Tag Archives: Germanic

More Ancestry changes means more confusion

Once again, Ancestry DNA results have changed. I get it… However, it really makes getting a test done, for the most part, useless.

You just never will know with any sort of certainty what your heritage truly is. It’s all based on demographics and people willing to buy and test their DNA. As a male, I have the luxury of being able to have my Y-DNA tested, which is, for the most part, pretty stable. It gives me better, albeit a bit more vague, insight into my heritage.

So I’m evaluating the current Ancestry change with past results, what I know for fact, and then weighing it alongside my Y-DNA results.

The latest results that came in show the following:

England and Northwestern Europe is really no change or surprise. That is my base heritage… maybe. Back in 2020 it jumped from 33% to 20% and then back into the 30 percentile until this last update, rocketing to 55%. At it’s lowest point my Germanic heritage was dominant and then evenly weighed.

Now my Germanic side is all but gone. I can only surmise that my Germanic heritage went down due to a reevaluation of Eastern Europe and Russia. I have verifiable Polish heritage on my mothers side. Did that heritage come out of Germanic Europe and get inserted into the Eastern Europe/Russia category (which, including the Baltics, originally was only like 4-8% of my DNA make up)?

Scotland was at a high point in 202 (along with everyone else in the world it seemed) and has since receded. Same with Sweden and Ireland. Bottom line is that the groupings keep changing and is inconsistent and really, as I said, based on demographics of folks having their DNA tested by Ancestry.

Finally, Ancestry has released an “Ethnicity Inheritance” feature recently. This breaks down heritage for each parent that comprises the makeup of your DNA. It doesn’t say “Mother/Father” just “Parent 1/Parent2” but it was easy to tell that parent 1 was my mother and parent 2 was my father.

My dad’s heritage is not very complex. Predominately England & Northwestern Europe, Scotland and Ireland. All, which are right in line with my research and what I know for fact. Where the strangeness comes in is on my moms side. More complex than the typical “we’re Polish” view of our heritage.  Again, England/Northwestern Europe rule but the advancement of Eastern Europe, Russia, Baltic alongside the inclusion of Sweden/Denmark and Portugal on my mom’s side was not expected.

Interestingly, my Y-DNA is Haplogroup I (I-M253) which is thought to have roots in northern France and today is mainly found in Scandinavia and Northwestern Europe as well as Eastern Europe (Viking DNA), matches my mom’s side a bit more than my dad’s.

Ultimately, this has just left me more confused and wondering what bombshells will be dropped at the next update. I’ve really started putting less care into my Ancestry DNA and have considered getting a more in-depth Y-DNA test done to see if I get more conclusive results. Granted, this only takes into account half of my DNA (my fathers) and leaves out a huge gap on my mothers side. Maybe more investigation on how to get better results from the maternal line is where I should focus my research on. But for now, I’ll be English/Northwestern European until the next change.

 

 

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…