Ancestry DNA... anyone else done it?

[GazzaS]

HI Everyone,

    Throughout my life I'd heard from my relatives about my bloodlines or ancestors, or what ever you want to call it.  And sometimes I wondered just how true those stories were.   Fellow Americans will know the name of Annie Oakley or Blackfoot Indians.   My German ancestors have a family tree that dates back to 16th century Switzerland.  Unfortunately I've never been able to obtain a copy of it for detailed study.  My grandmother from the German side of the family is from Italy.... and I don't mind a bit of pasta, let me tell ya!

 

Anyway...  I've always felt curious about it.   Last year Ancestry had a sale, so I thought I''d give it a go.  What I learned was:

I'm two thirds German.  No surprise there.

My next biggest part of my gene pool is French.  Complete surprise!  Mon dieu!

The final dregs were Benelux/England (grouped together by Ancestry)

And.... the final shocker:  Russian!  Who knew???  Never would have suspected it.

 

Alas...  No native American whatsoever.

 

However, Annie Oakley is still a possibility since she was from Ohio, and the Pennsylvania and Ohio areas had a large influx of German immigrants in the 1700's.

 

Any good Ancestry DNA stories out there?

 

Gaz

[GusMac]

Have a look at the Livescience and Sciencenews websites. You may well have Native Indian ancestry - the reproducibility of these home DNA tests is appalling and it's borderline whether they should be done for false advertising.

[Martinnfb]

So that means that Gas and Ernie are  brothers ?  ...

 

[Martinnfb]

On a serious note. One of my relatives wrote  her thesis based on the history of my family tribe ( so to say) . She turned it into one chapter of some book about Keltic history . I never had a chance to read it, neither to meet her. Well I almost did and she had one copy on side for my mom, but regrettably it didn't work out.

Naturally this wasn't based on DNA breakdown rather than field research etc.

All I know that it was violent and dynamic

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Mainly based on family documents, e.g. family and church registers.

My family's paternal line is of French (Poitou) descent. In 1804, my French greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreat grandfather somehow got stuck in Sankt Wendel/Saar,  married a local gal and founded the German family branch. Maternally, also French/Alsatian. In 1906, one of my great uncles (paternally) emigrated to Québec... My DNA may also contain traces of Bohemian DNA, my great grandma (paternally) was born in Vyšší Brod. The period between 1940 and 1945 was characterised by severe "family frictions" stirred up by the German branch of the family. Quite understandably, it has taken a while to get things sorted. Quel bordel!

I'm somewhat reluctant when it comes to passing on my hard-coded DNA profile to for-profit organisations for purposes other than medical necessity.

[Wumm]

Not DNA based...

But my Paternal Aunt has done a lot of work tracing that side through archives and research, a lot of German there with my Grandparents' surnames of Messer and Ahnfeld. She managed to track one fellow along the way who was born in Denmark, but had no point of arrival into Australia... It was later discovered anecdotally that he had merely liked the look of Yeppoon on the way down the Coast down to Brisbane in the early 1870's, and simply jumped ship!

[aderowlands]

Not done it, have an aunt who’s in to the family tree stuff and she’s traced us back to the same area of Wales, about a 40 mile radius, I think back to the 1600’s or something crazy like that, about as far back as reliable records will allow. I’d not do one of these DNA things myself as the science seems a little shaky in the way they group things together and remember seeing something in the TV and various magazine articles about it. I’d also be worried to find out I’m not the bone fide 100% hairy arsed barbarian Celt that history would suggest. No Anglo-Saxon in my line of the family though supposedly the Surname came over as Roland with the Norman invasion, the Normans being descendants of the Vikings I wouldn’t be to distraught to have the Celt bloodline tainted by that lineage either. That being said there’s probably many versions of how the family name came in to being. If I remember correctly the British Celtic tribes had an Iberian origin so there’d be a good amount of that in the mix but from the history of my little bit of Wales where the Roman invasion had limited success (they conquered the flat bits but left the mountains alone as they knew that fighting there probably wouldn’t go their way). The area was mainly garrisoned by auxiliaries from the Benelux areas of the Empire which was worked out from artefacts discovered at the excavations of the various forts and fortlets in the area. So you can add the possibility of some bored randy troops adding to my gene pool somewhere along the line. As for the Dark ages I have no idea who might have come along to contribute. The Saxons didn’t make it this far and were pretty much stopped at the modern English/Welsh border (those bloody mountains again). I haven’t read anything about Viking raids on our part of Wales, they were further south where the Monasteries were located, they probably thought there wasn’t much worth looting in our mud hut hovels at the time. We weren’t a very well travelled family either, hence the small radius of the gene pool my aunt discovered. About the only travel was Great Grandparents, and other great uncles and such going to France and Ireland for war service in the First World War, other relations doing service in the Second World War, one who was a conscientious Objector at the outbreak who agreed to serve in the Army Medical Corps was then killed in North Africa (Libya) when his Ambulance was Straffed believe he was the only family member to not come back from either war though one Great Grandfather was gassed in the First World War and died young from the resulting complications. Then both Grandfathers who were too young to serve during the Second World War doing their national service in Post War Germany and the other in Palestine and Cyprus. Sadly I don’t know a lot about my Mothers side of the family though again they seem to be contained to a small area of Wales, farming family on my Grandmothers side. Sadly nobody to ask about their histories now as both Grandparents have passed on. 

