St Patrick’s Day Bonus Episode

Today we discuss our Irish heritage and learn who has more Irish ethnicity??? Kim or Laura. -tune in and find out 🍀🍀🍀. Slainte 

Transcript

Kim: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to a bonus episode of Chasing Hazel's Tales, a family history podcast. We didn't wanna miss the opportunity to discuss our Irish backgrounds, so let's get to it. And also, we haven't said hi to David in a while. Hi, David. Hi, David I'm Kim McLaughlin and I wanna chat about a few things. First off, who's more Irish? Me or Laura? That's the big question this week. we have to wait till the end of the episode to find out, and we've got some splaining to do. Like why we are not the same Irish ethnicities if we come from the same parents. People sometimes wonder why you have to get your d n a done for all the siblings, if they're all from the same parents, and there's a reason for that. Not everybody gets the same ethnicities, so. That's one thing. We'll, we get to the end of the podcast, we'll discuss it. Okay.

Laura: 0:56

And I'm Laura Island, and with having that last name, St. Patrick's Day has always been kind of an interesting day for us. Everybody assumes we're Irish but you know, St. Patty's Day is here and. Almost all of America not, I don't know, I wouldn't hazard a guess as to how much, but they all love to celebrate whether or not they're Irish and kind of do a fake it till you make it kind of thing. Like everyone's pretend Irish. That's right. For, March 17th,

Kim: 1:26

you can all buy something green.

Laura: 1:28

Right. Drink something green. Wear something green.

Kim: 1:31

Right. So our Smith family includes ancestors from Ireland and their graves can be found in the cemetery in Old Town Maine. And their names are Kennedy, Grady, McCluskey Leonard. And at least that's what we found so far. That's what we have up till now. But Dad's line has the Irish from Deer Isle like the Conarys. that we've mentioned before in previous episodes. They're from Ireland. Also, my husband is McLaughlin and a Gilpatrick. So there you go. There's an Irish, an Irish hit for you right there. But one of my pet peeves, if you want to call it that, is that I cannot pinpoint one location in Ireland where our ancestors are from. Cuz every record I've ever come across in my research, I'll just say they're from Ireland. That's all it says, Ireland. So, okay, I'm gonna go look for Kennedy in Ireland. See, we'll see what happens. Yeah, that's just, that's kinda like trying to, good luck Yeah. That's kinda like trying to find a Smith. Right? Okay. Yeah. So I've not been very successful there, but I have a few guesses and of course I'll keep at it, but there's just so many Irish names and there's just so little time. So I need, I need to just retire and do this full-time.

Laura: 2:43

I think you should, yeah, please. And you know, for, with the last name of Ireland and where we grew up in central Maine, Ireland is a very common surname. So you, you know, well actually, I guess growing up, it wasn't my last name at that time, but Right. You know, I think I graduated with six in my class out of 79. So so, you know, you just don't get, people don't ask you about it. They don't say, Hey, are you Irish? Or, you know, they don't ask you any questions about it. So, but for 35 years, Tim and I lived in different areas, Wyoming, Alaska, New Hampshire, and when people would hear that last name, they would always ask. So are you Irish I can't even count the number of times I heard that. And you know, that's fine. It's a novelty to them I guess. But anyway, my response was usually I would say to people, well, I think I'm more Irish than my husband is. Yeah. you know, hoping they figured out that, you know, my real name wasn't. My birth name was not Ireland. So anyway, but you know, it would take until 2017 before we would get the answer to that question of whether or not we were Irish and who was more Irish and all of that. So but. You know, you spoke about what we knew from our family heritage and, but so my husband Tim, with the last name of Ireland, was not aware of any Irish heritage, but he did have an unknown out there. Um, Until recently he didn't know the ethnicity of or have any information about his biological paternal line. So, When we finally got the ancestry d n a testing done in 2017, I honestly just couldn't wait for the results. And it was really, it was so crazy that our results came in while we were on that trip to Ireland six years ago. And it's one of my favorite memories sitting down in the hotel lobby, you know, before we went out for the day to look at the results so that we could look at it over wifi because we didn't have I didn't have international rates or whatever it was on my phone. I don't know. Not, but

Kim: 4:44

we didn't at that time, no.

Laura: 4:46

right. But as we've often said, we had no idea what we were getting into when we had that testing done. and no idea of the, the expose of the family secrets and, you know, the stories that had been told get blown outta the water by those results that we got. So the, our DNA and ethnicity results provide a really good demonstration of the variations that siblings can have from the same parents. Our results from Ancestry can provide lots of information. One being if our Irish is from our maternal or paternal side so, If you haven't picked up on it from previous episodes, I'm a fan of numbers So Tim and I both had our ancestry results and the girls, all three of our girls followed along pretty shortly thereafter. So I've just spent lots of time over the years just kinda looking at the numbers and marveling at the this plus this equals that. And you know, this one got 5%, that one got 10%, you know, of all the different things. So it's been actually kind of a lot of nerdy fun for me. Right. So for my, for my girls, Rebecca tested at 5% Irish. This is all in the latest update. The update of the ethnicity results from Ancestry. So Rebecca fit 5%, Whitney, 2%, and Sarah 14%. And that was all inherited from me because Tim carries no Irish ethnicity,

Kim: 6:15

right. And one of the things we wanna mention, just to be sure a ancestry can tell you just so many things, and I'm, I'm, I'm just so happy they can tell you maternal and paternal. Yes. Yes. You know, so, you know, kind of, and, and it, you know, it can lead you in a direction. It doesn't tell you who your ancestors are, but you could say, well, you know, the ancestry for Irish, you know, for my mother, you know, it just kind of lets you know you're on the right track.

