I sent in the DNA to 24 and me a couple of years ago. I didn't have any ticking genetic time bombs like the Alzheimer gene so I posted it publicly. People contacted me and I found out stuff real quick.
I recently spent some time to trace my roots on Ancestry.com. Found some interesting stuff. Probably others have too. Get your share on in here.
I'm 85% British/15% Irish/Scotish. Gentically, like every other human being ever born with Red hair and blue eyes, I come from Doggerland. Use to be the land mass connecting England to Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland
My ancestors came here as rich British military officers. Had great wealth in NY, bought huge tracks of land in what is now the Bronx, My 7th GG dies and my 6th great grandfather inherited the wealth. He joined the revolution in 1775. The British took all his wealth, burned his farms when he signed the Declaration of Independence. Served as the General of the NY militia during the war. http://www.ushistory.org/declaration.../morris_l.html
My 4th GG moved to Tennessee in 1830 as a southern Baptist preacher. His son moved to green county Missouri in 1850 to be a southern baptist preacher. And thats where they stayed. Many remained preachers, even today. All sided with the Union.Since we left NY, my ancestors were mainly poor man of God preachers, drunks or killers. Not much middle ground. But, at least there was no slave owners. :-)
Originally Posted by BigRedChief:
Yeah, I hear ya. way too much time spent in late night exploring the family leafs. We white guys if we can get back to England will find we are the ancestors of Kings or Lords. Mainly because they were the ones documenting christenings, marriages, wills etc. that prove they get to keep their wealth and privileged lives. Farthest I've got back was 1122.
I can easily go back to the early 900's on my father's side but it gets murky right about then. There are some likely ancestors before that but nothing that can be declared with certainty. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Monty:
Good stuff! My 2 GG immigrated from Sweden and married a woman in Illinois who was also from Sweden.
Are the digitized records from Sweden included in Ancestry.com or in a separate database? I'd be curious to know if I could get access.
I found a 4th cousin in Sweden over the holidays via the DNA report, but we can't seem to find the connection in our family trees, so I have no idea at this point how we're related.
Originally Posted by listopencil:
I can easily go back to the early 900's on my father's side but it gets murky right about then. There are some likely ancestors before that but nothing that can be declared with certainty.
Yeah, I worked on it again last night and discovered that the "1st Earl of Stirling" is NOT my Cousin - he is my 14th GG....go figure..
Now, however, things are becoming hazy. The record keeping wasn't that great back then, in the Highlands of Scotland, so it appears that, at least for the foreseeable future that an impasse has been reached. [Reply]
My dad's side of the family is pretty well researched back quite a few generations but my mom was adopted so I did 23 and Me a bunch of years back to see what her background is and if I have any genetic ticking time bombs. Turned out that she was mostly from a very specific minority in Finland/Russia. So that was interesting, I guess.
The funny thing I found related to a great-great-grandmother that the family usually refers to as "Cherokee Mary". I was expecting to have at least a little Native American because of her but actually had 0%. I do have about 4% Sub-Saharan African DNA so now I expect that Cherokee Mary was actually Mulatto Mary. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Randallflagg:
Yeah, I worked on it again last night and discovered that the "1st Earl of Stirling" is NOT my Cousin - he is my 14th GG....go figure..
Now, however, things are becoming hazy. The record keeping wasn't that great back then, in the Highlands of Scotland, so it appears that, at least for the foreseeable future that an impasse has been reached.
I was able to trace back to the progenitor of my clan in Scotland, and his father was from Norway. So it started over again there and went back a few hundred more years. I have the trifecta going for me. A very old family here going back to one of the shires of Virginia who hobnobbed with historical figures. A clan in Scotland with a well documented history. A royal family in Norway that had many records kept. [Reply]
It's a parlor game basically on the where do I come from part, though I think it's fairly accurate on who you are related to based on who has come up as relatives. [Reply]
Originally Posted by lawrenceRaider:
I think it's fairly accurate on who you are related to based on who has come up as relatives.
The highest I've ever matched was my dad's first cousin (so my second cousin, I think) at 4.62% shared DNA. I was surprised it was such a low percentage. There are a few other that are in the 1 - 3.5% range but I've never established how we were related. Since my mom was adopted, I imagine some of it is from that side of the family since we don't know the family names. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Prison Bitch:
These are so dumb, Europe is being overrun by Muslims, Pakis and soon, Africans. So saying “I’m 33% Swede!” is pointless since Sweden won’t exist very much longer.
If everywhere was just as homogeneous as Japan. If only. [Reply]
My sister did the Ancestory DNA thing. We know our family history back to the 1400s. All my grandparents emigrated from Norway/Sweden in the early 1900s. It confirmed our history, but there was some Irish DNA. We figured one of our Viking relatives brought back a hot chick from Ireland after a raid. :-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by Stewie:
My sister did the Ancestory DNA thing. We know our family history back to the 1400s. All my grandparents emigrated from Norway/Sweden in the early 1900s. It confirmed our history, but there was some Irish DNA. We figured one of our Viking relatives brought back a hot chick from Ireland after a raid. :-)
so it was your family that kidnapoed my 16th great grandma?:-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by Iowanian:
I wonder how many people find out bad things....like...you're a bastard and your mother let a stranger slip one past the goalie...
On my wife's side she had one of those handwritten accounting of the family tree. It was actually accurate except for one thing that made no sense. It appeared to skip a generation in the 1920's. Turns out they were just trying to cover up a bad piece of history.
Turns out that her 4th grandfather, the son of a well respected pastor in town, killed a man in a bar fight. Found a newspaper article that confirmed what happened. He was drunk, started a fight and killed the guy. Left a young wife and kids and was living in an hotel. Multiple arrests for public drunkenness. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Iowanian:
I wonder how many people find out bad things like your ancestor let a stranger slip one past the goalie...
Oddly enough, its possible in my case... Paternal GF adopted (family name is Thayer), but my DNA profile is a close match to a Benson, and there are marriages between the Thayer and Benson families back about 200+ years.
