Myheritage sent me a new ethnic DNA update, which at first looked to me the same as before. I made a little video talking of this, very short; and it was only later in the day that it dawned on me that the sub-categories under the listing of Irish, Scottish and Welsh were not just generalised but were specific to me. This was most curious because my Scandanavian Viking at 64.3%, which I had always presumed to relate to my granddad Lyall Inkster who had Shetland Island blood, would only have then in part come from him, because one of thise sub-groups in the Celtic-Pictish category specifically specified the 'Shetland Islands'. Of course, Shetland Islands as a sub category was too obscure to relate to everyone. This update had for the first time localised my my Celtic Pictish Scottish to the distant northern Shetland Islands. At the same time this revealed that those islands were not just a Viking conquered land but was made up still of the original maybe Pictish settlers; my people. My share of Viking blood was still a lot, but was not just from my mothers father I now realised but was from my own father too. And some of my fathers ancestry would always remain a mystery to me.
So the other sub-categories of the Celtic type were of two different Irish types, being from my grannies, and the other was 'southern Wales and southern and western England', this relating to my paternal grandfather, Pop, who was Welsh mixed with the Forest of Dean. Specifically that Welsh was southern Welsh which did reflect my research of his people. The Irish had accorded to it the numbers 12 and 8. These I looked up but myheritage had not as yet identify them with any known Irish groups. Presumably they reflected where my grannies ancestors were known to have come from, Westmeath and County Kerry.
My Greek with southern Italian remained at 4%. This was said to centre around the Aegean and Ionian Seas, reaching to Cyprus, the Caucasus, southern Russia and the Mezzigiorno region of southern Italy; south Italy being 'the first region settled by ancient Greeks outside of their Greek peninsula, going right back to the 8th century before Christ'.
The Spanish was 3.5%, pretty mareh for a minimal DNA to; these people descending from 'ancient Iberian tribes', also extending to the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands. And not only southern Italian, but I had Italian in general at 2.7%. And what of the Finnish; just a little, at 1%; this category includes some of western Russia, being associated with Nordic and Slavic cultures.
Ok, so I next looked at my mums Myheritage update. My mum not only had the Shetland Islands also specified as a key group but an Irish location was given (though with no number accorded), this being 'Cork, Kerry and Limerick'. Wow, distinct places being mentioned and yes that was right on, as her Irish ancestors whom I had researched did indeed come from County Kerry. My mother had only 3% more Viking than I did and as I had observed before she had a 7%English which I had not inherited. Her Spanish was marginally tinier than mine at 3.2% and her Italian was 2.8%, just a fraction more than mine. She had no Greek, this naturally being my inheritance from my father.
My Aunty Lollies update, she being all I have had to represent my deceased father, wasn't now showing up any Greek DNA. My dad and she would not have inherited the same shares of DNA. By deduction I understood him to have had at least the same amount of Greek DNA as me.
And now, this was interesting, not only did her Celtic data specify 'southern Welsh', this being from Pop, her father, but also that her Irish was of the numbers 12 and 8! What!! This showed that the Irish showing up in me was essentially from my dads side, both those numbers relating to my great great grandmother Mary Dolan from Westmeath. Had I not even inherited my mothers County Kerry quota, let alone her English. How curious! Aunty Lolly had English DNA at 12.9%, again not passed on to me, this specifically being eastern and central UK. It could be that my own sister did get English and County Kerry, but as she had passed away long long ago this I could not know. Aunty Lolly had a high Viking percentage at 25.5%, so indeed my own Viking came from both my parents. And there was another group Aunty Lolly had, but not me, which was 9.1% northern and western European, this being associated with Holland, France and Germany. I didn't have it! It was so curious that largish sections of DNA, although of lesser than 10%, may not be handed on to a descendant, and yet that something more ancient, such as presumably the Greek, had come down to me. And I so could have been 'English' but by fate was not. The strong Irish in me did then appear to be from my father. I'd guess that was what this data was saying.
Looking at my daughter Rosina's update, she had got so much of my Viking at 38% and less of my Celtic at 13.7%, with the special grouping of Shetland Islands in there. She'd not got my Greek or Spanish, but she'd got some Italian at 1.9%. The tiy amount of Finnish I had passed onto her too. Overall she was a Viking Indian. Her Indian DNA at 44.8% was of the Indo-Aryan ancient tribes.
And looking at my son George's update, he had inherited from his Italian father some exotic ethnicities, such as Middle Eastern and West Asian. And, oh, I then saw it, as an additional specific genetic type there was mentioned not only the Shetland Islands but also Bari in Italy. If I'd needed any more proof that Francesco was his father and not Dutch Allard then there it was. Francesco's people were from the village of Turi near to Bari.
George's general Italian was 33.6% and his Greek & Southern Italian was 19%. He had Spanish at 4%, Balkan at 7.4%, Middle Eastern at 1.8% and West Asian at 0.8%. Some of that Mediterranean in him was not just from his dad but from me too. Unlike Rosina, he got very little of my Viking at only 2.4%, compared to her huge 38.6%, but he got more of my Celtic and Pictish at 31%, compared to her 13.7%. Hence Rosina was more of a Viking and George was more of a Celt. It would be interesting to see my other childrens DNA one day, to know what percentages they themselves inherited. George's Middle Eastern was of the Levant, this being the 'cradle of civilisation' which had been inhabited for thousands of years. His West Asian aligned to Turkey and Iran, being of ancient Persians and the Turk nomadic tribes. I do know I have tiny amounts of these types of DNA too from the testing I've done with other companies.
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My youngest childrens ethnic Myheritage DNA percentages arrived: Rosina: 44.8% South Asian; 38.6% Viking (Shetland); 13.7% Celtic (Irish, Scots and Welsh); 1.9% Italian; 1% Finnish George: 33.6% Italian; 31% Celtic (Irish, Scots and Wesh); 19% Greek and South Italian; 7.4% Balkan; 4% Spanish Iberian; 2.4% Viking Shetland; 1.8% Middle East; 0.8% West Asia And so comparing theirs to mine: 64.3% Celtic (Irish, Scots and Welsh); 24% Viking Shetland; 4% Greek and South Italian; 3.5% Spanish Iberian; 2.7% Italian; 1% Finnish
That ever mystery of George's dad is by this ethnic result once and for all sorted. He is my Georgio De Bello. Even there had come up a De Bello cousin match for him, this being to Leonora De Bella who was in her 70's and living in America, she being possibly a second or third cousin once or twice removed. I reacquaint with the results of my mothers own test results, through her there coming my Spainish and Italian, whereas through my father would come the Greek. 59.6% Celtic Irish and Scots - (the Welsh being from my father); 27.3% Viking Sheland; 7.1% English (I never inherited any of this, so neither did my children); 3.2% Iberian Spanish; 2.8% Italian And my Aunty Lolly, to represent my deceased father, who is her brother - although they would have had differing blends of their parents DNA:: 52.5% Celtic (Irish and Welsh); 25.5 Viking (not connected to my Shetland genes); 12% English; 9.1% North and West European, for example French, Dutch and German Really I have no way to know my fathers correct percentages as he died so long ago and I suspect his alotted amount was rather different to Lolly's, he being red haired and she so blonde.
I have cousins a little more distant who have done the Myheritage ethnic tests too, although their DNA will have the imput of people I have no connection at all too, but still its interesting to observe. They are both connected to me through my nanny Eileen, the mother of Lolly and my father. Firstly, Dee, descended from nanny Eileen's sister Molly. Dee's grandfather is Scottish and her father is a Londoner with the Welsh surname of Jones: 75.6% Celtic (Irish, Scots and Welsh); 9.8% Baltic; 9.7 Viking Scandanavian; 2.7% West Asia; 1.4% Finnish; 0.8% Ashkenazi Jew Secondly, Dominic. He descends from a sister of my nanny Eileen's mother Florence who was half Irish. 39.2% Celtic (Irish, Scots and Welsh); 35.6% English; 18.6 North West European; 4.9% Viking Scandanavian; 1.7% Ashkenazi Jew In cousin matches, there is a second or third cousin who I quickly see must be related to me through pop, my Welsh grandfather, this being because my aunt Lolly and I share her as a common relative, but not Dee nor Dominic. Jane Keep, and indeed she does appear to have Welsh, ancestry. 77.9% Celtic; 19.1% English; 3% Spanish Iberian So, Welsh for sure. Well, I got to looking at some of these proposed cousins to see how we may connect to one another, not just this Jane Keep, but two other matches. And though none had any obvious links, I got to researching their lineages and found them myself. Such is my zeal for researching. Jane Keep had only put that her grandparents were a Powell and a Bebb, and not even any other information at all, but regardless, I sussed her ancestry right back to Mary Thomas, who happened to be the daughter of two of my Welsh ancestors, Morgan Thomas and his wife Ann née Rosser. It was by checking all this out that I found a census I'd not seen before, for Ann when she was old and widowed living in Llanelli in 1891 with this aforementioned daughter Mary. And what was so amazing about this discovery was that languages spoken were listed and my Ann, despite everyone else in the household being English speakers, was herself a Welsh speaker. She didn't even speak English at all, only Welsh. Those who did speak both languages were clearly marked as doing so. And I worked out another Welsh cousin link, again which I had to research more to make sense of, this being to a Lionel Herbert Watkins. Thus I found that my connection to Lionel reached right back to the original George Harrison of Llanthony, Lionel descending from his daughter Sophia and me from his son William. The link to George Harrison was not a research even worked out at all by this distant cousin, but I'd sussed it. And I shall get to working out more and more of these proposed cousin connections I do suppose.
Jonathan Schulz, a partial match to my mtDNA, has written for the second time, he being of Belarussian descent. He has a theory, which I shall make note of, on having seen that our mtDNA is found among the Iberians, as well as the Irish. As he says, 'There is a long word of mouth, legendary connection between the Iberians of the Caucasus and the Iberia of south-west Europe. Georgia in the Caucasus is a fusion of two ancient kingdoms, Colchis and Iberia. And, as he adds, migrating people repeatedly name new lands they discover with their own identifying names from back home. Jonathan is deeply interested in archaeogenetics, which is the study of ancient DNA as can be found in old body tissues, bones and faeces, and he constantly reads papers and literature on the topic. Jonathan proposes that the land of Iberia derives from a potential founder, and suggests for this the Biblical Eber. I wonder myself if an original feminine form for Eber was Eve, both being among the first peoples of the Bible. Or, maybe the originator is Vera, as in the divine Veritas, therefore being the land of truth and righteousness. AuthorAuthor Susie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. I settled into trying to understand more these genetic tools on Gedmatch, specifically the Eurogenes K13 and the Dodecad 3, one of my aims being to discern what is from my mothers side and what is of my fathers. Not that I really work out so much, but there are some things I do see. One marker which I have, but my mum doesn't, and which therefore is from my father, is of the Red Sea. And there I had been previously, holidaying for a month right by the Red Sea in Egypt. Both the Eurogenes and the Dodecad reveal a lot of West Asian, which is considerably higher in me than in my mother. Thus it does look to be that my huge Caucasus heritage, and quite likely the Anatolian/Armenian too, is from my father, or at least a greater portion of the Caucasus is. And isn't that a surprise, considering that mine and my mothers matriarchal DNA is from there, and yet my more recent connections to that land come through my father. Naturally western-northern European is our highest genetics, after which comes a high Mediterranean, which includes some Greek from my father and East European shores of the Black Sea from my mother. South Asian is in my mother and father, and south west Asian is only through my dad. North East Asian is from both my parents, which does get me thinking of Mongol invasions. No paleo-Pygmy African presence shows up after all on the Dodecad. There is, though, north west African from my mum (Moroccan) and north east African (Egyptian) from my dad. Among the Gedmatch tools are oracles for predicting likely origins of the four grandparents, and looking firstly at my mums, her Shetland grandparents are no doubt responsible for the Orcadian, West Scottish, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. All is not so straightforward for grandparents Mary Ann Seagrove and D'Auvergne Bane. There is a considerable amount of south west English, pinpointed to Cornwall, that I'm not sure how to account for. This could be tagged onto either of grandparent I suppose. Like I don't yet know the place Mary Ann's ancestors dwelt in as yet before they came to London. The Irish is accounted for by Mary Ann's 'Sugrue' fathers side from County Kerry, and the Spanish with considerable Basque may or may not have come through the Irish connection. The Dodecad reveals that there is French other than just the Basque, and with a name like D'Auvergne naturally I wonder if that grandfather did have some secret French connection. As far as his Norfolk Banes and Beans are concerned, this would be covered by both south east English and Dutch, the Norfolk cloth merchants (a trade to which my people were linked) being from there, and this could also account for traces of German and Austrian. Although not to forget that the Hanseatic merchants also traded with Shetland. The conclusion of my mothers oracle is a quite present Cornish, Scottish and Danish, and a French Basque which is potentially through the Irish. In my own oracle Irish is the strongest, enormously so. Although my mum's Irish would appear to have a strong Basque and Spanish influence, my dads (which is from Westmeath) would be very grass roots Irish. So for my own grandparents in this: Shetland grandfather Lyall Inkster accounts for West Scottish and Orcadian; Granny Isabelle accounts for Irish, Cornwall, French and Spanish. Then, for my other two grandparents, pop and nanny Eileen, would come so much Irish. For pop surely Welsh would show, but maybe Welsh hasn't been sampled as yet and so has been lumped in with the Irish. Unless, that is, my Welsh Harrisons and Forest of Dean Hawkins were of Irish traveller derivation. So much Irish, it being the closest of all ethnic types to me inclines me to think my nanny Eileen's mystery father to be Irish as well. Somewhere on my dads side also comes in some distant Hungarian, according to Eurogenes, so it may be that the Maxteds came from a gypsy heritage after all, but I have to drop gypsyness for now as a consideration due to a lack of proof. Interestingly, beyond the strong French Basque, the most potent influence of all the Spanish areas is Catalan. And where I live now in the south of France was once part of the Spanish Catalan territories, before being snatched away by France. My coming to this land suddenly holds a significance I'd not before been aware of. The Dodecad points not only to Cornwall and Hungary, but also to Slovenia. And Sardinia is there through my mother, as well as north Italian. As Les Batt had pointed out, this appears to point out a route taken to Spain, being via Sardinia, a route of old sea traders, such as the Phoenicians. Certainly the Phoenicians come to mind with such locations, from the Levant to the islands of the Mediterranean to Spain. The Dodecad embroiders yet again on my mothers strong Iberian secondary ancestry, along with Sardinian and Italian. Whereas my own, presumably enriched by my fathers DNA, is increasingly exotic. The Eurogenes has pointed out for me strong Caucasus and central Asian ancestry, along with Anatolian. The Dodecad finds me markers in a more European and Mediterranean context and these are richly ethnic in variety. Primarily there are Greek, Romanian and Hungarian. So would that then relate to my maybe gypsy Kent-London ancestors? But, oh, they are a right melting pot of cultures, just as one may imagine Londoners to be. And I never thought there was any Jewish ancestry in me at all, for nothing else had shown this, but the Dodecad has made of me links to them. Beyond the stronger Greek-Romanian-Hungarian there comes Slovenian, Ashkenazi Jew, Cyprus, Sephardic Jew, the Balkans, Sicily, Lebanon, Moroccan Jew, south Italy, Cornwall (lol, so exotic), and Egypt. What to say of this, well, ones ancestry is not linear, nor easily determined. In these hundreds of years so many families are joined by the marriages and affairs of the ancestors. The Dodecad grandparent predictor oracle for my mother still emphasises a French Basque probability, with Slovenian coming up too, and naturally Irish. Mine brings in, from my father then, an addition of Romanian and the Balkans. At which point I take a break. Because my friend Omani comes to visit. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() I watched some documentaries about gypsy peoples, always fascinating, of Bulgarians, Russians, and Romanians, their child marriages, barefoot dancing, and of girls staying home. When I see such old style traditionalism something there has an appeal. Its that bohemian kind of freedom, of no school and nomadism, of ethnic long skirts, and yes, bare feet. Its a kind of hippy style I myself have had. It is interesting that my mother has this 2% eastern European and myself 1%. I have already considered that the Mediterranean DNA I have may be gypsy. And now, on looking at an Irish gypsy documentary, I see a picture of old world traditional gypsies with the features of my County Kerry Irish. This is the first time I consider that my Sugrue/Sheehans may also have been gypsy. The gypsy theme in my families past is really but a fanciable one with no solid facts, but I do have some fascination about this. Modern gypsies don't have a good reputation for their feuding and crimes and for the dominance of their men over the women. But I do see that there were certain qualities further back, in regard to their closeness to nature, their love of music, the closeness of families that help one another in life's journeying, and their living separate from societies overbearing demands and rules and regulations, posings and limitations. I watched more gypsy documentaries, one being a tragic perspective, and one a so interesting historical account. On a visit round to Jeremy's I talked with him about gypsies, this being topical now, and on account of realisations I'm now having that a real reason why I find myself unacceptable in the eyes of some people, how I get judged and have even had social services bloody turned onto me, basically being disregarded, is because I have 'the gypsy' in me. So does Jeremy and he also is easily dismissed. I have at least, potentially that is, 11% of me being gypsy and that is just of the Mediterranean type, as whatever else in me is of gypsy derivation would up that number to an unknown amount. Those Irish travellers I may be linked to, it may be that they are descended from the original nomads of Ireland, before all other invaders came and took over their lands. Either way, eastern or western, these gypsies have kept themselves freer from societies neurotic imposed standards and hoity-toity impositions. I am free too in this regard. My kids may get dirty in their play, so what. I know how to rough it and don't mind clutter and chaos in my life. I don't poof up in general my appearance. I don't insist my kids go to school or do homework. I prefer them to be free, to just be natural. I accept handouts if need is there without getting hung up or guilty. I stole as a child. I can't be done with small talk. And I don't know how to deal with authorities and even avoid all that. And right now I feel that all this is because of the gypsy in me, that 11% plus. I get this from both my parents. And then there's Jeremy, with plenty of money and yet he chooses to scavenge food in bins. Its not that we are 'low class' as lower classes don't accept us either. And middle classes exceptionally judge. Higher classes, rather curiously, can actually accept because they have no need to prove themselves and appreciate individuality, that old British eccentricity. Both Jeremy and I have gypsy in us, as far as I can work out, and not from modern times, but further back. And I have so been attracted to India where the gypsies originated. My Irish Sugrues were dysfunctional, this I have discovered, and this has kind of helped me to understand more my own dysfunctionalism. And to comprehend all now within the greater context of gypsyness makes more sense and has more impact. Because this is as if a whole family clan which was lost is now refound. And for this I have attained some identification along with group pride, and this sense that all the hoity-toity judges do just that because they sift through those around them marking out who is of worth and who is of them, their type, their people, and all this even though their people have enslaved, attacked and persecuted others. This is why I refer to their ill placed hoity-toity superiority complex. So I would sum up one trouble stirring critic from my village with her 'oh you come to the pub and lay your sleeping child on a bench while partying' (horror of horrors) - not worthy of being a mother then, this being what is in her head. Yes, well, I breastfed my children, I carried them around, and slept with them. I stayed with them, rather than going off chasing money and a career, rather than leaving them with a child minder. I took them along with me on all my travel adventures. I have a nomadic soul. I am free and you are not. But its your society, your rules, and you can just phone anonymously child protection services and get my darlings taken away from me. Because the way you and others think life should be lived is so limiting and all not in your box is condemned. So long I thought others picked on me because I am gentle and not assertive. How could I have any satisfaction in this matter, that being pleasant makes me inadequate. With new understanding, that it is my gypsyness attracting hostility, then its not so personal and against my own lack. It is rather a war on my tribe. And now I have a people to align with and I would rather feel I am with them than your uptight communities in which I never belonged. I have always been an outcaste, an outsider. My standards are different to yours, more relaxed. You are the lines on the pavement and I am the spaces between and beyond. My mother has 7% English in her, unlike me, and its that Anglo-Saxon in her that despises all that is not of civilisation and posturing. I don't have that same brake on me, of what has been more free flowing in our ancient peoples and their ways of relating to the world. This is how I can attune more to more natural elements in my being. So it is, that of such things I talked to Jeremy, though not in such detail. And people nowadays call the travellers Romanys, not gypsies, or at least some people assert this. But either way such names reflect places long lived in since leaving India, whether Romania or Egypt. The gypsy word gets labelled as fake and erroneous along with the statement that never really had travellers come from there. And yet the brilliant documentary I'd watched revealed that the gypsies did go to Egypt and still are there, and even by that north African route had travelled to the south of Spain. Around Granada they lived in cave houses and spoke of coming from Africa, and this is even though others of their people crossed Europe and came down into Spain from other directions. Even in Egypt, some family stories talk of having been in Hungary before going down to Africa. Although associated with musicians historically gifted to Persia, gypsies also have plenty of military words in their vocabulary hinting that they had also been employed as warriors, maybe against the Islamic colonisations of the near East. In Egypt, although it has put them in danger, there are still gypsies who have kept apart from Islam. Either way, in Egypt they have lived on the peripheries, surviving through their music, by their dancing girls, even prostitution, whatever must be done to survive. The Egyptian gypsies admit that crime has also been a part of their overland journey. Although long in Persia, Islam drove them out from there into Turkey which was then safely still part of the Byzantine Empire. With ottoman conquerings they had to travel on yet again, into eastern Europe. There they were legally forced by the civilisation around them into slavery. This brutal history of imposed slavery could go a long way to explaining the modern degradation still affecting these people, their impoverishment, drug and alcohol addictions, family neglect, and unsafe settlements. For they had been broken. Hitler had rounded up so many of them for his death camps. But some escaped all that, having instead gone down to Egypt and all the way round to southern Spain. Their music and songs are also their healing, from all past inflicted sufferings, emotional turmoils channeled into creative sustenance. That passionate music has anciently the quality of depth still found in Indian bhajans. And they never lost their goddess Kali, transforming her at the very least into the Christian Sara Kali in the Carmargue of France. Those gypsies that crossed Europe, I am both of them and the southern Spanish. And it appears that the gypsies soon enough both encountered and interbred with the nomadic Irish. When I see in my DNA that I am Anatolian, middle eastern, eastern European, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and have some French too, well, this is all the journey they took. More and more, then, I make sense of this Mediterranean Europeanness I have as being, at least in part, of gypsy derivation. Anciently gypsies had a sense of their own nobility as a people and when they first came to Britain were even seen as such. But attitudes changed and they had to adapt or disguise who they were or else soldier on regardless. I can't even express just how much happiness I have knowing my roots all the more and how much that means to me. And others will say that the past is irrelevant, but such words are of no consequence to me, because for me our family roots are part of our divinity even. And by this we find our vital historical place amongst the teeming masses of faceless people who have no stories. Not at all is the past an irrelevance and I have long known this. I have travailed so hard over the years to uncover such forgotten history, that which was reduced to but mysteries and disregarded shadows, while yet being essentially part of who we are, unknown and yet vital. I know that new age spiritually motivated people, of whom I have often situated myself, want to escape the body and the material, into a void, and I had originally accepted something of this dismissiveness, but not anymore. Because it is the totality that is relevant, being part of the miracle of evolving life, being precious, divine, and deserving to be honoured. All my research now leads somewhere and it feels so good. I am gypsy; it is the only way to make sense of the diverse patch-work of association with so many countries, places they travelled through and dwelt in. I'm happy to know. I'm gypsy and viking and Irish and Welsh. My dad disliked his Welshness and my mum her Irishness, but I love it all. And my squatters of the Forest of Dean, who were people outside of any parish, they were travellers too! Red haired, natural, rebelling against any imposed authority, they had no home but the forest, where they made their huts and repeatedly saw them destroyed, and then built more. Evicting them was a nonsense as they were homeless and belonged nowhere. There was nowhere else for them to go. They were extraneous to the system. All lands beyond the forest had been enclosed, partitioned and claimed, everywhere divided into parishes where people belonged, but not them. And what kind of travellers they themselves were, who knows. But I am so happy. I have made sense of a past that otherwise would not have been known. And I knew of Shetland Vikings and Welsh and Irish and Forest of dean, but I never knew of gypsies. If some of the elders of our family knew of this they preferred it forgotten. But I have discovered it anyway. It wakens a whole part of me, reinvigorates what was lost and yet was always there. And that feels so good. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() I have more ethnic DNA results to consider, as I have transferred my mothers results now to Myheritage, which always presents a different perspective. What I can take of interest from this, amazingly, is that although having recieved Celtic-Pictish DNA from both my parents, there is in my mothers DNA a specifically English type of DNA, of which she has 7%, which I did not inherit; not a half, not even a drop! I have no English DNA; I am totally of the Welsh, Scottish and Irish types. My mother is part English and I am not! The large amount of French, Swiss, Italian my mother was said to have by Familytree is much minimised by Myheritage, down to 6%. Somehow this does present as more realistic, and she now has more Scandinavian than me, by 3%. Her British is much higher than Familytree's analysis - 59% British, 7% specifically English and 27% Viking. Of her 6% European it is not so far off half-half for both France and Italy. This, by deduction, reveals that my 1% Finnish is through my father and also from my father is this strange 4% of Greek, which also would cover some of the southern parts of Bulgaria, Old Yugoslavia, and Italy. As before, the differences in results confuses. Which one is more reliable, this is the question, but this cannot be known now; it is only something time can tell, if ever. Comparing with the original Genographic project these other later reults, there is still this strange claim, only by them, that I am 3% Central Asian. Quite mysterious still. As is this African, Middle Eastern and Anatolian that only shows up with Familytree. So, of British I have variously been given 48% (Geno), 55% (famtree), and 64% (myheri), which is not to dissimilar, the range being of 16%, so take your pick. Why the different percentages given, I still don't understand, but, regardless, this makes up the larger part of who I am in genetic terms. And, as revealed by Familytree, this is all of Celtic-Pictish type. Viking-Scandinavian is 38% (Geno), 24% (myheri) and 21% (famtree), the second largest part of my genetic make-up with a range of 17%, pretty similar again to the British range. Again, take your pick. By Geno I am 11% Southern European, which matches Myheritage at almost 11%, broken up into Spanish, French, Italian and Greek. It is only Famtree that greatly ups this percentage to 21 or maybe 22%, most of that being French-Italian at 13%, but then there being this whole extra Iberian at 8%. Without that Spanish it wouldn't be too different from the others. But the Spanish is there! And Greek at 4% with Myheritage is also, confusingly, there. Finally come all these traces revealed by different company analyses, the Eastern European, Anatolian, Levantine, Finnish, African, and Central Asian, very minimal parts of my DNA which not every company detects. And small amounts are challenging to detect anyway, small enough to be a part of who I am, so small that my children may not inherit any such DNA themselves. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Myheritage online is taking for no cost ethnic DNA from other sites and doing their own analysis. Similar results I have got, in doing this with them, and yet different. NO DNA from outside Europe has been picked up by their system, no African, or Middle Eastern, nor Anatolian. What they find of my British is that it is of Celtic type and is 64.3%, being of Ireland, Wales and Scotland; not the Shetland which would be accounted for by the Scandinavian DNA at 24.5%. And, most strangely, according to Myheritage, I have the addition of 1% Finnish. Moi, part Finlander! The Irish and Welsh part then, with my not having Scottish mainland ancestors, is a large amount. Where, I ask myself, is the Norfolk, Essex or even Kent DNA, which would be of the English type, as no English is detected. This puts a question mark not only on the Essex lot, which I had suspected to be illicit anyway, but also the Norfolk Bane's and Bean's and the Kent Maxteds. Although, if the Maxteds and Greens were of gypsy derivation, as I have considered, then that may be what is showing up as Iberian. The Spanish type is given for me, by Myheritage, as 3.5%, alongside which there is not French at all, but 2.7% Italian, and more than either of those, 4% Greek. The is interesting and yet when each company comes up with some vastly differing zones this throws one naturally into confusion. I do actually like to hear I have connections to Greece and Italy, and yet this had never come up with the Familytree system of testing. I now can take nothing as fact. I don't know if I waste my time with this far too immature science. DNA ethnic results become as uncertain as the reliance of a family tree study, where really, assumed parentage's can never be taken for granted. I don't know if this is a subject, despite my love and infatuation for it, that I can keep pursuing. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. I still puzzle over my new autosomal update, for as far as logic will concede, the Spanish and French parts of my ethnic make-up suggest alternative fathers to otherwise husbands, somewhere along the line, and quite recently too. If Lyall Inkster, my Scottish grandfather, accounted for the Scandanavian, ie. Viking DNA, that leaves only 55% of British DNA to share amongst the three remaining grandparents. I have long anyway doubted my nanny Eileen Spencer's paternity, her mother Florence Maxted having been 9 months pregnant when she married her Percy in a registry office. And so the French part may account for this, she having been a barmaid in a port, so it may be that she was romanced by a French amour, visiting on the ships, who then returned home, never to be seen again. Or could that be the Spanish mixed with European, and what, African? Oh, how can I know? Anyway, it does look like Percy Spencer had accepted to play daddy to someone else's child. If only I could test other family members to understand this more! And other than this, somewhere, there has to have been another hidden paternity, to account for the rest of the foreign blood. And I do think this must have been on my granny Isabelle Bane's line, somehow, as both my pop George Harrison's parents looks are in our family. Could it be that Irish Thomas Seagrove also was not the father of Mary Ann? She was he firstborn of her mother Maria Harrison, she of the exotic looks, who similarly may have been the result of a foreign romancer. It could be that Maria herself may have been Spanish, mixed with Armenian and whatever else. How do I logically even try to resolve all this. Although her genetic contribution would be equivalent, in average terms, to 6% of my DNA, she could have contributed a larger chunk, as any amount of DNA can be passed on, it does not have to be uniform at all, so all really is complex in such matters. I can discount, actually, that my Eastern European is potentially Jewish. I'd not seen before that there was a separate results part relating to Jewish DNA, two categories, one for Ashkenazi and one for Sephardic, both being 0%. 0%'s, as such, are indicated for all the America's, all of Central and Eastern Asia, all the rest of Africa (but for the Central South African part), all Jewish types, the eastern part of the Middle East, nothing of Finland, not Siberia, nothing of South East Europe, and not Oceania. There isn't a separate category for Ireland, which is included in the British Isles. The great known archaeological site within the South-Central African area, of which I have 2%, was prior to European colonialism the 'Great Zimbabwe'. The vaster area is that which had led to Swahili culture. Arab traders had early on come to this region, since the 8th century, before which these lands were isolated, with some farming and iron working and many hunter-gatherer tribes. The earliest peoples here created rock art of which there are numerous examples. Another new section deals with ancient European origins, as revealed by the autosomal testing, something I'd not seen before, which shows I have more hunter-gatherer DNA than farming or metal workers: Hunter-gatherer 46% Farmer 41% Metal Age Invader 13% AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Familytree has perfected and updated its ethnic autosomal interpretations. And how crazy it is that, yes, before I was told I had some small Central Asian component, which is east of the Caspian Sea, which had got me all excited for its exotic appeal, but this has now been whacked back west and south of the Caspian to Armenia and Turkey. With a new ability to consider trace percentages I have been told I have Middle Eastern, that is the Levant, and Eastern European, both which I had not known of before. And whats more, to blow my mind all over again, I have some 2% Central South African! I almost feel, on being told this one day and that another day, that this science is too new even to be relied upon. Everything I have felt to believe is really fragile in this regard. And my matriarchal origin, is it really of the Caucasus, when it does seem that an Armenian link is arising, which is to the south of there. Anatolian Armenian Christian, this does appear quite possible. It could be this that has blended with the Levantine, and even the African, which has me confused of what to make of it all. The Africans could have been slaves in the Arab world, or from some past colonial interbreeding with locals. So many potentially fascinating stories are there which I will never know. And even this is not such a vast number of generations back. How exotic could it get, to know discover this ancestral connection to Africa, in the dark jungly south, where is Botswana, Angola, Zambia, and South Africa. And how watered down this is in me already, so pale and freckly, so very English looking. That black haired, ivory skinned ancestress in Greenwich, Maria Harrison; such a mystery resides within her. Was she a combination of Armenian, Levantine and African; is this why her distinct looks? My friend Deepak had once suggested she may be Armenian, with her un-British looks, and maybe he was indeed tuning into something. I need to locate the previous percentages that were given to me, to compare. I recall there had been Mediterranean, which has now been pinpointed to the Spanish peninsula. Other than which there is a whole connection to France, and/or its neighbouring lands, which I'd also not known of. British is naturally my main ethnic make-up with its Viking addition and of European there is in total 97%, though all then adds up to 105% and not 100%. The is the up to date percentages, then, which make up my autosomal ethnic mix: British Isles 55% Scandanavia 21% West & Central Europe 13% Spanish Peninsula 8% Turkey/Armenia 2% Eastern Europe 2% Levant (Asia Minor) 2% African (Central-South) 2% The Eastern European, which is from Poland to the Ukraine, is also a surprise. This is where the Ashkenazi Jews were located, so a link would be there, at least of having lived among them. This would concur with dreams I've had of being pursued by Nazi types and having to escape, and why I so feel to defend Jewish people who have known centuries of persecution even into modern times. Again, there could be an admixture into rarer types of peoples, via Ukraine, where indeed an ancient type of my matriarchal DNA has been found, as my friend Satshanti had recently pointed out to me. So, maybe my Eastern European type is indeed Ukrainian. With such a subject, all can only be guessed or assumed. These are but whispers of a past otherwise lost to us. But Africa, oh, Africa, how could I have know this was not just anciently the mother land, but something so much closer, still in my being. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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