New Ross DNA cousin connections

Experiencing genealogy excitement is a feeling that only other genealogists can appreciate. I've recently had some of more of those feels, when I heard back from a woman I had messaged on Ancestry.

I had discovered a previously unknown 2nd great uncle, Thomas William Ross (b abt 1814 in Scotland), mentioned here, who had gone to St Vincent in the Caribbean in the 1800s. On Ancestry, I found two other trees that mention him. I contacted both tree owners, and heard back from one of them. My newest DNA cousin tells me that it is her family's belief that Thomas fathered a child while in St Vincent, and that he is her 3rd great grandfather. DNA testing that shows that in addition to African DNA, she also has British and Irish DNA.

Off I went to start research of St Vincent records, only to quickly screech to a halt. Genealogy research of St Vincent records is very challenging. Much hasn't been digitized, and there is also the reality that record keeping was less than complete there in the 19th century.

My newest DNA cousin thinks that Thomas returned to Scotland in the 1860s, but I can't find any trace of him in Scotland's People, or looking in the UK's BMD census records. So far. It may take time, but I'm very hopeful that I'll eventually find out whatever happened to great great uncle Thomas.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to finding out more about his likely descendants, that sprang from the child he is believed to have fathered in St Vincent. While I'll work on establishing some contact with the St Vincent Archives, I hope to get more information from my latest DNA cousin and will try not to ask too many questions all at once in my excitement.

If you're a descendant of my ancestor great uncle, please contact me, using the email link to the right on this page.

The never ending story continues....



© Margaret Dougherty 2016-2018 All rights reserved

Next generation family DNA ethnicity discoveries

I was able to persuade my four adult nieces and nephews (there are no more, so I'm not sure why I stress that they're adults...) to agree to DNA testing. Okay, I paid for their testing when AncestryDNA had their amazing Ontario Genealogical Society conference-only price of $69 CAN all inclusive in June. All of their results are now in. So, what do we have? By order of oldest to youngest, here we go, with their DNA ethnicity estimates.....

Oldest

2nd Oldest

3rd Oldest

Youngest 

As always, DNA test results are intriguing, and as I say, never lie. Two have no Scandinavian (or Viking, as I like to call it) DNA. Two (who are siblings) have Iberian Peninsula DNA--which could be ancient Celt. Two siblings have French Canadian and beyond ancestry. And because French Catholic priests kept incredible records, they both are breaking my research workload in terms of 4th cousins or closer, with 1,200 and 1,500 of those--and counting--respectively.

And now, to drill down to find out how, if any, of them match to new found DNA cousins.

The never ending story continues.....



© Margaret Dougherty 2016-2017 All rights reserved

DNA confirms Cincinnati Doughertys connection

After discovering so much detail last year about my several 2nd great aunts and 2nd great uncles who made their ways from Quebec's Eastern Townships to build lives in Cincinnati in the mid-19th century, good old DNA has confirmed our connection through one of their descendants to my brother. I unravelled their stories here and here.

For the first time we have a DNA link to my 2nd great grandparents Mary Ann Diamond (abt 1802-1842) and Marcus Dougherty (1794-1864) from these Cincinnati Doughertys.

I had contacted an Ohio man who I was quite sure was a distant cousin several months ago, after finding his family tree on Ancestry. Slowly, he built out his family tree. He visited the Cincinnati cemetery where several of the 2nd great aunts and uncles are buried and sent me pictures of their markers. I asked if he had considered doing the AncestryDNA test, and eventually he did. His results came back a few days ago, and today he linked those results to his family tree. And we've got that confirmation. My brother shares Dougherty and Diamond DNA with that Ohio man, who is our 3rd cousin once removed and whose 3rd great grandmother was Isabella Dougherty (abt 1832-1890), sister to our great grandfather, John James Dougherty (1833-1893).

I'm just a tad jealous of my brother, because he is the first of us to have a Diamond DNA link. I wonder if that new link will open new research doors.

The never ending story continues.....




