Before Ireland – The Scottish Link
The Most Recent Common Ancestor for the related group of Seery/Freeman testers was born approximately 1068AD. Since surnames started to be used in England from about 1300AD and in Ireland from about 950AD it seems to rule out a link to the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169AD.
The Y-DNA data does hold some interesting results that may help determine the route taken by the proto-Seery ancestor who first settled in Ireland. There are two interesting, more distant matches higher up the haplotree that suggest a pre-Ireland origin in the North East of Scotland. These matches are of the surnames Craig and Oliphant. The birthdate of Seery/Craig/Oliphant MRCA is approximately 593AD. Both of these families ended up in the Ulster region for differing reasons. The Craig Clan has their origins in Aberdeenshire and family lore from one of the matches indicates that they emigrated to Donegal from Scotland in the mid-18th century and settled with family who had emigrated earlier. As these Craigs were Catholic it may have been connected to the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1745 led by Bonnie Prince Charlie. The Oliphant match can be traced to the Clan of the same name that is also from the NE of Scotland and likely emigrated from there as part of the Ulster Plantation that started in the early 1600’s. This is suggested by the matches ancestors being of the Presbyterian religion.
A possible migration pathway that the proto-Seery ancestor took from Aberdeenshire may have been through the sea routes operated by the Vikings who established several Hiberno-Norse cities in Ireland. The closest of these to Aberdeenshire being Dublin which was founded in about 850AD. The sea at this time would have been considered the main highways of their day being a much quicker and easier route to take than land travel on an almost non-existent road system. Having settlements in the Western Isles of Scotland and Orkney the Vikings had an established trading network which allowed for the movement of goods and people around the region. The area of Aberdeenshire was part of the Pictish kingdom and to date there have been no hard archaeological evidence that the Picts traded with the Vikings. The Vikings however were known to also trade in slaves and their pillaging raids are well documented, taking goods and people. So, it is likely that the emigration to Ireland was trade linked. Either an individual seeking new opportunity in Viking Dublin utilising the established trade routes to get there or was a commodity himself who had been captured in a raid and sold in Dublin. At the moment the weight of evidence seems to support the latter of these two alternatives.
To add weight to this Norse connection is the second origin of the Seery surname as mentioned above that suggests the names original Irish form was Ó Síoghraidh from the Scandinavian personal name Sigefrith.
Continue reading: Before Ireland – The Parisi Connection