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.

it's something I don't really have time to pursue at the moment and although DH is interested, his own father is not interested at all. But agree, shipping records are the way to go.

I know we have Irish ancestry - the other side is a mystery. Weirdly my partner's family are from the same part of Ireland as my great grandma's parents. I'm from the NW - so many people have Irish roots.

They really do - I don't know where in Ireland and neither does my mum so that will be interesting. My dad's brother did a fair bit of research into his side of the family but he's been dead at least 30 years and I don't know how far he got - I was a teenager when he died, bless him. So hoping to pick up where he left off and find some new information for my mum's side. We shall see! But as they also say - friends are the family you choose - so I already have a sister I choose from Ballymun who I share no DNA with at all! I also think that these kind of exploits remind us that we are all migrants essentially - no one is wholly the place in which they were born, even if they have lived there for their whole life.

One of the tools I like for getting a general idea about Irish ancestry is barrygriffin.com - you can enter the surname and see a heat map of where people with that surname were living on the 1901 and 1911 census. Obviously works better with some surnames than others - the example I always use is the surname Horgan which has a very strong concentration in the far SW round Cork and Kerry. Now it's not 100% that if your ancestors were Horgans that's where they're from, but it's a starting point. He also allows you to do the same with Scottish surnames.

@LaliqueSaltGrinder - the names thing is true in Ireland. My partner's auntie told me the name of my great great grandma was a West Cork name. And it is.

The issue you have is that the data on the heat maps is taken from 1901 and 1911 census, and people move about. Especially in the famine years. But it's an indication and depending on your surname, can be a good one. Not so much if the name you're looking at is Kelly, Murphy or Walsh.

My results are in - this is the high level stuff and I am saving the detailed stuff for when I see my parents at the weekend (and obviously not for public consumption!):

Southern Wales 85%
Munster, Ireland 10%
Devon and Somerset 3%
Northern Wales 1%
The Netherlands 1%

So very much expected so far - except the Netherlands, but how interesting! Long story short, we've basically been in Wales forever and have few forays elsewhere and it appears for not very long. Might not make me very exotic, but I'm very proud of where I am from - mining stock going back centuries. Might have to start supporting Munster now too... only when not playing Cardiff, Ospreys, Scarlets or Dragons, of course!

Genetic ties between Wales and the Netherlands stem from ancient prehistoric migrations, such as the Bell Beaker people, and centuries of shared North Sea maritime trade

So not a 18th-century Dutch sailor whose ship called at Bristol or Cardiff, then. 😂

1% DNA is only about 7 or 8 generations back, not four thousand years.

Only in archaeology - believe it or not one of my ancestors married a Dutch person! Modern geology tests don't go back to pre-history!

Quite! But we worked it out - it's on my mum's side and she remembers her great grandmother always having money from Pennsylvania... every month it was sent over to Merthyr... Pennsylvania Dutch, right?! Probably my 4x great grandmother or father. We also worked out the North Walian bit, that was my dad's great, great grandfather - probably from Blaenau Ffestiniog and the slate mines and then travelled south. Because up until my grandparents everyone was a manual worker in coal/steel/slate.

My parents were enthralled and have both ordered their own kits! The big Irish contingent was a surprise, we knew it was there, but a much higher percentage than assumed and my mum's will be even higher. Luckily my dad and his long ago Devon background didn't pollute my Welshness too much (joke, joke, we joked about this while waiting for the results!) but it's been brilliant for us.

In their autumn years my parents are really starting to think about which bits of oral history might be lost. So we're going to record them from September (made a rod for my own bloody back there!)

@Arlanymor That sounds really interesting about your mum remembering the Pennsylvania connection - it is amazing just how much people can remember when they put their minds to it. You might find a lot of information on the LDS website about the American side of things.

I've got a feeling that the Pennsylvania Dutch aren't actually Dutch but German? As in Pennsylvania Deutsche.

Correct, not Dutch at all.

I wouldn't waste too much time on the 1%. Statistical noise that's likely to vanish when they next update the reference database.

Re the 1%, my dad always said his grandad (born 1830s) had Indian ancestors. I got back as far as a mariner who was in India in the 1760s, but never found any Indian ancestors. Then I did my dna, and it came back with 1% Indian. I keep expecting it to disappear each time Ancestry updates, but it's remained, so perhaps my great grandad was correct!