Meet Ireland's most prolific high king - you may be descended from him

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Crest of the O'Neill clan - the family's patriarch, Niall of the Nine Hostages, was renowned for his exploits on the battlefield - and the bedroom

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That means that around one in 50 New Yorkers who have European roots – with surnames such as O'Connor, Flynn, Egan, Hynes, O'Reilly and Quinn– have the same genetic signature as Niall of the Nine Hostages, Bradley said.

Which prompted Peter Quinn, the renowned Irish-American author from the Bronx, to tell the New York Times, "I hope this means that I inherit a castle in Ireland."

So Niall joins Thomas Jefferson and Genghis Khan as one of the major historical figures when it comes to DNA.

Jefferson, the third president of the U.S., slept with one of his slaves, a woman called Sally Hemings, and fathered a child with her. A 1998 study found that Jefferson has an extremely rare DNA type, his Y chromosome belonging to just 1 percent of the population.

A 2003 study found that 8 percent of all Mongolian males are the descendents of Genghis Khan, sharing with him the same Y chromosome. His son had as many as 40 sons, and his grandson, as many as 22. The Khan family may have as many as 16 million descendants in Asia today.

Read more: Irish roots of Mormon founder Joseph Smith discovered

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