The Genetic Makeup of an Obnoxious

Like most LDS people, I am obsessed with my ancestors. I constantly ask questions about them, such as "Who were they? What were they like? Where did they live? Why did some of their parents name them Saloma Bisbury which is not a good name?" and so on and so forth.

My dad's brother recently submitted some of his DNA to an ancestry company. For a fee, the folk at this company analyze DNA to figure out a person's racial makeup and where their ancestors come from. Here are the results for my dad's brother (and, by extension, my dad):
25% - Ireland
20% - European Jewish
18% - Europe West
12% - Italy/Greece
10% - Scandinavia
7% - Great Britain

Before you begin to judge the company on its math skillz, I should explain that each estimate is +/- 4%.

This pretty much matches what I've always known about my dad's family. My dad's grandpa is Jewish, so my dad is a quarter Jewish. +/- 4% of 20% goes right along with that, especially if some of the Jewish ancestors chose to intermarry with other members of the Roman empire (uncommon for faithful Jews but not impossible; that could be where some of the Italian/Greek comes in).

The Irish was a surprise. And then, at the very bottom of the image my uncle sent my dad, there was a little note explaining that trace amounts of East Asian ancestry was found in my uncle's DNA, adding up to less than 1%!

That means that I am half of less than 1% Asian! Which, actually, is still less than 1%. But no matter. All of those times that I joked that I should have been some kind of Asian persuasion because I love so many types of Asian food, and it turns out that I actually was, somewhat, all along.

Anyways, I found this to be pretty marvelous. I'm hoping that someone in my mom's family will choose to also try it so that I can get a full picture of the other side of the family. We'll see.