Posted on 10/08/2017 1:10:31 PM PDT by madison10
I happen to be a member of one of the genealogical sites. Currently my DNA profile is 78% Western European and a typical native Western European is 48%. Which means 30% more of MY DNA came from the region than that of a native.
Thank God I am not in Europe welcoming the Muslim hordes.
Awesome lineage, even grandma the prostitute.
(Jesus had a prostitute ancestress,too)
Sometimes I think Ancestry “sees” our surnames and extrapolates our DNA. Would not be ethical, but some matches are odd.
This stuff has always fascinated me, and I really went into it a few years ago.
My paternal grandfather died before I was born, and my Dad never talked that much about him or his childhood. I knew my Grandmother on his side, but not much about the rest of the family. I wanted to learn as much as I could about things nobody ever told me about. Also, I have a pretty famous last name, and wondered if I was related to somebody you all would know, but after several years of research, I still can’t say.
I have a huge tree set up on Ancestry now, and did the DNA test last year. Here is what the test came back.
Europe 97%
Great Britain 38%
Ireland 22%
Europe West 21%
Italy/Greece 11%
European Jewish 2%
Scandinavia 1%
Finland/Northwest Russia 1%
Iberian Peninsula < 1%
Europe East 0%
America 0%
Native American 0%
West Asia 3%
Low Confidence Region
Caucasus 3%
Apparently my grandmother on my dad’s side said we have Native American Blood. My DNA test says that I don’t. My sister had the test done also, no Native blood. This distressed my Brother, who wanted to claim kinship to the Indians. Also, the 2% European Jewish didn’t please him I don’t think, he believes all sorts of Jewish conspiracies and post pro-Palestinian stuff on Facebook now and then.
The Italian Greek threw me for a loop at first, then I realized that my great grandparents came from Austria, specifically from the Tyrol area, which is on the border with Italy. (maybe I should check my Neanderthal DNA too after ready some posts above)
Just doing the research I have learned so much. I didn’t even have a picture of my grandfather, but I learned a lot about him, and even found pictures of his father and grandfather. My great great grandfather was one of the founding member of what was called the Iron Molders Union founded in 1859, now part of the AFL-CIO. His son also was a union man, ended up as a senior exec in the union around 1900, then quit to be a foreman at an Iron Works near Cincinnati.
My grandmother’s family on my Dad’s side came down from Canada in the late 1700s to Vincennes Indiana. They were descendants from some of the earliest French settlers in Quebec, and through them I am probably related to half of Canada. Which also makes me distant cousins to Justin Beiber, Madonna, Celine Dion, Jack Kerouac, and sadly Hillary Clinton.... I have also found that I distantly related to Ernest Hemingway and Robert Redford.
The most intriguing story to me is that of my Great Great grandmother on my Dad’s side. I had a hard time tracking info on her down. I knew she and my GG grandfather were married by 1860 but hit a dead end at first. Then found a clue about her maiden name, and started putting the pieces together. Found out she was married once before she married my GG Grandfather and already had a daughter. Found out she had married a Doctor about 1850, but I assumed he must have died or something. About a year later, I found out that he had not died, and didn’t die until 1866. In his will he mentions his daughter and what he wanted to leave her, if she was ever found.....He was living about 30 miles from her in Ohio at the time. I assumed they got divorced, which would have been a scandal back then, but maybe just left him and ran away? Through her, I can trace my ancestry back not quite to the Mayflower, but at least to the early settlers of Massachusetts.
The Quakers, too. They kept excellent records of their meetings which recorded all pertinent info like marriages, deaths, births, etc.
My great grandmother became Salvation Army, but her family was Quaker moving from from PA to Canada.
Sorry, I do not know.
It gets pretty cool when you find a new ancestor and discover they have a wikipedia page.
Yes!!
I wonder about that. I think it would.
I wonder if they would be surprised how much of an impact they have had. I have visited some of the old homesteads of the g.g.grandparents and actually "liberated" some samples from their old gnarled apple trees. I've had them grafted and now have 4' apple trees that were from the trees that grew near their kitchen.
I have touched the 200 lb. stones in the stone walls and wondered how they ever figured out how to lift them and move them. And I have scattered seeds around there, hollyhocks and wildflowers. I feel very connected.
That is an absolutely beautiful story. They are blessed in having you carry their blood.
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Being from the south gives you so many wonderful genealogy possibilities for royal lines. Far more than the north. That is really exciting. As for the million of others, consider how good it is to have a REALLY large family. I’d imagine your female ancestress was an independent, self-supporting woman and trust that independence passed down. She probably passed down a lot of beauty, too.
There’s always some ancestors that are just dead ends and SO frustrating. I’ve done well on some lines but that one grandmother just stops dead and I can’t get past her.
Did the wifes dna and found out she had over 20% Arab from NW Algeria & Turkey,from muslim invasion into Hungary 500 years back; couldn't wait to inform her brothers.
But LDS combines their records in absurd ways. If you want to imagine this poor woman having 39 children, ... I tend to use LDS carefully and edit what they say. The big thing I look for are exact dates rather than abts. Then you’ve got a chance that they’ve collected good data. The new websites that copy off tombstones are a big help, too. Though, there, too, the data on the tombstones can be wrong. My new favorite data source are the newspaper archives. Actually reading the names in the old articles is fascinating.
I LOVE IT! That is a GREAT story!
I live in MA now and their early records are superb. The town halls actually have the original handwritten records that I’ve gone to copy. And the town books are unbelievably valuable. RI is much tougher because they put out data in waves and you need to go through book after book to get the original information. But every library in MA has the set of town genealogy books, minus the ones that have disappeared over the years.
You need to get really creative in your spelling. The people putting it into the records were really poor spellers and their handwriting was often the pits, so the data records reflect guesses of what the names were. Often times you can go back and see the original records and win something there.
Wonderful to have the Mormon connection. Skeptical, of course. But still it is incredibly neat that someone traced records. Someday they’ll get the DNA and those records to start untangling each other.
True, my surname has several possible spellings, depending on the country it originated in. That happens when it is based on an occupation. It’s also common enough that it can lead down some real dead ends.
My mother always told me we were Heinz 57 variety. So I was expecting to find everything under the sun. I always figured that made me unique, which I loved. A lot of our ancestors fought through a lot to be able to love one another. That’s a strength we can hope filters down.
My favorite ancestor was in love with his fiance in Newport RI in the 1600’s. A lawyer. Her father died, her mother remarried and they sold her to a rich man. My ancestor was incensed and kept making lawsuits to get her back. Finally he moved her in and told the town he’d stop living in sin if they’d get her divorced. The town did, they married but he didn’t forget. When her mother got into an adulterous relationship, he had her brought up on charges, he was then Newport’s DA, and she was stripped to the waist and tied to the great gun for 15 min in the center of town. Now that’s getting even!
Great story! I’m also early French Canadian, so maybe we’re cousins. I tracked the ancestry of my best friend and we’re the descendants of a woman who divorced on Long Island in the 1600’s. She comes from the first husband, I from the 2nd. I tried my other best friend and the best I could do was a Revolutionary War diary 5th great grandfather left that gave great detail of this tiny little French town with just a few houses. Her ancestor was living there then. So at least I can put her and my ancestors as having had to have met each other in 1775.
I HATE my ancestral Smiths. Didn’t they know what sort of trouble they were going to cause their descendants?
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