Tag Archives: English

Over a year since I posted

Life has this way of making me get sidetracked easily. When I started this site, I had every intention of digging deeper into my BURCHETT legacy and hopefully piecing together missing pieces. Well, as I said, life just put that on hold for over a year now.

However, I recently got an update on my Ancestry DNA and, like before it’s not overly different, but enough that really using it to have a true understanding of my heritage seems impossible. Case in point: The last update seemed like Scotland dominated the update for everyone. While that made sense, in a fashion, it seems to be nothing more than something similar to marketing. What I mean is that unless a vastly huge percent of the human population submitted for DNA results the Ancestry results will be nothing more than an increase in DNA kits sold to certain markets, ergo, a higher percentage in that area in everyone’s results. How is that useful?

I don’t see the benefit of the test any longer. While a certain percentage of my results has stayed consistent, others (which I have some documented proof of ancestry) has radically changed. Scottish and Norwegian heritage are prime examples.

Initially my Scot heritage was pretty low, then, with the update it shot through the roof, now with next update, it has once again been knocked pretty low.  Similarly, my Norwegian heritage went from being fair to disappearing and now has come back again, higher than it was originally. The up and down with my English heritage is bewildering also.

So, I am not sure I can really get a true feeling of what my heritage really is. I can make a fairly educated guess, but I would love to be able to see something that confirms it. My Y-DNA test sheds some light, but again, nothing solid. But at least it seems to be solid enough to not be swayed by marketing type structuring and has a better shot at steering me in the right direction.

 

Y-DNA Results came in today as well as updated Ancestry results

I was expecting an extremely long wait time (the FamilyTreeDNA site told me 6-8 weeks before I would get results) for my Y-DNA test results, however, they surprisingly came today just shy of four weeks after they received them.

After a quick look at the results all I really know so far is that it is predicted I belong to Haplogroup I-M253 with the explanation that,

Haplogroup I dates to 23,000 years ago, or older. The I-M253 lineage likely has its roots in northern France. Today it is found most frequently within Viking/Scandinavian populations in northwest Europe and has since spread down into Central and Eastern Europe, where it is found at low frequencies. Haplogroup I represents one of the first peoples in Europe.

Unfortunately, a quick look at the matches has done nothing to break through my paternal brick wall. It appears the matches I do have are many, many generations past Joseph Burchett and leaves a very large gap in between them and Joseph.

The plan now is to learn more in-depth what the results tell me and how I can use them to break down the brick wall. This will require more education on my part into the DNA realm and I suspect the involvement of a professional.

I’ll be sure to update.

On another front, Ancestry had updated results and wow, did my DNA results alter themselves. Both interesting and a bit disconcerting at the same time.

 

Sweden disappears altogether and Scotland takes a huge leap forward. The Germanic is expected and well-known to me. Another interesting observation is how my English roots dropped a good bit as well.

So, the disconcerting part is trying to make sense of this. I’m concerned that the results are less scientific and more based on, as a friend who also had her DNA analyzed, “crowdsourcing”. Ancestry provides a variety of surveys on your DNA account and I’m wondering how much my results are based on the updates of people with similar markers taking the surveys are as, again, opposed to scientific data.

Lot’s of what if’s and the brick wall that is Joseph Burchett remains… to be continued…