Do you know other parts of your heritage?

[Dillon]

So I was digging around last night and earlier today (since I had a 5 hour gap in between classes) to know what backgrounds I actually came from. My Anthropology class I’m taking made me think about this lately so I wanted to see. I created a family tree on the website Ancestry.com that shows all the records of past relatives, when and where they were born, their marriage and other stuff like that. I thought is wasn’t a legit thing but I’ve seen some photographs of my dad’s grandmother or my mom’s grandfather personally and those same photos were on that site which I though was cool. I actually ordered me one of the kits to see what percentage of ethnicity i am for a particular area (I know the samples won’t be that accurate but close enough).
Anyway on my moms and dads side of the family going all the way back to the mid 1700s, I spent a good four hours over those two days working on this. I found out that I have quite a bit of Irish and Scottish coming up on both sides and surprisingly some German on my dads side and a little bit of French as well. My grandparents side of the family same thing, more Scottish and Irish bloodline.
I think it’s intresting to know what backgrounds we come from!
Anyone else know about their heritage or background fine past lives?

 

[Joel's Hear]

I come from a long line of great inventors.

But no inventions here yet!

 

[Xerces Blue]

I'm a European mutt - name a country, I probably have someone from there in the olde family tree.
My family name originates in the area of Germany, Austria and Hungary.
My Mother's maiden name comes from the British Isles and I'm told it was awarded for taking a city gate in the middle ages (I was never told what city or when though so this could be a myth)

 

[Pats]

lots.

 

[Dillon]

I come from a long line of great inventors.

But no inventions here yet!

My grandfathers side a lot of his past relatives and ancestors were carpenters guess that’s why he likes doing what he does installing kitchen cabinets and counter tops at almost 70 years old.
My dad’s side however theres a whole long of cardiovascular disease and my dad 3 years ago had a triple bypass done to him.

 

[tducey]

I've traced my roots back to the 1700's and my great great great grandfather. What's neat is that him and his brother discovered my hometown (Albeit a town of around 5-600 people).

 

[Ezra]

Mostly Swiss on my dad's side with a bit of French. Mostly Irish on my mom's side with a fraction of Sioux (according to family folklore). A great uncle traced my dad's side back a long ways, but I never read though the whole thing. Distant ties to a royal family I hear. A great great grandfather was an electric engineer and inventor of industrial electronic devices in the early 20th century.

 

[Fino]

It's just a whole lot of white people. My ancestors fought on the "wrong" side of the civil war. I forgot the other fun facts. English, Irish, French... I think there's one more. I've never found anything like that interesting in any way. But I could read the labels on foods and drugs all day, so who am I to judge...

My brother is also an anthropology major and also your age! Is it autistic of me that my first thought when learning that was to wonder if you two are in the same class or school? Or maybe I'm just being major-racist or maybe just good old-fashioned DUMB.

 

[Progster]

My family name is common in the area of the UK where I come from and has a long history in that area.

 

[Monachopia]

I did one of those genetic testing kits a while back as I was curious... As expected it came back with just Eastern European, though there's roughly 3% which is Finnish that I have no clue about.
I wish I could do a family tree on something like Ancestry.com, but I don't have enough information or it's lost due to record loss during various occupations of Latvia and civil unrest in Russia.

 

[Dillon]

I just discovered a new background earlier today that on my grandmothers side has a bloodline of mainly Italian decedents with some French mixed in.

 

[Aeolienne]

I've got an Italian surname and I have more recent German ancestry on my mother's side.

 

[Mr Allen]

Not really, although I do know I have very distant Australian relatives from my late Nan's side of the family. Well actually I think they were British ex-Pats who moved Down Under a Million years ago.

 

[NothingToSeeHere]

Mum's Scottish, Dad's Welsh with a German sounding surname, and considering how many times Britain has been invaded and occupied over the millenia I'm probably a jumble of various European genetics. I don't really care about what country my ancestors were from, but I'd be interested to find out how much Neanderthal DNA I have.

 

[Judge]

I know much of my family's genealogy going back to 1791 with a primary descendant coming from Ireland, allegedly "incentivized" by some fellows in red coats.

As for the rest, they are supposed to be Austrian and Native American. Might even be some English and Germans in the mix. As to what percentage, whatever. After all, I'm not planning to run for president.

 

[Isadoorian]

Native American, Swedish, Italian, a few others which I forget; my mom did a 23 & Me thing several months ago which was interesting

 

[joe2006]

As far as I know I'm more than half Irish and part German, Norwegian, and English.

 

[tlc]

French Canadian with some Native American on my dad's side. Am told we go back to Sacajawea. My mom's side is European mutt.

 

[Reirei]

I love geaneaology and anthropology and biology! I took both the ancestry.com DNA test and the 23andme DNA test and I have a family tree on the ancestry.com site.

The interesting thing about DNA kit are that 1. They aren't interpreting the full genome. Just importing at certain gene locii so those can give you a basic idea. 2. They aren't necessarily indicative of your heritage in the way everyone thinks of them. For example: There is a woman named Sakura from Japan and her DNA is interpreted as 100% Japanese. She marries Carl from Germany and his DNA is interpreted as 100% German. They have a son named Ryu. Ryu is 50/50 (actual and expected result and in such a case the only statistical possibility disregarding mass mutation etc). Ryu has a daughter (Lieza) with a woman who is 100% German named Henrieka. Their daughter Lieza has an expected average result of being 25% Japanese and 75% German since essentially half of your DNA is inherited from mother and half from father. BUT without considering any other factors such as admixing, Lieza could just be statistical possibility have DNA that is 100% (in such a situation she inherited the same 50% of her father Ryu that is the 50% that makes him German) of what we are interpreting to be German heritage. Does that negate the fact that she has Japanese ancestors? No! Is this situation likely? No, but possible and in actuality she likely wouldn't be exactly 25/75. She could be 20/80 to 30/70 or even 50/50. And that isnt even considering other factors about how DNA is altered during the process of meiosis or anythinf else.

This is partly why siblings come back with different ancestry percentages and sometimes they can be vastly different despite the exact same ancestry. My sister's results said approximately 67% of what she inherited was Scandinavian ancestry but mine only came back at approximately 30 some percent (in both of these examples I'm comparing the result that 23andme had given us). Also, if you've been a customer long enough, you will have witness possible changes to the interpretation of the DNA. They continue to refine the results to be more accurate based on more population samples (mine was refined and the results now are slightly different). The last aspect to consider is the fact that humans do not always stay in one place throughout their lives (think Viking raiders). So depending on the culture and history of the people you are inheriting DNA from there could be more of a mixture than anticipated. Also DNA can only be interpreted to a certain number of generations past reliably.

 

[Stardust Parade]

My mom's sister is really into tracing the family tree, and she was able to trace our ancestors back to King Henry II of England. So I've got some royal blood
Kinda of interesting I suppose.