Pursuing Precise Origins Through D N A

 

Family history is not only a pursuit of names and dates to enter in a pedigree chart, but a quest to determine where our roots originated. Given the broad sweep of history, complete with the rise and fall of civilizations coupled with the ever-on-the-move migration of people groups, that can be a tricky question to answer.

However, we now have DNA testing capabilities and the tools to begin exploration of that question. Since discovering that I might not be simply Polish, but possibly an ethnic variation indigenous to a specific subregion of what is now the modern nation of Poland, I thought I'd take a look at the latest DNA updates at various genetic genealogy testing companies in search of any such mention of these sub-regions.

Since Ancestry released their update back in October—boasting the inclusion of well over three thousand places around the world, including sixty eight regions specific to Europe—let's first take a look at my results at that company today, and follow up tomorrow with the more recent results provided by MyHeritage.

Since my research this month led me to realize that my paternal ancestors might not "just" be Polish but claim roots in an ethnocultural location in Pomerania known as Kociewie, I was curious to see whether such a designation would show up in my "origins" results with this latest update. 

In short: no.

However, there is more to the story. Perhaps such a result would be too granular for this pass through the data. When I drill down through the results from this latest Ancestry update, one of the highest ranking "ancestral regions" for me is listed as North Central Europe. Quite a generic label, I admit, but if I scroll down that page, below that heading of North Central Europe, I see a headline stating, "People with this region often share these journeys."

The journey listed for me is Gdansk Pomerania.

Now we're getting closer. From there, clicking "Timeline," I find in the segment labeled 1850-1875 a tiny mention of one group listed separately from Poles: Kashubians. While Kashubia is not exactly Kociewie, it is a neighboring sub-region, so we are getting closer to seeing those northern Polish regions being recognized as their own separate entities.

For this revision of the Ancestry DNA update, shading on the maps of these newly-expanded regions has a significance: the more brightly-colored the region, the higher the percentage of reference panel members who lived in that specific location on the map. While my Zegarski and Wojtaś ancestors appear to have lived on the northeastern edges of that more brightly-colored region in the Gdansk Pomerania regional map, this definitely puts them within the realm of possible regional connection—just no specific reference to Kociewie. Yet.