I Used to be 1/4 Irish

But now Ancestry DNA says I'm more than half Irish -- including Scottish and Welsh -- and less than half "British" -- Britain, including large parts of France and Germany, and all of Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg. There is no other DNA heritage in my updated DNA scan.

Well. The initial DNA scan was 1/4 "Irish", 2/3 "British", and the rest an amalgam of "Iberian," "Eastern European," and "Scandinavian."

My father's paternal grandparents emigrated from Ireland in 1850 or so; his maternal grandparents emigrated from what had yet to become Germany a few years later. This we know from extensive records and tales told by firelight. We know where our immigrant ancestors came from and I've been able to trace their ancestors into the 18th century. They're not quite who/what I thought they were, but close enough.

On my mother's side, it's more complicated. Her father was killed when she was very young, and she knew almost nothing about him. I've been able to trace her mother's ancestors pretty well, though, and almost all of them are deep-rooted in America, some going back to the 1600s in New Jersey, and then further back into the deep mists of time in England. Yes, almost all her ancestors on her mother's side are English. There are some exceptions. There's the Indian Princess (well she might be, it's hard to say; some of her descendants vigorously dispute it) in the 1700s; there are one or two Irish or Scottish folks who married into the family in the 1800s. But apart from them, it's all English ancestry on my mother's mother's side all the way down.

On her father's side, from what I could find out, it's a good deal more ambiguous. Her father's mother superficially appears to have been of New England English stock, thoroughly English but long time in America, with no Scottish or Irish admixture. But I wonder... One of her great-grandmother's last name was Scott.

My mother's father's paternal ancestors though... I could not trace his ancestors back farther than 1798 when his paternal grandfather was born in Virginia. Frontier Virginia. His paternal grandmother was Irish. They moved to frontier Kentucky, then to frontier Indiana where they settled and some of their descendants still are. So according to an ancestry chart, my mother's father's father was half Irish, my mother's father would have been 1/4 Irish; my mother would have been 1/8th and a little bit (allowing for Irish and Scottish ancestors on her mother's side), and that contribution to my ancestry would have only slightly increased my "Irish" from 1/4 to maybe 27-30% -- if that, since the way DNA works, my mother's "Irish" contribution might not show up at all, and my father's could be less than 1/4.

So. How did I get to be more than 1/2 Irish all of a sudden? It should be impossible. I don't have enough Irish ancestors, nor am I aware of more than a few distant (possibly) Scottish ancestors. (Ancestry DNA lumps Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry into one glorious Celtish mass not three.)

I've been puzzling and puzzling this dilemma for months, and I just can't make it work. I even tried the proposition that my father wasn't my father, than one of his cousins was, a cousin who would have had 100% Irish ancestry. I even had a candidate in mind. Trouble was, I share abundant DNA markers with descendants of my father's sister and brother who have done the DNA tests. So many markers that we are from DNA evidence alone first and second cousins. If one of my father's cousins (the son of his aunt) were my biological father (possible though not probable) I would be more "Irish" but I would not be as closely related to my cousins as apparently I am. I would be third or fourth cousin rather than first and second. And if another (100% Irish-ancestry) man, not my father's cousin, had been my biological father, I would be half or more "Irish," but my cousins would not be related to me at all.

So it's still insoluble.

I tried to prepare this post a month ago for St. Patrick's Day, but I got caught up in research and other things and never finished it. The dilemma has spurred me to look ever closer at my mother's ancestry and at the people and places in Ireland that my ancestors must have known. The story I'm piecing together is pretty amazing. Not quite what I thought, but not that different either.

And in all my DNA results -- originally and updated -- there is no sign of German ancestry at all. The "British" in my DNA includes the western quarter of Germany which is where my German ancestors lived, but my cousins -- descendants of my father's sister and brother -- show definite specific German markers. I don't. It's a mystery...


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The church on the road in Ireland near where some of my Irish ancestors lived:

And here is the church in Galisteo, not far from where I live now:

Both were constructed c. 1810.

World Woman -- Ms. Ché Gets Her DNA Test Results

This is really something, as in "we had no idea."

Ms Ché and I have had our DNA tested through Ancestry.com. For years I think their DNA tests were considered borderline fraud since so often the results were at significant variance with documented family history or seemed wildly wrong for other reasons. Their answers to questions about the tests sometimes didn't provide useful information. And the tests were expensive.

Well, they seem to have refined their efforts quite a bit and they've been much better about providing information rather than deflecting, and so, when the price dropped somewhat, we went ahead with the test. 

Mine came back rather quickly, simple as it was -- comparatively speaking.

I'm mainly British (from my mother), Irish (from my father), and there is a smattering of Scandinavian, Eastern European and Iberian -- Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, etc.

