Hi Dara and Ian. Greetings from New Zealand where I found an indirect family connection in the Dunedin Museum. Gerry

Glad Ian did the DNA test too! Always fun to see everyone's heritage.

I find it all so very interesting...loved listening to all the information and all the hard work you've put into this Dara...so amazing...hope you're feeling better from your bout with COVID!

You and Ian have more in common than you thought! 🤪What a beautiful tribute this September.

I have a 3rd cousin from Dublin Ireland who recently contacted me through 23&me. We are going to see her in October this year! After taking the test I’ve found out SO much (you know I shared with you). Researching our DNA connections is so fascinating. Sorry you missed that conference. Great video Dara. ~Cara 🌺

Hi. My great-grandmother was born in the Forest of Dean, but worked in Monmouth. The distance between her home in England and her workplace in Wales is less than 2 miles. And she's actually registered on the 1901 census as resident in Wales. There was a lot of movement across the border in the past, especially in Herefordshire and the Forest.

Yes Ian, the best nationality to be!! This is so intersting! Oh Dara you're a bit Welsh too!! You're gonna have to learn the lingo now!!we're looking forward to your German trip already. Love that you are the most German!!! What a fascinating delve through your ancestors. 🍻

FASCINATING! Bravo 👏 you’re still 20% British and that’s a big chunk 😂👌 Loved this video - keep up the good work

@Magenta Otter Travels, I enjoyed this episode v much!!!! One point: at around 07:35, the graphic for East Europe/Russia showed 20% buy you stated 2%. PS Dara, your mother was beautiful and it is easy to see you have her looks ❤❤

I highly recommend doing what I call 'The Family History Trail' my cousin and I planned for 2 years to meet up in Croatia which is the country our family is from now. (The borders changed quite a few times!) I knew the area well as my maternal aunt still lives in one of the major towns and she had taken me around when I was a teenager, and not at all interested in family history! (I think age develops that interest)

Many Americans say they had a Native American Grandmother, but they find that they have no NA DNA. The reason is that when lands were opened to NA people only. People who were barred from moving on to these lands found they could buy a certificate for $5 stating the were of NA blood, so were allowed to settle on these lands. These people were known as Five Dollar Indians.

Dara, I have never looked into my DNA. There is quite an extensive Family Genealogy site my cousins have worked on over the past 20+ years. I was most surprised by the differences in sibling results. Fascinating. I've yet to post my German holiday videos as we were there in the Autumn. Which parts of Germany will you be visiting? Thanks for this most interesting and enlightening video. I'm very much a WALES fan...was chuffed to hear about the DNA input from Wales. Have a great weekend. I'm off across the ditch to NZ next Wednesday. Bye for now from Australia. 🇳🇱🙋‍♀🇳🇿🦘🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Wow! I bet the genealogy companies will have a glut of enquiries from your subscribers, I myself had to pause the video and see how much the different sites were charging for the tests 😀 - any info from those who’ve done them would be appreciated. Interesting, but I do wonder about the discrepancies from one company to another? Still, fascinating stuff!

Bloodworth sounds very Australian too. I grew up in the 80s and we had a huge amount of Australia-mania around the bicentenary in 1988 (I hope I got that right) and in a lot of the Aussie shows they use phrases like "your blood's worth bottling," and similar things.

The discrepancies between siblings is mainly due to the overlap of very close categories. In many instances, Welsh and Scottish&Irish and even English to a lesser extent, are interchangeable for instance because these populations are extremely similar to each other when compared to other Europeans. The best way to make sense of it is to use traditional genealogy and the detected "communities" or "regions" to confirm an ancestral link to a particular ethnic group. In the British isles context, until these DNA tests become more and more accurate, it's best to think of the variation mainly in insular versus continental, English people tending to having more continental ancestry (Anglo-Saxons, Norman...) while Irish having the least. To a lesser extent, the discrepancies between siblings can be due to the fact we don't exactly inherit 25% of our dna from each of our grandparents. In reality, it can be as low as 19% and as high as 30% or so.

