Results are in

Back in November I ordered a couple of kits from Family Tree DNA for myself and the Scientist. They had a special going at the time which was hard to ignore and the kits arrived in early December, I think. We both followed the instructions then sent them back together (postage was cheaper that way-It would have been postpaid in the US though). After a few weeks I got a message confirming the receipt of the kits and then we waited for the results to come back.

Curiously, the Scientist got a message about his results a couple weeks ago. I never got one but when I checked there were results available. I don’t know for sure if I was really sent an email before but today I received one saying something about more results.

It seems that my family (going back five generations) is completely European in origin. Most of the origin seems to be central European and to a somewhat lesser degree British Isles. Not too surprising to me. My maternal grandfather’s surname was English so I assume that goes back to the UK. I think that may be the side of the family that has been traced back to Northern Ireland in the 19th century. My maternal grandmother’s name was Johnston so I am guessing this is possibly UK and central European. Then there my paternal grandmother who was from a German family and the paternal grandfather who was born to Polish parents, The Polish side is a lot less than I expected since it’s the most recent in immigration to the US (I think it was in the 1910s or there abouts).  It seems I also have some Finnish and/or Latvian background and some southern Europe too. Those are both surprising to me and I’d be curious to know how far back that goes and which sides of the family are connected. I am still figuring out a lot of it so I hope to find more in the future.

What surprised me heaps was that there were 899 matches from other tests (I think this would include those imported from Ancestry dna an from 23 and me.)  And when I checked today there was 913 matches since then. I wonder how many there will be in the future. Only one of the matches is a close family member. The name is familiar but I’m pretty sure there are more than one person with this name in that part of the family…I’m guessing most likely it’s a second cousin.

This does clear up a false story that had circulated through my mother’s family for many years though. I don’t know when it started but I remember from when I was young that my great-great grandmother was half Cherokee. There’s also another story in the same family that we are related to Theodore Roosevelt. The jury is still out in the latter but since there is no Native American origin showing up, I feel pretty assure that story is false. I suspect the latter one is false too since I haven’t seen a connection made on the family history.

This does make me wonder how these stories came about. I wonder if it’s some sort of status thing…I can’t think how that would have been. I do remember thinking it was pretty cool to have connections to the Cherokee when I was younger. I was pretty disappointed a few years ago when my mom told me she suspected it might be a false story since no evidence had been found for it in the family traced so far. A friend of mine has had a similar story about Native American blood in her family history. She’s the one who alerted me to this service and she ordered a kit and sent it back not long after we did. I will be curious if she is able to confirm or rule out the connection with her test.

Will update if I get anything new of note from my results in the future.