© Margaret Dougherty 2016-2017 All rights reserved

DNA brings more Nelson connections

When I returned from my offline and out of the country vacation a week ago, I was intent upon resuming posts to this blog with gusto. But then I found a message with the subject line "how are we related?" waiting in my Ancestry message box. We are AncestryDNA matches, but the person didn't at that point have a family tree. She wondered if we are linked either through her mother's midwest Scandinavian families or her father's New England families.

Since I have no American midwest relatives of Scandinavian ancestry, we soon determined that we're related through our fathers. Her father was a Nelson, and because his parents' marriage was an old fashioned shotgun wedding in the Boston area, she knew absolutely nothing about his family. My latest cousin had her paternal grandparents and great grandparents' names and knew that her great grandfather, Arthur Hamilton Nelson (1874-1952) had been born in Nova Scotia, but not much more.

You know what happened next. Rather than getting back to blogging, I instead spent several hours over three days unravelling this latest DNA cousin's ancestry and her link to me. I love nothing more than a good genealogy mystery.

I was able to tell this latest DNA cousin more of her Colchester, Nova Scotia and New England Planter roots, and she has now begun baby steps to populating her tree. We are 5th cousins once removed. We both descend from my 4th great grandparents Alexander Nelson (abt 1737-1803) and Margaret Robinson (1735-1823), but my new cousin descends twice from them, through two of their sons, Charles Nelson (1771-1847) and Robinson Nelson (1774-1850), who are older brothers to my 3rd great grandfather, Elias Nelson (1783-1871). with Alexander and Margaret my cousin's 4th great grandparents.

My new cousin now know that there are thousands of Nelson cousins across North America (at least),and has much work ahead of her, learning more about genealogy and populating her family tree. But I don't want to scare her off from experiencing the passion of genealogy, so I'm trying very hard not to bombard her with information.

Like for instance, not all Nelsons descend from our great grandparents. Like there's are separate Nelson lines that originated on Prince Edward Island via Philadelphia in the early 19th century that is probably originally from England, whereas the Nova Scotia Nelsons are Scots in origin.

The never ending story continues....


© Margaret Dougherty 2016-2017 All rights reserved

A DNA disappointment

Not all DNA discoveries are satisfying, I learned this week.

Several years ago, I found a tree on Ancestry that, as well as being Dougherty, had similar names to my Dougherty ancestors, and the added bonus? This Dougherty had originally settled in South Hero, Vermont in the 19th century.

South Hero is where my 2nd great grandfather Marcus Dougherty originally settled after arriving from Dungiven, Ireland. His brother James, who became a Congregationalist minister, also initially settled in South Hero, before moving on to the nearby villages of first Milton and then Johnson.

I should mention that yes, there were other Dougherty families in those areas of Vermont in the early to mid 19th century, and no, so far there is no DNA connection with any of them.

But, what were the chances that this Dougherty could not be a relation of mine? I mean really. I was seized with this idea for years. Literally.

For several years, the owner of that Ancestry tree and I messaged back and forth sporadically. Earlier this year, he announced that he was doing the AncestryDNA test. This was exciting news. His results came back this week, and much to our shared dismay, we don't appear on each other's lists of DNA matches. Nor does he appear on my siblings' or cousin's DNA matches. At my suggestion, he uploaded his raw data to GEDMatch.com. This is a site where people can post their raw DNA data from tests conducted by Ancestry, 23 And Me and Family Tree DNA, but it also gives a much more details breakdown of DNA, chromosome by chromosome. Yes, there really are that many genealogy geeks like me out there.

I compared our DNA on GEDMatch, and we share only a very small amount of DNA in one chromosome, not enough to consider us relatives on any level. Boom.

He's now trying to figure out his next steps in his hunt for his ancestors. And me? As I say,

The never ending story continues.....





© Margaret Dougherty 2016-2017 All rights reserved

Another DNA chapter revealed

The other day, a second sibling's DNA results came through. DNA is always interesting. We each inherit 50 per cent of each parent's DNA, but obviously not the same 50 per cent. That's what makes DNA testing for genealogy so intriguing.

