An Excerpt from My O’Byrne/Byrn/Byrne/Byrns/Burn(e)/Burns Family
Submitted by Pastor Randy Holman Schmidt
” I had asked a male family member of my family Burns to take the Y-DNA test (male lineage only). He agreed. I had traced our lineage back to Charles and Ann Byrn of Rowan County. Charles died Jul 221797. He left his “Last Will and Testament” naming his wife Ann, Granddaughter Mary and all his son’s, William, Thomas, John, Matthew, Charles, Jr, and Temple Cole Byrn(e). Supposedly, Charles was Scot and Irish. Although we have not as yet procured a control figure, (A Scot whose lineage goes a long way back in Scottish History) for Scotland yet, we do have the DNA results for Ireland. Charles came from the Leinster, Wicklow Co., area of Ireland, and belonged to the O’Byrne Clan of Ireland. The line traces all the way back to prehistory to what is known now as the Kildare area of Ireland. According to family lore, the family migrated out of Scotland about 1603 when James the VI took over the rule of Scotland, and the O’Byrnes and their relatives the O’Tools entered Wicklow mountain area of Ireland. Anyone familiar with both Scottish and Irish history, knows that the Scots were originally Irish and migrated North.
When the English wanted to put a buffer between themselves and the wild Irish tribes, the Plantation, or province of “Ulster” was created, and the Scots were brought down to settle the land and provide that buffer. Sometime around the Mammoth era, I surmise some of the Irish migrated north and in time became known as the Scots. With the change in leadership of a former English Monarch. They may have thought it more to their advantage to return to the original homeland. Whatever the reason, and we may yet uncover it in Ireland or Scotland, we know that our family of O’Byrnes, with a long history of being anti-English was the largest Leinster Sept or Clan in Ireland, and provided the most monarchs in Irish history.”