Living DNA

My Living DNA results are in one month early. I have been especially interested in the mapping of my family in the British Isles since my father and three of my four grandparents were born in the British Isles as were their ancestors for many generations back as far as I am able to determine. My fourth grandparent's father was born in the British Isles and his mother's parents were both born in the British Isles. Indeed all of them were born in England itself and managed to have ancestry in a number of different counties including Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Leicestershire, East Riding of Yorkshire, Cumberland and Berkshire. A dozen counties in all so the application of the Peoples of the British Isles Project to my DNA could not be resisted. I have another test for one of my brothers and he and I are the least alike across the family so his results will also be very very interesting especially in comparison to my own.

Given the counties known to me, the following areas showed up in my DNA:

British Isles
South Central England                                31.7%
Central England                                          14.6%
Devon                                                          14.6%
Southeast England                                         7.2%
South Yorkshire                                             5.4%
Southwest Scotland and Northern Ireland     4.8%
Northumbria                                                   4.0%
Northwest England                                         3.5%
North Yorkshire                                              3.5%
South England                                                2.7%
Aberdeenshire                                                2.5%
Lincolnshire                                                   3.5%

Europe (North and West)
Scandinavia                                                    3.5%

Were there any surprises? Looking at the results probably the amount of Scot/Irish ancestry was surprising. I already suspected Scot ancestry although think it is quite ancient coming to Ireland in the 1600s with the movement of the Planters to Northern Ireland from Ayrshire/Argyllshire. My mitochondrial DNA looking at the Blood of the Isles Database has matches in the Ayrshire/Argyllshire area. There are a number of matches in Northern Ireland for my mitochondrial DNA as well as movement to the Americas by the 1772 migration from County Antrim to the Carolinas. My own line likely made its way to England from Northern Ireland to the Midlands where my great grandmother Ellen Taylor (my mtDNA line) was born and is somewhat of a brick wall. The results were very illuminating in that regard as they verified my thoughts on that mitochondrial line although they are in truth autosomal results only! I would expect to inherit 12.5% from this great grandmother and the combination of Southwest Scotland and Northern Ireland and Aberdeenshire constitute 7.3% (but Ellen was born in Birmingham to parents not yet firmly documented by me so I would only be looking at half of her ancestry with these thoughts in mind). Does the Scandinavian portion belong to Ellen Taylor; if yes, then the total would increase to 10.8%. The mutations attributed to my mtDNA include the thought that the trek of my ancient female ancestral line was through the Scandinavian Peninsula to Scotland from their resting spot in the Ukrania refuge during the last glacial maximum. It is hard to believe that that is the source of the Scandinavian DNA! but anything is possible with DNA.

My Buller family is known to have lived in Surrey which is Southeast England but also in the Midlands where my great grandfather Edwin Denner Buller was born (he married Ellen Taylor mentioned above). I am also suspicious that this Buller family may also have roots in the Yorkshire area hence helping to explain the large percentages mentioned in the paragraph below. I would expect to inherit 12.5% from this grandfather and the combination of Southeast England 7.25%, a portion of the Midlands (Central England) could be attributed to this line for sure and perhaps some Yorkshire which remains to be determined. Even the Lincolnshire portion could belong to this family. Linking my known 3x great grandfather Christopher Buller back to any particular Buller line is England has not yet occurred!

The North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire ancestry fits in well with my known Gray family which has its center in the areas around and north of Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The Sproxton family is perhaps my link back to North Yorkshire. Lincolnshire is to the south of the East Riding of Yorkshire and included in my thoughts on the Gray family. In total the three areas constitute 12.4% of my ancestry as depicted in this analysis. Grace Gray was my great grandmother (and her parents were Robert Gray from Etton, East Riding of Yorkshire and Elizabeth Mary Ann Routledge from Bewcastle, Cumberland) and I would expect to have inherited from her about 12.5% but this would include the DNA from her parents who each contribute 6.25%. Could I have inherited only DNA from the Gray family? Interesting thought actually although my matches tell me that I have inherited from the Routledge family as well.There does appear to be a lot of Northern England though including the portion Northwest England 3% which I will mention later.

The Devon is of course my 2x great grandfather John Pincombe who emigrated to Canada in 1850/51 with his wife (Elizabeth Rew of Selworthy Somerset) and their five children including my great grandfather William Robert Pincombe who married Grace Gray (my first Canadian born ancestor) and parents to my grandfather John Routledge Pincombe also born in Canada and my second Canadian born ancestor. His daughter, my mother, is my third Canadian born ancestor. According to these results I have inherited 14.6% Devon ancestry compared to the expected 12.5% from a great grandfather (William Robert Pincombe). I know that I have inherited from Elizabeth Rew (my 2x great grandmother from Selworthy Somerset) as I have matches with descendants of her siblings. But I am suspicious that her family also had roots in Devon. However a certain percentage of the South Central England would be attributed to Elizabeth Rew's contribution to my ancestry.

This covers my mother's side of the family and now I am left with the remainder to attribute to my father's donation to my DNA.

My father's lines all appear to be within about 50 kilometres of Andover, Hampshire. His father's parents were from Upper Clatford, Hampshire and Turnworth, Dorset. His mother's parents were from Kimpton, Hampshire (her mother for sure and her father likely). The South Central England 31.7%, Central England 14.6% and South England 2.7% will all definitely contribute to this ancestry but portions of it belong to the Rew family of Somerset and the Buller/Taylor families of the Midlands. I need 50% of my ancestry though from my Father and the total of these three items is only 49% and parts of them do likely belong to my mother's side. Does my father's side have a contribution from somewhere unknown to me or another possibility exists as the Blake family that my father is descended from moved to the London/Surrey area in the 1600s so a portion of that could belong to this family simply because the DNA moved there! The Northwest England portion is interesting in that some of my father's Dorset lines moved to this area to work in the mills and perhaps they are also showing up there. A mystery though this Northwest England portion other than being my Routledge family although Northumbria covers Bewcastle somewhat better than Northwest England.

All in all, I am very impressed with this analysis. It has picked up my thoughts on my maternal grandmother's mother; that she was Irish and Scot before that and given substance to that idea. The analysis also provided me with more thoughts on my Buller ancestry (my maternal grandmother's father's line). the mother's line of this great grandfather is well known to me in the Midlands back into the 1600s. But the Buller family does have a mysterious side to it beyond my 3x great grandfather born possibly in the London/Surrey area around 1764 using his death certificate to pinpoint his year of birth with the forename Christopher which is not that common in the Buller family. My known family lines dating back six to ten generations or more in particular areas is definitely showing up as predicted by their paper trail.

I await the results of my brother's test as his Genetic Communities on Ancestry has both a south England portion and a Midlands portion. My Genetic Communites there has just a south England portion (as does my other brother's test at Ancestry). On my father's side this brother has very strong Blake matches unlike myself as I resemble my grandmother Blake with excellent Rawlings matches.

Would I recommend this test; absolutely, it is interesting to see the results of the Peoples of the British Isles Project being used in such a constructive way. If there is eventually matching that could prove to be very interesting as well.