The Bluestocking - holding the line and losing the thread

[lcakethereforeIam]

All women welcome, pull up a pygmy hog, the bargerbil will serve you a drink, the flying squirrels will bring you something to read and the goats will do...I'm not entirely sure.

There may be more than the usual amount of chaos as we transition to the new thread.

Ah, yes, DNA.
This has proved <cough> interesting on both my side and DH's.

DNA has been so interesting in my case that sometimes it's a relief to look at the Mormon side of my extended family and try to puzzle out which of John's 29 children belonged to which of his 5 wives.

This is one reason I wouldn't want to get my DNA tested.

That said, my mum's side were the only non whites in their area so it would have been pretty obvious 🤣.

There's a whole genre on YouTube of Americans reacting to their ethnicity results. Sometimes it's very funny when they don't get what they expected.

It's become a big thing in the African American community for obvious reasons, but I always remember this one guy saying "my dad swore to me his grandmother was a full blooded Creek Indian, but it turns out my dad was a lying dog and I'm just black"

For what it's worth Ancestry says I'm mostly Scottish and Manx, which proves that north of Ireland endogamy is definitely a thing 😀and I've found enough roots in highly intermarried villages that... well, if I ever joke about cousin marriage in Pakistan, I can say in my defence that in my family tree there's a marriage record where the bride and groom and both of the witnesses all have the same surname, and the groom has the exact same name as the bride's father.

We have our own North West Frontier, and it's called Tyrone.

The ancestor hanged for 'treason' in 1798 is such a badge of honour, Sionnach!

The best I've found out about are some family members who were involved in cultural things like the revival of the Irish language around the turn of the 20th c.
Nobody famous, though, but they did important, unspectacular work in nation-building that I am quietly proud of that.

Sometimes I get excited because I think I've found a reference to one of them in an obscure history book, but it's always somebody else with more or less the same name - the bane of any researcher into Irish families🙄

I tell you what Marie, my attitude is that all human life is here. I'm happy to find someone who's interesting to me.

And sometimes it's a bit like social history. I've a whole branch of stealth Catholics who pretended to be COI for generations and eventually just became COI. I've got Orangemen and IRA men in my tree, and pillars of the community, and rogues who were sentenced to transportation. I've tracked emigration and seen all the ethnic communities the emigrants from Ireland married into. I've been learning about indigenous Australian history because a few of their prominent activists are related to me via mutual ancestors from Monaghan.

I don't care if they're distinguished, really, I mostly like the ones who have an entertaining story for me.

I loved that story about Philip Skelton giving a man a shilling, because he'd paid that much to see a camel in Dublin, and it was just as marvellous to meet an honest man in Fermanagh. I can visualise one or two of my late uncles saying the exact same thing.

I have very recent family members in both Debretts and Who's Who. I even get a mention in Who's Who myself.
And I have my family tree ( same surname, direct link) back to 1190. Before that, I think we might have been a bit French.

I agree about the social history and the interesting stories. I did have a DNA test awhile ago and then joined Ancestry. I was looking for something specific regarding my family but I wasn't quite sure exactly what it was. I found some stories about various criminal activities which I found most entertaining. But I couldn't really navigate ancestry with its 'hints' and its 'traits'. They kept changing the areas that I was supposed to have come from. Initially there was a massive chunk of Scottish DNA and then they changed it to Irish which I found annoying. I guess they are very similar. The hints about my distant relatives always turned out to be about somebody else who wasn't in my family.

i'm feeling very gloomy this morning because of the Other Thread. The whoops of joy at the case being in the bag and then moments later the vicious savaging of Sandie's character both made me feel depressed. I felt as though I was witnessing an execution.

This means that you are Vair Posh, or at least had Vair Posh recent ancestors.

My godmother's forebears included several kings. My forebears include a vast number of peasants... And a few French and other things. It was nice to see the expected French in the DNA.

