Friday, December 10, 2010

7 Months | 2.5 Years: My Charts

Latest genealogical pie charts, for me, based on new-ish information:


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[click to enlarge]

Note that not all of the labels in the legend are represented in this particular pie (the chart has to work for me, Mary, the kids, and any other individual in the tree, and I can't figure out how to make Excel ignore zero-value fields). The eastern European segment in this case is Hungary. I've actually combined Germany/Prussia in this chart, so it's all reported under Germany. The Scandinavian portion is entirely Norway, in my charts.

Another interesting (to me!) point: a healthy chunk of the "Scottish" pie slice is currently somewhat in doubt.

The way I do this is to track back as far as I can in a family tree until I get either into the 1500s/1600s OR to the Old Country, somewhere. Then I apply the appropriate mathematical weight for that generation to the country where the person is from (12.5% for a great grandparent, 3.125% for a 3rd-great grandparent, etc.). Obviously, since some of my branches are fuzzier than others, I've had to make some assumptions.

One of my fuzziest branches traces along my maternal line to a 2nd-great grandmother who's name was Kerr and who married a man whose heritage had been well shuffled already through several generations in the States. Rather than assign her as "Unknown" I have her down as Scottish, and 6.25% of the pie chart above is assigned Scottish on the strength of this.

The problem is that my maternal Halplogroup, which I inherited from this individual and which was discovered via DNA testing, indicates heritage from Eastern Europe, the Caucuses, or even the Middle East / Persia. This could either indicate that our Kerr's mother was, say, 100% Armenian, or it could just mean that her mother's mother's m's m's m etc. came from the Caucuses (or wherever) to Scotland (or wherever) 500 years ago, and this more-exotic heritage has been completely watered down except for a tiny fraction.

The fact is that about half of the Scottish portion of the chart above should probably be assigned Unknown until we're able to dig deeper on Ruth Kerr's heritage (if we ever can). It might be (virtually) correct as is. It might be only partially correct. It might be completely wrong.

Who are you, Ruth Kerr?

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