DNA update

 

Well, it's finally here. The DNA origins update that Ancestry was promising gives a finer break down of European regions, placing a label that reads NEW each time it has added a more granular region to testers' results. It's nice to see my Netherlands region made the grade in this version. As I remember that faded from view in a previous update. I have no problem believing in that ethnicity because some of my ancestors came from the Western Isles of Scotland and from an area of England once known as the Danelaw. That would be a Viking link but I have no idea if it is from my Scottish roots or my English ones. 

I'm still trying to figure out the Cornwall origin that Ancestry stuck me with in the previous update. It appears again in this latest update. I even went as far as looking for Cornish surnames, but didn't find one that appeared both on the list and in my family tree. I'm not sure about the Cornish connection but maybe it comes from as far back as the Netherland/Viking one.

The most baffling result though has to do with Irish origins. There is still the same disconnect between my Irish roots and the information on my son's origins update. According to Ancestry, I have no origins in the Republic of Ireland. They have my Irish links confined to Northern Ireland in Donegal and something called Central Scotland and Northern Ireland. I don't know about the Donegal part but Central Scotland takes in Islay and I've documented my links to that island. So it confirms what I already know. 

The part that I really don't get, is that according to Ancestry, I have no origins in what is now the Republic of Ireland. That doesn't really jibe with their results for my son who received an estimate of 13% Leinster origins solely from his maternal side. According to Diahan Southard, different results could be from the different chips used by the company depending on the timing of the DNA tests. So I'm wondering if the best idea would be to take another DNA test to get updated results. Maybe that would even result in more and different matches.