is there anyway to check my ethinic origin??

Question

hi, i am from scotland and i was wondering if i can get a test to see what ethnic group i come from. because i have heard the three main groups in scotland are celtic, picts and norse..and i was wanting to see what i am

Answer 1

Try http://www.healthanddna.com/genealogy.htm or another similar site. Of course, if you're a Lowland Scot, you might also ultimately be of Anglo-Saxon and/ or Norman French origin. If your ancestors came from the very North of Scotland, say Caithness, you probably have a good deal of Norse ancestry while if they came from the Western Highlands or the Hebrides (where most Scottish Gaelic speakers are--and were--located), you may be of Celtic origin.

My guess is that you probably have all these strains in your ancestry. I've traced both my paternal and maternal lines back to Scotland on Ancestry.com and found that families could and did move around within the borders of Scotland and occasionally into England and back again.

Then again, since the web site listed above charges $395 (200.030 GBP)--that's about the going rate--to explore your ultimate ethnic identity, do you really want to know all that much?

Answer 2

The phrase I know (coming out of dna testing) is usually haplogroups, and I had a vague idea what it defines. So you got me to see what explanations are out there. Here is one from good 'ol wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup
links off into..
The subclade R1b1c7 (M222), on the other hand, is associated with the Irish and Scots; in this case, the relatively high frequency of this specific subclade among the population of certain counties in northwestern Ireland may be due to positive social selection, as R1b1c7-M222 is believed to have been the Y-chromosome haplogroup of the kings of the Uí Néill clan of ancient Ireland.

Any O'Neils out there this morning?
Now, just because I found an explanation does not mean I understand it!! I am not sure that testing will give you what you expect, to be honest. There MIGHT be a verify/ rule out factor that comes into play. There are some researchers (using the word loosely) who find published records that John Doe came from Ireland, and KNOWN descendents show R1a haplogroup.
But, if the researcher here makes a false id on his own line, and does not actually descend from John Doe at all, then the dna testing would be a red flag. One easy example would be James Jones, whose wife #1 was Jane Doe (daughter of John above) and wife #2 was Mary Smith (daughter of Walter Smith). Let's say researcher here falsely believes his ancestor was a child of marriage 1, but really comes from marriage 2. This is a common type of error in "paper" genealogy. This is then one place where the researcher goes off on claiming the Doe ancestry, which is NOT his. Another hypothetical scenario is 5 "known" sons of John Doe, who has only one wife. Unknown to John Doe, his wife got friendly with the neighbor when hubby was off hunting. Thus, dna could show a different haplogroup (or other markers) for what is technically a known proven child.
All in all, my personal thoughts are that DNA isn't going to show what people expect, at the same time that it can throw some real kinks into standard "known" genealogies. It can be worth the $$ for some.
And one should probably be sure to not tackle it early in the morning, before having a few cups of coffee.

Answer 3

http://www.heritagecrests.com is a great source for information of that sort. I thought I was Irish and N/A and discovered my family name was imported from Scotland around the reign of King James. My people on the one side were lowlanders or Celts whom fled to Ireland and later came to America where some of them married Native Americans. The Norse also ventured to Ireland as well. Good hunting, I think you will like the site.

Answer 4

I would check census records from a site like ancestry.com. Many times, if there was a census taken, there will be background information. Or, you could write to the counties in Scotland to see if they have any information for you.