Drilling Deeper Into Ethnicity

 

Let's just say I was influenced by the recent ethnicity update for DNA tests at Ancestry.com. The boast there, only a few days ago, was an increase in granularity of results, now linked to data drilling deeper into about 3,600 separate ethnic regions around the world. During this update, every DNA customer's results were re-analyzed, further refining the update.

On my side of the equation, having just made some discoveries furthering my understanding of my Polish roots, I wondered how well the Ancestry updates could drill down to my specific level. After all, having discovered the marriage record for the parents of Thomas Puchała's wife, Anastasia Zegarska, I now had a third Polish city to call my family's ancestral home. Known in Prussia as Ponschau, the place in Poland is now known as Pączewo. 

Pączewo, as it turns out, had a slightly different historical background than Czarnylas, where Anastasia was baptized, or Lubichowo, where she and Thomas eventually lived. While all three towns were located in the region of Pomerania, Pączewo was a bit different. It was noted to be part of a separate ethnocultural region known as Kociewie. 

The Kocievians, as I'm learning, were perhaps the Polish equivalent of an indigenous population. While their modern language is not that different from Polish, it is considered a separate dialect. 

But does a region like that show up in this newest Ancestry update? I was encouraged to see that the latest DNA readout does break down the region around Poland into smaller geographical areas. For my father's side of my results, I show genetic heritage from what Ancestry now calls Northeastern Poland and Southern Poland. Also included are the more broad-based North Central Europe, plus the smaller Estonia and Latvia. But no Kociewie. Not even any Pomerania.

As I'm delving deeper into my ancestral roots and simultaneously endeavoring to learn the local history, I may be gaining a greater appreciation for the variations in ethnicity in a place now as remote to me as Poland. There are, however, limitations to what a company even as large as Ancestry may be able to accomplish.

For one thing, though they are expanding their reach, Ancestry.com is mostly a North-American-centric organization. In my personal experience, I have far better results with finding Polish DNA matches at MyHeritage than at Ancestry. Though Poland is currently not as impacted by restrictive regulations regarding direct-to-consumer DNA testing as, say, Germany or France, use of such options does not seem to be as widespread in Poland as here. Based on how this latest Ancestry DNA study was conducted, it's no surprise that regions as specific as what I'm now exploring did not make an appearance in their update.

Not now, perhaps, but someday....

In the meantime, whether making a showing in convenient scientific reviews at big genealogy companies or not, I can grow my appreciation for my roots by learning more about my ancestors' homelands and lives through the ample online resources providing such information. Document by document, as I uncover more details, I can then turn to Internet searches and queries to answer questions as they pop up. It's an ever-expanding exploration that broadens the boundaries of genealogy.