Today i'm a little bit more .
.... Bengali. 🇮🇳 😎
No, seriously. I had an update to my Ancestry profile yesterday, and being white British, i'm always intrigued about where my DNA comes from.
Over the last couple of updates, i've always been mainly white toast, but on the last two Ancestry updates, an Indian influence has crept in.
When I say 'crept in', I haven't suddenly started wearing Henna and dancing Bangla-style. No, it's a subtle thing, just on paper.
Last time I was 1% Southern India and Sri Lanka. This time i'm 1% Bengali. But it hasn't disappeared on this update, that's the crucial thing.
Now, firstly may I say, this is a complete mystery to me!
One of the cool things Ancestry DNA reports allow you to do is compare the estimated 'ethnicity' of yourself against your DNA relatives.
The Germanic, and European influence here is from my mum's side (Norfolk/Suffolk). The English/Scottish/Irish is my dad.
Then there's Bengal 🇮🇳
I have a couple of hundred DNA matches down to about 4th cousin. For those that aren't familiar, a 4th cousin relative means you probably share great-great-great-grandparents.
No-one in my DNA matches has the same Indian DNA marker as me. This I find quite perplexing. My closer cousins are devoid of it too.
Now I know we all inherit a random amount of DNA from each parent, so brothers and sisters can have different percentages, but no-one in my tree or DNA matches has it!
1% DNA means effectively I get it from 6-8 generations back on average. If we average a generation at 25, that's 150-200 years ago. So somewhere in my history, about 1824-1874 there's an Indian influence. It may be more recent than that because that 1% comes from only one parent, so maybe a generation closer?
My Indian DNA is also apparently split between two different chromosomes (11 + 20). I don't really know what that means overall. 🫣
As I understand it, a fair few of my relatives were in local regiments (specifically the Durham Light Infantry; the DLI) that served in India in the time period indicated.
That could explain it, but I descended from Irish stock (the Bengali DNA is on my dad's side) and how come no other DNA matches have that same Indian marker as me?
Any ideas?
Now, Genealogy is a very good niche ........ 👀
Dave
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