New Ethnicity Results at Ancestry

My memory record for these results.

Results for four siblings:

1st sibling

83% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe
10% Ireland and Scotland
4% Germanic Europe
2% Baltic States
1% France

2nd sibling

81% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe
12% Ireland and Scotland
4% Norway
2% Baltic States
1% France

3rd sibling

84% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe
12% Ireland and Scotland
2% Germanic Europe
2% Sweden

4th sibling

69% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe
17% Ireland and Scotland
6% Germanic Europe
5% Norway
3% Sweden

All of our known ancestry is English (i.e. from six distinct areas in England itself):

Devon/Somerset
Hampshire/Wiltshire/Dorset
London/Surrey
Warwickshire/Staffordshire/Leicestershire
East Riding of Yorkshire
Cumberland

Five waves of migration brought these six distinct areas to Canada between 1818 and 1913.

The first wave coming from Bewcastle, Cumberland in 1818 with my 3x great grandparents Thomas and Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge and their family including their daughter Elizabeth Mary Ann Routledge who was fourteen years old at the time.

The second wave come from Etton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire with my 2x great grandfather Robert Gray junior arriving circa 1832-34 and he married Elizabeth Mary Ann Routledge in 1835. One of their daughters was Grace Gray born in 1839.

The third wave came from Bishops Nympton/Molland, Devon in 1851 with my 2x great grandparents John and Elizabeth (Rew) Pincombe. Elizabeth though was born at Selworthy Somerset. One of their children William Robert Pincombe was thirteen years old at the time. In 1865 William Robert Pincombe married Grace Gray. Their surviving child was John Routledge Pincombe.

The fourth wave came from Birmingham, Warwickshire in 1908 with my maternal grandmother Ellen Rosina Buller. Unknown to her was the London/Surrey ancestry of her Grandfather Buller's line. Ellen married John Routledge Pincombe in 1913. One of their children was Helen Louise Pincombe.

The fifth wave came in two parts from Eastleigh, Hampshire with my grandfather Samuel George Blake coming first in 1913 followed eight months later by his wife Ada Bessie Cotterill (Rawlings Taylor) Blake and their son Ernest Edward George Blake. Ernest married Helen Louise Pincombe.

Ancestry was the first company that we tested at to note our Irish/Scot ancestry and the percentages were substantial in their first recording and continue in this second realignment with 10%, 10%, 12%, and 17% recorded. Known to us already because of our testing of the mtDNA was the likely resting spot for our ancient ancestress in the mitochondrial line prior to modern migration and that area was Argyllshire/Ayrshire, Scotland. This area is known to have ancient migration across to Northern Ireland. But also during the Cromwellian era (the 1640s in particular) a number of Scots were moved to Ireland and referred to as Planters. This was a great step forward in my thinking with regard to my maternal grandmother's mother who is known to us as Ellen Taylor and information from 1879 when she was about 20 years of age until her death at 37 years of age in 1897 is available. It is her actual birth date/birth parents that are unknown although purchasing every Ellen Taylor's birth registration at Birmingham/Aston has given credence to a possible set of parents not yet proven. But it is our present day Irish matches that may yet assist us in that regard. The expected percentage from a great grandparent in our autosomal DNA is estimated to be 12.5% and the variance tends to be between 0% to 25% (i.e. you may not share any from a great grandparent or you could have inherited totally from one great grandparent by inheriting solely from one of two grandparents perhaps but that would likely be pretty rare). What colours this percentage of Irish/Scot somewhat, and it shows up in Living DNA results, is the Routledge family. These 3x great grandparents (second cousins) are originally Scot Highlanders prior to the 1500s and given that they tended to marry cousins the DNA has not been diluted by other family lines through the centuries up to the early 1800s. How much does a 3x great grandparent contribute and that is around 3% so 6% in total since both are Routledge and from the same actual line. If I look at the matches then sibling 4 does match quite strongly with the Routledge family (stronger than the other three) and you can see that in the 17% - Amazing really what DNA can find!

Scurrying away once again to contemplate these latest changes and how they might affect my thinking with regard to that elusive great grandmother. I do have cousins in the United States that share my maternal grandmother's ancestry (two of her sisters) (six 2nd cousins (grandchildren of these two sisters)) and perhaps one of these days they will test and we can triangulate on some of these known Irish matches!