Being a DNA Mad Scientist

As an autistic person I love data, but also struggle when bombarded with information that is presented way too complicatedly. As a queen of self-teaching whatever topic gives me dopamine it did not take long for DNA to hit the "special interests" list.

Why'd They Gotta Make Things So Complicated?

Avril Lavigne, I asked myself the same thing.

I learned very quickly that Ancestry.com's DNA results are made to be easy to follow and thus geared more towards migrations within the last 500 years or less. It's great for a snapshot, but not gospel truth. This is why for any future DNA analysts out there I highly recommend starting with their results.

Here are mine below from their recent 2025 update (which, yes, I geeked out over):

Image Description: A screenshot of my AncestryDNA map showing color-coded regions across England, the Nordic countries, and Central Europe.

DNA Does Not Care About Borders

It would be amazing if we could plop our results in a generator and get a print out that says "You're x% of this country!", but DNA is much more fickle than that. For starters, DNA doesn't divide out equally so even full-blooded siblings have different DNA.

DNA compares you to others from the same broad region. That makes it tricky to honor an ancestor’s specific cultural identity. (I'm looking at you, Prussia/Germany/Poland circa 1772-1900's.) Fortunately, a paper trail can help us here.

I recently found the Slavic Polish spelling of my birth surname, which was always said to have been German. These records were made right after the Kingdom of Prussia annexed Poland, but the parish records were still recording Polish surnames and villages. Even though it was Prussia legally, I recorded these ancestors as Polish.

West Prussia (the country my ancestors came from that is now Wejherowo County, Poland) is the wild card DNA admixture in my results. The other countries I descend from all calculate fairly easily.

My Secret Laboratory: GEDMatch

My biggest obsession is GEDMatch, a website where you can upload your DNA results from other companies and look for deeper migrations.

Image Description: A result from GEDMatch.com showing verbal results as well as a pie chart.

GEDMatch is where I started feeling like a mad scientist as I kept playing with over a dozen different calculators to try to find patterns between results and historic migrations.

I am going to admit here I use ChatGPT to help me decide on calculators as well as a place to analyze all of my data. Be sure to ask it to give you the resources it is citing from! I specifically look for any academic or scientific study based results that ChatGPT responds with.

Being I am fully European I was surprised to see persistent Asian results! When I traced historical migrations I reached the hypothesis that I have DNA results that overlap with historical migrations of nomadic groups from today's India and the Middle East. I cannot claim I am Indian or Middle Eastern, solely that the migration patterns suggest I come from that migration era, which would match about 1400 AD when many nomadic groups took refuge in today's Poland. (I may or may not have made several color coded historical maps outlining my hypothesis for migration patterns my ancestors took.)

It's Ancient History (And Soul Memory)!

If you love history or are Pagan this is here it gets fun!

I recently discovered MyTrueAncestry.com where you can learn more about historical cultures you share DNA with. My results validated the Nordic and Celtic traditions that I honor.

Image Description: A pie chart from MyTrueAncestry.com showcasing my results

I was sad I didn't see Slavic—the spiritual path I follow primarily. This is again where DNA itself is fickle. While I didn't get the "You're x% Slavic" result I do have multiple Slavic Polish names that were later Germanized in my direct line.

In cases like this I like to remind people that the soul remembers. If your DNA doesn't show it then that might be ancestral memory or perhaps memories from a past life.

In Summary

Which tool should you use?

• Ancestry = starting point

• GEDMatch = experiment mode; tracking migrations or persistent regional results

• MyTrueAncestry = information on specific ancient cultures

DNA can’t tell us who we are—it only tells us where the molecules have been. It’s the paper trails, oral stories, and spiritual resonance that fill in the rest. For me, these results aren’t about numbers; they’re a mirror showing just how far my ancestors—and my curiosity—have traveled.