Monday, November 13, 2023

#MicroblogMondays: Down the rabbit hole, part 2

After spending the past week-plus immersed in my Mom's Ancestry DNA results, my own results arrived yesterday. 

In a nutshell -- I'm a mutt. :)  (lol)  And, as I said last week, I can only imagine what a mixture our Katie would have been...! 

On Mom's side, I'm basically the same mix as Mom is, but in smaller quantities:  17% from Sweden & Denmark (primarily central and southern Sweden), 15% Scotland, 7% Norway, 4% Ireland, 3% Finland.

On Dad’s side, both of my grandparents'/their families came to Canada from western Ukraine, near Lviv -- an area that now borders Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland -- which was actually considered part of Austria when my grandfather was growing up.  

So I was I was unsurprised to learn that 39% of my heritage comes from Eastern Europe & Russia, which includes Ukraine, parts of Poland & Romania.  

But I WAS surprised by what a mixture the rest of my genetic makeup was on that side:  

  • 4% from The Balkans (primarily located in: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Serbia, but also found in Albania, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Slovakia and Slovenia...!); 
  • 3% The Baltics (primarily located in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but also found in Belarus, Poland, Russia and Ukraine);    
  • 1% Greece & Albania (primarily located in: Albania, Greece, Kosovo and North Macedonia, but also found in Bulgaria, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Turkey), and
  • 1% Aegean Islands -- primarily located in Greece, but also found in Turkey and... Italy!!  lol 
    • (Hey, dh!  You may have married a "paisan" after all...!)  
Then I had a closer look at the breakdown of what I inherited from which parent.  My overall results showed 19% Sweden/Denmark -- but just 17% of that came from my mom's side of the family. The other 2% comes from my dad! 

I could hardly stop laughing as I picked up the phone to call my mom and ask her what she thought my (Swedish) grandmother would have said if she found out her daughter married a (part) Swede after all...!       

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here

4 comments:

  1. It's all so fascinating, isn't it?!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is so fun! I am so intrigued by the DNA exploration, but also a little weirdly suspicious in a conspiracy-theory-kind-of-way. I love that you have Swede on both sides! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think a trip to an Aegean Island is in order.

    Because I am such a good friend, I volunteer to accompany you.

    ReplyDelete