Now that DNA sequencing is becoming more prevalent, and more people are getting it done and also doing advanced Y-DNA testing – it has led to the phylogenetic tree becoming much better defined.

Now that tests like the Big Y-700 are available, as well as services like Y-Full, we have gotten to the point where a pocket of Neachtain/Naughton/Norton results has been found and it appears we can now identify our very own ‘Neachtain subclade’.

In the Y-DNA phylogenetic tree – within R, downstream of M269, L21, M222, and downstream even from DF-104 — is a very interesting subclade that is known as A-1206.

Phylogenetic tree for A-1206 here: https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-A1206/

A-1206 was known for a while as having a pocket of Swedish people within it; as in – modern day swedish are testing into this area that is right in the middle of Irish Y-DNA. Not that common, but also not completely outside the realm of possibility.

This is not unheard of, there has long been known to be a close intermixing of Celts and Vikings for many hundreds of years in Ireland – there were even groups known as ‘Norse Gaels’ or ‘Hiberno-Scandinavians’ which were a people of mixed Gaelic and Norse ancestry and culture.

Maybe one of our progenitors had foreign children? maybe one of the close relatives of our progenitors moved to sweden? Maybe he was taken captive? Who knows.

In any event, it is within this A-1206 – in a sibling subclade, not the same as the one that contains the Swedish results, that we find a separate subclade known as R-FGC23097 – this looks to be the Neachtain Y-DNA Subclade. We have multiple Neachtain descendants (with surnames such as Naughton & Norton) testing into this subclade. Hopefully in the near future we are better able to flesh out the different branches within this subclade and identify the different progenitors of our given families.

Take a look at the ‘genetic pedigree’ of this subclade here: https://www.genetichomeland.com/welcome/dnapedigree.asp?RecordID=1279251