I am European. Not like that is a big surprise to me. My very pale, very sun unfriendly skin has reminded me of that every summer for as long as I can remember. The tanning gene skipped me completely, even though my mother can tan and quickly.
I sent off my DNA kit just shortly after Christmas to see what details I may not know about how European I really am. From the results did hold a surprise. Seventy-five percent of my ethnicity estimate was as I thought it would be. From the chart I see 30% Great Britain and 11% Europe East. These people I know very well although I would have guessed the Europe East would have been greater with all of the German ancestors that I have. Two of my great grands were of German ancestry, the West and Siffrin branches. My Belgian ancestors, Defruytier and Van Houtte, also fall in the Europe East classification, although also display under Great Britain.
For Great Britain I have the Oakley and Davis branches. The third section, placing last in the top four is my Irish ethnicity. Of the great grands represented by the Collins branch. One generation further into the great great grands more of the Irish branches are visible, Taylor, Collins, McKim and Donegan.
If you had asked me just days ago, I would have told you that I was, German, English, Belgian and Irish. What I found out was that I am 27% Scandinavian. Primary locations for Scandinavia are Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The secondary locations include Great Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium Finland and the Baltic States. Although the secondary locations cover many of the areas that I know my ancestors lived, it more surprised me that Scandinavian would be my second highest marker.
I am relatively sure of my ancestors 6 generations back, at the 7th and 8th generation I start losing detail on some branches although others blaze on back into the 1600s. So far from the results I don’t have any cousin matches. I think the things that surprised me most about that is my Stewart/Stuart branch that supposedly goes back to Ireland and Scotland. I would have thought that someone from that line would have already had DNA completed and cousin matches would have shown up. Also, my Burgess line is another that I thought would have shown matches, as wide spread as that family is and as far back as it is claimed to have been documented.
I t will be interesting to see what happens as more DNA results are gathered and my results become updated what the findings will turn out to be.