Longtime readers know that I have several novels sitting in various stage of unfinishedness. One thing almost all of them have in common, apart from the not-very-done part and the not-very-good part, is that they’re set in and around England. (And, in one instance, a fake version of England.)

I’m not really sure why. I’m not from there. I’ve never been there. But I can’t deny I don’t possess an unusually strong affinity for the geography. Not to mention Monty Python, J.K. Rowling, Doctor Who, The Who, Yes, Maisie Williams, Mr. Bean, and Graham Norton. You know, just to name a few.

I say I’m not from there, but only in the sense I wasn’t born there. Growing up, my dad always said our family was “Scottish, Irish, English, and German,” and always in that order. And, just like all of humanity did for tens of thousands of years, I had to take him at his word. People could only trace their families back using the traditional combination of word of mouth, birth certificates, and framed Coat-of-Arms prints.

But no longer! This is the twenty-first century. We now have the technology to spit into a tube, send it off to a multi-billion dollar company (who “promises” not to do anything bad with it), and ultimately receive the information that we inadvertently married our first cousin.

A while back I went through this process myself. Good news! I did not marry any close family members. My wife and I are 13,784th cousins, twenty-seven times removed. But what the DNA people did deliver was the following information:

England, Wales & Northwestern Europe	38%
Scandinavia	29%
Ireland & Scotland	18%
Europe South	6%
Europe West	5%
European Jewish	3%
Europe East	1%

Biggest surprise? Twenty-nine percent Scandinavian. Huh.

Biggest non-surprise? Well, I see a lot of “Scottish, Irish, English, and German” in there, (where “German” is likely represented by “Northwestern Europe.”) So maybe the word of mouth, birth certificates, and coats-of-arms actually work.

Some months — maybe a whole year — later, I logged back in and they said, “We’ve got updates!” Not unexpected. The more data they collect and analyze, the more chances that the interpretation of the data can change. Eager to see the update, I clicked “OK” or “Next” or whatever button they put in front of me and received the following info:

Hawaiian	61%
Egyptian	22%
Peruvian	10%
Yemeni	8%

Wait a second. No, that’s not my account. Hang on. Okay, here we go:

England, Wales & Northwestern Europe	77%
Germanic Europe	18%
Sweden	3%
Ireland & Scotland	2%

Huh. While it looks like Sweden took a dive (29% to 3%) my guess some sort of Viking-like componant got reclassified. The good news is, I can probably still say “Scottish, Irish, English, and German,” but clearly the order needs to be rearranged. But the biggest thing is that “England” is right up there on top. And I’m okay now saying I’m kinda from there and will happily use that to explain my affinity.

Fun Bonus Story

I logged back in not to long ago. Something they update far more quickly than my ethnicity analysis is DNA Matches: the list of other spitters who match me with a certain amount of genetic probability. Anyway, I logged in to find a new match:

• Possible range: Parent, Child – immediate family member
• Confidence: Extremely High
• Relationship: your Mother
• Shared DNA: 3,453 cM across 59 segments

I can’t believe it! I found my birth mother! Of course, this customer also turned out to be the woman who raised me from birth, so no real surprise here. But isn’t it kind of cool to know that science supports it? 😉