DNA test with Ancestry...a puzzle

I find the constant “updates” on Ancestry a bit irritating. I started off approximately 30% each English, Scottish and Welsh, the rest Scandinavian, and the English component was all North East England, which seemed spot on. Now I’m down to less than 20% English, and all from the Midlands, though my family has no known connections to that area.

It’s been easy for me to tell which parental chart is which though, because I know all the Welsh is from my mother. The other components are fairly evenly split.

nanna8

With the new dna results my Welsh ancestry has gone up to 20%. Fair enough,as I know my gt gt grandparents were both Welsh but it was intriguing to see some of it came from my Dad’s side. The nearest I can get from those ancestors was Oswestry but I believe that was once part of Wales way back when. It is certainly fascinating.

I think Oswestry has always been on the English side of the border.

They must have criss-crossed the border for work etc; DH's ancestors were border people from a little further north than that but more Welsh than English. They had relocated from one side of the border to another on various censuses.

Oswestry did indeed change its allegiance between Wales and England several times in the Middle Ages (its Welsh name is Croesoswallt)

I stand corrected! Thank you Lexisgranny

Maggiemaybe, dh was invited to get an update on his minor percentage of ‘Viking’ DNA the other day, which he did - it wasn’t very enlightening at all, hardly more than he’d already had.
Of course he had to,pay, so I suspect that it’s at least partly an income generator.
I dare say the mere mention of ‘Viking’, rather than Danish or whatever, attracts people to pay to find out that they’re (not) directly descended from Erik Bloodaxe.

Callistemon21

^Oswestry did indeed change its allegiance between Wales and England several times in the Middle Ages (its Welsh name is Croesoswallt)^

I stand corrected! Thank you Lexisgranny

I have ancestors from the Oswestry/Llansilin area and they were literally living right on the border in the Old Toll Bar (or Old Turnpike) at Rhydycroesau. Lovely property which is still there on the border of England and Wales!

Interesting Chestnut

It does look a lovely property. Were they tollkeepers?

(Autocorrect keeps changing that to goalkeepers)

How wonderful to be able to identify a house your ancestors lived in!

I found a picture online of the road where my great-grandparents lived in in the 1800s.

Their address was on the census form and I found it on the Francis Frith website.
If I'd known when we visited that village years ago, I would have looked for the actual house.

I found out from an Ancestry census search recently that DH’s great-grandad lived in our local curry house. When it was just the house without the curry, of course.

And I found that some of my ancestors lived in pubs that still exist. We’ve said we’ll pop in for a pint when we’re up North again.

Germanshepherdsmum

How wonderful to be able to identify a house your ancestors lived in!

I have identified most of the houses my ancestors lived in, if they were country dwellings or in small towns. The ones that are mostly gone were in cities, because they were either bombed or demolished.

Callistemon21

Interesting Chestnut

It does look a lovely property. Were they tollkeepers?

(Autocorrect keeps changing that to goalkeepers)

In 1841 the father was shown as an ag lab and living at the Old Turnpike with his wife and 5 children (all under 10 years) and his elderly mother in law.

Strangely, he seems to have a connection with the English/Welsh border, because many years later in 1867 the newspaper reported he was found near Chirk, dead at the foot of a precipice, so he may have fallen into Offa’s Dyke as it ran across that exact place. This was a sad and sudden end for my ancestor.

My DNA profile has changed again, one parent 22%Scottish the other parent is now 4% Scottish and has more Norway, Danish in it. Before the latest update it was pretty much 22% Scottish from each parent.

How can that be? I’ve gone from Welsh to Scottish and now that has almost disappeared from one parent.

I think I will have to contact Ancestry and find out. Surely the Parental bits would stay the same if they had done it properly in the first place?

Oopsadaisy1 There are tutorials and forums on Ancestry explaining everything. You just have to spend the time studying it and trying to understand it, but it's not exactly straightforward.
Try the Ancestry Academy and scroll down to Understanding DNA
Ancestry Academy

That sounds horrific, poor man and his poor family, Chestnut.

Yes, terrible. His children would be adults (if they survived childhood) but was his wife still alive?

I have no idea why he was walking alone quite some way from home, but they assumed he fell over the precipice because he was drunk. I think this is pure speculation, as he may have had a stroke and died from exposure. He was 57 years old and it was 9th March (so very cold).
He left behind 8 children, youngest 17 years old. But this was a lovely family who cared for their oldies, so his widow lived with her children after his death.

What a dreadful shock for the family. Good that they looked after Mum.