I found it so endearing that you wanted more British DNA. I have binge watched so many of your videos. I used to stay in Cheltenham as a little boy but haven't been in over 30 years. How did your Father find himself in the U.S? Was he wearing a U.S army uniform in the picture?

As for family stories, my Great Grandfather was rumoured to have committed suicide, but thanks to my interest in ancestry, I found out he was a well respected sergeant in the RMLI, who went back into service in the first world war as a trainer, but died on the operation table from appendicitis. He has a military grave in Kent. And was posthumously awarded a medal. So don't believe all you hear

Hi Dara & Ian! I'm excited to learn your results! Fascinating that Ian is 49% Welsh and only 45% English and northern European. Your results were surprising too! Intriguing that you also had a fairly large percentage of Welsh DNA. I would love to go to Roots Tech. Hilarious that you had a larger percentage of German DNA than your two brothers! 😆I have DNA results from Ancestry and Living DNA. My Ancestry results showed that I'm 63% England & Northwestern Europe, highly concentrated in Norfolk and the wider East Anglia, which didn't surprise me at all (very inter-bred, lol!), 14% Norway, 12% Sweden & Denmark, 6% Scottish, and 5% Germanic Europe. Thanks for a very interesting video ❤

The Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians came from the coasts of Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.

I'm not sure if you know this but there are a few different towns known as new castle in the U.S. besides a town named New Castle in England. Some spelled a bit differently and some the same.

Hi Dara, I was born and raised in Northumberland County, VA. I'm now living in Kilmarnock in the neighboring county of Lancaster VA. Anytime you want to visit my beautiful part of the Chesapeake Bay area, I'd be happy to help you find where your ancestors lived here.

I was shocked to learn Ian was born in Jamaica. You have talked a lot about England and Wales but don't think I've heard you talk about that before

My father was from Texas, he was in the USAF based at Burtonwood in NW England. My mother followed him back and the result was me, she came home and I was born in Liverpool. He told her that one of his grandmothers was Blackfoot. The DNA and family tree totally dispel this. I expect she was told to impress her.

Interesting video!! Remember your Dad could also have had Danish and Swede DNA on his German side...As well as from Vikings! Ians ancestry is typical ...DNA from a very rural area ( the Border Marches) but family from the West Midlands....During the Industrial Revolution huge numbers of people migrated to cities from local rural areas! Dara its very interesting that you have such old roots in America!! Going back to the 1600s!

Very interesting. Somewhat discouraging to see how wildly it can vary. I dont know who my great grandfather is so I have wanted to take one of these tests. I wonder if the Anglo Saxons and north Germans are still relatively closely related to the point where it threw off some of your results? Thanks for sharing!

Hi Dara & Ian, next step is a vlog series of you learning German & Welsh respectively. Although, as someone who lives next-door to Wales, I think Ian has the harder job.

Do words matter or figures of speech? yes they do the words we choose to use carry a lot of extra meaning in the way we use them - thankyou your video was very interesting and I enjoyed it

Interesting. My brother did our family tree, no great surprises, we originated in a place in North West Leicestershire. Leicester University was carrying out some research on DNA and Surnames, which he volunteered in. It was done a good time ago, and indicated we came from where we thought. The only surprise was that our surname had travelled the world, yet our branch had intact travelled only within the boundaries of our county of origin. Our surname has been adopted by many individuals who wanted to Anglosize their name. The research found that generally the surname and DNA were constant (male line of Y chromosome) surname was Warner and place of origin Coleorton in Leicestershire. All Interesting stuff.

