.com - prices have reduced considerably recently and now at $119 USD - down from $169) or go big and go straight to the BigY test.   There are also ways to support the project if you can't test yourself (women, or descendants of female lines where the surname has died out).  Any help to grow this project will help ALL S-NN-T families find common ancestors and get closer to their origins. 

If you follow my blog from the link above, then I will try to post regularly about the DNA project as well as more general updates from the surname study.

UPDATE (march 2020)
the Surname project now has around 80,000 names in the database, most of whom are linked together into extended family groups.   

The worldwide study has progressed considerably with increasing amounts of Irish records, and many more emigrant families have now been linked back to an Irish townland origin (though still lots to do).

The surname DNA project (YDNA, male surname line) is also really beginning to show results and welcomes new participants (familytreedna.com)