My father’s cousin found a half-brother. Her biological father was RCMP and transferred from British Columbia to Ontario after he found out his Native American girlfriend was pregnant. The father later moved to the US and had a family near D.C.
This was all news to our side of the family, hidden for years. She was raised by her aunt (biological mother’s sister) and uncle as one of their own. When the half-brother retired he made a trip to B.C. to meet up.
Genetics doesn’t work exactly like this. Could be a half, or more, or none. There is an element of randomness depending on the genes included at conception. My kids each have a different percentage of NA, for example: 5.1%, 8.7%, 4.6% (I am waiting on the others). In the category of combined NA and East Asian, they have 5.4%, 11.1%, and 6.1%, so the first kid has less than half as much as the second kid in that list.
On the Scandanavian, the range is 2.7%, 1.3%, and 0.3% (the first one has nine times as much Scandanavian as the last one). Funny. I have 2.2%.
They are a seafaring people. They don’t have to immigrate to have the gna show up in far away lands.
@intparent, “who knows what was really going on”? Ha, ha!! I think that’s what I’m afraid of. I’m not sure how I would react to unsuspected, inconvenient truths!
See, I’m an information gatherer. (So is D2) There is literally no such thing as too much information for both of us. I might have to trot down to Target and pay cash…
Regarding the Viking blood of my dad’s, we figured he got it when the Vikings raped and pillaged in England from 793 AD to 1066 AD. But that makes it pretty darned diluted for us.
Information gatherer: if you really want to get lost in the weeds, you can upload the 23andme data to free sites like genetic genie, healthcoach7, etc. for a look at the wide variety of polymorphisms. Everyone’s got something.
Not personal but did anyone read the Washington Post article on the woman who thought she was Irish and took a DNA test to have it come back 1/2 Askenazi Jewish? It was quite a mystery for her to track down what happened. She was open to the possibility that she or one of her parents was adopted. Or that her mom had an affair. Or that her grandparents had lied about their ancestory. Nope. There was a baby switch involving her dad!
As to how it happened, there’s this: an astonishing picture, taken at a Manhattan medical institution in 1913 It shows at least a dozen newborns piled on a cart like so many cabbages.
“Every time I show it, when I give lectures, the whole audience gasps,” says author Judith Walzer Leavitt, a childbirth historian and a retired professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “You can understand how possible it was to switch babies inadvertently.”
Lol. Just saw someone else posted. Really incredible story. Everyone should read.
@BunsenBurner thanks for the 23andme link to their FAQ. My S took the test and now wants me and H to take it. The kits just arrived. I have reservations about someone having my DNA but my S really wants to confirm some of his heritage as it shows some Ashkenazi Jew and African mix which neither my H or I are. He did some research and it showed that it is traced to my side but wants confirmation thus the reason we have the kits
On Finding Your Roots this week Bryant Gumble found out he is 7% Ashkenazi Jew which they traced back to his 7th Great Grandfather (iirc) He was floored to say the least. They found the village in Germany and his ancestors birth records.
@atmom, I’m also 100% Polish/German… but I’ve always, since early childhood, had a huge affinity for Jewish culture… I thought about doing one of these tests to see if that affinity is in fact “in my blood” or just in my heart/mind.
My son-in-law, who came to the US from Russia as child, found out that he was 10% Sami. The Sami are from Lapland and adjacent areas in Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. He bought a tee-shirt with the Sami flag on it.
My test pretty much confirmed what I already knew. I’m Eastern European from the Balkans. No surprise–my parents immigrated to the US from Croatia.
Slightly off-topic but has anyone worked with a geneologist to find out about ancesters who are from other countries? If so, how did you find this person? My cousin has been doing research on Ancestry and seems to have reached a dead-end.
Did the test with one daughter. Wife is the English, Irish, Scottish mix. Had the Finnish gene show up. She asked how that could happen. I said your relatives had some Viking visitors. Also, can’t assume every relative in our family tree is the product of two loving parents or isn’t the product of an illicit affair.
Daughter also had some North Africa genes. I told my wife the Moors were in Spain for 700 years so that is probably the explanation there.
The native American gene doesn’t limit a person to just US native American.
Big surprise for us. My wife is half Korean. No Korean specific gene but did have Japanese gene. Grandma couldn’t understand that.