I think the DNA results would surprise many of us, Dara and Ian. I've also had mine done (Ancestry) and really thought much more German would be there than there was. Yet it came back relatively small compared to what I had been thinking. Much of my make-up also comes from the UK countries. Also northern Europe like Finland and Sweden. I had two aunts who had done the Hyde family tree before the age of the internet. They were only able to get back to around 1830 on the Hyde linage, (4th great grandfather) but much further on the some of the women they had married. I also tried years ago when the internet was still in it's infancy and so were the records. Mostly stored by the Mormon Church at that time. Just within the last several years after watching some of Stephen and Yhana's videos and with his help I was able to go back much further on the Hyde name to my 8th great grandfather born in the mid 1600's in what is now the state of Connecticut. One generation later my 7th great grandfather born in what now is the US would die in England. No record as to where, just England. So I would believe (but of course I can't say it's fact) he had returned to some earlier ancestral area. Stephen had some ideas that could make sense, but we couldn't nail it down. I'm hoping that as I get more time in the future to be able to do so, I'll do more and also among the woman who account for half of our ancestry. Enjoyed hearing about your results and how they vary between companies.

I'm not surprised at the Scandinavian blood on your father's side. The borders of Denmark and Germany have shifted around a lot over the years. I'm trying to remember which statesman said that only three people ever understood the Schleswig Holstein question. One was dead, one had gone mad, and the other had forgotten all about it.

My mother's mother came from Ledbury. Other relatives also lived there. Are we related??? As for mobility, farm labourers often moved from farm to farm. In Herefordshire there are towns with Welsh-type names. There would have been free movement across the vague border. A distant relative moved to Wales in about 1850. My Mother's grandfather was a farm labourer and in the middle of WW I moved 50 miles from Ledbury up to Wellington. Wit the coming of trains and steam ships, moving became easier. Men would go a long way to get work. Going back in time, the west side of Britain including what is now Wales and Herefordshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland (Lake District) were under the control of the "Celts". When the Germanic tribes invaded in the 700s and then the Danes invaded, the Celts in the Lake District were separated from "Wales". Throughout the last thousand years there was free movement across the borders, quite often minor battles, capture some property. No doubt there were children eventually. Also what we now call Scotland was originally "Pict Land" until the Ulster tribe "Scots" from Northern Ireland invaded "Scotland".

I did a 23 and M3 test a few years ago. Gradually what was deemed Swedish back then ( about 8% ) has disappeared and I'm left with 100% Scottish. On my father's side I've yet to find an ancestor from outwith the confines of Ayrshire. Ayrshire is an elongated coastal strip in the form of a central basin surrounded by quite high hills all round its inland rim so the centrally located population basically intermarried a lot!. I have not found any ancestor other than Scottish although my mother has ancestors from Wigtownshire and they look like they might have an Irish surname or two. You can literally fall off a boat from Ireland into Wigtownshire. My Y -chromosome ( from 7 male line generations of Ayrshire farmers ) is more typically Irish ( linked to the Ui Niall ).

Autosomal tests like the one’s you did identify regional ancestry based on where other testers live so regional overlap is possible. I’ve done a few tests and I’m 30% Scandinavian and 55% East of England with a few others. Not surprising as my family have been in Eastern East Anglia since early 16c. East Anglia was part of Danelaw so matching folk in Scandinavia now makes sense. I decided to pin it down and did an FTDNA Y700/Big Y test which looks at male Y chromosome DNA pretty deeply. My paternal line is classic Norse Viking and the archaeological burials I match are fascinating, all are Viking burials mostly Greenland, Iceland and Norway. Ian may like to have his done, the results are most interesting.

My brothers in law are also named Brian and Alan.

Bloodworth is a cool as heck name!

I love watching DNA results videos, and this one was very interesting and informative. I did one, as well as my mother and my 2 brothers. I'm African American, my parents family is from the South. I was told we were African, Cherokee, Spanish and some French. Well, the African part was right ( Mostly Nigerian, Congolese, Ghanaian), but no Cherokee, no Spanish, and no French. However, I did get English, Scottish, Irish, and Scandinavian. So that was interesting. I did, however, find my mom's biological father's family was from a Indian reservation in Oklahoma, but they were mixed race, with mostly African/European mixture. So there was atleast that. Either way, despite being initially disappointed, I began to embrace more of my roots. I'm really into my Nigerian/Ghanaian heritage, and found some distant cousins in Scotland so I've been learning more about that.

