My DNA results are in!

My eagerly awaited DNA results have just arrived from Ancestry.  I was hoping that the insights I have gained from the family tree research would be evident from my ethnicity profile.

I was expecting to see a profile with a mainly British and Irish mix – although I was not sure about the proportions!  The research had lead me to suspect that I was much more British than Irish…

I was also hoping to find traces of the Romani heritage from my father’s mother’s side of the family and a trace of Scandinavian from the viking roots of the Leeming family (my mother’s maiden name).

The Results

My ethnic heritage is indeed mostly British and Irish.  With just over 50% of my ethnic heritage coming from the people who have lived on this island for over 10,000 years and just over a third from Ireland.

The viking links to the Leemings might well be the reason for the 3% Scandinavian.

My family tree research and the DNA results are perfectly aligned!

Romani Heritage

The results show less than 1% from Asia South.   Reading the information supplied by Ancestry to support analysis of the DNA results I noticed this text.

The Pashtun are a tribal society in the rugged border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the Burusho, or Hunza, live in the foothills of the Hindu Kush and speak a unique language unrelated to any other. Legend says that they are descended from the soldiers of Alexander the Great, but scientific evidence shows that they are genetically linked to the European Romani, also known as ‘Gypsies.’

So perhaps the trace that is being picked up is due to the genetic link to the Romani rather than any particular link to this region?

Other traces

So everything so far is what I expected more or less but there are other traces in my results.

3% Western Europe

This relates roughly to the area of France/Germany and could reflect Celtic, Saxon or perhaps Norman forebears.  I have not found any Norman names in my research as yet.  I have found names with Anglo Saxon origins.  Celtic is a definite possibility.

Less than 1% Finnish/Northwest Russian

A complete surprise this one…  Not at all sure where it links in to what I know about my family.  From the data on Ancestry 5% of Irish natives have links to this ethnicity but 0% in Britain so maybe this links to my Irish ancestors in some way.

Less than 1% Native American

If the last one was a complete surprise this is totally way out there.   Maybe some of my viking forebears got friendly with the people on the atlantic seaboard?  According to wikipedia there was contact between the vikings and native people’s in Greenland where there were permanent settlements unlike the temporary settlements on the coast of the US.

There is evidence of Norse trade with the natives (called Skraelings by the Vikings). The Norse would have encountered both Native Americans (the Beothuk, related to the Algonquin) and the Thule, the ancestors of the Inuit.

In summary

There are also links to 32 people identified as 4th cousins or less and 100s of people identified as distant cousins but more about that another time.