Mother England

I woke early the morning of September 27th. I made a quick check to my phone and saw a notification that I had received an email from ancestry.com. The tag line read "Your DNA Results are Ready!" How could this be? Just one week prior I received confirmation that my saliva sample had just begun the analysis process and I was given a 2-4 week window until I received my results.

Part of me was happy to have the results so quickly, but part of me was apprehensive. What exactly, if anything, was I going to learn about myself today?

Most people, including myself, always assumed I was some combination of English and Irish, with possibly some German thrown in for good measure, in part because of my height, my fair skin, as well as my wavy, reddish hair. My late mother-in-law, Johanna, always said that I looked more Dutch than she did, due to some Spanish/Basque genes she claimed came from one distant branch of her family tree, giving her an unusually dark skintone for a Dutch woman.

There was no falling back asleep now so I clicked open the email and began reading. You are given two breakdowns of your DNA results from ancestryDNA. The first is your Ethnicity Estimate. This is your genotype as it is traced back thousands of years. The second is your Genetic Communities, tracing back ancestry and the location of family in the more recent past, say 2-300 hundred years.

Well, according to my Ethnicity Estimate, I am nearly 50% British (47% to be precise) and 18% Irish. Not a shocking revelation, but oddly comforting and reassuring. It explains, almost affirms, my nearly life-long Anglophilia, my absolute love of all things English. The Great Britain ancestry does encompass Scotland and Wales, as well.

I've always been obsessed with virtually everything and anything pertaining to British history and culture. From the monarchy and their glorious castles, the dark, brooding moors of the Brontes, the social commentary of Jane Austen novels, England's ancestral music, folklore and legends, British rock, Shakespeare, high tea, Queen Victoria, the absurd humor of Monty Python, any British drama or mini-series I could watch on PBS - yes, that includes Downton Abbey. Harry Potter, James Bond, any movie Colin Firth has been in, Agatha Christie mysteries, Kate Bush, Sting, British accents in general, the Sex Pistols, Judy Dench and Helen Mirren - the list is endless.

There are a few other ethnicities thrown in there for good measure. Europe West - which could include France, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Scandinavia - Norway, Sweden, etc., Iberian Peninsula - Spain and Portugal, and Europe East - a longer list that includes Hungary, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Russia and more Slavic countries.

Your genotype is derived from autosomal DNA. My saliva, like everyone's, contains DNA from both the maternal side of my family, as well as the paternal. This relatively recent ability to test for both gives people a much broader and more reliable DNA analysis.

I recall that years ago I tried one of the early DNA home tests from National Geographic. It only had the ability to test mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), tracing just the maternal side of my DNA profile. For a man, it could only test his paternal lineage. It gave results in Haplogroups, very broad, large genetic "communities," using Africa - the literal "Cradle of Mankind" as everyone's starting point, or homebase, and then tracking the migration of your DNA ancestors across the globe. My earliest ancestors traveled north into Eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland?) taking a hard left turn and ending up in Great Britain. Not as different as my current results would indicate. The only way I could have gotten a more targeted result would be if I had a male blood relative that could have taken the test as well.

The next set of information is the Genetic Communities. This is a more targeted assessment of "AncestryDNA members who are connected through DNA most likely because they descend from a population of common ancestors, even if they no longer live in the area where those ancestors once lived." I am associated with three genetic communities and they cover territory from Texas, through the Gulf Coast and up into the Midwest, my birthplace being located squarely in the center.

These can be traced back even farther to the countries that are listed in my Ethnicity Estimate. It will literally takes weeks to sift through it, step by step, such an incredible amount of information is presented. There is a wonderful resource on the website called Ancestry Academy with a long list of videos on how to trace geneaology, advice on building a family tree and so much more.

Then came the real shock to me. There are over 2,400 people in their database that I share DNA with, several as close as second cousins. This was amazing to me, and for whatever reason, I did not expect that to be the case. Maybe I just wouldn't allow myself to dare hope for any connections. I mulled over the implications of that for about a day and then tentatively began contacting a few people, sharing some limited info about myself to see if I'd get a response. Several people now have responded, a few to say they had no family in MS and had no info to share, or others who shared their family trees and wrote lengthy emails sharing as much relevant information as they could, which was incredibly heartwarming.

These results, overall, were very comforting and reassuring, a good feeling. What comes from my communication with other, distant relatives, remains to be seen. Some may question my story, some may have heard rumors of my birth and adoption but have no reliable information to share, others may know and choose not to involve themselves. All are perfectly fine, my primary objective has been achieved - gaining a better understanding of my genetic makeup and cultural identity. Something which I can now share with my sons, as well, to give them a more complete picture of their ancestry and cultural identity.

Should you be interested in purchasing a DNA kit from ancestry.com for yourself,

I highly recommend becoming a member of Ebates. It's completely free and literally pays you to shop with the vast majority of online retailers. All you have to do is install a button for your toolbar. Because I used Ebates, I was able to get $5.93 back simply for pressing my Ebates button before making my purchase at ancestry.com.

The regular retail value of the ancestryDNA test is $99. I found a promotional price of $79 and now deducting my Ebates rebate, I paid just over $72. You can sign up for Ebates here ebates.com/r/ADRIEN5285

I will continue to sift through the vast amount of information that I have received over the past few days. It's a lot to absorb, but I am glad I made the decision to do the test. In the next few months I plan to take at least one additional DNA test with different companies to see how closely the results compare.

Will report back soon.

This post contains affiliate links which if clicked could provide me with a small commission.

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