Clan McWho

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Clan McWho is a light-hearted name given to a genealogical Y chromosome DNA project, made up of people carrying a very particular DNA signature (haplotype). It is believed they inherited their most distinctive mutations from a common ancestor, who possibly lived around six hundred years ago in either Scotland or Ireland.

The Argyll region, once ruled by the kings of Dál Riata, is currently the most probable homeland of the common ancestor. This region in turn was strongly connected to Northern Ireland.

The haplotype is in many ways not so unusual from the most common ones in Western Europe, and indeed it has been shown to share the typical "Western Atlantic" SNP mutation "M269". But at some time the 2 part STR marker DYS385 has had one of its parts overwrite the other in a so-called RecLOH mutation, apparently going from a typical 11 and 14 to an extremely unusual 15 and 15, in one generational step.