My Ancestral Journey

For my birthday, Matt got me the National Geographic Geno 2.0 kit to better understand my ancestral genetic makeup. My mom was adopted and my father wasn't apart of my life, so this has been something I've wanted to do - to find my roots. I want Vela to have a better understanding of her background, and hopefully embrace all that she is. My mom was told she's mostly Scotch-Irish mixed with some Apache Native American, and my dad is a mix of Mexican and Native American. I look racially ambiguous, so I would often get questions about my background. Most Mexicans, well, most Latin North Americans are a mixture of the native people from that land and the Europeans that settled there. I thought the easiest way to explain my lineage would be half Irish and half Mexican. I was a bit scared to find out what my results would be, I feel my personality is built on my Irish, Mexican heritage. This explained my sassy, tough, yet life of the party personality.
After doing research on different Ancestral DNA tests, I landed on National Geographic. Through National Geographic, you are participating in the Genographic Project. Here's a snip from their website:
 "The Genographic Project aims are: 1 – to gather and analyze research data in collaboration with indigenous and traditional peoples, 2 – to invite, encourage, and educate the public through participation in this real-time citizen-science project, while they learn about their own deep ancestry, and 3 – to support scientific research and community-led conservation and revitalization by investing a portion of the proceeds from the Genographic DNA kit sales into National Geographic Society grants." 
I loved everything about this, and being the science nerd that I am, I loved how you can trace DNA back to the Neanderthalsals (which I had 1.7% - above average)! They are currently running a great deal on these kits, so if you're interested, just click on the Geno 2.0 picture.

Okay, now, let's dive into my results, shall me?

• Northwestern Europe is the highest percentage - this would make sense with my mom being mostly Scotch-Irish, so no surprise here.
• North America & Andes is the most common in the indigenous peoples of the new world. Fun fact: Having a large percentage of this is considered rare, it has been diluted due to disease brought over to America and mixing between other groups of people. Again, no surprise with my Mexican and Native American background.
• Eastern Europe is Poland, Germany, the former Austrian - Hungarian Empire and the former Soviet republics of Belaria and Ukraine, and Western Russia. I'm honestly so confused as to where in my ancestry this would have come from.
• Italy & Southern Europe's ancestry is a mixture of the Middle East, across the Mediterranean to Libya and other parts of North Africa. I'm assuming this ancestry is associated with my Mexican background.
• South American & Amazon: Similar to the Andes, but this group is still highly concentrated in central and South America. You may refer to me as an Amazonian Queen from now on. 
• Central Asia & Siberia is made up of Tibet, Mongolia, north through Siberia and south through the Himalayas and the Indian subcontinent. This ancestry can be traced back to the indigenous people of Alaska and Canada. My dad's tribe is in South Dakota, so I know this can be traced back to him.
• South China Sea is, you guessed it, Chinese. I don't know where this came from, but I am 2% Chinese.

The Geno Project has something called, Genious Matches - do you share a direct common ancestor with any famous geniuses throughout history. For women, this will track your maternal side only (mother's mother's mother and so on) and for men, both maternal and paternal (The whole X and Y chromosome situation). For me, I had eight Genious Matches on my mothers' side, tracing back the family tree 45,000 years ago. A few of those people are Abraham Lincon, Queen Victoria, and Napoleon. The last thing this project dives into is your deep ancestry. This is the migration path your ancestors took since leaving Africa some 70,000 years ago. Again, for women, this would track your maternal side. My path most likely stopped in Northern Ireland almost 5,000 years ago.

I'm absolutely loving going through all the information they gave me. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I do wish I could see my paternal side of my family tree, but obviously, it's not their fault I don't have a Y-Chromosome. If you have any questions, about my results, or about my experience with the Genographic Project, feel free to leave a comment below. I received lots of information, including videos that I combed through, to try to make this an easier reading experience. Also, If you have taken this test or something similar, I'd love to hear about your results!