I have done my heritage and I want to do ancestry next because my heritage gives me a very low percentage for Scottish and my maternal grandmother is 100 percent Scottish.

When it comes to family DNA I think of it as a big bowl of tossed salad. There are tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, feta cheese, and maybe a few pine nuts all tossed in a bowl tgen apportioned out into smaller bowls. Each recipient gets the Same salad just in different variations. One gets a bit more tomato, another gets a bigger piece of cucumber. Same same, but different.

I haven't done my dna but I've thought about it my mum mum family has Irish roots and my mum dad family for dutch Jewish but in London and non Jewish since 1800s we have feeling they moved from somewhere else to Netherlands in 1700s but not sure where. Dad family is from Cornwall we believe

My cousin and I are interested in family history and she encouraged me to do the Ancestry DNA test. Mainly because she discovered in hers that there was a Middle Eastern percentage in her DNA, our fathers are brothers so she was curious if that DNA came from her European family. I originally wasn't interested in doing a DNA test simply because I thought my results would be boring, my mother and her family are from towns and villages 6km from my father's. My generation is the first to have grown up in different countries. But I was curious enough to see if I had an exotic ancestor, someone went on the crusades and met a local woman and brought her back to Europe? Turns out my DNA is as boring as I thought it would be! 93% northern Balkans and the rest eastern European. The Middle Eastern ancestor on my cousin's side was from her mother's side of the family.

You and your siblings get a random 50% from your mother and father, which is why you have differences in your ethnicities. But keep in mind, these are only estimates. I have an identical twin and we share 100% of our DNA - however, because ethnicity is an estimate, we have slight differences in our ethnicity.

I just finished watching a Swedish TV documentary series, Historien on Sverige (History of Sweden). From 1500s upto around 1800, Various Swedish Kings sent their armies to conquer parts of Europe, including northern parts of Germany and as usually happens, some of them fraternised with the locals! That may explain your strong Nordic DNA connection, via Germany.

On your trip to Germany will you be going to Hamburg? You really should have it on your itinerary. 😁😁 As I remember from a Time Team, the Scandinavians went round the top of Scotland and invaded Ireland and the west of Scotland. The kingdom of Ireland included some of the west coast of Scotland. My memory is a bit hazy on the subject. As for your DNA tests. They make me more sceptical about the tests than I was before. Surely siblings should have the exact ancestry match? Should it not also be the case that the results from each company be broadly similar? As Ian said, people didn't move around very much back then. Before the railways people tended to stay in the same village for generations. Only the well off could afford to travel by stagecoach. I know that my grandparents on my father's side were from the Dumfries area, but the family name is from the Isle of Lewis in the Highlands. My mother's side were from Lancashire, but the family name appears to be Irish. That's about all I know.

Hi Dara MyHeritage DNA results show me to be 48.7% English, 31.1% Scandinavian & 20.2% North Western European (i.e. The area from NE France across to northern Germany. As far as I can see all my relatives going back 250 years are all from Yorkshire so that 50%+ of 'European' DNA must come from viking/Angle/Jute ancestry. I think your English ancestry may also be the same & it is getting mixed up with your German & Scandi DNA. I'm definitely English & you're welcome to join me on that basis and declare yourself English 😅 I also did the Ancestry DNA test which was broadly similar but snuck some Scottish into the mix! Hard to say how accurate these things are really, especially for a mongrel race like the English 😊

My family has a Welsh surname which comes from Shrewsbury in Shropshire England. Offa's Dyke was not an exact boundary between the Anglo-Saxons and the Welsh. Some Welsh-speaking communities existed right across England, even in Kent until the Norman Conquest

Hi Dara. How interesting. I have done mine and I am 70% English and NW Europe. I am 20% Scottish and - 10% GERMAN. It has always fascinated me. Did you know that DNA was cracked at Cavendish Laboratories in Cambridge UK (where also the atom was split) by Crick and Watson who got the Nobel prize. There is a Crick Institute in Cambridge.

