The McCullough branch of our family has some of our most well-known – and well-documented ancestors. These include Jacob Broom, one of the “Founding Fathers”, who attended the Constitutional Convention for Delaware, William Frampton, who held offices in William Penn’s government, the Lyons, who were instrumental in founding Carlisle and were some of the earliest settlers of central Pennsylvania, and the Bagley family of Dudley, England, who were close associates of Lord Sutton in the late 1500’s and 1600’s.
Due to the wealth of information we have on several of these families, there is a separate section for the Lyon – Broom branch and pages for the McCullough and Frampton families in this section, with a special section on William Frampton.
Thanks to DNA research, we are also finding new cousins and proving or disproving relationships on a regular basis. We’ve also had some surprises – for instance, it appears that our branch of the McCulloughs is in a special subgroup who have more close ties with people named McCracken. This probably occurred in the early days of surnames, sometime between 1500 – 1650, and well before the family immigrated to America. However, at this point, there are only three McCulloughs in this group. Their connection probably lies well before James McCullough, our most distant known McCullough direct paternal ancestor in America.
So far, I have found no other McCulloughs from our branch besides ourselves who have done a Y-test. For this reason, it would be very useful if any other males of our line who still carry the McCullough surname to do this test. A good place to look for Y-tests is FTDNA (I have no connection with this company – it is just one of the very few offering Y-DNA tests instead of autosomal). They offer discounts on their tests several times a year, so timing is everything! Additional testers would help confirm the tentative conclusions and also localise where the family may have lived in Northern Ireland or Scotland, and so make it easier to trace the line back to Europe. If you are a McCullough cousin and need any help managing your kit and interpreting your results, I am happy to help. Please contact me.