Origins; Where Are We From?

When I was growing up in London, UK, with a mother from the south coast, and a father from the north west, I felt my identity exactly London-ish; neither northern, nor southern. I thought that all the northern-ness in my family was on my father's side, but once I started studying our family history I discovered that my maternal great grandfather was actually from Manchester. His father, although living most of his life in the north west, was actually from Sheffield, and his father before him was born in London!  Whoever said that people back in the day didn't move around so much?! 

There was still a definite southern-ness to my DNA, with another part of my maternal line living for many generations in the same street (mostly in the same house) in Brighton, or Brighthelmston, as it was known back then.

I'm yet to find out more about my Irish roots, but I'm fairly certain that comes from my paternal grandmother's branch. And I've absolutely no idea where Wales comes from in my DNA map! That should be interesting to discover!

I knew that there were some Scottish roots in my family via my mother's branch, but I did not realise that the Scottish genes were on both sides of my maternal grandfather's parents. Both of these branches need further research.

My Ancestry DNA shows an inheritance from the Baltics and Sweden/Denmark. These links are most likely related to the viking blood we have pulsing through our veins,  which most likely come from my father's side. My father has a funny little thing going on with his little finger, which doesn't straighten properly. When he visited the doctor to have this looked at the doctor said, 'Ah! You must be a Viking then!' This condition, known as Dupuytren's Contracture is often  referred to as 'Viking's Disease' and is considered a genetic trait of Nordic people. The Viking connection also comes via my maternal line through our very distant connection to Rollo; the viking Count of Rouen, and first ruler of Normandy. (More to come on this branch of the family in future blog posts!)

In previous DNA maps, from Ancestry I've had Newfoundland marked out. I've always found this peculiar, but had assumed this was due to members of the (paternal) Irish part of my family having emigrated to Newfoundland at some point in time. I'm sad to see that it's been removed from my DNA map, and plan to figure out a link to Newfoundland at some point.

My husband's side of the family is a delightful mix of English, Scottish, and Welsh, with a twist of Germanic, according to Ancestry DNA. Its interesting that there is no Irish detailed in his report, as we know from research that there is some connections to Northern Ireland, via his maternal line. It's possible that they were originally from Scotland, and were not in Ireland for many generations, before moving on to England. 

The Germanic bit is curious; I've not uncovered anything relating to Germany or that part of Europe as yet. This could be very far back in his family though. An article from The Guardian, back in 2015 reported that a genetic study found that 30% of white British citizens had Germanic DNA. 

"The analysis shows that the Anglo-Saxons were the only conquering force, around 400-500 AD, to substantially alter the country’s genetic makeup, with most white British people now owing almost 30% of their DNA to the ancestors of modern-day Germans."

So, I guess both my viking DNA, and his germanic DNA simply proves that we are just really British!