November 22 2018

Review: MyHeritage DNA

Back in March 2018, my daughter bought the MyHeritage DNA Test Kit for me as an early birthday gift.

We basically chose this kit because it was on sale for what we considered to be an affordable price, and we decided to go for it. I think she was almost as excited to see what it showed as I was. I knew we had English, German and Irish ancestors. I was hoping to figure out more specifically where our ancestors came from in those countries or what other countries we might have ties to.

The italicized words below are not my words, but the actual results that I got in an email from MyHeritage DNA.

Europe 100.0%

North and West Europe 100.0%

North and West European 84.4%

Irish, Scottish, and Welsh 15.6%

Karen Beidelman 100.0%

84.4%

North and West European

The population of Northern and Western Europe mainly includes German, French, and Dutch people. This region has been influenced by significant historical events including the formation of the Catholic Church, the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution. Imperial conquests and the age of colonization have spread Northern and Western European peoples across the globe, with significant populations across the Americas and in parts of Africa and Oceania. The area is the birthplace of Western culture, including innovations in art, literature, philosophy, and scientific methodology that have become standard around the world. In particular, Western Europeans take food very seriously. European culinary practices and dining etiquette are highly developed, with artisanal wine and cheese-making, pastry baking, and cooking having been elevated to an art.

15.6%

Irish, Scottish, and Welsh

The western region of the British Isles is populated by peoples descended from the six Celtic nations, three of which had settled in what became Ireland, Scotland, and Wales (the other three were in Brittany, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man). Each of these three nations has spoken some variant of its original Celtic dialect continuously. The Irish, the first people to settle in Ireland about 9,000 years ago, share heritage, culture, and language (Gaelic). They were organized by clan, or kin groups. The Scottish are similarly famous for the clans, but from the time of the Middle Ages have been a composite nation of Picts, Gaels, and Britons. So that the northern population speaks a version of Gaelic, while those in the south speak what came to be called Scots. Their neighbors the Welsh are called such dating back to the Germanic labeling of them as “walhaz,” meaning “foreigner” or “stranger” – the language of Wales is similarly called Welsh. The area was overrun by Anglo-Norman conquerors in the Middle Ages, and English colonization in the 16th-17th centuries changed the ethnic composition of the British Isles altogether, introducing ethnic English. Despite the unification of these countries as part of the United Kingdom in the present day, the people in each locale take great pride in their independent ethnicities, and accompanying cultures – from the family divisions as clans to the respective alcoholic beverages (Wales has a more English cuisine). The ingathering of several ethnicities in such a small space has facilitated interesting genealogical discoveries as well as mysterious connections to unravel – and for all the different heritages, nearly everyone there now speaks English.

Now really it isn’t so bad knowing you come from just two specific regions, don’t get me wrong. I guess I just didn’t know what to expect and was hoping for something more exciting maybe. I get notices from MyHeritage telling me I have new connections. sually when I take the time to look at them, they are third to fifth cousins. I have only had a couple that were as close as second cousins, and in almost every case, when I contacted them to try to discover where our common connection was, I never heard back from the person.

So, would I recommend using MyHeritage to get your DNA tested? Probably. Would I do it again if I had it to do over? Probably. I think eventually I would like to use all the DNA testing companies who offer genealogy-type testing. If I had all of them I feel like I would have the best of all worlds and be able to have the most complete picture possible of my DNA and connections.

Have you used a DNA testing company to help you discover your roots? Please tell us which one and what you thought of the results.