Niall of the Nine Hostages DNA

[Links copied from the contributions of others to another group]

'Geneticists have identified Ireland's most successful alpha male. As
many as one in 12 Irish men could be descended from Niall of the Nine
Hostages, a 5th-century warlord, according to research conducted at
Trinity College Dublin'

Todd A. Farmerie...

As with the 'Somerled haplotype', they are overinterpreting the data to
suggest that everyone with the haplotype descends from Niall. Were you

Doug McDonald...

It's FAR worse with Niall, since his purported haplotype is
far more common, and far closer to the whole-population modal.
Somerled, being R1a, is in a far smaller population segment
just because of that (only a few percent in Scotland), and
he has several markers, especially YCAIIb, that are quite rare.

siabair...

This seems to ignore the marked geographical/genealogical localisation
of the 'Niall haplotype'.

Doug McDonald

to accept that this is his lineage, it would only show a descent from
his male kin-group. Given what happens in tribal societies, this may,
even in his own time, have represented a significant portion of his people.

siabair...

Whatever you might think about marking everyone in the world with this
haplotype as a 'descendant of Niall' the marked localisation of the
haplotype in the northwest of Ireland among males of certain families
with documentary male line genealogies showing common ancestry in Niall
is very significant. Doesn't Occam's Razor suggest that we should not
assume the common ancestry is other than that which is documented?

Of couse, the Irish genealogies show all of the rulers of all of the
dynasties to be descended from the same male line . . . .

siabair...

The complete body of Irish medieval genealogies trace back to many early
historical progenitors. That these were subsequently given common
ancestry to integrate them into the Christian idea of history with
ultimate descent from Adam is neither here nor there.

Todd A. Farmerie...

Occam's Razor is a tool, not a rule, but to answer your question, no.
Given the general nature of genealogies written in the 10th century
purporting to trace to the 5th, I don't think you can automatically give
them the benefit of the doubt. Further, the same genealogies show

siabair...

Even assuming that this pessimistic dating is correct (and the body of
medieval Irish genealogies contain stratifiation indicating periodic
updating since the 7th century) the filiations obtain confirmation from
patronymics in annals maintained contemporaneously since around 550AD.
Many in this group would have no qualms creating the genealogy of an
Anglo-Norman baron from scratch using the type of material found in
these annals. Medieval Irish genealogy offers genuine medieval
genealogical texts cross-referenced to a seperate document tradition,
generations counted, etc. How much more do you want?

descents from Niall's brother, and he too would have the same haplotype.
What is to say that any particular person with the DNA markers
descends from Niall and not his brother, uncle or
third-cousin-twice-removed? Depending on the original social structure
the entire 'tribe' Niall led could have represented the descendants of a
warband made up of a group of brothers, nephews, and cousins along with
their wives and children, and hence many members of the 'tribe' at
Niall's time could have had the same Y haplotype, and equally be
candidates as potential male-line ancestors (and not coincidentally,
they would have been from the same geographic locality as Niall). After
the fact, who is a 10th century family derived from this group likely to
choose to trace their descent from? Niall, the tribal hero, or the
third-cousin-twice-removed?

siabair...

You ignore the stratifiation indicating periodic updating since the 7th
century. You are also missing an important dynamic. Ruling groups
segment and the genealogical imperative for the competing segments is to
define a closer and more exclusive descent from a more recent common
ancestor than that of the wider group. Power transmits from the
near-present rather than the remote past. In a 10th century context a
descent from Niall is unremarkable.

Lest someone misinterpret this: individual pedigrees must be evaluated
on their own, and if they prove a descent from Niall, the DNA is
superfluous. At least one (really two from different sons) such
pedigree must be upheld in order to conclude that the potential ancestor
in question even belonged to the haplogroup being studied. If the
pedigree does not stand up to critical scrutiny, the DNA cannot serve as
a proxy to 'prove' that they have such a descent, because it only
identifies the agnatic kinship group to which one belongs, not specific

siabair...

