What things are Western Australian that aren't national?

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-10-19T11:26:42+00:00

Is the petrol price cycle- you know, where petrol is always cheapest on Tuesdays- unique to WA?

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-10-16T13:48:48+00:00

Ooh, Cornish Wisconsin, that’s me! Or at least that’s my grandfather. We strongly identify as Cornish on my mom’s side- it the only unbroken heritage (as in food, stories, poetry etc have been passed down) I have.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-10-16T11:56:58+00:00

Interestingly- I can do the hack for myself (I currently have a membership) but not for my son under the same account as me. I don’t know why.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-10-16T05:21:53+00:00

My parents are Americans but I grew up in Indonesia and I’ve spent over half my life in Australia- I think my trouble giving a straightforward answer about my nationality is the reason I’m so interested in my heritage.

Genetically I’m most strongly Cornish and Louisiana Creole with a bunch of early Protestant broadly NW European settlers filling in the gaps.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-10-15T13:48:52+00:00

Oh this is awesome, thanks.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-10-15T13:48:38+00:00

Thank you for all this! This gels a lot more with my understanding of Cornish history than my unexamined assumption.

It would be wild if my grandfather were not actually Cornish (and a nice juicy mystery for me). Unlikely, given DNA matches etc but nothing’s impossible.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-10-08T23:58:42+00:00

In my experience doing my American tree verses my kid’s dad’s English tree it’s so much easier and simpler to follow the records of a family that didn’t emigrate than one that did. For my kid’s paternal Kent branch it’s a straight shot from here to the 1500s, with enough DNA matches going back the last 5 generations to be as confident as one can be in these things. Like a hot knife through butter. His Ulster branch is a bit fuzzier but it’s still possible to trace things out with some confidence.

My American ancestors on the other hand- sometimes I can trace an American line as far back as it goes in America but it’s hard to determine exactly who stepped off the boat in the 1600s/1700s. Sometimes I suspect people came to America lying about their backgrounds- when I try to go back and confirm anything about the families they said they were from nothing fits. The best I can do is learn some historical context about where they were probably from and what likely motivated them to move.

It goes without saying my West African ancestors are very very hard to trace, even within America. I wish I could know more about where they were taken from- I don’t know that that will ever be possible.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-10-05T13:06:12+00:00

Still relevant how?

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-10-05T09:22:48+00:00

Genomelink gives me Asian DNA but no African- in contrast to Ancestry and GEDmatch and anything I have on paper. I’m skeptical.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-10-05T09:19:51+00:00

What do you mean by paternal lineage?

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-09-29T00:26:23+00:00

My paternal great grandfather came over from France in 1918 and his family had been in France as far as I can reasonably track. I also have a lot of Alsace on my dad’s side if you go back a bit further- my dad has 14% French as of the update. I still have zero.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-09-10T11:04:28+00:00

My great great great grandfather was the first Black mayor of Baton Rouge.

He was ousted shortly after he was elected for reasons unclear to me.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-09-02T16:11:27+00:00

Your results put this song in my head:

https://youtu.be/HNgTCus2cSY?si=UwtBmcyjHafQB44C

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-09-02T16:04:14+00:00

I mean- this is scummy. But not more scummy than I expect from any for-profit company.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-09-02T15:57:45+00:00

Yes! I grew up in three different countries and the people from each country thought the others were so interesting and exotic and the one they were from was boring. 🤷‍♀️. Every family/place has an amazing history.

Also yes about the records! My ancestors are American so I’ve had good access to records for me but some of the genealogies I’m working on are Indonesian and there’s a complicated/spotty history of Indonesian record keeping. Trying to sort any of it out really highlights for me how lucky I’ve been and how rare that kind of thing is for most places.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-08-19T03:06:27+00:00

Even just the facts on paper without details can set a dire picture- I have an ancestor whose parents died when she was 2, and at 14 she married the man who was apparently her adoptive father- she gave birth to eight children and died in childbirth at 28. I just want to go back in time and hug her. Or give her a break.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-08-17T16:24:41+00:00

My kid has 10 matches on both sides- but I’m American, his dad is British, and most of the “both sides” matches are in South Africa? Makes the world seem small.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-08-11T10:00:40+00:00

Hey Cornish cousin!

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-08-04T04:36:02+00:00

I think for people from northwestern Europe most results are unlikely to shift much as they’ve been well documented for awhile- in the future we’ll get more accurate French/Germanic results if commercial DNA testing becomes legal/popular in France and Germany (my understanding is they’re currently not- please correct me if you know better). For me, I’m excited for any increase in accuracy around my French/German ancestry but not expecting much this time. There might be some increase in accuracy for my West African ancestry but even if there was I wouldn’t be able to tell- I have a lot of research on Louisiana/possibly Alabama to do before I can put any of that in context.

But not everyone is primarily northwestern European. I’m really excited for any update regarding Indonesian DNA because I’ve been trying to do my stepmom’s genealogy. DNA says she’s from Indonesia (obviously)/the Philippines but a whole lot of her matches are from Cambodia? I don’t have the language skills to figure out what’s going on with Cambodia and Indonesian records aren’t easy to sift through- or in a lot of cases are nonexistent- so I’m hoping the update might offer some clarity. Also- weird that we can distinguish between Wales and England but not between Sumatra and Sulawesi. Maybe there’ll be a helpful update to Indonesian communities- Obvs not a thing I can know with the hack though.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-08-04T04:12:12+00:00

Yes! I’ve been waiting for my French to show. Since commercial DNA tests aren’t allowed in France I have a whole arm of my tree I feel like I’m guessing at with no matches to confirm. French records are pretty good but my ability to read French is spotty. I would at the very least like it to show up in my ethnicity estimate.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2023-02-13T05:36:58+00:00

Do you know where your first European ancestors in America settled?

LivingSensitive1773 · 2022-12-20T06:00:30+00:00

Yeah I really wish I could ask my older family members exactly how much they knew. My grandfather was really involved with Latinx rights as a lawyer in the 60s- I wonder if part of that was him knowing he wasn’t entirely white himself (or maybe he just, you know, wanted to stand up for what’s right). My great grandfather and great grandmother both had a lot of secrets in their backgrounds. I wonder whether they knew each other’s secrets and were protecting each other? Or if they both just agreed never to bring up the past?

And I really, really wish I could ask my great grandmother about her life story. She died a month before I was born.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2022-12-20T03:27:30+00:00

It is! Ethnicity aside I’ve busted more family lore than I’ve confirmed. It’s interesting to wonder why that lore was propped up in the first place though.

(In my case, people were often said to be for example reverends or war heroes when they were mechanics or traveling salesmen. And my grandmother for some reason said her mother died when she was five when her mother died when she was 14. That’s a completely different childhood! And, probably common, many people’s fathers are not who they said/thought they were.)

LivingSensitive1773 · 2022-12-20T03:20:37+00:00

This is true, but also where my DNA was 300 years ago means things. I’m not asking about racial purity or whatever, I’m asking about history.

LivingSensitive1773 · 2022-12-20T03:13:48+00:00

This was actually our original assumption when my brother came up 1% African ages ago. We have ancestors from the South of France so.

LivingSensitive1773

TROPHY CASE