All my life growing up I was told that I was German. 100% German. Grandpap spoke German after all. Yep, nothing but German.

Yeah, but what about Grandma saying she was Irish Catholic?

All a lie … nope … no Irish Catholic going on here. Nothing to see. Move right along. German. Both sides. All German.

So.

Imagine my surprise when a little checking on ancestry.com came up with some interesting facts.

Like the fact that my Mom’s parents were from Russia / Lithuania / Prussia (depending on where in history you look)

Like the fact that my Grandmother’s Grandparents were straight from Ireland.

And that my Aunt (Dad’s youngest sister) remembers her Grandmother having an Irish brogue?

So now what?

Do I get to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day officially?

Forget the fact that I’ve been wearing Orange (ala Protestants) for years on the day.

OK.

I should probably look more closely at the man who reached out to me on the dating site today that claimed an Irish Heritage then, shouldn’t I?

So flash forward to this past Christmas when, on a whim, I bought two DNA kits to test my parents for their ancestral roots. To see how much what was what in each of them. They suggest finding the oldest relatives for this.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there was virtually no German in my Mom’s DNA.

You’ll notice that Germany is suspiciously empty except for a trace 4%.

And my Dad’s chart has the German in it. I expected that since I knew there was a connection to Alsace-Lorraine there.

I think the biggest surprises were as follows:

They both have trace Finland/Northwest Russia DNA.
Dad has DNA from the Iberian Peninsula.
Dad has trace DNA from Caucasus and India.

But the biggest surprise … Scandinavia.
Dad 3%
Mom 18%

So. What? I’m ten percent Scandinavian?

Okay then.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, all.

Skol !!