Dna and ethnicity

[Jaslima]

Ok, i know this is going to sound really sad :-D

I'm Northern Irish, have Irish parents, Irish grandparents, Irish ancestry as far as I knew etc but there has always just been something about my mother's side that I just couldn't put my finger on. It's a certain look: dark eyes, dark hair, certain features...not tanned skin but definitely a certain vibe that made me think maybe our distant ancestors weren't European. I always suspected Middle Eastern but had no way of knowing. This was a lineage I invented in my head.

I remember being about 20 and looking in the mirror and thinking 'I just know there is something in my blood from somewhere far away'. My husband used to joke that people from Arabic countries were 'my people'. All my friends knew my crazy theory.

Anyway, at Christmas I decided to do one of those dna tests to see if we had any Middle Eastern heritage. I know they are based on an algorithm, aren't an exact science and can be misleading but the kit was on sale so I did it.

Anyway, the results came in yesterday. It was exactly what I thought.

93% of the Ethnic group of the Irish/Northern Irish/Scottish/English/Welsh (as expected),

5%Finnish (makes sense being so close to the above).

1.2% West Asian and 0.8 Middle Eastern! I can't tell you how not surprised I was by this. In my heart it made perfect sense.

I only know one Irish person who did a dna test and hers was pretty much 100% British Isles, more or less. I told someone about my results and she said that everyone probably everyone has some Middle Eastern dna somewhere. I felt a bit deflated!

Is this true? Again I know that these are just estimates and should be taken with a pinch of salt. I just can't help thinking how strange it is that my totally unfounded hunch that my family has Middle Eastern roots was backed up by the DNA test, even if it was just 0.8%. I feel like this has kind of validated a feeling I've had all my life but am wondering what the chances are that it's not true.

If you got your dna done, what did it come back with? Did it line up with any research you did? I find it all insanely interesting!

and divorced.

I'm a Catholic, taught by nuns and I still had sex education. I remember my mother having my younger sibling, the midwife was a nun and my mother was horrified that a nun would know she'd had sex. Nuns actually knew all about sex.

A friend got a job at a Catholic home for girls, the nuns said it was a relief that someone not in uniform could take the girls to the sexual health clinic (except they called it the clap clinic) as they always got funny looks when they went.

Well they are still teenagers when they start uni and depending on if they are young in their year they might be teenagers for the first two years. That's England, don't they start a bit earlier in Scotland?

Yes that is true but tbh I don't really think of a 19 year old as a teenager although technically they are. My previous comments referred to us while at High School so I'm talking 12 - 18.

These weren't any ordinary nuns - they were M and S - Loreto Nuns 😂

Yes nuns come in a wide variety and people are wrong to assume they all lead a sheltered life and the idea of sex shocks them. Some of them are very worldly wise and deal with the more challenging side of life.

We did love the idea of people being horrified at nuns sitting in the "clap clinic" and what they thought was going on.

Yes 18 and 19 year olds at university are very definitely teenagers. I always find it funny when someone is asking advice about a 12 year old and gets lots of replies about the teenage years. It's like people don't actually know what teenager means.

While there is a technical definition I suppose the extreme ends are so variable - some will be very mature at 13 but others not. Same with the other end - it's pretty awful in some ways that a teenager at 16 can join the Army (imo). People's views will vary according to their experiences and I personally wouldn't hold anyone to certain guidelines or criticise them because of their interpretation of it.

What interpretation? Interpreting an 18 or 19 year old being a teenager? Not much interpretation in that, it's a fact like if you are in your 20s you're not in your 30s. It isn't something you have to interpret.

From the Cambridge dictionary, a young person between 13 and 19 years old and every other dictionary I've looked at.

No one is saying that the dictionary isn't wrong and I specifically said there is a "technical definition". However while YOU may regard it to the letter T, others will blur those lines and that is what I was saying. It happens so what.