Scottish West African Family Gets DNA Results... and it's a Shock 

This series of videos tells where Scottish people came from ru-vid.com/group/PLfJ_hYioDtXSHxZdtSHHOIa02r3MZSGAU Get your own MyHeritage DNA test from this link bit.ly/ScotlandHistoryTours_MH

I'm a genetic genealogist. My advice is to treat with caution any % less than 2%. These tend to change with each update made by the testing company. My Irish ancestry over 10 years has ranged between 4-17%. My Scottish ancestry has ranged between 37 and 50%. Every update - with new people in the database and refinements in the testing process - changes the results all the time. They are an indication only and shouldn't be thought of as fixed.

How interesting - but - more than anything - how lovely to hear a family laughing together ❤️ 😀 ❤️

Had my DNA done a few years ago: 48% Scotland, 47% Northern England, 4.8% Irish. That makes me 100% Canadian and damned proud of it. Both sets of grandparents left the UK in the early 1920s and I take great pride in my ethnic roots, but I bleed maple syrup. 😎🇨🇦🎸

I took one of those DNA tests. Apparently 100% Human. Bit of a shock TBH

We always think that our ancestors didn't travel much, that they stayed in their little village. One thing I've learned researching family histories is that they moved around A LOT.

Bruce, you have a beautiful family doesn't matter what their ancestry is. To sit around a tablet and laugh like that, not everyone has that! Besides as I've always said, if you pick up a sword and lay down your life for a country, that your country!

Your family is so fun. Your sense of humor is contagious ❤😅

I love your daughters reaction to being that English in her DNA 😂

Loved this. Well done in making that fun to watch. I’m Scottish and proud but my sister had her DNA done and a good 25% is East European. Like Bruce said we are all a jumbo of different ethnicity. I don’t live in Scotland anymore but as we say ‘you can take the Scot out of Scotland but you can’t take Scotland out the Scot’ ❤

When I saw the variety of my first set of results, my comment was “well the Vikings were everywhere”. They update results every once in a while. So my nana’s Hungarian finally showed up the 4th update. I’ve got the English/Scottish in the mix. Half the clan stayed in Scotland, the rest went south. Genealogy is interesting indeed. Awesome video Bruce!

My adopted stepkids wanted to do an ancestry test so I did it with em. It was super fun. Theirs came back west African, Nigerian and Scottish. Mine came back eastern Yorkshire, a little bit of all the Northern European countries, Russian and Scottish! It was super fun to have something in common finally! 🎉

I clicked on this because Bruce looks so much like a few family members of my mom's generation, almost the spitting image of my one cousin. We're Canadian but with the same mix of West African (Nigerian, Sierra Leone) and east African from our Madagascar line. We're also English, Scottish, Irish and NW European. It was interesting to watch a family with a similar genetic blend to my own family divided by an ocean break down their genetics with Scottish accents.

Love these kinda vids. Shows just how intertwined the peoples of this small little world are. All 7.5 billion of us are practically family 😜

You should all try an Ancestry dna test as it has GCs (Genetic Communities) and also you will most likely getting different regions. Ancestry also has separate categories i.e. England and Northwestern Europe, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It would be interesting to see what your family gets.

I’ve seen a bit about identical twin girls/ladies, whose percentages were very different from each other’s! They sent the dna off to at least three major testing companies and got crazy different results from each. So take it all with a grain of salt!

Really enjoyed this. Reminded me of dads workmate who's daughter was in England about to hatch. There were desperate attempts to coerce the daughter north because he didn't want a "Bloody English Grandchild!" I'm sure the trip over the border would have profoundly changed the DNA.

Bruce, thank you for letting us in on your family's journey. It's fun to do the genetic genealogy, but as others have pointed out, the results are only approximations based on the aggregate number of people in a particular area who share a genetic marker. Different genealogy tests test different sections of DNA so can come up with different results. Thank you, Bruce, for seeing the test as the fun it is, and for sharing the reality that our identity is shaped more by the people and times we live in than our DNA. Your comments about Mary Queen of Scots, Wm. Wallace prove the point. If you would like to learn more about genetics, check out "Traced" by Nathaniel T. Jeanson.

This was a fun and enlightening watch. Thanks to the entire family for sharing.

