Time to introduce myself

[whitebullwifezig]

A few years ago, on a whim, I took a 23andMe test. I was mostly curious about the medical side of things, but the ancestry report left me boggled. I didn’t recognise my DNA matches, and some of the listed regions made no sense to me.

Fast forward to about a year ago: I logged back in, stared again at the jumble of ethnicities and my brother’s Y-haplogroup, and thought, what on earth does all this mean? Can I find out?

Since then, I’ve enjoyed both the practical side (how to search effectively, the genealogical proof standard), the background (British economic history, geography, cursive) and the genetic side (refreshing my dusty biology knowledge, interpreting DNA matches, understanding haplogroups). Another enjoyable side project was deciphering a scrap of paper my great-aunt left behind, listing the names of cousins and second cousins who lived on the same street in my hometown, with little notes like “went to Bath” or “went to America.”

A few discoveries:

• The bulk of my ancestry is rooted in Devon and Cornwall, but I also have a dash of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland - a true child of the British Isles. I've visited a lot of ancestral places unknowingly.
• I have Jewish heritage.
• I've helped some people find their biological parents.
• My great-great-grandfather was born in Uttar Pradesh as his dad was in the army, and a 4th-great-uncle born in Egypt as one of my 5th-great-grandfathers was in the navy
• My 3rd-great-grandmother moved 340 miles in c. 1832 from Hull to Devon! I have no evidence to suggest she travelled with anyone to come here. This was after her dad’s body was found in the Old Harbour in Hull after ostensibly falling in.
• Nazi bombing took away: my grandma's uncle, Charles Church, a huge number of ancestral streets (though perhaps they were not fit for human habitation so would've been knocked down before now anyway), majority of pre-1848 wills in the fire in Exeter, and I presume any settlement papers of the lady who moved from Hull
• And, like so many of us, I descend from a long line of agricultural labourers.

I'm officially hooked!

 

[G6JPG (John)]

Welcome!
I think most of us ignore the origins outcome of a DNA test, other than as a curiosity: they're too far back to be any use. (For example, I have a significant percentage from continental Europe, but in my researches, I have found one ancestor from Scotland, the rest all England and Wales.)
You're lucky to have that scrap of paper: bit like the fabled "family bible" which is the holy grail (!) of genealogists.
I'm mostly Norfolk, Northumberland, and midlands (Cheshire, Staffordshire, Flintshire). No exotic foreigners for me!
My GGGM moved - on her own, with a gaggle of children (her husband having died, allegedly from a fall from a ladder, which is plausible as he was a builder) from Norfolk to Northumberland, but cousins were already there, as part of the Norfolk diaspora for the industrial revolution: lots of new jobs in mining in the north-east, little change to agricultural Norfolk.
No wartime deaths I know of, though a GGF returned somewhat bitter (as I presume did many) from the first war.
Yes, lots of "Ag. Lab." in my ancestry, and a fair number of "pitman" and other words for miner. (I've seen the big [about 3 by 2 foot] ledger/paybook for Radcliff colliery, showing in detail how many tons each miner - including some of my ancestors - hewed each day.)

Yes, once you get hooked on this hobby, there's no escape!