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So about a month ago, my mother came up with the idea, that we should have a member of our family's DNA analyzed at Ancestry.com. There was no medical component to it, they simply identify broader DNA markers that would indicate where your ancestors came from. This ties into the American fascination with our, "home countries," or perhaps more commonly, the old country. We're a nation of immigrants save for a very small few, and on the whole a lot of us whose families have been here for some while, still cling to some amount of our ancestral heritage. This is especially true of my family, which more interested members than myself, have traced back into the 1500s which is absolutely insane.
We knew the broad strokes, English bit came over in the 1600s, Irish bit came over in the 1800s, Scandinavians tagged along shortly after that, but what we had for familial history didn't exactly break down what we were by percentages. Many of you on TL even, may have had discussions where you get into, "oh I'm XXXXXXX," a phrase which I have learned uniquely irks some Europeans, so I try to use it as often as possible. I know I am not culturally insert ethnicity here, but I love being able to look back at where my family came from and the trip that they took to plop me down in Minnesota, in this the year of our lord Flash 2014.
So, what did we find out?
No real surprises here, except for that bit in Spain
This actually, corroborates some of the research that my aforementioned relatives had done on the subject. My middle name was my grandmother's maiden name, Murnane. There are still a bunch of Murnanes around a village in Ireland called Caherconlish, but what had been told to me previously, was that the name isn't remotely Irish in origin. We had examples of spelling variation that had French characteristics, Murnangne, and others that I can't recall, tracking down towards Gibraltar the farther back you go in the family line.
According to the report, I am 100% European in terms of genetic markers, but lets go into the break down.
Wtf, Russia?
I mentioned before, that the Irish were the most recent additions to my gene pool, and constituted at least one of my grand parents, so it doesn't surprise me that percentage is so high, the overlap with Britain again makes sense, what is strangish to me, is the comparatively low end of things for Scandinavia. This would stem from my childhood, where my grandmother a daughter of one Swede, and one Norwegian had very much kept to certain holiday traditions from those countries. I am sure if my mother were to have submitted the sample, this would be much higher.
Then you have these outliers, which to me a bit more interesting than some of the stuff that was confirmed. I would liken it to a line from Trainspotting, but adapt it, "You'll shag one bloke from Scandivia, you'll shag the whole lot of us."
I think things like this are just rather fascinating, my family obviously got around a bit, and the site even turned up two second cousins, one with 900+ entries in the family tree they've built who I've since reached out to. I am looking forward to seeing if I can't find out a bit more of my mother's side which is far less chronicled than my father's, but we'll see what happens.
Thanks for the read TL.
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That's pretty interesting.
One of my friends is of high nobility and can trace his ancestry back 1000 years or so and he has some cool stories to tell how they lost one of their castles during the Napoleonic Wars and stuff like that.
I tried to trace my families history too for a bit but didn't get too far.
On my fathers side I got back 4 generations but on my mothers side it was more chaotic I only know where my grandparents grew up. My grandfather on my mother's side in Poland (Prussia) and my grandmother in Volhynia (Ukraine).
In both cases it was difficult to get information because they didn't like to speak too much about that time because they had some traumatic memories of their flight and expulsion after WW2 I guess and during the chaos some documents got lost too.
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On October 25 2014 00:14 REDBLUEGREEN wrote:
That's pretty interesting.
One of my friends is of high nobility and can trace his ancestry back 1000 years or so and he has some cool stories to tell how they lost one of their castles during the Napoleonic Wars and stuff like that.
I tried to trace my families history too for a bit but didn't get too far.
On my fathers side I got back 4 generations but on my mothers side it was more chaotic I only know where my grandparents grew up. My grandfather on my mother's side in Poland (Prussia) and my grandmother in Volhynia (Ukraine).
In both cases it was difficult to get information because they didn't like to speak too much about that time because they had some traumatic memories of their flight and expulsion after WW2 I guess and during the chaos some documents got lost too.
It is really strange, I am tooling around on a free trial of the site now, and found my great grand father's draft card for WWI. I feel like it would be more difficult because of the wars in Europe to find some of that stuff, you're right.
It is just strange when you go back and see all this stuff just written down in cursive as well.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Kyw7sn7.png)
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My dad did did this as well; I can trace my lineage to both the last Tsaritsa and the indigenous peoples who crossed the landbridge into the Americas many thousands of years ago. I guess that's what happens when Germans end up banging Colombian natives while exploring 
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On October 25 2014 00:25 ThomasjServo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2014 00:14 REDBLUEGREEN wrote:
That's pretty interesting.
