The current status is that we finally know which branch of the Blennerhassetts we descend from. In May 2020, DNA finally proved that we descend from the Blennerhassett Baronets branch. See Proof.

The remaining search is to figure out how, to find the exact link in the documents.

Given how many documents I found survived in the Letitia of Tarbert branch, there should be many documents surviving in the Baronets branch.

• Blennerhassett
  • Contents
  • Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, 1st Baronet
  • Arthur Blennerhassett, of Fortfield

• Yielding
  • Contents
  • Richard Yielding

• Butler
  • Contents
  • Whitwell Butler

Unknown portrait inherited by the Blennerhassett Baronets.
It is possible this is the 1st Baronet.
Though it might be some other ancestor.

I have a number of relations who DNA match the Blennerhassett/Yielding family. But on 18 July 2025, I discovered that my own DNA has a significant match to the Blennerhassett/Yielding family. This is my match to Eileen Owen. I had known for some time there was apparently a borderline match of me and her, but I was not sure what it meant. In 2025, I discovered she strongly matches multiple members of my family, so I revisited her matches, and discovered that Gedmatch had re-calibrated my match to her so that it is now significant (11 cM). It is now clear that my match to her is because of our shared Blennerhassett/Yielding ancestry.

My DNA match with Eileen Owen.
My own DNA, in every cell of my body, carries evidence of my Blennerhassett ancestry. Always has.
That means my father's DNA and my Granny's DNA carried it too.

Updates on the ancestors of Martha Lynne (probably bapt 1598), the only certain Royal Descent for my Blennerhassett line.

• Lynne of Southwick Hall, Northamptonshire
• Knyvet of Southwick Hall, Northamptonshire
• Kirkham of Northamptonshire
• Montagu of Boughton, Northamptonshire
• Throckmorton of Coughton, Warwickshire
• Forrest of Morborne, Huntingdonshire

The beautiful Clement Throckmorton tomb at Haseley church, Warwickshire.

Our Blennerhassett line descends through Martha Lynne from Miles Forest, keeper of the wardrobe at Barnard Castle, who is said to be one of the killers of the "Princes in the Tower" in 1483.

Our ancestor Miles Forest was one of the two men
said to have murdered the "Princes in the Tower" in 1483.

Hoping for some mention of Cashel.

• O'Mara
  • Contents

  • Rynne papers.
  • Patricia Lavelle papers

  • Rynne papers (P133)
  • Fr. Paddy O'Mara papers
  • James O'Mara papers

  • Stephen O'Mara papers (P40)

• Genealogies of Kerry (Rowan, 1846)

• Rowan manuscript items in the tree

• Garvey research (D950/1/9)

• D950 items in the tree

• "Black Jack's Book"
• Hurly papers (MS 8277-8292)

• "Black Jack's Book" in the tree

• Chute papers (SL/B/1-34)

• Chute papers in the tree

• Richard Francis Blennerhassett

• Blennerhassett Baronets papers

• New images

The Grant of Arms to the 1st Baronet, 1808.
Copy retained in the Baronets family.

In July 2022, I finally got in to see Blennerville House, probably my actual surviving ancestral home.

• Blennerville
• Blennerville House
• Blennerville House (rear and garden)

Me at the rear of Blennerville House.

Garden walk at Blennerville House.
It may have changed since the Blennerhassetts' time, but they did walk here.

Blennerville House from the garden side.
Photo about 1863-1864.

• Denny papers

• New images

The signatures of Thomas Blennerhassett and his son Robert.
On the 1598 petition in the Denny papers.
The first two Blennerhassett settlers in Kerry.

• Conway of Co.Kerry and of Flintshire, Wales.
  • Contents

The Blennerhassett Challenge, offering a prize of €1000 to anyone who solved the Blennerhassett problem, is now closed. Nobody won the grand prize.

I paid out six interim prizes of €100 to: Eily Moylan, Jackie Lindsay, Teresa Stokes, Emma Pinnell, Elizabeth Humphrys and Nicole Scannell-O'Leary.

If Letitia Blennerhassett of Tarbert is not the link, who is?

By starting again and reconsidering the evidence, the obvious "plan B" is the Blennerhassett Baronets branch. We now pursue both documents and DNA in this branch.

• Blennerhassett
  • Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, 1st Baronet

• DNA testing - Cashel with the Blennerhassett Baronets

Even if the Letitia theory did not work, the DNA testing proved much of the Cashel tree to be true. It gave major breakthroughs in Kickham, Pigott, Gould and other lines. It proved much of the "Black Jack" branch of the Blennerhassett tree to be true - even if that is of no use to me.

• All DNA proven lines in my tree