Me

Here are the high level snapshots of our respective ethnicity estimates. I've mentioned how pleased I am with my own DNA ethnicity estimates here before. Proud Celtic Viking here!

But it turns out that my sister has even more Irish DNA than I have. Both of us are low in terms of British ethnicity, with me at six per cent and my sister at five per cent. Our brother shames us both though, having a whopping 27 per cent British ethnicity. I can hear our mother, who was very proud of her UK passport, in another dimension cheering and saying. "That's what I'm talking about!"

Sister

As to that Scandinavian (Viking!) ethnicity? I win that, having 24 per cent, with my brother having 14% and my sister having just 11% Scandinavian ancestry.

So far, AncestryDNA has found for me 116 4th cousins or closer (in the 18 months since my sample was processed); 100 4th cousins or closer for my sister (in seven months), and 172 4th cousins or closer for my brother (in two days).

Of those cousins, I share 43 shared ancestry hints with my sister, and 58 shared ancestry hints with my brother. We're all different, after all.

My brother's DNA results don't help crack into new Dougherty DNA leads, unfortunately. I was really hoping for some new finds on that line. But he does win, hands down, in terms of being the most British of us.

Brother 

I have a third sibling, but sadly, he's not interested in any DNA testing.

At the same time as my brother's DNA results came, his wife's also arrived. Now in her case, my sister in law starts out with 768 4th cousins or closer. Yikes. I'll be plowing through those for quite awhile.

This marks my 100th post to this blog. To mark the occasion, I've given the blog a bit of a makeover. Thank you all for reading. I hope you continue to enjoy my family history stories and meanderings.

The never ending story continues.....




© Margaret Dougherty 2016-2017 All rights reserved

The Gillies sisters of Nethy Bridge come to Canada

Forgive me for seemingly being on a DNA binge, but I have had yet another cousin relationship confirmed by DNA.

A few years ago, a woman messaged me on Ancestry to say she had seen similarities in both our family trees. This connection opened so many doors for me in my research, as often happens. Until this cousin contacted me, I hadn't known that my great grandmother Annie Ross (1850-1922 had siblings and eight nieces (!! but just one nephew), the children of her sister, Margaret Grace Darling Ross, known as Maggie (1847-1932).

My latest confirmed DNA cousin is a great great granddaughter of Maggie, who lived with her husband James Gillies (1847-1906) and their family in Nethy Bridge, the same Cairngorms village in Inverness-shire where my paternal great grandparents lived with their family. In 1906 and 1908, four of Maggie's daughters, Mary, Jessie, Robina and her namesake Maggie; emigrated from the Scottish Highlands to make their home in Toronto. I wonder why they chose Toronto? Likely they already knew someone there. Their cousin, my grandfather John Matheson (1884-1964) followed them to Canada in 1907, but he chose Montreal for his home.

The sisters all took jobs as servants in Toronto, and between 1908 and 1914, each married. Three sisters stayed in Toronto, but the youngest, Robina Gillies (1888-1969) moved to Los Angeles with her husband Ben Kelly (1884-1939) in 1919, after their only child, Jackie, tragically died aged only seven in January of that year from bronchial pneumonia.

Maggie Gillies Wood

Maggie Gillies (1874-aft 1931) and her husband John Thomas Wood (abt 1857-1931) had no children. Nor did her sister Jessie Darling Mary Gillies (1880-1931) and her husband Thomas Devereux (1881-?)

Mary Gillies Bennett

My 3rd cousin once removed is the great granddaughter of Mary Gillies (1878-1929), who died after being struck by a streetcar in Toronto, leaving her husband Peter Bennett (1870-?) and their children Peter and Annabelle. The January 10, 1929 edition of the Toronto Star carried this very brief death notice for Mary:

"Bennett - On Wednesday, January 9th 1929, at Toronto. Mary Bennett, 7 Grove Avenue, in her 50th year. Funeral private from Bert Humphrey's Funeral Parlors, 466 Church Street Friday afternoon. Interment Prospect Cemetery."

