Then I got my DNA tested.<\/p>\n
The resulting map showing my ethnicity, above, could properly be titled, “Anywhere BUT Germany.”<\/p>\n
I am 56% British.<\/p>\n
I’m 17% from Eastern Europe, and 14% from Italy \/ Greece. There are also bits\u00a0of Scandinavia and the Iberian Peninsula in my DNA, and tiny smidgens of European Jewish, Ireland, and Central Asia.<\/p>\n
The Brit percentage is an estimate, of course. The range, according to AncestryDNA, is 34% to 76%.\u00a0Eastern European is a range of 9% to 26% and\u00a0Italy \/ Greece is 3% to 25%.<\/p>\n
But no German ethnicity\u00a0in the list.<\/p>\n
If\u00a0you look at the complete map, I have to point out, it doesn’t really rule out Germans.<\/p>\n
![\"LS](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/LS-DNA-ethnicity-estimate-1024x604.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The history of Europe is one of conquest and trade routes. “The Romans, Anglo-Saxon, Vikings and Normans have all left their mark on Great Britain both politically and culturally,” Ancestry notes. Europe East “has stood at the crossroads\u2014and often in the crosshairs\u2014of Europe and Central Asia.”<\/p>\n
So under the ethnicity groups, there’s a note for “also found in.”\u00a0Great Britain\u00a0<\/strong>Also found in:\u00a0<\/em>Ireland, France, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Italy.<\/strong><\/p>\n Conquest = rape and pillage. Not a great source of pride in\u00a0ethnic heritage.<\/p>\n How do they come up with these numbers, anyhow?<\/p>\n We create estimates for your genetic ethnicity by comparing your DNA to the DNA of other people who are native to a region. The AncestryDNA reference panel (version 2.0) contains 3,000 DNA samples<\/span> from people in 26 global regions<\/span>. We build the reference panel from a larger reference collection of 4,245 DNA samples collected from people whose genealogy suggests they are native to one region. …<\/p>\n We then compare your DNA to the DNA in the reference panel to see which regions your DNA is most like. The ethnicity estimate you see on the web site is the result of this comparison.<\/p>\n When we calculate your estimate for each ethnicity region, we run forty separate analyses. Each of the forty analyses gives an independent estimate of your ethnicity, and each one is done with randomly selected portions of your DNA. Your genetic ethnicity estimates and likely ranges for these estimates come from these forty analyses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hard to argue with that.<\/p>\n Tom and I both\u00a0had this DNA test done in 2014, and at the time I was so vexed and perplexed by my results\u00a0that I set the whole thing aside.<\/p>\n How could I not be German? Impossible! It’s the foundation of my identity!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Last month, AncestryDNA came up with improved analytics and revised its DNA matches. But my ethnicity numbers were still the same.<\/p>\n So it’s time\u00a0to out myself.<\/p>\n I’m not pure German. I’m not pure anything. I’m just a mongrel like most Americans and Europeans.<\/p>\n I may admire German engineering<\/a>, regularly demonstrate German stubbornness, and emulate German traits<\/a>. But I am not German.<\/p>\n It’s hard to admit to this DNA#FAIL.<\/p>\n My friend Dan<\/a>, whose family is proud to have\u00a0British ancestry, leapt at\u00a0the opportunity to make fun of me.<\/p>\n “Blimey! \u00a0You’re more English than I am!” he wrote. “How do you explain that?\u00a0Hmm…a gypsy wandered through Italy and then settled in England? \u00a0So much for beer-sloshing second cousins in the Hitler Youth. \u00a0Your people were tipping tea, pinkies up!\u00a0I await your explanation!!”<\/p>\n My\u00a0DNA discovery, though\u00a0painful, made me suddenly aware of\u00a0how silly my\u00a0pride\u00a0was.<\/p>\n I come from everywhere. Now that’s a heritage to be proud of.<\/p>\n Today’s penny is a 2014, the year I had the DNA test done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For many years, I’ve been proud to claim\u00a0my German ancestry. The good qualities that Germans are known for – hard work, frugality,\u00a0efficiency and organization\u00a0– are ones that I like to\u00a0see in myself. I’ve always bragged that I was German, on both sides, all the way back – unusual for an American\u00a0whose ancestors immigrated in the\u00a01830s … read more I’m not who I thought I was<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[36,1019,8,1017,250,1020,1021,1018,249,9],"class_list":["post-7878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inheritance","tag-36","tag-culture","tag-dad","tag-dna","tag-germany","tag-great-britain","tag-greece","tag-heritage","tag-italy","tag-mom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7878"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8276,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7878\/revisions\/8276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}