Season 8: All Episodes Talk

[riverblue22]

5 hours ago, Snarklepuss said:

The more I learn about the British side of my family, the more I realize that most English people are mixed with Irish and that genetically speaking there is a lot of crossover as nationalities did not mean much until relatively recently, and definitely don't mean much when looking at DNA and ethnic origins going back hundreds and thousands of years.  This is something most modern people don't understand much about until they really get into their family history.  My father and I were both delighted to learn that we had some Irish DNA in us because as far as we knew that family was strictly English.  I have gone back many generations on that side in my research and have turned up Irish and Scottish ancestors as recent as the 18th Century.  It seems that they got around and mixed with each other more than we thought.

My father's ancestors are English and Scottish with hardly any Irish showing up.  But then my DNA test came up 27% Irish so they've mixed in there somewhere.  

[Snarklepuss]

I found this page interesting - It gives the percentages of Irish DNA found in different areas of England, Ireland and Scotland, and it's pretty high even at it's lowest:

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/03/16/what-does-our-dna-tell-us-about-being-irish/

The author talks about growing up in Donegal, in Ireland, where my husband's father was from.  Given his last name and his DNA results we know there's Scottish in that family too.

[riverblue22]

Thanks for the link, Snarklepuss.  I'm still trying to figure out how my results show 4% Western Europe and <1% Eastern Europe when my mother's ancestors were entirely German.  And yet I have many DNA links to relatives on her side of the family.  

[Blergh]

OK, in addition to wanting to know HOW Miss Ringwald's great-great grandma went from being born into a Swedish Miners' Widows' home to being  a maid to coming to the US to owning her own piece of land (my guess is that she urged her husband to quit mining and strike out for farming in a new land after what had happened to her own family), I'd like to know how her own paternal grandmother got the given name of 'Aloha'. Did her parents vacation in Hawaii previous to her birth or was this something she herself later changed it to?

[SingleMaltBlonde]

9 hours ago, riverblue22 said:

Thanks for the link, Snarklepuss.  I'm still trying to figure out how my results show 4% Western Europe and <1% Eastern Europe when my mother's ancestors were entirely German.  And yet I have many DNA links to relatives on her side of the family.  

I have wondered about DNA...is it like a stew while the components produce something different but the components are all still present or does your dna reflect the parts of what you got from each parent?  I am 3/4 Norweigian and pretty much 1/4 Dutch....I look exactly like my Norwiegian father so I I wonder would my DNA reflect more of his side?  I am torn on getting the test...mostly because I am pretty sure I will find out I am whiter and more boring than anyone thought possible.

I have friends with kids who are doppelganger for one parent ... would their DNA reflect that?

[Snarklepuss]

Appearance is literally only skin deep.  Aspects of one's superficial appearance like hair color, skin color, and even build and bone structure don't mean anything with regard to DNA.  A person could be bi-racial white/black and appear all black but their DNA would still show them as roughly 50% Caucasian and 50% Sub Saharan African.  I have noticed that my DNA percentages closely reflect what would be logical to expect based on my parents' heritage.  For example, my mother's side is 100% Italian and my DNA results show me to be about 48% Italian, meaning it's roughly 50% just like I would expect.

[SingleMaltBlonde]

5 hours ago, Snarklepuss said:

Appearance is literally only skin deep.  Aspects of one's superficial appearance like hair color, skin color, and even build and bone structure don't mean anything with regard to DNA.  A person could be bi-racial white/black and appear all black but their DNA would still show them as roughly 50% Caucasian and 50% Sub Saharan African.  I have noticed that my DNA percentages closely reflect what would be logical to expect based on my parents' heritage.  For example, my mother's side is 100% Italian and my DNA results show me to be about 48% Italian, meaning it's roughly 50% just like I would expect.

Thanks, I really didn't know.  I know the results are a crap shoot. 

[Lizzing]

On 5/12/2016 at 8:13 PM, SingleMaltBlonde said:

I have wondered about DNA...is it like a stew while the components produce something different but the components are all still present or does your dna reflect the parts of what you got from each parent?  I am 3/4 Norweigian and pretty much 1/4 Dutch....I look exactly like my Norwiegian father so I I wonder would my DNA reflect more of his side?  I am torn on getting the test...mostly because I am pretty sure I will find out I am whiter and more boring than anyone thought possible.

I have friends with kids who are doppelganger for one parent ... would their DNA reflect that?

Humans have 46 chromosomes; 23 come from the egg and 23 come from the sperm.  So, your DNA is exactly 50/50 from both parents.  Whether the features expressed (the phenotype) by the DNA in the chromosomes is more like one parent or the other is a product of dominant and recessive characteristics of each gene, the a combination of genes, and environment (example being, you may have the genetic proclivity to be tall, but you were greatly undernourished as a child, you likely will be less tall than if otherwise properly nourished).

The research on using DNA as a predictor of a person's looks is coming up, but not there yet.  Aside from things like dying hair, make up, plastic surgery, and colored contacts that anyone can do to change their looks, certain predictions can be made on facial features based solely on DNA, but aren't 100% reliable yet.  It's a cool area in DNA research that's making some progress, with application in solving crimes.  Here's article on it: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129613-600-genetic-mugshot-recreates-faces-from-nothing-but-dna/  A similar program was demo'd on Killing Fields earlier this year and the likeness arrived at through DNA analysis was pretty dead on, not a photo likeness, but much better than a police sketch based on peoples' memories.

Personally, I'd love for the DNA facial prediction to become more accurate because I'd want to do it for historical figures to see how accurate portraits were painted in some cases or how much a positive spin was put on rulers' looks by royal portrait artists.

[kassa]

I don't know -- given the ugly pusses in many royal portraits, it doesn't seem like they could possibly have been doing them any favors!

You get 50% from each parent, but beyond that it's chance -- you don't get 25% from each grandparent. Because of the X and Y chromosome, it's mathematically possible to get all of your X or Y chromosomes from one grandparent. More likely is that you get a preponderance of the mix.   

[Snarklepuss]

This page from Ancestry.com may clear up any questions about DNA inheritance patterns:

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2014/03/05/understanding-patterns-of-inheirtance-where-did-my-dna-come-from-and-why-it-matters/

[ChicagoCita]

On 5/8/2016 at 5:57 PM, Pete Martell said:

I'm sure he knew of it, but knowing of it and seeing a relative whose life was severely impacted are different matters entirely.

Obviously I knew about Prohibition, but it took a long time for me to do the math (me, a history dweeb!) and figure out exactly why my German great-grandfather changed jobs by the 1920 census. He had been a bottler at a brewery forever. and suddenly became a handyman. Then the penny dropped. It's weird when history becomes personal.

[Lugal]

1 hour ago, ChicagoCita said:

Obviously I knew about Prohibition, but it took a long time for me to do the math (me, a history dweeb!) and figure out exactly why my German great-grandfather changed jobs by the 1920 census. He had been a bottler at a brewery forever. and suddenly became a handyman. Then the penny dropped. It's weird when history becomes personal.

Like when a 3rd great grandfather disappeared from the census after 1860 (I did find him later in another state under another name).