The thing you have to understand is that almost all "English" have some "Welsh" in them. It might be quite a small amount, but it will increase dramatically as you go west, particularly into Devon & Cornwall and those borderlands of places like Herefordshire. Herefordshire has even been part of "Wales" at points in our history and, in fact, before the Anglo-Saxons, Norse/Danes and Scots arrived, we were all basically "Welsh". Equally, many Welsh will have a proportion of Anglo-Saxon or Norman or Scandinavian DNA, or a mix of them all. It's true people moved about less but migrations did happen on land and invasions happened all around our coast going back thousands of years, and that mixing all those years ago trickles down through the ages. The way we divide "English", "Welsh", "Scottish" and even "Irish" these days has little to do with us having unique DNA and more to do with the various conquests and political alignments over the centuries. DNA wise we basically all have the same DNA in us, it is just the mix that maybe differs - As British we will usually all have some mix of Welsh (or, more accurately, Brythonic), Scot (which is basically Irish, which is basically Brythonic also), Scandinavian, Norman (which is basically Scandinavian mixed with French) or Anglo-Saxon (which is basically Germanic mixed with Scandinavian) and it is only the amount of the mix which really defines us one way or the other. These DNA tests are very accurate, but they use algorithms to define exactly what the results mean and those algorithms are usually based upon our modern interpretations of nationhood, which is a bit misleading when talking about "ethnicity" in Britain and, to be honest, across much of Europe.

I have Viking in me to.

Northumberland is now part of England, Newcastle is now part of Northern Ireland, and Isle of Wight is now part of England

Hi from Northern Germany! My northern German mom has as much as 40 percent Scandinavian DNA, without any Scandinavian ancestors in 7 generations. So your Scandinavian DNA results will be part of your fathers northern German ancestry. The same for the Eastern European/russian DNA: Many Germans have more or less Eastern European DNA mixed in.

Really interesting! I would like to do this, and I'd like to do the same for Gordon and Kiki too! 💖 Do you think it's worth the money, especially as the results of 3 different companies suggest 3 very different percentage splits? 🙀

The odd thing is that your, Dara, DNA doesn't show any English ancestry despite the fact that your family tree clearly does. I think this is because the English aren't long-term natives of Britain (1500 years isn't a long time when you consider the whole scope of human existence). The English mainly originate from Northern Germany with Scandinavian mixed in. This may be an additional reason (other than your father) why your ancestry is so closely linked to Northern Germany.

Look more towards Norway

I took a My Heritage DNA test and I got English 53% Azores Islands Portugal 26.4 % Irish Scottish Welsh 8.9 % Scandinavian 7.6 % East European 4.1 %

People have always travelled around Britain.

I’ve always been interested in doing these test as I was adopted. Don’t think I want to know the results😂

Those Swedes invaded all the parts of Germany my parents are from LOL. My German went from 84% to 54%, but they bumped up my Baltics to 23% and of course those darn Swedes are in there too. 🤣 My husband (75% English) his ancestors migrated to Wales from the Midland (I think that's what it's called), so I was actually surprised how much Welsh he had at first. Then I found more Welsh through his one American great-grandmother (we're Canadian FYI). Also found 3 Mayflower ancestors through her. And of course he has a smidge of Sweden as well. His only Indian is Bengali, nothing from North America.

I used My Heritage. I knew I was English, Welsh and Scots and Irish. I am - 33.8% Scandinavian Norway/Denmark 32.2% Welsh, Scots and Irish 29.3% English 2.9% Italian 0.8% Iberian 0.8% Turkish area. I wish they had explained the English more, and given individual amounts of Welsh, Scots and Irish. The Italian might be Roman. My family are from North Wales, Shropshire and Liverpool. With some Scottish and Irish too.