Did the Gillies sisters stay in touch with my grandfather John Matheson in Montreal by letter and phone calls? I suspect so. Since he was a locomotive engineer with CN, he probably went through Toronto from time to time. Letter writing was the great social pastime of that era. I do have a memory of my mother mentioning that her father had a cousin in California -- that would have been Robina.

My cousin is lucky to have photos of her great grandmother and great aunt, and has kindly let me use these here. Not for the first time do I wonder what happened to my families' photos. I have a couple of shoeboxes worth of photos from the late 19th and early 20th century with absolutely nothing to identify the people pictured. This is a great frustration.

My cousin and I live just a couple of hours' drive apart. We're so pleased to be in touch, but we still haven't met face to face. We need to make that happen.

The never ending story continues.....



© Margaret Dougherty 2016-2017 All rights reserved

Still more adventures in DNA discoveries

A couple of years ago, I researched a friend's ancestry. We had decided that we must be related, as our Scots ancestors lived in many of the same places. Researching his line didn't shed any light on any possible relationship.

In December, my friend sent off his DNA sample to AncestryDNA. The results came a couple of weeks ago, but still no relationship confirmed by that test.

This morning, I compared our DNA data on another utility. Turns out we're distant cousins. The estimated number of generations to our most recent common ancestor is 7.4. We share 7.9 Centimorgans of DNA in chromosome 10 -- the chart below summarizes our relationship.  But hey! I've had people with whom I share less DNA reach out to me. What's a centimorgan you ask? Here is an explanation.

The never ending story continues....



© Margaret Dougherty 2016-2017 All rights reserved

The Eyemouth Fishing Disaster

Recently, a new DNA match contacted me. I absolutely love the DNA discoveries in genealogy. My new match and I are 5th cousins once removed, and both descend from William Young (1760-1846) and Alison Spears (1760-1841), who are my 4th great grandparents, and who raised their family in both Berwick upon Tweed and Eyemouth.

Eyemouth lies just over the Scotland/England border in the Scottish Borders, and today is a mere 13 kilometres up the A1 from Berwick upon Tweed. One website tells me that to walk between the two towns now would take just under three hours. I wonder what the travel time would have been in the horse and buggy era.

The two towns are so close that Berwick area newspapers have always included Eyemouth news. Families, including my many Young ancestors, went back and forth.

Eyemouth's main industry was herring fishing in the North Sea. On October 14, 1881, disaster struck when much of Eyemouth's fishing fleet was wiped out by a fierce storm. That morning, the sea was calm. Fishermen ignored warnings about the coming storm because they hadn't been able to fish during the week, and since they didn't fish on weekends, families would starve. There was no food. Many sources note that no Eyemouth family was left untouched by what came to be called the Eyemouth Disaster, or Black Friday.

It was from scanning headlines of the Berwick newspapers online that I first learned about the Eyemouth Disaster a few months ago. It would be commemorated annually, and was recalled when milestones in survivors' lives were reported up to the mid 20th century.

The Eyemouth Disaster took 129 men who lived in Eyemouth. They left behind at least 78 widows and 182 fatherless children (the numbers vary from source to source). An additional 70 victims came from surrounding villages, leaving behind even more widows and children. Eyemouth's population in 2011 was reported as 3,546. The 1881 census recorded 2,952 residents. What a huge impact the Eyemouth Disaster had on this small community.

This 2006 Scotsman article gives great background about the disaster and why it happened.

from Wikipedia

The disaster has been memorialized in several ways.

A granite monument to all who drowned was commissioned in 1912 and erected initially in the Eyemouth Cemetery after fundraising and other initiatives. The memorial's inscription reads:

Erected by public subscription to the memory of 189 east coast fishermen of which 129 belonged to Eyemouth, who perished at sea on 14th October 1881. 

A beautiful 15 ft long tapestry, recording the names of each of Eyemouth's 189 fishermen who died in the Disaster, was commissioned to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the disaster and hangs in Eyemouth Museum.

An oil painting depicting the aftermath of the disaster was featured on a 2013 Antiques Roadshow (UK) episode.

