Question for Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot
(Please note that this person showed me her results and asked me to interpret them.)
My genealogy research takes me back to Southern Poland and parts of what is now Slovakia, Hungary, and Ukraine. I know this was the Austrian Empire, but my ancestors always had their "ethnic I'm" as these ethnicities. I'm showing Asian ancestry on one side and Near Eastern ancestry on the other. Percentages would l be about one sixteenth of each - so that would be great great grandparents - right? Is this the end of my standard paper trail research? Please comment. Thanks.
G.
Answer from Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot
Not necessarily.
First remember that all results are statistically based and dependent on all the people who have chosen to contribute their personal data to that particular company's resultsw and that stats are reworked based on an ever-growing number of considerations. Also, as more understanding of genetics and DNA comes forth, it can get more specific - such as what tribe (be that Native American or Native European - so to speak). Sometimes this information can lead us past a block.
One sixteenth could be a great great grandparents. We each have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, and sixteen great-great grandparents. However, it could be some other combination such as four of the thirty two great great great grandparents. Or some small strain in many ancestors that adds up.
Today many people simply feel American or Canadian or British - or whatever - though only one of their lines show that. Other people relate to an ethnicity or way of life - including attitudes and lifestyle - that they may be criticized for adopting because there is no biological evidence for it. (This is one of the reasons I think sometimes that a past life experience is why.)
As for the paper trail - standard genealogy - it is always worth pursing even if it is at odds with the DNA or genetic results. However, the notions that genealogy will prove generations of marriages - chosen and happy marriages - or unite a fractured family are myths. People may have lives that were more controlled or regimented or limited than we have come to expect as Americans, but there were still affairs and there was rape. Rape is so common that I doubt there is anyone alive who doesn't have some DNA as a result of rape.
Some areas of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine, experienced invasions and occupations that included murder and rape. I suspect you will not likely find church or temple records going into the 19th or 18th century that reveal that. You might want to read about the Tatars, Mongols, and Ottoman Turks.
In my years as a genealogist, I've rarely found notations in records that expand on the explanation of illegitimacy, for instance. (Once in a while an understanding priest wrote in "father in America" or something about a death before marriage - alluding to a romance or plan to be married when the unfortunate happened.) It's so sad to me when I find a woman who has one child after another without a father and see how soon those children die. I always wonder if she was a woman repeatedly taken advantage of by men in the village - perhaps an orphan or someone born without average intelligence - someone who might have been forced into prostitution.
A W G
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