Where in the world are we from?

When Everly came into our lives, we learned that both of her birth parents were adopted themselves and they didn't know anything about their heritage.  Shauna saw an ad for Ancestry.com that was advertising the chance to find our your genetic heritage through a DNA test.  She decided that this would be a good gift for Sean for Father's Day.  The order was placed and the DNA kit was in the mail.

When it arrived, we learned that you had to spit a certain amount of saliva into a tube they provided and send it back to them.  Asher was great at this, but getting the saliva from three month old Everly proved to be a difficult task.  Not so much the collecting part, though that was difficult enough, but the actual testing part.  The DNA results came back inconclusive two times.  Then about two or three months later, the results finally came though!

One thing we learned through this is that just because you have ancestors who are of one ethnicity, that does that mean you have their genetic DNA in your cells.  Take Asher.  We were excited to see his Native American heritage in his DNA, but when we got the results, there was nothing!  We reread how everything worked, and found his exact situation as an example.  Just because he had Native American ancestors, did not mean he automatically received any of their DNA.  Two sibling's DNA results could be completely different!  It's just a roll of the die as to what DNA you get from your ancestors! Fascinating!

I think for birthdays or Mather's/Father's Day next year, we will get the test done as well :)

Here are the results for Asher and Everly:

Asher:

Europe 97%

West Asia 3% 

Scandinavian	45%
Great Britain	26%
Europe West	8%
Ireland	7%
Iberian Peninsula	5%
Europe East	4%
Italy/Greece	2%
Middle East	3%

© 2014 Nokia© 2014 Microsoft Corporation

It looks like Asher's genes primarily come from the cold lands of Scandinavia!

Everly:

Ethnicity estimate for Everly 

Europe 99%

Africa 1% 

Ireland	27%
Europe West	23%
Scandinavia	19%
Iberian Peninsula	16%
Great Britain	7%
Europe East	3%
Finland/Northwest Russia	3%
Italy/Greece	< 1%
African Southeastern Bantu	1%

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© 2014 Nokia© 2014 Microsoft Corporation

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© 2014 Nokia© 2014 Microsoft Corporation

While Everly is pretty much split between Ireland and Western Europe, we are definitely loving the Irish heritage in her :)  How funny that she has African Bantu into her too!  Who would have thought!?

It's great to know what our children's heritage is and giving them something else they can identify with in their lives.  

Ancestry.com!! Gotta love the advancements of technology!