Except for the missing German, it seemed OK. Ancestry DNA tends to explain the absence of German ancestry in my DNA with the claim that 1) my father's grandparents were not ethnic Germans at all (possibly); or the German is masked by and is found within the British and/or Scandinavian elements.

Could be.

Ms Ché's test results took longer.

But then, her ancestral DNA is a lot more complicated than mine. In fact, it spans the globe.

What she knew prior to the DNA test was that her father was from the Philippines and her mother was full-blood Cherokee (Yes, they exist!) from Oklahoma.

That seems straightforward enough, but turns out it's not straightforward at all.

From her parents, Ms. Ché inherited 37% Native American and 37% East Asian (which includes Filipino) DNA. But there's a complication: 16% of her DNA is Polynesian. Eh? How does that work? 6% is African. Oh? Interesting. Then there's Central Asian at 3%. And curiously, a trace percentage is Finnish/Northern Russian.

We're thinking the African DNA came through her mother. Some Cherokees had black slaves, and after Emancipation, many stayed among the Cherokee in Oklahoma. They are called Freedmen and are considered tribal members to this day. One of Ms Ché's ancestors was therefore probably a Freedman or descendant of one.

The Polynesian DNA probably came through her father. Filipinos and Polynesians are distinct, but they are ancestrally closely related. It's possible that Spanish or Anglo colonialists brought Polynesians from the Pacific Islands to work in pineapple or other plantations in the Philippines. But if her father knew of a Polynesian ancestor, he never said. On the other hand, it's possible that we're seeing a genetic echo of the ancestral relationship between Polynesians and Filipinos, something that has long been alluded to.

The Central Asian and Finnish/Russian components are relatively slight, but the fact that they are there at all is a head scratcher. Where did they come from? We don't know, and looking into it is a project for the future. Because the percentage is low, whoever contributed these elements probably did so a long time ago. How long ago, and with whom... is mysterious. It could have been anywhere along the line, on any branch.

Ms Ché saw it as possibly a genetic echo of the Asian and Far North origins of Native American peoples. That would be interesting if true. Central Asia has been identified as one of the loci from which ancestral Native Americans made their way into the Americas. They also went west into Europe. But there were other areas of the Asian continent from which Native American ancestors originated, including the Far North, home today to globe-spanning Inuit and related peoples. Could that be where the trace percent of Finnish/Northern Russian DNA comes from? Interesting if it were, but I'm not sure how we'd find out.

So that's what came through on the DNA tests we both took. They raise more questions than they answer to be truthful. I ask "where's the German?" in my ancestry -- for none is identified specifically or more generally in my DNA. In Ms. Ché's case we're asking how the minor and trace elements from so many different ethnic sources came to be found in her DNA.





DNA Results, COPD, RA, and Other Things, Oh My

Well, one of Ms Ché's cousins and her husband are coming to visit from Nevada tomorrow, and we're preparing to show them the sights. Some of them, anyway. They've been all around the world, but have never been to New Mexico, and they want a fix of "vibrant art." This is the place, right?

It's gonna be a whirlwind, as it's only two-three days, and we're planning adventures to Taos to see the Mabel Dodge Luhan house and take in the exhibit on her at the Harwood, then to the Fechin house where the Taos Art Museum is located, then out to the Pueblo. Next day, Santa Fe. The Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, the Georgia O'Keefe Museum, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, several galleries (we couldn't possibly do more than a few of them) and then out to eat at Harry's Roadhouse (a must-stop-in for all out of town visitors though if it is as crowded as it can get, we'll happily go out to La Plancha in El Dorado.)

Then finally the next day, if we can swing it, out to our place, and the Route 66 tour into Albuquerque and possibly beyond. We live near what I believe is the longest stretch of the Old Route 66 still in use -- at least it's the longest stretch of it in New Mexico -- and while it isn't particularly touristy, it's actually a nice drive, and  when the weather is good, the Mother Road is always a treat.

I'm wondering how much of this I can actually do, however. One of the problems associated with RA -- rheumatoid arthritis -- is fatigue. Fatigue is also a factor in recovery from pneumonia. I've tried to do some work outdoors, catching up a little bit on spring-time chores I wasn't able to do before, and I've found I become fatigued in only a few minutes. Twenty minutes is about the longest I can go at a stretch. Each of these days of adventure next week are going to be long... We'll see how much of it I can do...

Ms. Ché and I did the Ancestry.com DNA test. Until fairly recently, it was considered a borderline fraud, in part because DNA tests are not yet able to state with certainty the specific ancestry of testees. The results obtained give general possibilities at best. Because Ancestry really didn't clarify how non-specific the results were, they got a lot of complaints from people who did the test and got results that appeared to have nothing at all to do with their actual (documented) ancestry.

I got my results back. We're still waiting for Ms Ché's.

Mine were interesting, and I think they are fairly accurate, though they require interpretation to understand.

