At some point, I’ll be needing to change the page on this blog that reflects what ancestors I’m thought to have had and what ethnicities have or share. Although 23andMe and Ancestry have introduced me to great relatives, and answered some of the questions that I had going into testing — as well as caused even more questions to form — the ethnicities that it thought me to have were a bust in that both sites wildly guessed that I had a lot of English, northwestern heritage… and left it at that, not telling me anything else. As both… what do you call them?… continued to update over the years, none of these questions were answered. Not too long ago, I decided to feed my Ancestry test results into more specific sites, like MyHeritage (which was surprisingly more helpful) and, eventually, Genomelink. Not only did that answer the remainder of my questions, I felt the most confident in the results based on what I already knew. All of this is fascinating.

There are also some other things that I’ve found out by way of Ancestry tree (thanks, friend!) and Gemnoelink, which bounce off of eaxh other confirming what the other one says. It’s wild. 2023 is wild.

So 23andMe and Ancestry… are nowhere near as accurate as they need to be (or even are), given what I know about my family history. It seems like both sites take a guess assuming that I have substantial British DNA because what European doesn’t? (The answer is me. I am substantially Scandinavian and have less than five percent British DNA in all seriousness. I also know from what side of the family it came from, too.)

Getting back on track though… I did feed my raw data file from Ancestry to Genomelink, and I had it extrapolate my European DNA — not very much of that was a surprise, as it confirmed findings from ADNTRO and MyHeritage’s results — as well as trace Asian DNA that it said I had. The amount of it didn’t surprise me, but the origins of it did. I wouldn’t have guessed that I had Levantine or Turkic DNA. But then again, I have a fairly substantial amount of Iberian DNA, so the Levantine one shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. But it got me thinking because I have two cousins on one very specific side of the family who have that much trace Asian DNA. However, one of those cousins had Melanesian DNA, so it’s probably not too much of a stretch to assume that some of my trace Asian DNA might be Melanesian and I’m recording something like Turkic, Siberian, and South Indian DNA where he’s recording something else. It’s like how I have Balkan and Iberian DNA where one of my other cousins, way off on the other side of the family, has clearer Portuguese and Spanish DNA. I’m still glad — and thankful — that more and more strides are being made in genomics so people can learn more about their family history, especially people who know next to nothing about their family history for whatever reason. I am definitely going to keep studying this.

Apparently there are two titles that I can legally inherit, and one that is really close to me.

I am also part of the Broke family tree, but I can not inherit the title because I am not close enough to it. There is an incumbent who has two children, and I’m not going to fight an old man or his children for it… especially one who appears to be a conservative member of the House of Lords (UKIP?). I’ll pass on that one. I’m not even going to bother adding “de Broke” to my name in exchanges. The reason that I’m not close enough to become an incumbent for it is because my ancestors migrated over to America and his did not.

Anyway…

I can claim the title Lady of Holderness because it fell out of use, and a distant great-grandmother of mine was actually the Baroness of Holderness. No one else can claim the title, nor are they interested in the title. I suppose that’s the great thing about my family tree being as twisted as it is… any real contender for the title is dead at this point, so it is what it is, and anyone who might even consider fighting me for it is one of two things: dead or not interested. So it’s mine. My oldest son can become the Master of Holderness upon my death, and my youngest son can become Sir Holderness. As for the second one, it’s actually a high-priority one… I’m in close proximity to a Baronetess title that stopped being used because a lot of the people who could claim it died, and of those who it was passed on to (more of an effort was made to pass this one on because it is a higher priority title), for some reason they just let it fall out of use. These tended to be male-preference primogeniture for awhile, which is something that I have positively hated, but there is no choice to be had in this one: again, anyone who could fight me to claim this is either dead, or they aren’t even remotely interested in this “geeky sort of thing” and they would actively refuse it. So I’m stealing it. It’s mine. (I could probably actively steal it in Britain, too. I’m considering it… at some point in the future. Not now.) My oldest son would become the Baronet of Isel upon my death, and my youngest son would become The Honorable Sir Isel. It is what it is. These titles aren’t being used, I am in direct proximity to them due to great-grandmothers (gesturing upward here, far upward) or great-grandfathers being the legal holders of them — King Charles I actually conferred the Baronet of Isel title upon my ancestor — and I am reclaiming them for use as a direct descendant. Thank you for your time. Peace. I am out of here. Until next time, dear readers.

One of my parents was adopted by their grandparents at birth and raised to believe that their grandparents were their parents and that their mother was their older sister. Very few people knew the truth, but someone who did came forward and told that parent of mine — with proof — so that they would have the truth, and gave them information on their biological father. I’m not sure how much information was given to them about their biological father aside from his former city and state of residence seeing as how he is now deceased, but not long after this I took Ancestry and 23andMe tests for a number of reasons. I began matching to several family members on this side of the family, which I expected and was able to place on the family tree of mine that someone added to their paid account giving me editor privileges over so that I could add people to my family tree as I answered questions through matches. However, the recent obituary of an aunt of mine on that side of the family (found through Google) surprised me, because I had expected my parent to be the oldest of the children that my grandfather had, and it actually turned out that this parent of mine was the youngest. Through gathering information from cousins’ family trees from this side of my family, Ancestry finally began giving me information about my grandfather that I had up until that point been missing, and suddenly everything made sense in a bad way that made my parent’s adoption make sense.

My grandfather was forty-five years old when one of my parents was conceived.

My grandmother was sixteen years old. Sixteen years old.

My grandfather had been married for decades to his wife, and counting off of the nodes on Ancestry if I’ve gotten this right — and I think I have — he’d already had six children by that point. Not only did it become apparent that my grandfather had cheated on his wife (who, might I add, he died married to, so I’m not even sure she knew about this and am unwilling to go down that rabbit hole at this time), but at the very least was a pedophile or an ephebophile — he’d had sex with a sixteen-year-old teenager while he was middle-aged, and forty-five years old at that — and that he had quite likely committed rape. To add insult to injury, I found out through information supplied to me on Ancestry that he was only a year younger than my grandmother’s father — my great-grandfather — and that he was actually a few years older than my great-grandmother. Fortunately, he had nothing to do with the actual raising of my parent. He never met or knew this parent and is now deceased, which I have absolutely no problems with. (And for the record, I would like to take the time to state that I harbor no ill will toward the family members of his who quite likely knew nothing about all of this, had perhaps been misled about things if he ever did mention it [like my grandmother lying about “any child being his”, or something].) Ancestry and 23andMe prove clear, close relation to this family tree. The only person that I blame here is he who should be blamed and is long gone.

I do not blame family members of mine on his side for his actions, but I blame him for his own actions.