Black Friday is still remembered 136 years later. In October 2016, to mark the 135th anniversary, a magnificent new sculpture called Widows and Bairns was unveiled in Eyemouth's harbour names each mother and child directly affected, many of whom watched helplessly from shore as fathers, husbands, sons and brothers perished. The women and children are shown looking out to sea.  It remains today Britain's biggest fishing tragedy.

This link on the Eyemouth Museum's website tells more about the Disaster, and includes a short video segment made in October 2016 giving some moving oral history.

After the disaster, efforts were made to help the widows and families financially. Eventually, many family members had to move away from Eyemouth to find work.

Two of the victims that October day were part of my extended family: my 1st cousin 4x removed, William Young (1828-1881), and his son James (1857-1881), who was only 24 and left a wife, and six month old daughter. They were on two different boats that day. William was a nephew of my 3rd great grandfather, George Young (1799-1882).

My new DNA match? She is the direct descendant of William and James; the great granddaughter of that six month old child, and remembers her great grandmother talking about the disaster, which of course she didn't remember, but she certainly grew up hearing all about it, her father, grandfather and other extended family. What a wonderful gift to have those memories shared.

My new cousin has told me about a 2001 book that Children of the Sea: The Story of the People of Eyemouth by Peter Aitchison, a direct descendant of Eyemouth residents directly affected by the disaster. I look forward to reading this book.

The never ending story continues....



© Margaret Dougherty 2016-2017 All rights reserved

The Weatherburns of Spittal, Tweedmouth and elsewhere

Some say Weatherburn, some say Wedderburn. My connection to the Weatherburn family is through my 2nd great grandmother, Margaret Weatherburn (1833-1879).

I've traced my Weatherburn line in Northumberland back to a Henry Weatherburn, who married Agnes Tindal in 1742. His origins aren't completely clear, according to research I've read. But I'll continue to research.

There is a book about the history of the Wedderburns/Weatherburns that covers the period of 1296 to 1896 -- 600 years! I'm still perusing it from time to time, but it's easy to get distracted. The Weatherburns all had large families. So far, I have only Margaret as an ancestor, which considering the numbers of Weatherburns, Youngs and Knoxes in my ancestry is somewhat remarkable, I think.

I have a Weatherburn DNA match with one person, with whom I share 4th great grandparents: (another) Henry Weatherburn (1777-1858 and Agnes Milvin or Melvin (abt 1776-1832).

My Wedderburns/Weatherburns lived in Spittal, Tweedmouth, Norham and several other small places in and very near Berwick upon Tweed. They were primarily working class -- fishers and related occupations, and then railway or industrial-type work in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Spittal (or Spital--the spelling seems to vary, but Spittal seems the most common) is a small village across the Tweed River from Berwick. Its name is interesting, and according to this source, it is a shortened form of the word "hospital". Or, for viewers of Coronation Street, 'ospikle. Read a more detailed history of Spittal here.

Tweedmouth is, as its name implies, at the mouth of the Tweed River and borders on Berwick and Spittal. Read more.

The never ending story continues....


© Margaret Dougherty 2016 All rights reserved

Finding Aggie Pate and expanding my DNA pool

One of the stories I remember my mother and aunt telling was about their cousin Aggie Pate, who lived in California but visited Montreal, and by all accounts, was a ton of fun. But as usual, any specifics about her life were absent from those stories. I wondered often if she was my mother's auntie Aggie, but was assured decidedly not -- Aggie Pate was not at all like auntie Aggie.

As usual, the repeated use of the same names in my family often caused confusion in trying to keep it all straight. In the case of the name Agnes, this came from my 3rd great grandmother, Agnes Cowe Young (abt 1800-1866), who was called Nancy. None of her several grand daughters and daughters named Agnes had Nancy as a nickname. All were called Aggie. Confusion all around!

My most recent lost in genealogy research day--there can be many--came about inadvertently. Don't they all?

Berwick Advertiser
13 Jun 1882

A few days ago, I was researching my Youngs in really old issues of the Berwick Advertiser on Find My Past when I came across the 1882 marriage notice of one of my grandmother's aunts, Elizabeth Young (1857-1930) to Matthew Cockburn (1856-1914).

