Issues. A different test won't change your ethnicity.

Not a huge amount of Irish or scotch which is what I was led to believe on my dad’s side. And I thought my mom was almost 100% polish. There were significant Polish ancestors but not a dominate amount.

my mum was English, but my DNA showed 95% Nordic

knew how to kick ass?

I know the Vikings had a presence but not THAT much

My moms side came over from Normandy to England for the Battle of Hastings party.

...it would be fun.

These "tests" are really not about ethnicity as they are about the compilation of data for research purposes, pharmaceutical generally.

Last edited Wed Sep 25, 2024, 03:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Just a warning on 23 and me. They are going through hard times now.

I did like aspects of both and think it was worth it. The 23 and me does have more health related aspects. So that’s a big plus on their part. Which is nice. And they confirmed each other.

But with Ancestry being able to place people and their stories in my family tree was fun. I’m thinking about re-subscribing to ancestry to work on it some more. Seeing the pictures of the actual towns they came from is neat. 3/4’s of my tree come from the southern tip of Sweden which explains a hint of Norwegian and my grandfather came from just northwest of Stockholm explaining a smaller hint of Finnish blood.

Edit: Ancestry can easily lead you astray. Don’t blindly copy someone else’s tree. Luckily I found that out early. Just at my grandparents level. It showed he had 12 siblings. I knew that was wrong. His name was Americanized when he came over. They listed his American name and his Swedish name as separate people. Birth certificates, census records, and church records are your friend.

People used to come into the library all the time to do genealogy research. One that stands out in my mind is an old photo of one woman's family. They were dressed in their traditional clothing and standing in front of the ship that brought them to the New World. The picture was a delight. The woman knew a lot about her family here, but not about what drove them to leave Europe.

The new tools like 23 and ancestry must make it so much easier to do the research.

It gives you hints that may not be true. Other trees that were wrong was the biggest problem. Name suggestions that weren’t quite correct next problem. Trying to read old hand written records next.

For my adventure I had to write a list of common Swedish words that are common on church records. Sweden has some decent church records. But with name changes each generation it can get complicated. Example Hansson for the son of Han’s. While Hansdotter for his daughter. Then there seemed to be a lot of arranged marriages between different provinces. Doing it was fun though. Ended up with about 2,500 ancestors and their families. I didn’t go into the branches back down the tree except for cousins.

A few instances of people reaching out. My great grand uncle’s grandson reached out. My grand uncle was the ninth kid so they named him nine in Swedish.