O'Neill and DF27

[faulconer]

I recently began looking into the connection between the O'Neill family and the DF27 "O'Neill Variety" cluster. A friend of mine recently got his results and is a part of this cluster (his surname is McNally). I began to think that he must be part of a NPE branch but the more I looked into it, the less confident I was on that point. I am admittedly lacking in the background of DF27, M222 and the O'Neill histories so I thought I would open this up to the group. If this post belongs in another thread or has been beaten to death already, please feel free to move/delete it.

The items that popped out at me were:

1. There are many more O'Neills in the O'Neill Variety group than there are in the M222 group (on FTDNA).
2. There are two McShane members of the O'Neill Variety which seems to tie into a known historical event.
3. The more I read about the Trinity paper the less powerful the connection seems to be between this clan/family and M222.
4. I read a few mentions of members of the O'Neill Variety that have pretty solid pedigree connections to the family.
5. Although I understand that there is a difference between the UiNeill (more of a group or clan) and the O'Neill (a family?), I am unable to explain that difference in a way that would make M222 UiNeill and Df27 O'Neill.

I'm hoping to provide some good information to my friend and thank you all in advance for any information you can provide.

[Webb]

I recently began looking into the connection between the O'Neill family and the DF27 "O'Neill Variety" cluster. A friend of mine recently got his results and is a part of this cluster (his surname is McNally). I began to think that he must be part of a NPE branch but the more I looked into it, the less confident I was on that point. I am admittedly lacking in the background of DF27, M222 and the O'Neill histories so I thought I would open this up to the group. If this post belongs in another thread or has been beaten to death already, please feel free to move/delete it.

The items that popped out at me were:

1. There are many more O'Neills in the O'Neill Variety group than there are in the M222 group (on FTDNA).
2. There are two McShane members of the O'Neill Variety which seems to tie into a known historical event.
3. The more I read about the Trinity paper the less powerful the connection seems to be between this clan/family and M222.
4. I read a few mentions of members of the O'Neill Variety that have pretty solid pedigree connections to the family.
5. Although I understand that there is a difference between the UiNeill (more of a group or clan) and the O'Neill (a family?), I am unable to explain that difference in a way that would make M222 UiNeill and Df27 O'Neill.

I'm hoping to provide some good information to my friend and thank you all in advance for any information you can provide.

I counted 120 kits in the DF27 cluster versus 83 in the M222 cluster on the results page of the O'Neill Project at FTDNA. What is really interesting is now, in 2019 thanks to where we are at in full genome testing/ BigY, the O'Neill cluster shares Z42772 with another Irish Cluster, A461/Y5058. If you do a search of Y5058, or look at the Laigin page on Wiki, you will find a link to the Breassal Breac DNA page. While I am not advocating that this cluster are descendants of Breassal Breac, it is noted that this cluster has all of the surnames associated with the Laigin, according to John O'Hart's "Irish Pedigrees; or, the Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation".