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My sister got a kit for her birthday and the results were really interesting
We are 95% Welsh 3% Irish and 2% Norwegian
Very happy with that.
Nothing exotic here, I only have Irish ancestors on both side. But I'd like to find out if there is Spanish or Viking in there somewhere.
Ive got the Wolf of Badenoch in the family tree, bit of a firestarter apparently.
Border Reiver.... nasty ******s
87% French. My father in law has disowned me. Apparently it has something to do with airbus and the fin on the A310.
I'm descended from Charlemagne 👑
...but then we all are:
Ancestry is a bit of a daft concept when genetically we all have common ancestry going back only a matter of centuries.
Every single person in my family's living memory is a Fifer.
Bite it, you scum
Tracing my dad's maternal line back there are Spalding's in Aberdeenshire mid 1700s, tracing my mum's maternal line back there are Spalding's in Aberdeenshire mid 1700s.
My immediate family were Scottish, Irish, Welsh and English( my grandparents) . Going further back there was French and Scandinavian if the family names were anything to go by. Now of course a strong Germanic element to my offspring!
We're feccin Oirish for many many generations. A rare mix of Fermanagh and Wicklow.
Only know what I love heard from my parents, but have a German mum and grandma, Cockney grandad, Scottish grandad on my dads side and English grandmother. Like to think I get my ruthless efficiency from my mum and Nan.
My sister got a kit for her birthday and the results were really interesting
We are 95% Welsh 3% Irish and 2% Norwegian
No, your sister is 95% Welsh, 3% Irish and 2% Norwegian.
You'd need to take a test to determine if you are as well.
Related to the first Count of Peebles. Vache. When I first went to Peebles in 2018 I knew nothing of my family history. I did have the strange feeling it was home. I knew there was a scots connection but basically been deployed for 18 years so really had no time to research the matter. So I moved back.
After Peebles seems they were in Nether Horsburgh until the 1900s, Then Dalkeith. After the second world war my grandfather moved to the USA.
Glad to be back in the borders and consider myself a Borderer. My Oak Ridge TN accent throws people off.
How do they arrive at 95% Welsh?
Surely they can just look at dna markers
that you share with other people?
I’m nearly half-Scottish and half-English. The interesting bits are from Mali and Senegal. My great, great grandmother was descended from African slaves and lived in Guyana - her family name was that of the plantation owner, privateer (pirate) and slave trader. My great, great grandfather was an engineer from Glasgow who was there to oversee the installation of the machinery to process the sugar cane to make rum.
I had a DNA test done earlier this year and have been able to trace back my family history for the last 2 hundred years. On my mother’s side in Yorkshire, it appears quite a few of my ancestors and their family members enjoyed the hospitality at HMP Armley.
Mrs DB is a proper whizz at genealogy - she was adopted yet managed to track her birth father in Australia - he didn’t even know he had a daughter and they first met about 48 years later. Back through her family line there is an illicit descendent of the Viscount Althorp, Earl Spencer.
We're all someone's daughter
We're all someone's son
How long can we look at each other
Down the barrel of a gun?
You're the voice, try and understand it
Make a noise and make it clear
Oh, whoa
We're not gonna sit in silence
We're not gonna live with fear
Oh, whoa
Like to think I get my ruthless efficiency from my mum and Nan.
What about your fanatical devotion to the Pope?
English (Sussex/Hampshire border for 200 years+ on my father’s side), Italian, Irish and German. That’s what we know about, who knows before 1750? Not had a genetic test.
I know one half of my family tree is Welsh Valleys. Didn’t move around, there may have been very close family relations, legal but very close. Which explains a LOT!
The other side I’ve no idea. TBH I’d prefer it that way.
I have inside me blood of kings.
Yeah!
Going back to great grandparents, English, Irish, French, Scottish, Spanish and Belgian.
Mostly Catholic with some Jewish ancestry.
No wonder I'm confused. 🙃
Good mix that.
My daughter did a genetic test: turns out she's half-Spanish (no great surprise there given her mother's Spanish...), 25% English, about 22% Welsh/Irish/Scottish (whatever that means), then the surprise finding that she's about 2.5% Ashkenazi Jewish. Which means sometime in the latter part of the 19th century I have a central-European great-great-grandparent. I asked my dad, and apparently my mother's maiden name (Ison) was rumoured to be the anglicised version of Isaacson. Something I'd never known.
My wife would like to get one done now - the test my daughter did just said "50% Iberian peninsular", which given the waves of immigration here is a bit crap. I assume a Spanish company would provide more detail.
My cousin traced my dad's family bad 400years, all English, mostly stonemasons, and mostly called William until 'Mad Bob' popped up in the 1800s and some shenanigans with some racehorses ensued. Apparently he was friends with Lord Byron, Shelly and that crowd. How mad do you have to be for Bryon's mates to call you the mad one?!
Anyway, according to a bloke my dad met in a pub once my surname is viking
I’m not sure and don’t overly care. I picture a long line of the oppressed:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng
Scots,Yorkshire,Viking.
My skills with an axe are legendary.
This is all through geneology research from my brother in NZ!
My surname side we've got back to Clipstone Forest in Nottinghamshire, to a specific address. However the geography of our surname is with the Border reivers. The one thing we may have that connects the two is that two brothers appear to have married the same woman - and what we think is a marriage record of the first brother (who lived in Clipstone) has place of birth as Scotland... It's all a bit smoke and mirrors of 17th century records though.
Edit: one of my gran's background was Irish, moved to North Wales and finally Wirral.
On my mum's side we've got back to Kellham Island in Sheffield and a business making cutlery.
Ironically we live in Scotland, my old office was Kellham Island and the in laws live near Clipstone...
Irish.
Yup, good old Irish
Fathers side our surname originated in a village in the north called at the time Derry, now Londonderry. The name is unique to the village.
Mothers side from Cork.Southern Ireland. An uncle(one of the better off ones) spent thousands following the family tree but found no outside influences so southern Ireland only, i don't know the villages though. He also found a few were hanged for sea piracy 😆
So thats basically where we started, havent done any DNA studies and tbh i wouldnt send my dna to any of these companies.
Me Born in England to Scottish parents, Scottish grandparents and Irish great grandparents, though one of the great great grandparents was Italian. I guess that's where my love of Italian ice ream comes from 😆
But as with everyone on Earth, somewhere in the great rift valley originally 😉
My sister got a kit for her birthday and the results were really interesting
We are 95% Welsh 3% Irish and 2% Norwegian
How do they arrive at 95% Welsh?
Surely they can just look at dna markers
that you share with other people?
the companies that do these tests are only comparing you to their other customers who tend to be white europeans and north Americans. They don't have access to all the DNA in the world or even all the DNA in Wales - just their other customers - which means they can overlook quite a lot. That result would mean you that you share common genes with 95% of their welsh customers and 2% of their Norwegian customers... but how many Norwegian customers do they have. How many Indonesian or Uzbek customers do they have? You're only comparing yourself to other people who are interested in knowing how varied or pure their ancestry might be which only a fairly portion of the global population.
The geneticist Adam Rutherford took one and it revealed similar stats to those above - large percentage of UK a smattering of of continental or nordic DNA. It failed to report that he was half Guyanese-Indian because presumably that company didn't have don't have any customers in Guyana or India
Half Isle of Lewis back for several generations. 1/4 English 1/4 Glasgow/Renfrewshire/Stirlingshire back to 17thc and Irish before that.
My siblings and I are the first generation from my mother's side not to be native Gaelic speakers.
I'd like to know what results would have made the OP unhappy?
I’m surprised no ones mentioned Danny “f***ing” Dyer and his royal ancestors yet.
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47567792
No way in hell I'd do the DNA test.
My ancestry is mostly Kent, Somerset, Wiltshire, Lincolnshire, Bermondsey, and almost certainly a bit of Huguenot
Anyone else got a convicted murderer in their ancestral tree?
I’m 63% Alsatian, 24% Labrador and 4% Jack Russel.
I think something got mixed up but it’s probably just as accurate as the ‘DNA’ tests.
Family is across the Scottish Borders mainly drovers, we’ve some very large land owners from the Alston and Cumbria area that went to pot and PM Gladstone is a relative fairly close to my mother’s side.
Well it was Bikemagic and and a bit of the Cycling Plus forums before coming here...
Never done a test but from the family history, it'll be about 90% a bunch of cousin-shaggers in the north east of scotland and about 10% viking rapists, by coincidence both sides of my family end up tracing back to the same 50 square miles of rocks and swamps.
Co Mayo & Co Limerick via East Leeds on my mum’s side.
My dad claims to be descended from the Huguenots but i’ve seen no evidence to support that
On my Dad's side his paternal ancestry can be traced back to the Corris area of mid-Wales with one arm moving to Liverpool and another to Leeds (where I was born). My surname is Welsh and emanates from the Dolgellau area according to one of those academic studies that were widely publicised a few yeas ago. On his maternal side I believe there is Scottish ancestry prior to a large group in Leeds in 1800, which came through on the DNA test I did (see below). My Mum's side seems to have been largely based around the area to the south of Lancaster.
An American relative did the Ancestry thing and paid for me to do the DNA test which showed results of 42% Scottish, 28% Wales, 26% North West England / Lancashire and 4% Swedish
Got my DNA done 6-7 years ago and was 48% British then. Just checked again and it’s gone up to 90.9%. Brexit bonus?
No idea of my DNA ancestry - the wife and mil have both had theirs done, but they seem to be 'updated' and changed every 6months and are fairly irrelevant.
But I can trace my direct lineage through the English heraldry back to about 1240 which has more meaning to me than finding out a spread of information.
Anyone else got a convicted murderer in their ancestral tree?
My children might do....
I can trace my direct lineage
I'm not sure what the purpose of a line is. This is a photo of my great, great, great, great, great grandfather who was born in 1800. Its nice to have a photo of him.... but he's only one of my 128 great, great,great,great, great grandparents and I'm only one of of huge tangled web of their off spring. Until the last two generations each branch of my family tree that I'm aware of - the ones directly between him and me, typical had between 7 and 14 offspring - there will be thousands of people who'd be similarly related to that guy now - hundreds of thousands, nearing a million, who'd be able to draw a line to any of those 128. Its like drawing a line between two stars in the sky and saying that means theres a significant link between them.
While its interesting that I have a copy of that photo his relation to me is trivial, he doesnt look like me or anyone in my family he'll bear little in common with me genetically - he certainly wouldn't be able to donate a kidney to me. It only really tells me what clothes people he's age in his time wore.
Anyone else got a convicted murderer in their ancestral tree?
My partner shares a surname with only 500 or so other people. A recent ancestor changed their name by deed poll to distance themselves from the murdery ones in the family.
If you go back 20 generations you'll have 1 million ancestors, a thousand years ago the population of England was yes you've guessed it 1 million.
The DNA ancestry companies are promising way more than they can deliver
And as they increase the size of their databases the interpretation of their results change
https://www.livescience.com/63997-dna-ancestry-test-results-explained.html
They are interesting and fun but to be taken with a large grain of salt
Also I've worked in a lab that looked at rare inherited diseases, where the wider family was sequenced to look for rate mutations and the number families with a child who's parents (usually dads) weren't who they thought they were was about 1 in 10
I know they're not explicitly designed as such, and that the people who run them are just business people, not racists.
But I can't help feeling that the promotion of genetic tests helps disseminate a subtly racist, or at least nationalist agenda.
The notion that one is 'viking' or 'northern European' or whatever, totally misunderstands how genetics works.
Imo all it does is promote division and otherness, when in fact, apart from pretty meaningless differences in skin colour, we are all related.
I'm 98.9% chimp and 44.1% banana according to Google. Should I be 'pleased' or 'proud' of that?
I can’t help feeling that the promotion of genetic tests helps disseminate a subtly racist, or at least nationalist agenda.
I'd have said the very opposite.
My Nan traced ours back to the Vikings. I can’t remember all the details, but basically:
On the paternal side we came over as Norwegian Vikings (To Viking is to raid, it’s not a nationality) with some Danes to conquer York. After settling there for a bit, we had an estate in North Lincs, and over the years slowly moved down towards London. Some of that is backed up here:
https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Hanks
My great grand parents and grand parents on my Nans side (Wheeler, not researched) where brought up in the east end working on the docks where my Nan met my Grandad. She told us lists of stories of the war effort, how their Cellar would flood on the Thames High tide and of eight kids in a two bedroom London terrace.
Anyway, back to Viking all children have been born with very blonde typically Danish straight hair which gets darker as we get older. I have a very strange intuition about all things Viking even before I knew. We also have our own coat of arms:
https://www.houseofnames.com/hanks-family-crest
..although if you start researching that the history is a bit more anglo Saxon so I’m guessing time between the conquest of York to estates and Lordships in Lincolnshire is greater than I’d imagined it to be.
+1 anjantom I think it also makes those who can't be arsed with the often laborious task of family research to feel good about themselves.
Apart from an injection of French in the early c19th, we are almost exclusively from Essex as far as records are available, family name seems eminate from a roman road there & maternal family name is also very common there. In fact my parents are related & something like 4th or 5th cousins once removed. Both sides of family ended up in East London in the victorian era with some pretty sobering stats on life and death. But despite growing up in Greenwich orphanage my gt grandfather managed to become a football player and teacher, moving his family from Deptford to leafy North London c1900. Shame we didn't realise the value of keeping his Arsenal shares 🙄
I’d have said the very opposite
I can see your point too (yay for cognitive dissonance!)
However, I've read/seen various studies where people will get these tests back, and cherry pick which part of the results they want, and ignore the rest. "Huzzah, I'm a Viking!"
Also the companies doing the tests literally specify villages and areas. But that's one ancestor out of 1000s.
What they really should say is you're from everywhere. But that doesn't sell as well 😜
Weird double post.
100% Cumbrian. Can count back twelve generations off hand.
I’m 98.9% chimp and 44.1% banana according to Google. Should I be ‘pleased’ or ‘proud’ of that?
At least you’ll never be short of snacks
[edited for Scotroutes benefit]
At least you’ll never be short or snacks
Have you seen many tall chimps?
Have you seen many tall chimps?
Its all relative isn't it - i'm 6'6" but on the basis of my ancestry I'm 1/8th midget
100% Cumbrian. Can count back twelve generations off hand.
Big hands as 12 generations is a combined total 8190 direct ancestors - cherrypicking a list 12 names from those doesn't really add up 100% - it might only be 0.14%
So it appears then the forum is mostly quote "base, common, and popular" 😆
No idea of DNA heritage, but a couple of years ago I researched my family tree. I found hundreds of names, and some lines went back to the 1500s. I was desperate to find *anything* remotely exotic or interesting in there but, alas, I am 99.9% English. There were one or two Welsh surnames way, way back but no ancestors that I could find were born outside of England.
In fact, going back centuries, 95% of my mother's side is from within a 10-mile radius of ****ing Swindon. All humble farm-hands, plough-boys and cattle-men. Father's side was slightly more exotic being 75% Stoke/Shropshire and 25% Lancashire. Again, mostly farm-hands. The Stoke ones were all potters.
I'm so dull.
I am 99.9% English. There were one or two Welsh surnames way, way back
Sorry to be pedantic but you likely aren't. The original English were beaten back by the anglo saxons - northern French coming from the South - and invading Danes - coming from the North and previously Norman's. Todays English are a mix of all of that.
The original English were beaten back to a smaller geography defended by high hills and a large river in the West which is now known as Wales & the Severn with some also defending in Cornwall, both defending against the Wessex - or "West Saxon" forces.
So to be 100% English you'd probably have to have a long Welsh lineage in todays understanding.
Obvs that is very generic and there's a lot more to it.
Sorry to be pedantic but you likely aren’t. The original English were beaten back by the anglo saxons – northern French coming from the South – and invading Danes – coming from the North and previously Norman’s. Todays English are a mix of all of that.
The original English were beaten back to a smaller geography defended by high hills and a large river in the West which is now known as Wales & the Severn with some also defending in Cornwall, both defending against the Wessex – or “West Saxon” forces.
Yep, well aware of the history of the Britons, thanks.
I almost put the word 'English' in inverted commas, but thought no one's going to be that pedantic, are they?
Oh wait.
I am 59% East English, 20 % Scottish, 7% Norwegian and the rest German/Northern European.
Found one ancestor that joined the Royal Navy in 1806(year after Trafalgar) and served on HMS Narcissus in the West Indies. Even managed to get his will from the National Archive. He left all his prize money to his mum, bless. Sounds like a pirate/slaver to me.
I quite like trying to interpret the stories of ancestors as they emerge then doing some research into the area and their jobs and seeing how they moved around over time with a changing society.
I recently discovered that my grandmother wasn't born in Streatham. She was in fact born in Germany and arrived in Britain around 1910. Being half German, half French and living in England meant that she mastered all three languages. She married my grandfather, who was himself of German descent. Somewhere in the house I've got my grandfather's WW1 medals too.
My grandmother's family stayed in regular contact with her, post WW2 she went to visit the family farm in Bingen am Rhein. A guesthouse there was run by either her brother or cousin, he was apparently too distraught to meet my grandmother, my aunt and my uncle because he'd lost two sons who'd been in the Luftwaffe and had been shot down and killed by allied aircrew.
My father's side of the family is linked to Cologne, the family surname is common there. My partner did a bit of research and I was quite shocked to learn that I'm related to a chap who was sufficiently awful that tried in absentia at Nuremberg.
A couple of my uncles did quite a lot of research into part of the family - as it related to my paternal grandmother. I had similar done on my dad's (grandfather) side (won a completion). They were central Scotland.
grandfather - rural Perthshire (Methven) then Stirling then Glasgow.
grandmother - Midlothian until migrated to west of Scotland (Alexandria/Renton).
Inspired by them, I realised I didn't know much about my mum's side. Interesting mix of Lancashire cotton workers (grandmother) and west of Scotland (Renfrew, Glasgow) building contractors (grandfather). Some interesting untold stories there I think - the cotton work took ancestor to Uruguay 9 months in every 12.
Although as always be wary of these ancestry kits - they may reveal (not for me hasten to add) uncomfortable truths in family.
100% Cumbrian. Can count back twelve generations off hand.
100% Cumbrian and you can count to twelve?
100% Cumbrian. Can count back twelve generations off hand.
Big hands as 12 generations is a combined total 8190 direct ancestors – cherrypicking a list 12 names from those doesn’t really add up 100% – it might only be 0.14%
You don't know how many fingers he has.
Dickey boy nails it really, I think the commonly accepted history to find the common ancestor to "every one alive to day who can trace a couple of generation of European in their ancestry is about 400-600 years.
DNA tests are meaningless. But hey,you've sold it to people who will sell it on for genetic studies who'll do **** knows with the massive database they're collating.
but thought no one’s going to be that pedantic, are they?
Lol, sorry, I wasn’t intending to sound critical. Anglo Saxon history has become a recent topic of interest to me.
Got a white South African friend who is into this in a big way and has tracked his whole genealogy back a good few generations. Not that hard because it all leads back to a bottleneck of six 'founding fathers' .
There have been some uncomfortable truths uncovered. Also, a lot of overlap with his wife's family.
Me, my dad was from Reading, my mum from York. I'm half-Scottish through my kids being born here, right?
Thanks Donald, glad somebody got it!😆
One of my great great Grandfathers was named John Left because he was left on the step of a church as a newborn. Mrs BigJohn thinks it would be "interesting" for me to do a test but I don't find it fascinating. My grandmother did have some quite African features but none of her descendants seem to have inherited them. However, we are told that Martin Shaw, the actor, is one of his other descendants (very distant, never met him) so that might explain his curly hair. Or was that a perm?
one side of the family has been traced back and is basically what happens when danes have it away with grumpy northumbrians in the early 900s. the other side is a more odd mix polynesian and french influences that rocked up in england with hugenots persecution in the late 1600's
My father, from Newcastle and Mother from Gateshead, moved to Blyth when I was two. Turns out, my mother's side of the family seemed to move back and forth between Blyth and Durham. Doing a family tree, I found out that one of my best childhood friends and I, share great great grandparents - 3rd cousins or something.
Using a combination of free trials, census records etc and Google maps, I've been able to see the (modern version) homes some of my ancestors lived in, going back to mid 1700s
Great Grandfather born on a ship coming back from India to his parents who'd been missionaries in Nigeria. Got off the boat in Ireland and stayed. Grandfather ran away to sea at 12. Dragged home by ship's captain who said come back in two years which he did, went " before the mast" at 14 eventually settled in Birkenhead, all my uncles and dad went to sea leading to me, brother and sister all working and living overseas for years. Itchy feet family tree.
Did one a while back. Born Malvern, mum's half Welsh, dad was from Birmingham.
Results come in, 50% Welsh, 20% Scottish 15%english and the rest Danish/Scandinavian with a little Irish in there.
Ancestry traced to Shetland, and the other way to cousins of William the conqueror.
The Scottish was quite a surprise.
My dad did a bit of research and discovered one of his great great.......grandfather's was a survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade in Crimea. I subsequently got some records from the Regiment that exists now and the Imperial War Museum.
Quite a record, Crimea Medal with 5 Bars, served in India during the Indian Mutiny and was buried with full military honours with gun carriage etc. Fine picture of the remaining charge survivors, all with massive beards as was the thing at the time I guess.
To what genealogy I come from not a clue.
and invading Danes – coming from the North and previously Norman’s. Todays English are a mix of all of that.
Hmmm, sure about that? The Normans invaded from France in 1066, spoke French, but were originally Viking or Norsemen, hence ‘Normans’. There were various waves of Viking incursions all around the British coast, leading to the colonisation of the North-east around York, or Yorvik, and there are vary many Scandinavian influences all across the North and Scotland, shown in place names.
Very few in the South-west, after Alfred the Great beat them at Edington and sent them back to Mercia with their tails between their legs.
My surname Hillier is, allegedly Saxon, means ‘Roofer’, or Roofmaker’, probably like our ‘Thatcher.
My cousin has done a bit of research on my dad’s side, she’s traced back to the mid-1700’s in the same small village of Ford, just outside of Chippenham, then before that Devizes and Hampshire, pretty much farmhands. On his mother’s side, I think grandma, she was someone who was never spoken of, her name was Annie Drake; it seems she left her husband and went back to London, started another family, and one of the decendants turned out to be one of the Great Train Robbers! Can’t recall his name offhand, but he scoped out the robbery site and drove a Lotus Cortina, which is now owned by Lotus.
Going back on her side a bit further led to Colour Sergeant John Drake, a Royal Marine, and who survived the greatest single loss of life at sea, until the Titanic, when the iron-hulled paddle-steamer ‘Birkenhead’, carrying the families and some troops to South Africa during the Kafir Wars struck a rock in the early hours and sank. There’s a book about the event, called ‘The Drums Of The Birkenhead’, due to the bravery of the enlisted men standing to attention to the roll of drums as the ship sank, to allow women and children to use the inadequate number of lifeboats, thus establishing the principle of ‘women and children first’, setting a standard that is known to this day. He was also on a navy vessel hunting Portuguese slavers off the South American coast, and survived an attack at night from crew of a prize ship who broke free, and also survived the Crimea, living to 82 and had, IIRC, nine or ten kids!
Now he’s an ancestor to aspire to!
https://www.geni.com/projects/The-Birkenhead-Disaster-26-Feb-1852/17266
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Birkenhead_(1845)
Meet John, inventor of the flying shuttle key component in the kick starting of the industrial revolution and industrial unrest.
Meet Robert
Designed the torpedo.
joshvegas
Free Member
Meet John, inventor of the flying shuttle key component in the kick starting of the industrial revolution and industrial unrest.
John Kay? Bill Bryson writes about him in At Home. (p.551).