The article concentrates on a way of how the Alpínid genealogies were formed and advanced during 10th - 13th centuries. Contextualizing major trends within political development of Alba kingdom as well as its ethnical dimension, the author shows to what extent the Pictish king lists were challenged by the dynasty in favor of its Gaelic background. In the tenth century the Alpínides were interested in revitalizing the extant Pictish record but at the same time utilized the Dál Riata royal pedigrees extending their kinship ties with the Gaelic royal kindreds. In the following centuries the Gaelic dimension of the Alpínid dynasty became crucial underlining the Irish identity of the Scottish kingdom in the 11th - 13th centuries.