Travel The World

Just got my Ancestry.com DNA results. In some ways, they match up with the Genographic Project results but differ in others. Genographic seems to classify the DNA based on ancient migration patterns whereas, Ancestry focuses on more recent groupings. As a reminder, Geno categorized me as: 44% Northern European 38% Mediterranean 16% SW Asian with two reference populations being Danish and Greek. Ancestry yielded the following results: 52% Scandinavian 20% British 19% Central European 9% Southern European I happen to know that all my ancestors came directly from the British Isles to America so the Scandinavian influence must have resulted from an earlier migration to Britain, Viking perhaps? Also, the Central European is probably related to the Anglo-Saxon migration/invasion of Britain. One more fun aspect of Ancestry's analysis is that it links you to potential cousins based on their results compared to yours. Who knows if any of these studies are completely vali...

I've been wondering where fate would send me for my next travel opportunity.  Well, in a total surprise, I was asked yesterday to go to Pensacola, Florida for a few weeks to work.  Although I have traveled the world extensively, I've never been to Florida, a state in my own country!  It should be interesting even though it's for a relatively short period of time.  Of course, I will post pictures of this next adventure soon.

It is not the purpose of this blog to do book reviews.  However, the topic of "Enjoy The Decline" aligns well with my view of America and its future.  I especially enjoy the advice given about leaving the country before its inevitable decline as this is what I plan to do in approximately nine more years.  I do recommend the book for those who have wondered what is happening to this country and what they can do to cope.

I recently joined National Geographic's Genographic Project and learned some interesting things about my ancient ancestry that I'm excited to share. You can see my personalized infographic here .

A few months ago, I sent a DNA sample in to the "Genographic Project," a DNA analysis program sponsored by National Geographic.  After about six weeks, I got my results which were somewhat surprising.  Prior to this, I knew that the majority of my recent ancestors came from various locations in the British Isles.  However, the project compared my DNA with what is referred to as "reference populations."  The two that aligned most closely with me were 'Danish' and 'Greek.'  The former would make sense as my ancestors were probably part of the Anglo-Saxon migrations into Britain 1,500 years ago.  But, the Greek was strange and I still don't understand how the percentages led to that conclusion.  Ultimately, these results don't mean that I'm from those areas absolutely; they only mean my DNA aligns well with the current populations in those locations.  Following is a breakdown of my percentages: 44%--Northern European 38%--Mediterranean 1...