You seem to be creating a scenario of choice in which either the DNA is
irrelevant or the genealogy is invalid. The DNA indicates that a group
of men share a common ancestry. Documentation indicates that the same
group of men share an common ancestry. The DNA is not specific on the
lineage but the documentaton is. I see no reason why these two strands
of evidence cannot be seen to generally support each other.

ancestors.

Todd A. Farmerie...

But some of the lines traced to 'early historic progenitors' were done
so 'creatively'.

That these were subsequently given common

Todd A. Farmerie...

It was not just to trace to Adam that they were linked, but to show
common descent from a unified Irish foundation legend and hence their
rights to rule as representatives of the original foundation. These
founders were then traced to Adam to fit in with the Christian ideal.
It is a similar pattern to that seen elsewhere. The Anglo-Saxon rulers
are all forged back to Woden. Then Woden is forged back to Geat (the
'ancestor' of all of the Germanic Goths), then Geat is forged back to
Adam. These are sequential steps in the process, and the pedigree did
not yet lead to Adam at the time the shared links to Woden were created.
I don't expect the Irish to have been any different.

siabair...

They were different. The Irish origin legend as we have it was based
from the outset on the Christian idea of history as given by Isidore of
Seville.

Stewart Baldwin...

This is just a popular media item, apparently written by somebody who
read the report, and then juiced it up by further (evidently low
quality) research. Pretty worthless, it seems to me.

Todd A. Farmerie...

. . . has been known to happen.

3032.abstract.html
'Seventeen-marker simple tandem repeat genetic analysis of Irish Y
chromosomes reveals a previously unnoted modal haplotype that peaks in
frequency in the northwestern part of the island. It shows a significant
association with surnames purported to have descended from the most
important and enduring dynasty of early medieval Ireland, the Uí Néill.
This suggests that such phylogenetic predominance is a biological record
of past hegemony and supports the veracity of semimythological early
genealogies. The fact that about one in five males sampled in
northwestern Ireland is likely a patrilineal descendent of a single
early medieval ancestor is a powerful illustration of the potential link
between prolificacy and power and of how Y-chromosome phylogeography can
be influenced by social selection'

Stewart Baldwin...

This at least is the abstract of the paper claiming to give the
result. It will be interesting to see if the paper actually provides

Todd A. Farmerie...

Also note the following new release, apparently derived from the same
research.

Hum Genet. 2006 Jan 12;:1-8 [Epub ahead of print]

Y-chromosomes and the extent of patrilineal ancestry in Irish surnames.

McEvoy B, Bradley DG.

Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland,
dbradley@tcd.ie.

Ireland has one of the oldest systems of patrilineal hereditary
surnames in the world. Using the paternal co-inheritance of Y-chromosome
DNA and Irish surnames, we examined the extent to which modern surname
groups share a common male-line ancestor and the general applicability
of Y-chromosomes in uncovering surname origins and histories. DNA
samples were collected from 1,125 men, bearing 43 different surnames,
and each was genotyped for 17 Y-chromosome short tandem repeat (STR)
loci. A highly significant proportion of the observed Y-chromosome
diversity was found between surnames demonstrating their demarcation of
real and recent patrilineal kinship. On average, a man has a 30-fold
increased chance of sharing a 17 STR Y-chromosome haplotype with another
man of the same surname but the extent of congruence between the surname
and haplotype varies widely between surnames and we attributed this to
differences in the number of early founders. Some surnames such as
O'Sullivan and Ryan have a single major ancestor, whereas others like
Murphy and Kelly have numerous founders probably explaining their high
frequency today. Notwithstanding differences in their early origins, all
surnames have been extensively affected by later male introgession. None
examined showed more than about half of current bearers still descended
from one original founder indicating dynamic and continuously evolving
kinship groupings. Precisely because of this otherwise cryptic
complexity there is a substantial role for the Y-chromosome and a
molecular genealogical approach to complement and expand existing sources.

supporting evidence, but the claimed conclusion ("supports the
veracity of semimythological early genealogies") is so strong and is
stated so casually that it invites skepticism, especially when the
abstract does not mention any historical or genealogical analysis
which would seem to be a prerequisite for such a conclusion.

Stewart Baldwin