gathering dust

If you've read this blog before you must know how much I love these things. They aren't that much help when it comes to the nitty gritty of hunting dead people but I do love them so. And as more people test the closer they start to align with what my dead people are telling me. Lets start with Ancestry: And then MyHeritage: And finally FTDNA: I've tested my parents, all three living grandparents and a great aunt now as well as myself but my Maternal Grandfather's is by far my favourite: It's just so delightful. And I can associate it with dead people for the most part. Nigeria? That one completely confused us.

So I was terrible at the 52 weeks challenge. Are we surprised? Nope. But anyway, with the increase in it's database Ancestry's DNA estimates are being refined so I thought I'd have a look and see what these new estimates look like compared to the old. So Me: Mum: Dad: Given what I know of our geographic ancestry none of these changes are particularly surprising, except for that giant purple blob added to Mum's that represents the Baltic States.  Challenge Accepted Ancestry DNA. 

This time of my paternal ancestry. I threw the kit at Dad and told him to spit. So from Ancestry: No surprises there; well actually I was expecting it to be a little more homogeneous because his first cousin's looks like this: The German on Dad's maternal side makes all the difference it seems. What did surprise me is how similar mine and Dad's FTDNA maps are. His: Mine: The southern European that I assumed must all be from my maternal side; seems to reflect what I am guessing may be from Dad's maternal as well. I think I may have to throw my other half's science brain at the problem because numerical data analysis is not my strong suit.  

After I got my AncestryDNA results my mother was so excited that she ordered her kit straight away. Well her results are in and SURPRISE I wasn't switched at birth (no chance of that really with how much we look like each other but it does ruin my dreams of being a fairy princess) and her DNA mapping is really interesting. It makes me want to bail up my grandpa and make him spit into a tube, so without further ado - AncestryDNA:  FamilyTreeDNA: I really do want to know more about my grandfather's side of the family now other than a vague mention of his mother having Romany heritage. 

My AncestryDNA results are in and one of the things I have been looking forward to is comparing what my DNA map looks like compared to my genea-map. My genea map, plotted using google maps and the earliest ancestors I have been able to trace looks like this: My AncestryDNA map: And not being satisfied with that I transferred the raw data to FamilyTreeDNA to have a squizz: So overwhelmingly European is the not unexpected results then.

The recent announcement that Ancestry 's DNA genealogy testing service is expanding to Australia is one I am kind of excited about. I have been contemplating genetic genealogy for a while and I will admit to a significant amount of curiosity and a desire to share my 'genea-map' with my 'genetic map.' Although there are websites that will create a map of ancestors for you from your gedcom files, I have been using Google maps' custom maps function to create my own. Below is a rough map of the earliest spots I have traced family lines. Genetic genealogy may be able to tell me whether the overwhelming Englishness is as it seems. I can't wait to pester everyone for cheek swabs.