Who Do You Think You Are? | Vital Football

Who Do You Think You Are?

BBJ

BBJ

Father Of The Forum
Great programme, isn't it?
Anyway, I've always had an interest in family history and have, over the years, done quite a bit of research.
From that, I've discovered that seven of my eight great-grandparents were born in present day Northern Ireland whilst the eight was born in Liverpool.
For our recent wedding anniversary, our family bought Mrs BBJ and myself DNA kits. We sent them off some of our saliva and the results came back this morning.
Obviously with a Lancastrian great-granny, I was not going to be 100% Irish. (Very very few people born in Ireland are and if someone were to claim that they were ethnically 100% English, I would not believe them.)
My ethnicity estimates are as follows -
Ireland 79%
Great Britain 9%
Europe West 7%
Iberian Peninsula 1%
Finland/Northwest Russia 1%
European Jewish 1%
Europe East 1%
Italy/Greece 1%
As Mrs BBJ was born in the west of the country, she is ethnically more Irish than me at 88%. (I thought it'd be higher as, so far, we've not been able to trace her ancestors out of County Mayo.)


 
It's interesting. I kinda assumed that modern transport enabled a lot more interracial/cultural relationships but people have been getting jiggy with people from other places for a very long time.
 
I was born in England, as were both of my parents.

However, only one of my grandparents was born here. Of the other three, one was Latvian, one Polish and another was born in Romania. All arrived here courtesy of WW2 and never returned home.

I have done some tentative research, but it's pretty tricky to get concrete information, especially as I speak none of the aforementioned languages. But I will keep at it!!
 
My family tree is something like the London underground. I know too much of it from my late Mom which I didn't realise was part of the setting me up to be fcuked in the head.

Long story. To long to go into on here and no doubt it would bog you head to even if you were into psychology stuff.

Least ways my life journey led me to a place of doing family of origin work called ''Family secrets-what you dont know can hurt you'' It blew my head apart and changed my life as to what I was fed and what is the truth.

My family history over 4 generations is as follows with the places involved

The U.K (all over it)
France
Spain
Holland
Czech republic
Australia
Canada,
The U.S
Southern Ireland,
New Zealand
Wales

It's some story I can tell you.

It involves divorce going back 80 years, children born out of wedlock 100 + years ago, criminal behaviour, addiction (Great Grandpa) lies, cover ups and so on. I have yet to uncover any murder and I am not sure I want too
 
We have friends in Nottingham (well, Mrs BBJ has friends and they have to put up with me). The wife is a typically English woman and has traced her family history back to the 1600s and, so far, most of her ancestors were born on the island of Great Britain, and largely England.
She always claimed that in spite of having an Irish name, she didn't have a molecule of Hibernian blood.
She had her DNA tested recently and you can imagine her suprise when she discovered that, far from being British by blood line (that represented only 20%), her ethnicity estimates indicate thatshe is also 38% Irish, 24% Scandinavian, 8% Italy/Greece, 5% Iberian Peninsula, 3% Europe West, with tiny smatterings of Finland/Northwest Russia, and Eastern Europe.
The best way she can explain it is that much of her ancestry comes from Lancashire (including Liverpool) and that her Irish ancestors must have come across a long time ago. (It's reckoned that 50% of Lancastrians have Irish ancestry which may help to explain the puzzling phenomenon of why it has the best looking people in England.)
 
Isn't it amazing what we can find out today. All the family I can trace are from North Wales, Staffordshire and Shropshire. I'm not sure what mobility was like in these regions, but it seems quite low.

My surname is Saxon, though, so there must be some French in there, going back a long way.

I suppose I should get the test done. It sounds really boring compared to some here, but you never know. I could be related to royalty for all I know.
 
I think we're all probably related to royalty, Heath, if we go back far enough.
One of the High Kings of Ireland, Niall of the Nine Hostages, is supposed to have millions of descendants.
 
My sister has managed to do ours going back to the 1700's . Apparently we are descended from Kent where she found a newspaper report on one of our ancestors who was found guilty of smuggling and deported to Australia so she is trying to follow up any links over there.

Mind you he was lucky , 5 of the gang we hung in front of a crowd of 20,000 and before their hanging they had to give a speech !!!
 
Id like to do the DNA test one of the days when I have a little money to spare.

I don't have the patience to trace my family history I have to admit.
 
BBJ - 4/5/2017 10:54

I think we're all probably related to royalty, Heath, if we go back far enough.
One of the High Kings of Ireland, Niall of the Nine Hostages, is supposed to have millions of descendants.
Click to expand...

