The Scotch In Me
Ancestry DNA has now separated your maternal DNA from your paternal DNA and labeled them accordingly. Earlier this year they made the split but only labeled them "Parent 1" and "Parent 2". For me, it wasn't a big mystery though it did open up a mystery. On my maternal side of my family tree, I have traced several lines directly back to Germany. and only one parent contributed Germanic DNA to me. So I could label the sides of my DNA profile contributions from my parents and Ancestry proved that I was correct.
But at the time it opened up a mystery to me and that mystery still remains even now. According to the DNA ring up above, both parents contributed Scottish DNA to me and in fact, Scottish DNA remains the biggest part of me at 44%. I have traced many lines of my family tree to England, Germany and even a few to Ireland. I have not been able to find the small part of me that came from Sweden or Denmark but most interesting to me is that I have not traced a single line of my family tree to Scotland. What gives?
Looking closer at the map below, I see that the DNA samples of typical Scottish DNA overflow a little bit into northern England and northern Ireland. I do have one one maternal and one paternal line that do trace back to Ireland though I do not know which part of Ireland.
Perhaps the biggest question is my paternal Scottish DNA roots. My paternal surname sounds Germanic in origin and in fact, most family trees "trace" it all the way back to Germany to a famous German family with the same name. But as I have said before, nearly all family trees that go back beyond the 1700's on Ancestry are suspect and full of wishful thinking. This new DNA analysis by Ancestry essentially proved my point as I don't have any paternal Germanic roots. So my surname is not Germanic but could it be Scottish?
Perhaps.
I can trace it to a man named Adam who was born just before the Revolutionary War in western Pennsylvania to Fayette County. There records are so sparse that nothing is conclusive and one must begin the wishful thinking and I refuse to take part in that. Adam was born in America and what few records I have found attest to that. But perhaps his parents or ancestors came from Scotland at some point even though his surname sounds Germanic?
Perhaps.
The internet doesn't offer many answers to that. It could be a slur of a Scottish surname and indeed, one surname that is definitely Scottish sounds very similar when uttered but is spelled a lot different. Some Scottish websites list my surname as a potential derivative of it. But it would require someone to change the spelling, perhaps upon their arrival to America as the common thinking goes. Although I have traced many lines from Europe to America's eastern shores, I have never found a name change. So I wonder about how common it actually was or if it was just more common later in America's immigration history whereas most of my ancestors beat that period by immigrating a 100 years earlier.
As usual, I have no answers and only questions. I think it would be neat to find my Scottish roots. Perhaps I can start participating in Highland games tossing the saber or shifting the stones in my plaid kilt and learn to play bagpipes. Probably more likely is that I can just have a bottle of one of the below sitting on a pantry shelf to imbibe in once in awhile.
I had my DNA done maybe a decade ago, and it told me almost nothing. My paternal ancestor went back to caves in France, and my maternal line to the agricultural revolution. That was very nice to know, but that is also about all that there was.
ReplyDeleteBut I am impressed that you can trace your ancestry all of the way back to Adam. 😇
Well I have two points to relay back to you. First, depending on the website you had your DNA tested from, they have made great strides in providing more detail without submitting additional tests. The site I got my done from, Ancestry, provides several updates a year offering new features or refined results. Second, DNA tests are only accurate to about 200 years as far as location you are from goes so whomever told you that you originate from caves in France was being wishful/mean to you. If you pick out specific genes being tested, they can tell you about common ancestors thousands of years ago but not really give you a location. It is quite common for people to confuse those two factoids.
DeleteThe reason for the 200 years is simply math. Pick any line you want in your family tree. Your parent contributes 50% of your DNA, any grandparent only 25%, any great grandparent only 12%, any great great grandparent 6%, any 3rd great grandparent 3% and any 4th great grandparent 1.5%, etc. Assuming 25 years per generation, by the time you get back to your 6th great grandparent, i.e. 200 years ago, you are talking about 0.3% of your total DNA. To make matters worse, say in your French case, any ancestor along those lines only contributes 50% of their total DNA so their chances of passing on only the French part of their DNA through 8 generations is probably worse than winning the lottery. At best, you only received a part of the French DNA through every generation making it nearly infinitely small.
DeleteIt was Ancestry or 23 through Ancestry at the time. I think they split afterward.
DeleteDoesn't your mitochondrial DNA (and some equivalent male DNA, can't remember the name) stay more or less constant for a long time? I did read up on it in the dim past and think I remembered that.
