For the past few years I’ve been dabbling in some genealogy research. Here’s what I know on paper.
My mom’s side:
She’s English and Welsh. On both sides of her family she traces back to noble English families. Two of these families tried to overthrow the King (different times) and failed miserably. So, disgraced families → descending from daughters married off not so well → diminished circumstances → Hey, I heard that they found this place across the ocean → showing up in America in the 1600s → being hillbillies in western PA. Â
My dad’s side:
His father is English but not from fancy families like my mother. They also came here in the 1600s. My grandmother’s parents came from Poland.
I took the ancestry.com DNA test. I didn’t expect to find anything new out. I was hoping to match with relatives to try to find out more about the Polish side of the family.
My results (and fighting words)
So imagine my shock when I opened the results page and saw this blasphemy.
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I’m not Irish. I was actually really mad. It was like there was latent British snobbery that I didn’t know I had that rose up in my soul at the very idea.
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This explained it a little more. I think what they may mean by Irish is Celtic and that would be the Welsh part of my DNA. Then I amused myself by imagining what a real Scottish person would think if they got DNA results that said Irish.
The DNA results nailed the 25% Eastern European since I have 1 Polish grandparent.
The Europe West may be my mother’s side again. Her families are French if you go back far enough. There is also some more Celtic DNA in this explanation.
Scandinavia – possibly the Vikings in England? To the best of my knowledge I don’t have any wandering Swedes in my history.
I was surprised with a long family history in England that I’m only considered 4% Great Britain.
This is what I’m really proud of though.
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What the …? How does that show up? I’d say that is in everyone but it didn’t show up in the husband’s test.
So far the only close relative I’ve matched up with is my half-cousin. It pegged us as cousins. We have one grandfather in common.
Along these lines.. I’m doing this mini-challenge I invented on the fly: Reading My Genealogy.
Details: http://www.unrulyreader.com/2016/04/reading-my-genealogy.html
Fellow book & genealogy nerds: welcome!
[…] two most recent additions to the Lacey Flint mystery series by Sharon Bolton. Heather shared her DNA results with a lot more Irish and a lot less British than she expected. Tina gave us the Perfect English […]
This is so cool! I love all kinds of history, and this type of personal history just goes to show how different and similar we all are 🙂
Fascinating! My son has been thinking about getting this done to see where my British roots go as well as my husband who always thought he had native American blood. Turns out he’s got a lot of Scandinavian roots too. Amazing stuff.
Cool to see your results! I did both Ancestry DNA and National Geographic DNA. My Ancestry results came back really weird — I know I’m at least 33% Scandinavian, but it showed only 14% (and then I had an identity crisis). My Ancestry results also showed a high margin of error, so that helps explain it: they couldn’t figure me out. My National Geographic results looked exactly the way I expected, based on the genealogical research I’d done. Plus, they told me I’m 1% Neanderthal. (Love that!)
I really like stuff like genealogy, but with everything else I obsess over I have never had a chance to really explore it. I am curious what my results would be, though!
I’ve done the AncestryDNA test too, as have my mother and husband. One thing to keep in mind re: the Scandinavian results in particular is that the majority of people of European heritage have a higher Scandinavian percentage than expected. The general consensus (from what I’ve gathered) is that the markers they’ve used for this population probably date back from before the multiple waves of southern immigration from Scandinavia — not just Vikings, but the Goths, too (prior to the fall of the Roman empire, and several hundred years before even the Vikings).
If they are still around and you can afford it, I highly recommend getting your parents tested too. I’d made some assumptions about my results that we actually disproved by my mom’s results about a year later when she did her own AncestryDNA test. It also helped me piece together a couple of mini mysteries about distant cousin matches, based on who she also matched with. I also highly recommend getting on GEDmatch at some point. Besides extra cousin matching, it gives you the option to try out different admixture analysis methods.
What an interesting story. The longest line that I can trace goes to aristocracy in England and further back to Danish kings, so I think that would make some Scandinavian DNA show up? I haven’t had this done, but it’s fascinating! I wonder what people who think of themselves as English get? It might be a lot of Scandinavian and Western Europe given the history of invasion and assimilation.
The DNA thing is still considered fairly new to the genealogy game, so that may be why you had such confusing results. As for me, so far I’ve found out just by lineage that I am likely 25% Irish, 25% English, 25% German (all of them emigrated here prior to the world wars), 6.25% Sioux (and/or other tribe lost to history), and the rest is supposedly Norwegian (though I haven’t gotten my hands on the evidence).
It’s interesting that yours came up with African DNA. My mom really wants to get hers done, but it’s rather spendy, which is why I took it up (also, I was curious about genetic health abnormalities). Every female in my mom’s family line has had their gallbladder removed, which is allegedly from the native American ancestor.
Anyway, I am more proud of my Irish DNA than my English, to be honest. My great grandparents came over during the potato famine and ended up wealthier than my German farmer ancestors. Also, I was raised with more Irish culture than anything else, so that may be why.
~Litha Nelle
My husband’s test results were really interesting. They confirmed a few family rumors – his paternal grandfather was not his grandmother’s husband. Whoops. They figured that out because they had no Eastern European DNA and they should have if Grandma hadn’t been having an affair. They also had no Native American DNA despite a history of living with a tribe for generations. It looks like somebody got adopted in informally.
It always gets me when people say this ancestry tracking thing isn’t interesting- I want them all to watch LL Cool J’s episode of Finding Your Roots. You never really know what you’ll find ’til you go on Maury and take a paternity test. 😉
~Litha Nelle
I loved that episode!