McAlpine

The Mac Ailpín families in the Mid Argyll Group are a mystery and may hold the key to the deep ancestry of the entire Mid Argyll Kinship group.  The Mac Eáin families in the group appear in the primary sources from the early 1400s to the present.  They are relatively easy to research.  The Mac Ailpín families in mid Argyll first appear in the primary sources in the mid 1500s.  But the early 1600s onward, however, they are well documented in mid Argyll, specifically, Kilmichael Glassary parish, and living on the lands connected to the men that have DNA tested are in the Mid Argyll Project.

 

There is current research going into the connections between the Mac Ailpín and Mac Eáin families. Members of both families are doing the "Big Y" DNA test.    The BIG Y is a direct paternal lineage test.  It explores deep ancestral links on our common paternal tree. It tests both thousands of known branch markers and millions of places where there may be new branch markers.

 

It is possible that the Mac Ailpín families represent the lineage of Coinneach Mac Ailpín who lived 810 AD to 858 AD.  If so, this would be welcomed and dramatic news in the field of Scottish history.  It would also mean that the probably progenitor of the Mac Eáin family, Giolla Chríost of Glassary, was also a descendent of Coinneach Mac Ailpín.