My Ancestry DNA kit arrives tomorrow...

[Arlanymor]

... I was inspired to buy one because my late uncle was really interested in genealogy and did a lot to track back his family line - this was before DNA tests were commercially available. I have often thought how interesting it would be to pick up where he left off and a random conversation with a BT engineer (!) a couple of weeks ago convinced me to do it. Obviously - and egotistically! - the starting point is me and working out what my initial results tell me. I think something like 80% Welsh, 20% English - but with some Irish chucked in for good measure - just based on knowing where great and great-great grandparents came from. If you've done it, do you have any advice on next steps? I know our family are on Ancestry and I will now have my own log in. But I am very much a novice. If it turns out I am 99% Viking I may have to talk to my parents (!) but truly I am just interested in tracking a trail back through history. I used to work in archaeology, so I've always been very interested in this area.

I did the Ancestry DNA test seven years ago after both of my parents died without leaving behind a family tree, for whatever reason they were just not that interested in it!

I am a regular blood donor, donated umbilical cord stem cells when my second child was born, and have been on the bone marrow transplant donor database for 25 years (just in case it can save a life in the future) so wasn’t worried about the various conspiracy theories about giving away my DNA profile as quite frankly that horse had bolted decades ago!

It didn’t change my life… but I have traced my ancestry / family tree back to the 1400s on multiple lines. There are definitely some noteworthy and interesting characters in there!

My Husband and Daughter have also taken Ancestry DNA tests…. Which has been interesting to see how our DNA has been blended.

Knowing you DNA profile doesn’t change anything, but it is interesting if you have an interest in genetics, and are curious.

It also ended a few family myths too! Apparently my Great Grandmother was German, but actually through DNA testing and looking at Census / Naturalisation documents she was from modern day Belarus- although marked Russian on Census records, but her naturalisation documents listed her birth town, which is in Belarus.

You look back through the lines of your ancestry and feel awestruck that you are hear because of many multiple chances of people meeting, falling in love, and surviving to raise a child!

Don’t let the naysayers deter you!

Maybe the heat is making her cranky 🤣

I was just about to say this! It's an incredible podcast

The Gift

My mum and I did ancestry during COVID and it united me a 2nd cousin from down south which was a really nice thing and she had a great family tree. I found out some incredible things a out the family, IRA vice commandants in early 1920's and the family owned chauffeur company in Jersey being commandeered by the SS in WW2 and all sorts.

I definitely get the risks of secrets but I was 40 by this point and everything over my lifetime pointed to my mum and dad both being my blood family.

Also it's been a bit of good thing really because my mum has deteriorating mental health problems and she does my head in telling me that her parents are not her parents or my grandparents which I luckily can shrug off because the DNA results were bang on the button that they were out family otherwise her stupid desire to invent a fake life story might start to bother me more. I'm very close to my aunt who is her younger sister who my mum is completely venomous about and I think she'd love me and my aunt not to be blood relatives but thanks to the DNA test, I know that we absolutely are. Trouble is it was partially to do with the family tree that gave my mum the excuse to act stupid, somebody on my granddad's side was born in Sicily so my mum thinks we can't be related to grandad because no Italian DNA is present for us but I can't get it through to her that the guy was born there 226 years ago and he was born to a British father who was serving there in war and we don't know if the mother was British or Italian but she's got it in her head that we should have Italian DNA after all that watering down!

I had my brother take the Living DNA test because it gives a deeper Y DNA result on the male side which gives a lineage result that goes back further as well as the mothers side.

During Covid my nephew did a DNA match and we discovered my father had been a naughty boy in 1940, five years before me, and had a daughter no one in the family had ever known about. I was asked “if” I wanted to know about her and my life lit up. “Sister? SISTER??? All my life I’ve wanted a sister . Half smaf - it’s a sister!” We’ve been close friends ever since - and she was able to find out things about her father she had never known!

I’ve done it - no crazy secrets were uncovered! But I did find lots or relatives all over the world and had some great message conversations with them. I’ve done my family tree on ancestry back to late 1700’s really enjoyed doing it all! Good luck

There will always be something unexpected so be prepared.

i knew in advance my father had other children (whilst married to my mum) and I had an absent grandfather. I consider testing for ten years before doing it.

so I knew all of that in advance so I was prepared. consider either of the above or worse and so on before testing so you are forewarned. For example Hoe would you feel if you find half siblings? Or you find a grandparent isn’t really a grandparent? Or a niece isn’t really biological? That type of thing.

mine has been an emotional rollercoaster with big ups and downs. I wouldn’t recommend it but it was the only way left to me to try to find my grandfather.

good stuff - I lost my dad as a child and so it brought in some lovely surprises . Turns out my ancestry is mainly Scottish and Irish - dm was able to confirm all the Irish in his side that we’d never talked about.
Weird stuff - someone sending me a picture of his grave as they were a fourth cousin and wanted to connect.

Here’s mine. My mum is Danish and Dad from East Riding so makes sense.

Patronising people forcing their views on me tend to make me cranky. I mean, I start a very innocent thread and people are jamming a podcast down my throat and talking to me as if I am an imbecile because I don't feel I need to listen to it and that by taking a DNA test I am somehow opening Pandora's Box... some of us are grown adults who know all of the implications and still choose to do it.

I don't know how many times I have to say it - no interest in the podcast - stop wittering on about it! I know my family back to my great-great grandparents because we talk. We have a family bible with people's hair in it!

