The above link discribes the migration our YDNA ancestors took starting some 55,000 years ago in Africa and ending about 1,500 years ago (512AD) in Scotland. Here is a simple way of viewing that time frame:
We have good evidence of our YDNA migration from the beginning to about 512AD, and we have good family records from 1789 to the present, but we know much less about the years between 512AD and 1789AD.
I have made up a story of what happened between those dates based on the predominate events:
- We know that men of our I2a2a1a1 Isles-Scot haplogroup came into being in about 512AD in southwest Scotland near Argyle. This was some 662 years before the birth (1174AD) of Gillean of the Battleaxe who was the founder of Clan McLean.
- We know that Gillean of the Battleaxe's Clan McLean was of Highland Scotland. Our branch must have moved into the Lowlands sometime between 1174 and their move to Ireland.
- We know that our John McLean Jr's family was AR Presbyterian and that almost certainly makes his line Scots-Irish. (People who's roots were in Scotland but who migrated to the Ulster Plantation of Ireland mostly in the period 1607-1697)
- We can guess that a McLean of our line moved to Ulster in around 1652 which is the middle of the 1607-1697 period.
- We must assume that our McLean line was living in Lowland Scotland prior to migration to Ireland as only Lowland Scotsmen were allowed to migrate to Ulster in that time period.
- We might also presume that our McLean was living along the west coast of Scotland in perhaps Ayershire in perhaps the towns of Ayr or Kilmornock.
- And that they settled in Antrim, Ireland as that was the closest Irish Ulster County - some 13 miles south-west across the Irish Sea.
- We know that John McLean Jr was born 1789. We believe he was the son of John McLean Sr who was then living on his plantation on Coddle Creek, Rowan County, North Carolina. We know that John McLean purchased this Coddle Creek land 1 May 1787. We also believe that he had previously owned land father east in Rowan County between 2nd and 4th Creeks near their entry into the Yadkin River. This land was purchased by Grant in 1780 and sold in March of 1787, just a month or two before the purchase of the Coddle Creek land.
- We know that by census records John McLean Sr was born in about 1753 and that he had another son born in 1783.
- We suppose that he immigrated from Antrim Ireland in around 1774 at age 21.
- We also suppose that he sailed from Antrim and landed in Philadelphia, PA as was the case with the majority of Scots-Irish immigrants to America.
- We also suppose he worked his way west and south to North Carolina along the Great Wagon Road as the majority of Scots-Irish had done before him.
- We find that John McLean Sr purchased his Coddle Creek land from a William McLean who had purchased this land from a William McKnight, a neighbor. William McKnight is of our same Isles-Scot YDNA stock and a Scots-Irishman.