After adding this information to my tree, I found so much more on Ancestry and Find My Past, that I soon had added their eight children born between 1883 and 1901, only two of whom died in early childhood. It's interesting that although Lizzie and Matthew were married at the local register office, they had all of their children baptized at the local Anglican church.

Matthew Cockburn died in 1914 in Berwick upon Tweed, but before he died, his eldest surviving daughter, Agnes or Aggie left for better opportunities in Canada, arriving in 1911 in Montreal, where my grandmother, her cousin, Dorothy was by then living. One brother followed in 1914, and the rest of the siblings, including their mother, arrived in 1920 and 1922, never again to return to live in Berwick upon Tweed.

I can well imagine that they saw my grandparents, mother and aunt often during the 1920s in Montreal. Five married in Montreal, in all cases to men and women from Scotland. One, Peter Young Cockburn (1892-1949), served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, signing his attestation papers in Montreal just a few short months after he arrived from England in 1914. All but one of the Cockburn family, including great auntie Lizzie, moved on to California, settling and staying in the Los Angeles area for the rest of their lives.

Among those who married in Montreal was Lizzie and Matthew's daughter Agnes Young Cockburn (1884-1953), or Aggie, who married a man named Tom Pate in 1914. I had found Aggie Pate. It's one of those ah hah/sit back in your chair and push away from your keyboard to feel the enormous satisfaction of finding a lost relative. That feeling never gets old.

Here is Aggie's 1928 certification of naturalization signed in Los Angeles. American records like these are big finds, especially for women, who are so often overlooked. Aggie was petite, just 5'2".

Aggie and Tom Pate travelled to Los Angeles from Montreal with my grandmother's Auntie Lizzie in 1927. Sadly, Auntie Lizzie died less than three years after that move, in 1930. She was able to know her three small grandchildren though.

I've added all of these Cockburn cousins and their spouses to my tree. Several were childless though, including Aggie and Tom Pate. The two who had children? They had small families. All the Cockburns and their spouses are buried in the same Los Angeles-area cemetery. Still, in adding all of these new relatives to my tree, I'm hoping that my DNA matches will increase.

These discoveries reminded me--not for the first time--to remember to go through newspapers online for clues.

The never ending story continues....

© Margaret Dougherty 2016-2017 All rights reserved

Because it's 2017 and there are more DNA discoveries to come

Happy new year to everyone. I'm starting this year excited anew by DNA discoveries to come. Over Christmas, both my younger brother and eldest first cousin on my father's side activated their AncestryDNA tests. Earlier in December, a 3rd cousin on my mother's side also did her DNA test through Ancestry. Their results will add to my knowledge of my DNA past.

As a bonus, my brother is my first male relative to test. His Y chromosome might lead to new discoveries. Are we Doughertys descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages? Will we learn more about our Scots DNA?

My first cousin will say that she knows that she is Irish through and through on both sides, but what will her DNA test reveal?

As I wrote here, last year, my sister did her DNA. I can hardly contain myself, waiting for my brother's and cousin's DNA results.

The never ending story continues....



© Margaret Dougherty 2016-2017 All rights reserved

More adventures in DNA discoveries

Recently, the results of my sister's AncestryDNA test arrived. I'm continually fascinated by what can be learned from genealogical DNA tests, but am by no means a genetic genealogist.

I was curious to see what would emerge from a full sibling's DNA test, and I wasn't disappointed. Sure enough, matches to my sister's DNA are being identified that are absent from my own DNA results.

I'm the administrator of my sister's and brother-in-law's DNA tests, which, like mine, were also autosomal tests. While my sister and I have generally the same origins, the percentages of our origins aren't identical. Unlike me, her DNA shows 66% Ireland, 13% Europe West, 11% Scandinavia and 5% Great Britain, with traces of other regions. I'm more Viking, but less Irish, but we share the identical amount of Europe West DNA. Europe West, by the way, encompasses France, Germany, Belgium and Holland.

