DNA Tests

[1964Alum]

I used Ancestry when they had a sale, out of curiosity. There is a separate Irish category! I have done extensive genealogy, most of it in my mother's side, which predates even Charlemagne for her mother. Her father was Swedish, and a genealogist in Sweden did his genealogy back to 1640. There were no surprises there, and my DNA test confirmed what I had discovered through my genealogical research. It is important to remember that your DNA genealogy can be very different from your geographical genealogy! My grandmother's gateway ancestors all came from England. But they traced back to the Norman invasion and before that. Normans were "Norsemen" and went back to the Scandinavian invasions before that. Then married French women and subsequently married within the same gene pool up to and after coming to the Virginia Colony. I am 44% Scandinavian with but one Swedish ancestor!

The next large chunk was Western Europe, which included the low countries, Germany, and France. My father's paternal ancestors came from Germany, but after arriving and settling, married Quaker women who had come from England. I had previously found that some of his Quaker ancestors had married some of my mother's maternal ancestors, but the two had been on opposite sides of the Civil War in England! His mother's maternal ancestors came from France and her father's from England.

The BIG surprise was that I have but very trace DNA from the indigenous English, which tells me that those who had come from England on my father's side (Quakers) must have been from those areas where there had been Dane Law.

The other BIG surprise is that the third largest group was Irish, which includes Ireland, Scotland, and the Celts. I could trace one of my mother's maternal lines back to early days in Ireland and another to Scotland, and yet another to Wales, where some of the "Marcher Lords" had married women from those areas after they had invaded them. Again, my ancestral DNA did not match my geographical genealogy as far as my gateway ancestors are concerned.

These DNA results go back at least 1,000 years, and some say even further. I would say doing my DNA was definitely worthwhile and very interesting. I didn't do it to locate any new cousins, but many people have enjoyed that as well.