Finding that my genetic results came back with an astounding high percentage of traits of an Eastern European peoples was surprising to me, but only for the particular nation/region. For my entire life the question of ‘…but what ELSE are you?’ has always seemed so interesting to so many. I embrace them all when they say I must be of their people.
My youngest son has really embraced the Eastern European genetic finding, so much so that he has studied the habits of the youth there, and imitated some of the more peculiar behaviors. He looks for signs of this genetic trait in his photographs now, sometimes finding that classmates who know nothing of all this, tell him he reminds them of someone from…
Truthfully, of all of my kids, he is the only one for whom I have had to “account,” as it were, to others. He does present the blend of my newfound genetic composition and his Dad’s racial group, with just about nothing at first or second glance lending one to think ‘Black’.
@dadoftwingirls - What are now Japan and Korea have been swapping genetic material since their human populations arrived in those regions, so having a gene that is common in the other population shouldn’t be a surprise at all.
And for scandinavian genes turning up in Britain, remember that there weren’t only random Viking raiders. A whole bunch of them settled in and stayed forever in the counties referred to as the Danelaw.
I have a friend who did the test and it turned out she had about 200 people listed as second or third cousins. It traced back to an old time OBGYN who apparently used his own sperm to help impregnate the infertile!
My family has a rumor that in the mid-1800’s, we were a wealthy family in what is now Ukraine. The family patriarch had multiple daughters, but no sons. The story is that there was a Scandinavian traveling salesman who passed through that the patriarch took a liking to and he offered to let him marry one of the daughters IF he converted to Judaism and adopted his last name. The guy supposedly agreed. I have always been teased about not looking Jewish and about my little nose. I was surprised, but not too much so, when I wound up having 4% Scandinavian background. I figure that through the generations, it would have been diluted. The rest of my background is 94% Ashkenazi Jewish and 2% something I forget now.
My H is like the guy in the commercial who switches from lederhosen to kilts. His maternal grandparents were an Irishman and a German woman, from a port city. He turned out to be 67% Irish, only about 10% German, with a health dollop of Finnish (lol), Danish and even some Spanish, which I attribute to the Armada back in 1588 - many Spanish sailors survived the sinkings and may have assimilated into the local Irish families.
My oldest son looks like a Viking from that TV show, with the strawberry blonde hair and the blue blue eyes. My 5kids all look so different so I bet they have different genetic loads. I am thinking at some point of getting them test kits to see.
@techmom99, there was quite a bit of travel/ trade between Russia/Ukraine etc., especially with Finland. I know I have ancestors (we are also Jewish) who, n the late 1800’s, were in the lumber/forestry business and went to Finland for work. In my written family history there is a whole section on the lumber ones - who, when they I’m immigrated here ended up in Bangor Maine, because of their lumber business background.
I had lunch with a friend since I last commented on this thread, and she did this a few weeks back. She knew she was adopted, but a cousin contacted her, told her her mother got pregnant as a freshmen in college by a professor. Her mother is now a well known designer, married with four children. No one in that family knew she put a child up for adoption. The cousin wants my friend to travel across five states to meet the family. But when she asked how her birth mother felt about it, the communication ceased. She’s understandably upset.
It’s interesting that the two people I know who did this had disturbing results. Even before this, the commercials on TV bothered me for some reason I couldn’t identify.
I did it and mine came up with exactly what I expected. No surprises, no small percentages of something interesting. I was rather disappointed. My husband is first generation Italian-American so no doubts about where his family came from but his results were surprising. He had about 25% Jewish, plus a smattering of other unexpected backgrounds. There are family stories of Jewish ancestors in his past so he wasn’t completely surprised but the percentage was higher than he expected.
Found a second cousin— the son of my Grandmother’s sister.
I don’t understand how these systems use the results. Is your DNA automatically registered or matched so that others can contact you? Is there an opt out for this?
Maybe I’m overly sensitive, but I would feel a bit of a voyeur if I discovered “secrets” that those involved had intended to keep private - even if the parties are long dead. Not that I would be judging, but it seems respectful to me to honor the intentions of the deceased.
I don’t want to offend anyone with that thought and, obviously, adoptees, those looking for health info, as well as just those good natured, good intentioned folks looking for family roots have different perspectives on the question. Just a thought I wanted to pose.