Laura: 6:40

Right. It's a good piece of the picture,

Kim: 6:42

the right. Yeah. And so my Irish. Heritage is, we're not gonna mention it yet cuz we're gonna save it to the end so you guys can all be placing your bats right now. Who's more Irish? Me, Laura So, but all I can say is that I got more Irish from my mom than I did Dad Laura got none from dad and I got some, so I'm just gonna say that. But it's just, you know, the mix is weird. And Allison, my daughter has 10% Irish and Brady, my son is 18. So, and our mother. Was 37% Irish. She inherited 31% from her father and 6% from her mother. And that's using the ethnicity inheritance tool through ancestry.com. Did we say that?

Laura: 7:21

so, so mom got a little bit of Irish from both

Kim: 7:23

sides. Right. So just, just for clarification, there are several companies that offer testing for ethnicity and relationship comparison, and they are just a, just a couple of'em. The top ones that I kind of dabble with are ancestry.com. My heritage. Family Tree dna, 23andme and there are others, and there's another one that specializes in European like United Kingdom. I forget what that one's called right now, but it, that one is really quite interesting. And it's just, it's an outlier, but nonetheless, it's, it's proven interesting to me. I enjoy reading the results of that one. So each has their pros and cons, but Ancestry DNA has the largest database by far which allows them to fine tune the ethnicity in more detail, but they're all great. But for these purposes here, we all used ancestry.com. So why do siblings have different ethnicities? Should Laura and I have the same exact DNA is ethnicity and I've had people say that before. You know, why, why bother? Why bother doing siblings? They're all the same, but they're not at least as far as. Which ethnicity they inherit.

Laura: 8:29

Right. On the surface, that seems like you know, a great, it's a great question. Right? On the surface, you would think, oh, well they should be the same. But when you think about the actual process of the D n A then, right. You know that's not gonna

Kim: 8:45

be true. Right? And that's why siblings are different. Even though people, some people can't tell our voices apart, we are different. That is correct. Right? So the definition of ethnicity on the ancestry.com website says we compare your DNA against a worldwide reference panel to see which populations your DNA looks most like. So basically they check my dna N and if my DNA shares the same kind of characteristics as the people from Ireland, that's where they get that information and they have so many test takers that they can be pretty accurate. It's not perfect, but they can be pretty accurate. So it's fun. It's fun to do it. It's a nerd delight is what I would call it. So then it becomes apparent that I share d n a with people that are from Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and so on. And Laura does too, but her amounts may be different. So here's how it goes. This is how d n a is doled out. You each Sibby gets 50% from their mother and 50% from their father. And so what I imagine is, let's just for the, the numbers are just for demonstration, but imagine like you're playing bingo and you have a hundred bingo balls, and they're round and round the cage. And so income's a Sibby. They need 50 from their mother. So the bingo balling opens, 50 comes out, and that's from your mother. And then the next one is from your. So then you get your a hundred pieces of dna, you go off and you're, you're, that's Kimberly. And then Laura comes along that bingo basket is turning. Is she gonna get the same 50 pieces that Kimberly did out of a hundred

Laura: 10:24

I think chances are no.

Kim: 10:25

Right. So the likelihood that Laura and I get the same 50% from our mother is gonna be so low. We may get some things the same, but. That's why all the siblings can be so different. They're not gonna get the same as the Sibby unless they're identical twins or darn close to twins. But, mm-hmm that, so that's how they're doled out and that's why. all of us siblings have different color hair, every one of us. That is true. We do. We all, we all, not one of us have the same color hair. I mean, my, my mother had five children and every one of us have a different color

Laura: 11:01

hair. And that came from two parents with brown hair.

Kim: 11:04

Right? They both had brown hair. I don't know this. Anyway, the whole thing is really quite something. But it, that is, that's just an example. So I hope that, I hope that explains it a little bit so that people can understand how each Sibby gets a different bits of DNA n from their

11:19

parents,

Laura: 11:20

right? And how if you have more people testing from within the family, you just get that much more information, right?

Kim: 11:27

So that's why you and I each have different amounts of Irish dna.

Laura: 11:31

right. So the winner in, who's the most Irish contest? between Kim and me? is Kim, yes. She's got 32% Irish ethnicity and that compares to only 17% for me. That's right. So. I think in the, the last, iteration of this, I think I had 35% or something like that, but they changed it now and I do believe it's more, probably more accurate now. Right. You know, as they get more and more information. Right. So, yeah. So Kim is 32 and I am 17. So Kim wins. Yeah. I think out of every, out of everybody except for mom, mom had 37 or something. Right, right. So yeah.

Kim: 12:15

I'm darn close. Yep. So you're darn close it. I never would've guessed it. Do I look Irish? I don't have any fair color. I don't have black hair. I don't have red hair. Well, you do have pale skin. Yeah, I That's, that's my win. I wish I could have inherited an an Irish bro. That would've been cool. Yeah,

Laura: 12:36

I can't even fake one of those, so Yeah, I'm

Kim: 12:38

not gonna try so, but, I kind of, you know, we wanted to you know, St. Patrick's stays here. We just kind of wanted to have some fun and, and see how many of you how much Irish you all have and give you something to talk about

Laura: 12:51

And I think we'll end it with an Irish blessing. I'm a big fan of poetry and I love all the different little Irish blessings that you see. And so anyway, it says, may God grant you always a sunbeam to warn me, a moonbeam to charm you, a sheltering angel, so nothing can harm you. Faithful friends near you. And whenever you pray heaven to hear you. Perfect. So until next week, everyone. Slan