As a black man from America it is refreshing to see someone talk about Scotland from a black Scottish point of view. Your insight into Scottish culture and history is very transparent and fascinating. Because by you having that insight from a different perspective. You give a more well balance look at the Scottish culture coming from both sides .In my short time watching your videos.I had learned so much because it is easier to when i see myself.Even though you're Scottish accent is thick . Scottish history has alot of black roots in it. You really makes it fun and very interesting. You talk about the technical aspects of history and culture with having the need to down play or erase any type of white contributions that was made towards the Scottish culture. I was always fascinated with Scottish culture. But i could never listen to or watch any white Scottish person speak on it. Because they always had the need to downplay or erase any type of contribution that was made by black Scottish folks.You don't downplay nobody real contribution to the Scottish culture. I thank you for that.I'm trying to get others to know about your channel.I feel that it is good for young black children to learn and see different cultural groups within the black world wide community. Your videos are fun and your presentation is on fire. That's how good you are my brother. Much success to you and your channel.💯

I am a very white, very blonde, blue eyed female born in the United States. I was told my entire childhood that I had Native American on both sides of my family. I grew up in a Native American community and I often asked if I was adopted because I did not even slightly resemble my Native classmates or friends! Well, 3 DNA tests later (all with different companies) I am finally relieved to find out I am English/Welsh, Scottish, Irish & German with a little French thrown in.. No big surprise I am not one drop Native American! The moral of my story: Don't always believe what you are told. I have finally found my true identity and now I have the results to prove what my soul always knew! Now if I could just go see Scotland & Ireland in person I would finally feel complete!

That was fun Bruce! I want to get my friends to do this with me. Thanks for sharing your wonderful family with us and good morning from America.

Very cool to get all the test results back Bruce! I wasn't at all shocked by the results. Europe and The British Isles are an area that is smaller than the USA but it's always cracked me up that they call us the melting pot! There have been so many movements of people, borders, wars that stretched across half the continents, including the British Isles, that there is no way that most can say they go back solely to the country that they were born in! I know from family papers that my father's side was largely Scottish but my last name is in fact Norman and goes back to William the Conqueror, so his people migrated from Normandy to England to Scotland as they acquired or lost land. Normandy has a small Celtic speaking population that mostly comes from marrying into families of Bretons from Brittany, France, as my father's ancestors did. My mother's people were Breton Huguenots from Brittany who came seeking religious freedom and eventually married into a Cherokee family from Georgia. My father's family also married into the Cherokee, something I didn't know until I found my great-great grandad's name on a book of people applying as members of a wealthy Cherokee family to collect money from a will! (Definitely more Scottish, this one!😁) So I can honestly say that no matter what DNA may or may not say, I am of Celtic and Cherokee descent! I'm also an American because I was born here in Georgia. You are from where you were born and raised. That's what makes you, you. My hope is that one day, every person on this Earth will realize that we are all humans, sisters and brothers all! That way, we can stop all these silly wars and just bicker amongst our families!

This is the best and happiest video I've watched in ages. Thank you so much for brightening my day. BTW we did a DNA test and found out we are 98% English of which 89% was from Sussex. We live within 1 mile of the church where our family were first buried since the late 1600's so my take on this is what a boring untraveled lot my family is !😂

Beautiful family

Thank you for these videos Bruce, I used to get teased growing up in Ireland for having a Scottish father, your videos show how our identity is much more complex and interesting than we might believe. We should celebrate each other in all our diversity and complexity.

I find this stuff so interesting! I did my DNA along with my mum, Auntie, sister and cousin. Turns out we are all related! 😁

Enjoyed learning about you and your family's ancestry. Watching you all having fun discovering your ancestry made me interested in learning mine now.

Think the results of these tests are pretty clear, you have a wonderful family.

Comedy gold! When our family did their DNA we also had some jaw dropping moments. My father who is a proud Yorkshire man had very little English and was more Irish than he expected. My sister in law discovered she had Aboriginal family. I’ve known many friends who have a long family history in Australia who have proudly discovered Aboriginal ancestry. These same friends thought they had some Spanish or Afghan background, which they discover was code for hiding Aboriginal family in the past. I ended up mostly Scottish and Irish with some Scandinavian with almost no English.

I so enjoyed this! Loved the laughter about your results and the factor 50 teasing of your wee girl! 😂😂 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

So many people moved around through history, that "where did I get this bit" may go waaaaay back. I thought my heritage was largely German, but it turns out the Germans were mostly Heugenoughts from France, resettled in or near Germany. So my DNA shows little German at all. It's super interesting to sort through!!