I already know plenty about the people who came before me - we are a family who talk, we share, we care about our heritage. Even if I turn up something unusual then that's just part and parcel of life. Bet I don't though.

I'm not unhinged, I just don't think it's fine to swamp a thread with assumptions and assertions. Great that you love the podcast - I have no interest - which is my right. If you had post after post after post telling you that you MUST listen to a certain media then you'd be fairly annoyed too.

I would like to do it... my late father was from morocco so that should be interesting....

I really and truly love your post, thank you so much! Your view is exactly my view on the situation. I also donate blood and bone marrow - it's important isn't it? I don't need it, I can replenish it, and it helps other people - no brainer!

As you say, it doesn't change anything, it just gives you a wider perspective on where you came from. And you realise how infinitesimal the chances of you even being born really are. I think it just helps you to know a bit more about the background tapestry to how you even came to be.

So true about family myths too! I think the most shocking thing will be if my Nana was right and we are related to Dic Penderyn (Richard Lewis) because all of us thought that was just her trying to fly her rebellion flag!

I love the word awestruck too - we don't use it enough.

Again, thanks for your post. This thread was going downhill rapidly, but you have restored my faith in the whole reason why this matters and is of interest.

I took the My Ancestry test, as there is a whole side of my (biological father's) heritage I know nothing about.
Aside from Hampshire/Cornwall/Devon on my mother's side, I discovered i also have German, Swedish, Norwegian, Turkish and Italian DNA. The most amusing part was being told I'm 1% Mongolian!! I love telling people that - how deliciously exotic.
I was really hoping to trace unknown family members. Thus far, it's been a bit disappointing - despite numerous "matches."
Hope you have fun with your results. X

This could be because French, German, Belgian dna is too close to be determined. We have French but it came back as German but as we’re aware of the difficulties in determining the difference, it didn’t change the result for us. We had been hoping for a region though, as like the OP, we have a VERY unusual French name and came over in the Norman conquest and are in the Doomsday book. When I originally did the test many years ago, it said I was 1% Native American which I was delighted with (and slightly befuddled!). It has now disappeared but I do still wonder about it.

You don’t come over to me as defensive or aggressive but as someone fearlessly and sensibly open to discovery. I wish you well Arlanymor and hope you enjoy it as much as I and my family have.

Was about to say the same thing. A lot of cautionary tales. All of them true.

*Sort your own bloodline out"

?!?!!! This is one of the most unhinged, bonkers reactions I've seen on here. Cop on to yourself! Does arguing with people about bloodlines ring any bells with you OP?!
Ac ydw, dw i'n berson, ddim yn bot, a does 'na 'run Cymro Cymraeg 'rioed wedi argymell ffasiwn beth wrtha i cyn hyn. Gwallgo bost. Callia.

Wow. Do you genuinely think mincing is a term made to be homophobic. Fucking hell….

And yes, you’re a fool to do this. Giving your DNA to any company is stupid, it’s been hacked and sold in other countries. Let alone finding out family secrets that are best left alone.

The way the op has behaved on here I think she might find out she’s descended from drunk bears.

I did an ancestry dna test and discovered the very little my mum had told her family about my bio father, was false. It was a different man altogether. Now mum has died so I have no way of finding out anything unless he or any of his family get tested too.

As others are warning, be aware that your life could change completely. Not so much from your ehtnicity which is not very reliable - BBC Sliced Bread did three tests with three different companies and got three different results. But you have to be prepared to find out that you aren't who you think you are. Someone advised you to listen to The Gift on BBC Sounds, good advice. Many people find out that their fathers aren't their fathers. I found out I'm not an only child, an older sibling having been adopted - and no one in the family ever mentioned it!

This thread is crazy. Also Welsh and did the test, 85% Welsh, 5% Irish and 10% mix of random other places. No surprises, no one batted an eyelid that I'd done it, no family secrets were unveiled.

It's very common in my area to bump into 4th, 5th, 6th cousins etc who you grew up with. The local parish Church has the records of about 300 years of family births so it was hardly surprising. Not everyone has dramatic lineage!

I'm sure you do but that doesn't mean that there isn't a deep dark secret! But of course they're not all bad, just sometimes very shocking! As I've just posted, I found out age 72 that I've had a full sister all my life, born before my parents married, during the war. She did a DNA and found me, I was very surprised but looked forward to meeting my new sister, who unfortunately died three weeks after I found out about her. Why didn't my parents ever mention it? Or the rest of the family? So puzzling.

@envbeckyc It also ended a few family myths too! Apparently my Great Grandmother was German, but actually through DNA testing and looking at Census / Naturalisation documents she was from modern day Belarus- although marked Russian on Census records, but her naturalisation documents listed her birth town, which is in Belarus.

That's fascinating. I find that a good rule of thumb when looking genealogically at anyone in urban areas in central or eastern Europe is to assume that they may well NOT be of the current 'headline nationality'. Urban areas were often concentrations of Germans, Lithuanians, Russians, Jews, Poles and so on. Especially Jews in the Pale (and Jewish genealogical societies and projects have done a lot of work with the surviving records). In the 1897 Russian Imperial Census for instance places like Vitebsk (NE) and Minsk were 52% Jewish, while Pinsk (SW) was 74%. When it came to an attempt at state formation in Belarus as WW1 transitioned to the Revolutionary / Civil War era this was clearly an issue. [Image source Smele's 1916-26 book.]