DNA Doesn't Lie

 

When I began tracing my ancestral roots, I was puzzled by my paternal side. My birth surname is the same as some very famous Germans and indeed, nearly all genealogists on that branch theorize that we are somehow related. Yet try as I might, I have never been able to trace a line to Germany. I can do so all day long on my maternal side but no on my paternal side. In fact, most of the lines I have been able to trace come from northern England, Scotland and northeastern Ireland.

So I was excited when a few years ago, Ancestry.com upgraded my DNA test results to reflect the technology to divide it between your parents. I could see definitively on my paternal side that I have no German ancestors, at least not in the last 500 years or so which is about all the farther modern DNA tests can reliably predict your origins. 

The largest percentage of my paternal side of my family was color coded green on the first ring chart and in the above map of western Europe and now that Ancestry has recently refined it even more granular, it is becoming clear that all the armchair experts for my birth surname are just plain wrong. The bulk of my paternal DNA comes from Scotland, northern England and northeast Ireland, exactly what my research has shown. It doesn't explain why my birth surname appears to be solidly German however.

I have tried to tease out those reasons but I've never been able to locate my original immigrant ancestor on direct paternal line with the German sounding surname. I can trace that line back to the beginning of the Revolutionary war in the mountains of southwestern Pennsylvania and there the records dry up. I've always thought that someday I would go out there and see if I could dig up some more in person.

Perhaps coincidently, about the same time as these updates came out, I discovered a person living in Norway who is researching my birth surname and she theorizes that my ancestors from northeast Ireland came originally from Norway. According to some sources on the internet, Vikings were often described as "tall, strong builds with fair skin, light or red hair, and blue or light eyes." I check every single one of those boxes so perhaps there is something to her theory.

Ancestry was even kind enough to remind me what had changed since they last updated their test in the fall of 2024. There is nothing really shocking in them. I have small percentage of Danish from paternal line and Netherland(ish) from my maternal side that I never knew about nor have I located in my family tree but they are quite small and likely a single ancestor on one of the many branches I have yet to locate an immigrant ancestor. I've always had a bit of Swedish in my DNA profile but have yet to find the Swedish ancestor among my maternal ancestors but like the other previously mentioned one, there is plenty of room for them to be lurking in my tree somewhere.

If I had to pick the most puzzling aspect of it all, it the newly identified group of southeastern England & northwestern Europe. Up until this update, it largely covered all of England so I always lumped my northern England lines I've traced as the result. Now they have been separated out and this is saying nearly a quarter of my DNA comes from southeastern England/northern Europe (Belgium) from somewhere on my maternal side. I have yet to find a single line in my family tree that comes from those regions. 

In case you are curious as to how I know which side of my family tree is associated to which region, you can tell easier in the chart below. It shows the sections of chromosomes tested and the top bar of each chromosome refers to my paternal line and the bottom bar of each chromosome refers to my maternal line. 

Anyway, I am finding all this interesting and perhaps this winter when genealogy season begins for me, I'll dig into these mysteries a little more and see if I can figure something more definitive out. Until then, I'm as my grandfather would say, a mutt/Heinz 57/mixed breed of western European. There is no denying that. My DNA doesn't lie.