Genealogy has come on leaps and bounds over the last few years, gone are the days of not knowing your roots.
An internet search, a monthly subscription, maybe a visit to the records office and you have all the information you need at your fingertips.
Gone are the days, that you pay big bucks for some stranger to research your ancestry.
The internet is powerful and truly amazing, we’ve got the worlds knowledge just a click away.
Document after document to scroll through and still we need to know more.

DNA testing seems to be the next best thing, to discovering where we really come from, and yes we took the bull by the horns and spat in a bottle, all in the name of science.

A few weeks later, the results are in and we finally have the scientific answer to where we really come from.
How to use that information next, kinda baffles me, but it’s truly nice to know our genetic makeup and that with a click of a mouse, or a finger-tap on your pad or phone, an email to a stranger who somehow through history, our DNA matches, and we’ve have found a distant relative, an extra name to put on the withering Christmas card list.
Kinda great isn’t it, scary almost, but boy it’s pretty damn awesome.
But if you have skeletons in your closet, just be a little careful, I’ve read a few heartbreaking horror stories.

There are a good few companies that offer dna testing, just to name a few
Ancestry – http://www.ancestry.co.uk
Family Tree Dna – https://www.familytreedna.com/
My Heritage – https://www.myheritage.com/dna

We’ve used two of these companies, Family Tree DNA (FTD) for my sons test and ancestry for my mums test.
Ancestry seems to make the results easier to understand, the down side being, you need to have a tree uploaded with them to help with your matches.
FTD lets you log your dna results from other companies which helps to discover more matches and they also send you certificates and maps which ancestry doesn’t.
I haven’t really used any of the matching services yet, so I can’t really comment on how good they are. I guess though it only works if the other party emails you back, which could be frustrating if they don’t.

Let’s take a look at our results –
We had our oldest sons DNA taken in 2007 with FTD. We tested his Y-DNA and his MT-DNA taken. His MT – DNA came back with a result of Hapogroup H. Hapogroup H nearly completely restricted to India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. His Y-DNA came back as being Hapogroup I, we had this tested on a deeper level and his results came back as being I1C which means his paternal line likely comes from Northern France, I1C is found most frequently within Viking / Scandinavian populations in north west Europe and extends at low frequencies into central and eastern Europe.

My mum’s dna was taken with Ancestry, as this is the main platform I use for research.
Her results were waiting patiently for me to view on Christmas morning and I was more than surprised at the results but it’s was the best Christmas gift a history geek like me could dream of. 🤓

We have always known that we have Irish roots and I’ve always been proud of my Irish heritage, I was a little surprised at how low the Irish percentage was, at least it’s there and the second highest percentage.
As you can see from the image below that mum’s DNA is mainly from Great Britain with a whooping 41%, followed by 25% coming from Ireland, Scotland and Wales. I have yet to discover the any link to Wales.
Next comes Scandinavia with 17%, followed closely at 10% Europe West, the last 5% is European Jewish, which is pretty humbling.
I’m itching to have mine taken now, hopefully with a big birthday coming up, someone may treat me, they are not the cheapest and the postal cost are pretty steep. Fingers crossed when the big 40 happens I will have a little box containing a test tube that I have to fill with an extreme amount of spit.