[Jeff]

Cathy is doing our family as I am searching for a long lost grandfather, I'd sure like to find before my dad passes away, but she has gone back to the 1500's and there are LOTS of Lord's and Ladies, Barons etc and a direct relative to me was the Exchequer of London, back in the day.............. so maybe you guys need to dress me as..........................  "Your Lordship"?????    .............................. ok I know, Cathy won't do it either.................. damn.......................  The family history thing is VERY cool and interesting, I have found an uncle who was a Major in the first war RGA, only have ever just heard the stories, NOW I have a photo of him  AND 70 pages of  a Regimental war diary ALL in his hand writing and his signature on the bottom of the pages....... almost like he wrote it just for me...... also found some film of him in action on the front lines........................  you know  the stuff, lots of footage and no one knows who they are, in this particular case I DO !............................. so cool.....

[GusMac]

My dad set himself this project when he retired and now about 10 years later he's back to the 1760s in all 4 main branches of the family and GOD is it mostly boring!! You could bicycle round most of the locations my ancestors have stayed in an afternoon, easy! Most of them are within a 20 mile radius of my home town and were farm workers or carpenters. I'm a positive freak having gone away to Uni, worked in England for a few years and then moved back about 60 miles from our home area.

The interesting bit is seeing those who've served their country as we cover both World Wars, plus Korea, Crimea and the Napoleonic era. My grandfather's brother lied about his age to join up in 1917 and died in late September 1918 aged just 17. His name is on the memorial at Thiepval. My son is the same age now and it's frightening to think of him in that situation, mainly as he's a complete goofball.

[[CAT]CplSlade]

Never did the DNA thing as I am not keen on giving corporations more than they need to know. However, paternal granddad did some digging around years ago and got that part of the family to the Virginia colony in the early 1700's, with our part  branching off the part that would become the political Bushes around that time. Yes, I am related to that family. I only get back to the late 1880's on my mom's side.

German, Irish, French in my background for certain.

[CrankyCrafstman]

As far as I know I'm German, Italian and Scottish, boy what a combination. on my dads side - father English/Scottish family came to the states through Canada to Michigan.  My dads mother German came to the states from the black forest area of Germany after WW1. On my moms side, whos from Barbados - fathers Scottish family came to the west indies in the 1500's as indentured servants her mother came to New York, don't know when, then went to Barbados.

 My dad met my Mother during Ww2 he was stationed on Trinidad as a radio operator on B-25's patroling the Panama canal. They used to take R&R on Barbados thats were he met my mom. After a brief engagement they were married and he sent my mom to the states to live with my aunt, his sister in Michigan. When the war was over he came back home to Michigan and my mom. My grandfather on my dads side worked for Chrysler at the Mound rd. tank plant making Sherman tanks.

  There all gone now its just my brother's and me and our families.

Ron G 

 

[Clunkmeister]

I've been told my entire life that I'm pure German, and I had no reason to doubt it.  I've met all my Dad's relatives and there's absolutely NO doubt about his heritage.

But my Mother's side was mostly a mystery, they were quiet about it, but they all said German. Someone accidentally said "Bohemian" when I was in my teens, and they got immediately corrected. However a couple months ago I was bowled over when my Mom let it slip that her family was Russian with a bit of Belarus and only one German picked up along the way when they were fleeing Russia through Germany in the very early 20's. Somehow, my Great Grandmother ended up with some German in her. This whole news was a big surprise and it answered alot of questions. My parents were both RCAF and being any kind of Russian ties those days while in the depths of the Cold War was seen as very bad thing. Especially since they both worked on the big Distant Early Warning radar arrays on Stations scattered all over Canada and the top half of the USA.   Now I know why I was raised on a diet of borscht, sauerkraut, and homemade perogies. 