You have a lovely family! I'm an American, my mother was German & Austrian (with some Magyar). My Father? His family was mostly European with a few Native Americans in the mix. If you base it on surnames, that European is a mix of Scottish and Irish, with all what that's a mix of! But in the parlance of today, I identify as just some American guy with interest in Scottish History among other things. Thank you for sharing. I look forward to many more wonderful videos and to hear those words that always gets me to smile .. "Let me tell you a story.."

This was a fun video to watch. Thank you.

That was really good to watch xx

Great show as usual Bruce, one of my fave channels. Oh he’s teaching me about my Scottish heritage in a great way… Keep on rockin

I really liked this series with your family members. You all seem to get on so well and the process of finding out the different genetic backgrounds was cool. In the future as more data gets uploaded there will be more to look into. So interesting. Thanks!

That was brilliant its was beautiful seeing you interact with your family. I Iove your videos l have learned so much .watching from paisley Scotland peace and love to all

great stuff!

What a beautiful mixture. Isn't family wonderful. It only solidifies that we are all the same humans. We must always remember that!

I just wanted to first say I have been enjoying your videos for over a year now and I love them. I am an Ameri-Cadian ( taken from the comic book “Starstruck “ Elian Lee and Wm Wm Kaluta duel citizen) of Scottish heritage. I a couple years back I did a DNA test for the Fam years ago. With rainbow results even Nigerian showed up for my kids too. My results were mostly European but I was shocked not too have any Native American/First Nation on either side . But that may be the nature of the GNA pool I was drawing from. Thank for your videos. (My Grandmother on myMums side was A MacLean of Duart. )

It would be fun to follow your example. My Paternal Granddad was interested in Geniology, but that was before DNA was discovered, and as he was illigitimate he took his Mums name. My Grandmother was a Black Douglas, and Cousin to the Duke. Though our Family is related to 1/4 of our wee community. My Maternal grandparents were both Scots though my other Granny was born in Leeds. It would be fun to find out. Like you, I love history, especially Scottish. My dad once mentioned that he had some of William Wallace's blood in his DNA, to which some clown piped up, "that's pish, you dinnae look a bit like Mel Gibson! 🤣😂😋👍

Been looking forward to this since the other one 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

This was so cool I love it. It was fun.☮️🌹🦋❤️🌟😊

Kia ora Bruce and family, All of my dad's family are from Peterhead too and my mum's are all from Glasgow so I would expect to have a lot of Scottish/Irish ancestry, but now I'm not so sure. Very keen to find out more. Love meeting your family. Ngā mihi from Wellington, Aotearoa.

I was a bit surprised that not all the percentages added up to exactly 100%, Selasie came to 103.4, Prince came to 101.1 and George came to 99.6. Only Bruce and Zoe were exactly 100%

Great video thanks

Thank you that was so interesting!

What a great family!! So much fun seeing their reactions. 😀

I have set my family tree up on my heritage, but not got a DNA test done yet, I believe it’s probably better to get more than one DNA test done from different firms, just to see how spot on they both got the results.

Thank you for sharing!

I love your videos and had to chime in on this one. My wife and I took 5 DNA tests and all 5 had slightly different results. 3 tests showed Baltic and some various Afrikan regions. 2 tests showed the same but included South East Asia. None matched out ancestral records completely therefore we took a Russian Originie Test. This test came back 100% matchup with records. 0% Afrikan bloodlines with Australnesian and Baltic. 100% Luxemburg, 100% Yemen of Far East Asia... Sometimes I guess due to politics we forget Indo and Mestizen are synonyms. You are all 100% Indo-Europeans.

It's a lucky man who knows his own father.

My "ethnic" report from Ancestry changes quite a bit. I did some reading on the methodology for assigning "ethnic" percentages, and a lot depends on what they've got in their database. It's not as though there is some absolute pattern for which DNA goes with which ethnicity. As the databases expand, expect more changes to ethnicity estimates in the future. One particularly interesting comment was that southern Scotland and Midlands to northwestern England show much the same DNA patterns. For whatever reason, they chose to call it English rather than Scottish. Compared with what I have documented over the years, a lot of my DNA that they assign to Midlands and Isle of Man should probably be Scotland. And I, too, have that "Scandinavian" (with a smidge of Baltic) thing going on, even though the documentation I have collected over the past 58 years shows nobody from a Scandinavian country more recent than a thousand years ago! However, my most recent traceable, documented Scottish ancestry goes to Clan Macneil and Clan Sinclair--from heavily "Vikingized" parts of Scotland! So it kind of works.

