More recently, historian Alex Woolf has pointed out the conflicting information found in the different versions of the pedigree and drawn attention to their faulty chronology.
Instead he argues that these pedigrees may derive from an original claim to the descent of Somerled from the Crovan dynasty and the Uí Ímair, subsequently obscured by alterations made to link them to the Scottish and Irish foundation legends.
[2] In any case, the Clann Somhairle based their claim to the Isles on their descent from Somerled's wife, Ragnhildr, the daughter of king Amlaíb Derg, and Woolf accepts that the male-line Crovan descent claim underlying the pedigrees may have arisen as a replacement for this female-line derivation from the family.
Sir Iain Moncreiffe attempted to reconstruct a male line descent from Somerled back to Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, King of the Isles,[3] but this has received little attention.
Similarly, a poetic address to Aonghus of Islay describes Clann Somairle as having "sprung from Síol nGofraidh" (the seed of Gofraid)[7] and a recently rediscovered poem from a 17th-century manuscript written by Niall MacMhuirich addressed to Domhnall mac Raghnaill, Rosg Mall (i.e. "Domhnall mac Raghnaill, of the Stately Gaze")[8] has the line: "Amhlaibh Fionn" ("Olaf the White") may be Amlaíb Conung the 9th century Norse–Gael son of the king of Lochlann.