The results surprised me and it has taken me a fair amount of time to thoroughly read the manual that came with the results, and to digest all the information. I thought I
was mainly British/Irish and Eastern European (the border near Russia has
changed so much it is easier to generalize).
However, according to AncestryByDNA I’m 98%
European, with the bulk of that coming from Iraq! And I'm apparently Scottish, not
British/Irish. 2% is Indigenous American which I did believe there would be a
small amount of, but the top matching country is Venezuela! Say what?!
In my endeavor to make sense of my genetic blueprint I realized that perhaps these results aren't as bizarre as first they seemed, and felt.
On my mom's maternal side, my great-aunt researched our lineage and we can claim Mayflower descendancy. On my mom's paternal side we figured Irish seeing as my grandfather's surname was McCann, and his family settled in the coal mining region around West Virginia. One of my uncles is now working on researching that side of the family's ancestry so it could be rather interesting to learn more about them in light of what I found out today. I suppose it's not terribly far-fetched to go from British/Irish to Scottish.
My paternal side of the family is Jewish. I always thought they were from Eastern Europe along the border with Russia, so potentially Russian or Polish or whatever depending on which country was ruling at any given time. That being said, it's fairly reasonable to consider that our ancestors could've migrated from the Middle East region northward at some point further back that anyone alive during my time remembers.
In conclusion, I can add myself to the growing list of people who are surprised by their DNA tests!