Really interesting, keep it going, jock

Been waiting for this video. I loved it Bruce. Fun watch your reactions. I think I may do a my heritage test to compare it to ancestry.

Greetings and blessings. Diversity is fantastic. Life is. In just a short period of time, just look at the miles travelled by your elders. Many stories I bet. Try and retrieve a few Bruce and make us a video of the endeavours and travels. That would be great. Sending positive vibes from Manchester.

Absolutely fascinating video with your lovely family Bruce, my heritage is mostly German, and as a proud Scot was amazed like you to find I was mostly English lol 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 We are as you say all Jock Tamson’s bairns. 😃

I would love to get one of these tests done. I found your tests fascinating ❤

Love these videos Bruce!

That's all phuqen awesome 🤣 My ancestral background is so diverse I can only say "I'm Australian" 🙂🇦🇺🖤💛❤️

Aussie lady, My Heritage DNA say roughly 50/50 Irish/Scot and English. I did another DNA with Ancestry 74 Scot and bits of others, Irish, english, Wales, Sweden and Denmark, and Norway. Done paper and DNA tree....I find the Ancestry more accurate. So up to you to do another company. Have fun.

Great video, Bruce 😊

Great video

Thanks for sharing this information! Thanks for the story!

Wee mongrel dugs are usually the healthiest 😀

My sister and I both had our dna ethnicity compared. We shared most things but in very different amounts even though we have the same parents. It was a fun test to look at

Loved this and thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks to you and your family for sharing. Gave me an idea for Christmas presents maybe! Thanks for MyHeritage link

Great video lots of love from Isle of Bute

All good for a laugh, but Bruce will find that with each iteration, as the algorithm is refined, the results vary wildly. For example, I'm "currently" 15% Welsh on Ancestry. That sounds plausible as I have a great great grandad from Flintshire, however Wales was entirely absent from the previous two sets of results. That's a big chunk to miss! I've also gone from about 1/3 Scottish to more than 1/2. As mentioned elsewhere, "traces" of this and that, a couple of percentage points here or there, are more likely to be noise in the result than accurate.

Great vid Bruce! what this shows clearly as that we ALL belong to the larger human family and that so much of identity is psychological, not physical (which I don't mean to suggest that our identities are not valid), but what it does show is that we are ALL far more interesting and complex than we may realise - and that we are all the product of complex migrations and intermingling of people over thousands of years. The problem often is that modern nation states have imprinted a dimension to our identity which is somewhat "fake" given that even in Europe (let alone other countries in other continents) most modern nation states' borders only appeared in the last 200 years .... there is a also a teleological problem with ethnic identity, since even our direct ancestors may not have identified (in ethnic terms) in any relatable way to how we might perceive ourselves today .... In terms of these genetic tests, I am not an expert, but I think these stats (particularly "ethnic" attributions) can change depending on the sample size on which these groupings/attributions are based. I myself am half Italian (father), half Scottish (mother). I first participated in the National Geographic genographic project in 2006 and the results were transferred to another company - but as the years have passed my "ethnic" breakdown (and even attribution of my Y haplogroup) has changed (a lot!) over the past years as more people get tested and the information is refined. When I was first tested, the results were supposed to come back in around 4 weeks, but it took them 6 months because my Y haplogroup was extremely rare, and the name and understanding of this haplogroup has changed about 6 times in the past 15 years ...in the past I was informed I had around 20 percent middle eastern origins, in the latest refinement I am told it is less than 2 percent.... another Scottish friend of mine (who believed that both sides of the family had "originated" in Scotland) was told that his Y haplogroup (M) was one that is found in west/northwest Africa! but again, the way these haplogroups became intermingled may not be recent but could date back thousands of years ... ultimately, we are ALL related!

this is so awesome and important

I saw and Enjoyed that first video. Never can forget☺ Anyway, you are my favorite Scottish Historian. Cheers and stay well!

My paternal grandfather was from Somerset so my father told us we were English, but I'm actually 47% Scottish, and a direct bloodline descendant of Sir Roger de Kirkpatrick of Dumfries. The bloody dirk on the family crest explains a lot about my family...😬 What I WASN'T expecting was the dollop of Kazakhstani ancestry...

Well hey there, I just had my DNA done, was always told I was of Scottish heritage. DNA says I'm 49.5 % German. What was interesting was the 3% African. I guess I'm not as white as I look.

