The company that handled my dna autosomal testing updated it’s program last month and my ancestral picture looks a bit different. I think it still mostly fits with what I know of my family history but I understand it changed a lot for many others.

There were two notable changes for me. One is actually really small because it now shows a trace of Native American origin. According to the information provided they included trace origins at the request of customers. Also, this still doesn’t make it definite I have any connections but it reopens the possibility of the family story of Cherokee heritage just a tiny bit. I think it would be kind of cool if that was the case…Although I also realise that any connections I have might have less than appealing history about them should I ever find out about it.

The slightly more useful information shows Shephardic origins of about 6%. I don’t know much about it but it’s related to Jewish heritage. Most of this connection seems related to the Iberian peninsula which is the most surprising part of it. Also odd was the way this part was considered greater than any Western European origins. But none of the matches that came up for me (1147 so far) show earliest ancestors there so maybe it’s not really what it seems.  I can only assume that my German heritage is listed under Eastern Europe even though most of those ancestors came from the Black Forest area. I think some of the other Jewish heritage may come through my Polish origins.

I finally uploaded a GEDcom file of information compiled by my mother into my family tree on the website for the dna testing. It took a while to figure some of it out but I eventually got there. There were some mistakes along the way, some of which I was able to correct. Then there were deaths in the family that have occurred since that was done that need to be updated. I was able to get some of that corrected but I couldn’t find the death date for my grandmother. I know she died in late November 2011 but I am not sure of the exact date so I will have to query my mother on that. Or maybe I should look to see if I posted about it here.

Anyway, I was interested to see all the names in the history. Most of the family really goes back to England and Ireland, especially for my mother’s side. And on my dad’s side I noticed the migration of generations west from their initial immigration into Philadelphia in the 19th century. Seems they just drifted ever westward in Pennsylvania over the years and settled in the town where my father was born.

I need to check on some of the information with my mom though because my cousins did an extensive family history on my maternal grandmother’s family and only one sibling of that grandmother is actually listed on the family tree. I know my cousin covered all the sibilings and it was a big family…I think maybe twelve children and I think most or all survived childhood. There should be a hard copy of that somewhere in papers my dad has. I might ask him to scan them and send them to me. I assume he has them since it’s his family but maybe my mom has it instead since she was working on the family tree.

And one interesting coincidence came up too. I noted someone with the last name of Brezinski or something like that and in the next day I saw an article about Kelly Ann Conway being on tv on a show with someone with that last name. It’s not a name I would normally come across with any regularity and yet it was there within a day. That name goes back many generations so connections with that family would be quite distant but it was really funny that it happened.