Your ancestor?

For the Irsih/Scots out there.

Are you related? No need to go back thousands of years to
primitive Eve's , there may be a much more recent common link.

*********

Medieval Irish warlord boasts three million descendants
13:10 18 January 2006
NewScientist.com news service
AFP and NewScientist.com staff

Up to three million men around the world could be descended from
a prolific medieval Irish king, according to a new genetic
study.

It suggests that the 5th-century warlord known as "Niall of the
Nine Hostages" may be the ancestor of about one in 12 Irishmen,
say researchers at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Niall
established a dynasty of powerful chieftains that dominated the
island for six centuries.

In a study of the Y chromosome - which is only passed down
through the male line - scientists found a hotspot in northwest
Ireland where 21.5% carry Niall’s genetic fingerprint, says
Brian McEvoy, one of the team at Trinity. This was the main
powerbase of the Ui Neills, which literally translated means
"descendants of Niall".

McEvoy says the Y chromosome appeared to trace back to one
person.

"There are certain surnames that seem to have come from Ui
Neill. We studied if there was any association between those
surnames and the genetic profile. It is his (Niall's) family."

Enduring dynasty
The study says that Niall "resided at the cusp of mythology and
history but our results do seem to confirm the existence of a
single early medieval progenitor to the most powerful and
enduring Irish dynasty".

The results also lend support to surviving genealogical and oral
traditions of Gaelic Ireland and are a "powerful illustration of
the potential link between prolificacy and power".

The study says the chromosome has also been found in 16.7% of
men in western and central Scotland and has turned up in
multiple North American population samples, including in 2% of
European-American New Yorkers.

"Given historically high rates of Irish emigration to North
America and other parts of the world, it seems likely that the
number of descendants worldwide runs to perhaps two to three
million males," the study says.

Modern surnames
It compares the result with similar research that suggested that
Mongol emperor Genghis Khan has 16 million descendants after
conquering most of Asia in the 13th century.

Though medieval Ireland was Christian, divorce was allowed,
people married earlier and concubinage was practised.
Illegitimate sons were claimed and their rights protected by
law.

"As in other polygynous societies, the siring of offspring was
related to power and prestige." The study points out that one of
the O'Neill dynasty chieftains who died in 1423 had 18 sons with
10 different women and counted 59 grandsons in the male line.

Niall of the Nine Hostages, who became high king of Ireland, got
his name from using the taking of hostages as a strategy for
subjugating his opponent chieftains. He is known in folklore as
a raider of the British and French coasts. Supposedly slain in
the English Channel or in Scotland, his descendants were the
most powerful rulers of Ireland until the 11th century.

Modern surnames tracing their ancestry to Niall include
(O')Neill, (O')Gallagher, (O')Boyle, (O')Doherty, O'Donnell,
Connor, Cannon, Bradley, O'Reilly, Flynn, (Mc)Kee, Campbell,
Devlin, Donnelly, Egan, Gormley, Hynes, McCaul, McGovern,
McLoughlin, McManus, McMenamin, Molloy, O'Kane, O'Rourke and
Quinn.

Journal reference: American Journal of Human Genetics (February
issue)