These Russkies get around. Sneaky little beggers they are. But it helps explain unquenchable my thirst of and tolerance for copious quantities of Spirit. 

So yeah we took the test. Joy's came back, and no surprise to us she is over 80% American Indian with the final 20% Western European and a bit of Sub Saharan African.

I'm still waiting...... CIA probably has it now, LOL

[Wumm]

 

2 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

I've been told my entire life that I'm pure German, and I had no reason to doubt it.

But my Mother's side was mostly a mystery, they were quiet about it, but they all said German. Someone accidentally said "Bohemian" when I was in my teens, and they got immediately corrected. However a couple months ago I was bowled over when my Mom let it slip that her family was Russian with a bit of Belarus and only one German picked up along the way when they were fleeing Russia through Germany in the very early 20's. Somehow, my Great Grandmother ended up with some German in her. This whole news was a big surprise and it answered alot of questions. My parents were both RCAF and being any kind of Russian ties those days while in the depths of the Cold War was seen as very bad thing. Especially since they both worked on the big Distant Early Warning radar arrays on Stations scattered all over Canada and the top half of the USA.

It was the same here for Germans. Australia for some time after WW2 was very British, and it wasn't the done thing to highlight what some saw as questionable Heritage. In my class at School were names like Burgraff, Meyers, Munster, Schneider and Weiss but no-one ever talked about it. Every now and then, my Grandfather would throw in a word here and there like "Raus" or "Benzin" and would let little inflections creep in, but I was none the wiser as I thought it was just the way old people spoke.

2 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

Now I know why I was raised on a diet of borscht, sauerkraut, and homemade perogies.

This is funny... I'm quite literally frying up a breakfast Bratwurst as I write this!

[Clunkmeister]

Trying to teach a native born Texan how to cook German sausage is like trying to push a string.

[CrankyCrafstman]

Hey Clunky 

  One of my uncles on my mother's side was a radar operator on the D.E.W. up on the border of upper Saskatchewan. They lived on the base 6 to 7 months out of the year under a CRAP load of snow. They had tunnels in the snow from Quonset hut to Quonset hut. 

[Wumm]

9 minutes ago, Clunkmeister said:

Trying to teach a native born Texan how to cook German sausage is like trying to push a string.

Well I'm doing it wrong, Bratwurst should really be grilled not fried...

Don't you Texans Barbecue everything?

[Wumm]

[Clunkmeister]

4 hours ago, CrankyCrafstman said:

Hey Clunky 

  One of my uncles on my mother's side was a radar operator on the D.E.W. up on the border of upper Saskatchewan. They lived on the base 6 to 7 months out of the year under a CRAP load of snow. They had tunnels in the snow from Quonset hut to Quonset hut. 

Dad was a Radar tech and also worked with the Height Finders. Mom was what they called a “Fighter Op” or similar. She was one of the ones around the big plotting board moving aircraft emblems around with those long wooden sticks while the Brass stood on the balconies looking down. She later moved to GCI once the plot boards were obsolete. Not that the RCAF was big on GCI. The bomber interceptors carried back seaters with their own radar.

We moved all around. Pine Tree Line, Mid Canada Line, and D.E.W.  Those were back in the days of mhaximum effort where everyone, even us kids knew the reason we were there, and a big computer system called S.A.G.E.  It seems she antiquated today, but then, Cheyenne Mountain and North Bay were the hubs of freedom and we were the spokes.  Voodoos, F-106, and BOMARC were the hammers.  Hard to believe they actually thought the manned interceptor was all but obsolete.

[Clunkmeister]

4 hours ago, Wumm said:

Well I'm doing it wrong, Bratwurst should really be grilled not fried...

Don't you Texans Barbecue everything?

Not this one. Bratwürst is grilled on low heat with a bucket load of patience.  And as for the he big Colt Peacemaker, I prefer a ‘72 New Army in 45 Colt with the loading gate cutout.

[Martinnfb]

Oven baked Jaternica sausage ,with souerkraut and freshly baked ray bred.........hmmmmm heaven

[Wumm]

1 hour ago, Clunkmeister said:

Not this one. Bratwürst is grilled on low heat with a bucket load of patience.

True dat...

Coz no-one wants to blister the skin on their Sausage!

[Clunkmeister]

1 hour ago, Wumm said:

True dat...

Coz no-one wants to blister the skin on their Sausage!

True words!