He says that his ancestry is mostly English and later says about Anglo-Saxon but not all English ancestry is Anglo-Saxon!

The Cherokee Indian Princess is a common thing for Americans. Nearly all Americans appear to think they have Native American in their tree.

North Germany usually maps with very hight Scandinavian and/or English because of the Germanic migrations from Scandinavia and then the Anglo-Saxon migration to England. So your 20% Scandinavian is probably north German… and of course originally Scandinavian in origin 😉❤

Following loads of research, my ancestors family name is the same as Julie's maiden name from the Britgirls and can trace my ancestors back living within 10 miles of her ancestors, unfortunately some fat king destroyed the older records 😪

I have Aegean ancestry so it is a bit mixed, my ethnic map has a rainbow of colours that are spread from Turkey to Ireland. One of the family stories was that when my great grandmother was a young girl she had to run away from Turkish soldiers and had escaped by swimming a river. This seemed far fetched since she was born in the UK and the likelihood of her going to Ottoman controlled areas then returning to the UK could not be fitted in with her age and when she had children in the UK. Through Ancestry we got into contact with other branches of the family that had split off from mine before my great grandmother was born and they had a similar story. We surmise that the girl in question existed but was probably two generations earlier than my great grandmother. I think that some parts of the world are not supplying these companies with DNA so the full analysis is going to be skewed toward places were it is a common thing to do. As more information comes in and DNA from slow or low uptake areas is analysed percentages will change, this has happened to me and my ethnicity has switched from Italian towards the Aegean regions of the Mediterranean. This matches what I know about my ancestors, the Italian was a surprise when it first appeared as the names of some of my ancestors are clearly Greek not Italian.

I'm half Irish and half Border collie.

I think Dara's 5% Devon is just all the scones/cream tea's she has been eating on her visits. lol I have never done a DNA test, but I was told my last name is Viking. my fathers parents were from Manchester and my mother's mother was Jersey and my mother's father was from London. because of the Jersey line, there will be French/Breton in my family tree at some point.

I have a cousin, well, he’s the grandson of my grandmother’s brother, so whichever cousin you choose to call him, he is extensive into genealogy. Capable of more than me. Our Finnish great great grandmother was born in Norway. So, he says she was Norwegian. 🤦‍♀️. Not if both her parents were Finnish. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️. And apparently she never learned English. I don’t know when she came to America but my mom said she only spoke Finnish.

Most DNA testing companies only go back about 8 generations.

Are you certain that your Scandinavian dna is from the Viking era? Your father was from northern Germany which is very close to Denmark and Sweden and many people from Scandinavia have moved to the US in the last couple of hundred years. The Vikings that came to England mainly settled in the eastern counties, the Danelaw areas. I’m English and all my ancestors that I know of were English but was still intrigued to take a dna test. It’s turns out 100% of my ancestors have lived in England for the last 1000 years. 1000-500 years ago they all lived in Yorkshire, 500 years ago they headed south and got to the East Midlands which is where all my family are from. Prior to 1000 years ago I’m 83% English, 11% Scottish and 6% Norwegian (Viking). York was a Viking city so even though that was a surprise it does all add up. I did my dna test with Ancestry. I’ve always had an intense belonging to England, it’s very difficult to describe I feel this land is part of my blood and bones and now I know my ancestors have fought and died on this soil over the last millennium adds up, it’s my home and the land of my ancestors and where I belong. ❤

Those DNA percentage calculations are all highly misleading as they are statistical match with certain marker genes and how frequently they appear in the current populations of those countries. They don't really measure what proportion of you is ancestry from any given country. If it did, you wouldn't get such wild variations. Also, the way the calculations are made is highly proprietary, and specific to each company, and they have different, secret methods. I am very sceptical about what is going on and, dare I say it, these companies are interested in drumming up business and creating unwarranted levels of precision helps that. I might even suspect that it's a bit sexier to have fashionable ethnic groups, so they might tweak their algorithms to that effect. I think it's more accurate where there are wide variations. For example, somebody with one Chinese parent and another from Italy would show a much more accurate picture than somebody from a fairly mixed background in central Europe where there will have been a lot of mixing up of hundreds of generations.

