DNA Caldwell-Hughey matches in FTDNA

Question

So my late father's first cousin who was a male Hughey has 26 Y-DNA cousin matches for the surname Caldwell and Colwell in his list. I counted them. I've been told that apparently, somewhere along the brick wall the Hughey's and Caldwell's married. Maybe in Ireland or Scotland. I sure wish I knew the connection. Does anyone out there in Wikitreeland have an inkling about it who has studied the Caldwell Surname and trees???

Answer 1

Just looking thru WikiTree entries for each surname, shows that the Caldwell name is much older.

Looking thru that family name, there is a poorly sourced line of ancestry profiles starting in Ireland/Scotland/England which then point towards France with the name of "Calwel" around 1450.  With YDNA testing, it may be possible to determine if this is roughly correct or not.

However, as I understand it, the surname "Hughey" is a derivative of Gaelic "O hEachaidh", which means Horseman.  So, possibly, a Caldwell at one time may have worked as a horseman and carried forward that distinction.

Comments

There are several variant derivations of the Hughey name,only one of which is the Irish one you mentioned.  There's also Mercian- one where the name Hughey was derived from the Brythonic word meaning "fire." The oriiginal Scots Hughey's and he Irish ones were probably not related to the Irish ones.

NOTE: Brythoinic was the original Celtic language of England.

Answer 2

I don't have an inkling, but I imagine the FamilyTreeDNA Caldwell surname project has some leads.

https://www.familytreedna.com/group-join.aspx?Group=Caldwell

Comments

I thought of that and put my 3 male cousins DNA in that group last night. We shall see...

Answer 3

Gene, The male Y-DNA chromosome carries pretty much true through the male line.  If you Huey has 26 Caldwell connections, it probably means that a Huey ancestor was adopted by a Caldwell or a Caldwell male was taken in by a Huey relative and their name was changed by common usage.

It was not unusual for young children of a widow to be parceled out among family.

Comments

Caldwell DNA is part of the Hughey's Ancestry.  My male Hughey cousins DNA wouldn't be a match to Caldwell DNA if there was adoption in there. Hmmmm. Probably a marriage with children.