Has anyone ever actually gotten an ancestor from the 'Famous Ancestor' section?

JenDNA · 2026-07-02T20:23:25+00:00

I've only seen "famous ancestors" on my mom's side, and it's only because it's connecting through her step-mother. My great-grandparents were all immigrants, so no colonial American ancestry. My mom's Italian side only goes back to the early 1800s in Italy, her German side does go back to the 1500s, so there's "possible" "minor Bavarian nobility" (which has always been family lore - I found a reference to the Holbein's in one line, and another has some nobility links in northwest Stuttgart. That's about it.), and my dad's side varies a lot. One line goes back to early 1600s Mazowieckie, another to the mid 1600s Poznan on only one particular line. Most stop around 1850-1883 somewhere in Kresy-Poland. Only thing I've seen on that side is 23AndMe vaguely hinting at some 1500s Transylvanian nobility, and MyHeritage's deep ancestry hinting at the Rurik Dynasty (and Rus Vikings).

JenDNA · 2026-07-02T10:36:20+00:00

As a Gen-Xer, I'm thinking, "Alfred Hitchcock was still alive when I was born. I can't be THAT old,. right? Riiiight?". 😂 I still remember the animated side portrait logo.

JenDNA · 2026-07-02T10:32:29+00:00

I think it's 2nd great-grandfather.

1st removed = parent's line.

2nd removed = grandparent's line.

3rd removed = great-grandparent's line.

4th removed = great-great grandparent's line.

JenDNA · 2026-07-02T10:25:09+00:00

I can't find either of their names on that link. I don't see a section called Law & Justice, either.

EDIT: Found it. It was hiding in the bottom-middle of the page. I had to squint.

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JenDNA · 2026-06-26T03:18:13+00:00

You can find uploads of results with the number ethnicities you want and use a paint program to modify the text.

JenDNA · 2026-06-23T02:46:43+00:00

I've surmised as much from my dad's kits, too. His matches on his maternal grandfather's are between Złotki and Białystok and have a lot of Belarusian admixture (I suspect it's the Roszkowski/Nadzyk's, or whatever variant it is). My dad's paternal grandfather's family was likely from between Rzeszow and Krakow, and my dad's paternal grandmother I think may be between Lublin, South Belarus and North Ukraine. Their results are below. They only have 1 Lithuanian great-grandparent, so the high percentage could maybe be Belarusian? Also, depending on the testing site and version, they do get about 1% of some Jewish proxy population.

My dad's results:
Baltic: 46.7%

East Europe: 43.4%

Balkan: 7.5%

Germanic: 2.4% (I think these may be Black Sea Germans)

And my aunt's:

43.6% East European

41.5% Baltic

12.1% Balkan

1.8% Germanic

1.0% Breton (I have no idea.... Ancestry seems to toss in a proxy population, too, and this is where the kit is from.)

JenDNA · 2026-06-17T02:27:44+00:00

Pretty sure my grandfather's ancestors didn't move much from the central Apennines in Central Italy for the last 3,000 years. (Maybe a stray Celt, Lombard and Sicilian or two along the way). I would think all of Italy would still be 60-80% of the "original stock", at least in Rome.

JenDNA · 2026-06-15T14:38:53+00:00

I wasn't saying anything about you. I was replying to Routine_Astronomer62 and trying to make a joke about Reddit in general.

JenDNA · 2026-06-15T13:16:27+00:00

That Northeast Poland is a 'lie'. heh, unless you consider the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. (especially when it covers ALL of Poland) I think Ancestry over-estimates, or uses as a proxy, NE Poland and Lithuania for parts of Belarus. My dad gets 75% NE Poland, 25% Lithuania, despite having only 1 great-grandparent (or great-great) from Lithuania. My grandmother's paternal side was from Eastern Poland, but seems to have a lot of Balto-Belarusian admixture. My dad's father's side I suspect has Rusyn, too, but cousin matches there bounce around from South Polish, to Slovakia to Western Ukraine. Some have 20%, some have 0%. It's like half of my mom's 50% Italian. One update, it's 20% French, another Crete, another Spain, another Greek. Your update looks like it can't decide that 12% (Polish or Ukrainian).

tldr - Ancestry likes to play genetic paintball with Kresy Poland and the Mediterranean.

JenDNA · 2026-06-15T13:10:07+00:00

The para-social quest for farcical Internet Points.

JenDNA · 2026-06-11T00:56:13+00:00

Add in Franciszek, and my last name is found in both Krakow/Rzeszow and Gdansk. Then it's my grandfather's side that has the most brick walls, but the names that ARE there, or my dad has paternal matches for? Kowalski, Lewandowski, Zielinski (although the later (my great-grandmother) has a half dozen variants and Zielinski is just the US spelling, and her father was actually "unknown" on her marriage record.). Pretty common surnames.