I might even have saved the email about the pre-historic ancestry. If so, I will try to remember to look it up again to see what it said. I understand that I will have my mother's mito and my dad's whatever exactly as they had it? I am probably misremembering (and should really look this up again).😇
Thanks for the response and putting up with my questions. I find this stuff very interesting but am going on distant memory at this point.
The "male DNA" is a Y-DNA test and the Y-DNA rarely mutates so it easier to trace back long distances but only gives you a tiny glimpse of your family tree compared to mitochondrial testing. I have taken a Y-DNA test many years ago but other than connecting me to a list of genetic cousins, it really hasn't been useful in determining the origins of my paternal line.
DeleteMitochondrial DNA that is used more commonly to give you a broader picture of ancestry, mutates a lot more often and at different rates compared to location. It really depends where the mutation is within the DNA to get a clear picture of how far back a common ancestor is. There are three regions currently and based on which regions match, common ancestors can be back as far as 1300 years or only 125 years. That is why they can test for Neanderthal and at the same time don't know about where your ancestors immigrated from than a few hundred years ago. They are comparing different parts of your DNA.
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DeleteLike Anvilcloud, I had my husband take the saliva DNA test from Ancestry. It came back 100% Asian. That's it. Duh....
DeleteYou should check again. My wife's came back with the exact same results initially but recent improvements have found a few percentage points from further south and east.
DeleteThe sleuth in you will find the answers.
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps a descendent.
DeleteI have never done the DNA thing. Don't want to mess up my idealized mythology of my ancestors :). But I do keep a few bottles of Scotch in the pantry (and I have a kilt)
ReplyDeleteI would laugh if you came from a long line of Yankees!
DeleteI know to find a grandparent born outside of NC, you have to go back to the early 19th Century...
DeleteI did mine. It's kind of interesting. I'm 50% Irish; 45% (if I remember correctly) Eastern Europe/Slavic; and 5% Scandinavia. Something like that. But be careful what you wish for ... now you have to start eating haggis!
ReplyDeleteIt can't be any worse the balut, the favorite dish of the Philippines!
DeleteI think you would be a natural for the Highland Games. I saw them when I was in Scotland and the skill levels ran the gamut. I think your tenacity at building things and doing research would easily transfer into gamesmanship. And definitely keep the bottes on hand!
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit more pessimistic. It takes me a lot longer to heal these days than when I was younger.
DeleteI just looked at the new ethnicity estimates and mine make sense. I'm about 25% Scottish, a little less than that French, a bit less than that Northern Italian, then English and some Scandinavian. Dad's dad came from Scotland which explains the Viking blood and Mom's Italian mother's family lived in the Piedmonte region which is right next to France. It's amazing to me how much people moved around in those days and as my geography daughter tells me constantly, "Borders are an artificial construct." It's so interesting to find out more about our histories!
ReplyDeleteI do agree with your daughter about borders, especially when one considers all the boundaries we artificially created after the World Wars and how much those boundaries are still causing unrest.
DeleteInteresting. The Danes migrated to England and Ireland about a thousand years ago, so many English and Irish may have Danish ancestors. Maybe that accounts for your Danish DNA. (Another perhaps).
ReplyDeleteI'm not really surprised at having some Danish DNA but am surprised by the amount. But I know I shouldn't be surprised when I consider that nearly all my roots run deep through early American history to the point I only know perhaps a dozen of my ancestors that immigrated. Even those that immigrated were well before Ellis Island was ever a thing and records mostly consisted of a name on a ship's log.
DeleteHow interesting! When I last checked my Ancestry record it was still "Parent 1" and "Parent 2" -- so I have to log in again!
ReplyDeleteIn your case I wonder if "Scottish" basically just means Celtic or Gaelic or Pictish or something like that -- peoples who would have been spread beyond current national boundaries. It is interesting that you have a German name and no paternal German DNA, though! Do you think maybe some past relative was adopted -- a Scottish baby adopted by a Germanic family? Is that crazy?
Well since my Y-DNA tests link me to 100's of other people sharing similar or the same surname, I'm assuming there wasn't an adoption in the mix. I think it is mostly wishful thinking by people wanting to be associated with the famous German people of the same name. I wish I can go into detail but don't want to give up anymore anonymity than I already have. While I never believed the hype, I did assume it was Germanic in origin so when Ancestry divided things into Parent 1 and Parent 2, I was more than surprised at the results. I just hope someday I can use those results to push back that part of my family tree beyond the borders of America to where ever they may land in Scotland, northern England, northern Ireland, etc.
DeleteI'll be thinking about you when we visit Scotland, England and Ireland next year.
DeleteMaybe by then, I'll have found the connection and by coincidence, you will go through that village.
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