Last month I sent away my DNA sample (about a teaspoon worth of saliva) to the Ancestry DNA people here in Australia. I received my results late Thursday afternoon.
I knew that a lot of my ancestors came from the UK. Which is exactly what my DNA shows. I was hoping that there would be some Scandinavian in there because I have traced a lot of my family tree to the north eastern part of England, areas like York, Newcastle Upon Tyne. Those are the areas where the vikings had invaded and/or settled around 1000 years ago. I didn't realise that the percentage would be as high as it was. I now have more of an affinity with the TV show vikings now (~_o)
It's all very exciting. I was hoping that it would help me find out more information on dad's side of the family. They never really talked about them much so I never had any idea about who they were. I have already made contact with a 4th cousin. Who funnily enough lived a suburb over from me when we were kids. We would never have known that we were related.
Quite a few gaps in my family tree have already been filled. I now know why there wasn't a lot of 'talk' about the family either because they were a bit on the naughty side of the law. It's no wonder things were hush hush. It's all interesting to find out about it now though.
Time to go and learn some more about my family.
