parenting

GPS Origins: Learning Your Ancestry Through DNA

We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. Please see policies for more information.

I have wanted to do an ancestry test for quite a while now. I could pretty much guess the Scandinavian region since that’s what I was told when I was doing a school project back in grade school but I wanted to know more, where does my DNA come from in the world? The boys are super interested in this too! We know that a large portion of Jared’s side of the family is Lebanese but they wanted to know what I was beyond “Western European”. GPS Origins was awesome enough to sponsor this post so I could show you how it all works!Using GPS Origins (a DNA ancestry kit) to plan family travel

It really couldn’t be much easier. You order a kit from GPS Origins (or you can upload results from a previous test if you’ve done one), they’ll send you a little packet with cotton swabs to use to collect DNA from the inside of your cheek. You stick it in the mail and wait for the email that your results are ready!

Using GPS Origins (a DNA ancestry kit) to plan family travel

The boys asked often if I had gotten my results yet, we were all excited to see! We know a little bit more about Jared’s ancestry since 1/2 of his family came to the United States from Lebanon. He has quite a bit more mixed in from his mom’s side but for the most part they have a good idea. Here’s a picture of our boys. I am fair skinned blonde with blue eyes. Jared is olive skinned with dark features. And the boys? We have one of each! We’ve ALWAYS gotten comments on how different they look (and more than enough questions on whether they have the same dad). Yes, they are both mine and Jared’s. DNA is a funny thing.

The results came in and I texted everyone immediately! Ready to see what I’m made up of?

  1. Fennoscandia 21% (Origin: Peaks in the Iceland and Norway and declines in Finland, England, and France)
  2. Southern France 15.7% (Origin: Peaks in south France and declines in north France, England, Orkney islands, and Scandinavia)
  3. Orkney Islands 13.3% (Origin: Peaks in the Orkney islands and declines in England, France, Germany, Belarus, and Poland)
  4. Western Siberia 13% (Origin: Peaks in Krasnoyarsk Krai and declines towards east Russia)
  5. Sardinia 10.3% (Origin: Peaks in Sardinia and declines in weaker in Italy, Greece, Albania, and The Balkans)
  6. Southeastern India 7.4% (Origin: Endemic to south eastern India with residues in Pakistan)
  7. Tuva 6.5% (Origin: Peaks in south Siberia (Russians: Tuvinian) and declines in North Mongolia)
  8. Basque Country 6.4% (Origin: Peaks in France and Spain Basque regions and declines in Spain, France, and Germany)
  9. Northern India 3.7% (Origin: Peaks in North India (Dharkars, Kanjars) and declines in Pakistan)
  10. Western South America 1.6% (Origin: Peaks in Peru, Mexico, and North America and declines in Eastern Russia)
  11. Bougainville 0.4% (Origin: Peaks in Bougainville and declines in Australia)
  12. The Southern Levant 0.4% (Origin: This gene pool is localized to Israel with residues in Syria)
  13. Central America 0.3% (Origin: Peaks in Mexico and Central America with residues in Peru)

So crazy right?! The boys loved that there was some India in there. Quite a bit actually if you add them up! I was super interested in the Orkney Islands and we did some research on the islands shortly after getting the results. Which is exactly what I wanted to happen. We were all enthralled with learning about places we had never even heard of!

Using GPS Origins (a DNA ancestry kit) to plan family travel

GPS Origins gives you some REALLY great information including the story of how people migrated from different areas. They even give you your own personal ancestor migration route telling you how the different ancestors may have come together.

Using GPS Origins (a DNA ancestry kit) to plan family travel

Each route has a story that you can download to learn even more. It is an amazing resource for teaching my kids our own ancestry and a great starting point to learn about where we come from.

Using GPS Origins (a DNA ancestry kit) to plan family travel

We are starting to plan out a European trip and wanted to wait on these results to see if they’d affect where we wanted to go and they definitely did! We’re still researching and learning but I absolutely love learning all of this history about my ancestry to teach the boys. Do you think learning about  your ancestry would affect your travel plans at all?

Using GPS Origins (a DNA ancestry kit) to plan family travel

(Visited 227 times, 1 visits today)

Allison Waken is a wife, mom of boys and Phoenix, AZ native. She has been creating inspiring content for All for the Boys since 2011. Allison loves travel, movies and spending as much time as possible with her family while she can!

Write A Comment