I check my e-mails every morning. Today was no different. AncestryDNA notified me of an update in my ethnicity estimates. What now? Twice before, I’d been updated since receiving my results initially in December, 2013. Those had included relatively minor changes. Nothing earthshaking. So…
Opening my ethnicity estimate, I encountered a rectangle with the news of the updated material. After clicking three times on the arrow at the bottom, I beheld the changes…What??
What, indeed. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the screen. Instead of minor tweaks, I was staring at major shifts in ethnicity. My first words were barely audible. “Oh my gosh, I’m 79% Scottish!!
Rewind. I was the survivor of ethnic trauma. As an adoptee, it comes with the territory. First, I was told my birth father was Native American, and my birth mother was of German, Irish, Scottish and English descent. My children had even filled out their school information forms to reflect the Native American. The first ethnic tsunami occurred when my first DNA results arrived.
46% Ireland, 33% Great Britain, 12% Scandinavia, 3% Iberian Pennsula and 1% Finland and NW Russia. There they were for me to view. Dazed and confused, I wondered, how could this be?
Forty eight hours later, I made a decision that would alter my future. Now that I ‘was Irish’, the search for my father was on. No turning back.
Back to the present. My new results – 79% Scotland, 13% England and NW Europe, 6% Ireland and 2% Germanic Europe. There you have it.
Good news. Changes reflect the addition of thousands of results entered into their database, qualified by familial lines having centuries of static geographical locale. Another benefit is the addition of more specific regions as the database grows as well as removal of regions no longer relevant.
The bottom line? This new round of estimates more closely mirror the information on my family tree. And besides, I now realize the kilt purchased was one of the best investments ever made!