The Lingmo clan is said to have descended from Ling Gesar, the legendary epic hero who is said to have lived around the time after the fall of the Yarlung dynasty. The Ling clan split off from the ancestral Dong clan, and the Lingmo then must have split off from the Ling. The First Lingtrul, Dondrub Gyatso was born into the Lingmo clan in 1702.