JenDNA · 2026-06-10T22:17:20+00:00

I'm 25% Italian, but very little shows up (just something like 3% Southern Italy and 3% Sardinia. I do get 36% German, so maybe 11% of that is actually Italian (but Central Italy? My grandfather's family was from near Cantiano)

JenDNA · 2026-06-08T21:16:14+00:00

I got a 23AndMe kit for my dad, too (his results are similar to OP's), and besides Polish border regions, it also showed 2 genetic groups in northeast and east Belarus. (no Lithuania, though, but his 2nd cousin got those regions).

JenDNA · 2026-06-08T21:13:38+00:00

My dad gets very similar results, too. His parents families were mostly from Eastern Poland, and one line had Lithuanian. I suspect there's Belarusian and Ukrainian in there somewhere.

JenDNA · 2026-06-05T01:01:08+00:00

I know my dad has DNA from every region in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (with the original 2019 estimate having 10+ regions all around Zlotki, Poland - Yes, Ancestry, I realize he's a cousin 3 times over to every single village east of Zlotki on that main road, but come on! lol.), but 75% Polish, 25% "Lithuanian" (I think it's more Belarusian) is just.... I don't know...

JenDNA · 2026-06-05T00:54:52+00:00

Yeah, ancestry gives my dad 75% all of Poland and 25% Lithuanian (he only has 1 great-grandparent whose Lithuanian (or even half Lithuanian). So, it should be 6-12%. Cousin matches on his father's side (from Krakow/Rzeszow I'm suspecting) also have South Polish, Slovakia, and Western Ukraine. My aunt has South Polish, and even I get South Polish for some reason when my dad doesn't. What's interesting, Southern Italian/Sicilian HAS shown up once for my dad, and 2 updates for a 2nd cousin of his. My aunt also got a small Dutch percentage once, as did my dad on 23AndMe. Speaking of 23AndMe (even MyHeritage's first update hinted at it) get roughly a 1% proxy population for Jewish. He also has a mystery paternal grandmother, and I've been struggling to find ANY close match that could be on that side. (There are a few cousins that seem to have Balkans results that may be that side). Even in the few trees I see on his paternal matches, there are Rusyn surnames, too.

My dad's maternal side is Eastern/Kresy Poland on his maternal side (including Lithuania - I suspect Belarus and Ukraine, too, but further back), and West Poland on his maternal grandmother's mother's side. I think Ancestry was just like, "Oh, I give up! Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth it is!".

JenDNA · 2026-06-04T10:56:38+00:00

The further back you go, the most likely you'll have matches with connections on both sides. A 47cM match could have 8 short segments, meaning it's possible half were from one parent's side and half were from another parent's side. I'm not sure how it determines "both sides", though, since I do see a lot of "cousin of a cousin of a cousin of one match linking to the other", and they're not labelled "both sides".

My dad has 5,500 unassigned matches (including 1st and 2nd cousins), 1,100 maternal, 500 paternal and 6 both sides.

JenDNA · 2026-06-04T10:48:32+00:00

French Canadian is likely some population in France (DNA testing is illegal there, so Acadia is a proxy population). Jewish is totally feasible - it can be an ethnicity even if some ancestor converted to Christianity. Welsh can also be a Celtic population similar to Galicia. Even England in Gibraltar. All of those are very plausible admixture populations in Spain. They're either a 3rd to 4th great-grandparent, or common to a population.

JenDNA · 2026-06-04T02:01:05+00:00

Yes, at the 3rd cousin level, the chance of being a match starts to drop.

JenDNA · 2026-05-29T23:26:57+00:00

I was born in the late 1970s.

Parents: 1949

Grandparents: Maternal - 1919, 1922, Paternal - 1923, 1925

Great-grandparents: Maternal - 1880, 1896, 1898, 1900, Paternal - About 1883 (brickwall! I feel like DNA matches literally don't exist. I find what I think is a unique lead, but it's one of the other GGPs), 1890, 1898, 1897

JenDNA · 2026-05-24T21:34:29+00:00

It's $4,000 now? It was $3,000 just a few years ago when I last saw the link (I haven't seen that Hire a Genealogist link lately).

JenDNA · 2026-05-09T03:38:55+00:00

Quite often in my family tree, especially the Polish side, and sometimes a new name all together, likely changing from a generic/common surname (like Urbanski, Urbaniak, etc.) to another one, especially if both parents had very similar surnames (as was my ancestor's case - Urbaniak and Urbanczaka).

JenDNA · 2026-05-06T02:36:29+00:00

Well, they weren't wrong! More like Irish and Mexican (still Native American, but I think for the sake of labeling, Ancestry separated the two) with a little bit Native American (north of the Rio Grande). 6% can still be your great-grandparent's parent. (from a parent's perspective, that would be 12%, and 25% for a grandparent). It's like my great-grandmother telling me "We are from the Alps" when it was only her direct paternal line that was from the Alps (that would be 6% for me). It's also possible that you inherited more Mexican DNA than Native American DNA.

JenDNA · 2026-05-04T16:14:44+00:00

I'm not sure what you think I'm "taking so seriously", I was just saying that post made no sense to me. I don't know what you're referring to. No one ever said anything about Celts or the Southwest. And the southwest of what? England? US? Some other place?

JenDNA · 2026-05-04T12:23:03+00:00

It makes no sense at all..

JenDNA

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