The day after we got her DNA results, one of her matches contacted me. This is a match that I don't have on my own DNA results. But my sister and I share the same 4th great grandparents, James Knox (abt 1729-1760) and Elizabeth Clark (abt 1729-) in Northumberland, England with this new contact. Exciting stuff! We've share our respective information with each other, and are adding to our own trees.

After all that excitement, this week, I uploaded sister's and brother in law's raw DNA data to GEDMatch, and while I was doing that, looked again at my own GEDMatch matches. The top match there had contacted me last year -- we are 4th cousins once removed and share the same Nova Scotia 3rd great grandparents, Elias Nelson (1783-1871) and Elizabeth Forbes (abt 1783-aft 1871).

But the second top match, with whom I share more 41.1% centimorgans of DNA was a mystery. So I emailed that contact, who turns out to be the match's son, and a pretty knowledgeable (and modest) guy when it comes to genetic genealogy.

By doing some mysterious calculations (I confess that anything to do with numbers gives me a twitch) and comparing our respective trees, my newest cousin quickly narrowed down that our common ancestor is likely an as yet unknown ancestor of my Scots maternal great grandparents Frank Matheson (1833-1909) or Annie Ross (1849-1922). He also triangulated (more twitches here) our DNA numbers with a third person's, who -- good grief-- has a PhD in biology and teaches genetic genealogy. She took the calculations one step further, leaving my head spinning even now. I'm still pondering the several reports these two new contacts sent me and now have two new surnames to research in Scotland: Grant and Cumming, based on the triangulation exercise.

The never ending story continues....

Vikings: more than warriors

When I discovered last fall that I had 24% Scandinavian DNA, I was thrilled. As I've said here, I'm a Celtic Viking. Among the other sites I uploaded my DNA raw data to is a relatively new kid on the block, DNA.Land. Their database is small but growing. Each company has different analysis techniques, which I don't dwell on (science makes my head hurt), aside from noting that DNA.Land reports that I have 3% Sardinian DNA. Oh my. But DNA.Land's map of my DNA origins differed a little from AncestryDNA's. It shows that some of my Scandinavian DNA comes from what is today Iceland. 

My DNA.Land ancestor map

Which brings me to the topic of today's post. In last weekend's Toronto Star is an interview with Anders Winroth, author of a 2014 book, The Age of the Vikings. 

The headline grabbed me: Discovering the softer side of Vikings. It turns out the Icelandic spoken today isn't far off from Ancient Norse. And for their time, they were actually less violent than, for instance, Charlemagne, Winroth says. He asserts that, "There is a need for us to see the Norsemen in their historical context, not just as warriors but as cultural influencers."

Read the interview here. Vikings. My ancestors.

The never ending story continues...

It's all down to DNA

Last September, I went with AncestryDNA to test my DNA. This test is an autosomal test, which takes DNA from both your paternal and maternal lines. To find out more about autosomal DNA, read this, which explains much better than I could. Moving on, I was thrilled with my results.

In short, I'm a Celtic Viking (55 per cent Ireland, 24 per cent Scandinavian DNA). When first launched, AncestryDNA grouped all of Ireland and the UK DNA under Great Britain. But my test was done against AncestryDNA 2.0, which breaks things out a bit more. As Ancestry's testing is further refined, existing test results will be updated against any new parameters, for example breaking out Scotland, Wales and England separately.

Aside from being a Celtic Viking, my results were still interesting, Only six per cent Great Britain. What? My mother considered herself pure Scot. But you learn that Celts went back and forth between Ireland and modern-day Great Britain a thousand or more years ago. And 11 per cent Europe West, which might have been a surprise to me say about ten years ago, but now having researched my direct ancestry clear back to William the Conqueror (yes, really), it's all...but of course.

And using DNA in my genealogy research is also helping me to connect with distant cousins, not to mention a previously unknown of second cousin. It also confirms relationships. DNA testing has confirmed that I'm indeed related to people found through Ancestry who have become friends.

I've uploaded my AncestryDNA raw data results to other DNA sites. It's both fascinating and fun to compare the results from each. Posting to other sites also helps to discover yet more new distant family.

If you haven't had a DNA test done yet, just do it. It's so much fun. The never ending story continues.....