The surprise was that I show no German ancestry, nor do my cousins who have also taken the test.

It's taken me a while to fathom that because my paternal (their maternal) grandmother's parents emigrated from (what would become) Germany in the 1850s. There's no doubt about it. We know where they came from, we have documentary evidence, yadda yadda, but there is no German ancestry identifiable in our DNA. How can that be?

Well. Could be they weren't ethnic Germans. That's the easiest explanation. It's one that fits some of the stories I've heard that suggest they were descendants of Jewish conversos. Of course, wouldn't you know, my DNA shows no "European Jewish" ancestry, either.

It does show what I take to be an overabundance of British ancestry (67%). That's much higher than I figure it should be because I only inherited British ancestry from my mother (who was essentially of British ancestry all the way down, though her people had come to America starting soon after the Mayflower -- and there are hints that she had at least one ancestor on the Mayflower itself.)

My father, on the other hand, was half Irish and half German. Well, that's what he thought. So I should be a quarter Irish, a quarter German, and half British.

The test showed my DNA was 25% Irish, no German, 67% British, 7% Eastern European, and less than one percent each Scandinavian and Iberian.

Oh. What happened to the German?

It turns out Ancestry DNA doesn't even have a German category. The closest thing it has is "Central European," and if you dig around enough in their articles about the test, they state that the test cannot distinguish between British, German, and Scandinavian ancestry with any certainty. A test report may come back, as mine did, with an overabundance of British DNA, but no Central European ancestry. The "missing German" ancestry may well be folded in with the extra-British DNA. In fact, that's probably where it is.

My cousins, on the other hand, show an excess of Scandinavian ancestry in their DNA, and once again, that may be where the "missing German" is.

The 7% Eastern European ancestry indicated in my DNA is likely from my German great grandparents, and it may be a hint of their Jewish ancestry, but I don't know. As there are no specifically Jewish markers, I'll have to let that rumor rest for a while. There are records in Germany, so maybe one day I'll probe them more deeply and find out, but for now I'll let that ride.

The tiny bit of Scandinavian ancestry indicated in my DNA is probably from my Irish-German father. His Irish ancestors claimed to be "Irish" -- ie: Celts -- but that's likely a crock, as practically everyone in Ireland has some Scandinavian ancestry from the Viking and Norman invasions. Particularly so for red-heads like me whose red-head is a variation on blond, as opposed to the red-heads who may be Celt whose red-headedness is a variation on black hair.

The tiny bit of "Iberian" -- which could be Spanish, Portuguese, French or Italian -- ancestry I attribute to my mother's father. His last name (Olive) is possibly French, possibly Scottish. Could be both given the way the French and the Scots were intertwined at one time (ie: during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots and before).

My mother's father's mother was from Colonial New England stock -- going back as far as I could trace in America and then in England as far back as I wanted to go. My mother's father's father's line stubbed out in Virginia with my mother's father's grandfather who was born c. 1798. That's all I could find out. There was no record before that.

My suspicion is that the original Olive immigrants came from Scotland or Northern Ireland at about that time, settled in Western Virginia, then moved to Kentucky, then, finally to Indiana as the Indians were expelled and the West opened to settlement.

My mother's mother's people were British from the dawn of time.

I had thought my mother was at least partially Irish -- she seemed to think so herself, but she didn't really know, because she didn't know much of anything about her biological father. Then years ago, I saw a film version of D. H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers," and I was stunned that one of the very British characters was the spitting image of my mother, both visually and more importantly behaviorally. Wait I thought, was my mother actually British?

Indeed, that's what I found -- at least on her mother's side as well as on her father's mother's side, and probably significantly on her father's father's side too.

Huh. Who'd a thunk? What still intrigues me is that I recognized my mother's character in a movie of a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence, based in part on his own experience and family. Well, how about that?

Oh yes, COPD. Part of the treatment I'm undergoing is for COPD, which I never really thought I had, but apparently I do, thanks to repeated bouts of pneumonia and scarring from emphysema which is a result of smoking. I stopped smoking twenty years ago, and I thought I was doing pretty good at healing my lungs from the Devil Tobacco, but apparently several things have conspired to set me back. One of them is rheumatoid arthritis. Turns out that lung inflammation (like joint inflammation) is a consequence of RA, and lung inflammation can and does make RA patients susceptible to pneumonia.

Ay!

My doctor told me that the prednisone I take for RA symptoms is an immunosuppressant which may be exacerbating my tendency to get pneumonia, but others say that prednisone actually suppresses the inflammation which makes it less likely that I will get pneumonia. So. Who knows?

We'll see what the rheumatologist has to say about that...

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UPDATE: Ms Ché just got her DNA results back, and it is astonishing, practically a book in the making. No time to go into details, but the upshot is that her DNA spans the globe. Literally,