AncestryDNA Results

This past week was very long. I ended my Friday with a 3 hour and 15 minute drive that should have taken 2 hours. Needless to say, it was a wonderful surprise to check my email upon arriving at my destination and see that my DNA results were ready! 

I anticipated receiving them sometime in November based on the estimated 4-6 week processing time...so 15 days was much quicker than I expected!

I have been building my family tree for just over 4 years now and the majority of that research has focused on individuals residing in the United States. I can trace many branches back to the 'immigrant ancestor' but that is where I stopped. I haven't yet ventured into a 'world' ancestry membership, but perhaps I will in the future.

Based on the history of my last name, family stories, and my personal research I fully anticipated a very western European slant to my genetic ethnicity...and....well...

That's exactly what I got!

Modern day: England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

I couldn't help but laugh when I initially saw the results, because they are so...uniform? I do find the 1% uncertain to be interesting and I hope eventually what that is might be revealed. Like many people I have heard stories about ancestors with various backgrounds - a Native American influence on one side, or a German sounding maiden name on the other.

Throughout this venture I have enjoyed comparing my father's side of the tree with my mother's side. According to these results, the genetic origins of both are rather similar. What I have found most interesting is the vastly different time periods that each side immigrated to the United States.

Based on current knowledge about each side, all of the branches on my mom's side immigrated to the United States well before the American Revolutionary War. In contrast, all of the branches on my dad's side immigrated to the United States shortly before the American Civil War.

Along with DNA results Ancestry also provides historical information about migration patterns into and out of the areas where your ancestors came from. Interestingly enough the two migration periods highlighted match my own ancestor's activities - the 17th and 18th centuries ("the Great Migration") and later, the mid 1800s ("the Great Irish Famine").

Since receiving my results, I have already been contacted by a genetic match who is my 6th cousin! Ancestry has also identified 8 new 4th cousin matches and 1742 individuals who may be my 5th to 8th cousins. This is all very exciting!

Even though this makes perfect sense from a genetic standpoint, I was intrigued that many of the potential matches have vastly different genetic makeups than I do.

It's going to be fun to see how this evolves over time :)