Loved this video....everyone round that table was briiliant....just shows we are all brothers and sisters...your family is great...luv fae Dundee

this was so fun to watch

My DNA results have also changed over time...but interestingly they seem to be getting more and more aligned with my family's stories of where we came from. Also, the way I understand it is that you get 50% from your mum and 50% from your dad. So it is like you took 50% out of the 100% bucket of your mum's DNA and 50% out of 100% of your dad's DNA. My mum's dad was from Finland. Mum can't be more than 50% Finnish because there is no Finnish on her mum's side, and she is in fact 49%. I cannot be more (but can be less) than 25% since there is no Finnish on my dad's side. I am 22% Finnish.

Brilliant video Bruce, fascinating. I guess the difference between a Ghanaian and a Nigerian is a bit like the difference between English and Scottish in that we're more or less the same, genetically at least, if not politically or culturally. I feel like doing the same for myself and my family. I'm 100% peely-wally Scottish, but my wife is Malay-Singaporean and kids are a mix. Could be very interesting!

It’s so fascinating to find this sort of thing out. All the wee parts that make up the whole. Need to get me a test ordered.

What a fun breakdown. I love your family. Beautiful.

Thanks for the video Bruce. Wonderful! Yours is my ideal Scottish family. Forget The Broons! I want Scotland to be independent but I also want it to be open and accepting of everybody. I don't think we can be while we're tied to England. I returned from a holiday in Crete on Tuesday and while queueing for passport control at Heraklion airport, there were Germans in our queue by mistake. The Glasgow flight, like all the British ones, was going from Hall B. The German ones were departing from Hall A. The people in the queue asked a member of staff where they should go and she said "You want Gate A6. This queue is for Hall B. That is for non-European flights." I know that she meant non-Shengen flights, but it really cut me to the core. I could almost have cried. So now we're non-European because we're lumbered with those people down south! Aargh! Don't get me wrong. I sat at the gate for the Newcastle flight rather than at the gate for Glasgow because the people waiting for Newcastle were a bit more savoury than the Glasgow people. So I'm not being racist. But I want to live in a country that is outward looking and accepting. That is not the United Kingdom unfortunately. Keep opening our eyes to these things. You do wonderful work.

Just goes to show that a good number of ancestors from time immemorial were travelers who were willing to go against the odds and not entirely conventional re who sparked their fancies!

Loved this!

What a good dad/uncle/brother you are! 🎶😎🎶

I’m a similar European and non-European mix to Zoe except my non-euro part is NZ Māori and my European part is almost entirely Scottish according to DNA results but that doesn’t fit perfectly with my family tree. I believe we pick up differing amounts of DNA from various ancestors, in my case I collected a lot of DNA from various Scottish ancestors and not much or none from Welsh, Irish and English ancestors.

We get 50% of our DNA from each parent, which means we only get 50% of each parent’s DNA. DNA can vary between people with the same parents for this reason! So just because Scottish didn’t show up on your DNA test doesn’t mean you don’t have Scottish ancestry. I know you know this, but so many people who do DNA tests do not understand how it works.

This was a great video! You have an awesome family!!

Great video!!!

I am an amateur historian and genealogy enthusiast so I am by no means an expert, but from what I understand the percentage is based on the probability that your ancestors are from that region. So based on the databases for certain populations there's an X% chance that your ancestors came from those places. Having 1% ancestry of something doesn't necessarily mean your ancestors definitely came from there. Just means there's a higher chance than 0. Curious if anyone else can expand on this 😊

Well, I’ve been watching your videos for some time, and from what I’ve seen you’re 100% nice.

This was a fun watch, thanks for sharing.

As far as I’m concerned if you live and love in Scotland, you’re Scottish. ❤

I'm from a long line of people who couldn't keep it in their pants and would roll about in the hay with anything with a pulse and thus my family are arguably as mixed as yours but I consider myself a Welsh/Scot who just happens to live in Poland we are all mongrols but we are still needing to get you guys England tops for the World Cup hihihi

Interesting video!

Always interesting and informative...cheers/slainte...E

Bruce 😢 it could have been a lot worse , you could have been 100% English 😂😂

HA H A Bruce I'm English and very proud of that I did a Ancestry test turns out I'm 42 % Irish 35 % English 13 % Scottish and rest Denmark and Sweden so that means I'm more Scottish then you and your lassie and I'm English. Love ya videos pal ..

I really enjoyed this, thanks!

This is fascinating stuff! :)