Saturday, April 16, 2016

DNA Test Results

When Ancestry had a sale on their DNA kits I took advantage of the sale and ordered a kit.  Last week my results came in.  Here is my Ethnicity estimate.  Great Britain 39%, Western European 39%, Eastern European 17% and 5% Trace.  No surprise since my ancestors came from England, Germany and Bohemia.  


The 5% Trace is interesting also. 

I once asked my Dad if there was any Jewish blood in us and he made up some crazy story about his grandfather bringing back a baby from Germany who had a Jewish relative.  I can't even remember what he said but I could tell it was made up. I was young then and I just felt I had Jewish blood in me.  I guess it was because I worked at Mount Sinai Medical Center on Miami Beach and all my little Jewish patients would ask me what is a nice Jewish girl like you doing here.  With a nose like that and a name like Hartmann you have to be Jewish plus I had a pretty strong New York accent at that time. 
Well I guess that < 1% Jewish blood came out in my nose. 
There is a couple of matches that are good, one is to my second cousin on the Bohemian side.  We know each other and meet on Ancestry.  I found another match with a Hartmann and their ancestor came from the same small town my great grandfather came from, but their parent names don't match but they might be cousins and not siblings.  I message that tree owner.  Here is hoping. This is one of my sides I would like to know more about.

Friday, April 15, 2016

#MyColorfulAncestry

Last month a fellow genealogist J Paul Hawthorne came up with a clever idea to show the place of birth of your ancestors. He used an Excel spreadsheet and my Facebook feed was filled for a couple of days with colorful charts. It was enjoyable to see all the variations of colors and places. 
Of course I participated.  Here is mine chart.


This lead me to another idea I had seen of an age chart and I had been wanting to do a Cause of Death Pedigree.  So I combined the two together and came up with the following. This chart is only 4 generations and not 5. 


You can click on the pictures to see a larger image. It was a fun idea and an enjoyable activity.  Paul even made a Pinterest board for the charts if you want to see some more. 

I just decided to play and I made a new chart just now, it is a Birth and Death Place Chart all in one. This even shows more migration of myself and ancestors. The top line is where the person was born the bottom line is where they died or in my case living.


Happy Searching!