Fate of the Norns

Not sure this is the best place for it, but I figured some other folks might be interested in trying it out.

I got my gene sequenced by a popular gene sequencing company. Perhaps ironically, I did it largely to figure out how non-viking I was - I have kind of a funky thing where I tan like gangbusters in the summertime, and I was curious to see if I had any non-Northern European blood in me.

Turns out probably not, but they've not fully completed it yet with the analysis. H1 on the mother's side, and I1 on the father's. I1 is largely in eastern central Sweden - right where my family says they are from (Motala area). H1 is eastern Norway mostly, but some in Iberia. The latter part is kind of what I was looking for, but I need to wait for further results.

The results are not particularly surprising, as I have a fairly long family tree mapped out on my father's side, all the way back to Sweden, and most of them are rather sedentary folks (farmers, until 2 generations ago really, and some still are). Sadly, they do not talk about if I am related to the Semi-legendary kings of Sweden. Perhaps with further analysis Nor do they say anything about being related to Erik Blood-Axe or anything like that. Sad, I know.

Anyhow, it was an easy process, and relatively painless - spitting into a test tube and mailing. Interesting side benefit - I ahve a text file of my genome that I can pass to my doctor.

Haplogroups for the win.

I always wanted to do this. How did you pick out the company to do it with, Raleel? I imagine they're not all equally good at this. Or am I wrong in thinking that?

eh, i think they are pretty close. several have different focuses. 23andme is a big name in it, and I went with that. Since I was interested in a skin thing, i guess I felt it was a health issue.

you can see what I came up with below. that british/irish part is almost certainly the Norwegian that i have (largely mother's side, but some father too). swedish I have good records on (dad's side back to Motala, Sweden, mother's side back about 3 generations). the french and german I know who that is (dad's mother's side), but the finnish, iberian, sardinian, and siberian (specifically, Yakutsk), I don't know anything about. I have my family tree bad quite a ways on both sides, but I've not fleshed it out fully.

My mom's the one with the dark skin gene I mention above (my grandmother has the same skin), and she said "it's the black irish" but it seems unlikely. Her side indicates all the southern folks, and the siberian.

Since I did this, I found out my mom's mom's side is swedish miners. It also happens that around the time of my siberian ancestor there was a big gem mine in Yakutsk, and there was the treaty of Nystaad, so I suspect there was a migration there and back for money.

I have a 23andme kit. I should get on this!