For years I have been trying to discover what my heritage is. Where did my forebears come from? Where is my ancestrial homeland? After talking to my relatives my original speculation was this:
Nothing too out of the realm of an American Midwesterner. I live in the “Polish Triangle”, which is if on a map you can make a triangle from Chicago, IL, Detroit, MI, and Cleveland, OH is where the majority of Polish-Americans live. In fact, Chicago is the largest concentration of Polish persons outside of Poland. And, of course, German, and the British Isles have a huge ancestral background due to the US being a former colony in the British Empire.
I was curious to find out what I actually am, and being that these figures were just my best hypothesize based on what I was told from members in my family, who’s recollections were a bit spotty. So I took an Ancestry DNA test.
There were a few things I thought may have shown up based on basic history skills. Being part Hungarian I figured there would central Asian in me. Being that Hungary was founded by the Huns. Being Eastern European as well maybe some Mongolian, as the Mongol Empire did stretch into Eastern Europe. Or some Arabic, or Turkish, due to the Ottoman Empire at one point spanning to Vienna.
Being Irish and English, I figured maybe there would be some Scandanavian due to the alleged Viking raids, plunders, and rape of the British Isles.
So, what did I get? Well, let's find out:
Needless to say, this was a bit of a shock. Where was the British Isles? Where was the French? Could the French in my bloodline actually be Germanic? Was my blood Frankish (German barbarians) and no Gaulic? Where was the central Asian? Why is there south Asian instead?
It seemed to clear up a bit after my father took one as well. Once his test was processed we were matched as “parent/child”, but he had DNA that I did not:
Father is yellow, I am blue, and green is shared. So while he does have Eastern European, Baltic, and Norweigen as well, its not as much as mine. Likewise, he was way more Germanic and Southern Asian.
Where we have differences is that I have Sweedish blood, while he does not (obviously I received that from my mother), meanwhile, he was French, Greek and Balkins, Ireland and Scottland, and England, Wales and NW Europe.
Obviously, since he is my father I have those things too. So why didn’t they appear on mine? DNA, apparently, is like any other traits you receive from your parents. It is no different than jawline, hair colour, eye colour, skin tone, ear shape, nose shape, length of limbs, etc.
I am trying to get my sister to take one, and my mother as well. It’ll be very curious to see what they get and how I can apply it to my own research.