I was preparing to record an episode of my podcast on YouTube when I decided to check on the exhibits I wanted to show in the three episodes I call the Knox Chronicles. One of the exhibits that I wanted to present was about my DNA. So, I went to Ancestry.com to review my DNA Ethnicity Estimate. But when I saw the report, I immediately realized it was showing me different numbers from what I had seen earlier. Fortunately, I had the option to view the previous estimate; plus, I had recorded the original estimate I received when I first got my results in November 2021.

Here is what my first ethnicity estimate in 2021 looked like:

36% from Ireland
29% from England and Northwestern Europe
22% from Scotland
8% from Wales
5% from Germanic Europe

At that time, I paid less attention to the ethnicity portion of my DNA results as I was more interested in sorting through the DNA matches.

It was not until this past year that I noted that my results read as follows:

41% Irish
29% Scottish
12% England and Northwestern Europe
9% Sweden and Denmark
6% Germanic Europe
3% Wales

At that time, a new feature at Ancestry.com provided a DNA ethnicity inheritance report. The July 2022 report showed that 100% of my Scottishness (29%) came from my mother and that 100% of my Irishness (41%) came from my father. As I said before, this is not what I initially expected. Still, after thinking about it, it did make sense – my maternal grandmother’s Irish family came from Northern Ireland, and she (and I) inherited our Scottish-ness from at least our Knox ancestors. Also, my paternal grandmother, Geraldine O’Malley, was 100% Irish.

It was after seeing this report that I was motivated to write a series of blog posts that I titled the Knox Chronicles, portions of which were written tongue-in-cheek as I expressed my frustration after realizing that some of the work I did ten years ago on my Knox genealogy was full of errors.

Rather than get into the details, I will summarize what I now know:

1. Contrary to what grandmother and her family believed, we are NOT lineal descendants of John Knox, the Reformer and the founder of the Presbyterian church.
2. He and I are, however, related as distant cousins; John de Knocks, grandfather of John Knox, is the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) between me and the Reformer.
3. Our family comes from Renfrewshire in southwestern Scotland, and our ancestral home until the 1920s was Rappa Castle, whose ruins still stands near the city of Glasgow.

Sometime in the 17th century, our Knox branch left Scotland and settled in Northern Ireland. What seems to be lost or at least unrecoverable by me is when and who exactly made the migration.

The connection between Scotland and Northern Ireland is ancient. In modern history, it starts with the Plantation of Ulster in the 1610s. Then, there was the Cromwellian Settlement in the 1650s. In that same decade, many people left Scotland following a huge fire in Glasgow that destroyed most of the city. A major famine in the 1690s prompted another mass migration from Scotland to other parts of the world, including the British Colonies in North America.

Anyway, this is what prompted me to make another trip down the rabbit hole that is Knox genealogy. I will cover the subject in full on the podcast.

Getting back to the DNA Ethnicity Estimate – it has changed once again. The new report is dated August 2023, and here is what it now says:

40% Scottish
34% Irish
12% England & Northwestern Europe
8% Germanic Europe
3% Sweden & Denmark
3% Wales

There is a lot to unpack here. While my focus right now is on the Scottish and Irish portions, I will comment briefly on the others:

• I note that the 12% “England and Northwestern Europe” is the Flemish-ness I inherited from my father, and that has not changed.
• The 3% Welsh-ness inherited from my maternal grandfather also remains unchanged.
• Germanic Europe has increased to 6%, all of which comes from my mother.
• Sweden & Denmark-ness went from 9% in the July 22 report to 3% today. That also comes from my mother exclusively, and I speculate it is most likely from the Spiegel/Schmidt branch of her father’s family.

What the ethnicity inheritance report is now showing for Scotland and Ireland is:

Scottish Maternal = 34%
Scottish Paternal = 6%
Scottish Total = 40%

Irish Maternal = 0%
Irish Paternal = 34%
Irish Total = 34%

The Irish estimate of what I inherited from my mother is unchanged. On the Scottish side, my maternal estimate has gone from 29% to 34%, and while that is significant, it still fits in with the historical record.

Yet, on my father’s side, I have no explanation for the 6% Scottish. The previous estimate of 41% Irish synced up with the historical record of my maternal grandmother’s ancestry. Now that has been reduced to 34%; the 6% Scottish-ness must be from my paternal grandmother, yet this only adds to the mystery as I know very little about the O’Malleys and the Hooks before they arrived in America in the 1840s and 1850s.

As to the question of what has triggered these changes in my DNA ethnicity estimate, we can be 100% certain that my DNA has NOT changed. What has changed is the way Ancestry.com arrives at these estimates.

Here is some of how Ancestry.com explains these changes:

There are more reference samples now. In July 2022, they had over 68,000 reference samples. These reference samples are DNA samples from people representing specific regions on the planet – people whose families have lived in a particular region for centuries. They have increased the number of reference samples. It went from 68,000 to 71,000. The number of regions where they divide the area and assign it to a specific ethnicity, like Scottish, Irish, Welsh, or English, has also changed.

Also, there are now more matches to compare with those reference samples. To calculate the estimate, Ancestry.com compares my estimate to a reference panel of DNA samples worldwide Ancestry.com says these changes could be big or small, depending on what they update. The updates use new technology, science, and data to make your results more accurate.

As to how one of my percentages could change so much, it appears to be the result of how ancestry has divided some regions into smaller ones, for example, the border between Scotland and Ireland.

Here is what Ancestry.com says about ethnicity inheritance:

“Almost everyone gets half of their DNA from each parent. This means that there’s half of each parent’s DNA that you didn’t inherit. And the 50% of the DNA you get is random. That’s why you and your siblings don’t have identical DNA and may have different ethnicity results. Your DNA comes in long pieces called chromosomes. Most people have 23 pairs of chromosomes. In each pair, one comes from your mother and one comes from your father. Because your parents passed down only half of their DNA to each child, they may have ethnicities that you didn’t inherit. And your siblings may have ethnicities you don’t have—or vice versa.”