[Villages Kahuna]

Yes, my wife and I did the Ancestry DNA test. Well worth the price, confirming many of our suspicions of our genealogy, but also providing some surprises.

When I discovered that a two-month free trial of the Ancestry family tree building program came along with the DNA test, I thought I’d give it a try. I took a genealogy course at the old Lifelong Learning College and recall that the instructors recommended it, saying you could accomplish a lot in a relatively short time if you applied yourself. So I gave it a try, after all like everyone, I had plenty of time!

I did accomplish a lot, but I literally spent hundreds of hours during my two free months. The trees I built for both my wife and myself kept going back and getting more and more interesting. So much so that I extended my subscription to Ancestry for another six months.

What takes time building the tree with both your direct ancestors as well as their children and siblings is a matter of arithmetic. After eight generations your four grandparents for you and your spouse becomes 256 grandparents plus all the children and siblings. You quickly discover that before birth control, families were huge. Ten or twelve children in a family were common, often more than that!

I’ve kind of slowed down and will probably suspend my Ancestry subscription. But I have built family trees for my wife and myself that contains...

—Almost 17,000 individuals
— Going back to the 1400’s
— We have two Kings of England and Ireland, a King of Scotland, a King of France and a King of Sweden in our combined lineage.
— We also have an Archbishop of Canterbury and a Catholic Cardinal among our ancestors.
— And of course, dozens of ancestors who were Knights or had noble titles. (We both have lineage going back to England and Scotland.)

— Certain lines are interesting for different reasons. It turns out that I’m 75% Finnish. The Finns may have had royalty, but not in my lineage. Most of my ancestors back 5-6-7 generations came from up near the Arctic Circle, many Sami reindeer herders.

Anyway, with the time we all have, I’d enthusiastically recommend doing the DNA test and then taking a crack at the Ancestry family tree-building.