McNeill and Beyond – A Memoir

Updated 28-Jun-2024

Memoir Preface

This is an extended essay. It is not complete, the work is ongoing in fits and starts. It contains three parts.

  • The first part is a genealogy and genetic forensics in searching for my male ancestral line. It centers on our emigrant ancestor John McNeill (1680-1765) who emigrated to the American colonies in 1722 and his father Daniel McNeill (1630-1684) who was born and died in Coleraine, Ulster, Northern Ireland.
  • The second part is a personal memoir from the circumstances around my birth and personal history, up until the birth of my son Benjamin.
  • The third part takes up the issue of evolution, human groups, stories and praxis in general, our practical activity that has resulted from and results in a lineage. It is meant to indicate the various ways of how a past and a present can be understood, in a truthful way.

Dedication

> To my emigrant ancestor
> Great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather John McNeill
> - (1680-1765)

Introduction

> I am of a healthy long lived race,
> and our minds improve with age.
> - William Butler Yeats

Being an old race, an early ancestor of the McNeill was asked by Noah to accompany him on his ark. Our ancestor replied: "Thank ye, but The McNeill has a boat of his own".

Indeed, the McNeill has a tall tale of his own as well, though not the one we may have thought he had.

Part I

Part II

  • Out of Africa
  • The Asian Years
  • European Peoples

Part III

Part IV

  • America, descent in a New Land - (incomplete)
  • Asia, migration in the 21st century - (not available yet)
  • Return to the ancestral - (not available yet)
  • Postscript: Language, ancient and modern - (not available yet)

Additional Resources