There is a theory that we are all descendants of Charlemagne, so you could be right right.

we should remember all this when we look at today's world. There is nothing new to migration and interbreeding. It's been going on since we have been around.
 
The Fear - 4/5/2017 11:51

Id like to do the DNA test one of the days when I have a little money to spare.

I don't have the patience to trace my family history I have to admit.
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You're just worried that some of your ancestors aren't royalty. Imagine having a poor person in your family tree!!!! The horror!!!!

:66:
 
I find this an interesting subject.

Both my parents were born in Dublin. My great-grandparents are apparently also Irish with my great grandfather from Co Kildare and my great grandmother from Co Limerick.


Recently a Scottish connection has turned up from some place called Dorwich, Scotland and I understand it is being researched by a relative. More intriguing is a posable name change from the surname Chard!? ... https://books.google.ie/books?id=l1YBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

This DNA kit testing is fascinating and if it's not too expensive I may well do it.

It was certainly a good and thoughtful wedding anniversary present BBJ.
 
JuanPabloAngel - 4/5/2017 13:01

HeathfieldRoad1874 - 4/5/2017 12:22

There is a theory that we are all descendants of Charlemagne,
Click to expand...

Have you confirmed this with Sasquatch/YouTube? :3:
Click to expand...

I am waiting for confirmation. When I see it, I will move this from theory to fact. I can't wait for the robotic voiceover of some unrelated snippets, confirming nothing in particular, but the title says it's all true, so it has to be.

:57:
 
Thanks for the reminder. That would have been a rookie error.

I notice that Great Britain is one sub category. Do any of these break it down further? Welsh, Scottish, Cornish etc? And I wonder when they are defining what constitutes Great British ancestry?

Did the report come with any explanation, BBJ?
 
they are interesting but really only in a 'horoscope' kind of way

http://archive.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/119/Sense-About-Genetic-Ancestry-Testing.pdf

 
HeathfieldRoad1874 - 4/5/2017 12:24

The Fear - 4/5/2017 11:51

Id like to do the DNA test one of the days when I have a little money to spare.

I don't have the patience to trace my family history I have to admit.
Click to expand...

You're just worried that some of your ancestors aren't royalty. Imagine having a poor person in your family tree!!!! The horror!!!!

:66:
Click to expand...

:1:

The one thing I read years back was about Fear being old Anglo Saxon landowners. Another though said it had Germanic roots. Buggered if I know!
 
HeathfieldRoad1874 - 4/5/2017 13:28

Thanks for the reminder. That would have been a rookie error.

I notice that Great Britain is one sub category. Do any of these break it down further? Welsh, Scottish, Cornish etc? And I wonder when they are defining what constitutes Great British ancestry?

Did the report come with any explanation, BBJ?
Click to expand...

They said that it is "very likely" that my 79% Irishness comes from what they term "Ulster East". They also say that it is "possible" that I have connections with "Scots in Central Scotland and Ulster". Mrs BBJ is 88% Irish and it indicated that she was "Connacht Irish".
I'm from Belfast (East Ulster, for sure, and only 20 miles from Scotland across the North Channel), and herself is from County Mayo - which is in Connacht.
It also says on the Ancestry site that there are more than 300 "Genetic Communities" available worldwide and that the UK/Ireland has nine of them. Some of these are further sub-divided. For example, "English Midlanders and Northerners" has three groupings - "English in the West Midlands and North-West", "English in Yorkshire and Pennines" and "English In The East Midlands".
Mrs BBJ is also awaiting the results of another test which she did - free of charge. The background to this is that this organisation (the name of which eludes me) was looking for Irish people whose grandparents all came from the same locality. I applied but whilst all mine come from within 40 miles of Belfast (two from the city, one from the north of County Antrim, near Ballymoney, and the other from County Down, close to Banbridge), she trumped me as all of hers come from townlands close to Swinford, a small town in Mayo.
We hope this will give even more information than the Ancestry one.
I can't remember whether I said that one of the plusses of Ancestry is that they do a comparison with the other 2.5 million people who've had their DNA tested with them and, in this way, they can identify people who are probably cousins. They don't tell you too much else about them for data protection reasons but you can message them, courtesy of Ancestry.
In this way, they reckon that I have 91 fourth cousins or closer in their database. Mrs BBJ has 226.
Most of the cousins I've contacted have been in the US with a few in England. I came across a "community" of them in Northfield that I never knew were there.

 
Where did you have it done BBJ and how much was it? Last one I saw was over £100 and I decided I couldn't really justify spending that. Was it comprehensive enough for you to consider it worth it?
 
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