One of my friends is of high nobility and can trace his ancestry back 1000 years or so and he has some cool stories to tell how they lost one of their castles during the Napoleonic Wars and stuff like that.
I tried to trace my families history too for a bit but didn't get too far.
On my fathers side I got back 4 generations but on my mothers side it was more chaotic I only know where my grandparents grew up. My grandfather on my mother's side in Poland (Prussia) and my grandmother in Volhynia (Ukraine).
In both cases it was difficult to get information because they didn't like to speak too much about that time because they had some traumatic memories of their flight and expulsion after WW2 I guess and during the chaos some documents got lost too. It is really strange, I am tooling around on a free trial of the site now, and found my great grand father's draft card for WWI. I feel like it would be more difficult because of the wars in Europe to find some of that stuff, you're right. It is just strange when you go back and see all this stuff just written down in cursive as well.
Haha that's quite easily readable cursive
I found my great great grandfather's diary that he kept when he was serving in the Imperial Navy.
I transcribed it on the computer to make it readable as a birthday gift for my father.
At the beginning it took me 5 minutes to decipher a single sentence :D
Here's how German cursive used to look back then:
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Deutsche_Kurrentschrift.svg/524px-Deutsche_Kurrentschrift.svg.png)
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It looks cool, but I'm not sure of the connection between DNA and your ancestors' ethnicity? How does this work in details?
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Canada13407 Posts
That website looks cool.
I don't think I can use it for Canadian related things, I mean my family has only generations in this country and as far as I know, I have a long history of being Portuguese in my family. The website can't even find my immigration records since I'm in Canada.
Very cool though, wish I could use it. Maybe there is something for Portuguese people to use ...
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Very interesting!  sounds really cool to be able to find out about this
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On October 25 2014 02:17 ZeromuS wrote:
That website looks cool.
I don't think I can use it for Canadian related things, I mean my family has only generations in this country and as far as I know, I have a long history of being Portuguese in my family. The website can't even find my immigration records since I'm in Canada.
Very cool though, wish I could use it. Maybe there is something for Portuguese people to use ...
Well if you go to Ancestry.com from a Canadian address it will suggest you go to Ancestry.ca instead, so presumably they do offer proper service for Canadians.
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On October 25 2014 02:17 ZeromuS wrote:
That website looks cool.
I don't think I can use it for Canadian related things, I mean my family has only generations in this country and as far as I know, I have a long history of being Portuguese in my family. The website can't even find my immigration records since I'm in Canada.
Very cool though, wish I could use it. Maybe there is something for Portuguese people to use ...
Try the website myheritage, they often do a better job with international records.
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On October 25 2014 00:56 farvacola wrote:My dad did did this as well; I can trace my lineage to both the last Tsaritsa and the indigenous peoples who crossed the landbridge into the Americas many thousands of years ago. I guess that's what happens when Germans end up banging Colombian natives while exploring
mine goes back to King David
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My father also went through that site to figure out our lineage on his side. I would caution that once you go back like 4 or 5 generations they might just start throwing things in to make it look good so you'll spend more time on there, but I don't know about it. I have no proof of that, I'm just saying it's not a hugely viable source.
That being said, on my father's side, he traced it to Lady Godiva and some other nobility (mostly earls), and according to that site Chaucer is my 26 x great grandfather.
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On October 25 2014 09:15 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2014 00:56 farvacola wrote:My dad did did this as well; I can trace my lineage to both the last Tsaritsa and the indigenous peoples who crossed the landbridge into the Americas many thousands of years ago. I guess that's what happens when Germans end up banging Colombian natives while exploring mine goes back to King David but when does it leave the middle east?
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
is the trial good enough to discover anything interesting?
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I've been impressed with the documents they've been able to turn up. That being said I am at my uncles place in northern Minnesota now and comparing notes with aunt who has this tree worked out to 1500ish.
Just remember to cancel, it is a good way to spend an afternoon.
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I can trace my lineage back to Jesus.
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On October 27 2014 12:49 ninazerg wrote:
I can trace my lineage back to Jesus.
and a fortiori, King David! We're related!
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On October 27 2014 12:49 ninazerg wrote:
I can trace my lineage back to Jesus.
Is that the chef in your restaurant?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/g6s4Lfz.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EynqNrA.png)
