Neighbouring Clan DNA

[Canadian Livingstone]

Hi everyone, Read with interest Niall's attempt to make sense of the DNA research results so far.I must admit to not knowing much about the O'Neil's except that they were a powerful family the in the north part of Ireland prior to James the First. Would not expect Niall's DNA to come close to matching Irish with ancient roots to southern Ireland, however some old Irish families with long roots to eastern Antrim or Down might show a similar pattern to the Bachuil Livingstones. Just out of curiosity which neighbouring clans in the Isle of Lismore, Morvern, Benderloch, Mull etc. area come close to matching Bachuil Livingstone DNA? regards Donald

[Andrew Lancaster4]

Given that not all clans have projects as advanced as ours, and those that do are not all as forthcoming in communication, conclusions are still building up slowly, but the answer to your question is basically "all of them": Macdonald, Campbell, MacGregor etc etc. Keep in mind that most clans have many different male lines in them. One thing we are finding about our clan is that it has no dominant pattern. Despite how big the clans Donald and Campbell are for example, they have many members who closely match their chiefly families. Our chiefly family matches itself, and then distantly matches many other Scottish families including some in the clan and many who are in other Scottish families. Every major Scottish surname or clan has members of what is now known as the Scots cluster which includes our chiefly family. At a rough guess I'd say that our chiefly family's largest number of close matches in any particular project is with Buchanans? We basically need more markers to tease the Scots cluster apart though. Regards Andrew

[Andrew Lancaster4]

I should have mentioned this summary of those matches... http://users.skynet.be/lancaster/Scots%20Cluster.htm

[Canadian Livingstone]

Hi Andrew, Buchanan makes sense as they are one of the old families native to the Isle of Lismore. One family that I know that was kin to the Morvern and possibly Isle of Lismore Livingstones was the MacInnes clan. They are said to have ancient roots to the Morvern area. Other families I would like to see DNA comparisons with Niall would be Carmichaels, MacColls,MacCorquodales and MacFadyans etc. Regarding the Irish, beyond the O'Neil descendants it would be interesting to try and match Niall's DNA to any of the old Irish families whom have identified in Ireland or Northern Ireland as being the descendants of Ulster tribes, some of whom migrated to Argyll, Scotland. The ancestors of these people would have lived in what is today Armagh, Down and Antrim in Ulster, but many of them were dispersed from their farms in the 17th century by Lowland Scottish Presbyterians settlers. Later some of these displaced native Irish went to America. No doubt someone in Ireland is involved in identifying current families in Ireland that are descendants of the ancient Irish tribes one of which our Mr.MacDunsliebhe emerged from. Off the top of my head I don't know who are the "old Irish" families that resided in Armagh, Down and Antrim before the 16th century, but I would be interested to see the results of comparing their descendants DNA to Niall's if you have not done that already comprehensively. regards Donald