You get a different mix of genes from your parents compared to your siblings. If not, you would be their identical twin.

49% welsh 45% english 4% sweden denmark 2% norway = 49% celt + 51% germanic = probably one of the first results of an englishman that had no scottish or irish in them! :)

my dad is welsh

I love this sort of genealogy. But my understanding is that many of the commercial tests have to be taken with a grain of salt. They are getting more accurate as more people do it but they are really comparing your DNA against populations of people with known ancestries. So for some regions of the world it can be reasonably accurate and for other's there's not enough people to who have done a test to compare. Having said that, we did a test almost 20 years ago as part of research thing done by National Geographic. They essentially said your DNA shares traits with various populations around the world given as a percentage. So for me they said most of it was north western Europe, Germanic tribes, which included the British isles and Scandinavia, with a smattering of Mediterranean and middle east. Which makes sense. Most of my mother's side of the fam is Irish. Dad's is northern England and French. Which tally's up with the DNA test. But that is specific as it got. Michelle's is more interesting. She had a small percentage that share traits with populations from Asia - specifically China and Japan. The majority though was similar to mine. Which again makes sense because her father's ancestry is similar to mine, but the big difference was Michelle's mum is Ukrainian. Much of that part of the world was conquered by the Mongol hordes back in the 1200s. In fact something like 8% of men, something to do with the Y chromosome, from areas of the former Mongol empire are descended from one man - thought to be Genghis Khan. We've been meaning to do an updated test, perhaps with the kids because they share our DNA, to see what we can come up with. We tell the kids they are descended from Vikings and Mongol warriors in the meantime. 😂 It is was interesting how far your family goes back in the Americas. 17th Century is as good as it gets. So you have a nice mix of new and old. Like you I was hoping for a bit of indigenous blood but the DNA test shot that old legend full of holes. My family has been here from shortly after the founding of the colony though. Yes, convicts. Mum's Irish ancestors got here a few years later. We have no idea where both dad and mum's ancestors came from before that other than a very non specific British Isles. But now my brother has rejoined the Germanic tribe and his kids are German. The family is circling back to its roots. 😂 Great stuff, I look forward to your chat with your brother.

Shouldn't full siblings have exactly the same ethnic mix?

I don't have much of an idea of my ancestry past my grandfather, most birth records from my origin country were destroyed during WWII. My grandfather died pretty young, in his 20s. When the Japanese invaded they rounded up all the young men in the town and executed them in a field. At least that's the story that's been passed down through the generations in my family.

Your DNA doesn't vary - the databases of other people's DNA they are comparing it against do. That's why a UK company, with a database of UK samples will find UK heritage.

Hey Dara, I did my Ancestry DNA Test 7 ago or so, My DNA results have changed a few times. Initially I was Irish, due to my mother, but that went away, and also Welsh, that went away. I am currently 49% England and Northwestern Europe. 33% Scottish, areas are East and Central Scottish Lowlands, Central Lowlands and Fife. 9% for both Sweden, Denmark & Norway. Also, if you want to enjoy some good German Food, you can stay in Texas, Places like New Braunfels for WurstFest, which is really intense, Boerne, Fritzburg, Gruene,Brenham, and Schulenber.

Looking at Ian's DNA map, I'm curious if Ian is familiar with that old midlands, working class, coal miner "lads/lass spirit" which is mostly made up of British/Commonwealth heritage people and the sense of loyalty, trust, authenticity, duty, responsibility and family vibe amongst the locals. Often those people would identify by their region rather than their ethnicity or other characteristics and love to banter about any differences but all know that they'd go out their way to look after each other instinctively because that common sense of 'lads/lasses spirit' that they all share.

