First let me say this was an awesome experience. However, now I also know what it's like to be lied to my entire life. Seriously, this test tells the truth and I was very surprised.
From year's of asking and being told for most of my life I was Native American, German, Dutch, and Irish I then figured out through research and other members of my family researching that my Grandfather was German and Pennsylvania Dutch (so....German and German). They always said Irish but had no idea from where. I was supposed to have Native American on both sides of my family and several different tribes, at that.
Then I researched my last name, my mother's maiden name, and her mother's maiden name. My real last name which I'm not going to put on here is English, my mother's maiden name is German, and her mother's maiden name is so incredibly English. I then found from my aunt's research that we were descendants of the McCoy's so I then knew we were probably also Scottish.
So with no delay.....here are my results :
Some of these were of no surprise : Great Britain, Ireland, Europe West, European Jewish.
Some made sense considering how I look or traditions of my family: Iberian Peninsula, Italy/Greece, and Scandinavia.
Some were absolutely shocking: Finland/Northwest Russia and Asia South....what the...Asia South???
Some of these are really general locations so I'm going to break the regions down.
- Asia South: India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma)
- Great Britain: Ireland, France, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Italy
- Ireland: Ireland, Wales, Scotland (can also be found in France and England)
- Scandinavia: Sweden, Norway, Denmark (also found in Great Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Baltic States, Finland)
- Iberian Peninsula: Spain, Portugal (also found in France, Morocco, Algeria, and Italy)
- Europe West: Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein (also found in England, Denmark, Italy, Slovenia, Czech Republic)
- European Jewish: Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Hungary, Israel (also found in Germany, France, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania, Bosnia, Serbia, and Estonia)
- Italy/Greece: Italy, Greece (also found in France, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Serbia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, Croatia, Bosnia, Romania, Turkey, Slovenia, Algeria, Tunisia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo)
- Finland/Northwest Russia: Finland, Russia (NW) (also found in Estonia, Latvia, Sweden, and Lithuania)
I also learned that when you run your DNA through Ancestry any other relatives you have that have also done this will suddenly become linked to you. I found my aunt's (my dad's older sister).
She matched me on the following locations: Great Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Iberian Peninsula, Europe West, European Jewish, and Italy/Greece. In addition she had the Middle East on her's.
It's important to remember that DNA is random. So the only people that should the same DNA would be Identical twins. You and your sibling could have similar DNA but one of you have more of one ethnicity than another and this is why you don't all looks exactly the same. The amount of DNA you inherit from different ethnicities affects your appearance.
