Meek DNA Group E

Our Meek family is a part of Group E in the Meek DNA Project. Members of Group E who have been able to trace their paternal line back to Europe trace their ancestry back to Ireland. We trace our ancestry back to Thomas Meek, born around 1740 in County Antrim, (Northern) Ireland and who died around 1783. Thomas Meek’s son, James Meek, was born in 1777 and immigrated to North America around 1815 eventually settling in Elgin County, Ontario.

Because the last name Meek was not found in Ireland before the Plantations of Ireland in the late 1500s and early 1600s, and because Meeks in Ireland were generally protestants, it is assumed that our Meek line (a/k/a “Meek Group E”) likely immigrated from Great Britain. Family lore also says that our Meek line descends from a ship captain from Southwest England who sailed with Francis Drake against the Spanish Armada and later moved to Ireland in the late 1500s.

Advanced DNA testing has shown that our Meek line is in the Y-DNA group R1b>M269>P312>ZZ37>ZZ38>S27900>FGC69542>A21073>BY229111. We encourage any DNA relatives to join the P312 Project and the ZZ37 Project as well as the Meek DNA Project.

The S27900 branch is descended from a man who likely lived in Great Britain around 2000 years ago. Our closest non-Meek paternal relatives have the last name Powell, which is a Welsh surname and most known S27900 lines have Welsh surnames. So the current theory is that before moving to Ireland around 1600, our Meek line was in Wales or in a part of Western England near Wales.

Other theories have included ties to Scotland, France, and even Spain. But results from advanced DNA testing essentially debunk these theories.