The idea that people before modern times never travelled more than a few miles from their place of birth is misleading. This might have been true for the majority but some people travelled big distances to invade, trade, marry, other personal reasons or just out of curiosity for those with the means. Isotope analysis was done on remains near Stonehenge which showed the woman had spent time many miles away, north Wales I think. Hereford has been a border town for a long time. I used to live not that far from Hereford and it struck me how Welsh the inhabitants look. When coming across unexpected ethnic DNA something to take into account is that a significant minority of us have a different biological father to the person we call daddy. I find it amusing when people claim kinship to, usually famous or regal, people 10 or more generations back when the chances are there has been infidelity on at least one link.

My family myth is thanks to a company who in the 1970s and 80s? produced family shields. You sent them your surname they 'researched' it created a shield for you and a write up of where your family is from. My uncle had one made up and my father decided what was good enough for his brother was good enough for him so got one done too. The family history was that we were German from Brunswick in Bavaria and then had migrated down to the northern Balkans. Well according to my DNA test there's no German DNA at all, never mind Bavarian!

Giving nations ot DNA is odd to me. Celtic, Anglo Saxon and Scandinavian would be more logical. Some historians are disputing "Celtic" preferring 'Ancient Britons'. But there are Celtic languages.

Every American has heard that they are a least a small percentage Native American lol.

A lot of Welshmen would cross the border to visit English ladies through history

I think on Ancestry Scottish is over estimated. I doubt siblings could have such discrepancies. I also don't think the Scandinavian is due to Vikings but possibly due to that overlap i.e. England and Northwestern Europe. Whatever is causing it is not due to Vikings as that is too old. It is due to what populations they are using for their references and I think the England and Northwestern Europe is a very broad category so a lot of people aren't going to match that in really high percentages so it's going to give some people things like Ireland or Scandinavia when they might not actually have that ancestry to compensate for the different areas of England i.e. some more leaning to Anglo-Saxon, some more Insular Celtic etc.

First comment

I visit family in Somerset and they’ve told how for years, on Sundays, Welsh men would get the ferry to England, so they could go to the pub. At the end of the day’s fun, the ferry would take them home again, a little worse for wear. Quite a few romances would end in the man settling in Somerset to start a family. There’s lots of Welsh blood in South West England.

My father and my mother are from Guatemala and I have 15 % wales 30 % spain 10% jewish 40% indigenous América 5 % north África I'm really surprised about my dna . I dont think is true because all the family I know we are from Guatemala . But my ancestors were white and blue eyes.

It is strange DNA, I am mostly English, Irish and to my absolute surprise 4% Iberian Peninsula?

20% Welsh, a bit of an old dragon then 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🐲😂

I wonder if you send a used cigarette tip to the testers under another name…would they come back with the exact same results ?

Great editing!!! You must spend hours!!!

The reason your siblings' DNA percentages may vary is that you all got 50% from each parent but it wasn't necessarily the same 50 percent!

2% or 20%?

49% Welsh! Thats a strong amount. Plus a bit of Sweden, Denmark and Norway invaders thrown in. 51% German, great stuff! My grandma was German so I must have some percentage based there. Eating green food? Isn’t that something that you threaten children with? 😱 “Eat your greens!” Your mum is Kate Mulgrew? Germany is high on our list, maybe this year! Shame about the covid ruining your plans with your brothers. Hi Alan see you next week! Ah so you and your siblings all have a good deal of German in you. Shudder to think what I’ve been told that might not be true. Best not to look too deeply 😱

Bloodworth, about £100 for 600ml 😉

being WELSH is an act of god

Dara: you look *very* Welsh

It is from recombination at conception. You take 50% DNA from your mom and dad, but each sibling takes their own 50% which can vary. I have five siblings and we are are all different. Some of us have DNA the other did not get at all. I got Wales and Baltic but my sister did not get any....she got Basque and Norway and I got none of these....we just each took a different 50% when recombination happened...the rest of the sibling all have different amounts of both.

Wales in England?

I believe that one of our ancestors was called Adam 😉