I sent in my 23andMe raw genetic data to a former genetic researcher at the University of Illinois, and he came back with a “best match” list of ethnicities for me. Keep in mind this sort of dates like 40,000+ years ago, so exact country names and ethnicities do change.  Also, apparently Native American doesn’t show up as it’s own thing, because they drifted into North America through Siberia and East Asia…so in someone like me with both European and Asian descent, Native American doesn’t distinguish and gets treated as noise data included into those two categories as opposed to showing as an ethnic population of its own.  This seems to be further complicated by a lack of data from full-blooded Native Americans.

Anyway, my ancient line runs about as follows (from the email of the researcher):

“Most likely fit is 70.3% (+- 0.3%) Europe (all Western Europe)
and 26.5% (+- 1.0%) E. Asia (various subcontinents)
and 2.4% (+- 0.2%) Africa (all East African)
and 0.9% (+- 0.6%) S. Asia (various subcontinents)

and it looks somewhat odd … but an actual “best” match is
Irish=0.342
Belarus=0.253
Japanese=0.229
Spain=0.139
Malaysia=0.037
…with just perhaps a teensy bit of African.”

Haha, I’m most surprised by the Irish.  Granted, with the kind of time period we’re talking about I seriously doubt that modern “Irish” is what is being represented here, but still, kinda interesting.  Belarus doesn’t surprise me, as my father’s family traces back to old Prussia (and currently, Germany and Austria).  The church that most of my family was christened in back through the 1500′s is located in central Germany, which was then Prussia.  As for Spain, who knows…I assume someone mixed with someone Spanish in my European past a zillion years ago.  Probably the same with Malaysia and the Japanese.  The African part, I can only guess at.  Someone was having a moment?

My Japanese side traces to the Okinawan/Ryukyuan as opposed to the mainland Japanese.  I knew that part and the Prussian/Belarussian part already.  Where did that big old chunk of Irish come from, though?  So weird!  Then again, the researcher also sent me a map with my overall “genetic average” point…and it centers in the north-eastern area of Germany and east towards Belarus.  My matrilineal side strongly centers in Okinawa.  So however the science of these percentages works out (and it is _really_ confusing to read), I think essentially I’m Prussian and Okinawan.

I’d still like to know what that whole Irish bit is supposed to mean.

Genetics is a fun topic.