As for the Tribunal.. I remember once watching Jaws with some friends, one of whom was only about 11. She spent all the tense bits out in the hall, watching the TV through the gap down the hinge side of the door.

That's how I feel today.

I am definitely not posh, that's for sure. The baronetcy died out around the time I was born as there were no male heirs.
Swizz.

I signed up and then received a lot of spam emails. I put the name of the website in my sign up info so they write saying Dear Myrtle MN Lion (as an example, MN has never released my email). That way I know which website sold my details.

inkymoose They kept changing the areas that I was supposed to have come from. Initially there was a massive chunk of Scottish DNA and then they changed it to Irish which I found annoying. I guess they are very similar.

Not just similar, but more or less the same people, to the extent that the Irish were known as Scoti in medieval Latin. Ireland was Scotia Major, and modern Scotland was Scotia Minor. All Gaelic speaking.

Or as 1066 and All That helpfully summarises:
“The Scots (originally Irish, but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essential to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa).”

The 9th century Irish philosopher was called Johannes Scotus Eriugena, meaning he was Irish - which Eriugena also means - maybe meaning he was one of those Scoti guys, but from Eire rather than Scotia Minor?

When King Charles the Bald of France once asked him
'What is the difference between a fool and an Irishman?'
he replied
'The width of a table, Sire'.

A philosopher with a sense of humour!

@inkymoose Ancestry announced an update to how they breakdown Scottish and Northern English ancestry, not sure if this happened yet. It might be worth checking again.
I'll ask dp if they already implemented the change, he got himself self sequenced a while back with Ancestry. He's 0.6 % Denisovan and ludicrously pleased with it.

Is it too early for a drink? Midday maybe? .
As well as the depressing nature of the Other Thread I've also just got foot MRI back and am going to have to have surgery/cast a bit like @MyrtleLion. Possibly need to take up knitting...bah.

I've got two subgroups under Scotland, one is "Highlands and Central Lowlands" which seems a bit broad but makes sense, and the other is the Isle of Man.

The Ireland genetic region has a whole lot of bizarrely specific subgroups, I would guess for people whose ancestors never left their small patch of West Cork or wherever, but the only subgroup I've got under Ireland is "Ulster".

All different varieties of Gaeldom I suppose.

Thank you (off to google Denisovian now!)

My DH is Scottish, but only because his great grandfather abandoned his wife and 6 children in Ireland, scarpered to Scotland, bigamously married another woman and had 6 more kids. With the same names.

So glad the apple fell flipping miles from that particular tree!

I love the idea of you all swooping in en masse (in an alternative reality).

it feels lovely.

❤️

@SionnachRuadh - we got my FIL an Ancestry DNA kit, because he was sure his grandfather was German - his mum had told him that his grandma had had an affair with a German travelling salesman. He told me this because he thought I could use the internet to find this man - he thinks I’m the internet whisperer and could just google “Random German man who had an affair with a London woman” and find him, and when I told him this was not possible, we went for the DNA kit instead.

When the results came in, there was absolutely no German in his results, and he refused point blank to believe it.

I have signed up to Ancestry, and made a start on doing my family tree, and dh’s, but have got bogged down in working out how I know which hints apply to my family tree and which don’t, so that project is on the Ignore pile for now.

Whatever small measure of comfort this strange little alternative reality can muster, it’s here for you.

Lovely to see you Swashy. I hope the arrangements are in hand and you can finally have space to breathe. As ever you are in our thoughts and the galleon is often seen through a window as a reminder.

Hey Swashy! ❤

Hello Swashy. Lovely to see you. How's Dr Swash doing? I do hope she's got a job to go to. (I'm not 100% certain how it works)

Love to you both.

Lovely to see you, Swashy.

I'm sure that the bar staff are rustling up whatever you favour as a mid-day tipple.

They are indeed, Edith, queuing up to be the one who has the honour of serving dear Swash.